Chapter 1264: 1265John’s guess

 Chapter 12641265 John’s guess

"Let the fighter units patrolling over the fleet disperse! Increase the search range! With the fleet as the center, expand the search in eight directions: due south, due north, due east, due west, as well as southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest!" It's already a bit overwhelming! John Cleeves, who was confused, immediately gave the order.

He has a guess, that is, the attack on his fleet just now may not be an anti-ship missile launched by the Tang Empire's fleet.

 After all, he is very familiar with the way Datang Group operates. Under normal circumstances, Datang Empire will definitely leave some trump cards for itself. This is almost a common practice.

This time, the Tang Empire's trump card...maybe it's air-launched anti-ship missiles! John Cleeves was not pedantic. After he roughly determined that there was no Tang Army fleet in the suspicious direction, he had similar suspicions.

If it was a Tang aircraft that launched the missile, then many questions would be explained: why he could not find the Tang Empire fleet so close to him, and why the naval commander of the Datang Empire was so bold to use his anti-ship missiles Be the first to attack.

 The first problem is easy to explain. The enemy sent planes, so of course they couldn't be found. The second question is easy to explain... The enemy's commander didn't send his own fleet at all, so there is no question of courage. They haven't taken any risks at all, so why are they so bold?

Following this inference, John Cleeves found that he could not continue the analysis: assuming that the enemy's carrier-based aircraft can launch anti-ship missiles, the location of the enemy's fleet is difficult to determine.

He grabbed the report from the submarine force that he accidentally received before the battle broke out. The message said that he saw a plane from the Tang Empire...

What kind of plane is that? What is the other party doing when they take off a plane more than 600 kilometers away from us and nearly 700 kilometers away? This is another confusing question.

How can any aircraft carrier take off and fly its carrier-based aircraft behind it? So two hours ago... the enemy's aircraft carrier formation was still more than 600 kilometers away?

 Something's wrong. The enemy's aircraft carrier strike range exceeds 600 kilometers? How can this be? If it is true, then this fight is still a fart?

Thinking of this, John Cleeves suddenly realized a serious problem: Damn it, how could the Tang Empire's fleet determine the position of its combined fleet in this way?

Logically speaking, it is impossible for the other party to determine the location of the combined fleet in this way if it comes from afar. Even if the approximate location is known, it still requires constant reconnaissance to determine the movement of the fleet.

I changed my route after receiving the telegram from the submarine, but the other party actually launched the first batch of attacks in such a short period of time. This is unreasonable!

 Are there any submarines following your fleet? Improbable... How can any submarine keep up with a formation of surface ships? That said... there's probably a plane following them.

 But there were dozens of pirate fighter jets patrolling above me, but they didn't even notice the Tang plane? Is the other party transparent?

 Maybe... that plane is not above the head of our fleet! It might have radar! This is the only explanation John Cleeves can think of!

Thinking about it this way, the radar of the Tang Empire is already small enough to be installed on an airplane? This is so scary! The other party can monitor its own fleet from hundreds of kilometers away, and can easily avoid searching planes... It's scary to think about it.

 The problem now is that even though many things have been guessed, there is actually no way to break the situation. Even if one uses the most conservative guess to estimate Tang's technology, the combined fleet will not be able to lock down its opponent. There was no other way. He could only blindly expand his search range in order to discover the enemy's troops as soon as possible. Whether it was an airplane or a fleet, he had to see something before he could make a decision, right?

Thinking of this, he missed the radars of his fleet a little: originally these radars could provide accurate information within dozens of kilometers nearby, and could even detect incoming missiles... But now, all the radars of his fleet are covered with snowflakes. , can't see anything at all.

"No matter what you see, report it immediately! No need to fight, just make sure to send the news back!" John Cleeves added a few minutes later.

 He ​​did not order the Stukas who had started to form to rush in the original direction, because it had proven to be empty. But he couldn't wait too long. After all, Stuka didn't stay in the air for long, so he needed to make up his mind as soon as possible.

Clenched his teeth, the commander-in-chief of the combined fleet continued to issue the order: "Let the ground crew hang bombs! Prepare to take off the second batch of attack aircraft!"

 He was worried that he would not be able to find the Tang fleet in a short time, so he must be prepared for a second counterattack. If the first batch of attack aircraft forces runs out of fuel, the second batch of carrier-based aircraft will carry out the attack! Anyway, he has enough planes to arrange more batches of attacks.

While John Cleeves was showing off various micro-manipulations of the air, the second batch of carrier-based aircraft of the Tang Empire Navy had already relied on its speed advantage to change directions and launch an attack formation.

  Under the guidance of the early warning aircraft, they easily avoided the blindly searching United Fleet pirate fighter jets.

 The direction in which the combined fleet deployed a large number of fighter jets to search was completely opposite to the direction in which the second batch of attacks by the Datang Empire was launched, so the attack formation of the Datang Empire was still very calm.

There is no way. The technology they possess is far beyond the level of their opponents' guesses, so their advantage can indeed be said to be infinite.

 In modern warfare, the advantages of weapons generation differences have begun to emerge. The kind of warfare that relies on troop strength and quantitative advantages can no longer make up for qualitative advantages in naval and air battles.

In the sky, one after another Harpoon anti-ship missiles drew out white tracks, hundreds of kilometers away. Like the first batch of attacks, the Tang Army's aircraft returned after releasing all the anti-ship missiles they carried. On the other side of the combined fleet warships, countless sailors did not even know that the enemy had launched an attack on them.

 They heard that in the other direction, several warships had been damaged and sunk. But that was just what they heard. They didn't see it with their own eyes, and they couldn't understand the desperate state.

 These captains and their sailors did not even see Dorne's aircraft carrier being sunk, because they were on the periphery of the fleet and in a relatively rear position.

 (End of this chapter)