The huge fleet of planes divided into several waves, heading in the direction of the Predator's fleet. However, as soon as these planes took off, they were discovered by the ground radar station of the Mediterranean Military District, which had been on high alert, and the radar unit did not dare to delay and quickly transmitted the news to the Iron and Blood Army Fleet and the Southern Military District by radio.

Hearing that the Axis countries had dispatched such a large number of aircraft, even Peng Dechao was shocked, and he immediately ordered the fleet to be ready for first-class combat, and all warships began to arrange air defense formations, and at the same time, the second echelon led by Feng Ju immediately accelerated and came towards the iron-blooded fleet.

Cai Tingyuan and Gao Hong, who received the news, also did not dare to slack off, they took off all the fighters and flew towards the sea, but their operation was temporarily decided, although all the combat planes were in a state of imminent battle, and they could not let a large number of fighters attack at the same time for a while, so they only took off less than 300 fighters in the first batch, and the other planes could only take off one after another after the supply, and these supplies would take at least half an hour.

War is a race against time, and sometimes it is only a few minutes away from reversing the victory or defeat, not to mention that it will take half an hour, that is to say, in this half hour, 2,200 carrier-based fighters, and perhaps hundreds of electronic warfare planes with air combat capabilities, need to deal with nearly 7,000 fighters of various types in the Axis countries, and the difficulty can be imagined.

"It was found that a large number of aircraft were coming towards our fleet, a hundred kilometers away from us, at a speed of 600, at an altitude of 8,000, and it was estimated that there were at least five thousand aircraft." The AWACS aircraft No. 101, which was on air duty, quickly discovered the target, and the officer operating the radar immediately informed the fleet flagship of this information.

Hearing the report of the early warning aircraft, the hearts of the people in the bridge trembled, and their eyes invariably looked at Admiral Peng Dechao, commander of the navy. Peng Dechao had already received the news from the Mediterranean Military Region about the large-scale attack of the Axis air force, but at this time, it was confirmed by the early warning aircraft, which still made his heart tremble slightly, and he knew very well that the last battle at sea was about to begin.

Knowing that this was already a critical juncture, and there was no room to spare his hands, Peng Dechao immediately issued an order, all carrier-based aircraft took off, and the iron-blooded army finally had to meet the enemy without reservation.

More than 2,000 Sailfish 3A fighters took off from 16 aircraft carriers in quick succession and rushed into the distance at top speed, serving as the first line of interception against the Axis air forces. More than a hundred Sailfish Type 3B electronic countermeasures aircraft followed, and they also took off. In order to do its best to intercept enemy aircraft, each electronic countermeasure aircraft carried four Thunderbolt-5 short-range air-to-air missiles in addition to the necessary electronic equipment.

The Axis Air Force formations were slow to cover the slower B29 bombers, and when they were still ninety kilometers away from the Predator fleet, the on-board radar of the large swarm of Sailfish 3A fighters had locked onto them. More than twenty kilometers away, the pilots of the Predator began to launch medium-range air-to-air missiles.

Due to the huge disparity in strength between the two sides, this time they did not spare any hands and launched all four medium-range missiles they were carrying as soon as they came up. The missiles that were as dense as flying locusts interfered with each other, but at this time, they could not allow them to slowly grind each other to death, so they could only desperately launch missiles and try to destroy the Axis planes.

Dense explosions flashed in the enemy aircraft group, shooting down one fighter after another, but because the formation was too dense, many missiles appeared several missiles to attack a target, in addition, the first Axis aircraft were all old F86 fighters, and most of them were destroyed, and the most elite F104 fighters and important attack aircraft and bombers did not suffer much.

Seeing the Iron Warrior fighters rushing up not far away, those fighters stepped forward to fight to block their attacks on bombers and attack aircraft. Most of the pilots of the Iron Army were from elves, and with their piloting skills, they were not afraid of these Axis pilots who had just left the aviation school, and they flew up and down like snakes in their planes, and soon shook off each other and rushed straight at those B29 bombers. The elven pilots knew very well that only bombers could pose a threat to the fleet, as long as they eliminated their Axis air forces.

The Predator fighter went straight to the B29 bomber, but ignored the relatively thin Sky Samurai attack aircraft, perhaps in the eyes of those elven pilots, these Sky Samurai were just a kind of jet fighter that was more backward than the F86 fighter.

The Iron Warriors concentrated their forces and rushed towards the Axis bombers, and the machine gunners on those bombers were so frightened that they turned their machine guns in an attempt to stop the attack. Unfortunately, in today's faster and faster jet fighters, these self-defense machine guns have become useless ornaments, although the machine gunners try their best to turn the barrel of the gun, aiming at the Predator fighters, but their efforts have been fruitless, and the strings of machine gun bullets can only be fired blankly in the air, except for the courage of their own people.

The Predator pilots showed no mercy, firing a salvo of cannons and short-range air-to-air missiles, slaughtering the hulking Axis bombers. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Sky Samurai attack aircraft, which had no one to pay attention to them, broke away from the melee and flew towards the Predator Fleet under the escort of a small number of fighters.

After all, the Predators had too few planes, and they could not intercept every plane when the Axis air forces were not confronting them head-on and were bent on attacking the Predator fleet.

More than 700 air samurai-type attack planes rushed towards the iron-blooded fleet in an ultra-low-altitude rush, and more than 1,000 F104 and F86 fighters flew at an altitude of 8,000 meters to cover them.

At this time, in the Iron and Blood fleet, the radar soldiers on each warship were staring at the screen, for fear of missing something. "Enemy aircraft have entered the attackable range and are beginning to lock on to the target." On a destroyer, the radar crew in control of the active phased array radar suddenly increased the radar power output, and the most dangerous air targets were quickly locked.

"Launch anti-aircraft missiles." The captains of the destroyers issued orders almost simultaneously, the vertical launch systems on all the warships opened their lids, and the dazzling flames began to envelop the destroyers with a large puff of smoke and dust, and one after another Hongqi 4 medium-range anti-aircraft missiles began to be launched from the destroyers at a speed of two per second, shooting at the enemy planes in the air like flying fire meteors.

The Hongqi-4 anti-aircraft missile opened its small triangular wings in the air and swooped down on the Axis fighters high in the air with a dazzling orange tail. The Axis pilots had no idea that warships could fire so many anti-aircraft missiles that it would be too difficult for them to dodge such an attack if they had only been trained in anti-aircraft artillery.

Despite their best efforts to dodge, the dexterous shipborne anti-aircraft missiles shot down many of their planes. Destroyers and frigates continued to fire medium-range anti-aircraft missiles one after another, until all the medium-range anti-aircraft missiles on the warship were exhausted.

As soon as the attack of the Predator fleet slowed down, the Axis aircraft group immediately rushed over, quickly approaching the inner air defense circle, but soon they were enveloped by the barrage of short-range anti-aircraft missiles and ultra-high-speed guns.

The pilot of an air samurai-type attack plane, with excellent handling skills, penetrated through the gap between the barrages of two super-high-speed guns, and dropped a 500-kilogram bomb at a Canberra-class destroyer.

Thanks to the unremitting efforts of scientists in Boston and other countries in the Western Continent, he finally developed a relatively simple radio-guided bomb. Although this kind of bomb is susceptible to electromagnetic interference, and the guidance must be manually operated by the people on the plane, which is not only difficult to guide, but also easy to distract the pilots, it is after all the first guided weapon equipped by the Axis powers, and this weapon also makes the Iron Fleet suffer carelessly.

At this time, the radio-guided bomb fell straight to the middle of the destroyer, and when the bomb fell, the captain immediately commanded the destroyer to turn left at full speed to dodge, and the battleship with excellent performance completed the left turn at a speed of nearly 30 knots.

At this moment, the bomb that should have fallen into the sea turned around strangely and plunged headlong into the rear deck of the destroyer, and the powerful bomb blew up a big hole in the helicopter platform, and even the nearby hangar was violently shaken, and the blades of the two anti-submarine helicopters were damaged. Fortunately, in order to withstand the take-off and landing of helicopters weighing more than ten tons, the deck was specially reinforced, so that the destroyer did not suffer much damage.

The damaged destroyer quickly reported the possibility of guided bombs to the other side, and at the same time had the ship's damage management personnel immediately repair the damaged deck. Peng Dechao was also taken aback when he received the report, and he realized that not all fighters rushed over by the other party, but also attack aircraft. After a little thought, Peng Dechao focused his suspicions on the kind of aircraft that he had never seen before, and he quickly ordered his troops to attack those unfamiliar types of planes with all their might.

Radio-guided bombs are cumbersome to operate, and it is easy to be dangerous if a pilot controls the bomb while operating the aircraft. What's more, the radio homing heads produced by the Axis countries are large in size and can only be installed on bombs of more than 500 kilograms, and such heavy bombs cannot be carried by fighters.

For all these reasons, radio-guided bombs can only be carried by Sky Samurai attack aircraft, and the crew of the attack aircraft is two people, arranged according to the front and rear tandem cabins, with the pilot in front and a special weapon operator in the back, so that the bomb can be guided while flying without worrying about distraction.