At around 1 pm on December 10, Alaman time, German reconnaissance aircraft discovered the British Mediterranean fleet that was advancing westward rapidly in the northern waters of Alaman and immediately sent a telegram: 4 large ships, suspected battleships; 2 medium ships, suspected heavy cruisers; 8 small ships, for destroyers, the air strangulation plan formulated according to the a4 plan, took action immediately.

At 14:38, the British fleet sounded the air defense alarm, but after checking the German plane that rushed over, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. All the people came were fw-190 and did not carry bombs. Andrew asked in confusion: "Sir, are the Germans' brains broken? Can fighters sink us alone?"

"We can't sink us, but those above our heads are in danger." Harwood pointed to the p-40 or tomahawk in the sky. "Did you dare to continue moving forward without the cover in the air?"

"I..." Andrew wanted to say he dared, but when he thought of the battle examples of two battleships of the Z Fleet sent to the Far East being quickly sunk by Japanese bombers without air cover, he felt that he could not make such a rash move.

"Then we can only ask the headquarters to send another plane to cover us."

"This is time delayed, isn't it?" Harwood said with a frown. "What we lack most now is time. Every extra minute, the strength of the Germans will increase a little."

"Why didn't General Alexander send us more planes? Even if Cairo and Alexander do not have one, General Ted's desert air force should not be short of planes."

Harwood didn't say much, but just sighed there. He knew the truth more clearly than Andrew: Although Ted's Desert Air Force had a large number of fighters, the aircraft losses have risen sharply since the two sides fought in Tobrook earlier this month. More than 600 aircraft have been compensated in just ten days. Although most of them were bombers, the losses of fighters should not be underestimated. The P-40s do not have an advantage in combat, and the combat losses rate is quite high. More importantly, the main force of the Desert Air Force is still in the west. It takes time to draw back to respond. Although Alexander assured him that as long as there is a P-40, he will definitely send the fleet to cover, but he doesn't know when it will come.

No one was ready to start the war in early December. The Eighth Army did not, the Egyptian side did not, and the Mediterranean Fleet did not - everyone was originally looking forward to the warships, planes and army coming to Egypt to reinforce themselves during Operation Torch, but they did not expect that the support force would attack first before it even arrived.

"This is really terrible..."

Pilots on both sides quickly approached. 32 P-40s bravely met and started fighting with the FW-190 on the opposite side. The sailors on the deck of the warship kept cheering for their comrades in the air. Whenever an aircraft was shot down, they always applauded and cheered for victory. But when the plane landed on the water, everyone was stunned again - most of the fallen were British planes.

17 minutes later, 36 FW-190s relied on their brilliant tactics and superior aircraft performance to shoot down all 32 P-40s, and only 9 of them were lost. It is worth mentioning that even though the P-40s were always at a disadvantage, no pilot fled the battlefield. Everyone fought until the last moment until they were shot down.

"Air defense fire preparation." Looking at the German planes that pounced down, a shrill alarm sounded on the warships. Given that the fighter planes did not cause much damage to the warships and in order to prevent accidental attacks, most anti-aircraft guns did not fire, so naturally there was no concern now. Fires flew up from the warships and attacked the German aircraft group. Unfortunately, the accuracy was not good, and most of the shells fell out. On the contrary, the decks of each ship experienced a fw-190 strafing, and dozens of sailors were killed and injured in each open-air artillery position.

15 minutes later, the fw-190, who had finished venting, took the initiative to pull up and leave. Andrew clamped the telegram and said to Harwood with a lot of worries: "Sir, the second batch of cover planes arrives after 30 minutes. General Alexander hopes that we will continue to persevere-as long as it gets dark, everything will be easy."

Hawood looked at the sky and then at the wall clock. It was less than 3 o'clock now, and it was still 3 hours before dark. He sighed: "That's all, the course and the speed remain unchanged. Each ship is highly vigilant about air firepower."

At 3:27, our cover plane had not arrived yet, and the British Mediterranean Fleet sounded the air defense alarm again. The lookout report once again showed enemy planes in the northwest sky: 4 He-177s rushed towards the British Mediterranean Fleet under the cover of 12 BF-109s.

"Please note that the enemy planes have bombers this time."

Seeing that it was a large-scale aircraft such as the He-177 and there were not many, Andrew felt much more relaxed. The one he was most afraid of rushing over was the brigade Stuka. It poses too much threat to the fleet, but the He-177 is not in his eyes. As long as the commander and officer at the helm is smarter, it will not cause substantial damage to the warship.

But the fleet that came this time was a bit strange. It had been flying at an altitude of more than 5,500 meters, and the altitude did not drop and the speed was very fast. Looking at the he-177s who had been holding high and hitting high, Andrew asked in confusion: "It is useful for them to fly so high? Do you really think that high-altitude bombing can also blow us?"

Harwood didn't know the whole story, but his intuition told him that the plane he came was very dangerous, so he deliberately reminded all ships to pay attention to air defense again.

His intuition was right. The He-177s led by Captain Uber were not carrying ordinary aviation bombs, but the latest technology of the Third Reich - the remote-controlled bomb hs-293.

This is a new equipment developed by a research team led by Junckers engineer Professor Wagner in 1939. It was originally based on the concept of unpowered gliding bombs proposed by the Gustav Schwarz Propeller Factory. By loading ordinary aviation bombs with light alloy bombs with bomb wings and tails of light alloys, the HS-293v2 gliding bombs were made in May 1940. Given that the gliding bombs are uncontrollable and the action distance is too short, the bombs and their carriers were later equipped with radio command reception and launch systems to make the bombs and their carriers respectively to make the bombs equipped with

It has the ability to attack mobilely and successfully developed the hs-293v3 controllable gliding bomb. The test results showed that the unpowered hs-293v3 lacked sufficient speed to penetrate the warship armor, and decided to add a rocket booster to it to increase its speed and range. The improved model is called hs-293a0. In January 1942, the improved hs-293a1 was put into production. The kg100, which has been stationed in the Mediterranean and the kg40th in France were the two first troops equipped with this weapon.

Under Hoffman's requirements for accelerating the development of missiles, German engineers further increased the improvement of this guided bomb. The engineers improved the new model and called it the hs-293a2, which can be easily hung on external points. The aircraft uses a dedicated engine exhaust gas delivery pipe to preheat the rocket engine before launch. For this smart bomb weighing nearly 600 kilograms, a He-177 can carry 4 pieces at the same time. In addition to the He-177, the FW-200, He-111h, Do-2 and Ju-290 can be carried, the difference is only the number.

"Sir, discover the British fleet." The navigator shouted excitedly. At this time, the small gray clouds in the space had gradually dissipated. Looking through the porthole, Uber could clearly find more than a dozen irregular parallel tracks on the northwest sea of ​​Alamein - the British fleet had already arranged a wheeled air defense array. He rolled his wings, and the groups each selected a battleship/battleship cruiser as their target and began to fly horizontally. At this time, the aircraft was very high and they were not afraid of air defense firepower on the sea.

"Report, the bomb is ready."

"Very good, 10 seconds to prepare." Captain Uber said, increasing the accelerator, and the aircraft speed became faster and faster until it exceeded 425 kilometers per hour. To provide enough power to the bomb, the minimum speed of the carrier during launch must be above 400 kilometers per hour.

“10,9,8…drop bombs!”

A hs-293 ​​immediately flew down, and almost at the same time, the other three aircraft dropped a remote-controlled bomb. Uber could see clearly that the bomb immediately fell down with a parabolic trajectory, while he retracted the accelerator as required, placed the flap to reduce the aircraft speed to 200 km/h and kept it level, so as to facilitate the bomber to observe the bomb's dropping track. 12 bf-109s were alertly guarding the surroundings, which was the most dangerous moment for the carrier to carry the aircraft.

Under the operation of the bomber, he-177 sent commands through the fug-203 "Kill" radio transceiver. The receiver on the remote-controlled bomb adjusted the rudder surface according to the command to keep up with the trajectory of the warship. To facilitate visual guidance, there was a red tracer at the tail of the bomb to help observe. The bomb speed was getting faster and faster and closer to each ship. Andrew, who was observing the flagship Reputation, was horrified to find that the German bomb would turn. He saw that the Rodney on the far right had turned 15 degrees to the right, but the bomb skillfully turned in the air and continued to fly over, and the Reputation Reputation also sounded one after another, "Hehe, there are bombs coming at us!"

"What kind of monster is this..." He shouted desperately. The anti-aircraft gunners sprayed dense flames at the bomb, but they could not catch the strange speed. They turned to the flexible hs-293s. At this time, the bomb's drop speed had exceeded 650 kilometers per hour. Facing the white arcuate trajectory formed by the battleship's avoidance movement and the smoke from the anti-aircraft shells in the air, the bomber stared at the tail tracer of the hs-293 ​​while correcting the ballistic while counting out loudly: "...30 seconds, 31 seconds, 32 seconds..."

The first bomb drilled into the starboard side of the front of the Rodney and exploded violently with a "boom".
Chapter completed!