"125 kilometers away, this cruiser has such excellent stealth capabilities."
Fipidon couldn't help but marvel, but he didn't hesitate and called out to the other squadron's fighter pilots, "Enemy ship sighted, launch anti-ship missiles in three waves..."
Before Fipidon could finish his sentence, the fighter's screen suddenly flashed a fierce red warning light.
"Oh no, I've been locked by a missile."
"Me too, it's an air defense missile fired by the enemy ship."
"Evade quickly, release infrared flares."
Panic-stricken voices from other pilots filled the communication channel, the appearance of multiple air defense missiles threw the fighter squadron into disarray.
A Mig-29K fighter was hit by an air defense missile, exploding into brilliant fireworks in the sky, with countless parts flying off, the pilot didn't even have time to eject, disintegrating along with the aircraft.
Another Mig-29K fighter urgently evaded, releasing infrared flares that deceived one air defense missile, and through skillful maneuvering and a bit of luck, successfully dodged another incoming air defense missile.
Unlike in the movies, air defense missiles intercept fighters' flight paths in the air, there is no back-and-forth chasing as seen on screens.
After dodging two air defense missiles, the fighter's radar alert still kept flashing.
Seeing the avionics screen, the Mig-29K was tracking ten incoming targets simultaneously, the radar showed three more air defense missiles heading towards him.
This brought instant despair to the pilot, the threat efficiency of ship-launched air defense missiles against aircraft is often higher than air-to-air missiles because ship-launched air defense missiles have more warhead explosives and larger guidance heads, unrestricted by the weight limitations of fighter air-to-air missiles.
Three air defense missiles nearly sealed his fate.
Three seconds later, during emergency evasive maneuvers, one air defense missile hit him head-on.
The missile prematurely exploded, with fragments covering an area of over a hundred meters in diameter, unable to escape, the plane turned into a sieve, its internal precision instruments severely damaged, canopy pierced, a shard pierced directly into the pilot's neck, severing his carotid artery.
With the controls lost, the plane emitted black smoke, spiraled down from the sky, and crashed heavily into the sea, splashing up a gigantic wave of thirty meters.
Some pilots successfully ejected before being hit by air defense missiles.
But below was the vast sea, as the parachute opened, he fell into the water, greeted by deeper despair, as the sea's waves towered two to three meters high, he couldn't expect rescue from his fleet's helicopters, he'd be swallowed by the waves and sink into the depths before help arrived.
Some pilots, realizing they couldn't escape, directly fired anti-ship missiles at the stealth cruiser, determined to not let the enemy off easy even if it meant their death.
On the Ilova River Cruiser, facing the hastily launched anti-ship missiles, the missile launch unit fired again, with air defense missiles intercepting the incoming anti-ship missiles halfway.
Out of the 12 Mig-29K fighters, 8 were destroyed in this wave of air defense missile attacks.
Of the remaining 4, three were heavily damaged, trailing smoke and sparking, clearly incapable of returning to the carrier.
Fipidon, his eyes red, watched as his comrades were shot down one after another, he let out an angry roar, "I will sink you."
He was already above the Ilova River Cruiser, viewing its massive hull, stark on the sea surface.
Seeing the cruiser unaffected by the anti-ship missile assault, one intact Mig-29K fighter turned and fled without looking back.
Grinding his teeth, Fipidon wanted to release the KAB-500 guided bomb from his weapons bay, but fragments from the previous air defense missile's explosion had damaged the bay's opening mechanism, rendering the bomb unreleasable.
To make matters worse, Fipidon glanced at the rapidly dropping fuel gauge and realized that the tank was punctured and leaking.
The Mig-29K was notoriously short-legged, nicknamed "airport guard," with an effective combat radius of only 500 kilometers. At this rate of fuel leakage, he would crash into the sea before reaching the carrier.
Thinking of this, Fipidon slapped the control stick, glaring at the Ilova River Cruiser, throttled his aircraft to maximum thrust, and dived towards the massive stealth cruiser.
He intended to employ kamikaze tactics, not wanting his 12 sortie aircraft to be shot down without even scratching the enemy, such shameful results would mark him forever on Country A Navy's pillar of humiliation.
The fighter, at full speed, dove down, the cruiser couldn't compete with the fighter's speed.
The Ilova River Cruiser made no attempt to evade, onboard, its eight 11-barrel 30mm close-in guns activated, instantly spewing scorching tongues of fire, shell casings scattered like waterfalls.
"What kind of hedgehog..."
Fipidon's mind fleetingly thought.
In the next moment, everything went black, he lost consciousness, his aircraft shredded by hundreds of 30mm shells.
The Ilova River Cruiser's second wave of air defense missiles launched, none of the last three Country A fighters escaped, including the fleeing Mig-29K, which was blown apart before it could escape the missile range.
All 12 carrier-based Mig-29K fighters were annihilated, becoming flaming, dismembered turkeys dropping into the sea.
The Devourer-class Deep Diving Cruiser could carry a large amount of missiles, with up to two hundred air defense missiles alone, freely launched without fear of waste.
And the fate of these Mig-29K fighters was sealed, they faced what could be considered the air defense firepower of a destroyer squadron, combined with more advanced biological radar compared to phased array radar, their fate as live targets for the Devourer-class Deep Diving Cruiser's air defense drills was inevitable.