Although communication is restricted, there is no problem with receiving information. It is just that the speed is a little slower and it is impossible to grasp the combat situation in real time.

At around 2 a.m. on the 13th, after 23:30 on the night of the 12th local time, I received the first battle report forwarded by Guandao.

The battle began.

The first thing that was fighting with the enemy was not the bomber, but the escort fighter jets dispatched by the 61st Special Mixed Fleet.

About 500 kilometers northeast of the transit island, the patrol planes discovered the waters of the Newland landing fleet before. The four "War-9Bs" that were quickly assaulted were intercepted by Newland fighters and fought with them. Because the Air Force's large early warning aircraft provided support from the rear, the four "War-9Bs" not only easily avoided the edge of the Newland fighter jets, but also forced the Newland fighter jets to retreat through counterattacks.

Subsequently, two "War-9B" discovered dozens of ships sailing eastward and confirmed that they were landing fleets.

The most important evidence is that the speed of these ships is not very fast, about 20 knots, which is far lower than the combat speed of the Special Mixed Fleet.

Because more Newland fighters are coming and there are several air defense warships in the landing fleet, the escort fighters did not continue to approach. Besides, the fuel consumption of these "War-9Bs" has exceeded half. If the tanker is not allowed to leave, the fighter jets have to be withdrawn, otherwise they will not be able to return to the airspace where the tanker is on standby.

If you want to say it, this is also the most serious problem for the third-generation fighter.

Even heavy fighters, because supersonic flights require starting the afterburner of the engine, fuel consumption will rise sharply, so the time for supersonic flight and fighting air combat is strictly limited. Take "War-9B" as an example. If you are performing a mission on the extreme combat radius, the air combat time cannot exceed 5 minutes. As for performing supersonic interception tasks, it is more like a gimmick to brag about.

"War-9" has been in service for more than ten years and has not performed several supersonic interception missions.

Most of the time, it is dealt with through clever tactical deployment.

Of course, most of the time, tankers actually rely on tankers to extend the combat radius of fighter jets, allowing fighters to fly longer at supersonic speeds.

When the four "War-9B" were turned back, the Air Force commander issued an attack order.

Subsequently, after receiving the target data forwarded by the early warning aircraft, 20 "H-9Ds" that had been hovering in the attack area for half an hour launched the mounted DK-30B in turn. The so-called "target data" is just the approximate location of the enemy ship.

If you want to say it, this is also a performance feature of DK-30B.

Before attacking, DK-30B does not require complete target data, and even set attack targets for it. To be precise, it is a specific target. After reaching the attack sea area set by the carrier, that is, entering the self-guidance stage, DK-30B will automatically search for enemy ships that are active nearby, and distinguish the nature of enemy ships, and will give priority to attacking high-value warships such as aircraft carriers and air defense cruisers.

The last attacks are carried out independently and do not require the carrier to intervene or guide.

The key is that DK-30B can identify enemy ships.

What can be done depends on an advanced bomb loading computer.

Simply put, before use, ground crews will input data and information from various warships today, especially signal characteristics, to them, so that they can compare and analyze the acquired enemy ship signals when launching an attack, so as to determine the model of the enemy ship and judge its value.

In addition, DK-30B also has inter-blast communication capabilities.

This performance was actually learned from the opponent.

After proposing "saturation attack", the Western Land Group took the lead in studying the collaborative combat capabilities of anti-ship missiles and developed a complete set of technical and tactical systems. The most critical of these is the inter-bucket communication technology that can allow dozens or even hundreds of anti-ship missiles to launch attacks at the same time. Strictly speaking, after the birth of inter-bucket communication technology, the saturation attack tactics have become operable.

To date, the heavy anti-ship missiles of the Western Land Group have the capability of inter-missile communication.

Unlike the anti-ship missiles of the Western Land Group, the DK-30B's inter-blast communication focuses on identification capabilities, that is, avoiding repeated attacks on the same warship.

In fact, this is the most troublesome problem faced by using multiple missiles to attack a fleet.

If it is not done well, all missiles will attack a warship.

There is no ideal solution to what to say.

The reason is also very simple. Anti-ship missiles use radars, infrared imagers and other detection equipment to find targets and judge the nature of targets.

Generally speaking, the larger the warship, the more obvious the signal characteristics are.

Then, anti-ship missiles often attack warships with the most obvious signal characteristics.

But the problem is that the warships that were attacked and already damaged have very prominent signal characteristics, especially the reflected electromagnetic waves, which are several orders of magnitude higher than those in normal conditions.

In other words, anti-ship missiles may regard the injured warship as the main warship!

Until the emergence of inter-blast communication technology, this problem was solved.

The method is also very simple. Anti-ship missiles that launch attacks at the same time will divide the attack targets through brief communication to avoid all, or most anti-ship missiles attacking a single target. Only when the predetermined target has been destroyed will anti-ship missiles search and attack other targets.

It is with these powerful performances that the DK-30B has become the most advanced anti-ship missile today.

Of course, the power cannot be underestimated.

Because the range of 1,500 kilometers is no longer pursued, the DK-30B is equipped with a 500-kilogram semi-armor-piercing warhead. The actual mass is actually only above 400 kilograms, but the charge volume is as high as 120 kilograms, and the high-energy explosives used in the past were only used on torpedo battle thunderheads.

In theory, one DK-30B can sink a 5,000-ton warship or severely damage a 1,000-ton warship. Just 3 to 5 can sink a 1,000-ton cruiser, and hitting 5 to 8 can cause a super aircraft carrier to lose its combat capability.

It is even more difficult to deal with landing ships with much worse structural strength.

In fact, landing ships are structurally closer to civilian ships than warships.

The main thing is that the landing fleet needs to carry a large number of combat troops and heavy equipment, and can only adopt a large cabin structure, which must be a problem. The key here is to carry the docks of the landing craft and hovercraft. Because it is below the waterline, it is more likely to cause the landing ship to sink after being damaged.

In response to this issue, the Imperial Navy proposed in the past few years that the docking chamber was cancelled on amphibious assault ships that mainly use helicopters and vertical take-off and landing attack aircraft, and no longer carry landing crafts and hovercrafts. This move not only improves survival capacity, but also expands the area of ​​the hangar. Unfortunately, after repeated argumentation, the Marine Corps firmly opposed the matter of canceling the docking chamber was left in vain, and there was no further information since then.

As for the key, the main reason is that helicopters cannot deliver heavy equipment. For the Marines that have to fight on the beach after landing, armored power has irreplaceable value. Compared with the more powerful aerial assault capabilities, the delivery capabilities granted by landing craft and hovercraft are obviously more important. Besides, the landing ship belongs to the navy and has no direct relationship with the Marines.

It can be seen that using hundreds of anti-ship missiles to deal with the Newland landing fleet is a waste!

According to the news sent from Guandao, the reliability of DK-30B is more than 90%. Of the 480 missiles carried by the 20 bombers, about 440 were successfully launched.

On average, even if the escort warships are included, each Newland ship will be attacked by 10 missiles.

Not to mention landing ships, even real warships can't stand it!

To be said, the reliability of the DK-30B in actual combat is obviously much better than the test results, but it is also related to sufficient pre-war preparations.

This round of attack went very smoothly.

At less than 3 a.m., Guandao sent the first exact battle report.

The Newland Landing Fleet has been completely wiped out, and eight escort warships, including four Kidd-class air defense destroyers, and 38 landing ships of all sizes have been sunk or are about to sink. According to the report of the frontline troops, there is no need to launch a second round of attacks, at least not for the time being.

The screening report provided was a forward "H-9D", which is the captain of the formation A.

In any bomber unit, several bombers will have been specially modified, and simple reconnaissance equipment such as cameras are installed, or ground and sea search radars with surveying and mapping functions, so that the attack results can be identified after the strike is completed.

Usually they are the captain.

This time, in the A formation, there are four "H-9Ds" equipped with sea search radars, responsible for screening after completing the attack.

Using sea search radar, bombers do not need to fly too close.

In addition, there is no way to use the camera at night.

In fact, there are electronic reconnaissance aircraft responsible for performing screening tasks that have always accompanied the activities of early warning aircraft, that is, to judge the status of the enemy ship by monitoring the radio activities of the enemy ship.

In combat states, no warship will remain radio silent.

In this way, only through the electromagnetic radiation generated by the enemy ship's air defense radar can a relatively accurate judgment on the status of the enemy ship.

For example, before and after the bombing began, four Kidd-class air-to-air search radars were working, and then they used fire control illumination radars. By the end of the attack, the radars of the four destroyers were all "off" and the electromagnetic radiation emitted all came from radio stations.

Most landing ships are equipped with short-range air defense weapons for self-defense, and must be equipped with corresponding fire control systems. They are generally simple fire control radars.

However, dozens of landing ships are concentrated together, so even if a large number of signals are intercepted, it is difficult to determine which landing ship these signals come from.

Based on this information, it is reasonable to believe that the Newland Navy's landing fleet is over.

However, what Bai Huawei and others are most concerned about is not these battle reports, but the news they received before and something mentioned in the first battle report.

The four "War-9Bs" that were coming out were intercepted by Newland fighters when they were about to catch up with the landing fleet!

To be precise, it was actually the Air Force's early warning aircraft that timely discovered the approaching Newland fighter jets, and then guided the "War-9B" into an air combat state.

But the problem is that the specific situation is not mentioned in the battle report.

The only thing that can be considered specific is that the duration of air combat is less than 15 minutes. After the "War-9B" occupied a favorable position, the Newland fighters turned and retreated. Next, two "War-9B" accelerated their pursuit and discovered the landing fleet during the pursuit.

As for how it was discovered, it was not mentioned in the battle report.

However, Bai Huawei and the others could think of it.

Although the fire control radar of "War-9B" has strong downward vision capabilities and is optimized for sea surface mirror interference, in air combat, the fire control radar must work in air-to-air mode and basically does not have the ability to detect seas, and it is definitely impossible to detect warships on the sea surface in time.

Then, there is only one possibility.

"War-9B" was discovered by air defense radar while chasing, which was covered by air defense destroyers.

But the question is, it must be the air defense destroyer that covers the landing fleet?

Why can't it be an air defense cruiser that covers the aircraft carrier!?

The key is, where did those Newland fighters come from?

Obviously it wouldn't be an amphibious assault ship.

In this way, it can only come from a certain aircraft carrier.

Then, there must be a special mixed fleet near the landing fleet, providing cover for the landing fleet.

However, it is hard to say how close this "nearby" is.

It is possible to be 100 kilometers away, or 500 kilometers away, or even more likely to be 1500 kilometers away.

The key is that with the support of the tanker, the combat radius of the F-14B can be expanded to 1,500 kilometers.

In fact, there is a hidden information in the battle report.

The Newland fighters were unable to detect the oncoming "War-9B" in time, and it was not until the "War-9B" occupied a favorable position, that is, after activating the fire control radar, they found that they had been locked, and then turned urgently to accelerate the escape from the missile's attack range.

It's not that the F-14B is not advanced enough.
To be continued...