Munitions Empire
Chapter 1374: 1291 Qingluan Port

Chapter 1374: 1291 Qingluan Port

What’s left? What do you mean, what’s left? The Chief of Staff looked at the Fleet Commander John Cleves, his face still full of confusion.

John Cleves turned to the other officers and continued, “Take the Chief of Staff to the carrier Winter! Take the warships that can move and leave here immediately! Hurry up!”

He was preparing to stay behind as bait, as long as they held this position and were not sunk, the Tang Army fleet’s pursuit of the Joint Fleet would naturally slow down a bit.

In a blaze of fire, the flagship of the Joint Fleet, Long Live the Dorne Empire, lowered its command flag. Half an hour later, the Winter carrier raised the flag and became the new flagship of the entire fleet.

…

In the port, Sun Guang, a leader of the Qin Country Navy who had been closely watching the naval battle, was in a state of tension after receiving a half-sealed message from a submarine.

He had absolutely no way to help, only able to wait anxiously at the port. Three destroyers stationed at the port had already gone out, but once they were too far from the port, their radios couldn’t contact it.

The enemy’s interference was indeed too strong, causing Sun Guang to be very concerned about the safety of the Joint Fleet: What he didn’t know was that the Joint Fleet’s retreat towards the port was allowing Tang Army’s electronic warfare aircraft to get closer to the port.

Thus, communication conditions became worse: though the port’s phone lines were quite adequate and contacting the Army and Air Force was no problem, the radio was completely unusable.

On the radar screens mounted on land, the dense green lines resembled sawteeth—yes, the radar deployed here was incredibly obsolete, basically leftovers from Shu Country, outdated scraps from years ago.

These radars were so old that the screen display was vastly different from the latest radar. Now, the radar signals showed the sky filled with Tang Army’s planes…

Qin Army simply didn’t have enough time to build sufficient radars along the Shu Country coastline. The few radars were either old equipment left by Shu Country or extremely scarce indigenous products of Qin Country.

None of these radars had anti-interference capabilities, and under the suppression of Tang Army’s electronic warfare aircraft, they were no different from being blind.

To ensure safety, the Tang Army Fleet, upon approaching the Shu Country coastline, dispatched Voyagers equipped with anti-radiation missiles, aiming to destroy these radars that posed some threat.

“No news from the Joint Fleet yet?” Sun Guang walked back and forth in the large command room, looking at his pocket watch. The room was vast, with many staff and civilian workers working inside.

Large nautical charts hung on the walls, adorned with various ship-type magnets representing the Joint Fleet. These magnets were now quite close to the coastline but had missed Sun Guang’s Qingluan Port.

Qingluan Port was the largest port of Shu Country, and now also the largest port of Qin Country. It used to be quite prosperous during trade with Tang Country and Dorne.

Now, due to the outbreak of war, prosperity was no longer visible. All that came and went in the port were warships, looking rather desolate.

Sun Guang had hoped for the Joint Fleet to take refuge in Qingluan Port, but at the time, the Joint Fleet didn’t want to advance into the port and sit idly, so they directly bypassed Qingluan Port…

In fact, whether the fleet entered the port or not made no difference: perhaps the sailors soaking in seawater now would feel somewhat better.

“No news… Communication is completely cut off… It’s not just cut off; the telegram we sent to Wuyang doesn’t seem to have been sent out either…”

“If the interference equipment has distance limitations… then it represents that the enemy fleet is closer to us.” Sun Guang also realized this point, walked to the nautical chart, and tapped a blank spot with his fingers: “They should be around here!”

But the problem was, knowing the approximate location of the Tang Army Fleet was of no use. It was night; as the highest commander in the naval port, he had absolutely no means of a counterattack.

The fleet stationed for port defense consisted of 1 cruiser and several destroyers. Such a fleet size heading out would be no different from sending them to their deaths.

The opponent could sweep away these minions with escort warships alone, and if they brought battleships, these small boats guarding the port would not even qualify as food delivery.

Air power was even less reliable; deploying at night meant no way to attack unless the Tang Army Fleet turned on all their lighting facilities and exposed themselves.

Admittedly, propeller aircraft had some degree of night combat capability, but such tactics required professional aircraft cooperation and pilots undergoing rigorous night combat training.

The full tactical approach was like this: in the vast darkness, special aircraft that first discovered the enemy fleet dropped illuminating bombs lighting up the entire battlefield, then subsequent attack formations rushed in for assaults.

But the problem was, this tactic was ineffective against the Tang Army, first because large-scale aircraft formations needed radio navigation, and implementation in an electronic interference environment was extremely dangerous.

The second problem was that Tang Army had its own missile air-defense system, while night warfare was also easy for Tang Army airplanes… it was like a strong lad bullying a blind old man, just pure abuse.

The Joint Fleet’s carrier-based fighter pilots hadn’t undergone similar night combat training, and land-based air force pilots had even less time to study such night combat tactics.

Therefore, the entire Qin Country night air defense basically relied on anti-aircraft guns and a few night fighter jets.

These night fighter jets were adapted by fitting radars onto DO-17 and JU-88, all old models exported by Tang Army previously.

They solved the problem of existence but were not very useful in night combat, particularly in intercepting Tang Country’s jet bombers.

“We don’t have any night fighters nearby, the Air Force also confirmed, and there isn’t a bomber formation able to operate at night.” An officer came over to report to Sun Guang: “These are all second-line troops here…”

The air force deployed here by Qin Country was basically symbolic. Some troops were training here, all rookies and instructors; another part was purely second-line forces waiting for equipment.

With the war against Tang Country, Qin Country’s air power doubled, but rear production couldn’t keep up, so many troops lacked equipment, particularly the second-line forces which commonly had half the planes missing.

Fighter jets were better given their higher priority, bombers too as they were seen as useful pre-war. Night warfare planes, such special models, were pitifully underproduced, mostly concentrated around major military targets for air defense.

“What about the troops stationed inland? What does General Zhang say?” Sun Guang sent distressed telegrams to many places and made countless calls.

But to his dismay, right at this moment, Zhang Xuan, Supreme Commander of the southern group responsible for the entire southern line offensive, was already overwhelmed and on the verge of collapse.