Empire Conquest

Chapter 459 - 455: The Expeditionary Fleet Gets Bombed

Was it just bad luck?

Spur was quite surprised, especially because the message was sent by a seaplane, not a ship-borne reconnaissance aircraft.

The Liangxia Navy had not acquired new seaplanes, and as far as Spur knew, the Liangxia Navy had never prioritized seaplanes deployed from escort warships.

Usually, those seaplanes wouldn’t patrol further than 400 kilometers.

That meant the Liangxia Fleet couldn’t be more than 400 kilometers away from the Expeditionary Fleet.

According to the received telegram, the Expeditionary Fleet was still to the southeast of the 61st Special Mixed Fleet, and the distance had shortened to within 300 kilometers.

That implied, if the Liangxia Fleet was north of the Expeditionary Fleet, it wouldn’t be too far from the 61st Special Mixed Fleet.

Of course, that wasn’t what Spur was concerned about.

The key point was that the seaplane had managed to spot the Expeditionary Fleet shortly after dawn and sent out the telegram without anyone noticing.

Could it be that every lookout in the Expeditionary Fleet was blind, failing to see an approaching seaplane?

And both of the "Reputation" class radars were out of order?

From that, one could deduce that the Liangxia Fleet might be even closer than 400 kilometers to the Expeditionary Fleet.

The reasoning was simple: seaplanes conducted reconnaissance missions, which allowed for visibility of warships on the sea surface after daylight, hence they wouldn’t complete their whole flight path at night.

Let the seaplanes search for the enemy fleet on the return flight?

Tactically, it wasn’t impossible, just very difficult to implement and would require many seaplanes since it amounted to halving the efficiency of the reconnaissance.

Clearly, the Liangxia Fleet couldn’t possibly have enough seaplanes.

In short, the Expeditionary Fleet had been exposed and was about to be struck.

At 5:45 a.m., Spur finally issued the order to put the F4F fighters that were on escort duty at the very front of the deck, all equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks.

This setup ensured that, if necessary, these fighters could be dispatched immediately to provide cover for the Expeditionary Fleet.

Of course, whether they would be needed or not depended on whether Cunningham would call for help.

Regardless, Cunningham had two fleet carriers and several dozen F4Fs at his disposal; he should have no significant issue with air defense if he deployed them all.

Spur knew well enough that speaking of aid across several hundred kilometers was futile.

Even if Cunningham sent a request and the F4Fs took off immediately and flew at top speed, they couldn’t possibly arrive in time.

This arrangement was, thus, just for show.

Let’s not forget that among the 61st Special Mixed Fleet, there was also a Bulan destroyer.

In fact, this also indicated that Spur hadn’t given up on the idea of attacking the Liangxia Fleet.

If the reconnaissance aircraft spotted the Liangxia Fleet, then the F4Fs would be tasked with escort duty. Since they were already equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks, early take-off wouldn’t be an issue.

For this reason, Spur also consulted with the Communication Advisor to inquire about any received reports from the reconnaissance aircraft.

Spur was focused on four SBDs in the region from 20 degrees east-southeast to 30 degrees east-northeast.

Upon receiving the Expeditionary Fleet’s telegram, Spur was convinced that the Liangxia Fleet was within this maritime area and was absolutely no more than 400 kilometers away.

Therefore, the reconnaissance aircraft should send back their reports before 6 a.m.

Speaking of which, it related to that seaplane.

By Spur’s estimation, the Liangxia Fleet, to ensure its own safety, had been operating in the open sea far away from the Xuan Continent, monitoring the waters near the Xuan Continent with long-range ship-borne reconnaissance aircraft, thus relying on seaplanes to scout the vicinity of the fleet.

The Liangxia Fleet only had two fleet carriers and was engaged in combat with both the Newland and Bulan Fleets simultaneously, which certainly stretched their ship-borne aircraft thin.

Moreover, those two Liangxia carriers might not have carried enough ship-borne aircraft.

If the weather prevented securing ship-borne aircraft on the flight deck and they could only be placed in the hangar, there would even fewer aircraft available for use.

By 6 o’clock, there was still no news.

Since no new orders had been issued, the SBDs had already turned back towards home.

This meant that the Liangxia Fleet had not been discovered during the first half of the flight.

However, Spur was still not giving up.

The key was that the flight route of the reconnaissance aircraft during their return, the latter half, was different from the first half, which meant there was a possibility of discovering the Liangxia Fleet during their journey back.

In truth, this was a matter of no choice.

With a total of only four SBDs within the endpoint area nearly 400 kilometers wide in a fan-shaped sea region, there should have been twelve aircraft, according to standard tactics!

Indeed, during the return flight of these SBDs, the flight path shifted approximately 40 kilometers to the south.

Theoretically, if the Liangxia Fleet was still within that area and headed southwest after dawn, it was very possible they could be encountered by the returning SBDs.

In conclusion, Spur hadn’t given up, nor did he want to.

However, this was only about half an hour’s matter.

At 6:35 am, they received another telegram from the Expeditionary Fleet, with both the "Radiant" and the "Reprisal" detecting enemy plane groups coming from the north on their radar.

Fifteen minutes later, Cunningham sent another telegram; the Expeditionary Fleet was being bombed.

The enemy aircraft split into two formations, totaling dozens of planes, with over ten being fighters in advance, employing tactics with a clear purpose.

The two formations attacked the "Radiant" and the "Terrifying" separately.

As in previous battles, before taking out the carrier, the Liangxia Navy’s ship-borne aircraft did not attack the escort battleships, or to be exact, they didn’t waste their bombs and torpedoes on escort battleships.

From start to finish, the torpedo bombers and bombers were aiming for the carrier.

The entire attack operation was clean and swift, a typical Liangxia style.

To use Tanimoto’s words, this was the key to the Liangxia Fleet’s success in battle after battle. From the Fleet Commander down to the common sailor, all officers and sailors knew exactly what they were doing. Once engaged in combat, a Fleet of dozens of warships and thousands of officers and men completely merged into one, forming a terrifying war machine capable of crushing all obstacles and defeating all enemies.

After that, they received a series of telegrams intermittently, though most were from escort battleships mostly reporting combat situations, such as shooting down enemy planes.

About 20 minutes later, nearing 7 o’clock, they finally received a telegram from Cunningham.

But it was not from the "Radiant"; it was from the "Reputation."

After experiencing intense combat, the Expeditionary Fleet’s anti-air fighters and anti-air warships had shot down over 20 incoming enemy planes.

However, both the "Radiant" and the "Terrifying" had been severely damaged and lost their combat capabilities.

The officers and men aboard the two carriers were still fighting hard to make repairs.

Furthermore, the "Reputation" and the "Reprisal" had also been attacked but avoided all bombs and torpedoes and were not damaged.

After such a long-winded explanation, only the last sentence mentioned the key point.

The entire group of enemy aircraft that completed the attack was heading north to return.

Based on this, Cunningham deduced that the Liangxia Fleet was to the north.

Additionally, considering the time of the attack, the range from which the enemy aircraft set out wouldn’t exceed 300 kilometers.

The reason was that, when fully loaded, the cruising speed of bombers and torpedo bombers would not exceed 300 kilometers per hour, and forming up into the squadrons would also require time.

If the attack aircraft group set out only after receiving the reconnaissance report from the seaplane, the distance would probably be less than 200 kilometers.

This deduction was bound to have deviations since it was impossible to accurately judge how much time the Liangxia Fleet needed to prepare for the attack or how long the Plane Group would be delayed before takeoff.

However, Spur didn’t take Cunningham’s judgment seriously.