readx; At 12:40 a.m., the advance fighter formation of the formation arrived at the position of the enemy fleet reported by the reconnaissance planes, but did not find the main fleet in the predetermined sea area. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Naval warfare is not static, but a process in which both sides are moving at high speeds, and fleets often do not use low-speed cruising when fighting, but cruise at a combat speed of more than 20 knots, and they will run dozens of nautical miles away in a few hours.

It is also impossible for the reconnaissance plane to track the enemy for a long time, because when the reconnaissance plane discovers the enemy fleet, the radar of the enemy fleet will also detect the reconnaissance plane, and the reconnaissance plane sent by the Chinese 21st Squadron on the side of the main fleet was shot down by the escort fighter plane, but fortunately, the intelligence was reported back before the enemy plane was shot down. In the following hour or so, although the Chinese navy mobilized a number of reconnaissance planes to search the area, it found no trace of the enemy fleet.

Even if the enemy fleet was not discovered in a short time, everyone knew that the main fleet of Ben was near here, and now the advance formation had to find out the enemy fleet.

After no enemy fleet was found in the predetermined sea area, the fighters of the advance formation began to disperse and expand the search area in an attempt to find the main fleet in the nearby sea area.

Thanks to the progress of China's radar technology, the miniaturization of microwave radar is becoming more and more mature, although it is not yet possible to make fighter jets equipped with radar, but in relatively large, after all, large bombers can still be equipped, in order to strengthen the reconnaissance capability of the aircraft group to the sea, the Chinese Navy with the B18 fuselage modified and equipped with radar, in service with some B18E reconnaissance aircraft, thus changing the previous situation that the reconnaissance aircraft can only rely on visual reconnaissance.

When the third wave of the Chinese Navy's aircraft group was looking for the "Fleet", although the Fleet had not yet found the location of the Fleet, in fact the distance between the two sides was not far, and in this case, the anti-aircraft radar of the Fleet was actually the earlier detection of the incoming Chinese Fleet.

At 12:50 p.m., he said: 'The sirens on this navy cruiser have been raised, and its anti-air search radar has discovered the huge fleet of incoming Chinese planes and promptly informed the ships of the situation!'

"With such a huge fleet, there are at least more than one hundred and fifty fighters!" Rear Admiral Nobuyoshi Sukegawa gasped when he heard the news: "In this way, the China Navy opposite us has at least four aircraft carriers or more!" ”

"In our previous attack, we have sunk at least one aircraft carrier of the China, and now they are still able to send out such a large size of the aircraft group, they must have received reinforcements!"

Earlier, it was said that "although my second wave of attack groups was completely annihilated, the dozen or so planes that returned after the air raid had already sent the results back to the fleet, reporting that one enemy aircraft carrier had been sunk and one had been severely damaged." In addition, one enemy battleship was heavily damaged, several cruisers were heavily damaged, etc. Due to the fierce fighting at that time, it was reasonable for the pilots to identify the heavy damage of the Huashan as a sunk, after all, the Huashan was indeed heavily damaged at that time, and the fire filled the entire aircraft carrier, and many other escort battleships, cruisers, and destroyers were also injured.

The fact that it is difficult to determine the outcome of the attack aircraft group is not an exception, but it is a common situation, and in the previous attack, the Chinese Navy's attack aircraft group could not determine the outcome of the battle, and said, "I am no better than that."

And it was at that time that he said, "I believe that I have sunk a Chinese Navy aircraft carrier and severely damaged one." At that time, according to Ben's own intelligence reality, the Chinese navy that was fighting with them had only three aircraft carriers. If the Chinese Navy only has one intact aircraft carrier left, then the fleet that has obtained the Ruihe and a number of small escort aircraft carriers will have an advantage in terms of strength, not to mention a large number of high-speed battleships accompanying it. In addition to the strength of the fleet itself, the navy is also supported by shore-based air forces from the Amami Islands.

Under such circumstances, the navy did not retreat immediately, but ordered the transport formation to approach the Amami Islands, and the main fleet was prepared to cover the transport formation's westward voyage and then continue to the Ryukyu Islands.

But what they didn't expect was that this time it was not only the 21st Squadron that was fighting with them, but also the 22nd Squadron!

However, no matter what kind of judgment was made before, it is now said that the most important thing for this fleet is to conduct air defense operations, and in the face of air attacks by more than 150 aircraft, even if the admiral of this navy is arrogant, he will not think that he can rest easy.

Soon the Zuihe and several other small aircraft carriers took off fighter jets one after another, and in just over 10 minutes, he said that he had taken off more than 40 fighter planes, and then headed for the Chinese aircraft group, which was still dozens of nautical miles away from the fleet.

At the same time, on the other side, the Chinese Navy's aircraft fleet also discovered the position of the fleet.

At 1:05 a.m., the radar of the B18E reconnaissance plane reported that a large fleet had been spotted in the direction of the formation of the group, and the commander of the formation, Fu Changpeng, immediately ordered the formation to approach the enemy fleet and ordered all squadrons to prepare for attack.

At 10 a.m., the advance fighter squadron reported that about forty planes had been spotted directly ahead, and all of them were fighters. Interceptor fighters judged to be enemy fleets!

Five minutes later, the 20 F8G fighters of the advance fighter squadron and the interceptor fighter group of the "Ben engaged, and a few minutes later, the other two fighter squadrons of the A team also broke away from the bomber formation and joined the air battle one after another, the fighters of both sides combined exceeded 100, and these 100 fighters launched a fierce and brutal air battle in this small airspace, the dense and chaotic air battle seemed to make people feel that they should not even aim, and they could shoot down a plane if they closed their eyes and fired. Naturally, whether it is your own or the enemy's has to be said separately.

At higher altitudes, escorted by two fighter squadrons of the Chinese bomber formation B, they continued to move towards the "main fleet" not far away.

Speaking of which, it must be said that among the escort fighters that went out this time, there were a total of five fighter squadrons, and basically each aircraft carrier sent a squadron, and the number of fighters in each squadron was not the same.

This is because the specific number of each carrier-based aircraft wing is not exactly the same, and when taking off, it is also affected by the speed of aircraft carrier preparation and battle damage, so the number of fighters taking off from each ship is different, for example, there are 28 fighters taking off from Mengshan, but only 24 fighters from Wuzhishan and Yandangshan, which are also Qingshan-class aircraft carriers, and even fewer fighters from Songshan and Taishan, with only 18 and 12 fighters.

Since these fighters belong to different carrier-based air wings, and the scale of the air raid this time is very large, in principle, each fighter squadron is formed according to the fighter planes that take off from the aircraft carrier, and five fighter squadrons of varying numbers are formed to carry out specific operations.

The carrier-based aircraft wing carried on an aircraft carrier is very different from the Air Force in terms of establishment, generally an aircraft carrier is equipped with a carrier-based aircraft wing, and because the number of aircraft on the carrier-based aircraft wing is greatly affected by technological progress and other factors, it is difficult to fix the establishment, for example, the number of fighters carried by the Aoyama-class in service is only 28, but with the passage of time, the number of fighters carried on the Aoyama-class has risen to 46, divided into two squadrons.

Taken together, the five squadrons brought the number of F8G fighters in this wave to a staggering one hundred and six. The number of fighters who came to intercept them was only about 40, and this was because Fu Changpeng only sent a fighter squadron of Team A to participate in the air battle, but retained the fighter squadron of Team B to continue to provide cover.

The more than 70 fighters of Team A were enough to intercept and destroy these fighters, and Fu Changpeng had to leave a part of the number of fighters to continue to provide cover to prevent more fighters from popping up in his own place.

After all, in front of fighters, B18 and B14 bombers are very vulnerable, even if the Zero fighter can't beat the F8G, but it doesn't mean that they can't chase the B18 and B14 bombers to kill!

In the sky, more than 100 fighters from both sides were engaged in chaotic air battles, saying, "My Zero fighter wants to break through the entanglement of the F8G to attack the Chinese bomber group, and the Chinese F8G fighter is stubbornly entangled with these fighters."

Under the fierce fighting between the two sides, a large number of planes were hit in a short period of time and then fell into the sea, and if you look carefully, you will find that most of the fighters who were shot down and crashed were the Zero fighters called "Ben", and often one F8G fighter was shot down after seven or eight "Ben Zero fighters."

The battle loss ratio between the two sides reached as much as seven to one!

And this is an extremely striking ratio in the battle between aircraft, and the fundamental reason is that the Chinese Navy's F8G fighter occupies a height advantage, and the fighter must climb to a sufficient height in order to be able to intercept the Chinese Navy bomber group at high altitude, and the Zero can compare with the F8G, which is really not a drop.

In addition, when the Zero fighter was in the process of climbing, the intercepted Chinese F8G fighter just dived down, and then began to strafe with the 12.7 mm aviation machine gun, and the delicate body of the Zero could not resist the strafing of the 12.7 mm machine gun bullets.

Even if the Zero fighter is not hit in the process of diving and strafing the attack, and then the F8G fighter will reuse its superior climb surname to re-rise, and then continue to dive and attack, if the Zero fighter climbs, then there is no way to compete with the F8G in the high altitude for horizontal maneuvering, and if the Zero does not climb, it can only be passively beaten until it is shot down.

While the chaos between the fighter units of the two sides was going on, the bomber group in the sky continued to move forward!

At this time, Fu Changpeng could clearly see the sea below and said, "This fleet!"