On October 1, after two days of sailing, the fleet arrived at the sea off Matrouh, Egypt. It is 140 kilometers away from Matrouh and 200 kilometers away from the target Alexandria. It happens to be not yet on the waterway, so it naturally becomes the Romanian fleet.
Preferred location.
In fact, the fleet had already arrived here at 1 o'clock in the morning. It just lingered here waiting for the best time to attack.
Although the fleet was wandering, the five core aircraft carriers were brightly lit but extremely busy. The ground crews were busy loading various ammunition and torpedoes onto the decks in preparation for the upcoming aircraft.
"There are still four aerial torpedoes missing here. Hurry up, the plane will be ready to take off in an hour. Where is the oil tanker? I saw that there is one oil tanker missing."
The ground staff statisticians were already loudly complaining about the lack of preparations, which naturally attracted several ground staff to immediately bring professional vehicles to pull the truck.
In the restaurant, the pilots were sitting together, enjoying the delicacies before departure. Major General Fernandez, who was mainly responsible for planning the air strike plan, was in the restaurant to express condolences to the pilots who were about to go on the expedition.
From time to time, he chatted with the pilot and patted the other person's shoulder to encourage him. When the pilot he was talking to saw the generals on his epaulettes, he naturally looked flattered.
When the time hand pointed to four o'clock, all the pilots stopped what they were doing. They immediately went to the deck to gather, preparing to fly their beloved aircraft to attack the enemy. At this time, the five aircraft carriers also moved at their speed.
Maximum to help the aircraft take off smoothly.
The first wave of three Bormicu-class large fleet aircraft carriers, which are the absolute core of the air attack, is the slowest torpedo aircraft. This is the second torpedo aircraft developed by Romania, numbered H47 torpedo aircraft (the first H45
If the performance is not ideal, it will be abandoned directly).
Its main data are: wingspan 15.1 meters (folded 11.09 meters), length: 10.51 meters, height: 4.52 meters, empty weight: 2900kg, maximum load 5100kg. Powered by a 1400 horsepower air-cooled engine, with a maximum speed of 415 kilometers per hour. Combat
The radius is 476 kilometers. (Maximum range 1900 kilometers) Equipped with two 12.7 mm self-defense machine guns, 900kg aviation torpedoes or 900kg aerial bombs. Crew: three (pilot, bombardier, self-defense machine gunner).
Therefore, with the help of the ground crew, the first batch of torpedo planes were already ready to take off on the deck. The take-off of the torpedo planes was the most stressful moment for the ground crew, because the aerial torpedoes carried by the torpedo planes were less than half a meter high from the deck.
Especially if an accident occurs during takeoff, it will be very dangerous. Therefore, when selecting a torpedo aircraft pilot, he will choose a stable one.
Under the attention of the ground crew, the torpedo plane jumped up with full power and took off. This caused a burst of cheers from the deck, and other torpedo planes followed closely and flew off the deck one by one.
When the three Bormicu-class aircraft carriers were releasing torpedo planes, the two escort carriers were also releasing fighter jets. However, the fighter they were releasing was not like the Romanian RH20T adapted from the Peregrine RF20 fighter jet.
Carrier-based aircraft. The main reason is that this fighter is a high-altitude fighter. Even if the air-cooled engine is replaced, its low-altitude performance has dropped too much and cannot be compared with this new fighter.
If anyone who knows this fighter comes to see it, they will definitely blurt out why it is a Zero.
Yes, this is the Zero fighter. After the reconciliation between Romania and Japan, in order to ease the relationship between the two parties and increase the design capabilities of its own carrier-based aircraft, Romania specially came up with its newly developed 1,200 horsepower air-cooled engine and wanted to jointly develop one.
Carrier-based aircraft.
Faced with the engine proposed by Romania, Japan was drooling. Besides, the new fighter jet requested by the navy is also being developed. Needless to say, it naturally agreed immediately. And due to the addition of Romanian technicians,
It accelerated the research and development work of Jiro Horikoshi's team, and also brought European design concepts as a reference.
The first prototype was developed in September 1938. The prototype used Romania's latest air-cooled engine. Its test flight performance far exceeded previous imagination, with a top speed of 513 kilometers per hour. And because of sufficient power, not only did it not need to drill holes
, and can also provide it with some armor protection.
In the end, this heavily modified New Zero has a length of 9.37 meters, a wingspan of 12.2 meters, and a height of 3.6 meters. Empty weight: 1890 kg, maximum take-off weight: 2940 kg, maximum flight speed of 565 kilometers, and maximum range.
:3100 kilometers (mounted with auxiliary fuel tanks), 2100 kilometers (with internal fuel). Equipped with two 20mm cannons, 12.7mm machine guns (Romanian version), and two 30kg or 60kg bombs.
This new fighter is much more powerful than the RH20T carrier-based aircraft currently developed by Romania, so after it was successfully finalized in May, more than 200 were urgently produced. However, the current model is the HF201 fighter, and only about 100 of it can
Flying on the ship, so the priority is to equip the escort aircraft carrier. After the pilots are familiar with the carrier-based aircraft, the fighters on the aircraft carrier will all be dominated by this HF201 fighter.
Now this HF201 fighter jet will provide protection for the attacking torpedo planes. They use their tail lights as guidance in the night sky to form a formation and fly towards Alexandria in the southeast.
After releasing the attacking torpedo planes, the ground crew immediately pushed the dive bombers up. The Navy's carrier-based dive bombers were improved from the Air Force's RU18 dive bombers. The wings were shortened and designed to be foldable.
Strengthen the landing gear and attach a tailhook.
This navy version of the RU18 dive bomber has a maximum speed of 420 kilometers per hour, a combat radius of 645 kilometers, and can carry two 500KG aerial bombs or one 1,000KG bomb.
After attaching bombs to the dive bombers, the RU18T dive bombers also took off from the aircraft carrier one by one, and then it was the turn of the RH20T fighter jets.
And Midrafael and Fernandez watched the whole process of the carrier-based aircraft taking off, watching batches of fighter planes flying out of the aircraft carrier one after another. After all the planes were released, the two looked at each other, and now all
All means have been used, then all that can be seen is the pilot's strength.
However, when it comes to Romanian carrier-based aircraft pilots, they are definitely top-notch. Even though the naval carrier-based aircraft fleet has only been established for a few years, the ones with the shortest flying time have been eight years, and many of them have more than ten years of flying experience.
Because Eder has spoken, carrier-based aircraft pilots can be selected from the entire army, so these are Romania's elites.
Of course, the Navy also knows the rules and cannot take away all the good talents of the Air Force and Army Air Force. The main selections are personnel below the top elites. However, the quality of the selected pilots still ranks first in the country. There is no way, the overall is the best
Naturally more than a single outstanding one.
The fighters released this time included 94 HF201 fighters (Romanian Zero version), 114 H47 torpedo planes, 78 RU18T dive bombers, and 36 RH20T fighters.
This can be said to be a give-and-take-or-fail attempt. You must know that the total number of carrier-based aircraft in the Romanian aircraft carrier fleet is only about 370, and this time 322 were released at once, showing the intention of burning the boat.
Of course, this also has a lot to do with the aircraft carrier commander Rear Admiral Fernandez. He believes that since it is a sneak attack, the maximum combat power should be used. Because the enemy lacks preparedness, the enemy will be the slowest to react in a wave of surprise attacks. This can
Give maximum results.
Therefore, the raid fighters forming a huge formation were flying towards Alexandria under the leadership of the pilot aircraft. For this smooth air attack, Romania had prepared more than this.
