"I saw it," said another pilot, "and he did get one down."
"Very good, that's confirmed. Zhao Shuisheng, the result of the battle: one Zhebie fighter jet... Next, Liu Changqing. Xiao Dao Liu, how many of them did you kill?"
The pilots around burst into laughter. "Little Dao Liu" shook his head and muttered:
"Day, this time there are less, one torpedo plane and one Zhebie. Alas, the main reason is that we only have six, while others have more than thirty, so we can't use them at all. I just want to get rid of them... Otherwise, we can still get them
One or two come down."
The officer smiled and said:
"The problem is that the Zhebie battle you fought was the same one that Zhao Shuisheng fought. Only 0.5 of each of you can be counted."
"It doesn't matter," Liu Changqing waved his hand and lit a cigarette, "It's half a fight."
He slapped Zhao Shuisheng on the shoulder:
"Boy, you're great! You've only done half a fight in 300 hours! You'll definitely be much better than me in 1000 hours!"
In the battle results statistics room of the Tianji and Tianxuan aircraft carriers, dozens of pilots did not take off their flight suits, carrying lunch boxes and eating lunch while queuing up to report their battle results.
Suddenly a pilot shouted:
"Sir, three of our brothers parachuted and are still in the sea. What should we do? Are we going to rescue them?"
Such a shout immediately resonated with other pilots, who were all clamoring for a ship to be sent to rescue him.
The result statistician stood up and shouted:
"Brothers, be quiet, we have sent a seaplane over! Don't worry, brothers! We will never leave every brother behind!"
…
There are three seaplanes on the Hongwu battleship, and there are two seaplanes on each of the two heavy cruisers Sunwu and Lu Bu. Now seven seaplanes are dispatched together to search and rescue the three parachuting pilots in the air combat area. Because it was reported nearby
A large number of Haidongqing fighter planes appeared, and two Kingfishers were assigned to escort each seaplane.
The pilots all wore inflatable life jackets, and their lives were safe for the time being. In addition, it is May, and the water in the Bohai Sea is not too cold. You can take a dip for a while. And there are very few sharks at this latitude of the Bohai Sea. But the problem is that the air combat area is far away.
The Dongying coast is so close, it would be troublesome if the Qing army were to get ahead and capture people.
The era of great air wars has not yet arrived for mankind. The saying "pilots are far more valuable than airplanes" will not be fully understood by all countries until a few years later when thousands of airplanes are produced every month, but pilots are far behind. Now.
The Ming army sent planes to search and rescue, and it was indeed based on the humanitarian spirit of "never abandoning brothers". Although only three pilots fell into the sea, the fleet sent 21 planes to rescue, which won the applause of the pilots on the spot.
This is a great boost to morale, and makes every pilot feel this way: this time my comrade fell into the sea, and I am going to save him; next time if I fall into the sea, my comrades will definitely come to save me.
.
In this way, pilots will be braver in combat and more willing to sacrifice.
…
The fighter jets originally sent out for reconnaissance gradually returned to the aircraft carrier. Then a group of rotations were sent out, and 40 Kingfishers were re-launched to protect the skies above the fleet.
The reconnaissance pilots who had just returned reported that they had come into contact with the Qing army's Haidongqing fleet, about 80 kilometers northwest. After verification by multiple pilots, it was confirmed that the incoming Haidongqing fighters were not from two squadrons, but from two squadrons.
There are at least three squadrons, that is, 36 aircraft.
Moreover, it was determined that they were all fighter planes, and there were no torpedo planes or bombers.
The commander of the aircraft carrier formation pondered for a moment, and immediately ordered the 40 fighter jets in the sky to continue to climb higher and ambush 15 kilometers east of the fleet. At the same time, he quickly lowered the aircraft on the deck to the hangar. At the same time, the fleet commander on the flagship Hongwu
, issued an order to all ships in the fleet, and all guns and guns were replaced with anti-aircraft bombs and prepared to shoot into the air.
The Qing army's fighter jets could not do anything to the Ming army's warships, but they could seriously damage the Ming army's aircraft. Although the Ming army's fleet brought many fighter jets, there were only so many, while the Qing army's fleet had several airports around the Bohai Sea that could dispatch aircraft.
There must be far more than the Ming army. The Ming army's fighter jets are here to escort, and they don't intend to waste any of them.
…
At 11:50 noon, the Haidongqing fighter group, which had been searching the sea for several rounds, finally discovered the Ming fleet moving slowly with a white line on the sea more than 10,000 meters away.
At a distance of more than 10,000 meters, the fleet will definitely not be able to see the aircraft, and the aircraft can only see a fleet. As for whether there is an aircraft carrier inside, whether there are aircraft on the aircraft carrier, and whether there are aircraft in the sky, we have to wait until we fly closer.
some.
More than a minute later, the Haidong Qing aircraft group was discovered.
Black clouds of anti-aircraft guns began to appear in the front, rear, left and right of each aircraft. At the same time, they all felt violent bumps, as well as the "ping-ping-ping-ping" sound of shrapnel and steel balls hitting the fuselage.
Flying closer and closer, cotton-like white clouds quickly passed by, and gray-black figures appeared on the gray-yellow sea, which looked very small when viewed from a high altitude:
Spindle-shaped battleships, cruisers, rectangular aircraft carriers, bullet-shaped destroyers, and smaller minesweepers... basically every figure has bright spots all over its body, like a Christmas tree. However, those "bright spots" are not on the Christmas tree.
Instead of a small light bulb, it was a tongue of flame. Every time it flickered, a cannonball was sent up.
If we talk about the firepower density formed in a small area of airspace, the firepower of the fleet is really unmatched by the land anti-aircraft artillery force.
The battleship is the best weapons platform. The guns all over the body are like hedgehogs, from the largest 381mm main gun, to the medium-caliber secondary gun, to the 40mm anti-aircraft gun, to the smallest 20mm machine gun, and then to the 12mm machine gun.
...The weapons covered all over the body formed four layers of barrage inside and outside. Although it was not "impermeable", if you wanted to swoop down and attack, you would have to pay a certain amount of casualties.
Of course, if it is a dive bomber or torpedo plane, it is worth paying a certain amount of casualties, after all, it is possible to hit an enemy ship. But the fighter's only weapon is a machine gun, so it is really useless to try to die.
More than thirty Haidongqings hovered over the fleet for a while, but could not find the Ming army's aircraft. Seeing that the surrounding air defense firepower was so dense, there was nothing cheap to pick up, so they turned around and returned.
Seeing that the Qing fleet did not pounce down stupidly, the Ming fleet recalled the Kingfisher fighter group that was ambushing 15,000 meters to the east.
…
In the next few hours, the Hongwu squadron maintained a speed of 20 knots and headed west. It did not wait for the remaining 15 torpedo planes of the Qing army all afternoon. It was not until 3:30 in the afternoon that a secret message from Nanjing was received:
According to the intelligence from Dongying Airport, all the independent torpedo aircraft brigade of the Qing Army that could take off took off. The rest had various malfunctions and could not fly. There were about a dozen of them. Five of them returned halfway and died.
Let’s go again, I don’t know why.
Now the Hongwu fleet is relieved, nothing can threaten the fleet anymore.
At 16:00, fifteen Junkers-52s were loaded with cargo and took off from the Dongjiang Fleet. They first sailed southwest, bypassing the Lushun Peninsula, then turned due west and flew directly to the North China mainland over the vast Bohai Sea.
At 16:10, the Hongwu squadron sailed to 50 kilometers east of Dagukou, Tianjin.
The area near Dagukou in Tianjin used to be a very busy sea area, but now there is nothing but the vast sea on all sides.
Since the Ming fleet entered the Bohai Sea in the morning, the entire Bohai Sea ring has been trembling, the doors are locked, and not a single ship has set sail. Governments, military and police from all along the coast have been dispatched, and all fishing boats and merchant ships have been watched, and all ships have been strictly ordered to go out to sea.
.
Usually, whether it is a merchant ship or a fishing boat, it must go through heavy inspections when leaving the Bohai Sea. Coastal fishermen outside the Bohai Sea also have to detain their families on land in the village. This is because the Qing court knows that once they leave the Bohai Sea, Nanming has control of the sea.
When the people along the coast got the chance, they would sail south to Nanming. There were often cases of people along the coast sneaking out of the Bohai Strait in small boats at night.
And now a Nanming fleet has still broken in, which means that even the control of the sea in the Bohai Sea is no longer in the hands of the Manchus. The Qing government immediately became nervous, fearing that a large number of fishermen would sail out to sea to look for the Nanming fleet and defect to Nanming en masse.
event.
By doing this, the Qing government naturally blocked the people's way of escaping from the darkness, but it also covered their own eyes. Although the Hongwu squadron was only 50 kilometers east of Tianjin, it seemed as if they were in the vast ocean. In the sky
There was no plane, not a sampan around, and no land in sight.
The two aircraft carriers turned southeast here, sailed at full speed against the wind, and began to launch fighter jets on a large scale.
At 16:40, 100 Kingfisher fighter jets out of a total of 168 aircraft from the two aircraft carriers took off, and then circled the formation in the sky while waiting for the arrival of the Junkers transport aircraft formation.
At 16:45, 15 Junkers-52 transport aircraft arrived at the rendezvous point. The two groups of aircraft merged into a large fleet and flew toward the west-southwest - Baoding direction.
…
And 100 kilometers to the north, large numbers of fighter jets gathered over Beijing, Tianjin, Langfang, Tangshan and other places. Four fighter groups, with about 120 new and old models, were patrolling to the southeast, ready to defend Beijing.
In addition, there are three fighter groups in Shandong, with about 100 aircraft, flying to the sea, hoping to intercept Ming bombers. There are more than 200 fighter jets, which is what the Beiqing Air Force can provide in the Beijing-Tianjin air defense zone.
All belongings are gone.
The Ming army aircraft group and the nearest Qing army aircraft group were only a few dozen kilometers apart. They flew towards each other from east to west, almost passing by each other without noticing each other.
It was already dusk at this time. The straight-line distance from the Ming aircraft carrier to the airdrop location in the Taihang Mountains west of Baoding was 200 kilometers, and it took 40 minutes to fly one way. The airdrop should be airdropped around 5:30 in the afternoon, just when it was getting dark.
When it's not dark.
The advantage of this arrangement is that the Taihang Mountain column will not have to search for supplies in darkness, and the Junkers fleet will be able to use the cover of night for most of its return journey, so that it will not be chased by Qing fighter jets taking off from the coast.
At 17:05, the first batch of fighter jets of the Qing army finally discovered the Ming army fleet 50 kilometers east of Dagukou. When the news came back, the Qing air force generals were surprised that the Ming army fleet was actually so close to the land! This
I spent half the afternoon searching in the vast Bohai Sea to the east!
A squadron of the Qing army searched near the fleet for a while, but found no Ming fighter planes, let alone the "legendary" bombers. What greeted them was only dense black clouds of anti-aircraft guns.
Now the Qing army has nothing to do with the Ming fleet under its nose. It is obviously so close to the shore, but it is not within the range of the shore artillery. It obviously has so many aircraft, but none of them can harm the warships below.
Let the fighter jets rush down and shoot, it's like scratching an itch, and looking at the density of artillery fire, the casualties will not be small.
Use level bombers to bomb. High-altitude horizontal bombing will definitely not hit anyone. Let's dive bomb. At that angle, it is not much different from horizontal bombing. Moreover, level bombers are so big and heavy, and they can glide slowly to low altitudes, which is the same as level bombing.
The target is almost there.
…
At this time, Qing County, Dacheng County, Renqiu County, Gaoyang County and other places began to report, saying that they had all seen a large group of aircraft flying high in the sky, heading due west.
But it was already 5:25, and the administrative systems of each county were still slowing down.
The Ming army aircraft fleet flew past the south side of Baoding. In some places in the southern suburbs of Baoding, such as Qingyuan County, they could clearly see the large aircraft fleet in the sky and faintly heard the low roar.
This time, the report was reported directly to Beijing from Baoding. A worker riot had just occurred in Baoding, and the administrative system was tense. Now it is very efficient, with a green light and the news goes straight to Beijing.
…
At 5:30, the various shapes of farmland below the aircraft disappeared and were replaced by rolling mountains.
Based on the rhythmic "tap-tap-tap" signal received from the radio, the fleet leader slightly adjusted the course and flew into the vast Taihang Mountains. This signal is currently the only radio station in the Taihang Mountain column.
The fleet sends navigation signals.
The fleet did not break the radio silence, but everyone knew in their hearts how lucky they had been so far. The Beiqing side thought that the Ming army was coming to bomb Beijing, so they focused their attention hundreds of kilometers away to the northeast, but they were lucky.
got into the northern part of Zhili.
Ten minutes passed, and the sky outside became darker again. On the fifteen Junkers transport planes, no one on the crew spoke a word, watching the piles of cargo around them and silently looking at the dark blue mountains below.
The only sounds in my ears were the roar of the engine and the howling of the cold wind entering the cabin.
Suddenly, the voice of the fleet leader came from the headphones:
"We are approaching the airdrop area, all aircraft are ready."
The radio silence is broken. The airdrop is now on.
Although I don’t know if saying such a sentence on the radio will attract enemy planes, everyone knows that the god of luck will not always favor them, so they must be mentally prepared on the way back.
The fleet slowed down and lowered its altitude.
After a while, the cabin door opened.
Immediately the wind roared inside the plane, deafening. The crew members were wearing thick leather jackets and still felt bone-chilling cold.
It’s so desolate down there!
Mountains. Besides mountains, they are still mountains.
It's ups and downs, steep, and continuous, and even at high altitudes, you can't see the edge when you look into the distance.
Such an environment is really a good place to fight guerrillas! Even if the Qing army really sent a thousand divisions to encircle and suppress it, there would be no place to touch it!
There was a fire on a mountain a few kilometers ahead. It was very bright in the dusk. It was unknown what it was burning. The thick smoke rising into the sky was like a beacon tower.
There was also such a fire on the top of another mountain a thousand meters away. It was soon discovered that there were such fires lit on several hills one or two kilometers away, which just circled an area.
The fleet adjusted its direction and flew very low and slowly towards the two piles of fire.
It can be seen from the plane that the area selected by the Taihang Mountain Column is really good. The terrain is relatively gentle and it belongs to a small basin in the mountains. Moreover, it is far enough away from the outside of the mountains that the Qing army could not go through long preparations and long distances.
Trekking will not appear here at all.
In the center of the area, a red smoke is rising, which is quite eye-catching. This is the agreed signal, a red smoke bomb.
Everyone on the plane couldn't help but chuckle: The guerrillas have smoke bombs. This is really luxurious equipment!
…
The fleet circled for confirmation and began airdropping.