After receiving the latest news about the enemy's two cruisers from the pilots of their own air force, the "chess game" in front of Vice Admiral Billangelli and Rear Admiral Mandragora suddenly changed: if they continued to search for the enemy aircraft carrier formation, they could find an excellent opportunity to attack them, or they could return home; Locking on and attacking enemy cruisers may miss the opportunity to kill enemy carriers, leaving a huge hidden danger for future combat operations, but there is also a good chance of sinking enemy cruisers.

The two paths, the right choice, Vice Admiral Biankelly and Rear Admiral Mandragora, can be successful and promising, the wrong choice, at least one person will have to bear the blame for the defeat of the Navy.

Rear Admiral Mandragora, who came from a military family, was young but not impressed, and although he had a tendency in his heart, he did not make up his own mind, but contacted the flagship and asked the "Aquila" to give priority to searching for enemy carriers or attacking enemy cruisers.

The situation on the battlefield was complicated, and the contrast between victory and defeat was delicate, and Vice Admiral Billang Kelly dragged on for nearly 10 minutes before giving a very unpleasant reply: The enemy aircraft carrier poses a great threat to us, and we should do everything we can to find out where it is and strive to make it incapacitated, and if this cannot be achieved, we should attack the enemy cruiser on the run and win a victory that invigorates the morale of the army.

The implication is that if there is an opportunity to attack the enemy carriers, they will do their best, but if they cannot be found at all, then pack up the enemy cruisers.

By the time he received the flagship's reply, Rear Admiral Mandragora had little choice, because the flight deck was full of fighters waiting to fly, and the fuel supply of the fighters on duty before him could not last long......

Although the "Aquila" has a standard displacement of more than 37,000 tons, and its hull specifications and deck size are among the highest among the active aircraft carriers of various countries, it is a traditional straight-through deck design and does not have the ability to fly and receive carrier-based aircraft at the same time. After the Irish built a new aircraft carrier with an oblique flight deck, countries have studied and imitated, and the Italian Navy also planned to overhaul the flight deck of the "Aquila".

As a result, the modernization and modification plan of the "Aquila" was put on hold, and before learning that the new United Kingdom and Austria-Hungary were waging war against Italy, the Italian navy top brass was not too anxious about this matter, after all, the old ships of the Austro-Hungarian navy could not pose a threat to the "young and strong" Italian navy, and the Japanese navy had already begun to build their first beveled flight deck aircraft carrier, and in another year or two the Italian navy would be able to pick up the ready-made technology of the secret ally.

The enemy aircraft carriers were obviously located somewhere in the western Mediterranean, and the two groups of combat reconnaissance planes sent in succession could not find them, so Rear Admiral Mandragora had no choice but to send 46 carrier-based planes loaded with fuel and ammunition and on standby on the flight deck to attack the enemy cruisers.

In the process of designing and building the "Aquila", Italian engineers incorporated the carrier-based aircraft ejection technology obtained from the Japanese Navy, and installed three steam catapults for the heavy aircraft carrier, which greatly improved the sortie efficiency of carrier-based aircraft and the number of carrier-based aircraft taking off in a single batch. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the ship's service personnel, 18 G.59 carrier-based fighters, 18 MC.3O2 carrier-based dive bombers and 1O BA.133 carrier-based torpedo bombers took off in no more than 16 minutes!

More than 4oo kilometers away, the aircraft carriers "Fenian" and "Togast", which belong to the Mediterranean Task Force Combat Fleet of the New United Kingdom Navy, are heading southward under the cover of elite escort ships such as the heavy cruiser "Etholon". The reason why this sizable maritime formation was able to avoid the sight of Italian combat reconnaissance planes was not because they were good at blinding and stealth, but because they skillfully used the advantage of radar technology. In terms of detection range alone, the AI-made IR-44T's carrier-based radar is not much better than the Italian-made G.59's ox fork, but before the Italian carrier-based aircraft approached, the IA-48 carrier-based radar early warning aircraft that performed a vigilance mission near the new United Kingdom naval battle formation had accurately locked their whereabouts, so that their surface ships could carry out radar jamming while maneuvering to evade.

While evading the reconnaissance and tracking of Italian carrier-based aircraft, the new United Kingdom naval battle formation, commanded by General Bunier, was also actively exploring the location of the enemy aircraft carriers. He had previously dispatched the "Farr" and "Melton" to attack Sardinia at night in order to lure the Italian Navy's capital ships into the Western Front. With the active assistance of the Austro-Hungarian air force, the joint operations command of the two countries spent a morning mapping out the deployment and movement of the main ships of the Italian navy, and came to the conclusion that the two battleships of Emmanuele II were likely to have gone south to Sardinia, much to the delight of Bunier and his officers. Previously, he unexpectedly attacked the Italian main fleet at the mouth of the Strait of Otranto, and killed two aircraft carriers that the Italians were proud of on the spot, and Bellier and the battle fleet he commanded suddenly became famous, coupled with the subsequent air raids on Malta and the bombardment of Sardinia, they have made outstanding achievements comparable to those historical figures, and every record they have achieved in the future will add a legend to their war book!

Under the direct command of Bynnier, two squadrons of carrier-based aircraft each of the "Fenian" and "Togest" were put into a state of readiness for takeoff. According to the distance of the target, the IR-44T carrier-based fighters were all equipped with medium-sized auxiliary fuel tanks, and the number of air-to-air rockets nicknamed "Luger's Spear" was reduced to 4; 4O% of the IK-43T carrier-based attack aircraft are equipped with "Angel Flying Wing" radio-guided bombs suitable for high-altitude bombs, and the rest are equipped with Angel-III guided anti-ship bombs suitable for medium- and low-altitude attacks.

A short time later, the IA-48, which was conducting reconnaissance and alert in the front, sent back an important report: a large number of aircraft suddenly appeared in the area more than 100 kilometers west of Sardinia, near the coast of North Africa, from which it can be judged that the enemy aircraft carrier is operating in that position.

Confident, Bynier immediately gave orders to the two aircraft carriers to carry out the predetermined attack plan. Within 10 minutes, 64 carrier-based planes had completed their formation over the fleet and swooped down toward the east.

After the first wave of attack formations came out, the "Feniana" and "Togast" were again busy. During this period, the fighters returning from duty landed in an orderly manner, and the hangar was reclaimed through the elevator to replenish fuel and carry out necessary maintenance and maintenance.

In terms of the level of design and technical content of weapons and equipment, Bynier is already a pioneer in the war.

The head-on battle between the two main aircraft carriers is about to begin, and the advance ships that act as decoys and foreshadowing seem to be able to retreat, but the two admirals and the thousands of officers and men under their command are still struggling on the brink of danger. On the side of Colonel Moloy, the damage and casualties of the light cruiser "Melton" were far beyond expectation due to the repeated attacks of enemy submarines and warplanes, and it was not easy to continue sailing, and it was also an indisputable fact that the combat strength had dropped sharply. Under such circumstances, the heavy cruiser "Farr" has become the escort ship of the "Melton", and only three or two aerial bombs are not enough to have a serious impact on its combat capability, and the most serious problem at present is the consumption of ammunition -- all the highly effective guided air defense rockets have been used up, and there is not much ordinary air defense ammunition left; once it encounters a large-scale attack by the enemy's air force, and its own carrier-based aircraft cannot fully undertake the task of blocking it, it is not easy to retreat in its entirety.

On Colonel Macina's side, due to the very inadequate preparation before the war, the four Italian light cruisers failed to fully display their design performance, and they were beaten by a small number of enemy fighters without even seeing the face of the enemy ships, and the serious defeat in the air defense operation not only dampened the morale of the troops, but also made these four warships lose the ability to continue fighting, and even if they were able to successfully leave the battlefield, they would be waiting for a rather long period of maintenance. The only thing to be thankful for is that the appearance of the Bironkelly fleet immediately attracted all the attention of the enemy, whether it was enemy fighters or surface ships, no one had the time to care about these four insignificant light cruisers, even if there was one more round of attacks that would make them unable to take care of themselves......

Knowing from his own carrier-based early warning aircraft that the enemy's carrier-based aircraft group had been dispatched in a big way, Colonel Moroy, who had just inspected the whole ship, suddenly had a bad premonition. In line with the spirit of not giving up and not abandoning, he ordered the "Melton" to evacuate all of it to the Spanish coast, and he himself sat on the "Farr" to drag behind to cover it, and used the old method of burning smoke to create the illusion that the ship was damaged, so as to attract the attention of the enemy pilots.

Just as Colonel Molloy worried, the carrier-based pilots of the Italian Navy were not as "soft" as the Air Force and the Navy's 6-base air force, they were the latest to form the army, and they were the least affected by all kinds of vices. Despite being intercepted twice by enemy carrier-based fighters, half of the more than 40 Italian Navy carrier-based planes that took off from the "Aquila" still caught up with the "Farr." Seeing that the enemy ship seemed to be burning and that it was not sailing fast, the Italian naval pilots did not think much about it and did not pay attention to so many tactical strategies, and attacked directly in squadrons.

Successfully pulling the hatred, Colonel Molloy hurriedly ordered the power system to be adjusted to full power output, the entire ship's anti-aircraft armament was fully fired, and a large amount of canned smoke was released to interfere with the enemy pilots' line of sight and reduce their bombing accuracy. Most of the bombs and torpedoes dropped by the Italian fighters missed their targets, but Colonel Molloy and his "Farr" still had to pay the price for the lone hero's choice - first, a 45o kg aviation armor-piercing projectile pierced the two decks of the stern, and the violent explosion opened the cassette armor belt wrapped around the outside of the power compartment like a can, causing permanent damage to half of the boilers and the right engine. Immediately afterwards, a 533-mm aviation torpedo hit the starboard side of the battleship and exploded 3 meters below the waterline, which made the survival of the heavy cruiser even worse......

(End of chapter)

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