Republic of China: Ace Pilot

Chapter 857 The Battle of Penang Island , Spitfire vs. Type 0

Twelve British Spitfire MK-V fighter planes took off.

These are all the British fighter jets in Penang.

Upon receiving Fang Wen's warning, they immediately took off to intercept him.

The Spitfire was the British air superiority ace, with a streamlined and compact fuselage, an extremely fast climb rate, a maximum power of 1470 horsepower, and a top speed of 585 kilometers per hour at sea level. It was armed with eight Browning machine guns, providing dense firepower. Its performance in dogfighting, dive, and stabilization completely overwhelmed Japanese carrier-based aircraft, making it the only remaining air combat weapon in the Malayan theater.

Led by a British Air Force major, a tactical formation of twelve Spitfire fighters flew toward the Japanese aircraft group.

Behind them was another Thyristor carrier-based aircraft.

That was the fighter jet piloted by Fang Wen.

Inside the cockpit, Fang Wen gripped the control stick and began to climb.

Gong Xiuneng, sitting in the back seat, tensed up: "Commander, how do we fight?"

“We won’t dogfight; we’ll intercept the Japanese bombers,” Fang Wen replied, simultaneously unleashing his supernatural abilities, which allowed him to visualize the engine speed, flight path, and turning angle of every Japanese warplane within a few kilometers of airspace.

He made this choice after careful consideration.

The Strix-class carrier-based aircraft was originally designed for fleet air defense and low-altitude escort. Compared to the lightweight Spitfire land-based fighter, it is bulky, has a slow climb rate, a greater empty weight, and a top speed of only 450 kilometers per hour, making it less agile in high-altitude dogfights.

However, the Flying Bomber has thicker fuselage armor, stronger resistance to damage, and stable continuous firepower output, making it a superior choice for bombers to strike the Japanese.

Northeastern Japanese air raid formation.

It was also discovered when British warplanes attacked.

The Japanese naval colonel leading the team's flight changed his expression abruptly and gave orders to the fighter planes on his left and right with hand gestures.

Immediately afterwards, 10 escort Zero 21 fighters broke away from the main bomber formation, tilted their wings, turned sharply, and charged headlong into the British aircraft.

The Zero fighter features an extremely lightweight fuselage, abandoning armor protection. It has a very small low-altitude turning radius, unparalleled close-range dogfighting agility in Southeast Asian airspace, and rapid acceleration, giving it an advantage in close-range dogfights.

However, its fuselage fuel tanks are almost unprotected, its wings are also very fragile, and its dive speed is limited. Once hit, it is very likely to explode in mid-air.

In an instant, fighter jets from both sides clashed head-on in the airspace north of Malacca.

Ten Japanese Zero fighters faced twelve Spitfire fighters diving down to intercept them from high altitude.

There were casualties in a single encounter.

A Zero fighter was hit by crossfire from the British forces. Its fragile fuselage had no protection and it exploded in mid-air.

Seeing the Japanese warplanes so easily destroyed, the British pilots roared with excitement.

But the next second, those 'little planes' made an extremely tricky flight maneuver.

They quickly disappeared from the sight of the British pilots.

This is Zero's signature move: abandoning defense and instead using greater agility for tail-biting dogfights.

This change caught the British army off guard, prompting them to adapt accordingly.

But doing so would break up the battle formation.

Instantly, the airspace turned into a chaotic battle.

The British aircraft has strong defensive features and heavy firepower.

The Japanese side is all fragile, but has more agile maneuverability.

It's too early to say who the ultimate winner will be.

On the other side, Fang Wen piloted the Tube-nosed Swallow, climbing to high altitude and approaching the Japanese bombers.

Ten Type 99 bombers were divided into two groups: one group flew to Penang Island Airport to carry out bombing, and the other group flew to the inland camp battlefield to support the Japanese army in carrying out air raids.

Fang Wen was forced to make a choice; he could only fight one path.

A moment later, he decided to abandon the airport, since no more planes had been bombed there; at most, the runways would have been destroyed.

If the inland camps were attacked by air, it could cause chaos among the ground troops, giving the attacking Japanese soldiers an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

Immediately, Fang Wen piloted the guillotine-shaped aircraft and swooped down, heading towards a Type 99 bomber in the southeast.

As Fang Wen launched his dive attack, the Japanese bombers also adopted a dive attack stance.

Almost simultaneously, the two fighter jets nosedived and swooped down toward the combat camp on the Malayan coast.

The Japanese Type 99 bomber had its bomb bay latches unlocked, and the pilot was visually locking onto the British sandbag positions below. In just a few seconds, the onboard bombs would be unleashed on the British defenses on the ground.

On the beach, British soldiers looked up at the sky with horror on their faces. Once the bombs landed, the makeshift fortifications would be instantly leveled, and the already stalemate would face collapse.

It's that difference of milliseconds!

Fang Wen's face was cold. He pressed the firing button on the control stick, and the eight Browning aircraft machine guns on the nose of the hull-mounted swallow-shaped aircraft simultaneously burst into flames. The dense bullets formed a crushing rain of bullets, accurately spraying the fuselage, wing fuel tanks and belly bomb bays of the Japanese bombers in front of him.

The Type 99 was a thin-skinned bomber with no armor protection on its fuselage. Its wooden skin and sealed fuel tanks were instantly torn apart by bullets.

Aviation fuel gushed out and ignited instantly.

Japanese pilots let out desperate screams, trying to control their stalled aircraft, but it was too late.

The plane, trailing thick black and red smoke, crashed heavily into the center of the battleground between British and Japanese infantry below.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted, causing the aircraft's munitions and fuel to detonate simultaneously. Hot metal fragments and burning flames flew everywhere, scorching the Japanese infantry charging around them. Large numbers of Japanese soldiers were thrown to the ground by the shockwave, and the ground offensive came to an instant halt.

A single, decisive blow!

Fang Wen remained calm and quickly pushed and pulled the control stick, allowing the Strix-class carrier-based aircraft to overcome its dive inertia and forcefully pull up to its position.

The aircraft, skimming the black smoke from the explosion, returned to mid-to-high altitude airspace.

Gong Xiuneng, sitting in the back seat, suddenly caught his breath, his eyes filled with shock. This was the first time he had seen Fang Wen pilot a fighter jet in combat.

With such a fierce fighting style, it's no wonder he's one of China's ace pilots.

Before he could even utter a word of praise, Fang Wen had already locked onto the target on the southwest side.

He quickly straightened his aircraft's flight path, locking the nose of the enemy aircraft firmly onto its centerline. The next second, he maneuvered the cumbersome Tsuburaya fighter jet to complete an extreme roll.

The fighter jet flipped and circled 360 degrees, and the straight bullet belts fired by the eight machine guns twisted into a spiral fire net along the trajectory of the aircraft's roll, covering all the evasive, turning and escape routes of the Japanese fighter jets.

Although the Japanese bomber pilots reacted to their co-pilot's prompting, they abruptly pulled the control stick to veer sideways.

But it didn't help.

The spiraling barrage of bullets tore apart the bomber's vertical tail and horizontal control surfaces, causing the entire tail section to break off.

The fighter jet lost its tail control balance, and the fuselage instantly flipped and spun, crashing to the ground like a kite with a broken string, slamming into the edge of the rainforest and bursting into flames.

From the dive interception and shooting down the first aircraft, to the roll strafing and cutting down the second bomber, the entire process took less than 2 minutes.

This terrified the remaining three Japanese Type 99 dive bomber pilots, who completely abandoned their ground attack mission. The three planes formed a triangular attack and defense formation, with all their wing guns aimed at the lone Tsubame carrier-based aircraft, and launched a pincer attack from three directions. Gong Xiu, in the back seat, could see this and nervously reminded them, "Commander, they're coming all at once!"

Fang Wen looked at the Japanese bombers that were closing in from three sides and a cold, mocking smile curled at the corner of his lips.

While it's true that the guillotine-nosed swallows are poorly maneuverable and clumsy in high-altitude dogfights, they are not up to the task of dealing with three Japanese dive-bombing suicide planes that are weak in close combat and have fragile armor.

A cold glint flashed in Fang Wen's eyes. He controlled the Nose Swallow carrier-based aircraft's engine to unleash its maximum power, causing the aircraft to veer eastward and head towards the rightmost of the three aircraft.

Facing the oncoming charge of the snorkel, the Japanese pilot roared and poured the entire bottle of 'Assault Pills' into his mouth.

Stimulated by the drugs, he temporarily forgot his fear and flew towards Fang Wenfei.

Two other fighter jets are also approaching.

Three fighter planes, each armed with two 12.7mm Ho-103 heavy machine guns, fired deadly bullets at the swallow.

The penetrating power of a 12.7 mm caliber is very strong; even the body defenses of a swiftlet cannot stop it.

However, the rate of fire for this caliber was a major problem. Fang Wen suddenly pushed the control stick, causing the machine to press down.

As the aircraft shifted horizontally, enemy bullets flew over it.

Subsequently, Fang Wen steered the plane away from its target, changing course to engage another Type 99 fighter jet.

His action was completely unexpected by the Japanese army. A hail of bullets came, and the fighter plane exploded in mid-air.

One against three, and another team was wiped out.

The remaining two fighter jets completely lost their will to fight and turned to abandon the battle and flee.

They tried to escape, but Guan Biyan couldn't catch up, so Fang Wen gave up fighting.

He flew his plane toward the chaotic airspace to the southwest, intending to help the British warplanes.

Meanwhile, the British troops below, seeing that the Japanese warplanes overhead had been defeated by one of their own planes, were greatly encouraged and fought more actively against the Japanese.

British and Japanese fighter jets engaged in a fierce air battle.

Fang Wen is about to arrive.

He spread out his supernatural abilities, gaining a clear view of the aerial battle situation.

The close-quarters dogfight just now was extremely brutal. In order to counter the agility of the Zero fighters, the British Spitfire squadrons were forced to break up their formation and engage in individual dogfights, directly confronting the desperate attacks of the fragile Japanese fighters.

The losses for both sides were almost evenly split.

Originally twelve Spitfire MK-V fighter jets, after a life-or-death struggle, five were hit and crashed, and five were severely damaged and forced to land, leaving only seven fighter jets struggling to survive;

The Japanese Zero fighters also suffered heavy casualties, with only five out of ten that went into battle remaining.

Both pilots are now at their limit, locked in a stalemate, with neither able to completely suppress the other.

In other words, Fang Wen only needs to intervene to turn the tide.

Fang Wen pushed the throttle lever to the middle position, and the Tsubasa carrier-based aircraft accelerated and cut into the flanking maneuver of the battle.

He locked onto a Zero fighter that was relentlessly pursuing and attacking the tail of a Spitfire. He used his supernatural ability to predict the enemy aircraft's trajectory and pre-calibrate the trajectory of the machine gun in the nose of the aircraft.

Eight aircraft machine guns opened fire instantly, unleashing a dense hail of bullets at the enemy aircraft's flight path.

The Zero, which was attempting to engage in a tail-chasing maneuver, was directly hit by a hail of bullets. Its unprotected fuselage was pierced by bullets, its body instantly burst into flames, its wings broke off, and it spun as it crashed into the sea, exploding into a huge splash.

Another Zero fighter shot down.

The remaining Japanese Zero pilots, whose morale was already low, completely collapsed.

Originally, the escort mission was to cover the two groups of bombers in completing ground bombing. Now, the second group of Type 99 bombers, whose inland air raid bombers were defeated and fled to the airport for bombing, saw that the battle was going badly and that there was no air superiority to back them up. They had already turned around and retreated from the battlefield at full speed to the north.

The escorting Zero fighters suffered heavy losses and lost their combat significance. The Japanese naval air captain leading the team was ashen-faced and gritted his teeth as he issued the order to retreat.

The remaining four badly damaged Zero fighters immediately left the combat airspace and followed the bomber formation, hastily returning to the Japanese airfield in southern Thailand.

The battle to intercept Penang's airspace has now come to an end.

At the heavy cost of losing five Spitfire fighters and wounding half of the pilots, the British forces held air superiority over Penang and thwarted the Japanese air raid plan.

The Japanese naval air force missed all its targets, destroying four bombers and six escorting Zero fighters.

With the high-altitude air battles coming to a close, the land-based battlefield on the coastal beaches below is simultaneously experiencing a turning point.

The remaining Japanese infantry, who had infiltrated the jungle, witnessed their own support aircraft being routed and forced to return to base, and with air support cut off, coupled with the fact that the British had made preparations in advance, there was no possibility of capturing the camp.

Immediately afterwards, the remaining 400-plus Japanese soldiers abandoned the wounded and the dead, and quickly retreated into the tropical rainforest.

As the Japanese troops retreated, cheers erupted from the British positions. The Penang defenders, who had been under pressure for days, finally relieved their fear of the Japanese with a victory.

at the same time.

At Penang Airport, ground crew and engineers rushed to the damaged runway to clear craters caused by aerial bombs, move aircraft debris and rubble, fill in damaged road surfaces, and expedite the repair of the runway.

In less than half an hour, the makeshift emergency runway was repaired and met the conditions for safe landing of fighter jets.

Seven battered British Spitfire fighters landed in an orderly fashion on the airport's emergency runway. Almost every aircraft had bullet holes in its fuselage, a testament to the fierce fighting.

Subsequently, Fang Wen piloted the Strix G7 carrier-based aircraft to land on the airport runway.

The propellers slowly stopped spinning, the canopy opened, and Fang Wen got off the plane.

As soon as he got off the plane, Penang Commander Lieutenant Colonel Terri came to find him.

Lieutenant Colonel Terry shook Fang Wen's hand excitedly: "Thank you for your assistance. We finally see hope for victory."

"This is just the beginning. The Japanese offensive will become even more intense next," Fang Wen replied calmly.

Lieutenant Colonel Terry nodded: "At least for now, we've held on."

Fang Wen raised his right hand and glanced at his watch: "My men should be arriving soon. With them here, I will have confidence in the upcoming battle."

Hearing Fang Wen say this, Lieutenant Colonel Terry became even more excited about Fang Wen's troops.

Half an hour later.

A group of ten seaplanes with Taishan cloud patterns painted on their fuselages appeared over the northeastern sea area.

It was the Taishan Air Force's 1st Battalion that had traveled 2,500 kilometers to support Penang Island, along with 200 fully armed special forces members and Taishan's specially made weapons and equipment.

Fang Wen took the Taishan walkie-talkie handed to him by Gong Xiuneng and dialed a specific frequency: "First Aviation Battalion, this is Fang Wen. Your landing position is in the shallow waters of the west side of Penang Island. There is red smoke indicating the location in the water."

A moment later, a reply came through the walkie-talkie.

"Roger that, General Manager. This is Pan Jiafeng. I've spotted the red smoke indicator and am preparing to land." (End of Chapter)