Empire Conquest
Chapter 432 - 428: Passing through Danger

Chapter 432: Chapter 428: Passing through Danger

No matter what, the "Prime Minister" had finally made it through the peril.

If all went well, this Main Battle Ship, the pride of the Tiaoman Empire, would arrive within a month at the earliest, and two and a half months at the latest.

As for whether it could sail smoothly, Bai Zhizhan had no control over that.

In fact, Bai Zhizhan had no interest in managing the battles over the North Sunset Ocean.

On January 11th, the operation to attack Lion Spring City began as planned, with the Land Air Force’s bombers leading the charge early that morning.

The bombing was originally scheduled for the predawn hours, to be precise, before daylight.

Due to a rookie mistake by the lead navigator, who failed to calibrate the navigation instruments prior to takeoff, the course was severely off, causing the bombers to arrive about an hour late. It wasn’t until after dawn that they flew over Lion Spring City, continuing to drop bombs until past 8 a.m.

Fortunately, the bombing went relatively smoothly.

Also, as the Plane Group spread out en route, when the first batch of bombers arrived, the Bulan Royal Air Force’s fighters did not immediately take to the skies to engage.

The reason was the size of the bomber group, which only totaled more than 20 aircraft.

It wasn’t until after 7:30 a.m. that the air defense forces in Lion Spring City sprang into action.

By the time the air defense fighters took off, only the last two squadrons of more than 40 bombers were left dropping bombs, covered by over 30 long-range fighters.

In the end, only 7 bombers and 3 escort fighters were shot down.

In addition, 12 bombers and 4 fighters were heavily damaged and had to be scrapped as they were beyond repair.

According to the combat report sent by Du Kang, over 50 fighters of the Bulan Royal Air Force were destroyed, primarily "Hurricanes," with the escort fighters also shooting down 6 enemy planes.

Only one squadron failed to destroy its designated target; all other squadrons completed their bombing missions.

Of course, the pilots’ combat reports were significantly exaggerated.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that a more accurate report, provided by the Reconnaissance Aircraft unit, was received.

All three airfields in Lion Spring City had been bombed, but the runways were still usable, and the Bulan Royal Air Force even dispatched fighters to intercept the reconnaissance aircraft.

The damage to the port was severe, with several major material warehouses completely destroyed, and the fires in the fuel depots had not yet been extinguished.

The effectiveness of bombing the barracks was less than ideal, destroying some barracks but causing only slightly injuries, certainly not enough to diminish the defensive forces’ combat capabilities.

By contrast, the bombings had produced a good effect on residential areas.

Maintaining order required a significant military expenditure.

Indeed, based on this discerning report, Du Kang adjusted the night bombing, equipping over half of the bombers with specially made incendiary bombs.

However, the use of incendiary bombs in Lion Spring City was not very effective.

The reason was simple: Lion Spring City was a militarized city, lacking forests to provide timber. Instead, there were several factories serving the garrison, one of which was a cement plant. As a result, almost all the buildings in Lion Spring City were concrete structures, which did not catch fire.

The impact of the night bombings was to prevent the garrison from resting.

By the 12th, the bombing operation shifted from concentrated to dispersed, and the direction of the Plane Group’s entry was also adjusted.

That night, the 11th Special Mixed Fleet that had reached the southern waters of the Flame Sea launched ship-borne aircraft to bomb Lion Spring City.

It should be noted that this was also the first time the Imperial Navy’s shipborne air force had launched from a carrier at night, completing the mission, and returning to the carrier at night.

In fact, during the training period in the Xu Sea, the primary training subjects were night-time aviation combat.

Not only were they trained in night takeoffs and landings, but also navigation, bombing, and air combat, and they even had to master emergency landings at night.

As for the bombing effectiveness, it could essentially be disregarded.

It had nothing to do with the pilots.

Fundamentally, shipborne air force was not suitable for carrying out bombing missions at night.

Compared to shore-based air force, the shipborne air force had a very distinct characteristic— all shipborne aircraft were tactical planes with much lower bomb-carrying capacity than the bombers of the Land Air Force.

Indeed, this was why the shipborne air force was more suitable for precision bombing missions.

In fact, this was the forte of the shipborne air force.

The difficulty of dropping bombs onto a fast-moving battleship that was continuously changing its course was definitely much greater than bombing a bunker.

In landing operations, shipborne air forces were usually sent to deal with bunkers, turrets, and other defensive fortifications.

Clearly, in nighttime bombing, there was no precision to speak of.

It would certainly be of immense value to have the shipborne air force master the capability for nighttime operations.

By the 13th, Bai Zhizhan had received the latest news.

On the night of the 12th, the Bulan Royal Navy’s Domestic Fleet had deployed shipborne aircraft about 1500 kilometers south of Iceland to sink a Tiaoman Empire fast tanker.

However, they had not found the "Prime Minister."

According to the message from the Tiaoman Navy headquarter, that tanker had resupplied the "Prime Minister" and a few other ships in the early hours of the 11th, before separating from the Fleet to head for Locke’s port in the North Sunset Ocean; the plan was to refuel there before setting off again.

But during its voyage, it was spotted by a Bulan Royal Navy reconnaissance aircraft, and subsequently attacked.

Additionally, the "Prime Minister" had broken through the encirclement of the Domestic Fleet and was at the time about 1000 kilometers to the south, cruising southward at a speed of 19 knots.

Although the "Prime Minister" had maintained radio silence and had not contacted the Tiaoman Navy headquarter, a Tiaoman submarine spotted the "Prime Minister" on the evening of the 12th and promptly sent out a telegram to tell the Navy headquarter that the "Prime Minister" had broken out safely.

The Tiaoman Navy headquarter had sent the message to have the Empire’s Navy ready for interception.

By the beginning of February at the latest, a decision needed to be made as to whether the "Prime Minister" would go to the East Ocean or head for the Fan Flame Ocean.

Regardless, the Liangxia Navy would have to dispatch ships to meet them, because the Tiaoman Fleet led by the "Prime Minister" could not reach the Empire’s ports on its onboard fuel capacity alone.

However, Bai Zhizhan was concerned with something else.

The Bulan Royal Navy had used shipborne aircraft to carry out reconnaissance missions, and it was the shipborne aircraft that sank the fast tanker.

So, was it a smaller carrier included in the Domestic Fleet?

The "Brave" had already been sunk by a Tiaoman submarine with a torpedo earlier in the year, shortly after the outbreak of war between the Tiaoman Empire and Bulan, during a blockade mission in the North Sea.

Thus, it became the first sunken Bulan carrier and also the first fleet carrier in the world to be sunk by a submarine.

Its sister ship, "Glory," had worse luck.

About three months later, during the Tiaoman Empire’s assault on the Kingdom of Viking, the "Glory" was on an evacuation mission near the shores of the northern part of the Kingdom of Viking— to be precise, it was covering the evacuation Fleet and had dispatched ship-borne fighters against the nearby Tiaoman Air Force’s combat planes. Unfortunately, it encountered the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau" on a sortie, and was sunk by the naval guns of the two large cruisers.

This ship, therefore, became the only fleet carrier to be sunk by Main Battle Ships’ naval guns.

As a result, aside from the "Fury," which was always in a not-so-good condition, and the three taken by Cunningham, the Bulan Royal Navy no longer had any fleet carriers at its disposal.

All that remained were the smaller carriers, and the escort aircraft carriers that had been converted from merchant ships.

But the issue was that the small carriers and escort carriers were not fast enough and simply were not qualified to participate in the battle to intercept the "Prime Minister."

Could there still be a Bulan Royal Navy fleet carrier in the North Sunset Ocean?

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