Empire Conquest-Chapter 844 - 92: Air Defense Interception

Around 10:20, the fleet’s air defense operations commenced.

The first to arrive were the ones detected earlier, the group of enemy aircraft approaching from the northwest.

The "Zhi-6C" indeed detected the bombers, but in fact, the escort fighters were flying ahead, though not more than 100 kilometers away. Due to the weak radar reflections, the "Zhi-6C" failed to detect these fighters at the first opportunity.

Fortunately, after detecting the bombers, the "Zhi-6C" proactively withdrew southeast towards the direction of the carrier.

This was actually a typical defensive tactic.

Even though the escort fighters were not detected, the captain of the early warning aircraft could surely deduce that somewhere in the northwest, there must be enemy escort fighters.

The key was that this "Zhi-6C" had already reached the farthest end of the patrol area.

As such, the four "War-9B" dispatched by the fleet reached the scene at about 10:15, after flying for 15 minutes.

This "Zhi-6C" with the call sign "Tower 01" had already begun turning to withdraw before 4 o’clock.

It is evident that this seemingly ordinary tactical maneuver saved "Tower 01".

Around 4:10, "Tower 001" detected accelerating fighters, and by then, the distance between the parties had shrunk to 250 kilometers. If "Tower 01" hadn’t turned to evade 10 minutes earlier, the distance would have shrunk to 150 kilometers.

Since the "War-9B" would arrive five minutes later, if "Tower 01" hadn’t turned, it would have been attacked before their arrival.

Under those circumstances, the four "War-9B" that arrived could not intercept the enemy aircraft heading towards the early warning aircraft in time.

At 4:15, the "War-9B" plane group charged in.

By this time, "Tower 01" had accurately detected that there were at least eight incoming enemy aircraft, divided into two groups by altitude. The leading four jets were flying at a medium-high altitude of about 8000 meters, and the trailing four were flying at a high altitude of 13000 meters, maintaining a 5000-meter altitude difference.

This was clearly a very typical forward escort tactic.

Crucially, all of them were "Storm" AVD fighters from the Tiaoman Empire.

Although the Tiaoman Empire claims the "Storm" AVD is a fourth-generation fighter and an advanced heavy air superiority fighter, strictly speaking, it can be considered at most as a generation 2.5, and its actual performance has long been a topic of debate or rather, open to question.

The crucial issue is its aerodynamic layout.

Among all fourth-generation jet fighters, only three models use variable-sweep wings, and besides the "Storm," the other two are ship-borne fighters, the Empire Navy’s "War-9" and Newland Navy’s F-14. The primary purpose of using variable-sweep wings on ship-borne fighters is to ensure excellence in low-altitude, low-speed performance while maintaining high-altitude, high-speed capabilities, particularly with respect to handling during landing stages.

Thus, the "War-9" and F-14 had to compromise in choosing their wing designs.

One could say the "Storm" chose variable-sweep wings to make a similar compromise, stemming from the same reason: insufficient engine thrust.

Once the thrust-to-weight ratio reaches a certain level, adopting other wing designs, such as trapezoidal wings, can still achieve reasonably good high-altitude, high-speed performance. For example, the Empire Navy’s "War-12" relies on an air combat thrust-to-weight ratio exceeding 1.1 with trapezoidal wings, still capable of achieving maximum speeds of 2.0 Mach in high-altitude flight and maintaining decent acceleration performance, while its low-altitude, low-speed handling also meets naval requirements.

Of course, making compromises on ship-borne fighters is understandable.

Due to the relatively fast descent speed during landing, and long exposure to harsh high-humidity and high-salt environments, the structural strength of ship-borne aircraft definitely exceeds that of similar Air Force fighters, inevitably leading to greater structural weight and a resulting lower thrust-to-weight ratio compared to Air Force fighters.

As a result, ship-borne fighters have to work on their aerodynamic shapes.

But the issue is that the "Storm" is not a Navy ship-borne fighter; it was originally developed as a heavy air supremacy fighter funded by the Air Force.

This indicates that Tiaoman Empire’s aviation engines are rather subpar.

Due to insufficient engine thrust, West Continent Group’s engineers had to choose the variable-sweep wing design, widely employed in third-generation fighters but already abandoned in fourth-generation models, despite its pronounced advantages and disadvantages.

The widespread adoption of variable-sweep wings in third-generation fighters ultimately stems from inadequate engine performance.

Whether it be the Liangxia Empire’s "Attack-8," the Newland Republic’s F-111, Tiaoman Empire’s "Lightning," or West Luosha’s MG-23 and MG-27, they all adopted variable-sweep wings due to insufficient engine thrust while aiming to meet the "dual-2" performance indicators.

The Liangxia Empire and Newland Republic’s abandonment of variable-sweep wings was not only due to the significant structural weight but also related to the maintenance and upkeep complexities.

For fighters pursuing maximum performance, these are two challenging deficiencies to accept.

Actually, after the "Storm" completed its design, Tiaoman Air Force was not very satisfied, consequently not using it as an air supremacy fighter.

In the Tiaoman Air Force, the "Storm" AVD functions more like an interceptor.

Of course, the West Continent Group indeed needed high-performance interceptors.

The logic is simple: The Liangxia Empire possesses over a thousand strategic bombers and could produce bombers at a rate of tens of thousands per year during wartime.

For a long time, the primary mission of the Tiaoman Air Force has been to intercept strategic bombers.