Chapter 1473: Tragic Battle 2
"I will use our lives and blood to ensure the safety of the fleet, even if it breaks through to the air defense circle of the fleet!" Senior Colonel Sun Minghai, commander of the Huaxia Navy's fighter wing, who was in charge of the final interception, repeated the order again before the battle. And this order will lead them to face their own anti-aircraft fire and the enemy's interception forces at the same time in the final stage, but they have no choice, because these German aircraft groups are too terrible!
Every bomb counts the lives of hundreds, if not thousands! At the same time, the electronic warfare aircraft of the Huaxia Navy also began to suppress the target, and many warships close to the inner circle also began to release smoke screens, and soon, huge warships were hidden in the smoke screens. Although the Germans could still find a window of attack from other directions, it would undoubtedly delay them a lot!
In the final stages of this defensive battle, the Germans did their best to cover their bomber formations. While Huaxia divided a small part of the fighter group to deal with the opponent, the vast majority of fighters began to attack the group of fighters that were preparing to enter the attack route. Interceptor planes carrying a large number of rockets fired the first round of rocket attacks in the head-on direction!
Each aircraft's 24 50mm rockets rushed to the target like a moving wall of fire! Accompanied by the detonation of the VT fuse, hundreds of rockets exploded in the front of a squadron of German twin-engine bombers. The flying shrapnel engulfed the planes in front of them with flames, and the planes behind were also very unfortunate, and the engines and outer skins of many planes were directly penetrated by the shrapnel that flew away. In less than 2 minutes, the squadron lost the average BF110TF bomber.
Under tremendous pressure, many German planes began to disintegrate and try to sneak in, or only to accelerate away by stealing and rushing, but in the face of the Skua fighters, whose flight speed was the highest level of their time, these tricks were useless, and the scattered German bombers were easily caught up and then destroyed one by one! However, after all, some twin-engine planes still broke through the interception net by luck, and the penetration principle of high and low matching adopted by the Germans finally made the Huaxia fleet a little stretched in a relatively large airspace. But even then, they will be put to the test by thousands of anti-aircraft guns!
The shells fired by the 5-inch and 3-inch anti-aircraft guns formed a huge net of fire, and this huge net of fire covered a radius of tens of kilometers! Thousands of anti-aircraft guns spit out a dozen or even dozens of tons of ammunition per minute. An anti-aircraft umbrella of flames and shrapnel cost dearly to any target that tried to cross him! Under the help of fire control radars and VT shells, the shells of the Allied fleet flew towards the target as if they had eyes.
"Our planes are not safe even at an altitude of 4,000 meters. These shells detonate when they get close to a certain distance. This makes them extremely lethal. If our anti-aircraft artillery wants to achieve such a lethal effect, then we need at least 4 times more fire density! A German bomber commander summed it up after the war.
The 80-odd German bombers that had finally stormed the interior of the fleet's air defense circle were finally ready to attack, and their first target was the air defense fleet on the periphery of the fleet, which was releasing carrier-based aircraft. That is, 2 French aircraft carriers and 4 light aircraft carriers. They were heading against the wind, and at the same time escorting the warships were the least. The Germans decisively found this gap, and at an altitude of 5500 meters, 8 German twin-engine bombers dropped 8 guided bombs one after another! Three of the four radio-guided bombs were deflated due to electronic interference, while the last one went into the water 50 meters outside the side of the French fleet carrier. The explosion at this distance only set off a column of water hundreds of meters high.
But before the French could hail their victory, two wire-guided bombs landed accurately on the deck of the aircraft carrier! One of them pierced the fragile horizontal armored deck, and then lit a large firecracker inside the hangar! The remaining dozen planes and tons of fuel and bombs in the entire hangar completely destroyed the aircraft carrier, and the fire quickly spread to the entire hangar, and the impact of the bombs also shattered the original hangar next door and fire curtain! Another bomb directly penetrated several decks, burning the generator room below and the diesel depot next to it! After the explosion at two distances, the fate of the aircraft carrier was already sealed. The frigate next to it also rushed up to prepare for the transfer of personnel, and after struggling for 2 hours, the French aircraft carrier was finally disposed of by the destroyer's torpedo.
He was joined by 2 other escort aircraft carriers, one of which was hit by a torpedo from a twin-engine aircraft. Two huge breaches on the starboard side caused the battleship to tilt up to 25 degrees, and in this case, the water balance was already useless and the ship was forced to abandon. The other was directly hit by a 500kg bomb at the ammunition depot, and with a series of violent explosions, the entire battleship was broken in two and sank to the bottom of the sea.
Of course, this wave of all-out charge of the Germans also hit the sky over the aircraft carriers of the Chinese fleet and the American fleet! However, compared to the French, the main aircraft carriers of the other two countries were lucky. The flight deck of the Huaxia aircraft carrier Heilongjiang was also pierced by a 1.2-ton bomb, and hundreds of kilograms of explosives exploded in the hangar, but fortunately, the front of the Huaxia aircraft carrier was an open hangar. The shattered bulkhead directly vented a large amount of energy. The hangar has been emptied of aircraft and ammunition, and the damage caused is relatively limited, except for the fire. The other two aircraft carriers were shot on the deck, and one of them drove a large D of several tens of square meters in the front of the deck. Another aircraft carrier lost a broadside lift.
And the United States has two aircraft carriers with various one-shot torpedoes. But for a warship of more than 30,000 tons, these are not big problems. There was also an American aircraft carrier that was penetrated by a guided bomb in the power compartment, and thanks to a good division and a little luck, this aircraft carrier was able to sail at 15 knots after losing half of its power. And this aircraft carrier finally broke away from the fleet and withdrew from the battlefield ahead of schedule under the cover of escort warships.
When the last German plane disappeared from view, the curtain finally came down on the air defense battle, which lasted nearly 2 hours. In this defensive operation. More than 800 German planes that participated in the attack ended up with no more than 300 going back! In the extremely tragic air battle, more than 500 planes were wiped out under the joint strangulation of antiaircraft artillery and carrier-based aircraft, and even if the remaining planes could return to the sky over the fleet, it would be difficult for them to land safely, and abandoning the planes and parachuting was the only option. If war-wounded, scrapped aircraft are counted, the losses of German naval aviation will be even greater.
And just after the Luftwaffe attack was over, the Chinese and American naval aviation also launched an attack on the German fleet, and this attack caused unprecedented losses to the Allied navy! At the same time, this was also the first battle defeat of the aircraft carrier fleet of the Allied Navy!
The striker, consisting of Skua fighters, soon met the German defensive group. And at this time, a formation of F6F fighters taking off from escort aircraft carriers also began to attack the German fleet. At the same time, Count Spee received a warning of an attack in two directions!
"Leave those jeep carriers alone. The number of attack aircraft on them is very small, no more than 80 at most. And they are all old models, which may be enough to deal with submarines, but they will not pose any threat to us. They just disrupt the line of sight. "Soon. Count Spee gave the order, and in addition to leaving the necessary vigilance and maneuver forces, the German naval aviation concentrated about 380 fighters to intercept the adversary. The Allied fleet has a total of about 700 aircraft cruising in the air, which is more than half of the troops, and this is only a front-line force. This will be followed by 4 to 6 squadrons ready for supplementary interceptions! The Germans are also smart, and they are also using the interception method of multi-layered defense in great depth.
"Entangle the opponent, take out the opponent, all Skua fighters with bombs can drop their bombs and join the air battle at their own discretion." Before the attack, Meng Fan, the commander of the first offensive detachment of Huaxia, issued such an order that would be quite puzzling to later generations. Logically speaking, attack aircraft units should not drop bombs unless absolutely necessary, even if you are flying fighter jets. After all, the ultimate goal is for attack aircraft to drop bombs on targets. To do so would be tantamount to abandoning that goal. The opponent has actually achieved the interception effect, regardless of the victory or defeat of the air!
But in the end, it was a fact that the 1st Assault Detachment really failed to break through the German defenses. Even though they had a new type of Skua fighter in their hands, these Skua fighter units, which had almost abandoned the attack on the ship, entangled most of the German interceptor planes and consumed the opponent very well. So much so that when the real threat came, the Germans had at their disposal less than 300 aircraft of interception force! And it's all around the fleet! Cleared the way for another attacking force!
"These guys! They flew hundreds of kilometers just to fight an air war with us? "The vanguard of the German defensive formations was 7 fighter squadrons, and the attacking side was 4 fighter squadrons plus 3 fighter-bomber squadrons with the load thrown away! With almost 1 to 1 numbers out, the Germans' FW190 fell short after the hand-to-hand fight.
"Spread out, don't huddle together. The group fight of the German aircraft is still quite powerful, and their 4 machine guns are not vegetarian! "Since there is no longer the task of covering the attack aircraft, the HNA elites of Huaxia and the United States are naturally willing to compare themselves with each other in the air. The huge fleet of planes spread out in an instant, and soon filled the air! The fighters of the two sides are fighting back and forth. German planes were constantly rushing to the battlefield from all sides, and inadvertently the air defense situation over the German fleet changed, but at this time, the information received by Count Spee and Jordi was that the fighter unit blocked the opponent's attack, and everything was normal!
In this battle, the fighter pilots of both sides can be regarded as having a new understanding of each other's tactics and aircraft performance. The FW190 fighters' nimble roll and ferocious firepower make them very quick when attacking. They are like cunning wolves. Relying on each other's cover to make up for the performance gap, the Germans acted in a formation of 4 aircraft at the minimum. Defend against the other party's attacks. The Chinese Skua fighter has superior performance, and can be as big or as you like, as long as you don't fall into a group battle or be attacked by a sneak attack, you will have an advantage in a small-scale confrontation.
"Scatter them and create opportunities for comrades-in-arms!" The Germans' defensive formation made Huaxia also very uncomfortable, and they fought with each other for a long time, but they did not shoot down many enemy planes. Playing away from home, fuel and time are clearly on the side of the opposing side. Finally, Huaxia adopted the most direct and fierce way of fighting! Several squadrons of Skua fighters launched a continuous raid! I hope to rely on such tactics to break up the opponent's formation!
The first group of four Skua fighters took the lead in the attack, more than a dozen fiery snakes flew over the heads of the Germans, and two German planes could not dodge, one of them was directly hit into a fireball by a dense incendiary bomb, while the other was cut off half of its wings, but the Skuas who entered the end of the dive and were about to pull up were also encircled. The German fighters gathered like sharks smelling blood, and shells came from all directions. No matter how mobile the pirates were, two of the planes managed to escape the siege.
When the Germans thought they could breathe a sigh of relief after destroying two enemy planes, the planes of other squads began to carry out continuous raids on the target, and if the first attack on the Germans still had a chance to concentrate on the siege, under the continuous attack, the energy of the FW190 was also rapidly depleted. In the process of continuously evading the plunder, some pilots with a little worse skills finally couldn't keep up with the rhythm of their teammates, and the planes began to break out of formation, which was undoubtedly self-defeating. It was smashed to pieces by the Skua fighter jets who were watching from the sidelines.
And this was only the beginning, and after ten minutes, most of the German fleet was scattered. The two sides began to engage in air battles over a range of hundreds of kilometers. The white fog pulled by the planes and the dense shells shuttled through the air. With the passage of time, the carrier-based aircraft forces of both sides were rapidly depleted. "I later found out that we were almost engaged in a pure air battle, we left a part of our forces and waited for the arrival of the opponent's attack aircraft, but in the end, waiting for batches of Skua fighters, we were very confused, where was their bombing force?" After the war, a German fighter group captain once recalled.
At the same time, nearly 100 F6F fighters also collided with the German air defense forces on the flanks, and if the Skua fighters of the first attack detachment were fighting hard-to-head with the Germans, then the latter was an obvious pindown. All their actions had been made their first priority, and the squadrons were swaying around the perimeter of the German air defense ring in small squadrons. In the entanglement and wandering, the energy of the German pilots and the fuel of the aircraft were consumed. The two sides dealt with each other like this, but when the battle between the 1st Attack Detachment and the German defense group reached its peak, these Hellcats suddenly attacked like crazy!
Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, the wanderer 607 for the reward~~~, and the book friend Piccolo Big Demon King 007 monthly pass support ~~~~~~. (To be continued.) )