Chapter 168

The Israeli battle group soon realized they had been locked onto by missile after missile.

Watching the dense rain of missiles transform into streaks of light.

More than a few pilots screamed in terror:

"Oh God, how many fighter jets does the enemy actually have!"

Immediately, clusters of orange fireworks bloomed in the mid-air.

Emitting brilliant light across the skies above Batan.

(PS: For this new book, I beg for flowers, tips, and review tickets; your support is the author's only motivation!)

Soon, the Israeli Air Force pilots realized that the minds of those high-level politicians were utterly idiotic.

These people had actually ordered their air force to assemble and surround the enemy.

They were preparing for a "dogfight," meaning close-quarters combat to defeat the opponent's F-22 fighters.

However, these high-level pig-brains seemed to still harbor impressions of air combat modes from decades ago.

Back then, close-quarters dogfighting between fighter jets was indeed a crucial combat metric.

Therefore, aircraft maneuverability was especially important,

and aircraft of that era were basically all equipped with cannons for close-range combat.

But with the progress of technology,

"dogfighting" has increasingly ceased to be the standard for measuring whether a fighter jet is excellent.

In recent years, Dragon Country air force instructors have even asked their cadets:

"Why do fighter jets engage in dogfights?"

Cadet: "Because I have super-maneuverability."

The instructor would then say: "Wrong! Because you are stupid."

Although this remark was made in jest, it revealed, to a certain extent, the essence of modern air combat.

Air combat will become increasingly boring.

Why? Because once missile ranges reach over a hundred kilometers,

any aircraft detected in advance will be shot down directly by air-to-air missiles before even spotting the enemy.

Future air combat will focus on three aspects:

reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, stealth and counter-stealth, and beyond-visual-range operations.

Specifically, this involves three concrete performance factors: radar, stealth capability, and missile performance.

Therefore, the role of "dogfighting" in modern air combat is diminishing.

Because in the future, no one will allow you to engage in close-quarters combat.

You will either be destroyed from a long distance or destroy others.

This is also why Dragon Country's latest J-20 fighter jet is not equipped with a cannon.

Because apart from affecting stealth capabilities, it is purely dead weight.

And now, the Israeli Air Force felt as though they were suffering an attack from a future air force.

They possessed not the slightest ability to fight back.

They could only be frequently attacked by rains of missiles.

Yet, no matter how they flew, they could not get close to the opponent.

The enemy seemed to forever remain outside their line of sight and beyond their radar.

And the Israeli fighters, whether F-16s or F-15s, were blown up like fireworks.

At this moment, they experienced the same despair those Ugly Country pilots felt when being hunted in the skies over Syria.

In a short span of time, nearly half of the over hundred Israeli military aircraft vanished.

Unable to attack others, or even know where the enemy was,

they instead had to endure being locked onto by missiles, with that hypnotic 'beep-beep-beep' alarm sound.

Faced with such despair, even some Israeli pilots who had arrived with a determination to die

finally found they could not bear it anymore.

One after another, they turned their aircraft around and sped away into the distance.

Some even abandoned their planes entirely, ejecting directly.

After all, in such chaotic moments, no one would pay attention to whether their aircraft had malfunctioned.

As long as they could survive, that was better than anything else.

These people certainly did not want to be blown into a pile of dust by missiles.

And over a hundred kilometers away, Lin Yi watched those fleeing aircraft on the F-22's radar display.

Without a second word, he accelerated directly.

He pursued forward at speeds exceeding Mach 2.

His code of conduct was simple: since you intended to deal with me, it was impossible for me to let you escape unscathed.

Moreover, as long as he kept this batch of Israel's most elite air force here,

then essentially, the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all Middle Eastern nations would be completely removed.

After all, the Israeli military's ability to dominate the Middle East relied entirely on its air force.

An Israel without an air force was like a toothless tiger;

although its lingering might might still remain,

any hope for Israel to restore its status as the little hegemon of the Middle East in the short term

could be forgotten.

Additionally, whether Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, or even neighboring Jordan

would launch a sixth Middle East war against Israel remained to be seen.

Thus, soon enough, a replica of the scene in Syrian skies occurred again: the classic moment of one aircraft hunting down an entire air group.

Only this time, the location was the land of Batan.

However, just as Lin Yi was turning Israeli military aircraft into fireworks one by one,

suddenly, the alarm in his aircraft sounded.

Lin Yi was extremely surprised; there were actually aircraft in the skies over Batan that posed a threat to him.

However, he soon discovered two missiles heading straight for him.

They were moving incredibly fast, and the distance between them was shrinking rapidly.

Since Lin Yi was currently using the system's "Combat Simulation" function, even if this fighter jet were destroyed,

he, as the consciousness controlling it, would suffer no harm whatsoever.

But, if that were to happen,

the F-22, which had cost him millions of dollars to purchase, would be completely ruined, and he would have to buy a new one for the next battle.

Of course, that was still a minor issue.

For the DWS platform, which raked in gold by the day, a mere five million dollars meant nothing.

The real problem, however, was the consequence if such an event actually occurred.

The image of invincibility in aerial combat that the DWS platform had cultivated would be shattered.

After all, if an enemy aircraft truly managed to destroy one of the platform's fighters, they would certainly make a huge spectacle of it.

By then, it would not only greatly boost the morale of the US military and Israel but could also trigger a chain reaction.

Therefore, Lin Yi absolutely could not allow himself to be hit.

Thus, besides deploying the limited number of decoy flares equipped on the F-22,

his over 5,000 hours of aerial combat experience immediately provided him with a solution.

He directly maneuvered the aircraft into a barrel roll,

narrowly dodging the first missile, which was then disrupted by the decoy flares and exploded.

However, when facing the second missile, he simply pulled the nose up, causing the entire fuselage to climb vertically at a 90-degree angle.

The missile initially missed Lin Yi's plane but then traced a large arc, chasing directly upward after him.

Fortunately, the F-22 was equipped with thrust-vectoring engines, allowing it to execute rapid turns at high angles of attack in mid-air,

yet since the enemy missile was faster, even though it also utilized vectoring technology, its turning radius was significantly larger.