As dawn broke, Admiral Yankel leaned on the back of the flagship war room and was napping. Last night, Admiral Lukins kept harassing the British transport fleet, reporting the enemy's situation every two or thirty minutes, which made the Navy Command in Berlin and the commanders of the fleet at sea, and no one could sleep peacefully.

Yankel simply put on his clothes and was on duty in the war room for one night.

The combat area was about to enter the combat area soon. Looking at the gradually clear figure of the aircraft carrier on the sea, the fleet chief of staff Brigadier General Lunak was so excited that he wanted to start fighting immediately.

"Are you ready for battle? General!" Lukner left the chart table and walked to Yankel.

"Hmm?" General Yankel woke up, "Did you find the position of the British main fleet?" he asked with his sleepy head raised.

"Not yet, but I guess they may have reached this position," Lukner said.

Yankel stood up and walked to the chart table, "That's just an estimated position. Besides, the enemy has just entered our attack range. The pilots don't want to be forced to land on the sea in the end, and then wait for the destroyers to rescue. I need them to attack continuously."

"But now it's dawn, and the enemy's planes must have taken off. We know the range of their planes and may find out where we are." Lukner stretched out his finger and drew a circle on the map. "They have seven aircraft carriers, and we are actually within the range of the opponent's attack."

"What's the matter? We need to directly attack the opponent's aircraft carrier after the British aircraft starts to attack. We emphasize again that the first target of attack is the aircraft carrier, not the battleship!"

"Then we have to take off some fighter jets as maritime alert, right?"

"No need. The plane was discovered by the enemy radar in the air too far, which would be unfavorable for hidden navigation. OK, remove the dawn combat preparations and transfer to level 2 combat readiness!"

Lukner sighed and gave helpless orders to remove the alert, while Admiral Yankel leisurely went down to the first floor restaurant and went to enjoy breakfast.

At the same time, the main fleet led by General John Tovey had already joined the transport fleet and began to return together. Last night he informed London of possible dangers, but because the supplies were too important, Churchill ordered the local fleet to continue moving forward to protect the safety of the fleet.

The fast fleet led by Lieutenant General Holland arrived on the battlefield earlier than Tovey and is currently actively searching for traces of the German fleet led by Lukins, preparing to entangle the enemy and then win time for Tovey's attack.

Admiral Lukins left the battlefield before dawn and began to meet with the Air Fleet.

Both sides sent more than a dozen reconnaissance aircraft to search and confirm the current location of the enemy fleet.

At 11:20 on December 3, reconnaissance planes of both sides found their opponents almost at the same time. Lukins' fleet was about 80 nautical miles north of the British fleet. Because they wanted to increase the combat distance, the German fleet was sailing at full speed towards the Faroe Islands in the northeast.

The Austro-Hungarian Fleet is like an assassin hiding in the dark, quickly approaching its prey from the waters about 420 nautical miles southwest of Ireland.

At 11:30, they received a telegram from Admiral Lukins to inform the specific location of the enemy fleet. The entire warship suddenly became busy, and the navigators quickly marked the enemy's position on the chart.

"The current distance is about 220 nautical miles. Sir!"

"Oh, this is not a good attack distance. We need to reach within 180!" Yankel said, "We have to change the direction and be northeastern!"

"Is it 5 degrees to the left? Sir!"

"Well, left rudder 5. Go forward at full speed!" Yankel said, "notify all aircraft carriers to take off the first batch of attacking fighters as planned in 45 minutes!"

At this time, the combat staff said: "Sir, 180 is a bit far away. If our torpedo aircraft consumes too much time in the search, it may not fly back!"

"We will continue to move forward, reaching about 150 nautical miles," said Yankel. "Admiral Lukins can't stand several attacks from the British!"

The blackboard in the standby room wrote the specific latitude and longitude of the enemy fleet, and the large sea charts hanging on the walls also marked the enemy's location in eye-catching colors. On each aircraft carrier, the pilots who were waiting anxiously became excited and surrounded the map in front of the large map, calculating the time it took to take off to reach the enemy fleet with their hands.

About 20 minutes later, the voice of the aviation commander came from the loudspeaker in the standby room: "The fighter squadron of the first attack wave began to board the plane!"

The latest SM "Hungarian" naval carrier-based aircraft of the Austro-Hungarian Navy has not changed much in appearance than the previous models, but the wings have been replaced with the latest laminar flow wings, and two self-secret fuel tanks are installed between the wings, which has increased its maximum range to nearly 2,000 kilometers.

After mid-1940, German and Austrian fighters began to be equipped with new engines with stronger power and exhaust gas turbochargers. However, the performance of the turbocharged engine is not very stable at present. The Navy's carrier-based fighter jets did not have this kind of supercharged device, with a maximum speed of 628 kilometers. Compared with the latest Spitfire fighter equipped by the British Navy, the performance does not have an advantage.

Messmit also absorbed the advantages of some Austro-Hungarian Falcon-Hunming fighter jets. Starting from the BF109h model, it improved its shorter range and weaknesses. After adopting a new laminar flow wing and installing a self-secret fuel tank, its performance has been greatly improved compared with the early models and has always occupied the position of the main German fighter jets.

According to the combat plan previously formulated, the seven aircraft carriers took off a total of 5 fighter squadrons, 7 dive bomber squadrons and 3 torpedo aircraft squadrons. Nearly 200 fighters carried out the first wave of attack. Half an hour after the first attack wave attacked, the second attack wave continued to launch the second wave of attack after adding a torpedo squadron. After that, four fighter squadrons and four dive bomber squadrons remained on the four Austro-Hungarian aircraft carriers to carry out the third wave of attack mission.

The total number of aircraft dispatched by the Austro-Hungarian mixed fleet is 550, while the British fleet only has more than 380 combat aircraft. What's more fatal is that the number of fighter aircraft they carry is only about 120, which is a fatal weakness.

Admiral Wilmotz Yankel was transferred from the position of commander of cruisers and battleships to the commander of the aviation fleet, but so far in this world, no one has more experience in commanding aircraft carriers to fight than him. Of course, this Austro-Hungarian Navy general was commanding his special-mix fleet to attack land, which was actually the first time he was commanding the aviation fleet to engage in naval combat with the enemy.

Admiral Yankel's estimated that John Tovey had sent his plane to attack Lukins' fleet, and he now sent the plane to set off. When he arrived over the British fleet, it happened to catch up with the enemy's return and landing and time. This was the most chaotic and weakest defense of the aircraft carrier.
Chapter completed!