The Japanese air force on the Akagi had already begun to frenzy at this time when they heard that the aircraft carrier Soryu had been shot. It was not only the Zero fighters who were wreaking havoc chasing down the British fighters, but even the Japanese bombers began to slaughter the British mackerel torpedo planes.

The mackerel is too backward for this kind of biplane torpedo plane, and it is okay to bully the German, French, and Italian navies without aircraft carriers in the Atlantic, but against the Japanese navy, it is to find death, and the maximum speed is only 220 kilometers, while the speed of the Japanese 99 bomber is 370.

Among all the fighters of the British army, only a few F4F wildcats still have the strength to fight, but in the face of the elite pilots of the Japanese army flying the Zero fighters, these rookies of the British army are simply not enough to see.

In the skies over the Japanese fleet in a radius of tens of miles, it was a completely one-sided slaughter.

What made the British pilots even more depressed was that their "Tube-nosed Grefly" fighter was actually chased and killed by a Japanese water reconnaissance plane. The fact that a fighter is no match for a water reconnaissance plane in terms of speed and agility is not a light blow to the British army.

There is no way, this British fighter was once commented by later generations as the worst fighter in the history of warfare. Its performance is not even as good as the Gray Bird water reconnaissance plane that the Maritime Resistance Army has just equipped, and it is reasonable that it will be slaughtered.

The battle continued, and dozens of British fighters scattered found their targets in twos and threes, and began to attack the Japanese aircraft carriers, battleships, destroyers, and cruisers.

In the chaotic battle, the British army still achieved some results, several British fighters missed the Japanese aircraft carrier, flew more than 100 kilometers to the east, and found the Japanese warship formation. In the confusion, the Japanese battleship Kongo was hit by a torpedo. A heavy cruiser was hit on the deck by a bomb dropped by a warplane.

Such a result made Somerville a little laughable. But in any case, there are still results, and we can talk about comforting Somerville's wounded heart.

By seven o'clock, the situation on the battlefield began to turn completely against the British.

The situation on the battlefield at the moment is as follows:

On the Japanese side: The Akagi aircraft carrier was slightly damaged, but it did not affect the take-off and landing of fighters, but it was still dozens of fighters on the Akagi that covered the battlefield.

The aircraft groups on the aircraft carriers Xianghe and Zuihe had all taken off and rushed towards the British fleet.

Although there are no fighters on the aircraft carriers Canglong and Feilong, his fleet is returning. Yamaguchi's order was very timely, and when he learned that the British aircraft carrier had been discovered, he gave the order before the British fighters arrived - all the fighters that bombed Tang Harbor and returned home.

The response of the Anglo-Tang coalition was as follows:

The commander of the British forces on the Ceylonese side, Admiral Leighton. Having gathered all the fighters that the British could collect, they had all taken off at six o'clock and were flying in the direction of the Sorryu and the Wyvern.

After receiving the news of the Japanese aircraft carrier, the Tanggang Naval Resistance Army also began to accumulate fighters and hang bombs to refuel. The Naval Resistance Army's fleet attack will be slightly slower. At about 6 o'clock, when the Japanese fighters reappeared in the sky over Tang Harbor, all the fighters of the Naval Resistance Army had already taken off. Prepare for an ambush in the distance. Again attacked the Japanese army. Therefore, when the Japanese aircraft group flew away, they began to land, refuel, and hang bombs, and the speed was naturally slower.

The battleship Atlantic, by the time the Japanese aircraft carrier was discovered, had already begun to retreat to the south. This is what Somerville agrees with. At a distance of two hundred kilometers, the battleship simply could not have a little way against the aircraft carrier group in good weather. At this moment, Zheng Xuechang ordered all the anti-aircraft gunners to take position, and at the same time, they ejected all twelve water reconnaissance planes and took them to the air for alert.

The two main aircraft carriers of the British army are also withdrawing into the distance at this moment. The distance of two hundred kilometers is too close even for aircraft carrier operations. Somerville's orders were impeccable.

The situation of the eighty fighters of the British army was a little chaotic at the moment, and some of them had been shot down by the Japanese army. Some of them returned to land after dropping bombs. Some of them are still flying around the battlefield like headless flies. There are also some Zeros that are being pursued by Japanese fighters.

Under these circumstances, the British aircraft carrier Dreadnought was first discovered by the Japanese Third Air Force.

There are no words to describe the aircraft carrier Dreadnought at this time, this is a desperate situation.

THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIREPOWER ON THE DREADNOUGHT WAS NOT WEAK AT ALL, WITH SIXTEEN 127MM GUNS, 20 40MM GUNS AND FORTY-FIVE 20MM GUNS, WITH A TOTAL OF MORE THAN 160 BARRELS.

Moreover, the Dreadnought is also a new British armored aircraft carrier, and its flight deck is all three-inch armor, and the side armor is also three-inch.

In addition to the small number of fighters on board, this aircraft carrier is extremely advanced from all angles, especially the seaworthiness has considerable advantages over the Japanese aircraft carriers or the American aircraft carriers.

But can anti-aircraft firepower, or armor, compare to the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, which sank in Singapore?

At the moment, the situation of the aircraft carrier Dreadnought is only slightly better than that of the Prince of Wales. That is, there were several British fighters in charge of air vigilance in the sky.

These British fighters are all "tube-nosed shearwater" two-seater fighters, and this kind of garbage has no chance of winning in front of the Japanese Zero fighters.

The British pilots showed extraordinary courage at this moment, and several junk fighters desperately intercepted the Japanese aircraft group, in a vain attempt to buy a little time for the aircraft carrier Dreadnought to find a way out.

But the Japanese fighters were much more numerous than the British. There were more than 25 Zero fighters alone, almost three to one, and four to one, the British fighters had no ability to struggle, and all of them were shot down in less than ten minutes.

At 7:35 a.m., the British aircraft carrier HMS Dreadnought, which was fleeing south, was shot for the first time.

At 7:50 a.m., the aircraft carrier Dreadnought was shot, with a total of 45 torpedoes.

Needless to say, no matter how sophisticated the British aircraft carrier manufacturing process is, there is only one way to sink. In this battle, the British saw the madness of the Japanese pilots, whether it was torpedo planes or dive bombers, they all attacked desperately in the face of the torrential anti-aircraft fire. Dive bombers in a three-plane formation, dive together. The torpedo machine was continuous, quickly penetrating the defense.

The British army had more than 160 guns, which was strong enough, but at the same time it had to face an attack from the flanks, above, in front and behind of the ship. Anti-aircraft artillery was obviously insufficient, and in the fierce battle, confusion inevitably arose in the command of the British anti-aircraft artillery, and loopholes appeared in the anti-aircraft fire network.

If it were just madness, the British would not have been terrified.

The hit rate of the Japanese fighters was simply too high. In the pouring rain of bullets, the torpedo planes and dive bombers were all able to achieve a hit rate of more than 50 percent, and the most incredible thing for the British army was that the Japanese horizontal bombers were able to reach such a level.

You must know that horizontal bombers in naval battles generally belong to the kind of normal that they can't hit. It's a miracle fighter that hits it.

Scan all the naval battles on the European theater, how many times did horizontal bombers hit battleships maneuvering on the surface to evade?

Even by the time of the sinking, the British Navy on the Dreadnought did not know that this was only the strength of the Fifth Air Force, a second-rate unit in the Japanese air force. Even such second-rate troops lost less than fifteen fighters. sank one of the main aircraft carriers of the British army.

Soon, the British fleet will experience the level of the first-class aviation of the Japanese army.

The 2nd Air Force under the command of Tarumi Yamaguchi withdrew from Tang Port. Sixty or seventy warplanes did not drop bombs. Major General Yamaguchi Tawen is not as rigid as Nagumo Tadaichi. He ordered these fighters not to land and change their uniforms, but to directly attack the British aircraft carriers.

At 8:30 a.m., more than 60 Japanese fighters found the aircraft carrier Indomitable. The British army opened its eyes, and in this battle, in the dense anti-aircraft fire, Japanese fighters repeatedly broke through the defensive line. The downing of a fighter plane had no mental effect on the Japanese army at all, and the crazy Japanese fighters were like flies that saw blood, going forward one after another, and the attacks continued continuously.

Post-mortem statistics. The hit rate of the Japanese fighters was as high as 80 percent, and all the bombs were within the standard of near-misses. The Japanese fighters lost only four fighters in this battle, and the British aircraft carrier was disabled.

Don't look at the bombs that are all ground attacks, you can't stand it if you have too much. Fortunately, the Japanese bombs were all high-explosive bombs against the ground, otherwise these dozens or hundreds of bombs could easily send the Indomitable into the sea.

The power of high-explosive bombs should not be underestimated, and in less than 20 minutes, the superstructure of the Indomitable aircraft carrier has been blown up to a pulp, and wolf smoke is billowing out.

The reason why this newly released British capital aircraft carrier can still float on the sea can only be said to be because the Japanese army is not equipped with armor-piercing shells, otherwise no matter how good the damage is, no matter how good the workmanship of the battleship is, it will only end up in ruin. The flight deck of the British aircraft carrier was relatively intact in this bomber because it was built with three-inch armor, but the ancillary facilities on the deck were all blown up and destroyed, and the British anti-aircraft artillery was almost wiped out in this attack, and the gunners were killed and wounded.

can ensure that this aircraft carrier is unsinkable, and the most important point is that the Japanese bombers did not carry torpedoes, if there are torpedoes, not to mention that Somerville is a noble knight of the British Empire, I am afraid that Somerville is the illegitimate son of God, it is difficult to ensure that the aircraft carrier is unsinkable.

And the aircraft carrier Indomitable, which has already been crippled by anti-aircraft firepower, will undoubtedly sink if it ushers in another wave of bombing by the Japanese army.

A battle at the end of the good end has been lost to this extent. Somerville was a success, both strategically and tactically, as well as technically.

But the helpless thing is the lack of a sharp spear to break the shield. If the British pilots had been strong, the Japanese would have sunk at least one aircraft carrier.

Somerville knew very well at the moment that it was impossible to win, and the first priority at the moment was to save the other ships in the fleet.

If it were according to normal procedures, the two British aircraft carriers should have begun to recover the fighters. But one has sunk and the other is smoking, which is clearly unrealistic.

At this time, the British pilots also received the news that the aircraft carrier could not land, and some pilots chose to fly to Colombo. Some pilots choose to fly to Don Harbor. There is an airport in the port of Don, and the British, of course, know about it. And the port of Tang is close, so several British torpedo planes began to fly to the port of Tang.

The hour from half past seven to half past eight was hell for the British fleet, and in just such an hour, a mighty fleet had been knocked out of its soul. (To be continued......)

PS: Today's update. It's a change for two days in a row.,I'm sorry.。 Two shifts tomorrow.