At this moment, about 1,000 kilometers northeast of Honu Island, the flagship of the 41st Task Force "Liu Changxun".

Before dark, Bai Huawei gave the order to turn. All that is done now is to wait patiently and, after receiving the reconnaissance report, send carrier-based aircraft to launch an attack on the enemy fleet. Until then, the main task is to strengthen the deployment of air defense and ensure concealment and safety.

The key is actually concealment.

In any case, Task Force 41 has only three large aircraft carriers with a total of more than 250 carrier-based aircraft, and no more than 120 carrier-based aircraft capable of being used in attack operations. If the whereabouts are exposed before the attack is launched, it will inevitably lead to a significant reduction in the efficiency of penetration.

With the help of shore-based aviation to complete the strike?

If anything, Bai Huawei has been relying on the support and assistance of shore-based aviation units, including the Air Force.

After turning around near Yotun Island and making adjustments to the operational deployment, Bai Huawei received news from the rear that the Air Force would launch a strategic airlift and that the Navy's shore-based aviation would also provide cooperation. According to the adjustment made by Bai Huawei, the time of the strategic airlift was set for the night of the 10th, and it would be carried out for three consecutive nights in order to attract the attention of the Nuland army and provide cover for the 41st Task Force.

As for sending shore-based patrol aircraft to search for the Nuland fleet, that's a matter for the Navy.

According to the message from the command of the Navy, this is the last chance to launch a decisive battle of the fleet under favorable conditions.

Assisting the Air Force in strategic airlifts, as well as dispatching patrol aircraft to search for the Nuland fleet, will deplete fuel stocks. Next, unless the tide of the war improves, such as reopening the shipping routes and sending a convoy of convoys to Jumbo Harbor, don't count on shore-based air forces anymore.

The main thing is that strategic airlift uses up a lot of fuel stockpiles.

In fact, the command of the Navy has drawn up plans for the withdrawal of troops from the Khowaii Islands.

The reason is also very simple, as long as the transit island falls, the route to Treasure Harbor will be cut off, and there are not many materials stored in the Khowaii Islands, even if they can hold out for a few months, they may not be able to regain sea supremacy in a few months, let alone recapture the transit island.

At this time, the Air Force is engaged in strategic airlift, in fact, it is preparing for retreat.

In addition to the more than 100,000 tons of ammunition and materials sent by this strategic airlift, the most important thing is actually the evacuation of tens of thousands of non-combatants.

Among them, the families of military personnel are the mainstay.

The Empire has painstakingly operated the Khowaii Islands for decades, and has maintained a large garrison even if it never thought of encroaching on the islands. Even at the trough, after the Polish-Iraqi War, the size of the Imperial Army stationed in the Khowaii Islands was more than 100,000 men.

If anything, the Howaii Islands were one of the most popular overseas garrisons for Imperial officers and soldiers.

Not only is the environment good, but the climate is suitable all year round, and the products are also very rich, not to mention several world-famous sunny beaches. The point is that the Khowaii Islands belong to the Category A "frontline" theater and enjoy the highest level of treatment, even if it is the lowest standard for the same level. This means that the most basic soldiers have an annual stationing allowance of 12,000 gold yuan, and the officers have between 24,000 gold yuan and 72,000 gold yuan depending on their rank. You know, even now, the per capita income of the people of the empire is less than 30,000 gold yuan, and the median income is less than 25,000 gold yuan. Obviously, the overseas assignment allowance alone is very attractive.

As a result, the military stationed in the Howaii Islands is basically a family with their families.

Just in the garrison living quarters of Honu Island, there are more than 100,000 military dependents.

To this end, the Imperial Navy invested in hospitals, schools, and shopping malls, as well as a number of public welfare projects to provide jobs for the families of military personnel. The most famous is the Navy-funded "Cultural Exchange Center", whose staff are all family members of the officers and soldiers stationed there.

After the outbreak of the Posha Bay War, the Imperial Navy launched a repatriation operation codenamed "Homecoming".

After that, after the outbreak of the Great War, that is, after the war started by the Western Continent Group, the repatriation operation entered the mandatory phase, and it was the responsibility of specialized units.

Unfortunately, before the Nuland Republic entered the war, only about half of the military families were repatriated.

If I want to say, this efficiency is already very high.

Repatriation is not only about sending people away, but also about personal belongings and settling back home, that is, providing a place for the repatriated military dependents to live, arranging suitable jobs, and providing compulsory education for the children of military personnel, and even counting maintenance matters.

To put it bluntly, the climate of the Howaii Islands is indeed too good.

To that end, about thousands of retired veterans, as well as the parents of senior officers, live in Navy-run retirement homes.

Obviously, the transfer and settlement of these military dependents is a very important matter.

Of course, there are also officers and soldiers who have been wounded in battle, especially those who have lost their combat capability, and who need to be transferred.

According to Navy statistics, about 6,000 officers and men were wounded in the first three days of the war alone, of which more than 1,000 were seriously wounded. Every day since, officers and soldiers have been wounded, and the proportion of seriously wounded has been rising. Mainly, there are many injured people who have not received the best treatment in time because of lack of medical treatment or missed the best time for treatment, and their injuries have developed from minor injuries to serious injuries.

The evacuation of the seriously wounded is also urgent.

Otherwise, the Navy Command would not have asked the Air Force to launch a strategic airlift.

According to the telegram sent by the Navy Command, the strategic airlift was directly authorized by the Shousuke, and the Air Force Command attached great importance to it and would definitely go all out.

As for whether to defend the Khowaii Islands, it is still necessary to say.

As mentioned earlier, the key is whether or not you can hold the transit island.

Obviously, this depends on the success of Task Force 41.

In order to relieve the pressure on Bai Huawei, the naval command specially sent a telegram. An agreement has been reached with the Air Force that will arrange strategic bombers to provide support for combat operations. A total of 80 H-9s are deployed in the North Malaysia Islands, directly under the command of the Navy Command and the Fourth Fleet Command.

The Navy Command has also made relevant arrangements, such as sending an additional heavy fighter wing to the island.

As soon as the Nuland fleet is found, the strategic bombers of the Air Force will attack under the cover of heavy fighters. Even if there is no way to annihilate the Nuland fleet, it can inflict heavy damage on the Nuland fleet, disperse the air defense of the Nuland fleet, and create opportunities for the 41st task force.

However, what Bai Huawei values most is actually the 61st Task Force.

Thankfully, it didn't disappoint him.

The Navy Command has also made adjustments, and Task Force 61 will speed up its voyage to the west of the transit island by the 12th, and dispatch carrier-based fighters to provide cover for transport planes carrying out strategic airlift missions. If necessary, cover is also provided for bombers on assault missions.

Here's the key.

According to the plan drawn up by the Air Force Command, bombers will be dispatched to launch a surprise attack on the Nuland forces landing on the transit islands before the strategic airlift.

Of course, no one expected to wipe out the landing enemy with a couple of bombardments.

This move, in fact, is to distract the attention of the Nuland army, so that the Nuland army can strengthen the cover of the landing force, so that it cannot pose a threat to strategic airlift.

It's just that there are a lot of problems.

Because of the lack of escort cover, in the first few days, cruise missiles could only be used to launch attacks as far away as possible from the transit island.

But the problem is that the Air Force has long since run out of cruise missiles in its stockpile.

Although several munitions factories have completed mobilization and have begun to produce cruise missiles at full speed, combat consumption still exceeds production. It will be only in the middle of next year, when several new production lines are put into operation, that the problem of insufficient cruise missiles will be alleviated.

Until then, you have to plan to use it.

To this end, it was necessary to arrange for Task Force 61 to dispatch carrier-based aircraft to provide cover for the Air Force's bombers.

This means that Task Force 61 would have to be deployed to the west of the transit island, preferably to the northwest.

Crucially, the Nuland fleet will definitely fight-for-tat, such as having a task force expand its defense range to the west and arranging fighter jets to intercept the Air Force's bombers.

In order to avoid being attacked, Task Force 61 had to be deployed far back.

Then, after the decisive battle of the fleet begins, the 61st Task Force may not be able to arrive in time.

If the Nuland fleet had moved eastward ahead of schedule, that is, to concentrate its forces on the 41st Task Force, then after the battle began, the 61st Task Force would not even be able to arrange fighter aircraft to escort the bombers on attack missions, that is, it would not be able to do anything.

In fact, when making this deployment, the staff officers of the Navy Command took this situation into account.

However, its approach is very passive, or too simplistic.

The 61st Task Force was asked to adjust the carrier-based aircraft on board, replacing 48 "Battle-12s" with 20 "Zhan-9B" and 20 "Attack-5F".

Although the number of carrier-based aircraft is reduced by 8, the long-range attack power has been significantly enhanced.

Crucially, the 20 new heavy attack aircraft will be able to carry out partner in-flight refueling missions and provide services for heavy fighters.

Theoretically, the 61st Task Force can arrange 12 "Zhan-9B" planes to carry out escort missions with a combat radius of 2,500 kilometers at a time.

It's a pity that the "Finger-6C" can't fly so far.

Because it does not have the ability to refuel in the air, the "Finger-6C" can only fly up to 1,500 kilometers away at most, and the patrol time is less than half an hour.

Without the support of carrier-based AWACS aircraft, escort operations will become more difficult.

Bai Huawei also has nothing to say about this series of arrangements.

He also knew that the Navy Command had mobilized almost all the resources it could to assist him in finding and annihilating the Nuland fleet.

Actually, the Air Force also did its best.

That's not all, though.

The news he received before dinner really surprised Bai Huawei.

After several days of preparation, the Air Force's space forces launched a strategic surprise attack against the Republic of Nuland, attacking the satellite systems of the Republic of Nuland at the same time.

In order to achieve the purpose of the operation, the Air Force can be said to have even used the treasure at the bottom of the box.

That's right, it is a high-energy laser weapon that has been developed for more than 20 years and has not yet been fully matured.

In fact, in late September, the Space Force used high-energy laser weapons deployed in the far north to attack and destroy a reconnaissance satellite of the Western Continent Group.

Because the satellite was under attack above the Imperial mainland and there were several large air bases nearby, the Western Continent Group took it for granted that it was destroyed by an anti-satellite missile, and did not think anything else. The empire did not make any relevant publicity, mainly because this test was not satisfactory.

The most serious problem is that the lifetime of the laser is too low, far from meeting the performance indicators proposed by the Air Force.

According to testing, this megawatt-class high-energy laser emitter has a usable lifetime of only 10 times!

A weapon that costs up to 2.5 billion gold dollars can only be used 10 times.

Even in times of war, it was too expensive.

However, after digging deeper, the Air Force finally figured out a key issue. After 10 launches, there are actually a few parts that need to be replaced, such as mirrors, and other parts of the laser can still be used, and many can meet the target of 100 repeated uses proposed by the Air Force.

It's still prohibitively expensive, but it's acceptable.

The unit price of the anti-satellite missiles mounted and used by the "Zhan-11" is as high as 10 million gold yuan, and it can only deal with satellites in low orbits, and the combat area is also limited, the tactical flexibility is not outstanding, and the combat efficiency in actual combat makes the air force very dissatisfied.

As for the land-based anti-satellite missiles with better performance, the cheapest ones cost 150 million gold yuan.

Relatively speaking, if high-energy laser weapons can control the cost of a single launch within 25 million gold yuan, they will definitely have a strong attraction.

In fact, as long as it does not exceed 50 million gold dollars, the Air Force can accept it.

As a result, the Air Force urgently activated another set of lasers that had been used for system reliability testing and deployed them to Liuhuang Island.

To this end, the Navy also sent three large submarine support ships to the site.

The reason is also simple, this support ship, which specializes in the service of large attack submarines, is equipped with high-power generators, which are ideal for powering ground equipment.

The coverage of the two sets of high-altitude lasers in outer space exceeds 60 per cent.

Theoretically, it is possible to attack all satellites in orbit within 3 hours.

It's just that the reliability of the laser emitter is simply too low.

According to the Air Force's battle report, the two laser launchers were supposed to be fired 26 times, an average of once every 15 minutes. As a result, the one deployed in the far north only fired nine times, malfunctioned on the tenth time, and the one deployed on Liuhuangdao struck after seven launches.

Fortunately, redundancy is left when it comes to planning.

Although it was launched only 16 times, it destroyed more than 10 of the most important military satellites deployed in high orbits, and basically completed the task.

This battle also exposed the strength of the Imperial Air Force in space warfare.

Unfortunately, the high-energy laser emitter deployed in the far north has been scrapped, and the other one will take several months to repair.

As for the third laser emitter, I'm afraid it will have to wait more than half a year.

That is, the Imperial Air Force will not be able to deal with satellites in high orbit in the short term, and can only hope that the Nuland Republic will not carry out a supplementary network launch in the short term.

In any case, the Air Force is already using all its strength.

Of course, the Nuland Air Force will definitely launch a counterattack and attack the satellites of the Reich.

At this point, the conditions were ripe for a decisive battle of the fleet.

It was only after receiving the news that the Air Force had launched a space operation that Bai Huawei gave the order to turn and put the fleet into combat mode.

If nothing else, the most stubborn will encounter the Nuland fleet on the morning of the 13th.

If the Nuland fleet had moved eastward, and had maintained a sufficiently fast speed, the decisive battle of the fleet might have begun in the early morning of the 13th.

Perhaps, the attack on the Nuland fleet would begin on the night of the 12th.

The key depends on whether the long-range patrol aircraft deployed in the Howai Islands can detect the Nuland fleet in time!