"Boss Shen, did you see that?"

Hearing the reminder of the navigator in the back seat, Shenpu rubbed his eyes vigorously.

That's right, that's an aircraft carrier!

This surprise came too suddenly, and Shen Pu was not even mentally prepared.

Judging by the size of the deck, to be precise, the ratio of the island to the deck, it was a "York" class, not a larger "Lek" class.

That's enough, though.

The aircraft carrier is ahead, and the distance is less than 10 kilometers.

Presumably, a group of attack aircraft approaching from a low altitude was spotted, so the aircraft carrier was making a quick turn, trying to put the anti-aircraft guns on the side to work.

What surprised Shen Pu was that not only were there no escort warships nearby, but there were also no air defense fighters.

The aircraft carrier was there, and there was no barrier between it and the attack aircraft group.

The nearest battleship was in front of the aircraft carrier, several kilometers apart. The anti-aircraft guns on the battleship were firing fiercely, and it looked like a heavy cruiser.

Where did the air defense fighters of the Nuland fleet go?

What's ahead, that is, in the north-west, is it the attack aircraft group of the 21st Task Force, or seaplanes from other detachments?

"Boss Shen!?"

"Greet the others, the 4th Wing will follow me, and the 3rd Wing will continue to search."

"Yes!"

By the time the navigator began to call out to the other squadron leaders in the wing, Shenpu had already depressed the joystick, further reducing the flight altitude to less than 100 meters.

Behind, the two squadrons of "Wasps", having received the order, had already spread out to the sides and at the same time flew high into the air.

It must be admitted that the tactics arranged by Zhou Yongtao are very effective.

After receiving a telegram from the "Longxing" suspecting that there was a gun-sighting radar on the Nuland battleship, Zhou Yongtao specifically told Shen Pu and other pilots that the Nuland Navy must have been equipped with an air defense search radar and could detect incoming enemy planes from a long distance.

The reason is that the development of artillery sighting radar is more difficult than that of anti-aircraft search radar.

For this reason, Zhou Yongtao emphasized one point when arranging tactics.

To be precise, about 150 kilometers away from the predetermined sea area, the flight altitude should be reduced to less than 500 meters, and it is best to control it below 300 meters, with the "Flying Fish" with better low-altitude flight performance leading the way, while the "Wasp" group lagged behind by 20 to 30 kilometers.

Only low-altitude flights can avoid radar.

Theoretically, the detection range of the air defense search radar for aircraft flying at low altitudes does not exceed 50 kilometers. If the weather is not good, it will not even reach 40 kilometers.

If the flight altitude is reduced to less than 300 meters, it will not even be detected by radar until it enters the visual range.

The main thing is that the interference caused by the reflection of the waves will mask the signal reflected by the fighters, so it is difficult for the air defense search radar to detect low-flying enemy aircraft.

In fact, these have been confirmed for a long time.

As long as it remains flying at ultra-low altitudes, there is a great deal of certainty of breaking through the air defense network of the enemy fleet.

This, of course, poses a challenge to escort operations.

According to the new tactical arrangement, the fighters were also behind, flying with the "Wasp".

Only after the "Exocet" in front of the assault spotted the enemy plane and issued a summon that the escort fighters could move forward.

The problem that arises from this is that if the performance of the fighters is not good enough, especially the speed, the group of "Exocet" aircraft in front of the breakthrough will be slaughtered by air defense fighters.

It was only after the service of the "Roaring Sky" that such escort tactics were able to be used.

All in all, as it approached Task Force 16, the fleet of Task Force 41 was flying at low altitudes.

The "Flying Fish" group suddenly advanced, not only because the "Flying Fish" had better low-altitude performance, but also because the "Flying Fish" was originally the slowest in speed.

Because the "Wasp" group has not yet caught up, in fact, it has not yet climbed to the ideal height, and it takes some time to complete the preparations for the mine drop, mainly because the navigator sits in the machine gunner position in the back, not in the middle position, so after approaching the "York" class aircraft carrier, to be precise, before approaching, Shen Pu led the group to make a 90-degree turn and circled in front of the aircraft carrier.

This also served to attract anti-aircraft fire.

In the face of incoming enemy aircraft, the anti-aircraft gunners of any battleship will be the first to deal with torpedo machines.

All of a sudden, the more than 100 antiaircraft guns on the Nuland aircraft carrier were all aimed at the "Exocet" group hovering at low altitude.

It's just that at a distance of more than 5,000 meters, small-caliber anti-aircraft guns are basically furnishings, and the effectiveness of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns against enemy aircraft at close range is not high.

To say that between the 40-mm guns and the 5-inch anti-aircraft guns, there were several kilometers of blank space in firepower.

This was also a key reason why the Imperial Navy began to install medium-caliber rapid-fire guns on battleships.

Because there was a heavy cruiser in the northwest direction of the aircraft carrier, the "Exocet" group flew halfway and turned back, and after the turn, it regrouped.

During the cruising phase, 8 Exocets flew in columns.

When it comes to the attack stage, it has to be transformed into a goose-shaped team, that is, it must also be separated horizontally, so that it will not be interfered with by the torpedo machine in front when throwing mines.

By this time, a squadron of "Wasp" had completed the climb and entered the sprint phase.

"Boss Shen, the stinger has arrived!" The navigator reminded Shenpu.

"Everybody follow me."

There is no need to do too many orders, the pilots are all old birds, and those "wasps" in the sky are no more conspicuous, you can see them when you look up.

The first to be killed was actually the escorting "Roaring Sky" fighters.

Since there were no enemy planes nearby, at least not in Shenpu's sight, the "Roaring" fighters pounced on the aircraft carrier and strafed the anti-aircraft gun emplacements on both sides of the flight deck with machine guns.

As a result, the anti-aircraft guns of the York-class aircraft carrier were all aimed at the "Roaring" fighters.

Perhaps, the gunners of the anti-aircraft guns mistook the fighters for dive bombers.

Not surprisingly, the "Roaring Sky" was used as a dive bomber many times, and the performance of the dive bomb was very good.

The point, those fighters had very large angles of dive.

In order to extend the strafing range, the fighter will control the dive angle within 45 degrees, while the bomber will drop bombs at a dive angle of more than 70 degrees.

The gunner of the anti-aircraft gun judged the nature of the enemy aircraft by the angle of its dive.

Velocity?

No gunner was able to accurately visually determine the flight speed of an enemy aircraft.

As for the appearance, it is even more unreliable.

At a distance of several thousand meters, the plane seen was actually just a shadow.

Even with a telescope, it is difficult to identify the model of the aircraft by its appearance.

It was precisely because of this that the "Exocet" group led by Shen Pu entered the mine-throwing route without hindrance, and eight "Exocet" dropped torpedoes one after another.

At high altitude, the eight "Wasps" were divided into two four-plane formations, which entered from the left rear and right rear sides of the aircraft carrier.

Theoretically, the dive bomber enters along the longitudinal axis of the battleship, which can maximize the hit rate, but the battleship will turn to evade, so the bomber's entry route will have an angle with the longitudinal axis of the battleship, to be precise, the course, which is generally about 30 degrees.

It was only after the arrival of the dive bombers that the Nuland aircraft carrier began to maneuver evasion.

To say that the screaming sound of the bomber when diving is the most obvious feature, at least the "roaring sky" does not have such an aura when diving.

It's a pity that it's a completely futile struggle.

Being caught between torpedo planes and bombers is useless no matter how much you maneuver, because even if you dodge all the bombs, you will be hit by torpedoes.

That aircraft carrier must be finished!

.。 m.