About twenty minutes before Chang Jianxin encountered the French Expeditionary Fleet, that is, just after two o'clock, Yang Qinkai's fleet found the British Expeditionary Fleet. This was about 20 minutes later than the scheduled time, mainly because the previous reconnaissance plane was driven away by the air defense fighters over the British Expeditionary Fleet, and Yang Qinkai adjusted their course several times during the flight, so they flew dozens of nautical miles more and finally found the British Expeditionary Fleet. And the first to arrive was not bombers, but 36 escort fighters led by Colonel Ellsler himself.

"Colonel, look, that's the British's fleet, oh my God, a lot of battleships!"

Hearing the screams of the wingman pilot, Ellsler hurriedly looked at the sea ahead. The seven capital ships, accompanied by numerous escort warships, sailed at high speed to the north, and judging from the length of the battleships' wake tracks, the speed of the fleet was more than 24 knots. Then Ellsler saw the three aircraft carriers in front of the fleet, and he swallowed his saliva, which was too tempting to target.

"Be careful—"

Ansler reflexively pressed down the operating stick, and when the "Golden Eagle" began to dive, the two F4U also dived down from the direction of the sun, it seems that this group of British fighter pilots is still very experienced, knowing that approaching from the direction of the sun is the most difficult for the other party to find.

"Damn, play with me, play with you to death!" Ann Sler also came to the fire, in the past, he bit the enemy's ass and beat him, but now he was bitten by two enemy planes on his ass, "Follow me, wait and pull up with me, let the British know what the real trump card is!" ”

The Golden Eagle is much better at diving than the F4U and surpasses the F4U in terms of ultimate speed. What's more, Ellsler and his partner are both super aces, and Ellsler has a record of 89. When he went out with the fleet, he was only 5 less than Jiang Wenhan. And his partner also got 34 records. The two were arguably the best pair of fighter partners in the Imperial Navy.

Two "Golden Eagles" were seen to suddenly slow down after a rapid roll in an almost impossible way. Then when pulled up at an incredible angle, the British pilots on the F4U were surprised and at the same time saw that the cockpit of these two enemy planes was densely painted with battle mark marks! By the time the two British pilots reacted from the shock, the "Golden Eagles" had already circled behind their butts, and then the 20-mm machine guns flew over.

". The British are just like that, listening to the German pilots, the British still have some ability, if this is the ability, then let's let the British see, what is the real trump card. Haha......"

Amid Ansler's maniacian laughter, the two "Golden Eagles" flew rapidly in the air, and the other escort fighters were already entangled with the anti-aircraft fighters of the British fleet. If the battlefield this time is "Falcon", I'm afraid that Ansle and they won't be able to take much advantage. The skills of the fighter pilots of the British Naval Air Force are still good, and most of the British Naval ground fighter pilots have participated in air defense operations on the mainland. As well as fighting in North Africa, a lot of combat experience has been accumulated. Comparatively speaking, the quality of the British Navy's fighter pilots was much better than that of the American Navy's pilots who were sent to the front-line combat units just after leaving the aviation school. Compared with these "old fritters" of the Imperial Navy, they are still a lot worse. The biggest gap is still the performance of the fighter itself.

The "Golden Eagle" is designed entirely for the U.S. Navy's F4U, as well as advanced fighters such as the F67 and F4U later models, which are only equipped with troops. In terms of performance, it is much better than the "Falcon", and the British aircraft carrier carries an earlier model of the F4U, which simply cannot be compared with the "Golden Eagle" in performance.

The number of British fighters made up for the qualitative gap to a certain extent, but it could not completely turn the situation around. Within ten minutes, nearly 20 F4Us were beaten down, while less than 10 "Golden Eagles" were shot down and were wounded and forced to withdraw from the battle. In these ten minutes, Ansrow had already shot down three F4Us, and the battlefield had reached the vicinity of the British fleet.

"Prepare to withdraw, damn it, where's that bastard Yang Qinkai?" Ansler did not venture into the range of the enemy fleet's anti-aircraft guns, and he did not want to be a martyr here.

"It's coming, it's down there, it's assaulting!"

Ellsloth also saw the bomber group attacking below it, but he was surprised that the anti-aircraft fire of the enemy fleet was not fierce, and could even be said to be sparse. In Ansler's opinion, this was a strange thing, the American battleships had hundreds of anti-aircraft guns, and the heavy cruisers that were sunk were also very numerous.

The British fleet had seven battleships and battlecruisers, so the anti-aircraft fire must have been fierce, but this is not the case now.

"Lao An, the enemy plane has gone to deal with our bombers!"

"Damn, go cover the bomber, fuck it, don't worry about the anti-aircraft guns, otherwise Yang Qinkai, this bastard will gossip about us again when he goes back!"

The escorting fighters immediately dived down and soon entered dangerous airspace, but the anti-aircraft fire on the enemy battleship was still not very dense and did not even break up the bomber group. At this time, not only Ansler was strange, but even Yang Qinkai felt strange. Strange to strange, for bomber pilots like Yang Qinkai, it is better for the enemy's warships to be like merchant ships, without a single anti-aircraft gun, so that they will not be in any danger.

When Zheng Guanhua first arranged the bombing mission, the main assault target of Yang Qinkai's group was the battleships in the British Expeditionary Fleet, not the aircraft carriers, and after ensuring that the enemy battleships were heavily damaged, if there was any ammunition left, they would attack the aircraft carriers in the British Expeditionary Fleet. At the beginning, Yang Qinkai felt a headache about this task. In the Pacific Ocean, Yang Qinkai knew that battleships were actually more difficult to deal with than aircraft carriers, and even heavy cruisers armed with a large number of anti-aircraft guns were more difficult to deal with than aircraft carriers. Therefore, in previous operations, unless there was an extremely sufficient force, unless there was an extremely sufficient force, it would not have considered dealing with the escort warships before killing the enemy aircraft carriers, but this time it was the opposite.

Later, Zheng Guanhua changed his plans. Let Yang Qinkai deal with the aircraft carrier first, and then the battleship. But Yang Qinkai didn't feel so relaxed. Although in the Pacific theater, the US Navy has not escorted aircraft carriers with fast battleships. However, the US Navy has specially built six super cruisers with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons, which are responsible for escorting aircraft carriers. And after these six battleships entered the war. Yang Qinkai: They have suffered a lot. This time, the British expeditionary fleet was full of fast battleships, and if these battleships were all escorting aircraft carriers, then they would definitely have to suffer a lot to take out those three aircraft carriers!

The sparse network of fire formed by large-caliber anti-aircraft artillery shells is simply not effective in dispersing bomber groups, but in the air defense of the fleet. The main task of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns is to force the enemy aircraft group to disperse, so that the enemy aircraft group cannot concentrate its forces to attack. In time, after the large-scale use of VT shells, large-caliber anti-aircraft guns have the disadvantages of low firing rate and slow rotational angular speed, so it is difficult to undertake the task of close-range air defense, and their main role is still to force the enemy aircraft group to disperse, so that other small-caliber anti-aircraft guns and air defense fighters have more opportunities to annihilate enemy bombers in batches by attacking alone. But the question is, if large-caliber anti-aircraft guns want to play this role.

Then you have to have a certain density of firepower. And it is impossible for any warship to be equipped with too many large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, so the importance of VT shells is quite obvious.

Anti-aircraft guns on battleships of the British Navy had a caliber of 133 mm, and VT shells were not used. The effect can be imagined. Yang Qinkai often attacked the fierce artillery fire of the US 127 mm VT shells in the Pacific Ocean, and when facing the British Navy's 133 mm ordinary artillery shells, they were naturally more handy. And at this time, the greatest threat to the bomber group was not those large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Rather, got rid of the escort fighters, the British fighters that had already killed.

"Try to keep up, contact that bastard at Ansle!" Yang Qinkai was also anxious, he roared while looking at the position of the enemy fighter in the surrounding sky. "Damn, when has this been, I only know that I am fighting myself, call the escort group of Ansle!"

The backseat navigator had already called. The bomber group was still based on squads, maintaining a dense formation towards the core of the British fleet.

The escort fighters led by Ansler also quickly followed, and the fighters of both sides strangled each other in the air, while the bomber group continued to accelerate, rushing into the inner air defense circle of the enemy fleet as soon as possible, so the enemy air defense fighters did not dare to follow up easily.

After these bombers were shot down, they were divided into two groups of bombers and entered the inner air defense circle of the British expeditionary fleet, that is, the fire killing range of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns. When Yang Qinkai felt that the shells around him were not dense, he was even more surprised. It is not strange that there are not many large-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the battleships, but the problem is that any large warship of the Tang Empire and the US Navy has hundreds of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, and these anti-aircraft guns pose an even greater threat to bombers than large-caliber anti-aircraft guns. But on British battleships, there were not so many small-caliber anti-aircraft guns!

In fact, at that time, the British Navy was hardly exposed to air threats in the North Atlantic, and the British Navy did not take into account the strengthening of anti-aircraft fire when designing the battleships of the "King George V" and "Lion" classes. At the time of the construction of the "Thing" class, some people suggested that the anti-aircraft firepower of the "Lion" class was too weak to survive in a battle with serious air threats, and some even proposed to stop the construction of the "Lion" class and design new battleships with better anti-aircraft firepower. However, at that time, the construction of the "Lion" class was already in full swing, and in order to strengthen the anti-aircraft firepower, it was necessary to strengthen the structural strength of the deck, which required a large-scale transformation of the battleship, not to mention the delay in the construction period, and a lot of additional expenses would be spent. Therefore, the work on the transformation of the "Lion" class was abandoned. The situation is similar in the "King George V" class. When these two types of battleships were incorporated into the expeditionary fleet, their anti-aircraft firepower was not strengthened, and the total number of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns added up to more than 50 guns. Compared with the battleships and even air defense cruisers in the Tang Imperial Navy and the US Navy at that time, which often had hundreds of small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, this gap was very huge. The first type of battleship of the British Navy that was designed with the air threat in mind was the "Avant-garde", which was still under construction.

When the bomber flew over the battleship on the periphery, Yang Qinkai swallowed his saliva, he was also a little greedy, in the battle, he had never bombed the enemy's battleship!

But he soon stopped thinking about it, his target was the aircraft carrier in front, and this was repeatedly emphasized to him by the chief of staff before departure, as long as the three British aircraft carriers were knocked out, then the Qiu Gengbo aircraft group could bury the British expeditionary fleet. Moreover, Yang Qinkai still has a chance to drop a bomb again.

"Lao Yang, this time I'm going to be cheap Qiu Gengbo's bastard again!"

"Damn, don't worry so much, complete our task first, and when the time comes, who will be responsible for dropping the last bomb, it's not for sure!"

When Yang Qinkai saw the three aircraft carriers in front of him, he was surprised for the third time, there were only a few light cruisers and destroyers near these three aircraft carriers, and the battleships in the British Expeditionary Fleet were not near the aircraft carriers at all, that is to say, the battleships in the British Expeditionary Fleet, which should be the most powerful in anti-aircraft firepower, did not take on the task of escorting aircraft carriers. It can be said that in addition to the Japanese Navy at the beginning of the war, on the battlefield, this is the first time that Yang Qinkai and his team have seen a battleship nearby, and the battleship does not escort the aircraft carrier!

The British Navy is the only European country that has an aircraft carrier and has used it to participate in battles (the French Navy also has an aircraft carrier, but it has not participated in the battle, and the aircraft carriers of Germany, Italy and other countries have not yet been built), and the aircraft carriers of the British Navy have only been sunk by the enemy's capital ships and submarines in battles, and have not been subjected to too many air threats, and the British Navy has not considered providing air defense cover for aircraft carriers. Even though the US Navy has suffered a lot of losses in the Pacific Ocean, the British Navy has not yet participated in the battles in the Pacific, so it is difficult to have an intuitive understanding of the situation in which aircraft carriers are threatened by the air.

encountered so many things that he couldn't imagine before, Yang Qinkai can be regarded as an "eye-opener"

Finish. But he didn't relax, three aircraft carriers were in front of him, and he didn't want to fly away like a boiled duck!