When the order to start the joint exercises was transmitted to the Gorky airfield on the southeastern outskirts of Murmansk, the commander of the 14th Aviation Regiment of the Russian Navy and the laureate of the Russian Flight Medal, Colonel Alexey Tigrev, looked at the white fields at a loss. www.biquge.info Although all the ground staff and security personnel of the aviation regiment devoted themselves to the snow clearing work early in the morning, how could it be completed in two or three hours to clear the runway for aircraft to take off and land according to the requirements of their superiors?

Tigrev took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook out two, and gave one to his partner, the commissar of the aviation regiment Pavlyuchenko: "Comrade commissar, what do you say we should do?" ”

Pavlyuchenko raised his eyebrows and replied in a tone that seemed helpless and not helpless, as if he was depressed but not depressed: "What can I do? Send everyone who can get on it, and we're going to take off a bunch of fighters anyway before the enemy planes fly over us! ”

Colonel Tigrev did not make an immediate decision, but while swallowing the clouds, he asked rhetorically: "Doesn't the flight deck of an aircraft carrier be covered with snow and ice?" ”

Comrade Political Commissar said with a serious expression: "As far as I know, ships are very prone to freezing in windy and snowy weather, which is worse than on land. As for the Irish aircraft carriers, I think they must have a way to clean the flight deck quickly, such as with hot water or steam from the boilers, or keep their flight deck above freezing. The state leaders are all watching the exercise at the command headquarters, and it is a matter of national dignity and the honor of the troops, and we must speed up the exercise, treat this exercise as a real battle, and do it in a race against time! ”

Thinking of those bigwigs in the command, thinking of the honor of the 14th Air Regiment and even himself, Tigrev squinted his eyes and thought for a while, and nodded fiercely: "Yes, you must do it against time!" Correspondent, pick me up Colonel Loga Shaov of the air defense regiment! ”

After a few moments, the phone was connected, Tigrev turned out his cigarette butt and walked quickly to the telephone: "Hey, comrade colonel, hello, Alexei Tigreev greets you!" Haha, you deserve to be my big brother, I can't hide anything from you. Let's be honest, I'm in some trouble here, with the manpower I have, it will take two or three hours to clear the runway, and our opponent is the Irish Navy, which is known for its well-equipped and well-trained navy, and if it is to not fall behind in the exercise, it will have to pick up the pace...... Yes, Comrade Colonel, I know that you have your mission, but this is a non-live-fire exercise, and as long as your anti-aircraft artillery can make a sound, it will be considered effective, and we are going to take off fighters, but there is no runway, how can the plane go to the sky? We can't pretend that our plane has already taken off, can we? Yes, yes, Comrade Colonel, my big brother, that's what I mean...... That's great! On behalf of the entire 14th Air Regiment, I salute you! Haha, don't worry, this meal must be indispensable! ”

Putting down the phone, Tigrev put away his smiling face, turned to Pavlyuchenko and said: "The anti-aircraft artillery regiment immediately transferred two-thirds of its forces to support us. If all goes well, we'll be able to take off fighters in another hour, and then Samedov's 3rd Squadron will go first, and they will have the best take-off skills. ”

Comrade Commissar's thinking was not on the same point as Tigrev's, and he muttered: "We should have anticipated the difficulties in front of us, and if we had called for help from the anti-aircraft artillery regiment two hours earlier, the airstrip would have been almost cleared by now!" ”

Although this was not said out loud, it was undoubtedly a criticism of Tigrev, who once commanded the Caucasus and Persian battlefields and had a record of 42 shootdowns, the first ace of the Soviet Russian naval aviation responded with some unhappiness: "Having said that, before the start of the exercises, don't the anti-aircraft artillery regiments also have to do their preparations?" Besides, I thought that the weather would postpone the exercise! Even in a real war, commanders will advance or postpone the operation time considering the actual weather conditions! ”

Pavlyuchenko did not answer, and the two returned to the window in silence. In a short time, groups of black dots poured from all around the airport to the airport. Tigrev picked up the binoculars and looked at it, grinning his teeth and saying: "The comrades of the anti-aircraft artillery regiment are really interesting, it seems that everyone who can come has come!" Correspondent, inform all service units and guard battalions that they must carry forward the spirit of the Soviet Red Army that they are not afraid of hardship or fatigue, fight this exercise as if it were a real battle, and strive to clear the runway within 40 minutes! ”

The correspondent puffed up his chest: "Yes, Comrade Regiment Commander!" ”

When the correspondent left the room, Tigrev suddenly remembered something, and he quickly walked over to the large map hanging on the wall to look at it for a moment, then picked up a pencil and a ruler and measured it. At this moment, the phone rang, Pavlyuchenko was closest to the telephone, he hesitated, reached out and grabbed the microphone: "Hey, I'm Pavlyuchenko...... What the? Enemy aircraft are approaching the coast? How far is it from us now? Ok, I see, thank you ......"

Waiting for Pavlyuchenko to put down the microphone, Tigrev couldn't wait to ask: "Did the radar station detect enemy aircraft?" ”

Comrade Political Commissar frowned: "Yes, Comrade Tigrev, what we feared most has happened, about twenty enemy planes are rushing towards us, and we have only twenty minutes left to prepare. ”

"Twenty? Twenty minutes? Tigrev looked out the window, the service team of the aviation regiment, the guard battalion and two-thirds of the soldiers of the anti-aircraft artillery regiment were braving the snow to clear the runway, in his memory, this scene never appeared in any exercise, only in the winter when the fighting in the Caucasus was at its highest, the Soviet Russian aviation unit attacked several times in the snow, and basically achieved good results every time.

At this time, Pavlyuchenko glanced at Tigrev meaningfully: "The time left for the anti-aircraft artillery regiment is also only twenty minutes. ”

Tigrev gritted his teeth: "In this way, I will take the 3rd squadron up!" Comrade Political Commissar, you will stay at the regiment headquarters! ”

Pavlyuchenko opened his mouth, but stopped talking.

Tigrev didn't give him a chance to dissuade himself, and strode out the door in the direction of the hangar.

Comrade Political Commissar sighed and shook his head silently.

At the same time, in the air defense command room of the Gangut-class battleship "Mikhail Frunze", the young and vigorous Admiral Oia Yanbayev carelessly peeled off a special milk candy for the Navy. Beside him, Alexei Shishkin, a veteran non-commissioned officer with a vicissitudes of life, looked in all directions with a telescope, but in such a snowy weather, the line of sight on the sea was so bad that it was impossible to observe the plane hundreds of meters away with the naked eye. What's worse is that although this battleship, which was designed and built in the era of Tsarist Russia, was equipped with radar equipment independently developed by Soviet Russia in 1944, this kind of radar has extremely low reliability and extremely weak anti-jamming ability, not to mention that its effective detection range in rainy and snowy weather is only a few tens of kilometers.

Yanbayev, who was born in a science class, had milk candy in his mouth and said in a vague voice: "One of the major drawbacks of the monarchical **** country is that it does not take human life seriously, and how risky it is to force carrier-based aircraft to dispatch in this weather!" No matter how good the pilot's eyesight is, is it possible to let them fly to the height of the mast to drop bombs? Once the plane crashes into the sea, people only need to soak in the sea water at four or five degrees for an hour or two, and they will be frozen into popsicles! ”

Shishkin, who was born as an ordinary sailor, said lukewarmly and unhurriedly: "I heard that their aircraft is equipped with radar, and it should be able to observe the target position in bad weather instead of the naked eye!" ”

Yanbayev sneered: "If their airborne radar is indeed as rumored, to the extent that it replaces the naked eye for targeting, then they can be invincible in the world as long as they specially choose rain, snow and fog to carry out military operations." However, Ireland did not carry out any aggressive actions against any other country except the annexation of Wales and the entrenchment of the island of Bahrain, which is completely inconsistent with the essence of imperialism's pursuit of interests. In that regard, I feel that Ireland's military is not as strong as it has been rumored to be, and many times they are just bluffing. ”

Hearing this, Pushkin sighed silently, if every imperialist country had spared no effort to squeeze its people and carry out aggression, would the world still be what it is looking like?

As if he felt that what he had just said was a bit extreme, Yanbayev breathed a sigh of relief: "Then again, if the Irish Navy really has a significant technological strength ahead of ours, my next goal is to apply to Ireland for military exchange training." ”

As soon as the words fell, the ship's communications department called and said that they had received a report from the shore-based radar station that they had detected the appearance of two groups of enemy planes, one from the Gorky airfield and the other from the Northern Fleet. At the same time, the communications department reported that the ship's radar was still unable to effectively identify any sea or air targets, not even friendly ships that were close at hand.

Major Janbayev was stunned for a moment, and then he heard a terrible air defense siren sound, which meant that the whole ship was on anti-aircraft alert, and it was his turn to show his strength.

But looking at the snowy sea outside the porthole, Yanbayev was a little overwhelmed. From which direction and from what tactics will the enemy planes attack, how should they allocate the limited anti-aircraft firepower of this battleship, and how should they propose to the fleet commander a plan for organizing the linkage of the firepower of various ships? Taking a step back, perhaps the exercise opponent is simply using their usual bluff?

At this time, Janbayev knew that he would definitely not be able to count on the unreliable ship-based radar, and he pinned his hopes on the shore-based radar station to provide a more detailed report on the enemy situation in a timely manner, and conveyed his request to the communications department, but the communications commander gave a clear reply: The fleet commander had already ordered all ships to maintain radio silence, and they were only allowed to receive messages and not to take telegrams, so they could not make any requests to the shore-based radar station at this stage, unless Janbayev applied to the fleet commander for lifting the radio silence order. Radio direction finding technology has long been very mature militarily, which basically means that the fleet has taken the initiative to reveal its position to the adversary of joint exercises.

(End of chapter)