Chapter 53: Azure Sky's Proud Hero

  When the "Tiger Shark" attack nuclear submarine sent a telegram of victory, Lin Xiao Lei was busy beyond measure.

  Predicting the outbreak of hostilities, Lin Xiao Lei made adjustments to the deployment of troops. The focus was not on the special mixed fleet, but on the naval aviation deployed at the air base in southern Pakistan.

  To support the special mixed fleet, the naval aviation not only dispatched two fighter squadrons within 24 hours but also sent three "空警2000" type early warning aircraft and eight large refueling aircraft. By July 15th afternoon, Lin Xiao-Lei was able to mobilize six fighter squadrons, a total of 72 J-10s.

  Starting from 4 pm, three "KJ-2000" aircraft took turns to perform alert patrol tasks on the east side of the special mixed fleet.

  Six J-10 squadrons are divided into three batches, with two squadrons patrolling near the carrier fleet at all times, another two in transit flight, and the last two on standby on the ground.

  At 9:40 at night, "KongJing 2000" discovered an Indian aircraft group 640 kilometers away, still above Kempade Bay.

  Air raid sirens sounded immediately, and two J-10 squadrons quickly made preparations for battle.

  In less than two minutes, "KongJing 2000" judged that the Indian aircraft formation was flying westward, with a scale of more than 40, and all were "Glorious" fighter jets.

  The lumbering "Air Police 2000" retreated westward while calling in a J-10 fighter group.

  The "Chengdu" and its sister ship, the "Chongqing", air defense destroyers also played a role at this time, assisting the early warning aircraft in guiding the J-10 fleet. Lin Xiao Lei did not interfere with the command of the air battle, as the "Air Warning 2000" could guide up to forty-eight fighter jets to meet the enemy, and there were only twenty-four J-10s in the air at this time. Lin Xiao Lei was also not careless or underestimating the enemy, and after confirming that it was the "Glory" fleet that had arrived, he immediately issued an emergency takeoff order to the J-10 squadron stationed at the Utrech Air Force Base, requiring them to arrive above the fleet before 10:30.

  The squadron was led by Zhu Ronghui and Yang Jinjie from the Naval Aviation Testing Division.

  At 9:47 pm, the two J-10Bs took off first, followed by the other eleven J-10As within three minutes.

  "Roger that, must arrive within forty minutes!" Yang Jinjie switched to the communication channel and said to his partner in front, "Ahui, we have to fly at supersonic speed, or else we won't make it to the battlefield on time."

  "When will the refueling truck arrive?"

  "Provide support for us when we return." Yang Jinjie said while giving orders to other fighter jets, "Don't worry about that for now, let's focus on finishing the dogfight and then consider returning."

  "No problem, contact all machines, prepare for supersonic cruise!"

  The J-10B first opened the afterburning chamber, and the thrust of the WS-10 "Taihang" engine quickly increased to 13,500 kg. Fifteen seconds later, the fighter broke through the sound barrier. In fact, the J-10 does not have true supersonic cruise capability. After breaking through the sound barrier, Zhu Ronghui pulled back the throttle and closed the afterburning chamber of the engine. Relying on inertia and excellent aerodynamic shape, the J-10B can maintain a relatively high speed with military thrust. When the speed drops, open the afterburning chamber again to increase the speed. If the afterburning chamber is kept open all the time, the fuel carried by the J-10B will be exhausted in 15 minutes.

  At this time, an air battle had already broken out in the south.

  Under the guidance of "KongJing 2000", a J-10 squadron quickly struck, forcing the A-10I in the sky above Kempade Bay to stop its advance and turn back to the cover range of long-range air defense missiles deployed in northern Mumbai, unable to continue providing support for the "GuangHui" aircraft.

  On the first day of the war, an A-50I was lost, making the Indian Air Force dare not risk its precious AWACS.

  Another J-10 squadron formed up east of the carrier task force, ready to engage the approaching "Glory" aircraft.

  At 22:07, when the distance from the "Luminous" fleet was 90 kilometers, twelve J-10s launched forty-eight PL-14 medium-range air-to-air missiles with a maximum range of over 120 kilometers and a flight speed of Mach 4.

  The formation continued to advance, with all twelve J-10s not activating their fire-control radars.

  Relying on the target information provided by "Kongjing 2000", J-10 controls the "Leiying-14" missile to fly towards the target in a relay command guidance mode. When the missile is thirty kilometers away from the "Guanghui" aircraft group, it needs to start the fire control radar of J-10 and illuminate the attack object to let the missile obtain the target information.

  At this time, the "Glory" fighter also discovered the J-10 fleet, but could not open fire immediately.

  The Indian Air Force has equipped the Tejas with the Derby medium-range air-to-air missile, which was imported from Israel and has a range of only sixty kilometers.

  The relative speed between the "Shengshi" aircraft group and the J-10 aircraft group was 1.8 Mach, while the relative speed with the "Thunder-14" missile was 4.9 Mach. When the J-10 activated its fire control radar and the "Thunder-14" entered autonomous attack phase at a distance of 20 kilometers from the "Shengshi" aircraft group, the "Shengshi" aircraft group was still 64 kilometers away from the J-10 aircraft group. Unless the pilots of the "Shengshi" fighter jets were all "desperate", they would have to abandon their plan to attack the J-10 aircraft group and avoid the incoming "Thunder-14" medium-range air-to-air missile head-on.

  The result is predictable, "Brilliance" has no advantage over J-10, and can't even fight back.

  At 10:08 at night, only twenty-three targets were left on the radar screen of "Kongjing 2000". In the first round of air interception, twelve pilots from the Republic's Naval Aviation shared twenty-one results.

  Eliminate evil thoroughly, J-10 aircraft group did not give up the attack.

  Taking advantage of the "Brilliant" fleet's evasion of the "Thunder-14" missiles, twelve J-10 fighter jets re-launched twenty-four "Thunder-14" missiles about fifty kilometers away from the "Brilliant" fleet.

  The maximum speed of the "Shenyang" fighter is only Mach 1.6, while the maximum speed of the "Thunder-14" missile is Mach 4.

  Even in a tail chase attack, as long as the distance is within 72 kilometers, the "Brilliant" fighter jet cannot escape the attack range of the "Thunder-14" missile.

  In the end, only six "Glorious" dodged the second wave of missile attacks.

  Taking advantage of the "brilliant" machine group's evasion of the second round of missile attacks, the J-10 machine group shortened the combat distance to within 20 kilometers, and the air battle entered a close combat phase.

  Not to mention one against two, even if it's two against one, Indian pilots who were scared out of their wits wouldn't dare to engage in combat.

  All six "Glory" fighter jets accelerated and escaped before the J-10 launched the "Thunderbolt-13" air-to-air missile.

  "Vigorous" was thoroughly defeated, and also pierced India's lie. At the beginning, India claimed that "Vigorous"'s performance exceeded J-10, and it was Asia's most advanced light fighter. Forty-four "Vigorous" and twelve J-10 engaged in combat, not only did they fail to achieve a single victory, but thirty-eight were shot down. Facts speak louder than words, the outcome of the battle is enough to explain who is superior and who is inferior.

  At this time, the J-10 squadron that was previously responsible for "driving away" the A-50I under the guidance of the "空警2000" fired intercept missiles at the attack aircraft group following behind the "光辉" aircraft group.

  Although the "AWACS 2000" judged that they were thirty-six Mig-27 fighter jets, rather than the most threatening Su-30MKI, the Mig-27 could also use anti-ship missiles and absolutely could not be allowed to break through the air defense network and attack the carrier fleet.

  Seventy-two "Thunder-14" against thirty-six Mig-27, is simply more than enough.

  The MiG-27 is a variable geometry ground-attack aircraft, derived from the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter bomber. It has poor air-to-air capability and very poor maneuverability. When carrying a large load of bombs, it becomes even more difficult to evade missiles.

  Only four Mig-27s that dropped their payloads in time avoided the missiles after a wave of attack.

  At 22:21, two J-10 squadrons completed a two-round interception mission.

  The battle was far from over, "AWACS 2000" detected a third Indian aircraft group approaching the fleet at ultra-low altitude at twenty-three minutes. At twenty-five minutes, radar identified them as twelve Su-30MKIs.

  A true formidable foe has emerged, Su-30MKI only flies ultra-low altitude when executing attack missions.

  Needless to say, the 12 Su-30MKIs must have carried dozens of anti-ship missiles.

  Because the "Phalcon 2000" detection distance for ultra-low altitude targets is only 350 kilometers, when the alarm was issued, the Su-30MKI fleet was less than 350 kilometers away from the carrier fleet.

  The Su-30MKI is capable of carrying the "BrahMos" anti-ship missile with a range of 350 km.

  Even if the range is only 220 kilometers with the "Club" anti-ship missile, there are only air-to-air missiles left. Two J-10 squadrons more than 200 kilometers away from the Su-30MKI fleet can't intercept them in time.

  Just then, Zhu Ronghui and Yang Jinjie led the third J-10 squadron to arrive on the battlefield.

  At 22:27, when the Su-30MKI fleet was still 110 kilometers away, the twelve J-10s launched the seventy-two "Thunderbolt-14" medium-range intercept missiles they carried, with an average of six missiles attacking one enemy aircraft!

  Sixty seconds later, the Su-30MKI formation began to climb and prepare for missile launch.

  In just thirty seconds, twelve Su-30MKIs can use their fire control radar to lock onto the dozen warships of a carrier battle group, assign targets to their anti-ship missiles and launch them.

  But Indian squad will never get this chance.

  Twenty-six seconds later, seventy-two "Thunder-14" missiles streaked across the night sky like a meteor shower, enveloping the Su-30MKI fleet. Twelve Su-30MKI fighters did not escape, and twenty-four Indian pilots did not even have time to eject, all crashing into the sea along with their missile-shattered planes.

  A mere four seconds difference, the four seconds that decide life and death, victory or defeat!

  "All enemy planes have been shot down...... All enemy planes have been shot down......" The air commander was so excited that his voice was trembling.

  As the last batch of Indian attack aircraft disappeared from the tactical screen, Lin Xiao Lei also let out a sigh of relief.

  "Lookout tower calling Iron Fortress...... Lookout tower calling Iron Fortress......"

  "Steel Fortress received!" The communications officer was also excited. "Lighthouse" is the code name for the early warning aircraft, and "Steel Fortress" is the code name for the special mixed fleet.

  "The enemy raid has been crushed, and the Eagle Squadrons arrived thirty minutes later."

  "Understood, Eagle Wing will arrive in thirty minutes." "Eagle Wing" is the call sign of an air defense fighter squadron.

  "The seagull is on its way and will arrive in five minutes, pay attention to guide and coordinate."

  "Roger that, Sea Eagle will arrive in five minutes, ready to guide and coordinate."

  Lin Xiao Lei glanced at the communications officer and then returned his gaze to the tactical screen.

  The battle is not over, the fight for the special mixed fleet has just begun.

  "Sea Eagle" is the codename for a naval aviation long-range strike squadron assisting Task Force 141 in attacking the Western Fleet of India.

  The tactical display clearly showed a flight of attack aircraft coming in from the north, and the Indian Western Fleet about three hundred kilometers to the southeast.

  ****

  October 1st on shelves, asking for October monthly tickets, begging for recommendations and collections!