The aircraft carrier Egret Island was the Xia Kingdom's first domestically built aircraft carrier.
It measured 358 meters long and 88 meters wide, displaced 76,000 tonnes, and had a top speed of 38 knots. It was a conventionally powered carrier, and just a few months earlier, its combat capabilities had lagged far behind those of America's carriers.
But everything had changed the moment the Nuclear-Powered Engine was successfully developed.
Had the carrier not already entered naval service, and had replacing its propulsion system not been so troublesome, it would never have had the chance to take part in this operation.
Although its propulsion system had not been replaced, it carried two newly modified fighters equipped with Nuclear-Powered Engines and inscribed with Flight Formations. They were the latest model: the First-Generation Sun-Chaser, or Sun-Chaser 21 for short.
The name Sun-Chaser 21 came from the tale of Kua Fu Chasing the Sun in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
Its performance already surpassed that of current fifth-generation fighters. Whether in speed, agility, or payload capacity, it outclassed them across the board—and even the sixth-generation fighters that might emerge in the future.
Most importantly, its endurance utterly eclipsed that of every existing fighter.
Put simply, it could fly to any corner of the earth it wanted to reach.
And it needed no aerial refueling whatsoever.
The emergence of the Nuclear-Powered Engine had reduced the usefulness of aircraft carriers, those formidable weapons of war, to a minimum.
Because of this, the Xia Kingdom had even stopped researching seagoing aircraft carriers.
Instead, it had turned its efforts toward Aerospace Carriers—or, rather, spaceships.
Beyond the emergence of the Nuclear-Powered Engine, the Nuclear-Powered Maglev Train had also given the Xia Kingdom's scientists a great deal to study and draw upon. The Shimen County Research Base had now