Munitions Empire

The ocean, everywhere was the ocean. Without radio navigation, the fighters that flew out dared not venture too far from the fleet.

In fact, most of the Joint Fleet's fighters could only search along the edges of the perimeter defense of the fleet, only seeing a little further than the fleet.

As more and more anti-ship missiles from the Tang Army sank and severely damaged the warships of the Joint Fleet, the black smoke on the sea increased, and the pilots of the Joint Fleet searching for targets in the sky grew more and more anxious.

They hadn't discovered any trace of the enemy, not even spotting the incoming anti-ship missiles. They were just aimlessly searching for an enemy that seemed to not exist at all.

"No targets found! No enemy fleet on the sea." The pilot sent out the message again on almost unconnectable radio channels.

Unfortunately, they couldn't get any response, and most of the time, the other side couldn't hear their reports. They had to keep trying, hoping for a miracle.

Indeed, their hopes were answered: a voice from the fleet suddenly appeared in their headphones, a voice that excited them endlessly.

"The Endeavor carrier has been sunk... you... return... unable to... land..." The news was fragmented and not very good.

The Endeavor was the first Dorne carrier to be sunk, because it was self-designed, its aircraft carrying capacity was low, and its performance wasn't great.

But... regardless, it was still an aircraft carrier! An aircraft carrier, however inadequate, is still a floating airport on the sea, a "home" for all the pilots stationed on this airport.

Now, with the carrier sunk, the pilots who took off from this carrier were left homeless. On land, at least there are other airports to choose from, but at sea, it's not that simple.

The number of aircraft an aircraft carrier can carry is limited, and to receive aircraft from another carrier, it must abandon its own planes.

Of course, usually an aircraft carrier has a certain amount of spare space to temporarily store a few extra planes, but to improve fleet battle strength... the Joint Fleet had filled all ten of its carriers with carrier-based planes.

Indeed, the commanders of aircraft carriers often fall into a misconception: the more planes they carry, the stronger their own combat power.

But in fact, the combat capability of a carrier is very complex, and evaluating a carrier's combat power cannot be solely based on its maximum aircraft capacity.

Adding a couple more planes might seem good, but it complicates deck operation, slows down aircraft deployment speed, and actually reduces the combat effectiveness of a carrier.

Furthermore, temporarily storing a few extra planes that aren't from the carrier itself can lead to coordination issues, also affecting combat performance.

"We're running out of fuel! The Endeavor is sunk, so which carrier do we land on?" The wingman asked the lead pilot a very real and pressing question.

"Return! Talk after getting close to the fleet. Communication here is approaching its limit; it will be much better after we go back," the lead pilot replied helplessly.

A plane with no fuel left certainly can't keep flying. To ensure they have other options, they can't fully calculate the fuel consumption for the return trip.

Keeping some spare fuel for emergencies is always necessary, so now they had to return. Counting the time to fly back, they had already endured over an hour in the sky, flying back and forth in the cramped cockpit, nearly at their limit.

This also highlights how cumbersome it is for pilots to fly a Zero Fighter for over three hours. At maximum range, pilots are cramped in the cockpit for hours, unable to even scroll through short videos...

Most of the Joint Fleet's patrol fighters that took off at the start were nearly out of fuel, but many found they no longer had a home to return to.

That's right, they couldn't find their way home... Other than some planes discovering their carrier had been sunk, others lost navigation and hovered over the fleet, unable to find their own carrier...

Radio navigation was intermittent due to interference, the fleet was constantly adjusting its course and was long gone from the anchorage area.

There was also an entire formation of Stuka Dive Bombers dumbly circling in the air, being the first attack group, they lost their target and could only wander in the sky.

As time passed, the Stukas, which already had short range, were also running out of fuel, though they could still hold on a bit, as they were over the fleet and landing didn't seem too hard.

The second batch of attack planes was on standby further away, with enough fuel, but couldn't find the enemy to strike, which made the formation commander quite exasperated.

At such a junction, the most serious problem of the Joint Fleet, namely the "Joint", finally began to bother the commanders of Qin Country and Dorne.

A batch of returning Pirate Fighters, yes, the naval carrier-based aircraft exported by the Great Tang Empire, numbered F4, were attacked by jet fighters!

The scene was chaotic, a group of small, sleek jet fighters with nose-mounted intakes, fast and aggressive in combat tactics, charged into the returning Phantom Fighters near the original anchorage of the Joint Fleet, creating a massacre.

The Phantom Fighter unit was already nearly out of fuel, uninterested in fighting, retreating while fighting, losing over ten planes before both sides realized...

The attackers were the Qin Empire Air Force's model 183 jet fighters, the ones getting hit were Dorne Navy's Pirate Fighters...

As the fight got closer to the Joint Fleet, communication gradually recovered, and the misunderstanding was finally cleared. This farce of allies attacking allies finally ended.

The Qin Air Force, which came to escort, finally showed some presence in front of the Dorne Navy that came from afar, a case of not knowing each other without a fight.

The good news was that there seemed to be no need to worry about where the dozen Pirate Fighters from the Endeavor carrier should land.

The bad news was that as the commander of the Joint Fleet, John Cleves now had fewer combat forces. He also had a small task: sending people to fish out a few unlucky pilots who survived in the sea.

The most ludicrous part was that after soundly beating their allies, the Qin Army's jet fighters also ran out of fuel and had to return home. All the naval commanders were dumbfounded by this dark humor, with only one question in their minds: what the hell was this bunch of idiots doing here?