ps: Something was written incorrectly. The battleship of the J Fleet is the Junquan number, which has been changed in the previous article.

Given that all friendly ships, including Hippel and Tirpitz, were rushing here, to avoid alerting the enemy, the cautious Stanger slowed down and tracked only at 20 knots, while anxiously waiting for the arrival of other warships on the side - it is impossible for so many ships to be wiped out by just a cruiser and a destroyer.

At 9:17, the sky began to brighten and the distance between the two sides had shrunk to less than 30 nautical miles. Stanger decisively commanded the Luzov to release the seaplane and searched and confirmed the situation of the enemy fleet in the nearby waters. At this time, the center of the jw-51a fleet was about 480 kilometers southwest of Bear Island - just in the middle of Bear Island and Yangmayan Island.

15 minutes later, the reconnaissance results of the water reconnaissance plane were reported back, but this thin telegram almost shocked Stanger to fall head-headed from the bridge - "I found two large enemy fleets, one of which was a merchant fleet, which included 15 transport ships and 5-6 escort warships, all of which were small destroyers; the other was a combat fleet, which included one battleship, which was suspected to be the Junquan class, a small aircraft carrier, a treaty heavy cruiser, two cruisers of unknown type, three destroyers, and the combat fleet was about 80 nautical miles away from the ship, with a course of 45 degrees, and a speed of 18 knots..."

"There are aircraft carriers and battleships?" Stanger murmured to himself, "There's a lot of trouble."

"First of the People, I discovered them, but the enemy fleet is much stronger than expected." Redel tried his best to suppress his excitement on the phone and reported to Hoffmann everything the Luzov discovered.

After three consecutive days of disappointment, Hoffman finally waited for good news: "Very good! Kill them, I'll come to the Navy Command right away."

At this moment, Major Schulte, the commander of Trotham Air Force, looked at the planes that had been launched one after another behind him and shouted on the radio: "Trotham Air Force, all of them will follow me!"

The results of the North Cape Air Force inspired all HNA officers and soldiers in Norway: Major Schroeder, who commanded the battle, not only immediately promoted to the next level after the battle, but also won the Knight Cross that many people dreamed of. All members of the air force who performed the attack mission received promotions, medals or bonuses, and all the crew members of the two missing aircraft (almost equal to death) received generous pensions - the Navy's results were not good except U-boats, but the promotion was very fast, so they felt like they had made a profit from transferring from the Air Force to HNA.

Major Schulter and Schroeder were not only classmates who graduated from the same class as the aviation school, but also good friends for many years, and were also comrades-in-arms who secretly competed on the battlefield. Of course, he did not want to be left behind by the old friend, otherwise he would have to salute and shout "supervisor" when he saw Schroeder in the future. That would be so shameless... So, when he heard the enemy situation of the surface ship troops and the weather conditions that the base "can take off", he immediately couldn't wait to lead 24 He-218 dive bombers to take off under the escort of 12 BF-219s.

Almost at the same time, the Nalvik Aviation Base, which is more on the southern end, is also making final preparations for the sea attack aircraft group before taking off. The base is much larger than Trosham or North Point Cape, and the corresponding aircraft are also much larger, but it is farther from the battlefield. In the end, it only chose to dispatch the Ju-98 attack aircraft with a more dominant range. A total of 36 Ju-98s and 16 BF-219s were put into the attack. Half of the attack aircraft were loaded with aviation torpedoes and half were loaded with bombs for horizontal bombing.

The pilots of the jg5 Wing were very lucky: the information provided by the ar-272 were not only accurate and detailed. A bold reconnaissance aircraft was suspended far above the British fleet for real-time notifications, and even followed the jw-51a transport fleet in a grand manner for a while. It was not until the Active escort aircraft carrier took off the Euroyan fighter (the British version of F4f) that the smart pilot chose to escape was not the location of the Luzov, but to the Norwegian continent. The poor Euroyan's maximum speed was only 515 kilometers per hour, which was not much faster than the A-272 at a low altitude. After chasing for 15 minutes, he could not catch up with the reconnaissance aircraft, and finally he could only go back in disappointment.

Although the seaplane escaped, it looked like it was sent by the Norwegian Land-based Air Force, but the experienced Major General Anderson was not deceived by this appearance. Instead, he keenly judged that there might be enemy ships staying nearby and immediately asked the swordfish attack aircraft to search for the enemy situation. Although the Active was known as an escort aircraft carrier, it could only carry 12 aircraft (9 swordfish and 3 European Swallows). Considering the combat effectiveness and fleet air defense needs, the Active retained all three fighters on its fleet, and let all swordfishes carry torpedoes and attack. The intention of doing this was clear: use the swordfish's relatively long range and long air stagnation time to search, and then destroyed the German ship when it was discovered.

The Swordfish is a model developed more than ten years ago. It is still an old biplane. It is worse than the Type 96 ship attack performance that Japan had eliminated earlier. It is now completely outdated. However, due to its great contributions in the surprise attack on Taranto, it has also made great contributions in the encirclement and suppression of the Bismarck. The British have been using it. Although it can carry three crew members and torpedoes, its speed is slower than 250 kilometers per hour.

The British did not have better attack aircraft, but firstly, carrier-based aircraft must first meet the needs of fleet aircraft carriers. Now there are very few aircraft pilots in aircraft carriers, and even the carrier-based aircraft squadrons of Guanghui-class aircraft carriers are not satisfied. Don’t expect the escort carriers to get more good or sufficient equipment. Secondly, the deck length of the escort carriers is not long enough, and it is impossible to take off and land, and heavier aircraft - less than 2 tons of swordfish can take off with torpedoes, and more than 3 tons of large blue and white fish will face great problems when hung with torpedoes, so they will always be used. On the contrary, the US escort aircraft carriers are generally equipped with more advanced TBFs (can carry 1,000 pounds of bombs but most cannot carry torpedoes).

If the Germans reached a stubborn state of dive bombing, and even four-round heavy bombers like the he-177 require dive bombing, the British were paranoid about torpedo attacks. In the eyes of the Royal Navy, any carrier-based aircraft with torpedo attacks cannot be called attack aircraft, so the old swordfish not only continues to serve in the navy in a noble manner, but is even regarded as the main force.

At 10:11, before the JG5 Wing and other warships arrived at the battlefield, two British swordfish attack aircraft finally discovered the Luzov formation that had been following behind. While notifying the fleet commander with telegram, they bravely launched an attack on the German ship. Although the Luzov's air defense firepower was also average, the swordfishes were too slow and the number was relatively small. The torpedo dropped by the two aircraft could easily get Stanger to avoid it. The British pilot who failed to hit the attack did not regret it and immediately flew back to the mothership to replenish the torpedo and prepare to launch a new attack.

Since it has been discovered, Stanger realized that there was no need to hide and immediately rushed towards the British transport fleet at the highest speed. At this time, the distance between the J Fleet JW-51a's vanguard was no more than 15 nautical miles away, and it was only more than 50 nautical miles away from Luzov. Seeing the Luzov coming in a fierce manner, the Aktis and the Cold Destroyer, who had been serving as escorts in the transport fleet, cast smoke screens to cover the fleet's retreat south, and bravely turned around to fight. The other three destroyers that were reinforced overnight yesterday also rushed over to prepare to snipe Luzov together.

Although Luzov is now classified as a heavy cruiser, he was originally built according to the standards of pocket battleships. The main gun is 6 more powerful 283mm naval guns, which are exactly the same as the Schánhorst and Gneisenau. He is not afraid of the challenges of cruiser-level warships. Moreover, Stanger knew that in another hour, whether it was Hippel or Tilpitz, he would appear on the battlefield, so he was relieved to face it boldly.

Also because he stayed in Altafjord for too long, and the smoke screens of British troops were everywhere on the surface of Shanghai. After spending nearly 200 rounds of shells by the 6 main guns and 8 150mm sub-cannons of Luzov, he made no achievements except hitting the 2 close-loss rounds of the Cold Fleet. As the main force of the J fleet was accelerating, the British destroyers were not in a hurry to force him to attack, but instead played hide-and-seek with Luzov. The cautious Stanger was worried about the torpedo threat of the destroyer, so he did not dare to get too close. He only fired from a long distance, and then anxiously called on his companions to arrive. During this period, three more swordfishes launched an attack on Luzov, one was shot down, and although the other two dropped torpedoes, they still missed the target. Although the swordfishes were old, they still played a powerful role in dealing with Luzov.

At 10:45, the Trosham Air Team, which was flying at full speed, was the first to arrive on the battlefield under Schulte's leadership, which put a lot of weights on the change of the battle situation.

"God, how large is this fleet?" After a rough sweep of the sea, Schult couldn't help but exclaim in the air. At this moment, the J fleet and the JW-51a had begun to merge. There were a large number of British ships on the sea. The number and variety made him unable to believe his eyes. Although the sea was filled with smoke, he still found the most valuable target - a Junquan-class battleship, and also discovered a small aircraft carrier - the Active escort aircraft carrier. What surprised him even more was that such a huge fleet had no air cover. It took him a long time to see it and found three aircraft on the escort mission.

Although the battleship's target was very attractive, Schulte was very clear to lock the first strike target on the Active, the ship was receiving the returning swordfish attack aircraft. Seeing the arrival of a large number of German aircraft, even though the number of them was only 3, the European Swallow fighters still rushed up bravely, but their performance was too far from that of the BF-219. In addition, the Norwegian HNA pilots were all veterans, and they were all shot down by all German fighters rushing forward in less than 2 minutes.

...
Chapter completed!