Chapter 432: Declaration of War and Night Raid (6K)_4
Like a madman, Pami wanted to find the ship's captain to issue a warning, but at that moment, the entire naval port was already filled with the shrill sound of air raid alarms.
Countless Indian Navy soldiers were awakened from their dreams, some got out of bed on the warships, some ran out from the docks, many still bewildered.
"What's going on? Why is the alarm sounding in the middle of the night? Can't people sleep?"
"Who the hell is messing with the alarm? I swear I'll make him clean bathrooms for a month."
"So sleepy, why isn't the alarm turned off yet? How can we sleep with all this noise?"
These just-awakened Indian soldiers had no idea of the seriousness of the situation; India had been at peace for a long time, long disconnected from war.
While the Army might experience some combat, the Navy had been idle for years, causing these Navy soldiers to forget the meaning of vigilance.
But just as they were still baffled, the earliest arriving Swordfish hypersonic anti-ship missiles had already entered the target area, the guidance heads automatically activated, beginning to lock onto the targets set in the parameters.
Onboard the Vikramaditya Aircraft Carrier, a Swordfish hypersonic anti-ship missile struck the waterline of the carrier.
The blunt-nosed high-hardness steel of the armor-piercing warhead fiercely rubbed against the carrier's armor, and under the immense kinetic energy brought by supersonic speed, the blunt steel at the warhead's front could tear through the ship's body, penetrating deep into the carrier's interior.
In the central kitchen of the Vikramaditya Aircraft Carrier, dozens of chefs busy cooking breakfast for the crew heard a deafening noise, the thick steel plates at the top emitted an ear-piercing sound as they twisted and tore, then a white cylindrical missile got stuck there, the warhead still flashing with a blinking red light.
The chefs in the kitchen looked up at the steaming anti-ship missile, their legs turned to jelly, bodies trembled, some were so scared they wet themselves.
"Run..."
Finally, a chef came to his senses, but just as the word left his mouth, the delayed fuse of the Swordfish anti-ship missile detonated.
Bang!
A terrifying explosion occurred; the Swordfish anti-ship missile was 10 meters long and weighed 7 tons, with a semi-armor-piercing warhead of 900 kilograms.
When the 900-kilogram warhead detonated, the power was like a firecracker in a bottle, the central part of the Vikramaditya Carrier arched high, dazzling flames and fragments of steel spewed out, and the massive shockwave from the explosion severely damaged the ship's structure, breaching below the waterline, causing massive amounts of seawater to flood in.
Those within the explosion's range, both chefs and soldiers, were blown to pieces, dying gruesomely.
In the violent explosion, soldiers resting on the carrier were thrown around, smashing their heads, causing them to bleed profusely.
As the explosion was located in the front-central part of the carrier, the powerful shockwave directly lifted the steel deck, and the neatly parked aircraft on the carrier's deck were also damaged in the violent explosion, many being blown off into the sea by the shockwave.
From a distance, the once mighty and majestic Vikramaditya Carrier now had a gaping hole with a diameter of over ten meters on the deck, flames were pouring out from the gap, and the right side of the carrier also had a hole, with seawater continuously gushing into the body.
It was only at this moment, hearing the explosion and seeing the blazing fire, that the Indian Navy in the naval port finally realized they were under attack.
But it was already too late for them, as the Ilova River Cruiser had fired its missiles from just tens of kilometers away, an exceedingly short distance. Although India had also deployed anti-missile systems near the naval port, the early warning radar needed time to detect the missiles, then had to relay the data to the fire control radar, which would then track the incoming missiles to guide their air defense missiles for interception.
This process required time; moreover, the anti-ship missiles flew at low altitudes over the sea, greatly reducing their chances of being detected by radar.
With the missiles launched from tens of kilometers away, the distance was too short to allow India's anti-missile system to defend effectively. One by one, the air defense missiles, like roaming killers, intruded into the naval port area, autonomously searching for and locking onto targets, diving towards one warship after another.