Chapter 1015 We underestimated Charles

War House, London.

Prime Minister George attached great importance to this war against France. He even believed that the outcome of this war was related to the fate of Britain.

Win: Will defeat France and successfully obtain German reparations.

Lose: No, the Royal Navy can't lose!

Prime Minister George specially converted the third-floor conference room into a combat command center.

The commander-in-chief was Prime Minister George, but he was only the nominal commander and was only responsible for coordinating the work of various departments.

This war involves too many issues, including naval battles, air battles, politics, and even the possibility of going to war with several countries at the same time.

The actual commander was the Minister of Munitions. He was the one who formulated the plan and understood its essence best, so it was most appropriate for him to be in charge of the overall situation.

The deputy commanders were Lord High Admiral Balfour and Rear Admiral Trenchard, one responsible for naval warfare and the other for air warfare.

With the addition of more than thirty staff officers and hundreds of communications soldiers, a luxurious command center was completed.

However, this command center did not actually play a big role.

Rear Admiral Trenchard was an independent chain of command, and neither the Lord Chief of Staff nor the First Lord of the Admiralty knew how to fight in the air.

At this time, the British Royal Navy did not know the close cooperation between the navy and the naval aviation. In their minds, an aircraft carrier was just a platform for fighter jets to take off.

This is also one of the reasons why the two British aircraft carriers were placed 50 kilometers behind as the less important "First Fleet" and "Second Fleet".

The correct approach should be to take the aircraft carrier as the core, and warships should surround the aircraft carrier with the mission of protecting the aircraft carrier. The primary task is to search for enemy aircraft carriers and strive to sink them.

If they fight like this, the British Mediterranean Fleet will still be able to fight.

Although the British carrier-based aircraft "Camel" was no match for the French "Jeanne A", it would eventually be at a disadvantage.

But the British army was not so far away that they could not even see the French aircraft carrier.

After knowing the location of the French aircraft carrier, the British army can use high-speed surface ships to encircle and suppress it, so they put pressure on the French aircraft carrier from both sea and air at the same time. It is still unknown who will win in the end.

But this is not the case in actual combat.

The Minister of Munitions, the Secretary of the Admiralty, and Rear Admiral Trenchard all had no idea about aircraft carrier operations, including General Winter who was commanding at the front.

They assumed that France did not have an aircraft carrier, and even if it did, it could only launch a limited number of fighter jets and could not pose much threat to the tough warships.

So they put their own aircraft carrier in a dangerous position: protected by only more than twenty destroyers, it sailed in a fixed sea area waiting for the carrier-based aircraft to return.

Major General Trenchard didn't see any problem with that.

At this stage, the radio has not been installed on the aircraft. If the position of the aircraft carrier changes too much, it is very likely that the carrier-based aircraft will not be able to find the aircraft carrier when returning, which will be a disaster for the carrier-based aircraft.

Therefore, the command cheered loudly when the carrier-based fighters won the first stage victory.

"Well done!" Prime Minister George nodded to Major General Trenchard. "We successfully drove away the French fighter planes."

"The important thing is to make sure that the French dare not launch their 'torpedo planes'." The Minister of Munitions said: "The French know how powerful we are. They know that once their 'torpedo planes' take off, they will become our targets!"

"Yes," Balfour agreed. "They keep the battleships safe, and that's important."

Major General Trenchard nodded slightly, and with a smile on his face he looked at the Minister of Munitions meaningfully.

The greatest credit for this battle should go to the Minister of Munitions, as he trained in advance a group of pilots who could take off and land fighter jets on aircraft carriers.

Without these pilots, this battle would have been impossible to fight.

The Minister of Munitions smiled back in a feigned magnanimity.

In fact, no one can take away the credit for this achievement.

The Minister of Munitions had already made arrangements. After General Winter's great victory, he would naturally give the Minister of Munitions a prominent mention in his report.

Then, all the halos of magnanimity, low-keyness, foresight, etc. will be put on the head of the Minister of Munitions.

There was a smile in the eyes of the Minister of Munitions, as if he saw that moment coming.

But at this moment, the staff officer exclaimed: "Your Excellency, our aircraft carrier is under attack by enemy fighter planes!"

Prime Minister George turned his gaze sharply towards the Minister of Munitions: "Enemy fighter planes? That's impossible!"

This is what the Minister of Munitions said.

The aircraft carrier is more than 200 kilometers away from Malta Island, and the combat radius of French fighter jets is only about 150 kilometers. Of course, it is impossible to attack the British aircraft carrier.

The Minister of Munitions was taken aback and said in a deep voice: "If a fighter plane attacks our aircraft carrier, it is a French aircraft carrier."

Everyone reacted immediately and gathered around the nautical chart to calculate the position of the French aircraft carrier based on the telegram.

Everyone has the same idea: find it and sink it!

However, before they could come up with a suitable plan, the staff officer reported with a pale face and panicked tone: "Prime Minister, our...our aircraft carrier has been sunk, and all the carrier-based aircraft have been shot down."

"What?" Prime Minister George looked up at his staff officer with an expression of disbelief.

The others looked at each other.

This is impossible. There must be a communication problem or the decoder made a mistake.

"They were just attacked." Rear Admiral Trenchard checked his pocket watch and said calmly, "It's only been a dozen minutes. How could two aircraft carriers be sunk?"

The Minister of Munitions smiled confidently. "What did they use to sink our aircraft carrier? Machine guns?"

The others laughed as if they had heard a joke.

Only the staff officer holding the telegram had a grave expression on his face. He handed it to the Minister of Munitions and said, "No, Your Excellency, they used bombs. The ones attacking our aircraft carriers were not fighter planes, but bombers carrying bombs."

The laughter stopped abruptly, and everyone's eyes were filled with shock.

The French aircraft carrier can actually launch bombers?

The bomber they imagined was the old-fashioned "Caproni" bomber with a wingspan of 22.2 meters and a length of 10.9 meters.

Such an aircraft cannot take off from an aircraft carrier.

Finally, after many inquiries and verifications, they figured out what happened:

The French developed a new type of bomber that was smaller and faster, capable of high-speed dive bombing, and had an accuracy more than ten times that of the Caproni bomber.

(Note: The error of the Caproni bomber was generally around 300 meters, and the dive bomber's error was 30 meters. At that time, the "Argus" aircraft carrier was 20.7 meters wide and 172.2 meters long. If the dive bomber bombed vertically, it would have a high probability of hitting the target.)

The command center fell into silence as they realized they had underestimated Ciel.

Especially Major General Trenchard.

If all fighter planes are shot down by the enemy, the aircraft carrier will also be sunk.

This means that he, as the Chief of Staff of the Royal Flying Corps, has nothing to do and there is no need for him to stay in this command center!

(End of this chapter)