Empire Conquest-Chapter 847 - 93: One Oversight Amid a Hundred Precautions (Part 2)
There are always two sides to a problem.
The Tiaoman Air Force has extensively equipped themselves with "Fire God" bombers, partly because there are no better bombers available.
If they had supersonic bombers like the "Hong-10" or B-1B, or strategic bombers like the "Hong-9" and B-52, the Tiaoman Air Force certainly wouldn’t choose the "Fire God."
Initially, the Tiaoman Air Force didn’t plan on using the "Fire God" for maritime strike missions.
According to its original specifications, the "Fire God" is indeed classified as a strategic bomber, with the primary task of carrying bombs for strategic bombing missions.
Due to technical limitations, particularly in aircraft engines, the "Fire God" utilizes a delta wing design, which is quite rare in bombers.
In simple terms, it’s about increasing the wing area to improve lift-to-drag ratio and fuel capacity, enabling it to reach an 80-ton takeoff weight with four small thrust turbojet engines, and possess a relatively outstanding range among bombers of the same class.
If deployed in West Luosha, its operational radius of about 4,000 kilometers is barely sufficient. Moreover, with one aerial refueling, its operational radius can be extended by 50% to 6,000 kilometers, acquiring the capability to bomb mid-western cities of the Liangxia Empire.
However, insufficient capacity severely limits the "Fire God’s" utility.
To achieve maritime strike capabilities, all "Fire God" bombers purchased by the Tiaoman Air Force are capable of carrying auxiliary fuel tanks in their bomb bays, and six heavy external hardpoints were added beneath the wings.
The reason is straightforward: the bomb bay is too small to hold heavy anti-ship missiles.
However, this introduces a new issue, which is significantly increased flight drag, leading to a sharp rise in fuel consumption.
When loaded with 10 tons of bombs in the bomb bay, the "Fire God" has an operational radius of about 4,000 kilometers, but when externally loaded with six heavy anti-ship missiles totaling less than 9 tons, the operational radius shrinks to 3,000 kilometers, meaning cruise flight drag has increased by 50%.
Undeniably, the "Fire God" is an excellent bomber.
All 20 "Fire God" units fly at an altitude above 11,000 meters, with formations of four maintaining a separation of about 10 kilometers between them.
The initial engagement began at around 4:25 with four "War-9B" units launching the first wave of attacks.
Since half of the KK-9D missiles were already expended, intercepting all bombers at once was impossible, and dispersing the bombers to evade penetration had to be avoided, so the four fighters concentrated their attack on the leading two formations of eight bombers, and turned back after missile launch.
In fact, these four fighters still had two combat missiles each remaining.
However, there was no longer a necessity for that.
From behind, a team of four urgently launched "War-9B" units arrived, all fully armed with missiles and flying at speeds exceeding Mach 1.3.
Such is one of the "War-9B" unique skills.
Upon breaking the sound barrier, the "War-9B" can maintain supersonic flight with just maximum military thrust due to its superb aerodynamic design.
Of course, this requires specific conditions, such as flying at high altitudes and without carrying additional ordnance.
This capability plays a crucial role in interception operations.
Simply put, it allows reaching the battlefield at the fastest speed with minimized fuel consumption, intercepting incoming enemy aircraft.
Furthermore, increasing the carrier aircraft’s flight speed can extend the KK-9D missile’s range.
Before missile launch, the speed of the four "War-9B" units was increased to Mach 1.8, imparting higher initial velocity to the KK-9D.
Four fully missile-loaded "War-9B" were evidently more than sufficient to handle over 10 bombers.
At this moment, battles in two other directions were also underway.
Though challenging, especially south of Crete Island, for not having cleared the escort fighter jets in advance, the four "War-9B" units engaged with escort fighters first and then intercepted the bombers, employing not just combat missiles but machine guns to the end. Nonetheless, in these two directions, under the guidance of the "Zhi-6C," "War-9B" units all accomplished their mission remarkably.
Ultimately, less than 10 anti-ship missiles were dropped by the "Fire God" bombers in both directions, and the areas of missile drop were over 550 kilometers away from the 51st Special Mixed Fleet.
In fact, this exceeded the maximum range of the anti-ship missiles.
However, considering security, Li Shenzhi still instructed the Anti-Air Cruiser to engage, launching air defense missiles to shoot down the incoming anti-ship missiles.
Yet, it was indeed excessive.
At that time, those few anti-ship missiles were actually flying towards Cyprus, suggesting the enemy had deduced the 51st Special Mixed Fleet had maneuvered to the west of Cyprus.
But the problem is that the 51st Special Mixed Fleet is actually south of Cyprus.
The reason is simple; the convoy that needs protection is still in the Narrow Sea and hasn’t entered the Land Heart Sea, so there’s no need for the 51st Special Mixed Fleet to head north.
Even if there were no interceptions and those Anti-ship Missiles had sufficient range, they could not threaten the 51st Special Mixed Fleet.
With a deviation of over 100 kilometers, after entering the self-guidance phase, the Anti-ship Missiles certainly cannot detect the battleships of the 51st Special Mixed Fleet with their radar.
The key point is that Li Shenzhi never expected that it was this order that placed the 51st Special Mixed Fleet in danger.
Given the situation at the time, the enemy clearly didn’t know the precise location of the 51st Special Mixed Fleet, and firing missiles was not only a gamble but also a test.
The crux is here.
When intercepting those Anti-ship Missiles, the two "Qingzhou"-class ships activated their radar, and the electromagnetic waves emitted can be detected hundreds of kilometers away.
At 10:40, just after the two "Qingzhou"-class ships launched missiles to intercept the incoming Anti-ship Missiles, the battle alarm sounded once again.
The alarm was issued by the "Zhi-6C" which had been patrolling 150 kilometers west of the fleet, and returned near the fleet after a defense deployment adjustment.
Due to the need to first let the fighters that had completed interception missions land, and to wait for those remaining on the carrier that couldn’t take off to get airborne, this Early Warning Aircraft did not return to land but circled north of the fleet at the most fuel-efficient speed.
The ship-borne fighters were all in the west and southwest, and there were not many planes north of the fleet, so there was no need to avoid clearing the landing approach.
The key point is that the radar was not turned off.
Although it might cause interference, according to the operational guidelines of the Imperial Navy, the Early Warning Aircraft is only allowed to turn off the radar when entering the landing approach.
It was this Early Warning Aircraft that detected enemy planes flying in from the north, coming from the territory of the Ter Republic.
Initially, the operations officer on the Early Warning Aircraft didn’t identify them as enemy bombers.
After all, it was the territory of the Ter Republic, which had long declared permanent neutrality. Both the Liangxia Empire and the Tiaoman Empire had signed international treaties recognizing the permanent neutrality of the Ter Republic, and even the Newland Republic later added its signature to this treaty, so it was naturally assumed that the enemy would not appear from the north.
At the time, the officer thought they might be reconnaissance aircraft of the Ter Air Force.
It was only when these unidentified aircraft continued to fly south and reached over the Land Heart Sea that the operations officer made a new judgment.
If they were planes of the Ter Air Force, they certainly wouldn’t leave their native airspace.
They were enemy bombers!
In fact, this wasn’t the fault of the officer on the Early Warning Aircraft.
Over the territory of the Ter Republic, these unidentified planes were flying at low altitudes, significantly reducing the detection range of the Early Warning Aircraft.
Don’t forget, the "Zhi-6C" is a shipborne Early Warning Aircraft designed for maritime combat environments.
The radar of the "Zhi-6C" was designed to reduce the mirror reflection of the sea surface and the interference caused by sea waves.
As for interference encountered over land, it was not particularly emphasized.
Even the later export models only made improvements in software to enhance signal processing capabilities without much hardware upgrade.
According to the plan, only the next-generation upgraded model with a brand new radar will thoroughly solve this problem.
The result is that the "Zhi-6C" is easily affected by ground-reflected interference when tracking low-altitude targets flying over land, especially in mountain areas.
The upshot is that when the "Zhi-6C" identified those planes as bombers, they were already less than 500 kilometers away.
The "War-9B" fighters that had already taken off and were on standby were all in the west, with the closest ones still nearly 300 kilometers from the bombers.
Clearly, these fighters had no time to intercept them.
Therefore, once the "Zhi-6C" issued the enemy attack alert, air defense operations directly entered the phase of intercepting incoming Anti-ship Missiles.
Evidently, this is the scenario any Fleet Commander least wants to face.
