Empire Conquest
Chapter 396 - 392: Guarding Strictly

Chapter 396: Chapter 392: Guarding Strictly

In East Capital Bay, it wasn’t all just for show.

The "Heng River," posing as the "Longjiang," was fully armed, carrying 72 "Xiaotian" fighters, ensuring that during the ceremony, three squadrons of fighters would take turns, with 24 constantly patrolling the skies above East Capital Bay to intercept any incoming enemy aircraft.

The ship-borne fighters provided the last line of defense.

The Army Air Force deployed over 200 long-range fighters at an airport on the west side of the Main Island.

From daybreak until the end of the ceremony, there were always 50 long-range fighters on the periphery of East Capital Bay, responsible for patrolling and alert.

The decision to deploy the fighters at the western airport was primarily because the logistical support at the eastern airports couldn’t keep up.

Of course, these long-range fighters had more than enough range and loiter time, and their firepower was formidable as well. Although the speed and maneuverability of the long-range fighters were somewhat inferior and couldn’t compare with the ship-borne fighters, intercepting Newland bombers was certainly not an issue.

Besides the two aerial lines of defense, in East Capital Bay, the battleships attending the surrender ceremony had exceptionally strong anti-air firepower.

Moreover, all the warships were at combat readiness; officers and soldiers were at their posts, all boilers were operational, maintaining sufficient steam pressure to ensure they could sail immediately upon receiving an alert, and could evacuate within fifteen minutes to avoid being bombed while congregated.

East Capital Bay was open enough to allow dozens of warships to maneuver and evade.

The key was actually the six anti-air alert warships deployed outside East Capital Bay.

Those were six Heavy Cruisers equipped with air search radars.

These six warships were positioned to the east and south of East Capital Bay, with about 70 kilometers between adjacent ships, ensuring that they could detect low-flying enemy aircraft with their radars.

Behind each of these six warships was a Light Cruiser tasked with covering any gaps.

In terms of specific deployment, the Light Cruisers were actually positioned between two Heavy Cruisers and trailed by about 30 kilometers, responsible for monitoring radar blind spots.

Even if enemy aircraft entered from ultra-low altitude and were detected about 40 kilometers away from the anti-air warships, it would still take them 20 minutes to reach the airspace over East Capital Bay.

The 20 minutes of warning provided by the alert warships was enough to evacuate key personnel to safety zones and get the warships battle-ready.

Of course, it was also enough to let the anti-air fighters above East Capital Bay engage in combat.

In fact, near each alert warship, there were 4 ship-borne fighters and 6 long-range fighters, which directly followed the orders and command of the alert warships.

This was actually standard fleet air defense tactics, and for the Imperial Navy, it was definitely a well-rehearsed routine.

As for the "Heng River," it operated within the alert network formed by these six anti-air alert warships.

And that wasn’t all.

Nearly a hundred "White Swan" aircraft stationed in the Volcanic Islands were all dispatched to search the eastern and southern waters off the Saiyi Main Island.

Although these outdated patrol aircraft couldn’t possibly achieve a hundred percent sortie rate—having been overused during the strategic blockades against Saiyi, some were nearly scrapped—the sortie rate could still undoubtedly reach seventy percent, amounting to about 80 aircraft.

With so many patrol aircraft dispatched, it wouldn’t be exaggerating to say they nearly blanketed the sky, covering the northwestern part of the East Ocean westward, which was certainly not a problem.

Speaking of which, this was also the "White Swan’s" last significant operational mission.

According to Navy arrangements, in early January of the next year, the first batch of new patrol aircraft would be received and replaced on a one-for-one basis with the "White Swan" aircraft in frontline units.

These "White Swans" would not be immediately retired; after proper maintenance, they would be transferred to second-line units to carry out search and rescue and anti-submarine patrol duties, many serving until the end of the great war. Even after the war, quite a few "White Swans" were still in service in other countries.

Actually, the performance of the "White Swan" was not lacking.

As far as the standards for long-range patrol aircraft go, the "White Swan’s" performance on the battlefield could be said to be quite excellent.

One main reason for replacing the "White Swan" was actually that its production line had been shut down before the war.

Restarting the production line required a substantial investment, making it more sensible to invest in patrol planes with better performance.

These one hundred eighty "White Swan" planes, after taking off at dawn, could fly over the Northwestern East Ocean all day and not return until after sunset.

Faced with so many long-range patrol planes, any Fleet Commander would feel their scalp tingle!

However, the patrol planes were not much of a concern.

No matter what, the bulky patrol planes were easy to spot and easy to intercept.

With proper arrangements, under the command and guidance of radar, anti-air fighters often could launch surprise attacks on patrol planes.

If the ambush was successful, the patrol planes couldn’t send out a telegraph.

Clearly, the Liangxia Navy wouldn’t discover the patrol plane mishap until nighttime.

The real game-changer was actually the 22 commerce cruisers and over 100 seaplanes they carried.

According to the Imperial Navy’s arrangement, these commerce cruisers were evenly distributed along a semi-circle with a radius of 1000 kilometers centered on East Capital Bay. Like the six anti-air surveillance ships, each commerce cruiser had a specific location and maintained about a 100-kilometer distance from its neighbors.

Last night, all these commerce cruisers had reached the designated waters.

Crucially, every commerce cruiser was equipped with seaplanes, at least four of them!

The Imperial Navy even pulled dozens of seaplanes from other large battleships and sent them specifically to accompany the commerce cruisers on their mission.

After dawn, these commerce cruisers were set to sail east and south, deploying seaplanes to scout the nearby waters.

Importantly, the search radius was around 50 kilometers, which is within the working distance of voice radios!

Thus, even if enemy fighters ambushed them, the seaplane pilots could still use voice radios to send an alert promptly.

The key was that the intervals between these commerce cruisers were just too close.

Unless Newland ships could all submerge, they would definitely be detected!

A fleet with 1 carrier, 2 small fleet carriers, and over ten escort battleships would normally cover a width of more than 30 kilometers in their active area.

Theoretically, the Newland Fleet could not quietly pass through the search line made up of commerce cruisers.

Perhaps, they would not even reach the commerce cruisers.

In several of the most threatening directions, especially in the east, the Ministry of Navy had deployed several temporarily requisitioned oceanic fishing vessels, piloted by Navy sailors.

Furthermore, these fishing vessels were not sent to search for the Newland fleet, but to conduct radio surveillance.

For this purpose, they were all equipped with radio monitoring stations.

As long as they were close enough, longwave signals—not to mention shortwave signals—could certainly be intercepted.

According to tests conducted by the Imperial Navy, the monitoring stations could also intercept electromagnetic waves emitted by radar as long as they tuned to the correct working frequency.

These oceanic fishing vessels were between 1500 and 1700 kilometers from East Capital Bay.

Theoretically, the monitoring stations could intercept radio signals within a range of 200 to 300 kilometers, expanding the surveillance range to 1700 to 2000 kilometers.

Clearly, with such tight defensive deployment, not just the Newland Fleet, even a group of bombers could not silently appear over East Capital Bay.

Whether a fleet or a group of bombers was detected, as long as something was found, everything was manageable!