Empire Conquest-Chapter 841 - 91: Enemy Aircraft Incoming
Will the 51st Special Mixed Fleet face an attack?
Actually, this is the least questionable issue.
Upon receiving news that the Eastern Group Alliance Army would launch a reprisal, Li Shenzhi immediately concluded that the 51st Special Mixed Fleet would soon be targeted.
The reason is simple, the West Continent Group needs to create a new hotspot to alleviate pressure on the frontal battlefield.
This also concerns the unity of the West Continent Group.
To put it bluntly, since the Tiaoman Empire cannot immediately reinforce the mainland battlefield to aid West Luosha, it can only take action in other directions to demonstrate firm support for West Luosha’s stance toward victory, convincing West Luosha leaders they will soon receive aid.
In short, there must be some expression.
Evidently, by all indications, the likelihood of the 51st Special Mixed Fleet being attacked is very high.
Otherwise, Li Shenzhi would not have come to the Command Bridge so early.
The result was, after he completed battle deployment, around 7 o’clock, he received intelligence forwarded by the Navy headquarters.
Last night, more precisely during the operation early today, the Special Forces arranged by the Military Intelligence Bureau successfully completed the mission.
Not only did they find undamaged encryption chips, but they also seized a working encrypted radio.
This means the Military Intelligence Bureau has a good chance of cracking the West Continent Group’s communication password shortly, thereby providing reliable battlefield intelligence to the combat units.
The key is the West Continent Group’s military communication password, which is not only used by all three services but also adopted by all member countries of the group.
Thus, it may be possible to grasp their military deployment direction in the Balkan!
However, this does not mean the Military Intelligence Bureau has mastered the West Continent Group’s communication password.
Truth be told, this telegram had little tactical value.
Subsequently, Li Shenzhi waited for over two hours.
This time the intelligence received was not from the Military Intelligence Bureau and was unrelated to the West Continent Group.
On the other side of the world, over at Gu Continent, the Newland Navy’s two major fleets, the Sunset Ocean Fleet based at Norfolk Naval Base and the East Ocean Fleet stationed at San Diego, all set sail last night, and all five carriers maintained radio silence after departing.
Among them, three super carriers with full load displacement close to 100,000 tons are in the East Ocean Fleet.
Additionally, the carrier under repair at the shipyard might be redeployed shortly.
All in all, overnight, the Newland Navy entered the highest combat readiness state.
According to Navy headquarters’ analysis, perhaps it is merely strengthening training, as the Newland Navy realistically cannot influence the ongoing war in the short term. The key is the Eastern Group’s reprisal action will not last long and thus not give Newland Republic a chance to join.
If the Newland Navy cannot launch a strike before the Eastern Group ends its reprisal, it will be unable to defeat the Imperial Navy.
Evidently, time is not plentiful for the Newland Navy.
As for direct confrontation, neither the Newland Navy nor the Newland Republic is qualified.
To put it bluntly, even combining the strongest three opponents, Newland Navy, Tiaoman Navy, and Bulan Royal Navy’s battleships, they do not measure up to the Imperial Navy. If combat capability of the carrier battle group is used as the benchmark, the Imperial Navy exceeds the total of other navies worldwide.
The key is, the Newland Navy’s East Watch Fleet has only three super carriers, while the Imperial Navy has also deployed three carriers over at the Howay Islands.
However, they are three "Chen Bingxun" class large carriers.
Due to backing from the islands for operations, three large carriers would not be at a disadvantage.
In this situation, the Newland Navy’s East Ocean Fleet will require at least half a month waiting for Sunset Ocean Fleet reinforcement.
Even if the Newland Navy plans to take risks, it will still take several days to mobilize support forces and deploy the combat group formed by four carriers.
However, Li Shenzhi was not so calm.
After receiving the telegram, he raised his guard but refrained from ordering more ship-borne aircraft to be dispatched.
The key is, he knows there is definitely something wrong, yet he cannot see where the problem lies.
Is the Newland Republic sending troops to participate in the war?
There is indeed such a possibility, but like the Navy headquarters analyzed, even with full mobilization, it would take several days before any impact could be seen.
Just transporting the troops across the Sunset Ocean would take at least ten days.
If factoring in preliminary mobilization and related preparations, it would take at least two months to deploy ground forces to the mainland battlefield to join the fight.
This does not yet consider issues on the command side.
Due to decades of separation, the Newland Army may not be able to integrate into the West Continent Group’s command system, nor would the West Continent Group necessarily make changes for the Newland Army.
If operating under battlefield segmentation and fighting separately, even more time would be needed.
Truth be told, the greatest threat is actually the strategic bombers of the Newland Air Force.
Not to mention the new B-1B, even the B-52H can carry 12 anti-ship cruise missiles and fly thousands of kilometers to strike.
In fact, allowing bombers to utilize anti-ship cruise missiles with a range exceeding 600 kilometers was pioneered by the Newland Air Force.
However, the Newland Air Force has always believed that launching more anti-ship missiles at once is more reliable than using heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles, so the Newland Air Force developed subsonic anti-ship missiles under 1-ton weight, which bombers like B-1B and B-52H can carry 24 of.
