My Apprenticeship to Uncle Jiu: I Was a Warlord in the Republic of China

Make sure they cannot escape and wait for the fighter planes behind to take off and destroy them in one fell swoop.

But what they never expected was that when they were carrying out their daily bombing missions as usual.

Their huge battle group of nearly fifty planes was suddenly attacked by a group of pure fighter planes of the same number.

It turned out that Jiang Li knew that his side did not have enough planes and the pilots did not have enough combat experience, so it was impossible to defeat the Japanese air force in a head-on combat.

So he gathered all fifty fighter planes together and launched a lightning raid directly on the Japanese pirates' bomber group.

Jiang Li had already given instructions in advance. Once a suitable target was found, they should use their numerical advantage to sweep him away in one go and not give the enemy a chance to entangle with them.

Leave immediately after the fight, don't linger in the battle, and then ambush the enemy on the way of retreat to get rid of the enemy's pursuit.

Otherwise, if we were entangled and surrounded by the Japanese fighter planes, we would be completely wiped out.

...

And this was indeed the case. When the enemy bombers flew more than 200 kilometers and arrived near the battlefield, they were immediately caught off guard by such a large group of fighter jets.

Although the Japanese fighter planes responded in time and intercepted the planes, unfortunately, due to the huge disparity in numbers, they were ultimately unable to protect the thirty bombers.

After just one encounter, only three or five of these bombers were left and they fled in panic.

The Anmin Army's air force did not engage in a tangle with the enemy. After completing its mission, it immediately turned around and withdrew from the battle, and did not engage in a tangle with enemy fighter planes at all.

Upon seeing this, the Japanese fighter pilots immediately gave chase, trying to entangle the enemy planes, but they had lost three fighter planes in the previous confrontation and now had only twelve. Although they caught up with the enemy, they were unable to cause much casualties.

After only shooting down two planes, they entered the Jiangli Line and were deployed above the air defense positions on the air force's retreat route.

All of a sudden, one hundred anti-aircraft guns opened fire at the same time, and the Japanese pirates suffered heavy losses in just one encounter. Only four or five fighter planes were left and fled in embarrassment.

Two of the planes were emitting thick smoke, obviously because they were hit in vital parts and caught fire. They would crash soon.

After the ground anti-aircraft positions repelled the enemy, they immediately began to dismantle the anti-aircraft guns and move their positions to avoid being found by the enemy and subjected to mass bombing.

Back to Muto Yoshinobu, he has gathered all the elite troops this time, so naturally he can only be the commander of this army.

But when he learned that the Air Force had been raided and suffered heavy losses, he immediately became furious and asked for specific details. After reading the telegram, he almost vomited blood in anger.

After reading the battle report, he didn't care about anything else, but the casualty ratio was something he absolutely could not accept.

It turned out that according to the report from the Air Force, their side lost 23 bombers and two others were damaged to varying degrees.

As for the fighter planes, they were equally pitiful. Out of the fifteen fighter planes, eleven were shot down on the spot, and one was burned on the way due to fire.

In other words, thirteen fighter planes were directly lost in this battle. Although one fighter plane barely returned to the airport, it was too seriously damaged to be able to go into the battlefield again and could only be dismantled into parts for backup.

In fact, these were not what made Muto Yoshinobu angry the most. After all, his Japanese industrial strength was strong, and he could afford to lose even 360 military aircraft, let alone 360.

As long as the enemy's casualties were heavy enough, he could still accept it, but he learned from the pilot that the enemy only lost two fighter planes in this battle.

A casualty ratio of thirty-six to two was something that a man as proud as Muto Yoshinobu could not accept in any way, so he immediately began to look for ways to make up for it.

When he thought of this, he remembered what the pilot said, that they were ambushed by a large number of enemy anti-aircraft artillery.

So he immediately ordered the plane to take off and bomb the enemy's air defense positions.

However, when the few surviving fighter pilots, accompanied by a large number of bombers and fighter planes, returned to the ambush site, the place was already deserted, with no trace of any anti-aircraft artillery.

In desperation, these Japanese pirates could only rush back. On the way back, they were so angry that they severely bombed the positions of the Anmin Army defenders along the way.

Upon learning that there was no success, Mutō Yoshinobu was once again furious and started cursing, but it was of no use. He could only order the air force to increase the intensity of the bombing and vent his anger on the ground troops.

On Jiang Li's side, upon learning of the remarkable results of this battle, he immediately decided to use this tactic as the main means to deal with the Japanese air force.

However, although this method is not bad, it has a big problem. That is, if you wait until the enemy arrives at the battlefield before taking off, it will be too late for you to take off and intercept them.

So they can only keep taking off and looking for opportunities, and only attack when the number and timing are right.

It is extremely rare to encounter such a suitable fighter this time.

However, there is no other way around it. We have fewer planes and our pilots' skills are not as good as the enemy's, so we can only resort to these crooked methods.

It was by this method that Jiang Li disrupted the Japanese pirates' air force deployment, making them nervous every time they attacked, fearing that they would encounter such a sudden attack again.

Moreover, because the Japanese pirates were worried about encountering such an incident again, they would send out more fighter jets every time they carried out a bombing mission.

However, since fighter jets have relatively simple functions and their numbers are far fewer than bombers, this greatly limits the frequency of bombers' appearances, thus reducing the enemy's bomb delivery capabilities and helping to relieve a lot of pressure on ground forces.

But how could the Japanese pirates give up just like that? After suffering this loss, they began to consciously send out spies to find the location of the Anmin Army's airport.

However, Jiang Li had anticipated this and had camouflaged and hidden the location of the airport. He had also calculated in advance and built his airport more than 200 kilometers away from the battlefield.

Add to that the twenty or so kilometers on the front line and the more than two hundred kilometers from the Japanese pirate airport to the battlefield.

In other words, the locations of the two airports are at least 500 kilometers apart, which is the maximum combat radius of most aircraft in this era.

So if they wanted to send planes to bomb, they could only carry auxiliary fuel tanks to increase the range.

But doing so would inevitably result in a reduction in the aircraft's load capacity, and it would only be able to carry less ammunition. If that were the case, more aircraft would have to be dispatched to ensure that the Anmin Army's air force would be wiped out in one fell swoop.

However, there is still a problem. Even if they have external fuel tanks, the fuel they carry can only support them to reach the Anmin Army's airport and complete the bombing mission.