"What's going on today? Actually the whole squadron took off? "In a hotel outside the Benghazi airport, two bearded men looked at the group of twin-engine bombers taking off in the distance with binoculars in their hands, nine planes had already taken off in front, and now there were new planes taking off, and the size of a squadron was only a dozen planes, and from now on, this bomber squadron should have all sorted.

"It's not that strange, owl, remember that squadron of fighters that took off in the future? After they took off with the drop tanks, they flew not in the direction of the Mediterranean, but to the south, and then the squadron lost news, and it certainly would not be in the coastal zone anyway. Another man, codenamed Mole, said as he wrote something.

"If I'm not mistaken, then the airfield in Benghazi should now have only one squadron left, plus the reserve planes, probably no more than 30 aircraft! They have already drawn more than half of their air forces, what are they going to do? "In the end, there were a total of 18 planes in this plane, which is already a large squadron according to the Luftwaffe's establishment.

"It's not something we can speculate on, our task is just to send the information out and let the big guys decide what to do. Hurry up, prepare to send a report, we have to change places after we get it, there are a lot of strangers here recently, it's not safe anymore! The mole said worriedly, glancing out the window.

The two spies quickly sent a telegram and left for their next quarters, much to their surprise. Not only Benghazi, but also the air bases in the major cities of Al Bayda, Sirte, Homs and other places in the north have been frequently transferred in recent days, and formed planes have left the airport and are not known for their whereabouts. In just a few days, 3 squadrons of fighters, 1 squadron of reconnaissance aircraft plus 2 squadrons of twin bombers and 2 squadrons of torpedo planes disappeared from the sight of the Germans.

"What are they doing?" At this time, Goering, who was sitting on the island of Crete, looked gloomily at the disappearing air forces on the map. The Germans had always been more attentive to the movement of Italian air forces in Sicily and Libya, although the Luftwaffe offensive on the northern front was pressing, maintaining a high-pressure posture, but after a long engagement. The Imperial Air Force and the Austro-Hungarian Air Force were equally uncomfortable. They lost more away from home, and the Luftwaffe had been worried that the Italian air force in the Mediterranean direction would go north to support. This is undoubtedly a threat to their upcoming landing operation, and today. It seems that the situation has changed from a vision to a reality!

If a simple fighter goes north, it's nothing. The Germans could explain this as a consolidation of air superiority, but what can be explained by the disappearance of bombers and torpedo planes of at least 4 squadrons from their own field of vision? This is clearly a readiness to deal with sea surface targets. And according to the intelligence of the Luftwaffe, these 4 squadrons were trained to attack ships. The sudden arrival of such a fleet threatened to completely disrupt the previous German arrangement.

The tactical attrition of the air forces of the two sides is a trend of opening high and going low, and the two sides, which are striving for a big fight, can be said to have not conceded an inch of land in the first few days of the battle. Collisions between large groups of aircraft appeared in almost every major battlefield in Italy. But as the pre-war reserves were rapidly depleted, the attendance of fighters and the number of available crews on both sides plummeted. Maybe at the beginning, 60 planes was not enough to fight in two days, but now the number of planes lost by both sides in one day may be more than a dozen! When the fatigue of both sides has already appeared, at this time, an air wing suddenly goes north, then the impact on the battle situation will be huge.

However, a few days later, German spies in Italy came to the news that no new fleet had appeared at the target airfield, which puzzled Goering, and such an air wing size fleet disappeared. If it doesn't go to the north, where will it go back? Tycho thus drained a new force. So who will fill the vacancy created by their transfer? Goering was a little puzzled. However, judging from the current situation, this seems to be good news for the Cretan Air Force and the German-Austrian Mediterranean Fleet! The barrier on the opposite side is not so thick anymore! If it goes through continuous consumption. It's not impossible to break down in one fell swoop!

At this time, a large number of aircraft groups had already passed through the Sudan, and under the arrangement of the British, the combined air forces of Italy and China began to fly non-stop, and soon arrived in Italy's East African colonies. Compared with the war-torn Apennine Peninsula, this is simply a paradise, the Allies have no plans here, after finding out that the Italian fleet has left here, that is, sending planes to bomb it tentatively, after all, according to intelligence, there was no strong force stationed, although the location is dangerous, but there is no force that can threaten the Allies, and the cross-sea operation to occupy an area of millions of square kilometers, the required troops and consumption are also quite huge, Germany and Austria have no time to spare, Turkey, on the other hand, is weak. And now the Allies must pay a heavy price for their carelessness and errors of judgment!

"How come there are only bombs and no torpedoes? Why are we doing without torpedoes?! The corners of Noah's mouth, who had just jumped off the plane, twitched, as a squadron leader of a twin-engine torpedo plane, he took his men to transfer thousands of kilometers, and threw away a plane on the way, only to be told that there were no torpedoes! Unlike those big guys who can dive, Noah's twin-engine torpedo aircraft cannot dive bomb at a large angle, and can only use sliding bombing or shallow dive bombing, and if the bomb is used, the accuracy is definitely not as good as that of a professional dive bomber.

"Mr. Major, please calm down, I just said that there are no aviation torpedoes that can be used immediately, but there are still some aviation torpedoes in the warehouse that have been prepared and commissioned, give us three days, we can prepare about 2 base torpedoes for your air team. And to be honest, judging by the Allied ships currently sailing in the Red Sea, it seems that it is enough to use bombs, they have no defense, and even you can lower your planes to the height of the mast to bomb, absolutely safe, don't worry. The Italian officer in charge of logistics said.

However, as a qualified officer, Noah's principle is to use whatever you have! Since there are no torpedoes, then it's better to use bombs. His torpedo squadron has an advantage in the bomber squadron, that is, the bearing capacity of the central axle pylons is relatively large, and the bomb load and range are not weak, after all, the weight of a torpedo is now about 700KG, so the central axle pylons in the belly must have a loading capacity of more than 800KG. Of course, these things are more luxurious to bomb merchant ships. And it's not good to control the weight too much, so Noah thought of a way and decided to use the pylons on the wing roots that were originally used to hang auxiliary fuel tanks, and directly hang 3 250KG bombs on the belly and wing roots, and if necessary, you can also hang a 500KG bomb on the belly.

After a short break, it was time to devote themselves to acclimatization training, and the intelligence department compiled the collected shipping schedules and Red Sea navigation conditions and handed them over to the Air Force, and the commanders of all eight squadrons began to make targeted deployments, and one squadron of reconnaissance planes had already begun to conduct reconnaissance, but in order to prevent counter-vigilance, they did not carry weapons, and the livery was changed to that of civilian aircraft.

Italy was very shrewd, and the entire fleet was deployed in Djibouti and Somalia in later generations, because this is the meeting point of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, the narrowest shipping lane, and it is far away from the Turkish coastal city of Jizan on the Red Sea, and it is also far away from the island of Socotra at the eastern mouth of the Gulf of Aden. Moreover, in order to prevent the other side from frantically deploying long-range 4-engine bombers to launch air strikes on their own bases, the Italians also set up reserve bases in the Ethiopian region in the future, and retreated when necessary to prepare for the evacuation of the aircraft group if necessary.

The British were also unequivocal and expressed their readiness to provide this air wing with everything it needed, from small willow nail drop tanks to large bombs and all kinds of machinery. Even ground crews can provide it, but there is one thing that the British say they can't do, and that is that the engine can't be provided. British technicians found that most of the British aircraft in Sudan were liquid-cooled engines, while Italy generally preferred air-cooled engines with relatively simple structures because of its poor industrial level. In short, even if the British found that the engine compartment in Italy was too short to fit the British Morin V12 liquid-cooled engine!

However, in any case, the air wing, which Tycho had high hopes for, was finally ready, and the air wing, codenamed Sword of East Africa, began to move to the forefront, and after many simulations and deductions, the East African Sword Air Wing decided to take the large convoy of the Allied countries with the number G18. According to the plan, the transport pair, consisting of 15 merchant ships of various types, would sail into the Gulf of Aden under the cover of the battleship Suleiman I, and then the battleship and part of the escort warships would be separated from the convoy at a distance of 400 kilometers from Socotra, but this does not mean that the convoy will not be escorted, and in order to prevent sneak attacks by submarines and torpedo boats, the convoy will also be escorted by 2 destroyers and 4 escort boats.

"It's a pity, the Sultan is going back, otherwise, we can still take this battleship sacrificial sword!" Noah said with regret. To ensure the success of the battle, the East African Sword Air Force concentrated a squadron of twin-engine bombers, a squadron of twin-engine torpedo planes, and a squadron of fighter aircraft, plus six reconnaissance aircraft to provide search and guidance assistance. It can be said that half of the troops have been mobilized!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the tip~~~, and the book friend xiaoyongplay's monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued......)