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, the Tang Army's carrier-based aircraft are here! They were not far from the battlefield to begin with, and they appeared on the battlefield immediately after forming a formation!
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 anti-air defense operations: that is a large group of main guns with a caliber of more than 350 mm! When those things fire, can anyone stand nearby?
The huge muzzle flash and noise made it impossible for the soldiers at the anti-aircraft gun positions on both sides of the battleship to fight. They had to plug their ears and stay away from these muzzles.
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, to somewhat isolate the 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 trying to get close to the face of the Tang Army's battleship? To get beaten?
The Stuka roared down, and the fleet of the Mirage Navy was forced to start a larger snake-like maneuver. Regardless of safety, Mirage rushed to the unprotected terrace, looked up at the planes that looked like flies, and was so angry that he didn't know.
What should I say?
Although it is not equipped with those scary howling devices, 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 the rush, 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 could their current condition be any better?
What's interesting is that as soon as the sailors on the battleship Goblin were pushed onto the deck by the officers and asked to operate the machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, the main gun on the battleship Goblin 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 and fell on the deck, covering their ears and rolling on the ground. But for them, there was only one sound 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 the 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 upward 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 pirate fighter jets. It struggled for more than ten seconds while dodging left and right, and then
It dragged a long plume of black smoke into the sea and exploded.
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? Why can’t you even get close to us in the end?
In his series of questions, seven or eight Zero fighter jets have been shot down. The remaining Mirage aircraft are also in a sad state of being unable to save themselves.
Mirage Haifeng looked anxiously at the sky above the battlefield, and 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 of the Mirage warships were sunk, almost all of them suffered injuries. These injuries did not look fatal, but they caused problems in the Mirage'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 Styx anti-ship missiles will hit areas such as ship islands and chimneys in most cases: although it cannot really sink a warship, it can destroy a large number of concentrated anti-aircraft gun positions!
After being hit by a Styx anti-ship missile, seven or eight nearby anti-aircraft gun positions were rendered unusable: they were either destroyed by fire or affected by the explosion.
These lost anti-aircraft guns created a gap 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, having found these weaknesses, began to approach the Mirage battleships along these passages without artillery fire. 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, which was following closely behind 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.
Watching helplessly as the battleship HMS Yufeng behind him was hit by two torpedoes one after another, Mirage Haifeng no longer knew what to say.
He was full of confidence just now, and 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 fleet collapsed under the attack of the Tang naval aviation. Due to the need to continue air defense operations, the Mirage 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 the violent air waves. 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 he almost spit out a mouthful of old blood. When his adjutant and guards helped him out of his daze and carried him into the control tower, he finally understood that the thing that had been beating them all night,
Hit the mizzen mast behind the funnel of the battleship Mirage!
The explosion blew away the anti-aircraft guns arranged under the mast and also disabled some nearby equipment. Fortunately, the Mirage finally got an anti-ship missile after a whole night.
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.
At this point, six battleships of the Mirage Kingdom had been injured, three had sunk, and the only three remaining battleships were unable to engage in gunfire 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!