"We've been tricked! The Italians gave us a hand to steal the beams and change the pillars! "The situation at the front was telegraphed to the Austro-Hungarian fleet, and the Allies were well aware that there were no two other warships in the entire military port except for the immobile cruiser Gorisia. Although the commanders of the Allied fleet were very depressed by the other party, they were just depressed. Until now, they don't think that the other party can do anything to themselves.

"In an hour and a half at most, our fleet can return to the mothership at the end of its mission. Add in about 40 minutes of time to recover the plane, and we only need to hold on for two hours to retreat north. At this time, we still have at least 100 or so fighters on the deck, which can fully cope with any attack. Even if all the opposing twin-engine fast bombers were to take part in the battle, it would be difficult to break through several layers of our defenses. Raeder said confidently. The variables of the entire battle can only appear in the less than 150 minutes left! And at this time, the Italian Navy and the Allied Air Force must also start to exert their strength!

"This wave of the British Royal Air Force will put in 3 squadrons of at least 40 fast bombers, half of them are equipped with 500KG armor-piercing shells, as well as the fighters of the Haidongqing Brigade of the Huaxia Air Force and other flying fox fighters together There are about 40 or so, plus about 140 planes on our 4 aircraft carriers, it should be enough to tear apart the other party's air net, right?" Tycho asked, looking at the squadron formations listed in the battle sequence. To this day, he still didn't want those slow torpedo planes to enter from low altitudes and act as decoys. In the forecast, the losses of this low-altitude lightning strike formation will reach more than 5 percent. So Tycho wanted to try his best to avoid having this force go into battle.

"Marshal Tycho, if you talk about it in detail, we are brothers. From my personal point of view. I also don't want torpedo bombers with little to no self-protection to attack without adequate cover. This qiē was forced to do so. Summer waved his hand for Tycho to finish his words before commenting.

"Although I don't know what the proportion of fighters in the Allied fleet is, considering that they are only passively defending and not actively searching for us, then it should not be difficult to find that what the other side wants is only a limited victory, as long as the number of attack aircraft is enough to deal with the port of Benghazi. So what's left in the space? Fighter plane! Full of fighter jets! ”

"About 150 aircraft were used to attack the port of Benghazi, and about 60 aircraft are currently on alert duty in the air. Then there are more than 160 planes left! There are 2 armored aircraft carriers among the opposing ships, and these two ships can fully prepare fighters in the hangar. From the time they launched the attack to the present, it was enough to fill the decks of 5 aircraft carriers with fighters. Without your torpedo formation, our actual attack force in this wave would not be more than 50 aircraft. The opposing side could completely stop the attack of the RAF with a maximum of no more than 90 aircraft. ”

"And then? When our carrier-based aircraft formation arrives, it will take about an hour, and the planes that have been recovered by the other side and the fighters that have been prepared can completely intercept us again. And that's not counting the cover provided by land-based aviation from Crete. I could even say that. Theoretically will. Even with the addition of the Italian torpedo formations, it will be difficult for us to saturate the air defense of the opposing side. ”

"The initial tentative attacks are more for temptation, and this wave of attacks is the key to consuming the opponent's defense. Only after we have emptied the opponent's deck fighters once will the carrier-based aircraft force have a chance to launch a lore! A simple small amount of consumption does not work at all, after the opponent recovers, add fuel and then reload and you can set off again. We've already paid so much to give up halfway! Su Mo patiently explained to Tycho. In fact, when planning this air campaign, the initial deduction results were. Even if the Italian lightning forces participated, it would be difficult to break through the air defenses of the Allies with conventional tactics. If the British had not provided high-performance aircraft and improved Foxbat fighters, the odds would have been slim. So this is already a minimum attack force, and it can't be less!

"Let's get started." Sumer's words completely made Tycho die. As Su Mo said, he has already put all his net worth on this gamble, so it is too bad to care about this little money! In the end, the attack plan of the Italian torpedo planes was not aborted, and a large formation of various aircraft plus up to 130 planes began to rush towards the Allied fleet!

Although this wave of attacks is not a fatal blow, it is undoubtedly the most critical battle in the entire campaign, and how many fighters can consume the opponent is directly related to the probability of the last wave of attacks. During this attack, Su Mo made full arrangements for the timing of the aircraft group entering the battlefield. Under the cover of the flying fox fighters, the fast bombers of the 4 squadrons will enter from an altitude of 5,000 meters, according to the interception method of the Allies, then it is necessary to let the aircraft with better performance intercept a wave at high altitude, and then try to suppress the formation of fast bombers to medium and low altitudes, and then hand over the less powerful biplanes to intercept again, if it still fails, then the twin-engine fighters flying from Crete will do the last interception.

This time, the squadron had to drag the opponent to fight at an altitude that they were not accustomed to, consuming as much fuel and reserve as possible. If nothing else, the fuel consumption of the opposing interception force will be very large, and the time spent in the air will be greatly shortened, and under the condition that the number of aircraft will remain unchanged, this kind of high-intensity battle will inevitably lead to a large drop in the number of planes on air alert, and if you are lucky, the opponent's ability to fly will be exhausted in this wave of battles.

If the Allied crews and logistics are good enough and do not exhaust all their potential in this wave of high-altitude assaults, then it doesn't matter, there are also Italian twin-engine torpedo machines. These planes are very slow, and they can't keep up with the fast swarms entering the battlefield at high altitudes, but it's okay, it's okay if they can't form a joint force! They will enter from a low altitude. And painted a camouflage color close to the color of the sea, just to get as close to each other as possible. If they can deceive the other side's reconnaissance, then they will naturally be happy, and if not, the other side will definitely send a certain number of aircraft to intercept the fighters of at least four squadrons.

Because without sufficient escort forces, this batch of torpedo planes will definitely suffer heavy losses and will certainly not be able to achieve any results, but it is more certain that a large number of German planes will be forced to reduce altitude! Then now the opportunity for Italy and the Entente has come! The number of aircraft in the air has been reduced by high-altitude engagements, and a large part of these aircraft are pinned down at low altitudes. If at this time the attack aircraft group released by the Italian sea-based aviation entered from a high altitude, then the defense of the Allied fleet would have collapsed. Because it is almost impossible to rely on only a small number of fighter units that are still remaining at medium and high altitudes to intercept a group of about 130 attack aircraft, and it is unrealistic to let a large number of aircraft fighting at an altitude of about 500 to 800 meters climb to 4,000 meters to enter the battle.

"The real battle has begun, everyone get ready to fight!" The squadron of flying fox fighters led by Boington began to cover the entry of large forces into the battlefield, "I repeat, our combat altitude should theoretically not be lower than 4500 meters!" This altitude is our advantageous altitude, and theoretically we did not have the task of escorting the torpedo machines that arrived later. Boeington's indifferent voice rang out in the squad.

"Then they'll die. Relatively speaking, they need escorts more, and our British attack aircraft are faster, more maneuverable, and have an advantage in altitude. A British pilot said in the channel.

"If it doesn't go down, they may lose a lot, and if the altitude drops, then it will be us with them, and it won't be long before the airspace will be full of German aircraft." After a slight hesitation, Boeington continued: "I don't support you descent to cover the torpedo plane, and if anyone has to do this, I'll pretend not to see it." ”

This time, the Flying Bat fighter unit led by Boington did not want to use bombers as bait and then sneak up on them from behind like the last attack, because about half of the bombers were carrying bombs this time, and their maneuverability in the face of the German fighters was really poor. So this time Boington and his teammates had to rush to the front and open a way for the bombers behind.

As a veteran pilot, Boington had a very good grasp of the battle situation, and they chose to engage the opponent when he had just finished climbing and had not yet recovered his momentum. And he divided his fighter force into two groups, one for the attack, and the other for cover. "Looks like the Germans are also learning!" Boington and his wingman had just bitten a group of climbing planes, and when the plane spotted the flying foxes rushing up, they immediately defended themselves with rollers and decisively dropped their altitude to regain their speed. While Boington was about to continue attacking the plane, the other German planes took the opportunity to climb up and take position. The Germans used a small number of planes to pin down the attacking side and buy time for the follow-up large forces. And because of the small number of their own aircraft, Boington and his teammates could not prevent more and more German aircraft from entering the attack position.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 and hukaikaka for the tip~~~~. (To be continued......)