readx; Compared with the progress of the Air Force's F12 fighter, the progress of the F11 fighter in the Navy's X11 program is much slower, although the research and development time is earlier, and the Navy has invested a lot of money, but due to the limitations of technical strength, the technical difficulty of developing a qualified jet carrier-based aircraft is much higher than that of the Air Force's jet fighter. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

In the X11 program, the Navy used almost all kinds of methods to achieve the goal of jet aircraft on the ship, and there were more than a dozen fuselage designs.

There are a lot of alternative prototypes of the F11 fighter developed in the Navy's X11 program, to be precise, the F11 fighter is only the official number of the last selected model, and the specific meaning of the X11 in the R&D code name is the 'Navy Jet Carrier-based Fighter Program'

This is a system project, not specifically referring to a specific aircraft model, but a large number of prototypes from several major domestic airlines are participating in the competition.

The prototype X11-G designed by the Guang'an Aircraft Company has undergone many improvements, and more than 10 prototypes were built last year for test flights and ship take-off and landing tests, but to the great disappointment of the admirals, these more than 10 X11-G test aircraft were all good when they were tested on land, but they were all tragic during the ship test, and various problems appeared one after another, and even an explosion in a landing test caused the Tianshan to suffer some damage and was forced to enter the dock for repair.

Bad things come in pairs, and the X11-C designed by Chuzhou Aircraft Company also failed during the test on the ship, and none of the five prototypes crashed during the test.

The Navy's X11 program, which had suffered such a serious blow, did not stop and continued to use other airframe designs, but inevitably seriously delayed the progress of the Navy's jet carrier-based fighter program.

Although both the X11-G and X11-C have failed, the Navy is continuing to improve in the above two models, preparing to further strengthen the take-off and landing capabilities, and even sacrifice a certain amount of fighting capabilities for this.

According to the current timeline, even if the progress is very smooth, the Navy will have to lag behind the Air Force by at least a year before it can equip jet carrier-based aircraft.

Officially, because the development progress of jet carrier-based fighters lags behind the Navy's expectations, and the actual pressure on the Chinese Navy's carrier-based aviation can be described as very huge, even more so than the pressure faced by the Chinese Air Force.

Although war has been declared on the Chinese naval aviation, the Chinese Navy has never regarded the Chinese naval force as its ultimate opponent, but it is just a stepping stone, and with the current strength of the Chinese Navy, it is completely possible to clean up the remnants of the Chinese Navy. However, the Chinese Navy does not have one enemy in the Navy, and there is only one enemy that really allows the Chinese Navy to expand its forces on a large scale, continuously build super aircraft carriers, and develop jet carrier-based aircraft, and that is the US Navy.

Although the two countries are not currently in a state of hostility, considering that it is almost inevitable that China and the United States will embark on a full-scale confrontation after the defeat of this war, and under this strategic premise, the development of the Chinese Navy has always been aimed at the US Navy.

The development of carrier-based aircraft is also carried out according to this strategy, the Chinese Navy's F8 series fighters can be said to be advanced, and its most advanced model is also the absolute first-line main force of the Chinese naval aviation, the F8G fighter completely surpasses the "Ben Zero" type in terms of surname, and is slightly better than the American F6F. But on the other hand, the F8G fighter can no longer occupy much of a surname.

The F8 family of fighters, after several large-scale modifications, has reached its limits.

On the other side of the U.S. Navy, although his current enemy is also called "Ben", but the development of carrier-based aircraft of the U.S. Navy before 1944 was still very aimed at the "Ben" Navy, and after the F6F was improved according to the F4F, and the F6F against the Zero fighter also achieved great success. But in the face of the development of the new generation of fighters, Gale, and the potential threat of the Chinese Navy's F8G fighter jet, the U.S. Navy needs a more advanced fighter.

In this case, the short-term solution of the US Navy is to improve the F4U fighter, so that the F4U, which was originally unsuitable for shipboarding, is converted into suitable for shipboarding, and in 1944, it began to deploy on board on a large scale to supplement the lack of F6F fighter.

Of course, the modification of the F4U is only a transitional measure, and the F4U is not a replacement ship for the F6F, the replacement ship for the F6F is another one, that is, the F8F newly developed by the American Grumman company.

The F8F fighter surname can be more advanced, especially the high-power engine and lightweight airframe make the F8F have a very superior maneuverability surname, and it is unceremonious to say that all aspects of the F8F surname can be enough to completely explode all the active carrier-based fighters of the Chinese and Chinese navies, after all, the design goal of this F8F fighter is not to say that it is to gain an advantage in combat, but to completely overwhelm the F8 series fighters equipped with a large number of Chinese Navy.

After the successful test flight of the F8F prototype, the US Navy had already placed an order for up to 2,000 F8F fighters with Grumman in June, and it was expected to be able to obtain a large number of F8F fighters in early 1945

This is true of the US Navy, and the Chinese Navy, which was designed in the late thirties after the development of the F8G series fighters of the Chinese Navy, has reached a modification limit, and it is difficult to improve the surname on a large scale. Originally, the Navy's intended strategy was to use the F8 fighter as the fastest propeller fighter, and the next generation fighter was the jet fighter, but the development progress of the jet fighter lagged behind, which made the Chinese Navy have a gap between the F8G battle and the jet carrier-based aircraft in service.

This gap may be a year or two years. This gap was absolutely unacceptable to the Navy, which was forced to redevelop a new propeller fighter in order to be able to obtain a more superior propeller fighter before the jet carrier-based aircraft entered service.

Its positioning is to be the successor of the F8 series of fighters, so that the Chinese naval aviation can maintain the surname advantage of the aircraft before the large-scale service of jet carrier-based aircraft, and there is also a secondary positioning, that is, even after China has large-scale service of jet carrier-based aircraft, several old aircraft carriers, two light aircraft carriers and a large number of escort aircraft carriers are also destined to be unable to use jet aircraft, in addition, the Qingshan-class aircraft carriers are also difficult to use jet aircraft on a large scale due to the size of the factor, Under such circumstances, in order for the Navy to continue to play the role of these medium-sized and sub-aircraft carriers, it must develop a carrier-based fighter that can continue to play the role of these aircraft carriers.

And after these factors are extended, it has created the Navy's X15 program, and the finished product is the F15 carrier-based fighter, which has been tested and finalized, and is ready to start large-scale service in the second half of the year, and its service number will depend on the progress of jet carrier-based fighters, if the F11 can be put into service as soon as possible, then the F15 fighter will only be deployed on aircraft carriers below medium-sized, if the F11 fighter continues to be postponed between service, then the F15 fighter will fully replace the F8G in service, Then served for many years as a lead carrier-based fighter.

Of course, whether it is China's F11 jet carrier-based fighter or the F15 propeller fighter with transitional surnames, or the Americans' F8F and the Gale fighter called 'Ben', these are a new generation of aircraft that have just completed research and development and have not yet entered mass production, and the main force of various countries is still the model familiar to the public. It is said that "Ben's Zero War, the American F6F, and the Chinese F8G."

The deck of the 22nd Squadron Mengshan was stacked with F8G fighters, B18 dive bombers, and B14 torpedo bombers, while more aircraft were being reconditioned in its hangar, and elevators were constantly transporting the planes in the hangar to the deck.

At this time, the rear deck of the Mengshan was already lined with aircraft, the front was the F8G fighters, who were able to take off in short distances, and the middle was the B18 dive bomber, and finally the B14 torpedo bomber, which could take off and land a little worse. In order to ensure the maximum number of fighters to attack, the Mengshan had stopped some other work at this time and carried out full preparation, because the preparation time was relatively sufficient, so that the Mengshan could mobilize the maximum number of troops to launch an attack in this wave of attacks.

At 11:30 a.m., the Mengshan took the lead in the aircraft group, followed by the Wuzhishan and Yandangshan of the 22nd Fleet, and when the 22nd Fleet's aircraft group took off, the Songshan and Taishan of the 21st Fleet also took off one after another.

Vice Admiral Lu Jian even did not hesitate to postpone the sortie by half an hour in order to allow the aircraft carriers affiliated to the fleet to prepare the maximum number of fighters, and he wanted the number of fighters of the five aircraft carriers to reach the limit.

When the planes of these five aircraft carriers took off one after another, a huge group of planes gathered over the fleet, and the sheer number of planes even caused a certain amount of confusion in the command of the formation, but fortunately, after the chaos in the early stage, the planes were finally formed, and under the leadership of Colonel Fu Changpeng, the commander of the 3rd Carrier-based Wing, they headed for the main escort fleet about 150 nautical miles away.

The 22nd Squadron was the absolute main force of this huge fleet, and the three aircraft carriers flew a total of 156 aircraft, including 76 F8G fighters, 43 B18 dive bombers, and 37 B14 torpedo bombers.

This wave was for Team A in front, followed by Team B from the 21st Squadron, and the Songshan and Taishan took off a total of thirty F8G fighters, sixteen B18 dive bombers, and twelve B14 torpedo bombers, for a total of fifty-eight aircraft.

Together, Team A and Team B add up to 214 planes!

In order to command this large-scale joint air raid operation, the commanders of the various air wings gathered together and selected Colonel Fu Changpeng of the 2nd Carrier-based Wing as the commander of the attack group to command the entire air raid operation.

As time slowly passed, almost the entire Second Mobile Fleet was waiting for news of the third wave of attack groups!