Munitions Empire
Chapter 1150: 1070 Carrier-borne Aircraft's First Sea Battle

Chapter 1150: 1070 Carrier-borne Aircraft’s First Sea Battle

“Fire! Fire! Shoot them down! Shoot them down!” the Mirage Country Navy Commander screamed maniacally, waving his command saber while standing on the deck.

Next to him, a high-angle machine gun continuously fired at aerial targets, with shell casings falling one after another onto the deck below, making a clinking sound.

The sky was filled with circling enemy planes, causing the Mirage Country Navy Commanders to almost grind their teeth into powder: the aerial cover they were expecting never arrived, but instead, the enemy’s planes arrived first.

“Those damn army bastards! Can’t you trust their word? Where’s the promised air support? Where is it?” Standing on the bridge, Shen Hai’ang cursed furiously: “All bastards! Bastards!”

Beneath his feet, the warship was painstakingly built with money scraped together by the Shen Emperor and all of Mirage Country, and losing even a single one was painful!

To build so many warships, the Shen Emperor ate only one meal a day, and the ministers donated their own fortunes, not to mention how many Mirage Country mercenaries perished in Fengjiang?

How many years of effort by the whole country had been poured into creating this scale of navy? Yet those selfish army bastards dared not dispatch fighter jets to support!

In fact, it wasn’t that Shengwu Zhong was unwilling to send out fighter jets to cover the naval brothers, but rather, he simply had none to dispatch: this morning, the Datang Empire Air Force had deployed their new jet bombers and once again paid a visit to the Mirage Country troops on South Island.

These nearly uninterceptable jet bombers roamed freely, and with a type of cluster bomb never before seen by the Mirage Army, they destroyed another Mirage Army airfield runway.

This bombing added insult to injury to the already heavily damaged Mirage Army airfields, and the airfield scheduled to arrange for planes to take off and support the naval operation… happened to be the one that was bombed.

Shengwu Zhong had already urgently ordered the remaining airfields to launch planes to support the southbound cruiser fleet. But in reality, his order was thirty minutes too late, a whole thirty minutes.

“Keep up the zigzag maneuvering!” Shen Hai’ang cursed those despicable army fellows while directing his warship to avoid potential enemy attacks.

Zigzag maneuvering was a tactic developed over many years of experience by the Mirage Country Navy, effective for evading enemy attacks.

Just as the Mirage Country fleet was making its third turn, a cheer suddenly erupted on the deck. It turned out their anti-aircraft gun had hit a Tang Army carrier plane.

The sailors on the deck saw the Stuka trailing a long plume of black smoke heading into the distance, all of them raising their arms and letting out a hysterical cheer: “Long live the Shen Emperor! Long live!”

At this moment, a Stuka carrying aerial bombs started its dive, avoiding oncoming shells, closing the distance, and aligning its bombing reticle on a cruiser’s forward deck.

His plane jolted through the air currents, and it seemed like only the sound of his own heartbeat remained in his ears. The dense tracer bullets coming towards him made the world in his view intensely vivid.

“Bastard! Die!” At a very close distance, he pressed the bomb release button, and the entire aircraft trembled.

The massive aerial bomb was freed from its shackles on the rack, pushed away from the fuselage, and plunged straight towards the target on the sea surface.

The cruiser was turning sharply, its sharp bow slicing through the oncoming waves. The cannons on the warship all pointed skyward, some gun positions manned by Goblins who had already spotted the bomb plunging towards them.

“Bombs! Bombs!” As if stranded on an island, with nowhere to hide, they could only point at the falling black spot in the sky and scream loudly.

Now, the fates of both sides were left to the heavens. Inside the cruiser’s bridge, the helmsman had turned the wheel to its limit.

And the bomb plummeting from the sky ultimately brushed past the cruiser’s hull, crashing into the sea water, followed by a huge explosion that sent up a towering column of water, much taller than the ship’s bridge and smokestack.

“Hahahaha!” The drenched sailors of Mirage Country burst into joyful laughter, celebrating their narrow escape in the most hysterical way.

Meanwhile, in the sky, the climbing dive bomber pilot, frustrated, cursed softly; he had missed a perfect opportunity, and this battle was destined to end without any victories.

Meanwhile, other Stukas, taking advantage of the Mirage Country cruisers dodging attacks from the dive bombers appearing from the sky, flew low over the sea surface and dropped their own aerial torpedoes in the distance.

White trails appeared on the sea surface, rushing straight towards the nearby Mirage Country cruisers. While the anti-aircraft guns had not yet swept over, these torpedo-carrying planes dispersed, flying off into the distance.

“Torpedoes! Torpedoes!” Before they could catch their breath, those responsible for spotting Tang Army planes were once again anxiously shouting.

They were genuinely very tense, seeing Tang Army planes and threats of bombs and torpedoes everywhere from their perspective.

“Keep turning! Don’t stop!” Racing to the side where the torpedoes were, Shen Hai’ang picked up his binoculars, looked toward the white trails on the sea, and commanded loudly.

This time, he wasn’t using zigzag maneuvers but was forced to continue turning in place: although he had great confidence in his own warship, he still didn’t believe he could withstand a direct hit from a torpedo.

With a sharp turn, this massive warship, weighing over 10,000 tons, even began to tilt violently. A white trace, following the turning warship’s bow, cut across its course.

Shen Hai’ang let out a breath; he had dodged a fatal attack once again. It seemed that the pilots of the Datang Empire’s carrier-based aircraft were not very experienced, giving plenty of chances for the Mirage Country Navy to escape.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!” On the side of the warship, heaps of anti-aircraft guns continually fired into the sky, creating a spectacular sight.

Unfortunately, although the Mirage Country Navy had some anti-aircraft experience and was somewhat prepared, they still didn’t achieve the best on a technical level.

One issue was that anti-aircraft artillery fire in normal conditions required unified command; relying on each gun to operate independently clearly wasn’t effective.

On one hand, each anti-aircraft gun position needs to consider ammunition supply and loading times, on the other hand, there’s also the issue of target coordination to consider.

In short, without unified command and fire control coordination in anti-aircraft combat, it is just a spectacle without practical use.

Most of the time, the dense anti-aircraft guns on the warship are not mainly to shoot down the attacking enemy planes but to disrupt them and seal off the most comfortable bombing areas for the enemy aircraft.

That is to say, it forces enemy aircraft to drop bombs prematurely or miss the opportunity to bomb, thereby ensuring the warship itself can avoid attacks and escape.

However, the Mirage Country Navy’s anti-aircraft guns couldn’t achieve this effect; they fired randomly, choosing targets independently, and most of the time they fought individually.

It wasn’t that the Mirage Country warships lacked anti-air command equipment, but this aspect of coordination was limited and far from being able to precisely control each anti-aircraft gun.

Thus, the seemingly dense gunfire did not actually produce the desired effect. Meanwhile, the carrier-based aircraft of the Datang Empire gradually found their rhythm in the chaos.

In fact… it was the second wave of the Tang Army’s attack aircraft that had struck!

More carrier-based aircraft appeared in the battlefield, completely disorganizing the already chaotic Mirage Country Cruiser divisions.

The fleet’s formation began to scatter due to the need to evade torpedoes, breaking the mutual cover configuration, whether dive bombers or torpedo planes, the opportunities for attack began to increase.

“Torpedoes! Torpedoes!” When the sailors observing the sea surface shouted again, Shen Hai’ang felt like his head would explode.

Clutching the rail, he looked towards the distant scene, where two deadly white traces appeared. Two torpedoes were charging directly towards the tail of his warship; if he kept his course, it seemed he could avoid one of them.

“Hard right rudder! Hard right rudder!” He turned back and shouted frantically at his helmsman. During this process, the side of a turning cruiser in the distance suddenly erupted into a brilliant flame.

Consequently, in the midst of the ongoing anti-aircraft guns’ symphony, a deafening explosion sounded.

“The Baiye-Class hit! The Baiye-Class has been hit!” The lookout pointed towards the distant sea surface and shouted loudly. Following the direction of his finger, the warship which had just exploded at the side began to tilt rapidly.

A cruiser with mediocre defenses, once hit by a torpedo, evidently lost the strength to struggle.

It looked like a dead fish, gradually turning over; the tall buildings in the middle of the ship and the chimneys began leaning towards the sea.

Following that, the central section of the cruiser named Baiye-Class started to fracture, and one of the three chimneys in the middle ultimately snapped and toppled into the sea due to the tilt and structural collapse.

Even from such a distance, one could clearly see people beginning to jump into the sea from the warship, and the red color of the waterline painting on the other side of the ship gradually became visible…

This was the first warship Mirage Country Navy had lost today, but it certainly didn’t look like the last…

Finally, six Mirage Country Zero Fighters appeared in the sky over the battlefield: due to the lack of ground guidance, they actually flew to the wrong place.

They first spotted the Datang Empire Destroyer divisions in the distance before finding their own fleet. Just as they arrived, they witnessed the explosion and overturning of one of their own cruisers.

Before they could react, the Datang Empire Pirate Fighters patrolling high in the sky swooped down like circling vultures.

———

Dragon Spirit has read everyone’s messages… ashamed… no matter what, there will be an update today, but it will be very late; everyone check it out tomorrow morning.

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