Wasteland Commander-Chapter 432 - 123: Fighter Jets Overpowered

To completely wipe out the Dawn Army entrenched at Position Three, Chu Yuan has put in a lot of effort this time.

Not only did the rear air force deploy, but even the carrier-based aircraft took off to join the battle.

Here, the carrier-based aircraft of Jiangzhou just took off, and the Dawn Army, which had been watching closely, moved.

......

On Dawn Island, all four major air force units were dispatched simultaneously. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

A hundred Attack-20s, two hundred Attack-16s, a hundred bombers, and electronic warfare planes took to the skies one after the other.

The Dawn Army’s four carrier battle groups, with a total of 230 carrier-based aircraft, also followed suit.

Over six hundred fighter jets, almost pooling all the air force strength of the Dawn Army, plunged fiercely towards the enemy.

Some of the planes were high-profile, not in stealth mode, roaring towards Celestial River.

This batch of aircraft totaled over five hundred, their momentum resembling a massive swarm of locusts, seeming to intend to destroy heaven and earth, immediately drawing all of Chu Yuan’s attention.

"They’re here! The Dawn Army really waited for our carrier-based aircraft to take off to launch a surprise attack when naval forces are weak. Little did they know, the young marshal had long anticipated their intentions."

"Our electronic countermeasure units have been waiting for you; come on! Initiate electronic interference, all warships and air defense units prepare, as soon as the Dawn Army enters naval firing range, fire immediately!"

Chu Yuan’s face was full of smugness; he believed himself worthy of being a military genius.

The previous air force standoff had everyone maintaining a balance that actually made both sides quite uncomfortable.

Chu Yuan intended to break this balance; he dispatched the air force and carrier-based aircraft together, essentially as a way to lure the enemy deeper.

Near Celestial River, he had already crafted an impenetrable trap, with electronic warfare systems and missile defense systems ready and awaiting the Dawn Army’s arrival.

Once the Dawn Army arrives, the chaotic electromagnetic fields here will blind all their aircraft.

Though the Dawn Army will undoubtedly counterattack with electronic warfare, it will merely make everyone uncomfortable, leading to air force dogfights.

After bombing Position Three, their fighter jets will immediately return, cooperating with the warships on the river to encircle and annihilate the Dawn Army’s fighter jets, completing a dumpling-making operation.

With Jiangzhou’s strong military prowess, he believed victory would ultimately be his.

As long as they have air superiority by then, the situation on the ground battlefield will also be disrupted!

This is Chu Yuan’s plan, a plan that has been brewing for quite a while.

......

Under the dark-cast sky, on the side of Jiangzhou, four hundred fighter jets roared past.

These planes are fourth-generation fighters, with some even claiming to be fourth-and-a-half-generation fighters.

For instance, Jiangzhou’s allies Zijing Empire, Bai Yulan Empire, and others, handed over their air force aces, technologies of the Typhoon fighters and Tornado fighters, aiding Jiangzhou in producing what they claim to be the strongest fourth-and-a-half-generation fighter jets.

Now, these jets have all entered Beast Mode.

Beast Mode means being fully loaded with ammunition.

Following orders from superiors, they’re to conduct a large-scale bombing of Position Three; after one bombing run, they’ll immediately return to participate in the operation of surrounding and annihilating the Dawn Army air force.

To ensure this battle’s success, they’ve even taken preemptive measures.

As the air force jet flies halfway, the carrier-based aircraft suddenly take to the skies to cooperate, thus forming a massive firepower advantage in a short period, swiftly completing the set mission and then returning.

Their radar systems are all active, preventing the appearance of Dawn Army fighter jets.

But the issue is, in modern aerial combat, there’s a combat method called Beyond-Visual-Range Combat.

Outside of visible range, missiles launch attacks.

If he were just a lieutenant, Ye Fan’s air force would not have this capability.

But now he is a general, and the missile combat laboratory has equipped him with more advanced missiles, the Lightning-15.

These air-to-air missiles have a maximum range reaching over three hundred kilometers, ranking amongst the world’s best even in pre-apocalyptic times.

On the Dawn Army side, a hundred Attack-20s did not follow the main force to partake in the carrier attack battle.

They diverged independently, entering stealth mode.

The powerful performance of fifth-generation fighter jets manifested, with a jet that large showing only as palm-size on the radar screen, making it hard to detect.

Especially at this time, on Jiangzhou’s side, all attention was almost completely drawn to the more than five hundred fighter jets, entirely neglecting that there are still over a hundred fighter jets approaching from another direction.

No, not approaching; at this time, they are still about two hundred kilometers away from the enemy jets.

In past aerial combats, there were rarely such long-range engagements initiated.

On the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of the Dawn Army, radar had already locked onto the enemy jets.

These active phased array radars can lock onto a hundred targets at once.

The radar feedback to the jets, then the electronic warfare planes in the sky directly provided the guiding route.

This mode, known as A Lock B Shoot C Guide.

Even in the thousands of years of human history before the apocalypse, it only appeared once.

The reason is simple, but not everyone can employ it.

Ye Fan can use it because all his weapons come from the system, sharing the same mode, mutually compatible.

While Jiangzhou purchased advanced weapons from various countries worldwide, which can be called a multi-national make, mutually incompatible, they cannot use this mode.

Wanting to learn from the Dawn Army requires their entire military industrial system to be independently developed, otherwise, it’s impossible to learn.

At this time, the fighter radars on the Jiangzhou side had not detected the Dawn Army’s fighters.

This was because the Attack-20 had not adopted the beast external mode and remained in stealth state.

Thus, they couldn’t detect them in the first instance, and the outcome was already determined.

"Fire!"

With the launch command transmitted by the electronic warfare aircraft, one hundred Attack-20s from the Dawn Army simultaneously launched a Lightning-15 air-to-air missile each, each locking onto one target.

These missiles not only engage in over-the-horizon combat but are also hypersonic.

End-stage penetration speed can instantaneously reach 8 Mach.

By the time the pilots from Jiangzhou could react, launching interceptors or thermal flares, it was already too late.

The Jiangzhou fighters, which were previously confident and aggressively charging toward Position No. 3, immediately suffered a devastating strike!

The warriors at Position No. 3 looked up and could see from a short distance in the western sky, the missile tracks passing by, like a long rainbow across the sky, directly chasing down the group of aircraft now visible in their sights.

The jets were still desperately struggling, firing missiles in resistance, but it was already too late.

Whoosh whoosh~~~!

One by one, missiles streaked across the sky like meteors, creating a display of fireworks in the sky.

Many enemy aircraft were directly blown up; their interception couldn’t stop the incoming hypersonic missiles.

The saying goes, "All techniques can be broken, but speed cannot," and this is exactly why.

Explosions echoed in the night sky, planes were shattered and turned into fragments, scattering in all directions.

Some pilots who reacted quickly could still choose to eject and escape, but others were hit directly in the cockpit, without any chance of survival.

A hundred missiles shot down over ninety aircraft.

Only six or seven planes luckily escaped destruction due to special angular circumstances.

This kind of loss is unacceptable for any side.

They never anticipated encountering a surprise attack from the enemy at this time.

Even when the first wave of missiles hit them, they still hadn’t discovered the enemy’s location.

Then they realized, but it was too late, as the second wave of missiles came again!

Results from the second strike, as the enemy was prepared, were slightly less devastating, but still, nearly seventy of their aircraft were struck by missiles, turning into cannon fodder.

Two consecutive surprise attacks resulted in one hundred sixty aircraft being reduced to pieces.

The enemy aircraft that originally intended to attack Position No. 3 no longer dared to launch an attack there; they began attempting a counterattack on the enemy planes.

A distance of one to two hundred kilometers, when planes are flying relatively in the air, is actually very close.

After two missile volleys, the gap between the two sides had narrowed to within thirty kilometers.

Due to the continuous missile firing, stealth was no longer necessary, and both sides immediately entered air combat mode.

One hundred Attack-20 fighters directly faced the enemy’s over two hundred fourth-generation and fourth-and-a-half generation fighters.

At this moment, the competition was among the aircraft’s performance and the pilots’ skills.

The Dawn Army’s Attack-20 is a typical fifth-generation aircraft, and these fifth-generation aircraft have basically all been upgraded to Three-Star through continuous combat against zombies.

These Three-Star fighters can be approximately considered fifth-and-a-half generation, and they possess a significant generational gap compared to Jiangzhou’s planes.

This generational gap is like a chasm.

No matter how Jiangzhou’s planes perform, no matter how hard their pilots fight, this generational gap cannot be bridged, especially when the Dawn Army pilots’ abilities exceed theirs, this gap becomes even more pronounced.

The aerial dogfight between the two sides’ fighters hardly lasted long before the balance of victory and defeat was pretty much decided.

The Dawn Army’s Attack-20 soared in the sky like majestic eagles, like swift peregrine falcons.

Whereas Jiangzhou’s fighters were cumbersome like vultures, sluggish like wild chickens.

Whether in missile exchanges, electronic countermeasures, thermal flare interference, or aerial combat maneuvers, the disparity was overwhelmingly one-sided.

Even when Jiangzhou’s side ganged up two or three against one, the generational gap was irreversibly insurmountable.

Boom~~~!

Boom~~~!

In the sky above, planes were constantly getting shot down, and almost exclusively from Jiangzhou’s fleet.

Both sides invoked electronic jamming, and the Dawn Army pilots, instead of using their speed advantage to widen the distance, utilized the performance of their fighters and their own skills to suppress the enemy.

As the battle continued, Jiangzhou’s pilots gradually fell into despair.

Can’t beat them!

Absolutely can’t beat them!

The Dawn Army actually developed fifth-generation aircraft; how is this even possible to play?

If they can’t win, then they can only retreat.

These pilots now attempted to flee, hoping that Chu Yuan would send reinforcements to help.