Bismarck

All the heroes, brave men and good men, in accordance with Mountbatten's orders, spread out dozens of small groups of planes in clusters in the east and west, forming a large evacuation formation that seemed sparse, but was actually intended to contain the German air defense forces as much as possible. They headed west without hesitation. Only the voices from the radio, whether they were teasing, praying, entrusting, or parting, told of the Allied soldiers' determination to contain and consume the enemy's strength in order to win, even if they had to go to the sky in broad daylight and never return!

At one o'clock in the afternoon under the Strait of Gibraltar, there was only the scorching sun shining brightly without a cloud in the sky and the green waters and green mountains on both sides of the strait, silently watching the fighters of the free world and silently seeing them off.

Regardless, are they the martyrs who defend freedom as they claim to be, or are they just the successors of the international hegemons?

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The large-scale deployment of aircraft and the subsequent waves of missile attacks could naturally not be hidden from anyone interested.

Not to mention that in the Evil Spirit Fleet, not only did a certain otaku girl insist on changing everyone's masts into an "octahedral" radar array shape, but there was also a large pink-haired hamster equipped with a ground-wave radar that could detect low-altitude targets, although "only she knew how to use it."

The scattered and fragmented aircraft groups were discovered by the German fleet's radar from more than 200 kilometers away.

The only problem is that the British air strikes this time seemed scattered and somewhat abnormal.

"Captain, the radar has detected a group of enemy aircraft! They are one hundred miles away, and their size... Wait! Why are they so scattered?"

"Hmm? Are they very scattered? Let me see!... They are really scattered. Are you planning to attack in groups?"

In Bismarck, Lütjens stood up and rushed to the chart table, propped his hands on the table, and scanned the display graphics on the automatic combat plotter. He saw that at a distance of 180 kilometers southeast of his flagship cat, there were four targets marked as squadron-sized bomber groups on the computer data panel, with a wide horizontal range - through the readings of the mil-scale scale lines engraved on the plotting board, it was estimated that the width of this front was about 150 to 160 kilometers! Moreover, between these four bomber squadrons, there were three fighter squadrons!

"...So, they want to distract us? After that, they want to send the main attack group in?"

When Lütjens saw the display on the map board, his first reaction was that the British were trying to break up his air defense forces.

Even the Battle of Midway (which a house cat from another dimension had told me) appeared in my mind.

The secretary cat beside Lütjens glanced at the map board and shook her ears. She grumbled and pinched the tips of her claws, looking angry and silly. "And each of their squadrons is separated by a long distance. A squadron is divided into three teams, and the distance between them is at least four or five kilometers! Even if it's a jet, it will take at least five minutes to drive away at least one team."

"It's more than five minutes. We also have to calculate the time to strike the second team of bombers - the steam catapults will consume steam reserves, and we can't release too many planes at once to intercept at the same time. So a team of fighters has to deal with at least two bomber squadrons. Taking into account the time to travel and the interference of their fighters, it will probably be more than 20 minutes... So from this point of view, I'm afraid we have to estimate the consumption of missiles..." While saying his own judgment, he calculated the required number of troops and the impact of the catapult group on the speed of the aircraft carrier. By the way, he glanced at the pet cat beside him, who looked still cute and silly even though his head was replaced with an electronic computer, and was suspected of being unintentionally cute. He lamented in his heart whether he had protected this girl too well. Until now, she has not had any scheming, and everything is written on her face.

I will retire in the future, but she has to continue serving in the army. How can she adapt to society like this?

He felt a little helpless and worried about the future of his own carrier, but he kept giving orders: "Bismarck, tell everyone that the British will probably send out orders in turns, which will not only split our forces, but also consume the steam reserves and anti-aircraft missiles of the aircraft carrier. Everyone should be prepared for continuous fighting... Order Zeppelin and Gneisenau to turn north and send a small team of planes to intercept the bombers, and then immediately prepare the next round of fighters on standby for takeoff! In addition, we will also turn north and use our positions to cover the aircraft carrier."

"Well, OK!" Bismarck nodded, and immediately found Bonte's secretary ship, her "good" sister Zeppelin, on the WIFI, and gave instructions on her captain's arrangements. At the same time, she did not forget to call on her own sister, who had unparalleled electronic jamming capabilities, and a missile cruiser of her other sister, who was the backbone of air defense and had the strongest air defense firepower.

Originally at 11 o'clock, when the failed battle with Cunningham took place, the distance between the battleship fleet and the aircraft carrier fleet was maintained at 30 kilometers - the flagship Bismarck personally led Hindenburg and Ludendorff to block the front, and the task of protecting the relatively vulnerable aircraft carriers in the rear was given to Tirpitz and Prince Eugen.

As the eldest sister of the four evil sisters, of course I have to stand in front of my younger sisters and protect them from the wind and rain!

"Got it! I'll send a plane right away! Let's try to defeat them in one go!"

"Yeah, okay, okay! I'll take care of the air defense later~!"

"Tsk, these British people are really troublesome...hiss... (sound of a high-powered electronic jammer warming up)"

Listening to the three echoes with different personalities in the echo, Bismarck glanced at Lütjens who was looking at him, a playful smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he responded with a smile to the message of his captain's order.

As Lütjens nodded in understanding, the aircraft carrier fleet and the battle fleet, which were 30 kilometers apart, turned around and began preparations for war in the deep Atlantic Ocean under the scorching sun at 1:45 pm and amid the shrill sound of air defense sirens.

With the boiler performance of the two aircraft carriers, launching a small batch of aircraft would not have any impact on the pressure of the steam pipeline and the speed of the warships. Soon, sixteen fighters soared into the sky from the catapults on the flight deck, bringing with them the fighters that were originally patrolling in the sky. After a simple formation, the twenty-four aircraft were divided into two groups and headed towards the direction of the British bomber group.

Zeppelin was not among the eight, and even the flight captain Gordon Globe on the Gneisenau did not take off personally. According to the orders of Lütjens and Bonte, all of their main forces were gathered in the pilot standby room, ready to "deal with the next wave of enemy aircraft" at any time. And on standby with the pilots were the fighters on standby in the two takeoff preparation areas in front and behind the bridge!

If the catapult on the right side of the bow is not used, the Zeppelin's front and rear standby areas can accommodate ten and sixteen fighters in operation with tail nozzles facing outside the deck, respectively. In addition, the remaining two catapults can each hold a fighter ready for emergency launch. At the same time, the front deck parking area, which becomes much wider after the 105 anti-aircraft gun is removed, can accommodate up to landing aircraft at a time.

On the other side, the flight deck of the Gneisenau was a full 185 meters shorter than that of the Zeppelin, but relying on the fact that the hull of the battlecruiser was three points wider than that of the Zeppelin, while pulling the angled deck close to the bow to ensure that the landing runway length was more than meters, it was still possible to place three catapults side by side, and the front and rear parking areas could accommodate eight and twelve standby aircraft respectively, with a maximum single-time storage capacity of twenty-four aircraft!

With a total of 183 TA- fighters left on the two aircraft carriers, even if each carrier launched eight aircraft, the spare aircraft towed from the hangar quickly filled the gap. The rear parking area was especially busy, because no one knew when the aircraft here would suddenly take off from the (most frequently used) side catapults.

After all, what they will face next is likely to be endless harassment, followed by a cluster attack that may come at any time. So if they don't do a good job of preparation, it will definitely not work.

"That's fine, but we may need to send out several more emergency operations later, so we need to hurry up and arrange the takeoff and landing plan."

Looking down from the large glass window of the flight deck control area on the bridge at the busy but neat work results of the flight deck preparation team, Bangtai's thin face, which had just recovered from a serious injury, also showed a hint of satisfaction. Next to Bangtai was the Edelweiss Witch, who was wearing a flight jacket inside and a white specially made women's summer military windbreaker outside.

Hearing the instructions from her old partner and the captain, she smiled slightly, confident that her jet fighter could crush the other party's propellers. She symbolically took out the memo from under her armpit, glanced at it, and immediately started talking:

"I've already prepared a deck operation plan... We have twelve planes in the sky now, so it won't be a big problem to deal with them. As long as the situation isn't too dangerous, we'll try to keep sending out small batches as many times as possible to ensure that the steam pressure is replenished as it is consumed. In addition, we'll give priority to ejecting the aircraft on the front deck to ensure that we can accommodate a large number of aircraft landings at any time... Anyway, we have the rear parking area and the side catapults now, so even if the front deck is full, as long as the steam pressure in the boiler pipes is sufficient, there will be no problem with emergency takeoffs."

"That's good. Let the Gneisenau prepare as soon as possible. When we attack Gibraltar, they will definitely mobilize air force reinforcements from Italy. We don't know when the large-scale air raid will come... Oh!" Bangtai tightened the collar of his summer shirt and sighed for his physical condition. The previous serious injury seemed to have taken a certain toll on his health. Under the hot sun at the end of August, an old sailor actually felt a little uncomfortable in the sea breeze...

Zeppelin, who was standing aside, did not speak, but silently closed the air inlet beside the porthole. Feeling more comfortable, Bangtai turned his head to look at Zeppelin and smiled at her, then raised his head and looked at the time on the wall clock.

One fifty-five.

"The plane has been on the move for about ten minutes, so the battle should have already begun. By the way, Zeppelin, how is it going now?"

"Well, let me take a look." When Zeppelin heard Bangtai asking about the battle situation, he raised his eyebrows and sensed the battle situation of his own carrier-based aircraft.

But in the next moment, the Edelweiss Witch's originally cold and indifferent expression suddenly changed...

Chapter 881

Thirty kilometers ahead of the aircraft carrier formation was the battleship surface force led by the flagship Bismarck, followed by Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

In a busy C4ISR command room, the admiral, his secretary, and his staff were conducting intelligence exchanges in front of the chart table.

"The reconnaissance aircraft reports that Cunningham is now 420 kilometers away from us, not too far behind us. It seems that he wants to contain us and keep pressure on us at the same time."

"Besides, this distance is still beyond our attack range. If we turn around, they will retreat immediately."

"If we continue to move eastward, they will definitely catch up with us - there is basically only an hour between us, and it will be difficult to do anything..."

"The results of the reconnaissance plane's interpretation of the Gibraltar Fortress's photos this morning are out. Their artillery has not been overhauled much, but there are an unknown number of things that look like anti-ship missile launchers scattered in the town under the Gibraltar Mountain. It will definitely take more than an hour to knock down these launchers."

"The assault on Gibraltar is likely to result in being attacked from both sides. Should we continue the assault?"

A group of staff officers surrounded Lütjens, each of them with a look of lack of confidence on their face.

Only a certain blonde secretary ship, who had known her fleet commander for many years, still stood beside her admiral as usual.

"No, we must attack Gibraltar! And we must first destroy Gibraltar's air force. This is the only way to lure out Cunningham and make him actively seek a fight with us! - Don't forget, the battle plan clearly states that capturing Gibraltar is just the icing on the cake. The only way to seize control of the North Atlantic is to defeat Cunningham!"

With a resolute gaze, she swept the staff around her. Bismarck's coldness and temperament made people dare not look directly at her. After all, she was a battle-hardened warship. How could she be so cute and innocent like she was in front of Lütjens?

That was just because he was thinking about the unfavorable war situation and was worried about the future, so he became more attached to his own captain.

After all, in this era, she and her captain are the only ones who know the direction of history...

However, even so, our captain has said that as a soldier, we must fulfill our duties to the country at least until the end of the war.

Since it is the request of our own captain, then I’m sorry, British people!

His eyes swept across the resolute face of his captain. He stared at the chart in thought without saying a word, and it seemed that he didn't pay any attention to it at all.

After all, he and she had already agreed on this plan. As the secretary ship, wasn't one of her duties to help him deal with the staff so that his battle ideas could be turned into a complete combat plan and implemented?

"This... okay." The staff officers looked at each other, but after thinking about it, it seemed that this was indeed the truth?

"So now we only have one thing to consider - how to ensure that we can maintain our position in the face of a very likely two-sided attack, and make use of this one-hour time difference to adjust our deployment..."

As he talked about the key points of the battle plan, he watched the staff officers nod their heads repeatedly and took up paper and pen to take notes seriously. The corner of the Persian cat's mouth curled up slightly under the navy's wide-brimmed hat: The plan is correct.

However, before she could feel proud of herself, the QQ signal on the WIFI suddenly started to throb...

"This is... Zeppelin?!"

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"What? The British and American heavy bombers are fighting to the death?! The two squadrons before... after they used up all their rockets, the firepower of the two 20mm guns alone was too weak to guarantee that they could stop them completely?"

"Right! So I have to go into battle right away! Otherwise, these guys are really going to break through to the dangerous distance!"

"But...aren't there anti-aircraft missiles?"

"Every anti-aircraft missile we shoot down is one less. We are now attacked from all sides. We have to keep the anti-aircraft missiles for continued combat, so we have to save them as much as possible... Also, their second wave of attack is coming. It's less than 200 kilometers away from us..." Zeppelin on the WIFI said solemnly - in the sky 200 kilometers away from her, there was a newly appeared assault fleet consisting of 103 carrier-based Spitfire Jussun and Hiryuu fighter-bombers.

"What? The second wave of attack?" Bismarck was stunned. The British second wave of attack came so quickly?

"Yes! The Spitfire 14 and the Wyvern are both high-speed aircraft, so they will definitely come quickly..." Zeppelin wanted to say something else, but was interrupted by a lazy and cold interruption: "Not only planes, but there are also more than 30 missiles coming at us at low altitude. In addition, there are two submarines more than ten kilometers away from our left wing, and they have been staring at us for at least 20 minutes... It's just that the depth at which these two sea rats are hiding is a bit too deep, so it's not easy to fight them..."

As soon as the words came out, everyone was stunned: "Grapes?!"

"It's me, sister. Tell the commander to call me if anything happens. My jammer and Eugen's anti-aircraft missiles are ready..."

"Anti-aircraft missiles..." Zeppelin was stunned and wanted to say something.

After all, in her opinion, isn't this something that should be saved as much as possible?

You have to know that the current air defense missiles are actually very inflexible to use.

The average reloading time of the missile launcher is 30 seconds, and one launcher can fire two missiles to attack one target. Although there are four fire control radars and the Eugen Rabbit brand Aegis system (fog), the missile carrying capacity and attack interval are indeed flawed!

Moreover, a missile with a theoretical maximum speed of 2.5 Mach but a powered range of only kilometers actually has problems.

Because the power range is not enough, if you want to attack long-range targets, you can only use a high-throw trajectory and rely on a parabolic trajectory to attack.

The average flight speed of the anti-aircraft missile in this state is 510 to 530 kilometers per second. And due to the combined effects of kinetic energy and potential energy conversion and air resistance, the specific speed and vector direction are changing at every moment.

If there is no such thing as what a pink-haired hamster calls a "small missile-borne control (calculation) (computer)", then this missile actually has no way to freely control its trajectory - to put it bluntly, it is similar to an artillery shell, and can only aim at a certain "preset" lead position. Compared with guided artillery shells, at most it has a faster speed, a longer range, and can aim and hit a larger area.

So, if the enemy's aircraft was attacked by missiles without knowing it, or if they didn't know the weakness, it would be fine. But even if they didn't know it, as long as the enemy was a little smarter and made a large turn at a long distance...

A missile is like water spilled out by a missile. After the fuel is exhausted, it can only rely on inertia to fly. There is no way to adjust the trajectory "again"!

Moreover, in this case, the weakness of the air defense missiles of this era, which are rigid and inflexible in attacking long-range targets, will be exposed.

As one of the evil spirits in Germany and Goering's goddaughter, how could Zeppelin not know about the issue of missiles?

Every time you fire a bullet, you have one less bullet, and your weak points may be exposed at any time, allowing the opponent to consume your ammunition. How can you not be worried?

But before she could say anything, Eugen jumped out with a weak look on his face: "It's okay, Sister Zeppelin, our missiles haven't been used much yet, so it won't be a problem..."

"So what you mean is that I don't have to worry about what I can't stop, and you're responsible for stopping it?" Seeing Eugen like this, Zeppelin suddenly felt playful, and the next moment, his face suddenly became ferocious: "What if you run out of missiles? Huh?!"

"Ah? This... Even if there are no missiles, I will stop them. I will stop them..."

"Tsk, what are you going to do with the missiles? If they fly to 40 kilometers, will you open fire? Or not?"

Seeing Eugen almost crying with fright, Bismarck was both angry and amused. He pulled Zeppelin on the WIFI and glared at her: "Alright, alright, I can't be scared easily. Stop bullying Eugen. Go and stop you! Little Eugen said he would stop her, and he will definitely stop her." As he said that, he took out a handkerchief to wipe Eugen's tears, touched her head, and smoothed her hair to comfort her.

"Well...haha...alright, alright, Eugen, I won't joke with you anymore. Well...I'm going to go fight first."

Zeppelin, who was caught by Bismarck for bullying his sister, could no longer pretend and shook his hands with an awkward smile.

slip away.

"Really..." Bismarck rolled her eyes at the direction where Zeppelin disappeared. But immediately, her cat ears moved slightly, and she heard Eugen sniffing a little aggrievedly, muttering to herself: "I...I will definitely stop it. If the missiles can't stop it, I will stop it myself..."

"Pfft! What nonsense are you talking about!" Hearing this, the cat's paw that was originally stroking Eugen's ponytail patted lightly: "Don't talk nonsense, even if I want to block it, it's not you who should do it! Do you understand?"

"Ah..." Eugen, who was being photographed, looked at his elder sister glaring at him fiercely, and quickly shrank his neck in fear: "Okay, okay, I won't say anything... By the way, Sister Bismarck, aren't you going to report to the commander?"

"Well, you and Tizi go and get ready, I'll report right away!" Bismarck nodded, turned around and left - she wouldn't say that she almost forgot and hadn't reported the enemy situation to the captain yet.

After reporting the situation, the secretary looked at the captain beside him and said, "Captain, what did they say just now... What should we do now?"

Lütjens thought about it and could only sigh silently: "That's it... By the way, Bismarck, ask Zeppelin if he has auxiliary fuel tanks."

"What?" Bismarck was stunned.

"If there is an auxiliary fuel tank, I will ask her to investigate it later." Lütjens walked to the window with a worried look on his face and lit a cigarette silently: "I will ask her to go to French Morocco to see if there are any American reinforcement planes at their airport..."

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As the screaming sound of iron wings passed through the porthole of the C4ISR headquarters, from the corner of the eye in the cockpit of a fighter plane painted with the Edelweiss emblem and equipped with a ventral auxiliary fuel tank in the sky, even through the double-layer portholes of the cockpit and the command room, one could vaguely see a gray military-style secretary cat and her captain looking up at the sky from the window on the bridge of a large battleship at sea level four thousand meters below.

Behind her was a reinforced squadron of eighteen fighters equipped with 80mm anti-aircraft rockets. Nineteen smoke trails pierced the blue sky with sharp whistles, making Bismarck and Lütjens behind the windows somewhat uneasy.

The sortie rate of an aircraft carrier deck has its own scheduling cycle, not to mention that the steam catapult also needs to be heated by boilers. This back and forth has a great impact on the operational efficiency of the carrier-based aircraft group.

In particular, the Allied bomber groups that were desperately attacking had already tied down two fighter squadrons for scattered interception, and now they had to dispatch nearly twenty additional planes, and then they would have to deal with the next round of one hundred carrier-based aircraft, not to mention the cunning Cunningham who was following them all the way, and God knows whether they would have any reinforcements coming from the Mediterranean!

The situation on the battlefield is very unfavorable, but there are no better solutions now.

All we can do now, apart from deploying air defense formations as quickly as possible and urgently recruiting a batch of standby fighter jets, is to wait.

Fortunately, the fleet led by Zeppelin in person quickly made everyone feel relieved:

"This is Zeppelin! I will take over the battlefield command!... The first echelon, do not disperse. First, make sure to destroy all the heavy bombers facing you. I will deal with the ones that escape, and the rest will be left to the anti-aircraft missiles - we also have to deal with the second echelon of enemy aircraft, remember?!"

"Roger that!"

"Did you get all that? Very good - those who are blocking the way ahead, please make way. Everyone in the second echelon, follow me! Rocket launch! All-out charge!"

"Wait a minute! Instructor, your rocket salvo almost wiped out an entire squadron of them! Please save some soup for the little ones."

“Hehehehe…Okay then, Buckhorn, I’ll leave the remaining six to you guys to deal with. Grislavsky, take the others with me and intercept their second echelon!”

"Ah...thank you, instructor, for giving me a sip of soup."

"Buckhorn, I'm not saying anything bad about you, but if your wife knew that you treated the instructor like this..."

"Get lost! Grislavsky, don't try to sow discord between my husband and me!"