Although Colonel Jin Zhenbang, the captain of the "Zhou Kuande," patted his chest and assured Bai Huawei that all the officers and men of the ship would definitely not fail to live up to the trust and trust, Bai Huawei did not take this guarantee to heart at all, or did not take it seriously with this junior.

Don't look at Jin Zhenbang is only a few years younger than Bai Huawei, but he is indeed a generation younger than Bai Huawei.

That's right, he is the grandson of General Kim Hong.

As for the state of the more than 5,000 officers and men of the "Zhou Kuande," after Bai Huawei came to Zhenbao Harbor, the first thing to deal with can be clearly explained.

In late September, during a routine spot check, the Jumbo Harbor garrison discovered an anomaly. The dry cargo carrier "Beijia Lake", which was about to return to the empire, declared 25% more subsistence than normal, and 15% higher than the prescribed floating limit.

Subsequently, the garrison command sent guards to board the ship for inspection, and found dozens of naval officers and men hiding on the ship.

All of them were from the "Zhou Kuande", and the leader turned out to be the major adjutant of the marine engineering department.

In the ensuing examination, the captain of the "Lake Beja" admitted that he had taken bribes from the officers and men to give them a ride.

Of course, these officers and men from the "Zhou Kuande" all violated military law and were strictly speaking deserters.

Although all of them are excusable, such as the major adjutant of the marine engineering department, who originally arranged to go home at the end of July to get married, and later postponed the wedding to the end of October, but with the outbreak of the war, his application for leave was rejected, and he only found the captain of the "Beijia Lake", but there was no way to deny the fact that they were deserters, and according to the imperial military law, deserters not only had to be dismissed from military duty, but also faced prison.

In times of war, desertion is an added crime.

If confronted with a ruthless judge, the major would most likely be sentenced to death.

In fact, just being dismissed from the military is miserable enough. In times of war, especially when the empire enters a state of war, after being dismissed from the military, let alone enjoying the benefits of the military, it is impossible to even find a job to make a living, and it will definitely end up on the streets.

At that time, Jin Zhenbang was looking for connections for these dozens of subordinates.

Although it is a very shameful thing, they are all Jin Zhenbang's subordinates no matter what they say, and an excellent commander must know how to protect his shortcomings.

Crucially, none of these officers and soldiers wanted to be deserters.

One of the technical non-commissioned officers received a letter from home in mid-August that his father had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and that he was an only son. According to the relevant regulations, even in times of war, only sons have the right to return home to save their relatives, especially if their parents are critically ill and die, the military must unconditionally release them. Because the desalination system he was responsible for had failed, and he was the only technical non-commissioned officer who had mastered the system, he did not immediately ask for leave, but stayed to complete the repair work. As a result, when he was about to take leave, the Fourth Fleet was at its highest combat readiness, and the technical non-commissioned officers who were supposed to be transferred were sent to the battered 51st Task Force, but the head of the department did not approve his request to visit his family.

During the trial, the non-commissioned officer's father died of illness.

What can Kim Jinbang say about these subordinates?

After Bai Huawei came to Zhenbao Harbor, Jin Zhenbang immediately came to find him and pleaded for these subordinates, hoping that Bai Huawei could give them a chance to make meritorious contributions.

After Jin Zhenbang wrote a letter of guarantee, Bai Huawei took the charge letter from the garrison headquarters.

Although the matter was satisfactorily resolved, even if it was only temporary, the problems reflected made Bai Huawei have to be worried.

Fortunately, the command of the Navy did not do everything in a desperate way, or made adjustments in time.

The 41st Task Force was originally "Liu Changxun", "Zhou Kuande" and "Chen Bingxun", and the "Liu Changxun" was the flagship in the best condition. Shortly after the outbreak of the Poshawan War, the Imperial Navy replaced the not-so-good Chen Bingxun with the He Yongxing. Although the condition of the "He Yongxing" is not very good, and it needs to be scheduled for the first docking maintenance before the mid-term overhaul, it is certainly much better than the "Chen Bingxun", and even if it is not docked for maintenance, it still has a relatively complete combat capability.

The power system of the "He Yongxing" was able to achieve the maximum design output, and during the test, it also ran a top speed of 35.5 knots. The use of the 4 steam catapults is less than 30% of the maintenance cycle, and the 4 blocking cables are newly replaced, so there is no potential safety hazard.

The key is that the "He Yongxing" is the last ship of the "Chen Bingxun" class.

Although on the whole, there is not much difference from the two ships of the same batch, but during the construction of the "He Yongxing", the "Xue Yuanzheng" has already started, and the "He Yongxing" has thus become the touchstone of the "Xue Yuanzheng" class, and a large number of weapons and equipment originally developed for the "Xue Yuanzheng" class have been adopted.

The main thing is self-defense weapons.

In addition to the 1130A eleven-barreled rapid-fire gun, nicknamed "Firestorm", the DK-16 Sea Viper short- and medium-range anti-aircraft missile was used.

The DK-16 "Sea Viper" is actually an improved version of the DK-6 "Sea Serpent", or a replacement product.

Because the DK-6 is equipped with almost all large and medium-sized warships of the Imperial Navy, and is also exported to almost all allies, and is in service with the navies of dozens of countries, the number of holdings is very huge, with a total of about 1,000 launch systems, so when developing the DK-16, the Imperial Navy clearly required that it must be compatible with the DK-6 launch system, and without making too many changes, the continuous combat capability will be increased by 3 times. It would be nice if the fire control system of the DK-6 could be retained, or if it would be compatible with just a few simple improvements.

In addition, missile performance must also be improved.

For example, the range has been increased from 24 km to 40 km for the DK-6, preferably 50 km; Able to attack sea-skimming targets, with an altitude of not less than 12,000 meters, preferably 20,000 meters; The usable maneuverable overload shall not be less than 45G, the end is active guidance, and it is best to use a multi-mode seeker; The launch mass of the missile does not exceed DK-6 and strives for a weight reduction of 20%; The length of the projectile body does not exceed DK-6 and must have folding wings.

Although the performance indicators proposed by the Imperial Navy were not low, thanks to technological advances, especially solid-fuel rocket engines with larger specific impulses, and the miniaturization of electronic equipment, as long as they did not care too much about cost, it was not a problem to develop missiles that met the requirements of the Navy.

In fact, in the later stages of development, the Imperial Navy had largely abandoned the launch system of the DK-6.

The reason is also very simple, with the "Qingzhou" class in large quantities, the "Lucheng" class destroyers began to accept modernization and improvement, the vertical launch system has become the mainstream, the traditional oblique arm launcher and box launch system will definitely be eliminated, compatible with the DK-6 launch system is no longer of much significance.

Of course, the "Chen Bingxun" class aircraft carrier still uses the DK-6 launch system.

In fact, even the "Xue Yuanzheng" level is the same.

Not only because it is cheap, but also because of the layout of the aircraft carrier. There is no place to install a vertical launch system on the flight deck, where every inch of land is at a premium, and the short- and medium-range anti-aircraft missiles used for self-defense are all installed on the floating deck, so it is impossible to use a vertical launch system that needs to occupy internal space.

Of course, from the point of view of practical use, it is not necessary.

What the aircraft carrier needs is self-defense firepower, and the regional and long-range air defense is undertaken by the cruiser, so the air defense system of the aircraft carrier is mainly point defense.

To put it simply, with the 1130A and DK-16, the "He Yongxing" class has the most powerful self-defense firepower among the six "Chen Bingxun" class.

Because it has the ability to ignore after launching, is no longer limited by fire control channels, and can also intercept supersonic anti-ship missiles flying in the sea, the DK-16 system alone has increased the aircraft carrier's air defense and anti-missile capability by dozens of times, allowing the aircraft carrier to have reliable self-defense firepower for the first time.

If the "He Yongxing" had come a few months earlier, it would certainly have replaced the "Liu Changxun" and become the flagship of the task force.

The key is that the three "Chen Bingxun" ships of the second batch are all built according to the standards of the flagship, and they are all equipped with a complete fleet command system.

The reason is that when the second batch of "Chen Bingxun" class was built, the Imperial Navy abandoned the full-time flagship.

Although the two full-time flagships built after the war, the "Tianling" and the "Anling", were preserved and served as the flagships of the Guia Fleet and the Southern Fleet respectively, in the shipbuilding plan of the Imperial Navy, it was long ago decided that no full-time flagships would be built.

In fact, the full-time flagship itself is a product of a special era.

As electronic equipment becomes smaller and smaller, but its performance is getting better and better, it is no longer necessary to use a warship of tens of thousands of tons to carry communication equipment.

It was from this time that the Imperial Navy required all aircraft carriers to have the ability to act as flagships.

It is precisely for this reason that the "He Yongxing" became the "deputy flagship" of the 41 st Task Force and was separately organized into an aircraft carrier battle group.

This arrangement is related to the fact that the "He Yongxing" came from the Southern Fleet.

In addition to the aircraft carriers, the two air defense cruisers, three general-purpose destroyers and three anti-submarine frigates in the same aircraft carrier battle group are all from the Southern Fleet.

If anything, only large attack submarines operating under the surface of the sea belong to the Guia Fleet.

This system of the Southern Fleet always seems a bit out of place on the Guia side.

In fact, this can be regarded as a "glorious" tradition of the Imperial Navy.

To this day, the Southern Fleet and the Guia Fleet are still incompatible.

In Zhou Yongtao's words, when the officers and men of the Southern Fleet and the Guia Fleet stop fighting, then they really have to be worried.

To this day, the relationship between the Southern Fleet and the Guia Fleet is more like a competition with each other.

Obviously, in peacetime, this competition from within is the main force driving the development of the Navy.

The most representative is the fleet confrontation exercise, which has been going on for decades.

After the end of the war, fleet confrontation exercises were held between the Southern Fleet and the Guia Fleet, alternating between the home fields of both sides, and taking turns to play the role of imaginary enemies.

The Guia Fleet sent the "Zhou Kuande" aircraft carrier battle group to participate in the exercise, and acted as an imaginary enemy to attack the Southern Fleet in a state of non-combat readiness in order to test the Southern Fleet's defense system and tactical thinking.

In fact, this is also where the value of the "He Yongxing" battle group lies.

According to Bai Huawei's arrangement, after going to sea, the 41st Task Force will hold an internal confrontation exercise, and the "He Yongxing" battle group will play the role of an imaginary enemy, that is, the Guia Fleet of the Nuland Navy, and launch an attack on the two battle groups that play the role of the Fourth Fleet.

Obviously, the officers and men of the Southern Fleet, especially the commander of the battle group, had a very different tactical thinking from the officers and men of the Guia Fleet.

In this way, there will be a better chance of finding loopholes in the Guia Fleet during the exercises.

Even if it is a loss of face, it is much better than being crushed by the enemy on the battlefield.

For decades, the Imperial Navy's ability to dominate the world, always maintain the world's strongest and powerful combat power, master the most advanced tactical ideas, and the world's best weapons and equipment has a huge relationship with this self-improvement based on the internal competition system.

On the second day of going to sea, the 41st Task Force entered a state of confrontation.

Although the confrontation training could be ended at any time, Bai Huawei did not break the sinking and contacted the "He Yongxing" battle group, which maintained radio silence.

Staying in secrecy is a huge threat in itself to a potential enemy.

As for being raided by the Nuland fleet, Bai Huawei was not too worried.

The exercise area is southwest of the Howaii Islands, at least 6,000 kilometers from the west coast of Newland, and the entire Howaii Islands are separated by the middle.

Unless the Newland was able to submerge, it would not have been possible to attack Task Force 41.

As for submarines that can submarine, even if they are so lucky, they may not be able to break through the four anti-submarine networks composed of large attack submarines, carrier-based anti-submarine patrol planes, anti-submarine helicopters, and anti-submarine warships, covering a range of more than 500 kilometers, not to mention the fifth anti-submarine barrier provided by shore-based anti-submarine patrol aircraft. The 2,000-kilometer area near the Howaii Islands has always been a no-go area for Nuland's submarines.

Of course, Bai Huawei did not take it lightly.

Before going to sea, he repeatedly told the commander of the garrison, Major General Wei Xingwu, that no matter what the news was, as long as it was related to the Nuland Republic, he had to inform him as soon as possible.

If you want to talk about relationships, Wei Xingwu is also a famous family, he is the grandson of Naval Aviation Admiral Wei Chengwen.

In addition, he is also a very reliable person, and he is very stable in everything he does.

Affected by the time zone, Bai Huawei received the news of Van Luoguo's entry into the war late at night on the 3rd.

At that time, he gave the highest combat readiness order.

Because there was no news of the Nuland Republic participating in the war for the time being, after consulting with the staff officers, he did not break the silence, nor did he contact the "He Yongxing" battle group.

By the early hours of the 4th, he received a message forwarded by the Navy Command, a warning from the Army.

In fact, it was the warning issued by Ding Zhennan that made him attach great importance to the threat of the Nuland Navy and prepare for a surprise attack by the Nuland fleet.

At the time of forwarding, the communications staff of the command of the Navy omitted the signature of the person who made the payment.

As a result, it turned into a warning from the army command.

Bai Huawei did not forget about this warning from the army, but he did not have enough vigilance, at most he just took it to heart.

Until this time, he did not break the radio silence.

With the situation at that time, Bai Huawei may have felt that with a strict reconnaissance system, he would definitely be able to detect the approaching Nuland fleet in time.

It is a pity that he overlooked a very serious problem.

The global maritime surveillance and reconnaissance system, which is based on reconnaissance satellites, has been severely damaged after the outbreak of the Great War, and cannot guarantee the timely detection of potential threats.

This system is the main means of monitoring the Nuland Navy!

On the contrary, the Nuland Republic has not yet entered the war, and its reconnaissance satellites are safe and sound and able to operate at maximum efficiency.