Donglu Xinhai, the flagship of the 51st Task Force, and the supercarrier "White Stop".

Before dawn, Li Shenzhi came to the commander's bridge.

Actually, he didn't sleep at all last night.

As a few days before, the staff officer brought breakfast, and he took advantage of the opportunity to eat breakfast to quickly look through the telegrams he had received during the night.

The counterattack on the mainland side of the battlefield went smoothly and almost all the objectives were achieved.

The front-line command was destroyed, and the subjective initiative of the combat units of the Western Continent Group, after the loss of unified command, was almost nil. At least last night, the enemy's front-line units did not act decently and did not pose a threat to the Imperial troops from beginning to end.

If there was an accident, it was the location of the front command.

The command train actually stopped inside the Volgograd station, and did not leave the station after the counterattack began.

Although the difficulty of the bombing increased, the final result did not change.

After confirming the position of the command train, only about five minutes later, the nearest "H-12A" was killed, and within just half a minute, 12 KD-15G "Bodart" short-range air-to-ground missiles with TV/infrared composite guidance and autonomous attack capability were fired.

Because the station was too big, dozens of trains were stopped, and the explosion caused interference, so there was no way to identify the bombing results, so about 30 minutes later, the "H-12A" that had been in the south was killed and fired 12 "pike" missiles for supplementary bombing.

Even if the front-line command is not completely eliminated, it will definitely paralyze the enemy's chain of command.

After finding the command train where the front command is located, the two "H-12A" in the south will carry out the bombing mission, and the two "H-12A" in the north will be transferred to the secondary mission.

At the same time, the feint operation, carried out by the Air Force, has already begun as planned.

On the Dnieper side, the advancing escort fighters engaged enemy planes around the early hours of the morning and succeeded in diverting the enemy's attention.

The battle was fiercely fought.

It's not that the "Zhan-11B" is not powerful, but the "Zhan-11B" is too powerful.

Because the "Zhan-11B" is equipped with the DPL-22D pulse-Doppler radar, even in search mode, the detection distance of fighters' targets at high altitude is close to 200 kilometers, and the KK-12A's head-on interception range is about 80 kilometers, so the "Finger-8C" responsible for providing support did not come forward and stayed in the south of the Crimean Peninsula, about 300 kilometers behind the escort fighter group.

This distance makes the "Finger-8C" almost an ornament.

Although in the battles that followed, the "Finger-8C" repeatedly spotted maneuvering to the flanks, trying to outflank the enemy planes behind the escort fighters, and warned the escort fighters in time, but on the front, the "Zh-11B" could only rely on itself and use fire control radar to search for enemy planes that had been killed from the north.

Obviously, this put the "Battle-11B" at a disadvantage from the very beginning.

Because they can rely on ground-based air defense radars and have a complete set of command systems in the rear to support them, the enemy's air defense fighters have always received effective support.

In addition, the numerical gap between the two sides is also very large.

The two squadrons of 16 "Battle-11Bs" were opposite nearly 100 air defense fighters, of which more than 40 were MG-31 and MG-29.

Fortunately, the MG-31 is an interceptor, while the MG-29 is a short-legged front-line fighter.

More importantly, there are indeed serious problems in the command system of the Sairiku Group.

So many air defense fighters actually arrived in batches, and they did not arrive at the same time, so they failed to give full play to their superiority in troops.

As the saying goes, two fists are hard to beat four palms.

No matter how capable the "Zhan-11B" is, it will not be able to defeat the enemy planes that arrive at the same time, several times its size.

The first to be killed was not the MG-29 front-line fighter, but the MG-31 interceptor deployed in the large rear.

Probably keeping an eye on the battle in the east, I didn't expect the Imperial Air Force to expend so much effort to carry out operations in the direction of the Mohai Sea at the same time, so it was not until the "Zhan-11B" flew over the Dnieper River that these heavy interceptors, which are claimed to be the "most advanced in the world", were urgently lifted into the air.

As a result, 24 MG-31s in 3 batches failed to complete the climb before the engagement.

For the interceptor, not completing the climb in time is very fatal.

The MG-31 is a typical high-altitude high-speed interceptor, and its advantage is to launch a surprise attack at an altitude of more than 20,000 meters, at a speed close to Mach 3.

At the altitudes at which air supremacy fighters usually move, the MG-31 reversed to no advantage.

For example, at an altitude of 15,000 meters, the maximum speed of the MG-31 is only Mach 2.5, while the "Zhan-11B" can fly above Mach 2.5 by relying on a larger thrust-to-weight ratio.

In addition, the MG-31 is a heavy interceptor with little to no ability to engage in aerial combat.

Even if it could be equipped with combat missiles like the R-60 and R-73, it would only intercept bombers at close range, not to fight fighters in the air.

In fact, no interceptor is made for air combat.

All interceptors, using the tactics of fast in and out, and high and high, often launch missiles from tens of kilometers away, and then turn to return home. Because the probability of close combat is very low, some interceptors even eliminated machine guns.

Before the 20-odd MG-31s completed their climb, the distance between them and the "Zhan-11B" fleet was shortened to 200 kilometers.

Probably worried about encountering the "Zhan-11B", the MG-31 launched the R-37 long-range air-to-air missile from a distance of 100 kilometers.

If anything, this missile is the most bragging rights of the MG-31.

The R-37 has a range of more than 100 kilometers, while the KK-12A has only 80 kilometers.

Theoretically, the only ones that can fire at the MG-31 are the "Battle-9", which is also equipped with long-range air-to-air missiles, and the F-14 of the Nuland Navy.

Faced with the MG-31, which launched missiles from more than 100 kilometers away and turned to evacuate, the pilots of the "Battle-11B" gritted their teeth with hatred.

It's a pity that I can only sigh in the sky.

As for the effect of ultra-long-range interception, it is basically zero.

The R-37 was aimed at bulky bombers, not agile fighters.

Although it has a range of more than 100 kilometers, and can even reach 180 kilometers in theory, the R-37's maneuverability is not very outstanding, and the maximum overload at the end of its trajectory is less than 20G, so the fighter only needs to pull out a high-G maneuver to be able to throw off this missile.

The value of these more than 20 MG-31s is actually to force the "Zhan-11B" of the two squadrons to disperse and evade.

In addition, given the circumstances, it is likely that the MG-31s were searching for and intercepting the bombers, but were not assisted by the ground command center after liftoff.

The reason is also very simple: the Western Continent Group did not deploy large AWACS aircraft in this direction.

Although the air defense radar discovered the "Zhan-11B" group and made an accurate judgment, it did not detect the "H-9D" group that was still over the Mohai Sea at that time. Therefore, even if it is speculated that the "Zh-11B" is an escort fighter, it is impossible to determine the location of the bomber.

At best, it can only be assumed that the bomber was in the rear of the escort fighters.

The high-power fire control radar of the MG-31 has a detection range of only 300 kilometers for large targets such as bombers.

In fact, this is also the key to the "Zhan-11B" group flying more than 300 kilometers in front of the "Finger-8C".

If the "Zhan-11B" does not have enough distance in front, the "Finger-8C" behind it may be detected and attacked by the MG-31.

With the performance of the "Zhan-11B", it may not be able to catch up with the MG-31.

However, this just reflects the serious problems in the electronic warfare of the West Luosha, or the West Continent Group.

Behind the escort fighters, the "Finger-8C" has been using radar to search the surrounding area, and even if it is covered by an electronic reconnaissance plane throughout the whole process, the electromagnetic radiation emitted is also obvious, and it will certainly be intercepted hundreds of kilometers away, and there is no problem that there is no way to detect it.

It is a pity that the West Luosha Air Force did not arrange for the MG-31 to intercept it.

Obviously, it is by no means that the West Luosha Air Force is unaware of the military value of large early warning command aircraft, after all, the West Luo Group also has an air command platform with similar functions.

Judging from the situation at the time, it is likely that it was impossible to determine the specific location of the "Finger-8C".

The West Luosha Air Force intercepted the electromagnetic signal emitted by the "Finger-8C" and made an accurate judgment, but it was only in the case of interference that it was unable to determine the specific position of the signal source, that is, the "Finger-8C," and could not even measure the distance, so it did not arrange for an interceptor plane to intercept it.

Do not forget that next to the AWACS aircraft there is an electronic reconnaissance aircraft that specializes in jamming tasks.

Of course, the dispatch of 24 interceptors in 6 squads may also have something to do with this.

To put it simply, it was because they couldn't figure out where the "Finger-8C" was, so they dispatched so many interceptors to attack by chance.

In fact, this is also the usual way of solving problems in the Xiluosha army, which is simple and rude.

Because the MG-31 turned to retreat after launching the R-37 missile from more than 100 kilometers away, and the "Zhan-11B" group had to evade the incoming missiles at the first time, and after the "Zhan-11B" avoided the missile, the MG-31 had already withdrawn, so the two sides did not exchange fire, or the "Zhan-11B" did not waste precious air-to-air missiles on these interceptors that did not pose a big threat, and preserved enough combat effectiveness.

The next thing that was killed was the MG-29 of the front-line aviation of the West Luosha Air Force.

There are also 6 formations, but there are only 20 aircraft, of which 2 formations are 2 aircraft.

The first round of air battles was fought between the two sides.

Although it did not receive direct support from the "Finger-8C", to be precise, it only received the message from the AWACS aircraft after the encounter with the MG-29, but with the advanced fire control radar, the "Zhan-11B" still had an advantage in air combat, such as taking the lead in firing at enemy aircraft.

At this time, the problem of the rear deployment of AWACS aircraft became apparent.

The distance was too far, and by the time the "Finger-8C" detected the MG-29, the fire control radar of the "Zhan-11B" had already detected the oncoming enemy plane.

The first round of combat was the use of medium-range air-to-air missiles.

As for the outcome, there is no suspense.

The KK-12A is a fourth-generation medium-range air-to-air missile with the ability to launch and forget, and in the middle of the trajectory, in addition to the usual inertial guidance, it can also be controlled by fighters through a data link, so it has a high hit rate when firing at targets outside of line-of-sight.

The R-29, used by the MG-27, is a third-generation semi-active radar-guided medium-range air-to-air missile.

As a result, in the first round of exchanges, more than 10 MG-29s were shot down by KK-12A, and the rest were all scattered.

As for the "Battle-11B", none of them were shot down by the R-27, because these missiles were not able to enter the self-guidance stage under the guidance of fighters.

In fact, even in the fighting phase, the MG-29 did not take advantage.

It's not that the MG-29's mobility is not good enough, but it has already been broken up in long-range engagements, and as a result, it has lost the initiative.

It was only by this time that the "Zhan-11B" suffered losses.

According to the Air Force's battle report, five "Zhan-11B" were shot down in combat air combat, and all of them were achieved by the R-73 combat missiles launched by the MG-29.

It must be said that this missile is indeed very advanced.

The R-73 is the world's first combat missile with off-axis launch capability, and the West Luosha Air Force has always claimed that it is the best combat missile in the world.

The MG-29 plus R-73 is the most powerful fighting combination available today.

If anything, it is by virtue of the R-73 and the propaganda effect that it was possible for Xi Luosha to sell the MG-29, which is not at all advanced in electronic equipment, to more than a dozen countries.

It's just that this advanced combat missile did not change the outcome of air combat.

When the MG-29 fleet was defeated, air supremacy was still firmly in the hands of the "Zhan-11B".

Although 5 "Battle-11B" were shot down, and there was not much ammunition left for 10 or so, the escort fighters had completed their mission.

When the "Battle-11B" and MG-29 were in a dogfight, the "H-9D" group reached the bombing airspace, and more than 20 bombers dropped cruise missiles.

The point is, these bombers were cruise missiles dropped north of Crimea.

At that time, the escort fighters were about 500 kilometers away to the north, and even the "Finger-8C" was 200 kilometers away from the north, and the electronic reconnaissance planes accompanying the operation suppressed and interfered with the nearby air defense radars, and the bombers did not enter the interception area of the air defense system when they dropped their missiles.

In the case of the time, the air defense radars of the Western Continent Group may not have detected these bombers.

Because of the distance, it is possible to take the bomber as a jamming signal, or to judge it to be a support aircraft following the AWACS and electronic reconnaissance aircraft.

It can be seen that the enemy, most likely, did not know that hundreds of cruise missiles were flying towards Mosa.

There was another incident in the final stages of the battle.

Before the "Zhan-11B" turned to retreat, the "Tornado" ADV of the Hindran Empire arrived belatedly and pursued the retreating escort fighters.

Because there were not many missiles left, and the escort mission had been completed, there was no need to fight with the enemy, so after being attacked, the "Zhan-11B" all accelerated to get rid of the enemy planes in the rear, that is, they flew out of the range of the missiles and did not engage these enemy planes.

If anything, it's a big pity.

The MG-29 is only a front-line fighter, and the "Tornado" ADV is a heavy air superiority fighter in the same class as the "Battle-11B".

In addition, the Empire has always claimed that the Tornado ADV is a true fourth-generation heavy fighter.

There is no evidence for empty words, whether the "Tornado" ADV is a fourth-generation heavy air superiority fighter, and the results of the battle with fighters of the same class are the most convincing.

It's just that this forced the escort fighters to carry out a third mid-air refueling on the way back.

When they returned to the air base on the east coast of the Broad Sea, the 11 "Zhan-11B" that returned to the sea flew a distance of more than 6,500 kilometers, setting a new record.

Not to mention fighters, even bombers rarely fly so far.

Of course, this also fully proves the value of tankers.

Without a large number of large tankers, the Imperial Air Force would not have been able to allow fighters to fly so far and successfully complete the mission without a large number of large tankers.

According to the information released by the Imperial Air Force, this long-distance attack blew up more than a dozen strategic targets, and fully achieved the previously determined campaign objectives.

Crucially, all 20 bombers returned home safely.

As for the loss of 5 escort fighters, they are nothing compared to the results of air battles.

It's just that Li Shenzhi knows that things are not so simple.