At about 1 p.m. on December 10, Alamein time, German reconnaissance planes spotted the British Mediterranean Fleet advancing rapidly westward in the waters north of El Alamein and immediately sent a telegram: 4 large ships, suspected battleships; 2 medium-sized ships, suspected heavy cruisers; Eight small ships, all destroyers, immediately took action according to the air strangulation plan formulated by the A4 plan.

At 14:38, the British fleet sounded the air defense alarm, but after checking the German planes that pounced, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, all of them were Fw-190s, and they did not carry bombs. Andrew asked suspiciously, "Sir, are the Germans in their brains?" Can a fighter jet sink us? ”

"It can't sink us, but it's dangerous above our heads." Pointing to the P-40 or Tomahawk in the sky, Harwood said, "Do you dare to continue to advance without air cover?" ”

"I ......" Andrew wanted to say daring, but when he thought of the example of two battleships of the Z Fleet sent to the Far East being quickly sunk by Japanese bombers without air cover, he felt that he could not be so aggressive.

"Then we can only ask the command to send another plane to cover us."

"That's a delay, isn't it?" Harwood frowned and said, "What we lack most now is time, and with every minute we have, the Germans grow a little stronger." ”

"Why didn't General Alexander send us more planes? Even if Cairo and Alexandria do not have them, General Ted's desert air force should have no shortage of aircraft. ”

Harwood didn't say much, only sighed there. He knew the truth better than Andrew: Ted's desert air force, despite its large number of warplanes, had seen its losses skyrocket since the two sides clashed in Tobruk earlier this month. In just ten days, more than 600 planes have been lost, although more than half of them are bombers, but the loss of fighters should not be underestimated, and the P-40s do not have an advantage in the operation, the battle loss rate is quite high, and the more critical point is that the main force of the desert air force is still in the west. It would take time to get back to respond, and although Alexander assured him that the P-40 would be sent to cover the fleet as long as there was one, it was not known exactly when it would come.

No one was ready for war in early December. The Eighth Army did not, the Egyptians did not, and neither did the Mediterranean Fleet—everyone was expecting the warships, planes, and land forces from Operation Torch to come to Egypt to reinforce them, but they didn't expect the Germans to take the lead before the reinforcements arrived.

"This sucks......"

The pilots of both sides quickly approached. Thirty-two P-40s bravely met the opposite Fw-190 and began to fight. The sailors on the deck of the warship cheered for their comrades in the air, and always clapped and cheered for victory whenever a plane was shot down, but when the plane fell to the surface, everyone was stunned again - most of the planes that fell were British planes.

Seventeen minutes later, 36 Fw-190s had shot down all 32 P-40s with clever tactics and superior performance, losing only nine of them. It is worth mentioning that even if the P-40s were always at a disadvantage, none of the pilots fled the battlefield. All fought to the last moment until they were shot down.

"Anti-aircraft fire readiness." Looking at the German planes that swooped down, the poignant sirens sounded on the warships. In view of the fact that the fighters did little damage to the warship and in order to prevent accidental hits, most of the anti-aircraft guns did not fire just now, and now there is naturally no such concern, and one after another the firelight flew from the warship and hit the German aircraft group, but unfortunately the accuracy was not good, and most of the shells missed, but the decks of the ships experienced a strafing fire by the Fw-190, and dozens of sailors were killed and wounded on the open gun emplacements.

Fifteen minutes later, after venting, the Fw-190 took the initiative to pull away from it, and Andrew pinched the telegram and said to Harwood with a heavy heart: "Sir, the second group of cover planes will arrive in 30 minutes, and General Alexander wants us to continue to hold on - as long as it gets dark everything will be fine." ”

Harwood looked at the sky and then at the wall clock on the wall, it was not yet a quarter past 3, and there were still 3 hours before dark, he sighed: "This can only be the case, the course and speed remain the same, and the ships are on high alert for air firepower." ”

At 3:27, before the covering planes arrived, the British Mediterranean Fleet sounded the air defense alarm again, and the lookout post reported another enemy aircraft in the northwestern sky: 4 He-177s, under the cover of 12 Bf-109s, pounced on the British Mediterranean Fleet.

"Attention ships, the enemy aircraft have bombers this time."

Seeing that it was a large aircraft like He-177 and there were not many of them, Andrew's mood relaxed a lot, and he was most afraid of rushing over to the brigade Stuka, which was too much of a threat to the fleet, but He-177 was not in his eyes, as long as the officer at the helm was smart, it would not cause substantial damage to the warship.

But this time the group of planes is a little strange, has been flying at an altitude of more than 5500 meters, the altitude does not drop, the speed is also very fast, looking at the He-177s who have been holding high, Andrew asked suspiciously: "They fly so high is it useful?" Do you really think that high-altitude bombing can also hit us? ”

Harwood didn't know what was going on, but his intuition told him that the planes were dangerous, and he reminded the ships to pay attention to air defense.

His instincts were right, the He-177s led by Captain Uber were not ordinary aerial bombs, but the latest technology of the Third Reich - remote-controlled bombs Hs-293.

This is a new equipment developed by a research team led by Junkers engineer Professor Wagner in 1939, which was originally based on the concept of an unpowered gliding bomb proposed by the Gustav Schwarz propeller factory, and was made into the Hs-293V2 gliding bomb in May 1940 by equipping ordinary aerial bombs with light alloy wings and tails. In view of the uncontrollable track of the gliding bomb and the short range of action, the bomb and its carrier aircraft were later equipped with radio command receiving and transmitting systems respectively, so that the bomb had the ability to maneuver and attack, and then successfully developed the Hs-293V3 controllable gliding bomb. The test results showed that the unpowered Hs-293V3 lacked sufficient speed to penetrate the armor of the battleship, and it was decided to add a rocket booster to it to increase the speed and range, the improved model was called Hs-293A0, and the improved Hs-293A1 was put into production in January 1942, and the KG100 and the KG40 in France were the first two units to be equipped with this weapon.

Under Hoffman's request to accelerate the development of missiles, German engineers further intensified the improvement of this guided bomb, engineers improved the new model and called it Hs-293A2, which can be easily hung on the external hardpoint, the aircraft is used to warm up the rocket engine before launch through a special engine exhaust pipe, for this smart bomb weighing nearly 600 kg, a He-177 can carry four at the same time. In addition to the He-177, the Fw-200, He-111H, Do-217K and Ju-290 can all be carried, the difference is only in the number.

"Sir, discover the British fleet." The navigator shouted excitedly, and by this time the small gray clouds in the air had gradually dissipated, and looking through the porthole, Uber could clearly spot a dozen irregular parallel tracks in the sea northwest of El Alamein—the British fleet had set up a wheeled anti-aircraft array. He waved his wings, and each of the groups selected a battleship/battlecruiser as the target, and began to fly horizontally and in a straight line, at this time the aircraft was at a high altitude and was not afraid of anti-aircraft fire from the sea.

"Report, the bomb is ready."

"Good, 10 seconds to prepare." Captain Uber said as he increased the throttle, and the plane got faster and faster until it exceeded 425 kilometers per hour - in order to provide enough power for the bomb, the carrier aircraft had to be launched at a minimum speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour.

“10、9、8…… Bombing! ”

One Hs-293 immediately fluttered down, and almost at the same time, the other three planes each dropped a remote-controlled bomb. Uber could see clearly, the bomb immediately fell in a parabolic trajectory, and he closed the throttle and put the flaps to reduce the speed of the plane to 200 km/h and maintain level flight as required, so that the bomber could observe the bomb's falling trajectory, and 12 Bf-109s vigilantly escorted the surrounding plane, which was the most dangerous moment for the carrier aircraft.

Under the operation of the bomber, the He-177 sends commands through the FuG-203 "Kiel" radio transceiver, and the receiver on the remote-controlled bomb adjusts the rudder surface to follow the warship's trajectory according to the commands. The speed of the bombs became faster and closer, and Andrew, who was observing from the flagship Prestige, was horrified to find that the Germans' bombs would actually turn - he saw that the rightmost Rodney had just turned 15 degrees to the right, and as a result, the bombs deftly turned in the air and continued to fly over, and the shouts of the Prestige rang out one after another, "Hell, there's a bomb coming at us!" ”

"What kind of monster is this......" he cried out in despair. The anti-aircraft gunners sprayed dense fire on the bombs, but they couldn't catch the Hs-293s with strange speed and flexible turning, and the bombs had fallen at a speed of more than 650 km/h, and in the face of the white arc waves formed by the battleship's evasive movement and the smoke of the anti-aircraft shells in the air, the bombers stared at the Hs-293's tail tracer light while correcting the trajectory and reading the seconds loudly: "...... 30 seconds, 31 seconds, 32 seconds......"

The first bomb penetrated the starboard side of the Rodney's front and exploded violently with a "boom". (To be continued.) )