Chapter 83 Encounter in the air

At less than four o'clock in the morning on the 14th, the first batch of reconnaissance planes set off.

According to the arrangement of the aviation combat staff, each aircraft carrier will dispatch twelve j-32bs, and a total of forty-eight fighter jets to perform reconnaissance missions. Because the fleet must keep radio silent, the aviation combat staff arranged a fixed route and flight speed for each reconnaissance aircraft. In this way, as long as the enemy is discovered and a very short telegram is sent, the fleet will know the approximate position of the enemy. Arrangement of j-32bs for reconnaissance missions will not affect the subsequent attacks, because each aircraft carrier has 48 j-32bs and twelve j-32s, which are enough to launch a decisive attack, and the remaining j-25p is enough to support the fleet's air defense network. If other fighter jets are arranged to perform reconnaissance missions, it will have a negative impact on the attack operations and fleet air defense.

At this time, Mu Haoyang did not sleep in the commander's cabin as usual.

Intuition tells him that the decisive battle of the Second Indian Ocean War will come this day.

As for whether it is true, I can only wait and see.

At this time, Simba was facing an extremely difficult choice.

At about one o'clock in the morning, he received an order from the Indian Navy Command: to lead the fleet to patrol and standby in the waters north of Digo Garcia.

This is not a message, but a command.

Although Simba knew very well why the Indian Navy Command made this arrangement, he knew even more that it was very likely to put the Indian fleet in danger. The reason was very simple. If the Indian fleet could not be found, Mu Haoyang would know that the Indian fleet must have gone to the vicinity of Digo Garcia, and most likely to be in the north of Digo Garcia, so the task force would definitely come to the decisive battle.

Regardless of whether the decisive battle here is beneficial to the Indian fleet, it is certain that the task force is definitely well prepared.

In other words, it is impossible for the Indian fleet to attack the task force here.

If a sneak attack fails, the best result is both sides suffer losses, and the worst result is that the Indian fleet is destroyed and the task force wins a complete victory.

In fact, both results are detrimental to the Indian Navy.

To put it bluntly, from the beginning, Simba tried hard to avoid these two results and was striving to achieve a decisive victory.

As a result, Simba did not execute the command immediately.

Within the next few hours, he reanalysed the information he had obtained before, hoping to obtain some useful information from it to make an accurate judgment on the whereabouts of the task force.

Hard work pays off, and Simba quickly found some valuable information.

According to his analysis, after the task force entered the Indian Ocean, it definitely did not go directly to Digo Garcia, because the United States had not provided military assistance to India at that time, and there were enough reasons to let Mu Haoyang go to the Andaman-Nicobar Islands, so the task force should sail east from the south of Sumatra, first reach the waters south of the Andaman-Nicobar Islands, and wait for the opportunity here. On the night of the 12th day, the task force would continue to sail east at the early morning of the 13th day, and it is very likely that the entire task force would continue to sail east, and it is very likely that the entire

Go forward quickly. That is to say, in the early morning of the 14th, the task force should be somewhere east of the Maldives Islands, but it is very likely that it will not go directly to the Maldives Islands. The reason is very simple. If you continue to go east, you will enter the search range of the Indian Navy anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and Mu Haoyang will not be so stupid that he will directly enter the strike area of ​​the Indian shore-based aviation. In this way, the task force is very likely to turn south on the night of the 13th, and then pass south from the Maldives Islands to avoid the Indian shore-based aviation.

According to this judgment, the task force will arrive south of the Maldives Islands on the night of the fourteenth or early morning of the fifteenth.

However, Simba was not completely sure of this judgment.

There was another situation at that time, that is, if Mu Haoyang adopted the offensive tactics, the task force would not stay in the south of the Andaman-Nicobar Islands, but would sail westward and maintain a high speed, actively seeking the Indian fleet to fight. In this way, on the night of the 12th, or in the early morning of the 13th, the task force had already reached the south of the Bay of Bengal, so before noon on the 13th, the task force would turn south to avoid entering the search range of the Indian Navy anti-submarine patrol aircraft, and then sail eastward. In this way, in the early morning of the 14th, the task force had reached the southeast of the Maldives Islands, and would not exceed 1,500 kilometers from the southernmost island of the Maldives Islands.

According to this judgment, if the Indian fleet does not sail westward and heads to the waters north of Digo Garcia, it will encounter the task force during the day of the 14th.

For Simba, the problem is whether to stay or transfer the position.

If you stay, you have to fight the task force in a decisive battle. The transfer of positions only delays the arrival of the decisive battle, and you still have to fight the task force in a decisive battle.

In the event of an inevitable decisive battle, Simba could only choose the least.

He did not let the Indian fleet sail westward or go south to fight the task force to fight the task force. Instead, he stayed in the northern waters of the Maldives Islands, keeping as far away as possible from the routes the task force may pass through, and avoid being discovered by the task force as much as possible. According to Simba's judgment, if the task force did not discover the Indian fleet, it would go to the vicinity of Digo Garcia and concentrate its efforts to search for the waters north of Digo Garcia. That is to say, on the fifteenth day or the sixteenth day, it would be the fifteenth day or the sixteenth day.

Mu Haoyang would definitely think that the Indian fleet was operating in the north of Digo Garcia. In this way, as long as the Indian fleet stayed in the north of the Maldives Islands and was under the cover of air force fighters, it would be unlikely to be exposed. After dark, turn south and strive to reach the south of the archipelago, that is, to the west of the task force, and use the task force to focus on searching for the north of Digo Garcia and relax your vigilance in other directions to attack the task force.

It can be said that this is a very clever tactic.

Currently, the premise is that it cannot be discovered by the task force.

To this end, at 4:30 in the morning, Simba contacted the large early warning aircraft that came to cover, and let the early warning aircraft bring back the news that it would strengthen the fleet's air defense during the day.

It is not the fleet that dispatches fighter jets, but the Indian Air Force that dispatches fighter jets.

In addition, the Air Force had to arrange reconnaissance planes to fly south to strive to find the task force.

According to Simba's deployment, all Air Force fighters will carry air-to-air ammunition when performing reconnaissance missions to intercept when encountering Chinese fighters.

To put it simply, it is to use reconnaissance as a cover to prevent Chinese fighter jets from heading north.

At around five o'clock in the morning, the Indian Air Force sent the first batch of reconnaissance aircraft and sent two squadrons of air defense fighters and two large early warning aircraft to the south of the Indian fleet.

Simba's deployment soon received results.

Before dawn, an F-35i that had already flown south for nearly 1,000 kilometers south of Male encountered a Chinese Navy's j-32b. The routes of the two fighters almost overlapped, and the sky was pitch black at that time, so when the two fighters approached, the pilot discovered the other side. The F-35i carrying air-to-air missiles took the lead in attacking. After the j-32b easily got rid of the missile, he used an aviation artillery to shoot down the Indian fighter. However, before the end of the air battle, the pilots on both sides reported the combat situation to the rear.

It can be said that Mu Haoyang and Simba received reports from reconnaissance planes almost at the same time.

Based on this information, Simba immediately judged that the Chinese fleet was just south of the Maldives Islands, and it would not exceed 2,000 kilometers from the air combat location, because when j-32b was performing reconnaissance missions, the maximum combat radius was only 2,000 kilometers, and it was impossible to fly further.

The problem is that Simba did not know the exact location of the task force.

At this time, Mu Haoyang made a different judgment.

Although the pilot clearly mentioned when reporting the situation that he encountered an Indian Air Force F-35i, not the Indian Navy F-35m, after all, in the eyes of experienced pilots, there is a very obvious difference between these two fighters, especially in combat air combat, the performance of the f-35m is much better than that of the f-35i and can make more overloaded maneuvering actions. The f-35i has almost no fighting ability, otherwise it will not be easily shot down by the j-32b. However, Mu Haoyang was not affected by this, that is, he did not believe that the Indian fleet was not north of the Maldives Islands.

The reason is simple. Without a clear purpose, the Indian Air Force will not allow fighter jets to perform reconnaissance missions.

You should know that the huge pressure exerted by the Chinese Air Force has caused the Indian Air Force to run away, otherwise it would not ask the United States for assistance. More importantly, the anti-submarine patrol aircraft deployed by the Indian Navy in the southern region did not suffer much loss and had sufficient ability to perform reconnaissance missions. Another reason is that the reconnaissance range of the Indian Air Force fighter jets is about 1,500 kilometers and can only cover the Maldives Islands. The possibility of the task force entering the Maldives Islands at this time is very slim, and there is no need to send reconnaissance aircraft in this direction. If the task force is suspected to be south of the Maldives Islands, it should also dispatch anti-submarine patrol aircraft with a longer range.

Obviously, the Indian Air Force has a very clear purpose.

This purpose is to cover the Indian fleet.

To put it bluntly, if the Indian Air Force does not dispatch fighter jets to perform reconnaissance missions, the Indian fleet should dispatch fighter jets to search south. Therefore, the one who encounters J-32b should be the Indian Navy's carrier-based fighter jets. The current situation is that the Indian fleet does not dispatch fighter jets.

This made Mu Haoyang even more convinced that the Indian fleet was in the Maldives Islands, and somewhere north of the air combat site.

Within the next half hour, three more J-32bs were intercepted, and they encountered not reconnaissance aircraft, but fully armed air defense fighters. When reporting the situation, the reconnaissance aircraft clearly mentioned that when they were intercepted, the electromagnetic signals sent by the early warning aircraft were intercepted, and it was a large strategic early warning aircraft of the Indian Air Force. The ones who came to intercept were also fighters of the Indian Air Force, not fighters of the Indian Navy.

That is to say, the Indian Air Force has conducted air defense deployments in the northern Navy of the Maldives Islands.

Now, there is nothing to doubt anymore. The Indian fleet must be in the northern waters of the Maldives Islands.

The problem is that without reconnaissance planes discovering the Indian fleet, they cannot determine the exact position of the Indian fleet, and they cannot organize fighter jets to launch an attack.

Chapter 83 Encounter in the air
Chapter completed!