Empire Conquest-Chapter 832 - 86: Critical Mission

If the battle is fought in open seas, the problem is not too serious.

According to the Empire Navy’s accumulated experience, the biggest challenge in anti-carrier operations is not striking the carrier, but finding it and launching an attack in a timely manner.

The carrier is a mobile maritime combat platform and does not remain in a fixed location.

When faced with severe threats, the Empire Navy’s large carriers and super carriers can maintain a speed of over 30 knots for several days.

This means that anti-carrier operations have a very apparent timeliness factor.

Based on the Empire Navy’s experience, from detection to completing an attack, there is at most only 3 hours.

If unable to attack within 3 hours, the carrier battle group can sail up to 100 nautical miles, which is approximately 190 kilometers away.

This distance exceeds the search range of almost all anti-ship systems.

In reality, there are not truly 3 hours.

It’s simple, upon realizing it has been exposed or if the threat increases, the carrier battle group will undoubtedly enhance air defense efforts and use electronic interference to conceal the carrier’s movements, thereby reducing the probability of a strike and causing the enemy to miss the opportunity to attack.

The Westland Group understands this clearly as well.

No matter the case, the Westland Group possesses several carriers and understands their utilization, knowing the challenges of anti-carrier operations.

In fact, this is precisely why the Westland Group focuses its energy on developing heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles and is the first to propose saturation attack tactics.

Compared to traditional anti-ship methods, heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles are not only powerful but also require less time to complete an attack.

An anti-ship missile flying at Mach 3 can cover 500 kilometers in just 10 minutes!

If using attack aircraft, even at high-altitude supersonic penetration, it would take 15 minutes to fly 500 kilometers, and 30 minutes for ultra-low altitude high subsonic penetration.

However, this does not resolve the fundamental issue of how to promptly discover the carrier.

For this reason, the Westland Group has equipped hundreds of maritime patrol aircraft, specifically developed ocean reconnaissance satellites, and even employs submarines for reconnaissance tasks.

Unfortunately, these reconnaissance methods all have significant shortcomings.

Patrol aircraft are easily shot down, intelligence from reconnaissance satellites may not be utilized timely, and submarines themselves are targets for carrier strikes.

Even now, detecting carriers operating in distant seas remains a world-class difficulty.

As long as carrier battle groups operate in distant seas, the likelihood of being struck is low, and the probability of sudden attack is even lower.

This is why the Empire Navy is more inclined to deploy carriers in the Fan Flame Ocean and East Ocean.

In narrower sea areas, carriers are easily attacked.

Land Heart Sea is such a narrow sea area.

To be blunt, if not for controlling the critical Xifan Canal and defending Alexandria, the Empire Navy would likely have abandoned Land Heart Sea long ago.

After the Boi War ended, the Empire Navy once considered withdrawing the Land Heart Sea Sub-fleet.

This means the Empire Navy must consider the challenges faced when operating in narrow sea areas. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

To put it directly, it’s about facing the anti-carrier system developed by the Westland Group and ensuring it can withstand their saturation attacks.

Without a doubt, this has been the most critical tactical issue for the Empire Navy in the past decade!