In any case, the "Prime Minister" finally got through the danger.

If all goes well, then in a month at the earliest, and two and a half months at the latest, this capital ship that the Empire is proud of will arrive in the Empire.

As for whether it can be smooth sailing, Bai Zhizhan can't be controlled.

In fact, Bai Zhizhan also did not care about the battle on the North Sunset.

On 11 January, the assault on Shiquan City began as planned, with Army Air Force bombers taking the lead in the early morning of the same day.

The bombing was originally scheduled to take place in the early hours of the morning, before dawn to be exact.

Because the navigator of the long plane made a low-level mistake by not calibrating the navigator before takeoff, the course was seriously deviated, so the arrival time was about an hour late, and the bomber group flew over Lion Springs after dawn, and the bombing continued until after 8 a.m.

Fortunately, the bombing campaign went relatively smoothly.

In addition, the bomber group dispersed on the way, and when the first bombers arrived, the Bran RAF fighters did not immediately take to the air to meet them.

The reason is that the size of the fleet is too small, with a total of just over 20 aircraft.

It was only after 7:30 that the air defense forces of Lion Springs reacted violently.

By the time the air defense fighters took to the air, only more than 40 bombers of the last two groups were still dropping bombs, and more than 30 long-range fighters were providing cover.

In the end, only 7 bombers with 3 escort fighters were shot down.

In addition, 12 bombers and 4 fighters were badly damaged and scrapped because they could not be repaired.

According to the battle report sent by Du Kang, more than 50 Bran Royal Air Force fighters were blown up, mainly the "Hurricane", and the escort fighters also shot down 6 enemy planes.

Only one group failed to destroy the intended target, and all other groups completed the bombing mission.

Of course, there is a lot of moisture in the combat reports provided by the pilots.

It was only in the afternoon that a more precise report was received from the reconnaissance aircraft unit.

All three airfields in Lion Springs were bombed, but the runways were still in use, and the Royal Air Force sent fighter jets to intercept the reconnaissance planes.

The damage to the port was severe, several major depots were destroyed, and the fire at the oil depot had not yet been extinguished.

The effect of the bombing of the barracks was not very satisfactory, destroying some barracks, but the casualties caused were not significant, far from making the defenders incapacitated.

Comparatively speaking, the bombing of residential areas had a good effect.

Just maintaining order requires a lot of troops.

It was on the basis of this screening report that Du Kang made adjustments to the night bombing, so that more than half of the bombers hung special incendiary bombs.

It's just that the use of incendiary bombs in Lion Springs is not very effective.

The reason is also very simple, Lion Springs is a militarized city, there is no forest where you can get wood, but there are several factories that mainly serve the garrison, one of which is a cement factory, so the houses in Lion Springs are almost all concrete structures and will not be set on fire.

The effect of the night bombardment was that the garrison had no way to relax.

By the 12th, the bombing campaign had shifted from concentrated to dispersed, and the direction of the group's entry had also been adjusted.

That night, the 11th Task Force, which had arrived in the southern waters of Yanhai, dispatched carrier-based aircraft to bomb Shiquan City.

It should be said that this is also the first time that the carrier-based aviation of the Imperial Navy has made a sortie from an aircraft carrier at night, and returned to the aircraft carrier at night after completing its mission.

In fact, during the training period in Xuhai, the main training subject was night sailing operations.

Not only take off and land at night, but also navigation, bomb dropping, air combat, and even the skills of forced landing at night.

As for the bombing effect, it is basically negligible.

It has nothing to do with the pilot.

Fundamentally, carrier-based aviation is not well suited for bombing missions at night.

Compared with shore-based aviation, carrier-based aviation has a very distinctive feature, carrier-based aircraft are all tactical aircraft, and the bomb load is far inferior to that of army aviation bombers.

It is precisely in this way that carrier-based aviation is more suitable for carrying out precision bombing missions.

In fact, this is also the specialty of carrier-based aviation.

It would have been much more difficult to drop a bomb on a warship that was sailing fast and constantly changing course than it was to bomb a pillbox.

During landing operations, carrier-based aviation is usually deployed to deal with fortifications such as pillboxes and turrets.

Obviously, in the night bombing, there is simply no accuracy to speak of.

There is certainly great value in equipping carrier-based aviation with the ability to fight at night.

By the 13th, Bai Zhizhan received the latest news.

On the night of the 12th, the Royal Navy's home fleet of Bran sent carrier-based aircraft to sink a fast oil tanker of the Empire 1,500 kilometers south of Iceland.

It's just that the "Prime Minister" was not found.

According to the information sent by the Commander of the Navy, the tanker broke away from the fleet in the early morning of the 11th after supplying the "Prime Minister" and several other ships, and prepared to go to the port of the Rock Country in the North Sunset, where it set off again after replenishing fuel.

As a result, it was spotted by a reconnaissance aircraft of the Royal Navy of Bran during the voyage, and then attacked.

Crucially, the Prime Minister had broken through the encirclement of the home fleet and was sailing south at a maximum cruising speed of 19 knots, about 1,000 kilometers to the south.

Although the "Prime Minister" remained silent on the radio and did not contact the Naval Command, a submarine discovered the "Prime Minister" on the evening of 12 June and promptly sent a telegram to inform the Navy Command that the "Prime Minister" had safely broken through.

The command of the Navy, the commander of the Imperial Navy, sent a message to the Imperial Navy to prepare for it.

At the latest, at the beginning of February, it will be necessary to decide whether the "Prime Minister" will go to the Guia Ocean or to Fanyan Ocean.

In any case, the Liangxia Navy had to send ships to meet it, because relying on the fuel loaded, the Riman fleet led by the "Prime Minister" could not reach the Imperial Harbor.

It's just that Bai Zhizhan is concerned with another thing.

The Royal Navy of Bran carried out reconnaissance missions with carrier-based aircraft, and sank fast tankers with carrier-based aircraft.

So, are there small aircraft carriers in the home fleet?

At the beginning of the year, shortly after the war with the Empire, the Brave was torpedoed and sunk by a submarine while carrying out a blockade mission in the North Sea.

The ship thus became the first aircraft carrier to be sunk in battle, and the first fleet aircraft carrier in the world to be sunk by a submarine.

Its sister ship, the Glorious, was even more unlucky.

About three months later, when the Waiman Empire attacked the Kingdom of Weijing, the "Glory" carried out an evacuation mission in the coastal waters north of the Kingdom of Weijing, to be precise, to cover the fleet carrying out the evacuation mission, and sent carrier-based fighters to deal with the combat aircraft of the Hindan Air Force deployed nearby. As a result, the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau", which had come out to fight the autumn wind, were sunk by two large cruisers with naval shells.

The ship, as a result, became the only fleet aircraft carrier to be sunk by the capital ship with naval guns.

As a result, except for the "Fury", which has not been in good condition, and the three ships that were taken away by Cunningham, the Royal Navy of Bran has no fleet aircraft carriers available.

The rest are all small aircraft carriers, as well as escort carriers converted from merchant ships.

However, the problem is that the speed of small aircraft carriers and escort aircraft carriers is not fast enough, and they are not qualified to participate in the battle to contain the "Prime Minister".

Could it be that in the North Sunset, there are still the fleet aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy of Bran?