At 2:42, the Chinese aircraft carrier "Guangxi" was hit by two aerial bombs, and the entire deck was on fire, and it was still making an emergency turn on the sea to avoid attacks from the air.

Suddenly, six more torpedo planes rushed into the battlefield close to the sea. After slightly correcting their course, the enemy planes advanced rapidly in the face of a hail of bullets, and three of the torpedo planes were destroyed by the dense anti-aircraft fire, and three "Swordfish" types dropped torpedoes on the port side of the warship.

When the torpedo entered the water, it made a splash of water, and then its thruster stirred up three tracks and quickly pounced on the battered "Guangxi". First, a torpedo hit the front of the port side of the "Guangxi," and the violent explosion caused a tongue of fire to erupt there, and the aircraft carrier with a displacement of 30,000 tons trembled violently.

The "Hindenburg," which was located to the left of the "Guangxi," saw that two more torpedoes were heading towards the aircraft carrier, and the captain, Colonel Holman, did not let the warship evade it, but instead ordered the warship to speed up and used its side to take a torpedo for the "Guangxi." With two loud bangs, the "Guangxi" was hit by another torpedo, this time in the amidship of the warship, and the side of the "Hindenburg" on the other side was also blown open with a big hole.

Thick smoke suddenly rose from the sea, enveloping the figures of the two warships, and the two steam pipes on the side of the "Guangxi" were also cut, and a large amount of steam came out of the thick smoke, forming a large white mist.

At 2:52, several more dive bombers rushed down. This time it was okay, perhaps due to the interference of black smoke rising into the sky, the enemy plane did not hit the target. Several bombs exploded around the two badly damaged warships.

At 2:55, the sea fell silent, and the enemy's attack, which had lasted for half an hour, finally ended. In the sky, fighter jets chased the bombers that fled in all directions, while enemy escort fighters desperately intercepted them. The "Guangxi" was badly damaged, flames were rising everywhere on the warship, and the entire warship was tilted about 6 degrees to the left.

Several destroyers sailed over. A high-pressure water cannon was used to spray seawater on the "Guangxi" to help it extinguish the fire. OK. The aircraft carrier's hangar was equipped with an automatic foam fire extinguishing device, and the fire in the hangar was quickly brought under control.

The captain of the "Guangxi" Sa Shijun was covered in blood and did not know where he was injured, but he did not care. Gritting his teeth, he insisted on directing the firefighting and rescue work of the warship.

Still, John? Tovey could no longer attack, and by this time the British home fleet had already suffered heavy losses in the first wave of attacks by the Austro-Hungarian fleet of Yankel.

The biggest mistake made by the British in the construction of the army was the creation of a separate air force, which greatly limited the development of naval aviation due to the fact that the air force had priority in the development of combat aircraft. As a matter of fact, naval aviation, especially carrier-based aircraft aviation, and army aviation are very different in terms of combat methods, operational objectives, and strategies and tactics. Carrier-based aircraft require combat aircraft to have the ability to take off and land over short distances, so the requirements for aircraft structure and landing gear strength are much higher than those for land-based aircraft. At the same time, due to the need to cram more aircraft in the not very large aircraft carrier hangar, the wings of carrier-based aircraft are foldable.

Other than that. Carrier-based aircraft units prefer to use fighters equipped with simple, robust and durable air-cooled engines rather than slightly more complex liquid-cooled engines. Of course, this is only a matter of details, in actual combat, there is not much difference between the combat aircraft equipped with these two engines, but the aircraft equipped with liquid-cooled engines has a good aerodynamic shape. Table xiàn is even better.

The British Navy was designed aircraft carriers with the main task of blockading the German Navy, which needed to engage within the combat radius of the enemy's shore-based aircraft. So more attention is paid to protection, and its hangars and flight decks are equipped with armor. But this also creates a big problem, which is that the armor itself takes up a lot of space in the already small hangar. At the same time, due to the increase in the weight of the superstructure structure and the limited displacement, in order to balance the weight, the hangar could only be designed as one floor, which in turn caused almost all British aircraft carriers to carry a serious shortage of aircraft.

In addition, the British had a very strange idea: aircraft carriers were used for attack, and the air defense of aircraft carriers was mainly responsible for the anti-aircraft guns installed on the ships, which caused three British aircraft carriers to be equipped with fighters at all.

When the Austro-Hun task force flew over the British fleet, in fact, John? Admiral Tovey had only two squadrons of fighters at his disposal, one of which was armed with a slightly inferior Hurricane. The Austro-Hungarian side, on the other hand, dispatched 5 squadrons in the first attack wave, 82 fighters comparable to the British Spitfire.

The result of the air battle was self-evident, the British fighters fought more with less, and in the face of the Austro-Hungarian fighter group, which was superior in numbers and performance, the British escort fighters could only parry, and they were no longer able to intercept the opponent's bomber formation. The Austro-Hungarian bomber formations could calmly carry out the formation according to the usual training, and then organize the attack.

Comparatively speaking, dive bombers have a much higher hit rate than torpedo planes, and can pose a lethal threat to aircraft carriers or heavy cruisers with relatively weak protection, but because the bombs they carry are generally 350 kg, they still cannot cause fatal damage to battleships protected by heavy armor.

However, the Austro-Hungarian Navy chose the main target on the opponent's aircraft carriers, and the attack of the first wave of three torpedo squadrons mainly played the role of containing the opponent's anti-aircraft fire and destroying the opponent's air defense formation. After the Austro-Hungarian torpedo planes broke through the outer layer of the enemy's air defense circle, they began to fire torpedoes, which also caused a very poor hit rate, 33 of the 36 torpedo planes dropped torpedoes smoothly, and 3 were shot down during the attack.

Only 3 of these torpedoes hit the target, including a destroyer, and the rest were evaded by the British battleship. However, the attack of the torpedo planes disrupted the anti-aircraft formation of the British fleet, and at the same time attracted most of the anti-aircraft fire of the British ships, creating the conditions for the attack of the dive bombers.

The Austro-Hungarian dive bombers, looking for fighters at an altitude of 3,000 to 4,000 meters, swooped down like a dense swarm of swarms and pounced on the British battleships that were evading torpedoes in all directions on the sea.

After the first attack, three British aircraft carriers and two battleships were hit, among which the "Ark Royal" was hit by two bombs in succession, and suddenly thick smoke billowed from the sea, and the flames soared into the sky.

Nearly 100 Austro-Hungarian dive bombers, divided into three groups, broke into the air defense circle of the British ships from different directions, bombing in turn, not giving the British any respite at all.

Subsequently, the aircraft carriers "Athletic", "Eagle" and "Fearful" were also shot one after another, and now, the British are left with only three aircraft carriers, "Radiance", "Indomitable" and "Fury", intact and fortunately dodging all attacks.

The first wave of the Austro-Hungarian attack lasted exactly 25 minutes, and in this short time the British fleet was sunk with two destroyers, the aircraft carriers "Ark Royal" and "Victory" and the heavy cruisers "Edinburgh" and "Belfast" were heavily damaged, and four aircraft carriers, three battleships, two heavy cruisers and two cruisers were hit and damaged.

The aircraft shone in the first large-scale naval battle since the beginning of the war, showing unparalleled superiority.

The question is by now John? Tovey had no way of knowing the exact location of the incoming Austro-Hungarian fleet, only that the enemy planes were coming from the southwest. Before he could come back to his senses, a piece of news that shocked the always calm veteran admiral was immediately delivered: "80 kilometers southwest of the sea, a large number of enemy planes have been discovered!" ”

The second wave of the Austro-Hungarian fleet attacked again. (To be continued) R655