Empire Conquest

Chapter 504 - 500 Consecutive Attacks

Just after finishing breakfast, the telecommunication officer delivered the report sent back by the reconnaissance aircraft.

On the airfield at Transfer Island, neatly arranged were hundreds of planes, most of which were four-engine B-17 heavy bombers.

Besides, there were several four-engine heavy bombers that had not been encountered before, presumed to be B-24s.

There were also several dozen twin-engine long-range fighters, though primarily ordinary ones like the P-41.

The key was, the Newland Army seemed not to have expected an attack today.

It wasn’t until the reconnaissance aircraft flew over the airfield and circled a few times that the anti-aircraft forces reacted and fired at the reconnaissance aircraft with High-altitude Guns.

In addition, the enemy’s fighters also started to mobilize, or more accurately, they were preparing to mobilize.

But it was already too late.

About 15 minutes later, around 7 o’clock, the forward Plane Group consisting of 8 "Vermilion Birds" and 8 "Thunderbolts" had already struck.

Piloting these 16 ship-borne aircraft were truly seasoned veterans.

The 8 "Vermilion Birds" were equipped with bombs specially designed to destroy runways, known as Cluster Bombs, and they increased their bombing accuracy by diving.

If things went as expected, disabling Transfer Island’s airfield would be certain with just 6 planes successfully dropping their payloads.

Although fighters couldn’t be prevented from taking off—since they didn’t require hardened runways and the take-off roll was short—it was enough to prevent the bombers, especially the four-engine heavy bombers that posed a significant threat, from taking off. Without a runway, they could only stay grounded obediently.

No matter how capable the fighters were, they posed little threat to battleships.

The 8 "Thunderbolts" also carried Cluster Bombs, but unlike targeted bombing, they scattered the bombs over the airfield in a typical low-altitude manner.

These particular Cluster Bombs employed erratic timed fuses.

It should be said that these were new types of munitions invented by the Empire’s Army Air Force during strategic bombardments against the Luosha Federation.

The bombs themselves were very simple, consisting of a spring-driven device controlling the fuse, with the timing triggered by the tension of the spring.

The key was that there was no pattern to setting the spring.

As a result, the detonation times of the bombs varied greatly—some after a few minutes, others not for several hours.

If there was a fault in the spring device, it might not explode until days or even months later, triggered by external factors.

Since the fuse was locked internally, traditional disarming methods were nearly impossible.

To forcibly disarm them, one usually had to detonate them from a safe distance by shooting or blasting.

The power of these timed explosives wasn’t very great, comparable to the anti-personnel mines commonly used by the Army; its main value was in causing trouble for the enemy.

Because they performed so well in actual combat, effectively paralyzing airfields and other key military targets, the Navy took them up for use.

The 8 "Thunderbolts" carried only 8 1000 kg-level Cluster Bombs, but that was enough to cripple the airfield on Transfer Island.

Joining the "Vermilion Birds" and "Thunderbolts" in the fray were 2 squadrons of "Xiaotian" fighters.

Since only a few enemy planes had managed to get airborne, and had been attacked during climb, the escort fighters, during the ensuing battle, particularly targeted those enemy planes parked at the airfield, especially the B-17 heavy bombers and the long-range fighters capable of posing a threat to the fleet.

By 7:20, the main force of the Plane Group had arrived.

As the airfield had already been suppressed and the exposed enemy aircraft bombarded, the main force focused its bombing on the High-altitude Gun positions near the airfield.

Actually, this was different from the arranged attack tactics, as the frontline commander made adjustments.

The reason was simple, a second wave of attacks was definitely needed, and the second wave would still primarily target the airfields, so there was no need to waste ammunition on airfields that were temporarily crippled; destroying the enemy’s anti-air defense positions beforehand could effectively improve the efficiency of the second bombing wave.

The key point was also that elite pilots concentrated on participating in the first wave of attacks, and within the second wave’s plane group, there were quite a few rookies.

At 7:30, the pilot commanding the first wave of attacks sent back a report, requesting the fleet to immediately launch the second wave of attacks, focusing on the airfields.

This was, like the plan, the same.

Upon receiving the report, Zhou Yongtao did not delay, issuing orders immediately for the naval aviation service personnel to load ordnance onto the ship-borne aircraft that had been sent up to the flight deck and had already been refueled.

Actually, besides not being armed, all other preparations had been completed.

Only after receiving the report and determining the bombing targets could the ordnance be decided.

Differently, because the enemy’s air defense fighters had been decimated and the first wave of escort fighters could return about an hour later, it was unnecessary to arrange escort fighters for the second wave of attack aircraft, having already sent the fighters that would perform the escort missions up to the flight deck beforehand.

To put it simply, these were the fighters that had previously been on standby on the deck.

After consulting with Bai Zhizhan’s opinion, Zhou Yongtao made adjustments to the deployment, ordering that all escort fighters be equipped with ground attack weapons.

That is to say, these fighters also had to undertake a secondary strike mission.

If they encountered enemy fighters—after all, on several islands to the east of Transfer Island, there must be field airports, and there must be fighters deployed—then these escort fighters could jettison the bombs they were carrying and immediately enter the dogfights to cover the attack aircraft group bombing Transfer Island.

Actually, using "Xiaotian" for attack missions wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

During the battle for Sai Island, especially in the later stages, that is, after crippling Guan Island, the main mission of "Xiaotian" was to perform ground attacks.

Moreover, in the battle around Lion Spring City, "Xiaotian" also took on the role of an attack aircraft.

Relatively speaking, when dealing with general targets, the combat efficiency of "Xiaotian" surpassed that of the shipborne bombers.

The most obvious advantage was the lack of need for escort fighters.

This fact alone could double the combat efficiency!

Besides, the payload capacity of "Xiaotian" was not inferior to that of other tactical planes. If calculated according to comprehensive performance, it even surpassed many ship-borne aircraft.

In some low-intensity battles, "Xiaotian" could complete support missions with just aviation machine guns.

Of course, it was not without its flaws.

Compared with bombers and attack aircraft, "Xiaotian’s" most significant shortcoming was actually its lack of armor protection, making it easily vulnerable to small caliber anti-aircraft weapons. Especially when compared to the Army’s dedicated attack aircraft, this drawback was particularly prominent, even to an intolerable extent.

In the battle around Lion Spring City, more than half of the lost "Xiaotian" aircraft were destroyed by anti-aircraft machine guns and small caliber high-altitude guns.

Despite this imperfection, the issue did not affect "Xiaotian’s" performance in actual combat.

This was precisely why the Empire’s Navy Air Force continued striving to develop, or rather to improve, the "Xiaotian’s" capability to perform attack missions.

To put it simply, it was about finding suitable ground attack weapons for "Xiaotian"!

Here, it was still related to the Army.

Indeed, it was the rocket munitions first tasted by the Army Air Force that came into play.

Due to the very ideal effects of attacking ground targets, and the low skill requirement for the pilots, the Navy Air Force continued with its policy of adopting what proved effective.

It was after the adoption of rockets that "Xiaotian" truly became an authentic multi-purpose fighter.