Chapter 737: Naval Battle (7)
The news of the German fleet's wanton slaughter on the waterway soon reached the temporary combat command.
"These damn Germans are too much!" Faced with such an arrogant German fleet, everyone in the combat command was immediately angry. Who can bear it when they are bullied at their doorstep? Commander Arnold immediately ordered all nearby air bases to send fighters immediately, and the German fleet must pay the price! However, in view of the lessons learned from the failed attack yesterday, he instructed that each attack formation must not be less than 100 fighters.
When the first wave of 130 P-40 fighter formations of the Americans arrived near the attacked waterway, they saw scattered ship wreckages everywhere on the sea, some large and some small. There were also various scattered supplies and parts, almost covering the entire sea surface; of course, there were also sailors struggling in the water.
At this time, the "culprit" Scharnhorst and several cruisers had already retreated to the fleet, and the entire fleet was in an anti-aircraft formation and ready to fight.
The FW-190T fighters that had been waiting in the sky for a long time swooped down with murderous intent. In view of yesterday's losses, Major General Bachmann specifically told the pilots to take advantage of the high-altitude performance of their fighters and not to play dogfights with these P-40s. Since the P-40 fighters were not equipped with turbochargers, the high-altitude performance of the Allison engine was poor, which affected the performance of the P-40 aircraft. Although the original P-40F model was modified with the Merlin engine to improve the high-altitude performance of the P-40, because this engine only had a first-stage supercharger and the total weight of the P-40F was greatly increased, the high-altitude performance improvement was not as expected. With the commissioning of the new model, most P-40s quickly retreated to the second line or served as training tasks.
The German pilots fully utilized the advantages of their own fighters and used skilled B&Z tactics to launch rounds of dive attacks on American fighters. Soon, a P-40 fighter fell into the sea with thick smoke. Then, another one was hit by a shell, and the plane burst into flames and exploded in the air.
Taking advantage of the opportunity that their fighters were entangled with the German fighters (being beaten), the following American bombers avoided the murderous German fighters and rushed straight to the German fleet.
Unfortunately, their small actions were clearly visible in front of the advanced German radar. Soon the German fleet launched a second wave of fighters to intercept these bombers.
Without the escort of fighters, the bombers could only be slaughtered by enemy fighters; the American fighters wanted to come to help, but they were completely unable to take care of themselves. If they were distracted, they might be shot down, so how could they take care of others. One after another, the American bombers were hit, and they fell in a spiral with billowing smoke. Some of them had their fuel tanks blown up, and the bombs mounted on the planes were detonated, causing a big explosion in the air. Countless hot fragments splashed everywhere and fell on the sea.
The US bombers rushed towards the German fleet like moths to a flame, but most of them were intercepted by German fighters. Only a few lucky bombers escaped the pursuit of German fighters. But when they rushed to the front of the German fleet, they faced an impenetrable anti-aircraft fire network.
Looking at the US bombers shot down by the anti-aircraft fire of their own fleet in the distance, the adjutant next to Major General Bachmann muttered. "It would be great if there were two anti-aircraft battleships, the Malaya and the Warrior." If these two anti-aircraft battleships followed, I'm afraid that they would not need fighters to appear, and they would be able to tear all the invading US fighters to pieces.
Major General Bachmann said calmly. "We can hold on without them."
"Of course." Before coming, they had considered such a large-scale air attack, so they brought a lot of destroyers and cruisers for air defense in the fleet.
In a blink of an eye, the first wave of US aircraft was wiped out. A total of 130 P-40 fighters and more than 100 bombers were all shot down, leaving only some floating oil, broken wood chips, scattered cloth strips, and burning bodies on the sea.
"Haha, I shot down two!" Back on the deck of the aircraft carrier, a German pilot climbed out of the cockpit and shouted excitedly.
"I shot down four!"
"I shot down five at once! Hahaha!" All the German pilots who participated in the battle happily exchanged their respective results, because this time the US military sent 130 fighters, and almost every German pilot had a result, at least one US aircraft could be shot down, and many pilots shot down more than two, which made them very excited, feeling that these Americans were giving them results for nothing.
In the bridge, Major General Bachmann heard the report from the staff that 19 fighters were shot down in this air battle, and another 27 were seriously damaged, and he calculated in his heart. 15 fighters were shot down yesterday, and another 19 were seriously damaged. With this loss, a total of 34 fighters were shot down and 46 fighters were seriously damaged.
The four aircraft carriers carried a total of 260 fighters, which means that the loss of fighters is nearly one-third. Of course, they shot down more than 300 fighters and bombers of the US military at the cost of 34 fighters shot down and 46 fighters seriously damaged, which is a great victory.
The adjutant on the side said. "I guess the Americans will not give up."
Major General Bachmann nodded. "Order the fleet to retreat 100 kilometers at full speed."
Sure enough, an hour later, the radar found a group of US military aircraft flying in the distance, with more than 100 fighters and more than 100 bombers.
The adjutant couldn't help but gasp. "Ha, are these guys crazy or what?" The first wave of more than 200 planes were wiped out, but they were not satisfied and sent more than 200 planes? Are these guys crazy? "Show off how many planes you have?"
However, the German pilots who went to intercept found that the models of the American fighters were a bit messy this time. In addition to the P-40, there were also P-35, P-36, P-38, P-39 and other types of fighters.
Major General Bachmann sneered. "It seems that the Americans have sent out all the fighters that can take off nearby. Will they even send their pesticide spraying planes next time?"
They naturally knew that the Americans had a large number of fighters and pilots, but so many fighters were not concentrated together, but distributed all over the place. It was impossible to gather hundreds or thousands of fighters to attack them in a short time.
It was almost the same script as before. The US bombers took advantage of the gap between their own fighters and German fighters and headed straight for the German fleet. The German fleet also launched fighter jets to intercept, and a few of them also escaped and approached the German fleet, but were subsequently torn to pieces by the German fleet's anti-aircraft fire.