Empire Conquest

Chapter 592 - 588: The New Era

The Air Force General of the Tiaoman Empire was obviously very proud when introducing their achievements.

Of course, it was entirely understandable.

By now, the Expeditionary Brigade of the Empire’s Land Air Force had been operating in the Tiaoman Empire for 2 years, with over 4,000 bombers deployed and a total force approaching 200,000 men. The key was that the Empire also provided materials through various means that could produce thousands of fighters for the Tiaoman Empire.

Just in aluminum ingots alone, about 150,000 tons had been supplied.

Truth be told, without the Empire’s assistance, the Tiaoman Air Force would probably have been grounded long ago.

To say nothing of the fact that the strategic bombing by the Bulan Royal Air Force and the Newland Land Air Force alone had reduced the industrial output of the Tiaoman Empire by more than a third.

The key point is that this was after the Empire’s Land Air Force had sent an Expeditionary Brigade to participate in the war, greatly weakening the Alliance Group’s strategic bombing capabilities through reprisals. The losses suffered by the Tiaoman Empire would have been even more severe without the Expeditionary Brigade of the Empire’s Land Air Force.

To put it bluntly, even the Tiaoman Air Force was short on pilots.

To date, including officers and soldiers of the Expeditionary Brigade, over 10,000 Imperial pilots volunteered to fight in the Tiaoman Empire, and nearly a third of them had already become Tiaoman citizens.

As a result, in front of Imperial generals, Tiaoman Air Force generals somewhat felt unable to hold their heads high.

Now, at last, they could finally hold their heads up with pride and naturally boasted extensively.

However, these Tiaoman Air Force generals obviously picked the wrong audience.

Bai Zhizhan was a Navy General, not particularly interested in matters of the Air Force. His interest lay in the use of radio-controlled bombs by the Tiaoman Air Force in this battle.

Bai Zhizhan had some understanding of remote-controlled bombs.

As early as before the outbreak of the war, both the Army and Navy of the Empire had conducted related research; that is to say, they had projects in this area, but all ended without results.

Of course, the main issue was technological.

In the beginning, the chief engineer of the project was on the wrong track, thinking that controlling via radio was too difficult. The most critical point was that during the control process, the operator could not maintain effective observation of the bomb, and thus could not accurately judge the trajectory deviation.

As a result, the Empire’s researchers pinned their hopes on a method of control that did not require observation of the trajectory.

Although in the long run, this was the inevitable direction for control technology, at that time, it clearly exceeded the scope that technology could support.

With the outbreak of the war, the Empire had already abandoned the development of remote-controlled bombs.

Of course, this was also related to a lack of urgent need within the Imperial Military.

For the Empire’s Land Air Force, and especially for the newly formed Strategic Air Force, the value of remote-controlled bombs was not great.

Throughout the war, the Strategic Air Force adhered to the theory of "area bombing", which was to increase the bomb load to destroy the target.

If one bomber couldn’t do it, then send a swarm of bombers.

If one ton of bombs couldn’t destroy the target, then drop a hundred tons.

If one bombing run wasn’t enough, then bomb ten times over.

Brutally simple, yet highly effective.

For the Tactical Air Force, it was even more non-existent.

Throughout the war, low-altitude attack aircraft that performed brilliantly mostly used ammunition like rockets with decent accuracy. Moreover, by dive-bombing, they could improve precision, hence there was no need for remote-controlled bombs. Not to mention that tactical aircraft lacked such capability.

For the Navy Air Force, the situation was much the same.

All along, in the struggle against battleships, the Navy Air Force relied on dive bombing and had not considered using remote-controlled bombs to improve hit rates.

The crux was that ship-borne aircraft were tactical fighters, torpedo bombers typically had a crew of three, and bombers usually only had two.

Additionally, ship-borne aircraft are not very large in size, lacking space to install the relatively bulky remote-control equipment.

Although after the outbreak of the great war, both the Empire’s Army and Navy increased their investment in technology and began to reconsider improving bomb hit rates via remote control and other methods, all efforts were primarily focused on basic research. Neither the Land Air Force nor the Sea Air had any operational requirements.

Clearly, the Tiaoman Air Force was different.

The Tiaoman Navy did not have a real Air Force, so the task of maritime combat fell to the Tiaoman Air Force.

Although the Tiaoman Air Force had numerous state-of-the-art dive bombers, tactical bombers like the Ju-87 had a very short operational radius.

The result was that, in many instances, only twin-engine long-range bombers could be fielded.

Obviously, using long-range bombers to attack battleships would certainly require high-precision munitions.

This problem became even more pronounced after the march into the Land Heart Sea.

Because the Raleigh Kingdom was so unreliable, constantly failing in various ways, the Tiaoman Air Force not only had to fight alone but also had to rely mostly on long-range bombers stationed in the southern regions of Locke Country to deal with the Bulan Fleet operating in the Land Heart Sea.

After several battles, bombing accuracy had become a major issue.

However, the advantages of long-range bombers also became apparent.

With a bomb load sufficient enough—usually over 2 tons, and new-model bombers over 3 tons—the large number of crew members on the bombers meant that assigning one or two crew members specifically to handle remote-controlled bombs would not have any significant impact.

Of course, the size of the bombers allowed them to carry not-so-small remote-control equipment.

It was for these reasons that, compared to tactical aircraft, long-range bombers were the ideal platform and could better utilize the value of remote-control bombs.

The key point was also that the Tiaoman Air Force had an urgent need in this area.

After taking Malta, or more accurately, after the enemy’s reprisal against Malta, the need for maritime operations in the Land Heart Sea area became very urgent.

It was against this backdrop that the Tiaoman Empire was the first to develop a radio-controlled bomb.

What surprised Bai Zhizhan strategically was how the Tiaoman engineers had resolved a serious issue that made the Imperial engineers give up on developing radio-controlled bombs.

That issue was the inability to see and thus remotely control the bomb after it had been dropped.

The solution thought up by Tiaoman engineers was incredibly simple.

They installed dozens of high-power luminous tubes on the tail end of the bomb!

This way, the operator could observe the bomb’s flight path throughout the process with the aid of optical devices like telescopes or bomb sights and then carry out remote control operations on the bomb.

Although this placed high demands on the bombing platform—the bombers—and imposed tactical limitations, real combat proved that it was indeed feasible and effective.

One could say that the efforts of the Tiaoman Air Force heralded the arrival of a brand-new era.

Although the Empire’s Navy had not yet obtained remote-controlled bombs nor had combat aircraft capable of using them, Bai Zhizhan had already keenly realized that the advent of remote-controlled bombs would completely transform current bombing tactics and greatly enhance the operational efficiency of bombers.

Once remote-control technology matured, dive bombers and torpedo attack aircraft would become a thing of the past.

Furthermore, air torpedoes would be sent to the museum.

In the future, apart from fighters, ship-borne aircraft would primarily be bombers armed with remote-controlled bombs.

The Navy would not become obsolete, and carriers certainly would not disappear.

In the era of remote-controlled bombs, the status of carriers would become even more solidified because ship-borne aircraft equipped with remote-controlled bombs would be capable of destroying all sea and ground targets.

However, Bai Zhizhan also knew that this era would certainly not arrive during the war.