Shu Ping had already made an assessment of the fate of the British fleet with a high probability of failure, of course, 419 did not intend to save the British, but informed Lin Xiuxuan's landing team to be ready, the British army was defeated, and the Japanese army in Rangoon might flee to the Malay Peninsula to prepare, which was one of the reasons why Chu Tingchang sent Tao Mingzhang to occupy the waist of the Malay Peninsula.

Perhaps the Japanese had intended it this way, and the convoy of convoys stranded in Malacca had already sailed out of the strait and into the Indian Ocean in the morning, and they would not have taken such a risk if they were not sure of victory.

Of course, the British were also full of confidence, believing that with the arrival of the main fleet, 100 new aircraft on the two aircraft carriers would definitely be able to defeat about 80 old aircraft (half of which were attack aircraft) taking off from land. The self-confidence of the British was manifested in the fact that they had transported their most elite ground forces to the seas where they had not yet gained sea supremacy, ready for an immediate landing battle.

The ASV airborne radar on the reconnaissance plane of the British aircraft carrier spotted the Mikawa Army's 1st Fleet, which was approaching from the southeast 40 kilometers away, in the expected area.

The British ships took off 6 Skua bombers, 8 Barracuda* planes, and 20 escort fighters, and Somerville deliberately got more fighters to take off, anticipating that enemy air power was also approaching.

Onishi's strategy was still to let the second-rate troops attract and distract the enemy's attention first, and the second-rate troops included Mikawa's fleet in addition to the old planes on the Andaman Islands, but Mikawa Junichi himself did not know.

Onishi was well aware of the carrier's weakness and would appear at the moment when it began to recover the first planes, when some planes were about to land, causing the deck to empty and unable to take off fighters. Most of the fighters in the air lack fuel and ammunition, and more importantly, the pilots will become less attentive after hours of flying and fighting, and this is the best time to send out those fighters carrying valuable weapons. After all, he has experienced many sea and air battles and has more experience than the British.

The British bombers flew to the Japanese fleet and immediately attacked, and the bombers all set their sights on the Nagara-class light cruiser in the fleet, the Onifuro.

But this one is old, but it's fast. In the preemptive attack of the British aircraft, the Ghost Fury rushed to the left and right. Dive bombers dropped bombs continuously, but they did not hit the light cruiser, and usually dive bombers always hit larger or slower targets, but there was a lack of such targets in this Japanese fleet, and the British pilots dropped bombs at a much higher altitude than the Japanese or Americans.

The attack of the * plane that came later was even more chaotic. The Japanese fleet traveled at a speed of more than 31 knots, with enough dexterity and rudder effect to avoid low speeds, and the average launch distance of the British pilots was 500 meters farther than that of the Japanese pilots, which greatly increased the difficulty of hitting, in fact, the anti-aircraft fire of the Japanese fleet was very weak, but the British planes did not dare to get too close to drop bombs.

As soon as Mikawa realized that his fleet was in a very good state and was good enough to deal with enemy aircraft, the main regret was that the reaction of the Type 21 electric reconnaissance was still slower than that of visual reconnaissance. An hour earlier, he had been confident that the Thai fighters had departed, but he did not know that the fighters were heading for the enemy's transport fleet.

The British transport ship was off the main island of the Andaman and was preparing to transfer to last night, when a bomber flew towards them, and 15 kilometers away, launched a rocket dragging thick smoke.

The pilots were so excited when they saw the target that they forgot about Onishi's strict order not to waste this precious ammunition on low-value targets.

*Hitting a target so far away means flying for a full 100 seconds. So the * followed the hapless ship from the side. The ship had escaped nightmarish German wolves in the North Sea, expecting it to be safer in the warm Indian Ocean, but in full view of thousands of people on deck, a strange weapon followed. The captain tried to turn, but the thing made a clumsy turn.

* accurately hit the tail of the low-speed merchant ship, but when the merchant ship was thin shell, there was no trigger* fuse, which Makino had already foreseen, ranked at No. 105, and needed to tackle the technical problem, but it was too late to solve it, Yanlong * still used the ready-made * trigger fuse, and the speed at which the mortar fell from a high altitude, usually more than 140 meters per second, hit the hard ground, and the relative speed of this * encircled and chased the cargo ship was just below this speed, and the steel plates used by the civilian ship were also brittle.

* After hitting the cargo ship, it did not explode, but penetrated into the hold and caused a fire, which was extinguished a few hours later by the valiant Wingate troops, and after the infantry landed in the Andaman Islands, the wrecked ship returned to Calcutta with this *. One of Makino's biggest fears became a reality.

As he was preparing to intercept the fleet of transport ships from the air and get information about the discovery of the enemy's main fleet, Air Commander Ota was faced with the dilemma of being more than half fueled, but he still gave the order to turn around and resolutely pounced on the new target, which meant that many planes might not be able to turn back. At this time, the British and Japanese fleets had already entered the visual range of both sides and began a fierce artillery battle.

As soon as Mikawa noticed that the plane did not appear over him in time, but the formation had already been unfolded, and if it was to withdraw, chaos would form. He decided to bite the bullet and carry out * attack tactics, which are usually carried out at night. Implemented during the day, it is necessary to go into the range of the main gun.

Ten Japanese destroyers lined up, with Chasing Wind, Oi, Ruzuki, and Muzuki on the right side of the Onifury, and on its left were the Blowing Snow, White Snow, Sky Mist, and Asagiri.

As the two fleets approached 20 nautical miles, British guns began firing, and the British used radar for ranging, but the range of smaller destroyers was not accurate due to wave clutter interference.

When the Japanese approached 15 nautical miles, they began to fire spears*, and then turned and exited together, and in the process, the destroyer Tianwu was hit by the skua throw*, which slowed down to 10 knots at once, so the destroyer, which was dragging a huge smoke, broke away from its own team and became the target of concentrated fire of the British fleet.

The British ships fought separately, dodging nearly 60 launches* from the Japanese fleet. The 5,000-ton cruiser Luna, unfortunately hit the port side by such an unusually blind shot* attack, and began to enter the water.

The Japanese planes had a great deal of trouble to get to the battlefield, and most of the fuel was depleted, so the pilots decided to complete the blow and land on the nearest island in the Andaman Island. Although the confusion of the Japanese command caused them to arrive late to the battlefield, it happened to be in the delicate window when the British aircraft carriers began to recover the planes, and when the first planes entered the battlefield, there were only a few British fighters in the air.

The attack was no longer disciplined and no longer observed, and a swarm of planes swarmed into the battlefield, using both unguided and guided weapons, as well as fighters determined to die with the enemy.

The aircraft carrier Indomitable, first suicidal by a damaged Zero fighter, exploded and destroyed part of the flight deck. The Warweariness was hit by a Flame Dragon*, but suffered minor damage. The war-weariness cannon accurately hit the wounded destroyer Tianwu from a distance of 15 kilometers, destroying it in one fell swoop, and then the main gun of the old ship hit again, and after refitting, the cruiser Ojing, which has the ability to shoot 15 * guns at a time. This blow almost decided the outcome of the battle.

Most of the bomber pilots carrying the Yanlong* targeted the most majestic warweariness from a distance, and everyone could tell that the ship was the core of the fleet, because its silhouette was far larger than the two light fleet carriers. So the battleship, one after the other, was hit by the Yanlong*, and the Japanese observed 5 hits, while the British recorded 3 hits by strange small aircraft, but all of these attacks did not cause serious damage. The attack position of the Flame Dragon* is usually protected by armor, and the damage caused by the Flame Dragon* is far less than the 250 kg* that falls vertically.

Another salvo from the war-weary, battered and bruised secondary guns, hit the destroyer Blowing Snow, which was about to take advantage of the opportunity to sneak out*, and directly broke the 1,600-ton ship in two.

Admiral Somerville, who was on the bridge, had already seen with his own eyes those guided weapons of the enemy repeatedly hit the flagship, and his heart began to feel bottomless, and he only felt that he had inexplicably broken into a war beyond cognition. In his common sense, the size of that weapon didn't look like a suicide weapon that could fit a person. In fact, when one * flew far away, he used a telescope on the bridge of the ship, stared at it for half an hour, and made sure that there was no driver, and the jamming devices installed on both sides of the ship were completely ineffective, and the release of smoke was completely useless except to block the view of his own gunners, and this kind of thing could penetrate the smoke and hit the warship.

* It was developed based on the experience of the US military in two encounters with Japanese guided weapons, and can interfere with approaching enemy remote-controlled weapons in a wide frequency band. Luckily, the lethality of this kind of thing seems to be limited. It always hits the areas with the thickest armor. Somerville instead worries about the kind of propeller attack that the Unicorn has reported, but it seems that none of the ships have been reported to have been hit by thrusters today.

One of the side effects of those utterly useless* was that all British fleet communications were out of order, and the formation gradually became chaotic.

A Tien Shan attack plane secretly approached the British fleet and threw a Huitian* at the assembly area of several large ships in front.

In the chaos of the battlefield, no one noticed at all, 5 kilometers away, there was a plane that dropped a small *, this * at first chased the heavy cruiser Belfast, but the sound of shells fired by the Ghost Fury exploded in the nearby water, disrupting the tracking, it lost its target and crashed like a headless fly, and finally stared at the War Weyware, and after a period of tracking, it hit the propulsion shaft and rudder from the side behind.

Somerville felt only a slight jolt on the bridge, but without the violent explosion that he felt when he was hit, he immediately felt the speed drop. The engine then reported that the power was under attack, at least two of the four axles were damaged, and the giant ship lost half of its speed and left-hand rudder turning ability.

Realizing that the situation was not good, the admiral decided to move to the Belfast to continue his command, and this transfer became a turning point in the naval battle.