Today's third shift, a new week has begun, and I beg you for recommendation votes and Sanjiang tickets

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The sea breeze gusted, blowing away the clouds over the Matautu Sea.

Eight Nakajima E6-2 water reconnaissance planes roared across the sky and were providing aerial reconnaissance for Ono's fleet.

Second Lieutenant Shinichi Abe sat in the cockpit of his reconnaissance plane and looked down at the Japanese fleet advancing in a diamond-shaped formation, with the core being the huge bodies of the four Kongo-class battle cruisers Kongo, Hiei, Haruna and Kirishima, like small islands in the sea.

In fact, the Kongo-class battlecruiser has just completed the modification and is classified as a battleship by the Japanese Navy, but in fact, the armor protection of the Kongo-class is not up to the standard of similar battleships at all, but between the armor protection level of battleships and battlecruisers, which belongs to an embarrassing position of nondescriptry. The Japanese military also didn't want international public opinion to say that they were driving battleships to bully the weak Tang Empire, so they still claimed to be battlecruisers.

The four Kongo-class battlecruisers were surrounded by six heavy cruisers, Furutaka, Kako, Aoba, Kinugasa, Myoko, and Nachi, who served as escorts, and six light cruisers Nagara, Kinu, Abukuma, Kawauchi, Kamitsu, and Naka, followed by Kirishima with 2,000 Japanese marines on board.

The two Japanese I-13 submarines also did not dive, but were forced to surface to follow up in order to keep up with the fleet. Despite having followed up as fast as they could, the two submarines could not keep up with the fleet and were left behind.

The fleet commanded by Ono Sannori was probably the fastest fleet in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Originally, there were a few battleships in Jihua to participate in the operation, but considering the huge cost of battleship sorties and the problem that the speed was too slow, it was somewhat impractical to go across half of the Pacific Ocean to expedition to the Tang Empire, and it was not suitable for military raids, so the Japanese military gave Ono Sakusanori a fleet with the fastest sailing, including almost all the fast warships newly built by the Japanese Navy.

Looking down at this huge fleet, Shinichi Abe was proud of it from the bottom of his heart, and couldn't help humming the Fuji song of his hometown.

Suddenly, he noticed a large black dot in the air in front of him. I thought that a large number of planes would not be possible in this area, and it should be a flock of birds inhabiting an island.

But when he got closer, he realized that something was wrong, and hurriedly took out his binoculars to take a closer look, and immediately found that it was not a flock of birds, it was really an airplane, and it was an American-made F11C fighter that he was very familiar with. Shinichi Abe was taken aback when he saw the white eagle logo on a blue background sprayed on the opponent's fuselage, he knew that this was the symbol of the Tang Empire.

Hurriedly counted as many as thirty, and Shinichi Abe suddenly understood that the sudden appearance of these thirty fighters here could not be a coincidence, and it was obviously aimed at the Japanese fleet.

At this time, the radio equipment developed by the Japanese themselves was too cumbersome and expensive, and the most devastating thing for the Japanese pilots was that the radio transmitter installed on the plane would break nine times out of ten times, so the Japanese military, which was extremely short of money, temporarily gave up the idea of installing radio equipment on the plane.

Shinichi Abe's reconnaissance plane originally had a radio transmitter on board, but because of frequent breakdowns, Keinosuke Ikeda, captain of the battlecruiser Kongo, who was too expensive to maintain, recently ordered the radio equipment to be removed from all three carrier-based reconnaissance planes, including Shinichi Abe's plane. As a result, Shinichi Abe had to hurry back to inform the fleet.

But Shinichi Abe didn't have a chance at all.

At the same time as he discovered the Tang Army's fighter group, the Tang Army's fighter group also discovered him.

As the lead team, the 7th Squadron of the Yanjing Air Force flew at the front, responsible for detecting and clearing the enemy planes that posed a threat to the bomber group of the Jinling Air Force, although they knew that the Japanese fleet did not have escort fighters, but the reconnaissance planes of the opposing side also had a certain threat. In order to ensure that the Japanese fleet was not prepared for any air defense and to achieve the purpose of a surprise attack, it was necessary to destroy the Japanese reconnaissance planes as soon as possible.

The Japanese fleet released eight reconnaissance planes at a time, which were divided into eight directions for reconnaissance. Fortunately, the Yanjing Air Force had 300 fighters, and except for the two squads left to stand guard next to the Jinling Air Force, the other eight squads all flew out to find and destroy the Japanese reconnaissance planes.

As a matter of fact, it is enough to deal with a Japanese reconnaissance plane with only one fighter or a combat group composed of three fighters, and there is no need to dispatch an aviation squad of 30 planes at all.

It's understandable, though. After all, it was the first time that the Royal Air Force of the Tang Empire had conducted an actual combat operation, and aside from the essential problem of lack of actual combat experience, it was more influenced by psychological factors. In order to ensure that the first battle is to be won, of course, no effort must be spared.

The seventh squad of the Yanjing Air Force is located in an 8-kilometer airspace, while Shinichi Abe's Nakajima E6 reconnaissance plane has a ceiling of only 5,000 meters. In terms of speed, the F11C fighters of the seventh squad also far surpass the Nakajima E6.

Therefore, when the seventh squad discovered Shinichi Abe's reconnaissance plane, it immediately dived down in a battle formation.

Shinichi Abe needed to make a big circle to turn the nose of the plane, and this time allowed the seventh team to quickly approach.

Looking at the Tang Army fighter jets that were diving down from the side and approaching him at high speed, Shinichi Abe was panicked for no reason. The entire Japanese Air Force has not had any experience in air combat since its formation, let alone Shinichi Abe, a reconnaissance aircraft pilot.

The high degree of nervous tension made Shinichi Abe lose his composure, and the compass could not be understood, and before he could complete the turn, he was bitten by the F11C fighter that dived down at a speed of 500 meters per second.

Click! Click!

The 7.92mm air-cooled machine guns on the flanks of the F11C fighter opened fire, and rows of bullets fired towards Shinichi Abe's reconnaissance plane.

Although the pilots of the Tang Army were also fighting for the first time, because Zhang Meng attached great importance to the Air Force, the Royal Air Force of the Tang Dynasty was able to conduct training close to actual combat during air exercises in peacetime. They usually use a rubber warhead with a charge of one-third of the charge, which can simulate real machine gun fire in the air without injuring their own people and aircraft, so it is very close to actual combat.

The first two F11C fighters to dive in corrected the azimuth and advance of the two shots before hitting Shinichi Abe's reconnaissance plane on the third fire.

Shinichi Abe's body was quickly beaten into a hornet's nest, and the flesh and blood flew so much that it was impossible to recognize his mother. The Nakajima-6E reconnaissance plane, which lost control, fell headfirst down and swirled into the sea.

Originally, the 30 pilots of the 7th Squad had discussed before, and it was a rare opportunity for actual combat, and the other party would definitely not be able to escape from the 30 fighters fighting a reconnaissance plane, and each of them would take his turn once in order to experience the exciting feeling of shooting down the Japanese devil plane. As a result, the No. 24 and No. 33 planes that swooped down first suddenly forgot, and when they saw the Japanese devils, they couldn't hold back, and directly killed Shinichi Abe, without giving others a chance to ravage Shinichi Abe, and the two of them were immediately besieged by their teammates.

"You two wolf cubs, didn't you say that each of you would take his turn once?"

"I'm sorry! Excuse me! ”

"Mistake! Blunder! ”

"You two are dead!"

"Waiting for everyone to go back and explode your two chrysanthemums!"

"Ahem......"

While the other members of the seventh squad were complaining, the other seven squads also shot down the Japanese reconnaissance plane that they had locked onto.

Ono's fleet only released reconnaissance planes for patrols every two hours, and there was still an hour before the next wave of eight reconnaissance planes took off.

Obviously, the Tang army had already mastered the reconnaissance methods of the Japanese army. An hour was enough time for the bomber group of the Jinling Air Force to fly over the Japanese fleet and launch a surprise attack.

At 3:17 p.m., the light cruiser Kawauchi, the lead ship of the Japanese fleet, was the first to spot a large number of Tang Army planes in the air and immediately issued an emergency alert to the flagship Kongo.

"Damn the special high class, didn't you say that the Tang Empire has no aviation and only a dozen training planes?"

Ono had already spotted the dense Tang Army's fighter group and bomber group in the sky from the telescope, which was obviously very different from the information he had obtained.

"Your Excellency, what should we do?"

His subordinates looked at Ono Sannori one after another, waiting for his orders.

"What else can I do? Prepare for air combat! ”

Ono Sannori had no intention of retreating, he believed that his fleet's air defense was enough to repel the incoming enemy planes, and no one could stop his determination to attack the Tang Empire.

When Ono Sannori gave the order for air defense operations, the Japanese troops on each ship looked a little dazed. No country's aircraft have ever been able to threaten the Japanese Combined Fleet, and this has caused the Japanese Navy to despise the air defense equipment and air defense combat training of warships, so that the Japanese Navy's air defense capability is extremely weak.

Because the Japanese Navy seldom conducts air defense combat training on weekdays, it took a full 10 minutes for the battlecruiser Kongo to enter the air defense combat state after Ono Sanori's air combat order was issued, while most of the other Japanese ships completed it in about 15 minutes, which was more than 10 minutes slower than the average air defense combat preparation time of the Royal Navy of the Tang Empire.

And these ten minutes were enough for the fighters of the Datang Air Force in the sky for them to fly over the Japanese fleet.

The 300 fighters of the Yanjing Air Force were divided into 100 battle groups, and each group of three fighters locked onto a Japanese ship and concentrated their fire on the anti-aircraft artillery parts of the Japanese ships.

With the humming sound of propellers, the Tang fighters dived down at high speed, and the pilots aimed at the Japanese gunners at the positions of the Japanese ship's anti-aircraft guns and opened heavy fire.

"Click! Click! ”

Rows of bullets rained down on Xiangxia, attacking the Japanese commanders, shooters, bombardiers, and shooters in charge of anti-aircraft guns, paralyzing the Japanese ship's anti-aircraft artillery and relieving the pressure on the Tang Army's bomber group when dropping bombs.

In the blink of an eye, bullets rained down over the Japanese ships.

Because the anti-aircraft guns of the Japanese ships were all open-air platforms, the Japanese officers and men operating the anti-aircraft guns were exposed to the strafing fire of the Tang Army's planes, and their flesh and blood flew everywhere and suffered heavy casualties.

The Japanese ships, which already lacked anti-aircraft firepower, were shot and killed by the strafing fire of the Tang fighters, making the anti-aircraft firepower of the Japanese ships weaker, and only sporadic anti-aircraft guns were returning fire.

"Anti-aircraft gun No. 4 needs a gunner!"

"Two more bombardiers for the No. 2 anti-aircraft gun!"

"More than half of the No. 5 anti-aircraft guns were killed or wounded!"

"No one responded from the No. 9 anti-aircraft gun!"

……

As the captain of the ship, Keinosuke Ikeda, learned in just five minutes that 60 percent of the ship's anti-aircraft artillery had been lost, and they were either killed by direct strafing by Tang fighters or injured by ricochets in the sky.

The battle cruiser Kongo was like this, and the other heavy and light cruisers could be imagined, and their anti-aircraft fire dropped even more.

"Your Excellency General, our air defense forces have suffered heavy losses, and it seems that they will not be able to stop the air raids of the Don Army!"

Keinosuke Ikeda meant to retreat, but Ono was a stubborn man who could not tolerate the defeat of the mighty Imperial Japanese Navy by a small Pacific island nation that had just been formed.

"Draw personnel from other positions to fill the losses of anti-aircraft gun emplacements! The bullets fired by their fighters can also only kill and wound our personnel, and have no effect on our anti-aircraft guns and battleships! ”

Ono Sannori insisted on his opinion, and the others couldn't stop it, so they had to do it.

However, none of the Japanese troops who had learned air combat could stop the attack of the Tang Army's aircraft, let alone those who had not learned air defense operations.

When these Japanese troops rushed to operate the anti-aircraft guns, most of them were beaten into meat sieves by the Tang planes before they could open the artillery, and even if a few lucky Japanese troops evaded the strafing of the Tang planes, they also had a very hard time operating the anti-aircraft artillery, and they could not hit the Tang planes at all.