Under the blazing sun, Lu Zhiyuan stood motionless in front of the lookout window of the Shandong aircraft carrier commander tower, seemingly completely ignoring the busy soldiers on the deck and the head-to-air artillery on the side lug batteries, the battleship was heading southeast at a speed of 18 knots to the wind, and the three Eagle dive bombers that had been released undoubtedly represented the results of his first command of this new weapon!

"General, 5 torpedo planes have been prepared, are they ready to attack?"

The staff officer who hurriedly walked into the command room reported loudly that he paused some disturbed thoughts, he waved his hand and said in a deep voice: "Don't worry, wait a little longer, we are not in a hurry to enter the battlefield!" ”

However, the first wave of Sima Jian's attack team has not returned so far, which makes him also worried, raised his hand and looked at his watch, it was already 12:22, the aircraft carrier had to adjust its course to separate from the main force of the Grand Fleet because it was going to sail against the wind and provide carrier-based aircraft to take off, and only 6 battleships of the second destroyer detachment were escorted around, and the 4 battleship formations under the jurisdiction of Tang Zhen had disappeared in the sea and sky.

As the second of the first generation of domestic aircraft carriers, the Shandong aircraft carrier only carries a total of 25 carrier-based aircraft, and in fact, the original Shandong will return to the port of Manila in Luzon in August for pre-war maintenance, and at the same time will carry the Navy's new E2 dive bombers and YII torpedo attack aircraft, and increase the number to the maximum load of 40 aircraft,

However, the Yankees' sudden action put this plan on hold, and in addition to escorting a large number of pilots trained at the Guam base back to foreign countries, the Shandong chose to join the fleet immediately to participate in the war, and there were more than a dozen fighters missing. made Lu Zhiyuan feel a little helpless. On the contrary, it gave him a little more belief in winning. After the aircraft carrier entered service, the training that he devoted himself to was not exactly what he was looking forward to today's war test......

The whistling sea breeze was filled with the smell of salty moisture, Lu Zhiyuan touched his bearded chin, but he never put down the telescope he raised, and at this moment, a faint plosive sound in the left sky immediately caught his attention, and first-class black smoke passed through the thick clouds. With the rumbling sound of the wind swept over the battleship, the bright red five stars under the wings immediately attracted a cry from the Shandong.

When the Eagle dive bomber No. 011 stopped steadily on the deck of the aircraft carrier, it brought the news that Lu Zhiyuan felt a little sad, the fighter plane of Sima Jian, the leader of the first squadron, crashed due to engine failure, and at the same time brought good news that the US detachment that became the target of the aircraft carrier in front obviously did not have strong anti-aircraft fire at a high elevation angle, and the acting team leader suggested another round of attacks!

A few minutes later, the first squad, which had just landed and finished replenishment, was again pushed sequentially onto the taxiing take-off lane after replenishing a dive bomber. And Lu Zhiyuan finally saw the second flight team jumping out of the clouds, the complete second flight team!

Report. Aircraft No. 3 spotted 3 U.S. destroyers 60 nautical miles northwest and was heading in the direction of our fleet, and it is expected to make contact with ship No. 033 of the 2nd Destroyer Detachment on the periphery in 40 minutes! ”

Just when Lu Zhiyuan was about to issue a new combat order, a new situation suddenly appeared, this American destroyer formation was obviously subordinate to the American Grand Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Abel, and the other side must not have figured out the direction at first after losing the main fleet of Tang Town, but the US Second Squadron was attacked by its own air force, which was enough to attract the other side.

There are obviously two options for themselves, one is to let the destroyer No. 033 return immediately and get out of possible contact with the other side, and at the same time release a few Harrier fighters to block the possible aerial reconnaissance of the Yankees...... 2 reconnaissance planes of the US Grand Fleet have been shot down before, but the possibility that the opposing battleship also carried other reconnaissance aircraft cannot be ruled out.

The second option...... He immediately drafted a telegram informing the Tangzhen battleship formation, which was heading at full speed for the battle, of the results and recommendations of the air raids! And he issued a new round of combat orders, "maintain course, complete the replenishment of the second and third bomber formations within 20 minutes, and order the first bomber squad to take off again!" ”——

Vice Admiral Abel stood next to the chart in the command room of the battleship Utah, looking at the two survey officers nervously plotting the current chaotic sea situation, when the Chinese suddenly turned around and attacked the second squadron, which was originally in an assist position, and launched a round of air strikes that surprised him.

Aircraft carriers for the US Navy, in fact, is not news, after the Chinese built the first Jiangsu aircraft carrier, the Royal Navy followed the construction of the Athletic God aircraft carrier, the US Navy Navy actually considered building a mothership, but because although the country has the technology to build a carrier, but there is no supporting fighter building capacity.

The supply of aircraft mainly relied on Britain and France, but the rapid attack of the Germans has now almost destroyed the industrial capacity of the French Republic, which directly led to the United States having to hurriedly launch the Thorpewis torpedo machine technology transferred from Britain, instead of purchasing a large number from Britain and France, but the East Coast factory, which was just launched at the beginning of the year, is currently unable to produce supporting fighters, let alone design other aircraft.

The "Cuckoo" torpedo attack aircraft that is ready to be matched for the country's aircraft carrier comes from the latest torpedo technology in the United Kingdom, and the aircraft has carried out wing modification in order to cooperate with the ship, with an empty weight of 1,000 kilograms, equipped with an MKII Viper water-cooled engine, and has a take-off weight of 1,780 kilograms, which is enough to mount a 450-kilogram 18-inch MII long-range attack torpedo in the belly of the aircraft.

It's just that after hanging a big bomb on the belly, the speed of the cuckoo torpedo attack aircraft dropped directly to only 170 km / h, which is about equivalent to a torpedo boat with a speed of 100 knots for the aircraft that wants to attack from the flank of the battleship, and in the face of the current situation that the speed of the torpedo boat is nearly 40 knots, the torpedo attack without protection is actually a crispy flying torpedo boat.

After evaluating the effect of torpedo attacks, the Royal Navy did not recognize that at least a dense attack by gathering more than 20 aircraft could achieve the effect of 5 torpedo boats, and what was more important was that the attack launched by the torpedo boats was based on the saturation attack theory launched by the Chinese more than ten years ago, firing 10 at a time and firing two to three rounds in a row.

Moreover, thin-skinned torpedo bombers have to fire torpedoes at a distance of five or six hundred meters, which is almost considered to be an act of death in the face of the current navy's large-aperture heavy machine guns and high-speed artillery......

Therefore, in the argument of the combat strength of the Chinese Navy, even the cautious Vice Admiral Abel did not list this Chinese aircraft carrier as a key target, but in fact, the second battleship formation, which is falling into the trap of the Chinese at the moment, encountered a terrible blow entirely from their inability to parry an air strike.

Brigadier General Lucius sent a telegram that the battleship Delaware was attacked by Chinese bombers in 3 rounds and 15 sorties, and this kind of Chinese fighters, which had never heard of and made a terrifying whining sound when descending, could reach a distance of two or three hundred meters, and then accurately drop bombs, and what is even more amazing is that at this altitude, the Chinese fighters can also break through the dense firepower on the battleship!

In fact, Commodore Lucius's concept of so-called dense firepower was almost never really achieved during the entire raid, almost all the large-caliber weapons on the battleship could not reach an elevation angle of more than 60 degrees, and as for the small amount of light firepower, after being attacked by the first aerial bomb, the battleship deck was in a mess, except for the loss of personnel and officers, there were only a handful of combatants, after all, the battleship never expected to rely on hand-held weapons to fight.

In three successive rounds of strikes, the battleship Delaware accidentally became the beaten reservoir dog because of the first bullet, and was hit by six bombs, of which two high-explosive bombs caused serious damage to the middle superstructure of the deck, and the 10 5-inch auxiliary gun emplacements located under the deck of the battleship were seriously damaged in the explosion and the subsequent martyrdom.

An armor-piercing projectile dropped by the 3rd Strike Team successfully pierced the horizontal armor belt of the two decks, and after the explosion in the upper part of the bilge, the shrapnel of the blast damaged 2 of the 14 Balkirk boilers of the battleship Delaware, and damaged part of the high-pressure steam line, which caused 15% of the ship's power loss, but because the speed of the battleship Delaware was originally higher than the speed of the formation, this did not make Commodore Lucius feel worried.

However, the other two shells that hit the main turret of the battleship's bow did not destroy the heavy armor of the main turret, but they also caused amazing damage, and the sights and directional mechanical controls inside the C gun position were confirmed to be irreparable...... More than 300 kilograms of shells and the same weight of ****** are not a problem that can be solved by manpower.

In view of this situation, Commodore Lucius had no choice but to propose to Vice Admiral Abel that he must immediately abandon the plan to continue sailing west to join the main fleet, otherwise, the second squadron would soon have all its teeth knocked out and eventually become a target ship for the Chinese battleship group Chinese...... (To be continued.) )