In the next few hours, everyone was waiting for the news, but they had not been waiting for the news.

During breakfast, Zhou Yongtao joked that it would be great to receive the exact message before lunch.

In fact, what Bai Zhizhan is worried about is not whether he can receive the message in time.

After dawn, he would ask about the situation of the special fleet almost every half an hour, that is, whether it was discovered by the enemy's patrol planes and whether it was attacked.

What Bai Zhizhan is most worried about is still the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet.

On the large islands east of the Hovay Islands, the Newland army built dozens of field airports and deployed thousands of combat aircraft. There were more than 2,000 four-engine heavy bombers alone, and there were enough long-range fighters with poor performance.

Even with the current situation of the Newland army, even if you do your best, you may not be able to kill three special-mix fleets with a total of 6 large aircraft carriers and about 250 carrier-based fighter jets. However, if you can concentrate your troops, you will be very confident that you will be able to kill the single 22 special-mix fleet.

The key is that the whereabouts of the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet have long been exposed.

No matter how well the cover was done in the early stage, as long as Niz is in charge of Zhenbao Port and Spur is in charge of command, you will definitely be able to guess the whereabouts of the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet.

But at this time, no news is actually the best news.

The result was that Zhou Yongtao's prediction came true.

At noon, the first thing I received was a telegram from the "Imperial Capital".

The 22nd Special Mixed Fleet was not attacked, but had sailed at the fastest speed in the direction of departing from the Hovayi Islands at the fastest speed. The distance from Hono Island was expanded to 1,200 kilometers, leaving the strike range of the shore-based aviation force.

The combat radius of the heavy bomber must have exceeded 1,200 kilometers, but the escort fighter jets cannot fly so far.

The key is that the Newland army lacks the required organizational and command capabilities.

To be honest, even the shore-based aviation forces of the Imperial Navy were unable to launch an attack on a fleet more than 1,000 kilometers away, mainly because it was too difficult to organize and command.

Even fighter jets fly at cruise speeds, it takes about 3 hours to fly 1,200 kilometers.

If it is a bomber, it will take about 4 hours.

During these few hours, there will be various accidents.

In addition, there is a technical problem that has not been solved so far.

Positioning navigation.

If you only rely on the gyroscope and fly for 1,200 kilometers, the actual deviation is about 100 kilometers, and the gyroscope may not work normally.

Due to technical limitations, the fault-free working time of the high-precision gyroscope is only a few hours.

This is still under ideal conditions.

In actual use, it is very good to be able to work stably for dozens of minutes.

It will take decades before an advanced technology is born, high-precision gyroscopes can have practical value.

On a tactical level, both the navy and the army aviation rely on radio equipment to locate and navigate.

As for the principle, it is actually very simple. It is to deploy two radio stations or more in the rear to continuously send signals with no actual meaning. After the radio station on the combat aircraft intercepts these signals, it can roughly calculate its own location through triangular positioning method.

In order to obtain sufficiently high accuracy, short-wave and medium-wave radio stations are generally used.

Long-wave radio stations with worse accuracy will only be used when providing navigation services to the fleet.

Of course, warships have better positioning and navigation equipment, such as sextant, geomagnet, etc., so it is the same whether there is radio navigation or not.

If you are fighting over land, there is no big problem.

With typical landmark objects, pilots can use dedicated navigation maps to determine the exact location through segmented guidance.

In the past few years, bombers from Newland Airlines and RABB have been relying on iconic buildings on the Western Continent for navigation, and the results are very good. For example, a lighthouse in the Normandy area of ​​Rock State has provided location services to dozens of bomber groups over the past few months.

Although the surface can be destroyed, for example, after several months of bombing, the Taman army blew up the lighthouse, there will always be other landmarks, and many cannot be destroyed by manpower, such as the winding Rhine River and the vast towns and villages.

In fact, the Thaman Air Force and the Imperial Aircraft Expeditionary Aviation Brigade are also bombing the Kingdom of Bran using similar methods.

For a long time, the bomber groups of the Tyman Air Force went north along the eastern coastline of Branbon Island and bombed industrial towns to the north.

Fighting on the ocean is not so ideal.

If the attack distance is only a few hundred kilometers, or to be precise, it is within 700 kilometers, then relying on inertial navigation equipment and using appropriate tactics can solve the problem of positioning navigation, or eliminate the impact of navigation deviations, and ensure that the attack target can be found.

No matter how far away it is, positioning and navigation are a huge problem.

The most direct impact is that the combat aircraft that performs attack missions need to reserve more fuel so that after reaching the combat waters, there is more time to search for targets.

But the problem is, this is still flying with a missile.

Even heavy bombers will not have too long range when they are fully loaded with bombs.

Take the B-17, the main bomber of Newland Federal, for example. Although its nominal combat radius exceeds 1,500 kilometers, the reserved fuel for return flights is only 35%.

If you fly with full load, the maximum range will be only about 2,200 kilometers.

Even if the bomb was dropped before returning, the B-17 had only 1,200 kilometers of combat radius after the fuel left for one hour of search mission was left.

It is precisely due to these restrictions that even the shore-based aviation forces of the Imperial Navy cannot launch effective attacks on fleets more than 1,000 kilometers away.

As for the Newland Army, that's even more so.

This is also the key to the Guards breaking radio silence at this time.

The 22nd Special Mixed Fleet has left the dangerous sea area, and in the southwest direction of the 21st Special Mixed Fleet, the distance has only expanded to 500 kilometers.

The main reason is that the retreat direction of the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet is more westward, while the other three Special Mixed Fleets are northward.

Of course, there is nothing to worry about.

As expected, long-range fighter jets deployed on Laisan Island have arrived and have begun to provide air defense cover for the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet.

However, Bai Zhizhan's mood did not improve.

Not only the 22nd Special Mixed Fleet, but all Special Mixed Fleets were not attacked.

After dawn, no reconnaissance planes and patrol planes appeared.

It seemed that the Newland army did not intercept radio signals from the north of the archipelago and did not find the Imperial fleet that had already reached the door of the house.

Equipment failure, or negligence?

It's impossible.

There are more than a dozen monitoring radio stations on the Hovayi Islands, covering almost all bands. It is impossible for all monitoring radio stations to fail at the same time.

As for negligence, it is even more impossible.

Even if morale is low, grassroots officers and soldiers will not all neglect their duties, and the radar operators are technical soldiers and have stronger discipline.

At least the technical officers and soldiers of the Imperial Navy were more disciplined.

Then, the only explanation is that the Newland army gave up the opportunity to attack.
Chapter completed!