"Freshly soaked, take two sips, wake up?"

Hearing the greeting, Bai Zhizhan turned around and caught the thermos cup handed over by Li Mingbo. It is indeed tea, and it is strong tea.

Li Mingbo is now a major and a seafaring staff officer of the 1st Air Task Force.

In 87 of the new calendar, the year Bai Zhizhan was promoted to major, he took Bai Zhizhan's letter of recommendation to the Naval Academy for three years of competency training. Because he was a non-commissioned officer who had served in the Navy for eight years, after completing the training, Li Mingbo received the rank of lieutenant and returned to his original unit to report.

After that, he went to the air detachment where the White Stop War was located, and has been following the White Stop Battle.

The year before last, after Li Jie returned to the home fleet as a captain, Li Mingbo served as a navigation staff officer in the capacity of a temporary generation, and became a regular last year.

Probably because of the reason for becoming a monk halfway, Li Mingbo's ability is worse than Li Jie, who was born in a professional class, but in the aviation task force, the work pressure of the navigation staff officer is not very high, and the requirements for timeliness are not very high, so even if the ability is poor, he can be competent.

Interestingly, after becoming an officer, Li Mingbo became a good man who didn't drink at all.

In his own words, it was a sense of crisis that only a middle-aged man who got married and became a father could experience with a large family to support.

"I went and asked, and within half an hour, the last few reconnaissance planes to take off will arrive at the turning point. To continue the strike, it is necessary to have other warships send seaplanes. Li Mingbo paused for a moment before saying, "If you want to adjust, it's best to arrange it now." ”

Bai Zhizhan didn't say a word, raised his binoculars and looked at the towering battleship a few kilometers away.

It was upgraded to a fast battleship after three modernizations, but it was part of the Home Fleet and temporarily assigned to the "North River" of the First Air Task Force.

She was the sword-bearing escort of the "Longjiang", the last anti-aircraft barrier.

Fleet exercises over the past 10 years or so, especially in recent years, have repeatedly proved that in high-intensity battles, an air defense warship with fierce firepower can often decide the life and death of an aircraft carrier, and can even have a decisive impact on the outcome of a naval battle.

The ideal air defense warship must have a huge deck, fast enough speed and good stability.

This is talking about battle cruisers and fast battleships.

For this reason, in the third modernization and improvement, the "Beihe" and other four newly upgraded fast battleships have all focused on strengthening their anti-aircraft firepower.

In addition, in the aviation task force, the fast battleship is also the flagship of the formation, to be precise, the command ship.

According to the unwritten rule, the commander of the fleet sits in command of the ship, and the commander of the task force, which is under the command of the naval command, is on the aircraft carrier.

"What about the weather forecast?" After asking, Bai Zhizhan put down the binoculars.

"The weather reconnaissance plane hasn't come back yet, but looking at the sky, it's definitely going to rain tonight. It's winter, and it's going to be a few days in a row. ”

Bai Zhizhan glanced at his watch, and then rubbed his forehead.

It's already past two o'clock.

For more than ten years, from a grassroots officer, he has climbed step by step to the position of chief of staff of the special task force, and Bai Zhizhan admires only one person.

That's right, it was his sworn rival and old enemy, Colonel Liu Xiangzhen, chief of staff of the Second Air Task Force.

Although both of them are only chiefs of staff, not commanders, they have played the leading role in the fleet exercises over the years, and the others have all played supporting roles.

Last year, after three rounds of fierce battles, the First Air Task Force under the command of Bai Zhizhan won by a narrow margin.

Because the ruling was made by the referee team, there were non-negligible deviations, so according to Zhu Shijian's intentions, the results of the exercise were not recorded in the files of the two.

This year, it's been almost half a month, and the two sides haven't fought each other, not to mention that they haven't fought each other!

Bai Zhizhan has two aircraft carriers in his hands, and Liu Xiangzhen also has two, and both sides play the role of two aviation task forces, and the air force will be doubled.

This setting is actually an imitation of an imaginary enemy.

However, this also means that the side that is exposed first will inevitably suffer a devastating blow, and it is very likely that there will not even be a chance to fight back.

Very brutal!

However, this is precisely a major feature of modern naval warfare with aircraft carriers and aviation as the main forces.

It is precisely because of this that Bai Zhizhan is extremely cautious.

There is no doubt that Liu Xiangzhen is the same.

The problem now is that the cold airstream from the north has moved south, which is expected to arrive tonight, and the rainy weather is likely to continue for several days.

Fighting on a rainy day?

It's not impossible, it's just that it will greatly reduce the combat efficiency.

Not to mention anything else, because of the reduced visibility, to carry out reconnaissance and search missions in the same range, it is necessary to dispatch three times as many reconnaissance aircraft on rainy days.

Moving south to avoid the rolling cumulonimbus clouds?

Yes, but that must be the other person's dream, because it is really too easy to guess.

The White Cessation War is waiting.

That's why he specifically asked for the weather forecast.

But now it seems that if it rains in the evening, I am afraid that I will have to reconsider whether to arrange a reconnaissance operation in the afternoon.

Also, will water planes be used, or carrier-based aircraft will be dispatched?

If you still haven't found it, it's nothing, it's a big deal to turn around after dark and get out of the dangerous sea under the cover of cumulonimbus clouds.

The point is, if you find it, how do you deal with it?

Don't forget, this is a real exercise, not a rhetorical exercise.

In the First Carrier-based Air Wing, that is, the air unit subordinate to the First Air Task Force, less than one-third of the pilots have mastered the technique of landing at night, and none of the pilots have 100 percent certainty, and the overall success rate of landing on a ship is at most 30 percent.

Recovering carrier-based aircraft at night is tantamount to playing with the pilot's life.

In addition, there is a time lag that must not be overlooked.

To put it simply, if the group of planes dispatched by Bai Zhizhan launched an attack in the evening, Liu Xiangzhen would be able to wait for work and use all his strength to carry out air defense operations. Regardless of the outcome of the attack, the carrier-based aircraft sent out by Bai Zhizhan had to return after dark, and then most of the carrier-based aircraft crashed when they landed. Although these carrier-based aircraft will return to their home airfields for safety reasons, they will still be counted as battle damage for the purposes of the exercise.

This means that the white stop war must be desperate.

On the battlefield of the ocean, which commander has the guts to take a desperate gamble?

If you don't have to do it as a last resort, or if you are absolutely sure, let alone stop the war in vain, let the god of war Chen Bingxun come, and you will definitely not make a desperate bet.

How exactly should I fight?

Instead of waiting to find an opponent before making a decision, we have to make a decision now, because it is related to whether or not to use carrier-based aircraft to carry out reconnaissance missions.

The speed of the seaplane was too slow.

At this moment, the hatch to the commander's bridge opened, and a young staff officer hurried out.

"Report!"

When the young staff officer handed over the telegram, Li Mingbo grabbed it, and then waved his hand to let the staff officer return to the commander's bridge.

After a quick glance, Li Mingbo's face changed.

Something bad happened?

Bai Zhizhan didn't ask much and took the message.

Just one sentence: the exercise is over, return to the headquarters quickly.