Volume 2: War breaks out Chapter 19 Trembling in the Smoke (Part 1)
The "Li Jing" quickly turned left, and then sailed southwest at the same speed two kilometers to the port side of the "Taizu" aircraft carrier.
According to the new air defense formation, the "Li Jing" will be responsible for covering the port side of the "Taizu", while another heavy cruiser will be responsible for covering the starboard side of the "Taizu". The other two aircraft carriers will also have two heavy cruisers on the left and right to cover them. Another heavy cruiser will be deployed on the periphery to form an air defense interception line, and the destroyer will be located between the two layers of air defense firepower network.
"General, you should go to the command cabin!"
Several officers responsible for Liao Hanxiang's safety became anxious.
"No, I'm not going anywhere, I'm right here!"
Liao Hanxiang also got angry . "I am going to die in battle, and Chief of Staff Wu Xianyu will take his place. Chief of Staff Wu Xianyu is dead, and Ji Xiaobin will take his place. Ji Xiaobin is going to die in battle, and..."
"General, please stop saying unlucky things and go to the command cabin!"
"Stop it, I told you I'm not going anywhere!"
Liao Hanxiang shook off the two officers' hands that were grabbing him, "Major Tan Renhao, you are responsible for replacing Brigadier General Ji Xiaobin . As long as our Fifth Fleet is still alive, we cannot admit defeat!"
Tan Renhao nodded, and while the two officers were entangled with Liao Hanxiang again, he called Hao Dongjue and Chang Jianxin over.
"Go to the combat command center and see if there's anything you can do to help. Pay attention to Brigadier General Ji Xiaobin's safety."
The two immediately left the commander's command cabin and went to the combat command center below.
On the battleship, all the gunners were at their gun positions, and some officers and soldiers on rest were busy carrying ammunition to the gun positions.
Although it looks busy, every officer and soldier knows what to do.
According to the Imperial Navy's combat regulations, more than 60% of the positions on each warship will be staffed by two people. During combat, officers and soldiers who are temporarily without positions will be responsible for transporting shells and acting as damage control personnel.
When the anti-aircraft guns on the heavy cruiser "Daxue" three nautical miles to the left of "Li Jing" opened fire, the fleet's air defense operations began.
In order to avoid being accidentally hit (in fleet air defense operations, the gunners on anti-aircraft warships could not quickly distinguish between enemy and friendly aircraft) , the anti-aircraft fighters that were initially attacking the Japanese bombers left the attack range of the fleet's air defense firepower and went to intercept the Japanese bombers behind.
The "Dayuki" heavy cruiser is one of the "Jieqi" class heavy cruisers. Its main anti-aircraft firepower is 6 twin-mounted 120mm anti-aircraft guns, 8 quadruple-mounted 40mm aircraft guns, and 12 20mm anti-aircraft machine guns.
When the "Jieqi" class was first built, it was built according to the standards of an anti-aircraft warship. For this purpose, all the torpedo tubes in the middle of the warship were removed and anti-aircraft guns were installed. Its anti-aircraft firepower was no worse than those of battleships that had not been modified.
The effective range of the 120mm anti-aircraft gun reached 8 kilometers, but the rate of fire was not high, and it was difficult to hit the target directly at this distance. At most, it could force the Japanese bombers to disperse and abandon their dense formations.
Of course, if the gunner has good skills and luck, it is safest to destroy the enemy plane at this distance.
When the 40mm anti-aircraft gun on the "Daxue" opened fire, the 120mm anti-aircraft gun on the "Li Jing" also opened fire.
At the same time, the fleet began to maneuver evasively to prevent Japanese bombers from easily entering the bombing route. This could delay time and give anti-aircraft artillery more opportunities to shoot down enemy planes.
Tan Renhao and Liao Hanxiang both came to the porthole on the left.
The Japanese bomber in the southeast sky was still a small black dot, but the black smoke produced by the shells exploding in the middle of the Japanese bomber formation was very obvious, even obscuring part of the bomber.
These anti-aircraft shells are all designed to have a high explosion effect, so whether they can hit the target depends almost entirely on luck.
Soon, a bomber fell with a black smoke trail. The officers in the staff shouted excitedly, but they all quickly returned to their positions.
"They all seem to be twin-engine long-range bombers."
Tan Renhao frowned slightly.
What he said was equivalent to saying nothing. The bombers on the Japanese Navy's aircraft carriers could not possibly launch an attack on a fleet more than 1,000 kilometers away. Their combat radius was only a few hundred kilometers.
Liao Hanxiang didn't say anything, but he felt a lot more relaxed.
These bombers, which can only carry out horizontal bombing, pose much less threat to the fleet than dive bombers and torpedo bombers.
The Fifth Fleet had already proved this in subsequent exercises. As long as the fleet could evade quickly, it would be difficult for horizontal bombers to drop bombs on warships at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters.
Japan's bomber fleet still uses dense formations, and obviously, Japan's bomber pilots also know this.
If you want to attack warships on the sea surface by dropping bombs horizontally, then the best way is to adopt a dense formation, drop bombs at the same time, and attack the warships on the sea surface with rain of bullets.
Maybe one out of fifty bombs could hit the target, but that was better than no hit at all.
The densely packed formations of Japanese bombers became the best targets for the 120mm anti-aircraft guns. If the Japanese planes adopted a dispersed attack, the effectiveness of the 120mm anti-aircraft guns would certainly be greatly reduced.
In less than 30 seconds, four Japanese bombers were shot down in succession.
However, the remaining Japanese bombers did not separate at all, and simply ignored the anti-aircraft firepower on the battleships, and all flew towards the nearest "Taizong" aircraft carrier.
“Damn it!”
Tan Renhao cursed inwardly and clenched his fists.
The first batch of Japanese bombers that arrived over the Taizong began dropping bombs almost at the same time.
At this time, the artillery on the anti-aircraft warships could only look up at the sky and sigh. The elevation angle of the 120mm anti-aircraft gun was only 75 degrees, which was simply unable to deal with the bombers overhead. The 40mm anti-aircraft gun and the 20mm machine gun were not high enough to reach those bombers.
The "Taizong" began to turn right at almost the largest angle. If you look down from the sky, you will find that this huge aircraft carrier is like a small snail, leaving a white arc trail on the sea.
It takes about half a minute for a bomb to fall from an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, and an aircraft carrier can travel more than 500 meters in this half minute, which is roughly the length of two hulls.
The lookouts on the carrier will keep a close "eye" on the bombs falling overhead, and the carrier's captain will issue turning orders based on the bombs falling.
Perhaps, the lieutenant colonel captain on the "Taizong" is already sweating profusely.
