As soon as breakfast was over, the telecommunications officer brought a report from the reconnaissance plane.

On the airfield of the transit island, hundreds of planes are neatly arranged, most of which are four-engine B-17 heavy bombers.

In addition, there were a number of four-engine heavy bombers that had not been encountered before, presumably B-24s.

There are also dozens of twin-engine long-range fighters, only mainly ordinary fighters like the P-41.

The point is, the Nuland army doesn't seem to expect to be attacked today.

It was only after the reconnaissance aircraft flew over the airfield and circled several times that the air defense units reacted and opened fire on the reconnaissance aircraft with anti-aircraft guns.

In addition, enemy fighters began to sortie, to be precise, ready to sortie.

It's just too late.

About 15 minutes later, at around 7 o'clock, the forward group consisting of 8 "Suzaku" and 8 "Thunderbolt" was killed.

Piloting these 16 carrier-based aircraft are all real old birds.

The eight "Suzaku" are equipped with submunitions that are specially designed to destroy runways, which are commonly known as cluster bombs, and improve the accuracy of bomb delivery by diving.

Not surprisingly, as long as six bombs are successfully dropped, they can paralyze the transit island airfield.

Although there is no way to stop the fighter from taking off, after all, the fighter does not need a hard runway, and the taxi distance for take-off is very short, but it is enough to prevent the bomber from taking off, especially those four-engine heavy bombers who pose a huge threat, and can only stay on the ground honestly without a runway.

No matter how capable the fighter is, it will not pose much threat to the battleship.

The eight "Thunderbolts" were also bombs, but instead of dropping bombs at fixed points, they scattered bombs inside the airport in the usual way at low altitudes.

In this characteristic submunition, the bullet uses an irregular timing fuse.

It should be said that this is a new type of ammunition invented by the Imperial Army Air Corps when it carried out strategic bombing of the Luosha Federation.

The bomb itself is very simple, the fuse is controlled by a mainspring actuator, and the trigger time is determined by the tightness of the mainspring.

The point is, there is no pattern when it comes to winding.

As a result, the detonation time of the bomb can vary greatly, from minutes to hours.

If the mainspring fails, it may detonate a few days later, or even a few months later, under the influence of external factors.

Because the fuse is internally locked, it is almost impossible to remove it by traditional means.

If you want to forcibly exclude it, it is generally detonated by shooting or blasting from a safe distance.

None of these time bombs are very powerful, comparable to the anti-personnel mines commonly used by the army, and their main value is to cause problems for the enemy.

Because the effect of actual combat use is very good, it can effectively paralyze important military targets such as airfields, so the navy directly uses it.

The eight "Thunderbolts" carried only eight 1,000-kilogram submunitions, but they were enough to paralyze the airfields on the transit island.

Along with the "Suzaku" and "Thunderbolt", there are also 2 squadrons of "Roaring Sky".

Since only a few enemy aircraft rose into the air, and all of them were attacked as they climbed, the escort fighters focused on the enemy aircraft parked in the airfield, especially the B-17 heavy bombers, and long-range fighters that could pose a threat to the fleet in the ensuing battle.

By 7:20, the lagging main group arrived.

Because the airfield had been suppressed and the exposed enemy planes were strafed, the main group of aircraft focused on bombing the anti-aircraft artillery positions near the airfield.

In fact, this is different from the attack tactics arranged, and the front-line commanders have made adjustments.

The reason is also very simple, it is definitely necessary to launch a second wave of attacks, and the second wave of attacks is still mainly to bomb airfields, so there is no need to continue to waste ammunition on airfields that have been temporarily paralyzed, and destroying the enemy's air defense positions in advance can effectively improve the efficiency of the second wave of bombing.

Crucially, elite pilots are concentrated in the first wave of attacks, and there are quite a few rookies in the second wave group.

At half past seven o'clock, the pilots who commanded the first wave of attacks sent back a report demanding that the fleet immediately launch a second wave of attacks and focus on bombing airfields.

These, as planned.

After receiving the report, Zhou Yongtao did not delay and immediately issued an order for the aviation service personnel to reload the carrier-based aircraft that had already been sent to the flight deck and was still full of fuel.

In fact, except for the unloaded, all other preparations have been completed.

It is also possible to decide on the ammunition to be used only after receiving a report and identifying the target for bombing.

The difference is that because the enemy's air defense fighters have been defeated, and the escort fighters of the first wave can return home about an hour late, there is no need to arrange escort fighters for the second wave of attack aircraft, but the fighters on escort missions have been sent to the flight deck before that.

To say, in fact, it is those fighters that were on standby on deck before.

After soliciting Bai Zhizhan's opinion, Zhou Yongtao made adjustments to the deployment and ordered all escort fighters to be equipped with ground attack weapons.

That is, these fighters also have to carry out strike missions by the way.

If they encounter enemy fighters, after all, there must be field airfields and fighter planes on several islands east of the transit island, and these escort fighters will be able to throw away the bombs they have mounted and immediately go into air combat to cover the bombing of the transit islands by the attack planes.

In fact, it is not a strange thing to use "Roaring Sky" to carry out attack missions.

In the battle to attack the island, especially in the later stage, that is, after paralyzing the island, the main task of the "roaring sky" was to attack the ground.

In addition, in the battle on the side of Lion Spring City, "Roaring Sky" also played the role of an attack aircraft.

Relatively speaking, when dealing with general targets, the combat efficiency of the "Roaring Sky" surpassed that of carrier-based bombers.

The most obvious advantage is that there is no need to arrange fighter escorts.

This alone can double the combat efficiency!

In addition, the payload capacity of the "Roaring Sky" is no worse than that of other tactical aircraft. If calculated in terms of comprehensive effectiveness, it also surpasses many carrier-based aircraft.

In some low-intensity battles, the "Roaring Sky" can complete the support mission with an aviation machine gun.

Of course, it's not perfect.

Compared with bombers and attack aircraft, the most obvious shortcoming of the "Roaring Sky" is that it lacks armor protection and is easily damaged by small-caliber anti-aircraft weapons. Especially compared with the army's special attack aircraft, this shortcoming is very prominent, even to the point of intolerability.

In the battle on the side of Shiquan City, more than half of the losses of the "Roaring Sky" were destroyed by anti-aircraft machine guns and small-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

The flaws are not hidden, and this problem has not affected the performance of "Roaring Sky" in actual combat.

It is for this reason that the carrier-based aviation units of the Imperial Navy have been working to develop, or rather improve, the ability of the "Roaring Sky" to carry out attack missions.

To put it simply, it is to find a suitable ground weapon for the "Roaring Sky"!

Here, it's still about the Army.

That's right, it was the army aviation that first ate the crab rockets.

Because the effect of attacking ground targets is very ideal, and the requirements for pilots are not high, naval aviation continues to carry forward the doctrine of taking it.

If it is to say, after the use of rockets, the "Roaring Sky" has become a real multi-role fighter.