"A bunch of cowards!"

In the cockpit of the landline, William Kenny, a naval envoy pilot from the capital area of ​​Ireland, muttered disdainfully. In a blink of an eye, the Italian fighter jets had fled without a trace, making people wonder whether they were descendants of the ancient Romans who ran rampant in the Mediterranean more than two thousand years ago and dominated Europa.

After a while, the voice of the squadron commander came from the flying headphones: "All attention! Pay attention! Next, the 1st team is responsible for air alert, the 2nd and 3rd teams attack the enemy ship formation. Green Cross 22, you approach the enemy ship formation from the north at a low altitude, Green Cross 23, you approach the enemy ship formation from the south in the hollow, your mission tests the enemy's air defense firepower. Understand?"

"Green Cross 22" is William Kenny's landline number. He frowned slightly: "Green Cross 22 understands!"

Another familiar voice came from the radio communication channel: "Green Cross No. 23 understands!"

Just when the squadron leader said "start action", Kenny pushed the flight joystick and fine-tuned the rear edge flap, so that the beautiful carrier-based fighter jet could quickly descend to sea level like a falcon. In his sight, four Italian light cruisers lined up in an equidistant column, forming a nearly perfect picture with the white waves of the sea.

Kenny selected the enemy ship at the front, adjusted his course tens of kilometers away from the target, pushed the accelerator forward, put away the flaps, and amid the loud roar of the engine, the pilot rushed straight towards the target like an arrow from the string. After sufficient acceleration, the flight distance per minute exceeded 11 kilometers, which means that it only takes a minute to fly over ten kilometers.

Before the blue-gray painted new United Kingdom Navy fighter jet was approaching, four Italian light cruisers opened fire violently in the starboard direction. In a blink of an eye, dense bomb rains stirred up a series of water columns on the sea. Kenny and his fighter jets quickly entered a white "Misturbation Forest". The "trees" here grew wildly while disappearing without a trace. If you are not careful, you may bump into a certain tree.

In the shooting scope in front of Kenny, there are a row of green sights with sharp arcs and a row of red sights with slow arcs, used for guns and rocket aiming respectively. When the outline of the enemy ship appears in the first square of the red sight, he skillfully controls the rockets on the dashboard with his left hand and the combat mode control button: the upper row of four red strikers corresponds to the four groups of rockets under the wing hanger. Two groups were used when he was expelling the Italian fighter jet, so there were already two red strikers facing down. At this time, the third striker was pulled down, so the third set of rockets was placed in waiting.

The four blue buttons in the firing state correspond to the combat mode of each group of rockets, which are divided into wireless guidance control mode and self-guided mode. The former is manually controlled by the pilot through the four-way control lever in the left hand position. The latter is automatically guided by the onboard radar to track and attack the enemy aircraft. The lower row of four black buttons corresponds to the trigger mode of each group of rockets. The default state is to enable radio near-fighting fuzes. Only in special circumstances, the pilots will adjust these black buttons to enable the rocket to enable delayed trigger fuses.

After flying for 27 months, Kenny could control the carrier-based fighter with his eyes closed. He quickly adjusted the red and blue buttons, and then opened the rocket shooting safety cover on the flight joystick.

At this time, the airflow from the explosion continued to flow in, and the fighter sometimes shook left and right, sometimes trembling up and down. Even so, Kenny still controlled the fighter calmly. When he reached a position about 6,000 meters away from the target, his eyes suddenly narrowed into a slit, and captured the moment when the outline of the enemy ship coincided with the countdown of the red sight. His right thumb decisively pressed the rocket's firing button. A sharp and short roar like a special whistle sounded, and two 127 mm-radius 483 guided air-air rockets flew towards the enemy ship in self-guided wireless near-explosion mode!

As soon as the rocket was launched, Kenny immediately used his hands and feet, controlled the fighter to make continuous horizontal and sharp turns. He got rid of the dense coverage area of ​​anti-aircraft artillery fire from the enemy ship in just two seconds. Then he climbed up while turning his head to observe the rocket attacking the enemy ship.

Airborne radar guides rockets to automatically search and attack targets, which sounds like a very advanced and awesome fighting method. However, in this era when electronic computers are as huge as dinosaurs, the so-called automation is still mechanical conduction mode, and its efficiency and accuracy can be imagined. Judging from technical testing, live ammunition drilling and a few actual combat situations, self-guided rockets can achieve the best effect within one or two kilometers. If the launch distance is long, enemy fighters can easily get rid of the attack through large-scale maneuvers. Compared with fighters, the ship is slower and physically

It is large, so self-guided rockets projected from five to six kilometers away can usually achieve a high hit rate. This is the conclusion drawn by the Irish through a large number of live ammunition detections. In the battle between the United States, Japan and the Philippines, US fighter jets did use self-guided rockets to injure Japanese ships. However, whether it is the early 475 "Kay's Arrow" with a 80mm bullet diameter or the 483 "Ruger Spear" with a 127mm bullet diameter, its attack method and blasting power are not enough to kill combat ships above a thousand tons. In addition, it is expensive and is not cost-effective to use it against enemy ships.

In sight, two rockets passing by the sea pulled out two parallel white smoke trails. In front of these two eye-catching smoke trails was the leading Italian light cruiser. About twenty meters away from the target, two rockets exploded in the air. Although this explosion position cannot damage the main structure of the Italian warship, they are by no means "Ruger's Spear" used as fireworks for Italians. The prefabricated fragments are tungsten bead fragments with strong penetration ability, and the range of killing is quite considerable. They are used to deal with the dense formations of enemy fighters. They attack ground targets without protection or protected by light armor. The Italian light cruiser in air defense combat has a considerable number of officers and crews on both sides of the side of the Italian light cruiser, and the rangefinder, antenna, searchlight and other external equipment are also very susceptible to damage.

Seeing that the explosion position of the rocket was enough to cause soft damage to Italian warships, Ensign Kenny immediately turned his sight back to the front and changed the flight trajectory one after another to completely get rid of the anti-aircraft artillery fire of Italian ships. Then he reported on a radio: "Green Cross 22 successfully completed a double-air bomb attack, and close to 5,000 meters before, the enemy ship artillery fire did not have much threat."

"Received." The squadron leader replied, "Excellently done, Green Cross No. 22!"

Kenny said politely: "Happy to serve!"

Later, another pilot's voice came from the communication channel: "Green Cross No. 23 completed the attack, but my situation was not very good. The right wing was punched with several holes by shrapnel, and the tail wing was also a little problem. I requested to withdraw from the battle and return directly."

"Received!" replied the squadron leader, "I saw you, Green Cross No. 23. Allow you to withdraw from the battle and return to the mothership."

"Okay, sir!" The voice was a little frustrated. "The Italian fleet's medium and low altitude defense firepower is very strong, and the shooting accuracy is good. Be careful."

"Since that's the case, our next attack will adopt ultra-low-altitude penetration tactics. Everyone can attack Green Cross No. 22 freely. You will protect Green Cross No. 23 back. How about it?"

Kenny hesitated for a moment: "I still have two bombs. Will I attack again?"

The squadron leader also hesitated for a moment and then said, "Leng Cross No. 23, you can evacuate first, and we will follow up soon. Green Cross No. 22, fight quickly and do not have to deliberately pursue accuracy."

"I understand!" Kenny responded, controlling the pedal and steering the plane horizontally. When he turned around, the four Italian light cruisers were still lined up in neat single columns. Judging from the long white water marks on the sea, they did not change their course due to air strikes by enemy planes.

"Let me see, are you really braver than the Italian Air Force?" Keniwu murmured.

In accordance with the combat deployment of the squadron leader, the remaining six of the 2nd and 3rd teams each used ultra-low-altitude penetration moves from different angles. Flying close to sea cannot avoid the anti-aircraft artillery of enemy ships, but instead utilized the linear propagation and susceptibility to interference. Even the combat ships of the new United Kingdom Navy, when simply using carrier-based fire-controlled radar, the efficiency of dealing with ultra-low-altitude combat aircraft and small-sized lightning strike ships is much lower than that of conventional operations. Italy's radar technology started late and had a lower level, which is even more difficult in this regard.

Faced with the ultra-low altitude penetration of multiple enemy aircraft, four Italian light cruisers had to disperse their air defense firepower. At this time, the resistance to attack was naturally much smaller than before. After a while, six rockets successively launched rockets, some of them were two bombs, and some of them were four bombs at the same time. These rockets dragged bright tail flames and long smoke marks through the rising water column and the swelling water foam, and quickly approached almost every bursting bomb afterwards in the terrified eyes of the Italians.

The sound will bring casualties and losses to the Italian Navy. When the smoke and dust of the explosion gradually dissipates, almost every Italian light cruiser has a bleak scene of holes and holes appearing in one or several places. The replacement of the reserve gunners makes these Italian warships maintain air defense firepower output. It is difficult for the officers and non-commissioned officers who command shooting on the scene to find qualified replacements once they are killed or seriously injured. Once the sighting and shooting command equipment is damaged, it will be difficult to repair in a short period of time.
Chapter completed!