Soon, Mirage Haifeng, the naval admiral of the Mirage Kingdom, no longer worried about the Tang Army's battleships, because something more difficult appeared in his field of vision.
That's right, Tang Jun's carrier-based aircraft is here! They were not far from the battlefield to begin with, and they appeared on the battlefield immediately after forming a formation!
More than a dozen Stuka dive bombers were the first to attack. They rolled down one after another from the sky and began to dive towards the battleships lined up in Mirage.
The commanders on board the Mirage battleship were immediately caught in a dilemma: they didn’t know what they should do...
If they continue to attack the sea, they cannot let the gunners responsible for air defense launch air defense operations: that is a large group of main guns with a caliber of more than 350 mm! When that thing fires, can anyone stand nearby?
The huge muzzle flash and noise made it impossible for the soldiers on the anti-aircraft gun positions on both sides of the battleship to fight. They had to plug their ears and stay away from these gun ports.
However... among the battleships of the Mirage Kingdom, many battleships are designed with two turrets in the front, one turret in the middle, and two more turrets in the back...
This design allows Mirage to add an extra main gun turret to the battleship, but this staggered design also allows most of the battleship's own anti-aircraft artillery to be crowded near these main gun turrets.
In fact, this method also has the possibility of solving it, that is, installing a turret on the anti-aircraft gun during modification or construction, which can somewhat isolate some sound and air waves, so that the anti-aircraft gun can work even when the main gun is firing.
What is regrettable is that no matter from which perspective, the various anti-aircraft guns installed on Mirage's battleships do not receive this treatment.
Most anti-aircraft guns only have shields, and the vast majority of anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns are even installed directly on the deck without any protection.
This kind of temporarily installed anti-aircraft gun cannot be used when the main gun is firing, but if the bombardment is stopped for air defense, then what is the purpose of these mirage battleships desperately leaning against the face of the Tang Army's battleship? Get beaten?
The Stuka roared down, and the Mirage Navy fleet was forced to start a larger serpentine maneuver. Regardless of his safety, Mirage Haifeng rushed to the unprotected terrace and looked up at the planes that looked like flies. He was so angry that he didn't know what to say.
Although those scary howling devices are not installed, the Navy's Stuka still makes a terrifying sound when it dives down. The roar of the engine combined with the sound of the air being torn apart is still very scary.
What's more, in a hurry, the Mirage Navy was not ready for air defense: their anti-aircraft gunners had been looking for "shooting stars" in the dark night all night. How can their current condition be better?
What's interesting is that as soon as the sailors on the Goblin battleship were pushed onto the deck by the officers and asked to operate the machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, the main gun on the Goblin battleship opened fire.
Six 460mm-caliber main guns roared, and the hundreds of soldiers who had just rushed onto the deck suddenly heard nothing.
They stumbled onto the deck, covering their ears and rolling on the ground. But for them, there is only one voice left in the whole world, an annoying buzzing sound.
Because coordination was not done well, these anti-aircraft artillery units became victims. The Goblin battleship quickly stopped its bombardment and focused on air defense.
The same is true for the battleship Mirage. Mirage Haifeng has been forced to order to stop the bombardment and turn all his attention to air defense.
The aircraft support promised by the Army finally appeared on the battlefield a few minutes later, but the effect was really poor.
Mirage Haifeng did see some Zero fighter planes, but these planes that came to reinforce him were now being chased by an aircraft with wings that bent upwards like a Stuka and fled in embarrassment.
Those planes didn't care about his fleet at all, and couldn't even get close. Mirage Haifeng could even clearly see a Zero fighter jet being chased by a pirate fighter jet. It struggled for more than ten seconds while dodging left and right, and then fell into the sea and exploded, dragging a long black smoke.
The entire battlefield was like a hunting ground. The Tang Army's planes were like a group of hunting hunters, while the Mirage's Zero fighter jets were like poor tits in the forest.
They flew up in panic, then flapped their wings in the sky and fled in panic. After a gunshot, a stiff corpse fell from the sky, neatly...
Mirage Haifeng actually didn't want to use such a metaphor to describe the friendly aircraft that were covering him, but he really couldn't find any appropriate description to complain about these friendly forces that were supporting him.
Aren't you here to support me? Aren't you here to cover my fleet? How come you can't even get close to us in the end?
During his series of questions, seven or eight Zero fighters had been shot down. The remaining mirage planes are also in a sad state of being unable to save themselves when crossing the river.
Mirage Haifeng looked anxiously at the sky above the battlefield, but he watched helplessly as a Styx anti-ship missile hit the bridge of a cruiser.
That's right, although this thing can only attack the part above the waterline of the battleship, it is unlikely to directly sink the battleship, but it seems to have eyes, specifically ramming into the protrusions on the battleship!
For example, turrets, chimneys, command towers, ship islands... In short, it likes to hit the tall buildings in the middle of the ship. Although it cannot sink the warship, it can destroy the command center of the warship.
After a night of fierce fighting, although not many Mirage warships were sunk, almost all were injured. These injuries did not look fatal, but they caused problems in the Mirage Army's air combat.
Due to the layout, most of the battleship's anti-aircraft guns are concentrated near the ship's island and chimney. After all, the front and rear decks have to be freed up to install the main guns.
But in most cases, the Styx anti-ship missile will hit the ship island, chimney and other areas: although it cannot really sink the warship, it can destroy a large number of concentrated anti-aircraft gun positions!
After being hit by a Styx anti-ship missile, the seven or eight nearby anti-aircraft gun positions became unusable: they were either destroyed by fire or affected by the explosion.
These lost anti-aircraft guns created gaps in the air defense firepower of the Mirage fleet. The originally airtight anti-aircraft gun firepower network now had huge blank areas.
Soon, Tang aircraft, which found these weaknesses, began to approach the Mirage battleships along these passages without gunfire. The losses of the Mirage fleet also began to increase sharply with the emergence of Tang military carrier-based aircraft.
In just a few minutes, the battleship USS Beishima, which had been hit before, was hit by a 500-kilogram aerial bomb.
The bomb penetrated the deck and exploded in the middle of the ship. Then the entire battleship caught fire and explosions followed. In less than 3 minutes, the battleship hit by the aerial bomb broke into two pieces in the explosion.
The battleship Da Nanwan following the battleship Bei Dao was billowing with smoke at this moment. Because it was so miserable, no carrier-based aircraft from the Tang Army even attacked it to waste ammunition.
Seeing the battleship Yufeng behind him being hit by two torpedoes one after another, Mirage Haifeng no longer knew what to say.
He was full of confidence just now, and just now he thought the advantage had returned to his side. But less than fifteen minutes had passed, and the situation on the battlefield took a turn for the worse again.
The Mirage's fleet collapsed under the attack of the Tang Navy's aviation force. Due to the need to continue air defense operations, the Mirage's warships were forced to cease fire after only two rounds of shelling.
Now Mirage Haifeng feels like a fool. His fleet is rushing towards the enemy's fleet at full speed, and then he is stupidly waiting for others to blast him to pieces with one shot after another...
Just when he felt that he was almost unable to breathe due to the despair, a stream of light suddenly flashed across his eyes.
Before he could react, he was pushed to the ground by a violent wave of air. Then the huge vibration of the battleship lifted him up high from the ground, and then he fell hard back to the ground.
His throat felt sweet, and a mouthful of old blood almost spurted out. When his adjutant and guards helped him out of his trance and into the control tower, he finally realized that one of the things that had been hitting them all night hit the mizzen mast behind the chimney of the battleship Mirage!
The explosion blew away the anti-aircraft guns deployed under the mast and also disabled some nearby equipment. After being lucky all night, the Mirage finally got an anti-ship missile.
The injured Mirage Haifeng, who was blown away by the air wave and fell to the ground, was receiving treatment from military doctors in the bridge. He could not care about the battle situation outside for the time being.
During the few minutes he was injured, the battleship Xiangyun was flanked by two Dongwan-class battleships, and was finally seriously injured and sank.
The artillery of the Tang Army hit the unlucky Xiangyun battleship multiple times, damaging its power system, destroying two main gun turrets, and repeatedly penetrating the horizontal armor.
After being hit by six or seven artillery shells, the Xiangyun finally burst out with a tragic explosion in a brief silence, raised its tail high, and began to sink.
So far, six battleships of the Mirage Kingdom have been injured, three have sunk, and the only three remaining battleships are unable to engage in artillery battles with the Tang army's battleships due to air defense operations.
However, the completely red-eyed Mirage Navy did not sit still and wait for death. The destroyers and remaining cruisers that had been following the battleship fleet had separated from the main fleet at this time and rushed towards the Tang Army's landing site like crazy.
They knew that this might be the only chance for the Mirage: only by rushing into the landing site and destroying enough Tang transport ships could they possibly prevent the Tang army from landing this time.
However, they soon discovered that a large Tang Army destroyer fleet was crossing their path! ——
These are two updates from yesterday
(End of chapter)
