The torpedo did not explode, because it was a drill, so there was no charge in the warhead, it was empty.

"It's another drill!"

Everyone immediately breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly relaxed a lot.

But what awaited them was a stinking scolding.

"And a smile? If it weren't for the drills but the torpedoes of the real enemy, you were all blown up by now! ”

The commanders scolded with black faces, and the officers and soldiers immediately lowered their heads in embarrassment.

At this time, the words of Lieutenant Colonel Li Haichen came from the fleet channel.

"This is only the first wave of attacks, the exercise is not over, and the commanders of the ships are quickly preparing for the next round of air attacks."

It turned out that the exercise had not yet ended, and the commanders of the three battleships that had been 'sunk' by torpedoes and the officers and men on the ships suddenly had a fighting spirit again, and they swore that they had just accidentally walked to Maicheng, and that they would perform well this time to save their reputation.

Everyone thought that the next wave of air raids would still be a group of torpedo attack planes, but the moment the second wave of attack planes arrived, they couldn't help but look up at the sky, but they were all dumbfounded.

It turned out to be dive bombing!

When 130 FC-1 bombers swooped down from the sky in a row, all the officers and men of the air defense unit of Li Haichen's fleet were dumbfounded.

Undoubtedly, this is a far cry from the air defense subjects they had learned at the Naval Training Centre in Manchester, England. At the beginning, what they learned from the textbook was the only few examples of air-to-ship attacks during the First World War, when the bombers used horizontal penetration, because the bombers moved to the front at high speed when dropping bombs, so that the bombs would continue to move forward in the process of falling due to inertia, and could not accurately hit the target, and dive bombing effectively avoided such phenomena, and the accuracy of bombing was very high.

The maximum elevation angle of traditional anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns cannot reach 90 degrees vertically, and the layout positions are used to defend against incoming aircraft within 50 degrees of the horizontal angle of the side of the battleship.

I saw that the 130 FC-1 fighters followed the steep Xiangxia inclined trajectory in the conical blind spot above the ships, and even vertically Xiangxia made a dive bombing action of accelerating in a straight line.

In an instant, a piercing screech rang out.

Knowing that it was an exercise, the officers and men on each ship turned pale with fright when they saw the bombers above their heads rapidly approaching, as if they were going to hit them directly, and some even shouted that the planes were about to collide and hurriedly looked for cover to take refuge.

At the last moment, the swooping FC-1 bomber quickly dropped its bomb and pulled up the plane when it was about 500 meters above the battleship.

The airspace above the battleship suddenly rained watermelons, and hundreds of watermelons fell one after another, and more than 70 of them directly hit the battleship.

Looking at the watermelon fragments everywhere on the deck, Lieutenant Colonel Li Haichen, as the commander of the fleet, suddenly sank his face.

According to the calculation of the 250 kilograms of aerial bombs carried by bombers of various countries, as long as 5 bombs hit the battleship, it means that the battleship will be incapacitated, and more than 8 hits will mean that it will be sunk. The six light cruisers of the entire fleet were hit by at least 9 watermelons, and the most was Li Haichen's flagship with 16 watermelons, which means that Li Haichen's fleet would have been wiped out in actual combat.

What disappointed Li Haichen the most was that the anti-aircraft fire of his fleet did not hit a single plane, and it was completely directed at the air.

This kind of one-sided military exercise made him quite uncomfortable.

Seeing that several sailors were still glad that they were not hit by a watermelon, Li Haichen couldn't help but go crazy.

"You still have a smile? Do you know that if this were a real war, your heads would be like watermelons bursting on the deck right now! ”

Li Haichen felt very embarrassed, and the more he thought about it, the more angry he became, and watching the 'enemy plane group' fly away one after another, he immediately gave a ruthless order.

"Everybody! In five minutes, two hundred push-ups, eight hundred sit-ups! If you can't do it, don't eat dinner, start! ”

The officers and men were very helpless, and they should be punished for their defeat in the exercise, so they all accepted the punishment honestly.

Rear Admiral Stephen, who was the chief instructor of the fleet, was still looking at the distant fleet, and the surprise in his heart at the moment was shock, to be exact, far more than anyone else. As a senior British naval officer who embraced the doctrine of giant ship artillery, Stephen saw for the first time the vulnerable side of a battleship in front of fighter jets.

"Instructor Stephen, what do you think of this suddenly scheduled exercise?"

"The drill was good! Let me see your country's Air Force liliang! But I did not expect that your country would already have so many planes, which is probably far more than the so-called exercise of the minimum right of defence that you promised us! ”

Stephen was obviously more concerned about the rapid development and growth of the Tang Empire's national defense construction, which made him very worried, and even the opinion about this exercise in his mind just now was suddenly forgotten.

Li Haichen smiled and said, "I think Instructor Stephen has misunderstood!" We, the Tang Empire, hope that we don't need a single plane or a warship, as long as the British Empire provides military protection, it is enough. But you also know that this is impossible, your country's military in the Asia-Pacific region is constantly shrinking, and you have been pursuing a policy of concession to Japan, in fact, it is impossible to provide 100% military protection for the Tang Empire, I bet that once Japan uses force against the Tang Empire, your country will not be able to collide with Japan head-on. So we just need to take precautions and prevent problems before they happen. ”

Stephen didn't expect Li Haichen to speak so bluntly, but he had to admit that the so-called protection of the British Empire for the Tang Empire could only stay at the political level, and if it was really like Li Haichen said that Japan and Tang started a war, the British government might not really go to war with the Japanese for a small Tang Empire.

However, even if he thought so in his heart, he had to maintain the image and face of the British government.

"I know that the Japanese have recently put pressure on the British Empire to agree to hand over Zhang Meng for trial and investigation, and I also know that Zhang Meng is your crown prince and your true leader, so I can understand your position. But please believe us that the British Empire would never do anything to please the Japanese by harming its own people. ”

Believe that you sows will all go up the tree!

Li Haichen snorted coldly and gave Stephen a very reluctant smile.

At this moment, the mailroom received an urgent order from the Imperial Military Command Department.

Two Japanese Navy warships departed from Japanese-occupied Taiwan and were heading for the Tang Empire after refueling through the Marshall Islands, which was under Japanese trusteeship.

The Imperial Military Command Department asked Li Haichen to lead the fleet to intercept it, to prevent Japanese warships from entering the territorial waters of the Tang Empire, and to allow the use of force to defend the sovereignty and integrity of the territorial waters of the Empire.

After receiving this order, Li Haichen felt both incomparably excited and under tremendous pressure. I am excited that I can finally fight back against the Japanese head-on, and once the two sides do not deal with it well, the consequences of the outbreak of armed conflict between the two sides will be very serious, and it can be described as a huge pressure.

However, Li Haichen knew that he was not fighting alone, and the entire army, navy, and air force of the Tang Empire were his backing. The submarine fleet and the air force provided direct support, which gave him confidence. In particular, the bomber unit of the Royal Air Force of the Tang Empire won a complete victory in the simulated confrontation exercise of the Navy and Air Force just now, which gave Li Haichen great self-confidence and courage.

Little devils, if you dare to take a step beyond the thunder pool, Lao Tzu will let you walk around without eating!

Li Haichen made a bold statement and immediately ordered the entire fleet to immediately replace the ammunition, and this time it was a real live ammunition.