Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 109: Bombing

The **** battle over St Margaret is in full swing, and the Royal Air Force is going all out for it. www.geiliwx.com

When the London order was passed to the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, Lieutenant General Charles Porter thought it was a nasty joke made by a drunk **** in London.

Because there have been similar incidents before, some stupid rookie operators typed out some random messages during training, and occasionally sent them out due to operational errors.

But then he received calls from Dowding from the Fighter Command, Newell, the Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force, and Churchill himself. The request was very urgent, the attitude was very sincere, and the wording was very strict, which made Portel deeply understand. Learned that the situation is very bad.

The war has been fought to the present level, and it cannot be said that the Royal Air Force has really tried its best. It is not that they are not brave enough, but that the enemy is too cruel.

The situation of the bomber command is actually worse than what the German command headquarters knows, and it has long gone beyond the scope of the term "end of the crossbow."

Portel’s forces at hand were very embarrassing. In the early Anglo-German air strangulation battle, a large number of pilots were recruited into the Air Force fighter force. Many of them were experienced veterans. Because of Dowding’s power at the time, Churchill Almost unconditionally supporting all his orders, the bomber command has no way to refuse Dowding's request.

Portel could not even appeal his opinions and opinions to the above, because all orders are signed by Churchill and the war cabinet, and any opinions to the contrary are challenging the authority of these people. At the time, the British In the political environment of China, this behavior is self-defeating. Even if you are a prominent lieutenant general.

At this point, Portel can only smash his teeth and swallow it in his stomach. The situation is urgent. According to Churchill, this is a critical moment of survival. Britain’s future depends on the hammer tonight. This obviously put all the pots on the backs of the bomber troops. Portel's psychology at the time was simply inexplicable grief and indignation, but as a professional soldier, he must be concerned about the overall situation. The only thing he can do now is to do everything possible to complete the tasks assigned by his superiors. Perhaps he can appeal his grievances afterwards, but he must shut up now.

The efficiency of the bomber command is not high. This is a common problem in the entire British bureaucracy. Even if it is a matter of burning eyebrows, the British still have to affix seventeen or eight official seals to complete all procedures. Otherwise, it is a violation of military regulations and even if they win, they must go to a military court. .

Because of Churchill's backing, the Fighter Command received certain privileges. It has become a small dictatorship of Dowding, and its efficiency has been significantly improved. However, the bomber was only used by Churchill as a political tool. At that time, he had not developed the concept of strategic bombing. The heavy losses on the French front line made him lose confidence in the bomber force. He did not believe that relying on these fragile guys could end the war. .

After all, the general thinking of the British at that time was still based on the theory of World War I, and they regarded bombers as a support force for ground forces. In Churchill's mind, the value of the bomber at this time was to attack the German mainland from a long distance, no matter what was in the bombing. Just drop the bomb and hear the movement.

Because this means that the British did not simply resist passively. The British still have the ability to counterattack and burn the flames of war on the enemy's land. This can not only boost the morale of the domestic people. And it can also cause international repercussions, eliminate the negative impact of a series of failures in the early stage, and provide some public opinion help for Britain to obtain support from the other side of the Atlantic.

After being driven out of the European continent, the British Air Force’s strategy was to fully shrink, focusing on the defense of the iron wall and providing resources to the Royal Air Force. Both manpower and material resources are given priority to the fighter force. At this time, the development of the British bomber force not only came to a halt, but also began to shrink.

Reserve pilot training has stalled. The in-service personnel were transferred to the coastal defense command and fighter forces, especially the loss of logistics personnel. Some experienced engine mechanics were transferred away by name. As a result, the maintenance quality of the bomber dropped sharply, and aerial dangers continued to occur during training and actual combat.

Until the end, even the fuel supply was given priority to the fighter units. Many squadron leaders simply stopped flying training. Anyway, they did not expect to receive any combat missions. The bomber crew members lay bored outside the barracks, basking in the sun. Some unwilling guys began to indulge in flirting with the ladies of the women's service team, while some ambitious began to hang around in the pilot club and rely on beer and whiskey to escape reality.

Although many bombers are sent down the assembly line every month in order to maintain the operation of the factory and protect the interests of the arms manufacturers, the models are still old, weak and sick. What's more sad is that because of the shortage of production materials, there are simplified versions of those old, weak, sick and disabled.

These simplified bombers use a large number of laminates and iron sheets, and even hardened pulp boards. The factory replaces expensive aluminum alloys with these cheap materials. The parts on the body that must be arced are due to the ductility of the material. Not enough, directly changed to a right-angled plane. At the request of the cabinet during the war, the factory installed a lot of machine gun self-defense firepower on the fuselage, but it is considered that there is no merit at all except for the weight of the fuselage, because there are so many crew members, and there is no Redundant hands manipulate those things.

The condition of poorly built engines is serious, fuel and lubricating oil consumption are increased, and the weight of the airframe increases, the range and ammunition of these simplified bombers have been greatly reduced, and the failures continue, and in the end there is almost no Any pilot who is willing to drive these wastes can only throw them on both sides of the runway as furnishings to fool ignorant civilians.

The British bomber forces used to be very ambitious. In the early days of the war, they were constantly dispatched to attack the European continent and attack the German troops and logistics systems on the French front. As a result, the Luftwaffe gave a nightmare lesson to British bomber pilots, letting them know what they were driving and how fragile they were in front of fighter jets. In the end, most of the students were detained by the Germans. People stay on that land forever. Only a few people obtained the certificate of completion and returned to Britain alive.

Since the Battle of Dunkirk, the British bomber units no longer go to the French frontline bombing, because this kind of battle has no meaning, they can only rely on a bunch of bombers whose performance is completely unsuitable for modern warfare to attack at night Mainland Germany. The front page headlines on Fleet Street show that they still exist.

Some cutting-edge light bombers were deployed to the Coast Defense Command to attack German transport ships and small German naval combat ships in the strait. This type of aircraft includes most of the Blenheim light bombers, almost Half of the Hampton light bombers and all Fairey combat single-engine bombers, the last aircraft is simply a tragedy, a representative product that has been outdated since its completion. Similar cases abound in the production of weapons in the UK. Anyway, they are the product of behind closed doors, a reflection of the corruption of the British Empire.

That night, the British Royal Air Force bomber unit was like an old engine, and it took a long time before it started to babble. Everyone knows that the situation is urgent and urgent, but the previous damage has already been done. Hard to return. Wanting to restore its former vitality is not something that can be done overnight. Parts shortages, fuel shortages, personnel shortages, and a large number of malfunctioning aircraft are backlogged in the repair shop. Even if the officer held a revolver at his head, the ground crew could only spread their hands and say that the plane could not take off immediately. You can kill me.

The first to respond was the sixth night bomber squadron, the only one in Portel's hand that could be on the table, consisting of four Wellington bomber squadrons that had been performing night attacks on Germany. In fact, the total number of aircraft in the four squadrons now does not make up one squadron.

They have been on combat missions for two months, but they have never been replenished. The Royal Air Force has finally allocated enough fuel and accessories for their missions. However, the personnel have to find a way to supplement. This is simply a big joke. They are not the flight school. They also wanted to dig through the walls of other bomber units, but they often turned their heads and ran away when they heard their terrible casualties. In the end, their reputation was pierced out because of too many contacts. . Hearing the name of this brigade, everyone will avoid it like a plague god.

This force finally lived up to Porter's expectations. After night fell on Britain, it roared and flew into the vast starry sky. At this time, an hour has passed since the bomber command received the order from London. They were the first British planes to reach the sky over St. Margaret Beach.

The British navigation station, which the Germans have been worried about, did not play much role, because the directional navigation beam of the British night bombing navigation station was aimed at the night bombing of the German mainland, and the angle and position of the navigation station were set strictly. Calculating, now that the target is the British mainland, the location of these navigation stations has become very awkward. The beam angle and width are restricted, and the aircraft can only be barely taken in the correct direction. Where is the specific target? Please ask the pilots to find them themselves.

As a result, these million-expensive navigation stations are not as useful as the searchlights in Reichenau. Follow-up British bombers can see the snow-white searchlight column that illuminates half the sky and the flares in the sky from a distance. Antiaircraft gun smoke cloud. The British pilots were like moths in the wild seeing a fire, rushing towards the death trap.

German ground air defense firepower surprised the first Wellington fleet that arrived. They had never seen what is called a radar fire control anti-aircraft artillery system, because it is still a super-advanced secret weapon in Germany, the Berlin anti-aircraft artillery group. Before the deployment, the first batch of products in trial production all brought the head of state to the French front. But if they can get back from this trap alive this time, maybe they will see this system again when they bomb Berlin next time. The German army has accumulated sufficient experimental data on the front lines, and soon these improved radar models will be able to Mass production, and assigned to all local anti-aircraft artillery units.

The power of the 88mm anti-aircraft gun combined with the radar is far more powerful than the simple one plus one equals two, but a geometric coefficient rise. In the past, it may take three to five shots to calibrate the height of the fleet. This time, the first round of bombing directly smashed the shells into the middle of the fleet of British bombers. This result is disastrous, only for the crew of the British bomber.

The latest German anti-aircraft artillery is equipped with an automatic fuze mounting system. This is a small electronically controlled mechanical device. It looks like an iron box with a keyhole. There are two pointer dials on it to show that the mechanical The setting parameters. When the radar intercepts target data, it automatically enters the parameters into the shooting commander, and then the commander calculates and displays the shooting parameters required by each gun on the shooting dial through the cable, and at the same time inputs the fuze setting parameters into this automatic setting device.

Before shooting, the gunner only needs to insert the warhead fuze part of the projectile into this setting device, and it can automatically adjust the delayed detonation time of the fuze, so that the projectile explodes at the required time, that is, when it reaches the height of the target.

The power of the 88mm shell is quite terrible. Many people forget that it is an anti-aircraft gun. In fact, the number of pilots who died under the 88 gun is far more than the tanker, and the total value of the aircraft is far more than that of the destroyers. tank. Until the end of the war~IndoMTL.com~ Those proud of the sky are still in awe of this terrible air defense weapon. The sky cannon clouds still often wake them up from their dreams, shouting the number 88 and crying. Full of face.

The Wellington fleet suffered an extremely cruel blow. Imagine a high-explosive grenade exploded in the air about ten meters from the plane. There is only a thin canvas covering between you and the killing weapon. Skin, you didn’t even have time to feel the explosion. Thousands of broken steel fragments and metal projectiles have penetrated the canvas and hit the machinery, equipment, ammunition and you at seven times the speed of sound. Body.

Even the complex mesh-like damage-resistant structure of Wellington was beaten to pieces. In an instant, more than ten planes were hit hard, and one of the bombers was torn into two pieces from behind the wing, and immediately rolled down. The engines of the other two Wellingtons were hit by shrapnel. The broken fuel pipe sprayed out fuel and poured it onto the hot engine exhaust pipe. Two seconds later, the wings burned into a ball of fire. The pilot took the risk and tried to control it. The aircraft turned to leave the formation to avoid an explosion that would affect the safety of teammates. (To be continued) WWW.GEILIWX.COM Happy reading every day