For the next few hours, everyone was waiting for news, but they never waited for news.

During breakfast, Zhou Yongtao joked that it would be very good to receive the exact news before lunch.

In fact, Bai Zhizhan was not worried about whether he could receive the news in time.

After daybreak, he asked almost every half hour about the task forces, that is, whether they had been spotted by enemy patrol planes and whether they had been attacked.

What worries Bai Zhizhan the most is still the 22nd Task Force.

On the large islands east of the Howaii Islands, the Nuland army built dozens of field airfields, deployed thousands of combat aircraft, more than 2,000 four-engine heavy bombers alone, and a large number of long-range fighters that were not too bad.

Even with the current situation of the Nuland army, even if it goes all out, it may not be able to take out the three task forces with a total of 6 large aircraft carriers and about 250 carrier-based fighters, but if they can concentrate their forces, they will have a great chance of taking out the 22nd task force that has fallen alone.

Crucially, the whereabouts of Task Force 22 have long been revealed.

No matter how well the cover was done in the early stage, as long as it was Nitsu who was in charge of Treasure Harbor and Sp was in charge, he would definitely be able to guess the whereabouts of Task Force 22.

It's just that, at this time, no news is actually the best news.

As a result, Zhou Yongtao's prediction came true.

At noon, the first thing I received was a telegram from the "Imperial Capital".

Task Force 22 was not attacked, but had sailed for nearly 10 hours at the highest speed in the direction of the Khowaii Islands, according to the order of the White Stop, and the distance to Honou Island was increased to 1,200 kilometers, leaving the strike range of shore-based aviation.

The combat radius of heavy bombers must have exceeded 1200 km, but escort fighters could not fly so far.

Crucially, Nuland's military lacks the organizational and command capabilities it needs.

If anything, even the shore-based aviation of the Imperial Navy could not launch an attack on the fleet more than 1,000 kilometers away, mainly because it was too difficult to organize and command.

Even a fighter jet, flying at cruising speed, takes about 3 hours to cover 1,200 kilometers.

If it is a bomber, it will take almost 4 hours.

During these hours, there will be all kinds of surprises.

In addition, there is a technical problem that has not been solved until now.

Locate the navigation.

If you only rely on the gyroscope and fly 1200 kilometers, the actual deviation is about 100 kilometers, and the gyroscope may not work properly.

Due to technical limitations, high-precision gyroscopes have a trouble-free continuous operating time of only a few hours.

This is still under ideal conditions.

In actual use, it is very good that the high-precision gyroscope can work stably for dozens of minutes.

It will be decades later, when an advanced technology is born, that high-precision gyroscopes will have practical value.

At the tactical level, both the navy and the army aviation rely on radio equipment for positioning and navigation.

As for the principle, it is actually very simple, that is, two or more radio stations are deployed in the rear to continuously transmit signals that have no real meaning. After intercepting these signals, the radio station on the combat aircraft can roughly calculate its position through the triangulation method.

In order to achieve a sufficiently high level of accuracy, shortwave and mediumwave stations are generally used.

Only when providing navigation services to the fleet will long-wave stations with worse accuracy be used.

Of course, warships have better positioning and navigation equipment, such as sextants, geomagnetometers, etc., so it is the same with or without radio navigation.

If it is to fight over land, it is not much of a problem.

With the help of typical landmarks, pilots can use dedicated navigation maps to determine the exact location of the aircraft through segmented guidance.

Over the past few years, Newland Army and Royal Bran Air Force bombers have relied on iconic buildings on the Western Continent to navigate, and with great success. For example, a lighthouse in the Normandy region of the Locke Kingdom provided positioning services for dozens of bomber groups for several months.

While the surface can be destroyed, such as the lighthouse blown up by the Hinder army after months of bombardment, there will always be other landmarks, many of which cannot be destroyed by man, such as the winding Rhine River and the dotted towns and villages.

In fact, the Euman Air Force and the Imperial Army Expeditionary Air Brigade are also using similar methods to bomb the Bran Kingdom.

For a long time, the bomber fleet of the Yamaman Air Force traveled north along the eastern coastline of Blanburne Island to bomb the industrial towns to the north.

Fighting on the oceans is not so ideal.

If the attack distance is only a few hundred kilometers, to be precise within 700 kilometers, then relying on inertial navigation equipment and adopting appropriate tactics can solve the problem of positioning and navigation, or eliminate the impact of navigation deviations, and ensure that the target can be found.

No matter how far away, positioning and navigation is a big problem.

The most direct impact is actually that combat planes carrying out attack missions need to reserve more fuel so that they can have more time to search for targets after arriving at the operational sea area.

But the problem is that this is still flying with bullets.

Even a heavy bomber, with a full load of bombs, will not have a long range.

For example, the B-17, the main bomber of the Nuland Federation, although its nominal combat radius is more than 1,500 kilometers, only 35% of the fuel reserved for return to the home is reserved.

If you fly with a full load, the maximum range is only about 2,200 kilometers.

Even if the bomb is dropped before returning home, the B-17 will have a combat radius of only 1,200 kilometers after remaining one hour to search for fuel for the mission.

It was precisely because of these limitations that even the shore-based aviation of the Imperial Navy could not launch an effective attack on a fleet more than 1,000 kilometers away.

As for the Nuland army, it was even more so.

This is also the key to breaking the radio silence at this time.

Task Force 22 has already left the dangerous sea area, and in the southwest direction of Task Force 21, the distance has only expanded to 500 kilometers.

The main reason is that the retreat of the 22nd Task Force is more westward, while the other three task forces are more northerly.

Of course, there's nothing to worry about.

As expected, long-range fighters deployed on Leysan Island have arrived and begun to provide anti-aircraft cover for Task Force 22.

It's just that Bai Zhizhan's mood has not improved.

Not just the 22nd Task Force, but all of the Task Force were not attacked.

After dawn, not even reconnaissance planes and patrol planes appeared.

It was as if the Nuland army had not intercepted the radio signal from the north of the archipelago, and had not detected the Imperial fleet that had been killed outside their home.

Equipment failure, or negligence?

None of them.

There are more than a dozen monitoring stations on the Howaii Islands, covering almost all bands, and it is impossible for all monitoring stations to fail at the same time.

As for negligence, it is even more unlikely.

Even if morale is low, the officers and men at the grassroots level will not all neglect their duties, and the radar operators are technical soldiers and have stronger discipline.

At least the technical officers and men of the Imperial Navy were more disciplined.

Well, the only explanation is that the Nuland army gave up the opportunity to attack.

But the question is, why give up!?