Munitions Empire

The visibility in the clouds wasn't great, and Wang Hai was also worried about falling into a trap. So after starting his dive, he looked at his radar screen.

The opponent's altitude was indeed decreasing, but after descending to a certain height, it stopped. It seemed that the opponent was indeed trying to deceive Wang Hai into diving, ensuring that as long as he passed through the clouds, he would lose his altitude advantage.

"Good trick! Planning to use tactics, huh?" Wang Hai muttered to himself while flying his plane through the clouds, passing the opponent's aircraft by a hair's breadth.

Seeing the opponent's signal disappear from his radar screen, Wang Hai roughly judged the opponent's position. He adjusted his plane's nose while unlocking the combat missile under his wing.

At this moment, Wang Hai's infrared warning system suddenly emitted a sharp alarm. The optical warning system had "detected" a missile approaching.

In the exercise, this device only activates when it receives a signal from the commanding headquarters, which acts as a judge. In reality, it would scan the area around the fighter jet and alert the pilot upon detecting an infrared signal.

"Did they land one on me first?" Wang Hai recalled his operation and found that the opponent didn't have a great attack window. This meant the opponent fired the combat missile from a very poor angle, wasting a lot of its energy and reducing its hit rate.

However, if he did nothing, the missile might still hit him. So Wang Hai immediately pressed the decoy release button, maneuvering extensively while launching decoy flares.

One after another, the decoys shot out from the plane's tail, illuminating the sky like fireworks. Even though it's an exercise, the decoy launch was real, probably to add a bit of freshness for the audience.

Like blooming flowers, Wang Hai's plane dispersed flames across the sky, and a notification came through his headset, indicating the judge had determined he had dodged the missile.

Soon after, Wang Hai spotted the target in the distant clouds. The moment he locked onto the opponent, he pressed the fire button.

...

Dorne the First, in his Imperial Palace, asked the Prime Minister if everything was handled. The Prime Minister nodded slightly and replied, "Your Majesty, that ship has already been sunk by the Tang Army. By the time we got there, it had already sunk to the seabed."

"Did the opponent rescue anyone?" Dorne the First squinted his eyes for confirmation once more.

The Prime Minister shook his head and explained, "Our ships didn't dare stay there too long, but there were no survivors on the surface."

As if joking, he wasn't the one to go personally, how could his subordinates obediently carry out such a mission?

To linger for an extended time in the vicinity of the Great Tang Empire Navy fleet's activity zone? Does one's life mean nothing?

"A bunch of useless fools!" Dorne the First cursed angrily. His navy cost him a lot of money every year, yet in the end, they couldn't even properly sink one of their own ships.

Forget about hoping for these cowards to intercept the Great Tang Empire Navy; they can't even head south to declare their presence!

The fleeing Dorne fleet heading north included two early light aircraft carriers, the kinds that were built experimentally and could only serve as reconnaissance plane carriers. Even so, these were the last so-called aircraft carriers Dorne had.

There were also some battleships; these battleships were of old models, slow, and lacked anti-aircraft gun weapons, essentially lacking combat capabilities.

Additionally, there were some cruisers and destroyers. These ships appeared decent; at least they had some combat capability.

However, all these warships were hiding in the northern ports of the Laines Empire, not daring even to fly the Dorne Empire flag. They were barely paying rent as a fleet borrowed by the Laines Empire.

The reason for doing this was to avoid military strikes from the Great Tang Empire. Without Laines Empire's shelter, those warships might have been sunk by the Great Tang Empire Navy fleet months ago.

Now, with most of the Tang Army naval fleet returning for refurbishments, some fast-moving, small-target Dorne ships increased their activity. This included several newly launched destroyers, which were even equipped with the latest radar manufactured by Pan Yiping's factory.

These small warships mostly had a displacement of only one or two thousand tons, typical of small destroyers from WWII. Their weaponry was minimal, roughly at the level of large patrol boats.

The reason for building such warships was that Dorne primarily focused on not feeling the loss: except for the radar, these ships were basically just a pile of steel with some machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, posing little threat.

Originally, the Dorne Navy had its glorious tradition. Under Strauss's command, they had brilliant combat records.

But now, they could only hide in ports, barely scraping by, even fearing to carry out sea patrol tasks—inevitably, even just conducting patrols posed about a thirty percent chance of getting sunk.

"In this state, if the Tang Army attacks, where will they find the courage to fight to the death?" Dorne the First looked over at Mike Ravel, gritting his teeth.

Mike Ravel was thinking about when he advised Sun Guang to leave. Back then, he truly believed Sun Guang had a chance to survive. Who would have thought the Emperor had no intention of letting Sun Guang leave alive?

Startled by the Emperor's gaze, Mike Ravel was a bit late to react, awkwardly lowering his head, trying hard to recall what question Dorne the First had just asked him.

Fortunately, the Prime Minister came to his rescue, continuing, "Your Majesty, the navy's new shipbuilding plan has already begun. This time, our weapons are more targeted than before."

The Dorne Navy commanders, already aware they couldn't compete with the Tang Country Navy, remembered some important combat reports they had received earlier.

These combat reports were sent from the Mirage Country before its demise, detailing how they used fast attack boats to assault Tang Country warships in their final battle.

Frankly, these fast attack boats achieved more notable results than the main fleet of the Mirage Country Navy.

Therefore, these reports caught the attention of the Dorne Navy. Or rather, they caught the attention of other navies around the world.

Since big ships and guns couldn't ensure victory, turning to the other extreme seemed like a viable solution. Low investment, quick results, with minimal technological barriers, countries around the Eastern Continent saw some paths to victory from the Mirage Country Navy's tactics.