High-speed dive, precise strafing, and rapid withdrawal, this series of actions is simple to say. To shuttle and fly through the fierce and dense air defense firepower network of enemy ships, it is simply a game with the god of death!

In order to suppress the open-air anti-aircraft artillery of enemy ships, disperse the enemy's air defense firepower, and reduce the pressure of its own bomber attack operations. After arriving over the enemy fleet, Richthofen and his fighter pilots had such an important and dangerous task.

Although the preparation process for this counterattack was hasty, the strategic position of the Azores was very important. The garrison troops' mission was strict combat training throughout the year. They simulated and performed various possible situations. The current situation seemed extreme, but in fact it was within the consideration of the staff. The land-based aviation troops, ground anti-aircraft artillery troops and garrison fleets all had response plans, so they would not fall into a blind battle. Richthofen used half of the fighter aircraft to guard the mid- and high altitudes, and half of the fighter aircraft descended to low altitude to strafuse the enemy ships, and continued until the end of this wave of bombing.

In Richterhofen's concept, leading by example is a manifestation of the courage and courage of a battlefield commander. At this time, weighing the pros and cons of all parties, he personally led a team to dive and strafuse the enemy ships, and the target of the attack was those aircraft carriers with the most eye-catching hulls!

With a small tactical maneuver, Richthofen successfully passed through the enemy fleet's firepower nets. Richthofen arrived at an extremely low altitude close to the sea. After catching prey, the osprey would quickly leave the water. Seeing the enemy ship's gun fire coming, the colonel with extremely exquisite flying skills immediately jumped up in an osprey style, leaving the artillery fire from the enemy ship under the wings, and then rolled in the air, flashing through another series of relatively sparsely spaced machine shells, quickly approaching a huge aircraft carrier with a flight altitude of about 100 meters.

The big guy in front of me has similar appearance characteristics to that of the German aircraft carrier. The lower part of the hull is a narrow warship line, using a typical open hangar and a short island bridge. The spacious and flat flight deck is painted with eye-catching lines and numbers. The propeller of the aircraft located at the stern direction rotates rapidly, and the anti-aircraft artillery located in front, back and sides of the warship continues to spit out fiery tongues.

This is not the first time that Richterhofen has observed an aircraft carrier from such an angle, but at this moment, his visual sense was still quite impacted. The enemy did not intend to let the German fighter jet "sightsee" calmly. The artillery fire from the ship's side almost flew past his cockpit. Richterhofen quickly turned right with a vertical wing, then turned around and swept downwards sharply, swept the flight deck of the enemy ship at a small angle, then quickly reversed, and fired towards the port gun position of the enemy ship, pulled up, swept across the enemy ship's stern, swayed the wings left and right until the range of the small-caliber bullets flew out, then pulled it up decisively and returned to a kilometer altitude.

Leaving the dense firepower net in the middle and low altitude, the tense nerves suddenly bounced up like a spring that was squeezed to the extreme, and suddenly felt like a different world. Looking back and looking, the fierce battle continued, and waves rose up between the seas between the ships, and the ripples of the water waves were wider than the combined two or three ships.

Under the air strike, the huge enemy fleet was changing its course, and the overall formation of the fleet also underwent some changes, but in a small area, the ships always maintained a position that is conducive to defense.

As far as Richthofen knows, the command's counterattack order is to list the enemy's main battleship as a priority target. According to tactical practice, the attack order of aircraft carriers should be before battleships and battle cruisers. Therefore, most German bombers dropped bombs on enemy aircraft carriers, but tactical bombers did not dare to dive to a height of tens of meters like fighters, but dived from high altitude to medium and low altitude, aimed and dropped bombs. Due to interference from enemy ship artillery fire, coupled with many differences in actual combat and exercises, the pilots who participated in the war for the first time did not perform at a normal level, and the hit rate of the first round of bombing was very low.

In addition to the ju-30, the Luftwaffe also equipped a large number of other tactical bombers, Ju-17/20. This aircraft is an orthodox dive bomber, with two major series of land-based and ship-based. The total number of equipment before the outbreak of the war exceeded 2,600. Compared with the ju-30, the ju-17/20 has a slower speed and slightly lower bomb load. Its biggest advantage lies in its unique large-angle dive bombing capability, and its dive hit rate of the same altitude is more than twice that of ordinary bombers.

Based on dive bombers being the ultimate weapon for air-to-ships, the German Navy's aviation fleet has reached 900 aircraft. The Luftwaffe's ju17/20 deployed in the Azores during wartime was more than 200 aircraft, half of which were stationed on Texel Island, and the rest are scattered on several major islands such as San Miguel, Fayar, and Floris. This counterattack, the Ju-30, which has a fast speed and a large bomb load, is equipped with a second wave of bombers.

After reuniting with the escort, Richterhofen flew north for a short distance. His original intention was to detect the strength of the escort force in the rear of the enemy aircraft carrier formation, but the vast auxiliary ships in the rear of the enemy fleet attracted his attention.

He ordered the wingman to cover the air, and Richthofen quickly lowered the altitude. During the descent, the sea-surface ships opened fire at him, but the air defense firepower was far less powerful than the battleship group and aircraft carrier formation in front of him. When he lowered to a flight altitude of about 100 meters, he could clearly identify the outline of the ship in front of him and even the situation on the deck.

Among the amazing number of auxiliary ships, some were temporary recruitment civilian ships, some were auxiliary ships built for military purposes. There were obvious differences in appearance and shape of the two. Richthofen flew close to a team of nearly the same outline and painted, with a narrow hull and equipped with multiple small and medium-caliber artillery. Many soldiers in khaki uniforms can be seen on the deck and on the side passages. They wore flat Tony helmets, some held rifles, and some took out machine guns. When enemy planes attacked, they joined the air defense ranks with these weapons.

Richterhofen adjusted the direction, aimed the nose at one of them, and then fired with a 7.92mm machine gun. Ordinary bullets were thousands of tons of water displacement and the hull was not very threatening to the auxiliary ship with a relatively sturdy hull. Richterhofen's intention was to let the automatic camera gun take the image of the target...

Two hours later, the German Azores Defense Command located in the southwest of Texel Island, a large number of aerial photos were spread out in front of German intelligence and staff officers. They needed to use their professional abilities to identify and analyze, and put together a complete picture of the enemy situation, providing the generals with important basis for judging the situation.

After reporting the troubled identification of enemy main ships and escort forces information, the officers continued to search and clean up the piles of aerial photos, and then pointed at the photos taken by Colonel Richthofen and said:

"Hey, what do you think this is? It seems to be a warship?"

An officer next to him looked carefully with a magnifying glass: "Well, it should be a US-made fortress-class warship. It is said that two ships can carry an infantry regiment and all of its weapons and equipment. How many are the number reported by the corps commander? If you know the number, you can roughly estimate the enemy's landing force."

The officer who asked the question looked in a stack of paper: "Well, here... the pilot of the 33rd Fighter Wing reported that there were about 30 ships of this type that were observed, and several other civilian ships carried combat soldiers, and the specific number was unclear."

Another officer responded: "There are 15 regiments? There are conservatively estimated 30,000 troops. In addition, the inestimable part, the enemy's land combat forces are likely to be more than 50,000?"

An older lieutenant colonel said: "But this estimate is too unrigorous. I am worried that these 20 fortress-class troops transport only transport the first wave of landing troops, and more troops are carried by other troops transport ships... If you want to capture Texel Island, the enemy should prepare at least 100,000 land troops."

At this time, someone raised an intriguing issue: "It is difficult for us to confirm how many enemy ships there are, but one thing is certain that as long as one is sunk, the enemy's land combat force will be reduced by hundreds or thousands. Is this more effective than sinking an enemy's main battleship?"

Outside the headquarters, the roar of aircraft takeoff and landing came from time to time. Well-trained German officers and soldiers were working hard to recover from the huge damage caused by enemy air strikes. Fighters built a new air defense line north of Texel Island, and bombers launched a wave after wave to counterattack. This battle had transformed from a unilateral attack by the US and British Allied Forces into a continuous struggle between the two sides.

Not long after, a slightly lengthy report was sent to the German General Staff in the southern suburbs of Paris, and presented it to the German Crown Prince William, who was personally the chief of the German General Staff, and his senior staff.

"There is no doubt that the enemy deceived our intelligence departments in a very cunning way. Eighty percent of the main warships of the United States and Britain had arrived in the northern waters of the Azores. Their continuous air strikes severely damaged our aviation troops on Texel. In just half a day, we lost more than 700 combat aircraft. Fortunately, the fleet left the Port of Heroes the day before yesterday and went to the Floris waters for military training. The two aircraft carriers and the more than 100 carrier-based aircraft carried on were intact." Chief Staff General Von Carson summarized the essence of the frontline report in concise language as usual.

After his right-hand assistant finished speaking, Crown William nodded and said with a clear attitude: "From the current situation, our air force's counterattack was very resolute. They killed two or three hundred enemy carrier-based aircraft in the battle, sank and injured many enemy ships, and severely hit the enemy's arrogance. Therefore, I think we should be cautious and optimistic about the battle situation in Azores. What we need to do now is to issue clear instructions to the navy and dispatch the main force of the high seas fleet to the Azores!"

The first commander of the Marine Division, General Oscar von Huthier, who successfully played the "tactical genius" of the army and the navy, echoed: "Your Highness's decision is very wise, and the current situation is similar to that in early August 1914. As long as we can seize the opportunity and defeat the enemy in a sea decisive battle, the war will win more than half. However, I think we should not ignore the details mentioned in the report, that is, the enemy fleet has a large number of warships, and I am worried that the enemy will fight against the Azores group.

The island landing attack was faster than we expected, and it could even be comparable to our sudden attack on the Isle of Man and the Coen Peninsula. Our defense facilities in the Azores were very complete and the army was highly morale, but the enemy was obviously prepared. Once they lucky enough to capture one or two islands in a very short time and establish temporary airports and defensive positions, the Battle of Azores may turn into a large-scale war of attrition. In this way, we have to consider the follow-up arrangements for the main fleet to rush to Azores."

Everyone here felt that Huthier's words were reasonable, but he didn't know how to deal with them. Crown Prince William raised his head slightly: "The general must have a response strategy in his heart, so let's listen carefully."

Hutier is talented and very confident. He calmly responded: "Our army's garrison troops in the Azores have more defense and insufficient counterattack. If some islands fall into the hands of the enemy, if they want to regain their troops, they must invest heavily. Therefore, while dispatching the main fleet to Azores, we should urgently dispatch land forces and land-based fighter jets to give the Azores the maximum reinforcement in the shortest time. In this way, the weight to win this decisive battle will be more in our hands."

Crown Prince William thought: "The troops attacking Britain from Ireland cannot be weakened. If they need to be transferred, they can only draw troops deployed in northern France... Let them board ships from ports in northern France immediately and arrive in the Azores?"

Huthier replied without hesitation: "If it goes well, the first batch of about 50,000 troops can be transported to the Azores within six days. The combat aircraft will not be dismantled and shipped in various ships. The first batch can carry 800 fighter jets and 500 bombers."

Crown Prince William nodded with satisfaction: "Since that's the case, I propose to form the Azores theater, with General Von Bromberg as the commander of the theater, and he is fully responsible for the increase in troops and defense. Do you have any objections?"

Many of the dozen generals and many senior staff officers here have not yet considered the causes and consequences, but seeing that the crown prince seemed to have figured it out and the urgent situation is indeed urgent, and von Huthier is indeed a very capable commander, so he did not propose a long-term plan.
Chapter completed!