To deal with the incoming "Crazy Ivan", the friendly fighters in the surrounding sky could not coordinate for a while, and the "Skeleton" squadron leader immediately called the belated E-2C again and asked the commander to mobilize more "Hornet" fighters to participate in the group fight.

Reinforcements can't be counted on for the time being, and as a last resort, several "Super Cats" mounted by air defense interceptors can only circle in the sky with the terrifying Red Star Killer; Seeing these chubby gray giant birds sweeping backwards with their wings and dragging out a winding track in the sky, Long Yun, who was piloting the M2 Sukhoi fighter, did not blindly slash and kill, his thinking was very clear, that is, to drag these powerless "tomencats" as much as possible before the "Super Hornet" of the US Navy arrived.

Just behind the young man, at this moment, the 23 Tu-22M3s of the 317th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment were lowering their altitude and adopting an ultra-low-altitude penetration method that was not easy to be detected by radar.

With Long Yun's actions, there was a chaotic battle in the western sky for a while, and a single plane dragged many F-14s to roll and fly in the sky, and farther away was a group of F/A-18C/D who were anxious to rush to the front, and the scene was really chaotic and chaotic.

At the time of the chaotic war, the battlefield situation was becoming more and more complicated, and the second wave of anti-ship missiles of the Red Navy had not yet been launched, but the US commander on the "Theodore Roosevelt" was already sweating all over his face.

In the face of a Russian long-range bomber with at least two regiments, that is, 40 or a little more, the number of interceptors available at hand was acceptable, but combat coordination became a very difficult problem. Just like now. The "backfire" of the Russians broke through from the north-west. Divided into several small formations to penetrate the U.S. Navy fleet air defense circle from different directions, this is really a test of the interception capability of the F-14 fleet.

Without the overview of the "Eagle Eye", the "Tomcat" patrolling the sky could not occupy a place in advance, and now both sides are in a state of supersonic speed, it depends on who grabs the position first!

Seizing positions means the success or failure of operations for the Tu-22M3, and for the F-14A+/D, it means the life and death of the fleet. The "Tomcats", which were full of missiles and had the largest sweep of variable wings, were like sharp arrows, accelerating at an altitude of thousands of meters, while continuing to climb with their heads held high, and after approaching the surging Russian bombers, they fired a wave of AIM-54C salvos without hesitation, of course, in TWS mode.

In the face of Russian bombers, the "Tomcats" extravagantly drove afterburner supersonic attacks, without even considering the remaining fuel, which is obviously a kind of taboo for supersonic "backfire".

Regarding supersonic bombers, there has been a misunderstanding for a long time. But apparently the Americans don't think so.

In the impression of many people, with the continuous development of war technology. Supersonic bombers such as the Tu-22M3, Tu-160 and even the B-1A are already dinosaur-like beings whose combat thinking is outdated and cannot adapt to the shape of the battlefield, on the grounds that the ability of modern air defense systems to fight supersonic targets has improved rapidly, and the combat mode of low-altitude and high-speed penetration is no longer applicable, but has become an outdated capability.

This argument is a fallacy not to mention the situation on land, but it is a fallacy to put it on the ocean of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

From the standpoint of the Red Empire, in the face of the Americans' aircraft carrier battle groups, as long as they are within the combat radius of shore-based aviation, the combination of long-range bombers and heavy anti-ship missiles is the most effective means of strike.

Unlike the situation of killing planes everywhere on land, Soviet bombers flying over the ocean only need to face the interception of US Navy carrier-based aircraft in the process of penetrating the defense -- no matter what kind of large bombers, the Yankees' long-range alert system will find a roughly certain distance, so the key is how fast your bombers can fly, and whether they will have the opportunity to launch anti-ship missiles when the F-14 that the Americans urgently eject arrives at the interception line?

In this case, the difference in speed between the subsonic Tu-16 and Tu-95 and the supersonic Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 is often enough to determine the outcome of a contest.

According to the general deployment of the Americans, the E-2C cruising in the sea and air can detect incoming enemy planes at a distance of up to 700 kilometers, and then, the missile platform of the Red Empire will have a speed race with the carrier-based aircraft of the Americans, and the encounter point between the Tu-22M3 and the F-14 of the Mach 2 penetration is about 300 kilometers away from the US fleet, which can meet the launch conditions of the KSR-5 and Kh-15 missiles, but the Tu-16 of the Mach 0.8 penetration, this number will be 500 kilometers away. The Kh-15 does not have enough range to fire at all, and the KSR-5, which has a longer range, can only be set to a "full trajectory", which increases the likelihood of interception or loss of target.

So it's very simple, in the face of the U.S. Navy, which "doesn't see the 'backfire' and doesn't sprinkle the 'cat'", if you break through the defense at supersonic speed, you can win the opportunity to fire, and if you do it at subsonic, you can only wash and sleep, and the reason is not difficult to understand at all.

The contest between bombers and interceptors, the theoretical analysis is probably like this, and the Americans soon fell into a dilemma of not caring for each other.

The "backfire" attacked, the "Tomcat" stepped forward, the soldiers in front desperately grabbed the position, and a big brawl between the anti-ship missile and the "immortal bird" was in front of them, but the nervous William Pratt and others were fluctuating for a while; Colonel Walsh and his nervous staff officers have just reported that in the face of the second wave of missile attacks by the Russians, the U.S. Navy has not had enough air-to-air fighters to intercept a sufficient number of air-to-ship missiles, so that the pressure on the air defense of the inner fleet is relatively large, and the absolute safety of the three heavy aircraft carriers cannot be guaranteed.

Not only that, but the premise of this deduction is that the Russian bomber is mounted on the AS-6 "Kingfish".

If the Ivan had done a little more frantic and hung six or more AS-16 "back guns" on each "Backfire", then the next confrontation would have been more complicated.

On the one hand, according to the description of intelligence officers, the range of this missile is not as good as that of the "Kingfish", which means that the Russian bombers must sprint to the fleet air defense interception line before they can fire, and the F-14 "Tomcat" will be provided with more interception opportunities; But on the other hand, the AS-16, an air-to-ship missile that is obviously more technologically advanced than the AS-6, is not easy to deal with, and the number of throws is at least twice as much as that of the latter.

It is true that if the Russian bombers really carry the AS-16, the "backfire" before and after the launch of the missile will inevitably be shot by the "immortal birds" shot out by the F-14, and it is certain that the losses will be heavy.

But there are not many cases of war such a thing, and it is not uncommon to be beaten and have to "redeem the child", and it is impossible to speculate on the polar bear's will to fight, perhaps, those Red Communists who drove the "Backfire" really planned to do this, fighting to get shot on the landline, fall into the sea, and also throw the "return gun" to the head of the United States fleet?

The threat is approaching little by little, the situation is simply unprecedentedly bad, but the heavy army of Lieutenant General William Pratt is really difficult to decide, the analysis of the staff is roughly the same as his opinion, the U.S. Navy battle group that has fallen into the whirlpool of chaos is in a very dangerous situation, the fighters in the air cannot cope with the bomber threat in both directions at the same time, even if you do not count the demonic "scythe", as a commander, he must make a quick decision and point out an accurate direction for the front unit.

But......

But now, that's easier said than done!

From entering the battlefield to the present, Vice Admiral Pratt has not felt good in the face of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, which is facing a large attack.

At the beginning of the war, it was clear that the carrier-based air force in hand was superior to that of the Russians, but the fleet could only act in accordance with the orders of the USPACOM and even the Pentagon, and ventured close to the Soviet coastline.

Tactics often depend on strategy, and the behavior of soldiers is subject to political constraints, and Pratt's current situation is really a little unusual, and he suddenly began to question that his fleet was not on the right course from the beginning.

Even with three heavy aircraft carriers, the number and even quality of carrier-based aircraft prevailed, and approaching the Soviet coastline was an adventure, although outside the combat radius of thousands of kilometers, the Russian bombers could only penetrate the defense alone, and it was almost impossible to break through the two layers of defense of the F-14 and the "Aegis".

Commanding the fleet and the Russians to duel at sea, Pratt and his staff originally had a very simple idea -- as long as the position of the main force of the Russian fleet was repeatedly tested and determined, a large wave of aircraft could be released to blow up and sink the opponent, and the "backfire" of the Russians, the game of grabbing seats from 700 kilometers to 300 kilometers, the "Tomcats" who were waiting for the battle were not easy to provoke, and they would definitely be able to deal with these big shuttle darts that were whistling around.

However...... As the so-called "impermanence of the world", a "sickle" that jumped out of thin air smashed all of these.

In the face of the echelon attack of the Red Navy Tu-22M3, the US Navy aircraft carrier battle group with many fighters could have calmly coped with it, but now it was in chaos because of an inexplicable factor; At a time when carrier-based aircraft units were overwhelmed and operations on aircraft carriers were chaotic, the clouds of defeat were already floating over the Americans.

Faced with the crisis, William Pratt and others frowned and made a bold speculation.

And it was this speculation that pushed the huge fleet of the US Navy into the abyss of terror raging with the "return rifle". (To be continued......)