The time when the "Brilliant" was hit by the bomb was 2:35 a.m., and the bombing had already lasted for half an hour, and it stands to reason that the group should return to the sea at this time, after all, the attack distance was close to 300 nautical miles, and the fleet was sailing north, and if it wanted to return to the fleet, it would have to fly at least 25 nautical miles, and if too much time was wasted on the bombing, then when returning to the fleet, the bombers would have to "grab the deck," and then it would be easy to cause accidents, and even some bombers would not have time to land on the aircraft carrier and would have to make a forced landing on the sea.

Yang Qinkai quickly counted the situation of the fleet, and there were still 4 "water birds" and 8 "sea eagles" that had not used up their ammunition. This is enough to organize a coordinated attack, of course, it must be quite well coordinated, otherwise, after the "water birds" drop bombs, it will be difficult for the "sea eagles" to enter in time, and then the enemy ships will have enough time to evade the torpedoes after evading the bombs. This is a high-tech job, but Yang Qinkai has not given up, and he now needs to choose a target.

Yang Qinkai's chosen target was the one running at the front of the enemy fleet, and there was a four-mounted battleship with a double-mounted main turret in the bow direction, and this was Cunningham's flagship battleship "King George V".

"The torpedo planes entered first, and the bombers were two minutes late." Yang Qinkai directly dispatched the actions of the two aircraft groups, "The torpedo planes try to attract enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire, and the bombers see the time, don't waste ammunition and blow up this enemy battleship in one fell swoop!" ”

On the sea, eight "Sea Eagles" quickly approached, and the lookouts on the British battleships immediately raised the alarm, and all the anti-aircraft guns in the port direction were directed towards the approaching torpedo bombers. Cunningham also walked behind the porthole on the left side of the commander's bridge at this time. What he did not expect was that the enemy bombers would attack the battleship when they did not sink the "Brilliant". This is not the same as the previous order of strikes.

And he also felt that his luck was too bad, the enemy bombers picked the flagship of the fleet out of seven battleships, and this proportion was only one-seventh. Even among battleships of the same class, there is only a one-in-three chance. And the "King George V" does not have the word "flagship" written on it.

The eight "Sea Eagles" were quite fast, but they were not flexible enough, and before the torpedoes were dropped, the torpedo bombers were the worst of all carrier-based aircraft, and their greatest characteristic was that they were particularly strong. One of the "Sea Eagles" returned to the aircraft carrier after being hit by dozens of machine-gun bullets during the operation, and if it had been another fighter, I am afraid that it would have fallen into the sea at that time, let alone flew more than 200 nautical miles, and then landed on the aircraft carrier.

HMS George V also began to turn rapidly to the left. At that time, behind it was the "Anson" on its right, and if it turned right, it would easily collide with the "Anson", so it could only turn left, that is, face the direction of the torpedo bomber. At the same time, eight torpedo bombers were also adjusting on the course. Aim as far as you can at the side of the enemy battleship and fly away. At this time, the "Sea Eagle" at the rear of the formation was hit by an anti-aircraft shell, and after struggling twice, it hit the sea. At the time of the torpedo bomber's entry into the last mine-throwing channel. Another "Sea Eagle" was hit, but fortunately, this "Sea Eagle" dropped its torpedo in time and pulled it up with difficulty. In the end, it even flew out of the sky over the British fleet, and maybe it will be able to struggle to return to the first task force in the end!

When six white mines were fired at the King George V, Cunningham became nervous. As a senior admiral, he could see at a glance that the torpedo fired by the bombers of the Tang Empire was very accurate, and whether the battleship could dodge the torpedo depended on luck in addition to the captain's skills. Instead of dealing with the retreating torpedo bombers, the British gunners on the battleship aimed their guns at the approaching torpedoes, intending to intercept the torpedoes with anti-aircraft guns! But at this time, many people overlooked that above the head of the battleship, four dive bombers had already arrived and were about to enter the dive channel.

As Cunningham stared at the rapidly approaching torpedoes on the surface of the sea, the shrill whizzing of dive bombers came over. Not only Cunningham alone, but all the officers in the commander's bridge suddenly became nervous, relatively speaking, dive bombers were more threatening than torpedo bombers. Even if the British Navy did not know much about dive bombers during the operation (at that time, Britain had not yet introduced the "Avengers" from the United States), from the beginning of the battle, the bombing accuracy of dive bombers was much higher than that of torpedo bombers, and it was even more difficult to avoid the bombs dropped by dive bombers.

In the past, dive bombers were usually used to attract the enemy's anti-aircraft guns, and the torpedo bombers took the opportunity to enter, and then the second group of dive bombers entered. In this way, the enemy's anti-aircraft guns will have to concentrate on dive bombers, and there will be very few anti-aircraft guns that can be used against torpedo bombers. This time, it was the torpedo bombers who were responsible for attracting the opposing anti-aircraft guns, and the dive bombers were the last to enter, and it was clear that the anti-aircraft guns on the battleship would also be the first to deal with the torpedo bombers, and at the same time be able to evade the torpedoes as quickly as possible.

The dive of the four "waterfowl" was quite rapid, and in less than 20 seconds, four bombers dropped bombs at an altitude of 450 to 550 meters above the sea, and the four bombs covered almost all the directions that the battleship could avoid, and at least one bomb hit, and maybe two, or even three, if you were lucky.

"Hit it, blow it up!" The navigator in the back seat screamed first.

Seeing the three puffs of smoke rising from the enemy battleship, Yang Qinkai let out a sigh, the enemy battleship had been avoiding torpedoes, and when it discovered the dive bombers overhead, it was too late to make evasion actions, and when the battleship was evading bombs, it could not fully take into account the torpedoes under the sea surface. Shortly after the three bombs hit the "King George V", the battleship seemed to be struck by a huge hammer, and then a second blow, two torpedoes hit the port side of the battleship, and two huge columns of water also rose from the sea next to the port side of the battleship.

So far, all the bombers in Yang Qinkai's group have dropped bombs, and a total of nine "water birds" have been shot down during the bombing operation. Seven "Sea Eagles" were shot down, and another 17 escort "Golden Eagles" were shot down. And among other things, among the bombers returning to the fleet. Seven more were scrapped due to severe damage. Comparatively speaking, this loss is not large. Especially in terms of the results achieved, the losses of this bombing were much smaller than those of previous times against the American fleet.

"The fleet is ready to return, damn, it's cheap now!"

Yang Qinkai was a little unwilling, the battleship had not yet sunk. There's not even a sign of sinking.

"Confirm the specific location of the aircraft that made the forced landing, contact the fleet as soon as possible, and rescue the overboard pilot. Where is the Qiu Gengbo fleet now? ”

"It's just west of us, in about twenty minutes."

Yang Qinkai nodded. "Then let's go back and replenish ammunition first, maybe Qiu Gengbo's madman can't completely solve the enemy, and when the time comes, we still have a chance!"

The group immediately returned in formation, and there were no fighters in the sky over the British expeditionary fleet, and the escort fighter group led by An Shile did not continue to stay, after waiting for Yang Qinkai and them to fly west. He also went up with fighter jets.

At this time, on the sea, only the captain of the "Brilliant" had not yet given the order to abandon the ship.

Efforts are still being made to salvage the aircraft carrier, while the captains of the other two aircraft carriers have given up the salvage work one after another.

The situation on the site of "King George V" was not much better, two of the three bombs penetrated the horizontal armor plate, and one exploded above the boiler compartment. Damaged a boiler compartment. The other exploded in the rear of the main turret, and if the passage between the turret and the ammunition bay had not been closed in time, and there was no ammunition in the turret, the bomb would have caused fatal damage. The third bomb exploded in the ship's secondary gun group on the port side, failing to penetrate the armor and causing much less damage, but rendering several anti-aircraft guns unusable. The most famous are the two torpedoes, one of which exploded outside the port side A engine room of the battleship, causing the engine room to enter the water. The other exploded outside the heavy oil tank on the port side, and although it did not cause more damage, it caused a serious oil leak from the battleship, and blew up several nearby bulkheads, causing water into at least four compartments.

Just as Yang Qinkai's group began to retreat, Cunningham left the flagship and prepared to transfer to the battleship "Lion". And in order to allow him to move to the new flagship, the "Lion" slowed down, and as a result, the battleship was originally behind the butt of the "King George V", and by the time Cunningham boarded, the battleship had fallen to the back of the six capital ships in the fleet.

The captain of the HMS George V did not give up the work of salvaging the battleship, and could not abandon the battleship until the last moment. Cunningham did not interfere with the captain's work, he knew very well that every captain in the fleet would not give up his warship easily, and he also gave the captain the necessary power to abandon the battleship and save the officers and men on the battleship when there was no hope.

It can be said that Cunningham's mood at this time is quite complicated. Before setting off with the expeditionary fleet, he did not have much time to learn about the situation of the Tang Imperial Navy, after all, he received an urgent order, and immediately after returning to Portsmouth, he led the fleet on the road. Later, he received a lot of information from the Tang Imperial Navy, among which the US Navy provided him with a large amount of information, all of which emphasized the powerful aviation strike force of the Tang Imperial Aircraft Carrier Task Force and the high efficiency of the Tang Imperial Navy's carrier-based bombers. If Cunningham had been a little skeptical before that, he now had no doubts at all about the information provided to him by the Americans. During the entire bombing, the bomber group of the Don Empire almost exerted the destructive power of bombs and torpedoes to the limit, and even the best British naval bomber units could not reach this level!

The battle was not over, Yang Qinkai's group withdrew at 2:50 p.m., and the bombing operation lasted nearly 50 minutes, while the Qiu Gengbo group only set off about an hour later than Yang Qinkai's group.

Before three o'clock, the two groups encountered about 50 nautical miles west of the British Expeditionary Fleet, and when the two sides staggered, the two captains of the group and the two fighter groups on escort missions were already shouting in the group's communication channel.

"Lao Yang, I heard that your kid's shit luck is good, and he also killed a battleship, but this time it's our turn." Qiu Gengbo must be the loudest of the four, "You can sleep well after you go back, you don't need to come over again, we have all the enemy ships covered!" ”

"Bullshit, don't be complacent, don't be complacent, I'll hang up the bomb and set off when I go back, and then you kid don't let me call a rescue plane for you!" Yang Qinkai did not show weakness, "Be careful, the anti-aircraft firepower of the enemy battleship is not very strong, but there is also a lot of threat, I don't want to be missing one when playing mahjong in the future!" ”

"Yes, yes, Qiu Gengbo, don't mess around, otherwise, the commander will want you to go back to train recruits!" An Shile also laughed, Qiu Gengbo was the object of everyone's jokes.

"You crow's mouth, the commander won't let me go, I'm the pillar of the First Task Force!"

As soon as Qiu Gengbo's words came out, he immediately attracted a boo, no matter how good Qiu Gengbo felt about himself, the other three captains would not admit that he was the pillar of the First Task Force, otherwise, what did Zheng Guanhua do when he talked about Renhao?

"Lao An, how many fighters are there in the sky over the enemy fleet?" Yao Boyan is the eldest of the four, and some of them don't like jokes the most.

"There aren't many, the remaining ones have been driven away by us, you brought bombs this time?"

"Yes, if there is no threat from fighter jets, then we don't have to drop the bombs."

"Damn, the commander is so eccentric!" An Shile immediately shouted, "Old Yang, let's hurry up, I also want to taste the taste of dropping bombs on enemy ships!" ”

After the four of them said goodbye to each other, they didn't waste any more time. This time, they will not only have to compete with their enemies, but also with their own people. Yang Qinkai has already added three aircraft carriers and one battleship to his record, and Qiu Gengbo naturally refuses to lag behind, otherwise he will not be able to keep his position as the number one bomber ace of the First Task Force. And after staggering with Yang Qinkai's group, Qiu Gengbo immediately assigned tasks to his group, and he didn't want to delay any longer.