Expedition to Europe

To be more precise, the British are waiting for the French reaction.

The three major powers in Europe are Britain, France and Germany. In terms of war potential, if the colonial population is not counted, Germany has the greatest war potential because it has the largest population, followed by France and then Britain.

Although George V is a relative of William III, George V never thought that Germany under the leadership of William III would maintain a united front with Britain.

This is indeed the case. In the last world war, William II did not hesitate to declare war on Britain. Now William III's choice is the same. Although Britain has not declared war, Germany led by William III has once again stood on the opposite side of Britain.

The British really rely on the French. Although France's self-proclaimed "world's first army" is no longer worthy of its name, without the help of the French, the British cannot withstand the German attack.

Now with the addition of Lanfang, the British have even less confidence. Germany alone is enough to give the British a headache. Now with Lanfang, George V often feels that he should abdicate and let others have their way.

He couldn't retreat. If George V abdicated, Edward VIII would succeed him. This guy had a good relationship with Nicholas II, who was Edward VIII's godfather. If Edward VIII ascended the throne, he would immediately turn against the Russians, and might even attack Russia together with the Germans. By then, it would be truly hopeless.

George V knew that the Italians could not defeat the Lanfangs, but what George V did not expect was that the Italians would be defeated so quickly and so thoroughly. Before Britain could react, Italy had already lost its underwear in Djibouti.

The reputation of a pig teammate is indeed well-deserved.

In fact, in the war between Lanfang and Italians, the Djibouti direction was only a side battlefield, and the Sardinia direction was the main battlefield.

Lanfang was not strong enough in the Sardinia direction and was unable to organize a landing operation, so the war focused on the air and sea battles at the beginning.

Although the Italians got the "Hurricane" from Britain, the number was still limited after all, and it could not pose a sufficient threat to the Lanfang Air Force. At the beginning of the war, the Mediterranean sky was dominated by Lanfang fighters, and the Italians had no chance.

Long before Italy declared war on Lanfang, Lanfang announced that it would establish a Mediterranean Fleet in Sardinia and use La Maddalena as the home port of the Mediterranean Fleet.

Although La Maddalena has a certain foundation, it is not enough to build La Maddalena into a military port that can dock large warships including aircraft carriers in just a few months, so La Maddalena is not in use now. Although the "Surabaya" nominally joined the Mediterranean Fleet, it did not dock at La Maddalena, but docked at Moon Bay with the task force.

It is a bit difficult to build a military port with complete facilities, but it is not difficult to build a temporary airport. Lan Fang's engineers are very experienced in building temporary airports. Before La Maddalena was put into use, the Air Force was the only means to defend Sardinia. Therefore, before Italy declared war on Lan Fang, there were two air squadrons of fighter units on Sardinia, as well as a squadron of bombers, reconnaissance aircraft, transport aircraft and other aircraft, with a total of more than 200 aircraft, including 130 fighters.

Half of these 130 fighters are the most advanced "Falcon" and the other half are the improved "J-1D". The "J-1" fighter is the first standard fighter owned by Lan Fang. Although its prototype "Billancourt" fighter has appeared for six or seven years, as the first monoplane, the "J-1" still has a lot of room for improvement. After replacing the engine, the performance data of the "J-1" can reach about 80% of the "Falcon", which is comparable to the performance of the "Hurricane" speculated by Long Chengyuan.

Qin Zhiyuan always strives to overwhelm the enemy with weapons during combat, so after the air battle began, the main fighters used by the Lan Fang Air Force were all "Falcons", and the "J-1D" was only used as battlefield cover or bait.

In this era when the tactics of other countries' air forces are still stuck in low-altitude dogfighting, the Lan Fang Air Force has begun to formulate air force tactics. Simply put, the Lan Fang Air Force puts "J-1D" on the surface during air combat, and the "Falcons" hide above the clouds or stay near the battlefield, waiting for the Italian Air Force to enter the combat area. The "Falcons" will cut in from above the clouds at high speed, and after executing an attack, no matter what the results are, they will immediately leave at high speed and then execute the next attack.

Faced with such tactics, the Italians had no way to resist. The Italians did not even have wireless telegraphs on their planes. When fighter pilots needed to communicate with each other in the air, they still had to rely on gestures, while the Lan Fang Air Force was equipped with walkie-talkies, and they could communicate with words at any time if there were any problems. This gave the Lan Fang Air Force an advantage in combat and beat the Italians without any chance to fight back.

The Italians only had one group of "Hurricanes", which they were not satisfied with. Before the war started, two more were lost to the Lanfang Air Force. There were only eleven "Hurricanes" at the beginning of the war. These few fighters were not enough for the Lanfang Air Force's pilots. They gritted their teeth and started the war on July 7th. The first air raid broke out on the outskirts of Rome on July 8th. At the beginning of the battle, the pilots of the Lanfang Air Force could strictly follow the established tactics. However, as the battle progressed, they no longer paid attention to any tactics. Let's seize the opportunity to start a fight first, and even "Jin-1D" "type" all began to actively swoop towards the Italian airport. If you don't hold on tight, you won't even be able to take a sip of soup.

The Italians are also miserable. Before the war, Mussolini was full of confidence and wanted to turn the Mediterranean into "our sea." As a result, after the war began, the Mediterranean became a bathhouse for Italians. From the first air war in Rome It can be seen that the Italians dared to go to Sardinia when there was no war. That was because the Italians knew that the Lanfang plane would not fire. As a result, after the war broke out, the Italian Air Force did not even dare to go out to the Sicilian Peninsula. The Lanfang Air Force flew directly to the doorstep.

It’s not anyone else’s fault. I can only blame the Italians for having declared war. The air force was not ready yet. The logistics department at the airport was in such a mess that they couldn’t even refuel the plane.

The Italian Air Force has not experienced the test of war. Normally, the airport ground staff only refuels one or two harassment aircraft, but there is no problem. As a result, after the war started, the Lanfang Air Force had already flown over Rome, but the Italian aircraft could not take off in time to respond. The reason turned out to be that Air Force fighter planes were queuing up for refueling.

It sounds a bit unbelievable, but it is normal for Italian foodies to happen, because the Italian Air Force does not have a fuel management department at all. The Italians spend all their thoughts on how to improve the kitchen establishment. As for the precious aviation fuel, that thing is Can't eat——

The consequence of not having a fuel management department is that when the Lanfang Air Force's fighter jets were showing off their power over Rome, the Italian Air Force could only give the Lanfang Air Force a middle finger on the ground, but could do nothing else.

On July 8th, the entire Italian Air Force was wiped out. Almost all of its nearly 300 fighter planes were destroyed. However, there was no new ace pilot in the Lanfang Air Force because more than 90% of the Italian aircraft were destroyed on the ground. There is no chance to take off to fight.

From then on, the sky over Italy belonged entirely to Lanfang, and the Lanfang Air Force could freely enter and exit the skies over Italy, taking whatever it wanted.

When the Air Force won a great victory, the Navy finally began to exert its normal combat effectiveness.

At the beginning of the war, the Italian Navy had the advantage. After all, the Italians had battleships, while Lanfang's Mediterranean Fleet only had destroyers and submarines. This advantage was reflected in the first day of the naval battle. Lanfang's Mediterranean Fleet had six destroyers and two It was sunk, three ships were damaged, and there were more than 500 casualties. However, only one cruiser and two destroyers of the Italian Navy were slightly damaged, with no more than ten casualties.

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The Italians won a complete victory on the first day of the naval battle, but starting from the second day, the balance of victory began to tilt towards Lanfang's side.

The Lanfang Navy is not the Austro-Hungarian Navy, known as the "Sick Man of Europe". At the beginning, the Austro-Hungarian Navy had a huge fleet, but it still made the Italian Navy famous. This is really a weak point. There are no tigers in the mountains and monkeys are called kings.

Although the Lanfang Navy was established only a short time ago, it had French origins when it was founded. All key positions on the ship were held by French people, which cultivated a large number of naval talents for Lanfang. After the founding of Lanfang, most of the elites of the German Navy joined the Lanfang Navy, and a considerable number of them directly joined the Lanfang nationality. This ensured the Lanfang Navy's strong combat effectiveness. The so-called "hundred-year navy" has Lanfang Navy has not been verified.

The strong combat effectiveness of Lanfang Navy is also due to the application of new weapons. The emergence of aircraft carriers is a major opportunity. If we only talk about the use of battleships, Lanfang Navy is indeed not mature, but when it comes to aircraft carriers, Lanfang and Western countries They are on the same starting line. Even because of Qin Zhiyuan's guidance, Lanfang Navy has always been on the right path without taking any detours. Therefore, in the use of aircraft carriers, Lanfang is definitely one level higher than Western countries. .

Finally, there is the submarine force. To be honest, because the German submarine force performed so well, Qin Zhiyuan did not realize that countries such as Britain and France had submarine forces for a long time. After the establishment of Lanfang, a large number of elites from the German submarine force also joined the Lanfang submarine force, and a large number of German officers also joined the Lanfang nationality. This made the Lanfang Navy's submarine force also powerful, not inferior to that of Western countries.

Taken together, these factors made the Italian Navy, which could show off its might against the Austro-Hungarian Navy during the last World War, miserable.

On July 11, the Lanfang Navy's Mediterranean Fleet dispatched a submarine force to launch a successful sneak attack on the Italian Navy off the coast of Portoferraio in central Italy. Two battleships of the Italian Navy were sunk and one was damaged. Three heavy-lift ships were also sunk. Cruiser, this result immediately shocked the world.

On July 15, Britain announced its entry into the war, and World War II officially broke out.