Chapter 431: Air Cover
As soon as the remaining Camel fighters began to accelerate their flight, they realized that something was wrong, the Sailfish fighters were so fast that they were all shot down before they could escape any far.
Half an hour later, the slow-moving group of Handley Page bombers arrived belatedly, and since there were no fighters to escape, they did not know the situation in the airspace at all, and rushed straight ahead.
At this time, the Chinese Imperial Aircraft Carrier Fleet was also a little caught off guard, and after radio contact, Wan Yong learned that the air battle just now had almost exhausted the fuel and ammunition of all the fighters, and at this time they were landing one after another, and there was no air defense force in the air of the fleet.
If the fighters are allowed to forcibly intercept them, I am afraid that these fighters will eventually land on the sea because of the exhaustion of fuel, and then the fleet will lose almost all the fighters, and the subsequent battles will not be able to fight, and the aircraft carrier fleet will lose its air defense capability.
When the lookout saw the bomber at the junction of the sea and the sky from a distance, he immediately notified the bridge by phone. After receiving the report, Wan Yong's heart sank, and now the fighters' ammunition and fuel have been exhausted, and they are unable to intercept enemy planes at all.
At this time, Wan Yong regretted his lack of experience, and only knew in advance to intercept the opponent's planes as much as possible, and as a result, all the fighters were sent out, and he did not expect that the other party came in waves, and now there are no fighters on the aircraft carrier that can replace the attack.
After all, there are too few frigates in the fleet, and it was barely enough to escort aircraft carriers for air defense, but now it is too much to protect aircraft carriers and a huge fleet of troop carriers.
The opponent's bombers would arrive in five minutes at most, and if it was too late to refuel and reload after the fighter landed, Wan Yong was in a dilemma for a while.
Just when Wan Yong was at a loss, out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw Swordfish attack planes lined up neatly in the parking area, these planes were waiting to attack land targets to clear the way for the landing force, at this time they were already full of fuel and ready to attack at any time.
"Immediately order all the attack aircraft to take off, drop bombs at sea to reduce weight, and then meet the Sahr bomber group." Wan Yong gave a command to the communicator.
The screeching sirens sounded again on the aircraft carrier, the pilots of the attack aircraft ran towards the deck as fast as they could, Chen Feng quickly stepped into his cockpit, and the mechanic began to help him fasten his parachute backpack and confirm the various instruments one last time.
Chen Feng, like Qi Hui, changed from a seaplane to a carrier-based aircraft, but Qi Hui chose to join the fighter unit, but Chen Feng was defeated, and in the end he had to change to fly an attack aircraft, for which he was very regretful.
I thought that I would not have a chance to attack until I approached the port of Cape Town, but I didn't expect that I could make a sortie at sea at this time, and I was also a cameo fighter to intercept enemy bombers.
Chen Feng's attack plane quickly ignited successfully, and with the permission of the tower commander, he pushed the throttle to the end, clenched the control stick with both hands, and the plane slowly taxied forward on the deck.
The engine with full horsepower made a tremor, a puff of black smoke came out of the exhaust pipe, and the plane began to taxi slowly on the deck runway, the speed slowly increased, and the whole plane became faster and faster.
"Drop the bombs, let's intercept the bombers." Drawing a semicircle in the air, Chen Feng reminded Qin Ze, the bombardier behind him, in the microphone.
After receiving Chen Feng's order, Qin pressed the bomb drop button, and the 500 kilogram bomb under the fuselage broke away from the pylon, and the heavy bomb fell into the water and exploded, stirring up a high column of water, and Chen Feng's fighter suddenly lost weight and involuntarily raised the nose of the plane.
The altitude of the plane rose to four thousand meters, and Chen Feng saw the Thar bomber that was already flying closer and closer. Seeing the enemy planes in front of him, Chen Feng turned on the afterburner and rushed forward, and behind him was a group of attack planes that had dropped bombs one after another.
The huge and ugly fuselage of Handleypage's bomber was flying at an altitude of five thousand meters, and the rumbling of four 100-horsepower engines made the moving planes tremble.
The Handley Page bomber had a peculiar shape, with three crew members, the bombardier at the back, the pilot in the middle, and the observer-machine gunner operating a 7.7mm machine gun in the first position.
The pilot of Handleypage's bomber had a poor line of sight, so the situation in front was mainly observed by the machine gunner who was sitting in the first position, and when he saw a large number of Imperial planes approaching, he immediately set up his machine gun and informed the pilot of the situation.
The machine gunners on the bombers began to fire at the oncoming attack planes, but the range of the 7.7mm machine guns was not long, and it was impossible to hit the Swordfish attack planes, which were still thousands of meters away.
In the stunned eyes of the bombers' machine gunners, the attack planes not only did not increase their altitude and start attacking, but instead lowered their altitude and passed under the bombers.
The nose of the Swordfish attack aircraft did not have a machine gun, and the only weapon was a seven-millimeter machine gun operated by a bombardier in the back seat, and this machine gun could not fire forward, so Chen Feng could only drive the plane through below.
Chen Feng's plane rushed past the bomber, and Qin Ze quickly picked up the machine gun and shot in the direction of the tail, but the two sides were walking opposite each other, and the speed of the two planes was quite amazing, and Qin Ze was not given much time to shoot at all.
"That's not going to work." Chen Feng frowned slightly, such a fast relative speed could not hit the bomber at all, seeing that the Saar bombers were getting closer and closer to his own fleet, Chen Feng gritted his teeth and chased after him from the rear.
The machine gun could not shoot straight ahead, and Chen Feng pressed the nose of the machine and drilled under the belly of the opponent again. Trying to maintain the relative speed of both sides, the Sahr bomber was only fifty meters above Chen Feng's head.
"Now start shooting." Chen Feng shouted. Qin adjusted the machine gun to the maximum angle of fire, and the muzzle of the gun began to fire almost vertically upwards. Regardless of the hot shells falling on his body, Qin Ze held down the trigger of the machine gun.
A long fire snake from the bottom up, slammed on the belly of Handley Page's bomber, and suddenly the plane sawdust splashed everywhere, and the hot bullet penetrated the bomb compartment, directly detonating the aerial bomb to be fired, with a few explosions, the bomber exploded into a pile of fragments in the air, and the three members on it were already gone.
A word to readers:
Recommend Mo Haoju's masterpiece "The Change of Da Luo"