Battle of the Third Reich

The **** battle over St Margaret was in full swing, and the Royal Air Force went all out for it. ●⌒,.

When the order from London was communicated to the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, Lieutenant General Charles Porter thought it was a bad joke from a drunk **** in London.

Because similar things happened before, some stupid rookie telegraphers made out some messy messages during training, and occasionally sent out because of operational errors.

But then he received a phone call from Doudin, Royal Air Force Chief of Staff Newwall, and Churchill himself. The request was very urgent, the attitude was very sincere, and the wording was very strict, so that Porter deeply understood The situation is very bad.

The war has reached such a level that we must say that the Royal Air Force has really done 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 commander-in-chief knows, and it has already gone beyond the scope of the term at the end of the crossbow.

The strength of Porter is very embarrassing. In the early British-German air strangulation battle, a large number of pilots were transferred into the Air Force fighter force, many of them are experienced veterans. Because of the power of Dowtin at the time, Churchill was almost in Unconditionally supporting all his orders, the bomber command simply had no way to refuse Doudin’s request.

Porter could not even complain to him about his opinions and views, because all the orders were signed by Churchill and the wartime cabinet. Any contrary opinion challenged the authority of these people in the British political environment at that time. In the middle, this kind of behavior is self-defeating, even if you are a lieutenant general.

So far, Porter can only break his teeth and swallow into his stomach. The situation is urgent. According to Churchill, this is the time when the crisis is in danger. The future of Britain depends on this hammer tonight. This clearly put all the pots on the back of the bomber troops. Porter's psychology at the time was simply inexplicable, 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, maybe he can appeal his grievance afterwards. But now you must shut up.

The efficiency of the bomber command is not high. This is a common problem of the entire British bureaucratic system. Even if it is a matter of burning eyebrows, the British still have to complete all procedures with seventeen or eight official seals, otherwise they will violate military regulations. Even if you win, you have to go to the military court.

The Fighter Command received certain privileges because of Churchill's backing, and it became a small dictatorship of Dowding. The efficiency has been significantly improved. But the bomber was only used by Churchill as a political tool. At that time, he did not have the concept of strategic bombing. The heavy losses on the French front line made him lose confidence in the bomber forces. He did not believe that these vulnerable guys could end the war. .

After all, the general idea of ​​the British at that time was still based on the theory of World War I, and regarded the bomber as the support force of the ground forces. In Churchill's mind, the value of the bomber at this time is to attack the German mainland remotely. No matter what is being bombed, just drop the bomb and hear the movement.

Because this means that the British have no purely passive resistance. The British also had the ability to fight back and burn the war to the enemy's land. This will not only encourage the morale of the domestic people, but also cause international repercussions, eliminate the negative effects of the previous series of failures, and provide some public opinion help for Britain to gain support on the other side of the Atlantic.

After being expelled from the European continent, the British Air Force’s strategy was to fully shrink, specializing in iron wall defense, and to provide resources to the Royal Air Force, regardless of whether it is manpower or material resources, priority is given to fighter forces. At this time, the development of the British bomber forces not only stalled, but also began to shrink gradually.

Reserve pilot training has stalled. The in-service personnel were transferred to the Coastal Defense Command and the fighter force, especially the loss of logistics personnel. Some experienced engine mechanics were transferred from their names, resulting in a linear decline in the quality of bomber maintenance. During training and actual combat, air dangers continue to occur.

Until the end, even the fuel supplied was given priority to the fighters. Many squadron commanders simply stopped their flight training. Anyway, they did not expect any combat missions. The bomber crew members were lying in the sun outside the barracks, and some were not willing to be lonely. The guys started to indulge in flirting with the flowers of the women’s service team, and some ambitious people began to hang around in the pilot club to rely on beer and whiskey to escape reality.

Although every month to maintain the operation of the plant. To protect the interests of arms manufacturers, many bombers are still sent to the assembly line, but the models are still the old, weak and sick. More sadly because of the shortage of production materials, there are simplified versions of the old, weak and sick.

These simplified versions of bombers use a lot 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 have to be processed by arcs are directly stretched because of insufficient material extension. Changed to a right angle plane. At the request of the war cabinet, the factory installed a lot of machine gun self-defense firepower on the fuselage, but it was considered that there was no merit except that the weight of the fuselage was increased in vain, because there were so many crew members, there was no Extra manpower is needed to manipulate those things.

The situation of severely fabricated engines is serious, increasing the consumption of fuel and lubricating oil, and the increase in the weight of the fuselage. The range and bomb capacity of these simplified bombers have dropped significantly, and the failures continue. In the end, almost no pilot Willing to drive this waste, can only throw it on both sides of the runway as a decoration to fool the ignorant civilians.

The British bomber force was once ambitious. It was constantly dispatched in the early days of the war, attacking the European continent remotely, and attacking German troops and logistics systems on the French front. As a result, the Luftwaffe gave the British bomber pilots a nightmarish lesson to let them know what they were driving and how fragile they were in front of the fighter. In the end, most of the students were left by the Germans. Many People stayed on that land forever, and only a few people obtained a certificate of completion, and returned to the UK alive.

Since the Battle of Dunkirk, British bomber forces no longer went to the French front for bombing, because this kind of operation has no meaning. They can only rely on a bunch of bombers whose performance is completely unsuitable for modern warfare. The headlines on Fleet Street show that they still exist.

Some cutting-edge light bombers were deployed into the Coast Defense Command. Used to attack German transport ships and German navy small 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 single-engine bombers. The last plane was a tragedy. Representative products that have been outdated since they were built, similar cases abound in British weapons production. Anyway, they are the products of closed-door manufacturing, and the decayed reflection of the British Empire.

That night, the Royal Air Force bomber unit was like an old engine, and after a long time of tossing, it began to run. Everyone knows that the situation is urgent and urgent. However, the damage in the early stage has already been caused, and it is hard to return. If you want to restore it to the energy of the past, it is not a job that can be completed in one night. Parts shortages, fuel shortages, personnel shortages, and a large number of malfunctioning aircraft are backed up in the repair shop. Even if the officer pointed at his head with a revolver gun, the ground crew could only stretch out his hand and said that the plane could not take off immediately. There is a kind of killing me.

The first to react was the only sixth night bomber squadron in Porter’s hands, which consisted of four Wellington bomber squadrons that had been performing night raids on German missions. The number of people can't make up a squadron.

They have been performing combat missions for two months. It has never been replenished. The Royal Air Force finally allocated enough fuel and accessories because of their mission, but the personnel asked them to find a way to replenish themselves. This is a huge joke, they are not sailing school, they also want to go past other bomber forces to dig the foot of the wall, but the other party often turned their heads when they heard their terrible casualty rate, and finally because of too many contacts, the reputation was worn out , Hear the name of this brigade, everyone will avoid the plague god.

This unit finally lived up to Porter's expectations. After the night came to Britain, it roared into the vast sky. At this time, an hour had passed since the bomber command received the London order. They were the first British aircraft to reach St Margaret Beach.

The British navigation station that the Germans have been worried about has not played much role. Because the directional navigation beam of the British night bombing navigation station is aimed at the night raid bombing in Germany, the angle and position of the navigation station have been rigorously calculated. Now that the target is the British mainland, the position of these navigation stations will change. It's awkward, the beam angle and width are limited, and I can only barely take the plane in the right direction. Where is the specific goal, please ask the pilots to find it themselves.

As a result, these million-dollar navigation stations were not as useful as the several searchlights in Reichenau. Subsequent British bombers could see the snow-white searchlight columns that illuminated half of the sky and the skylights, flashing anti-aircraft guns from a distance. Smoke cloud. The British pilot was like a moth seeing a fire in the wilderness, rushing towards the death trap.

The German ground anti-aircraft fire surprised the first group of Wellington aircraft arriving. They had never seen any radar fire control anti-aircraft system before, because this is still a super advanced secret weapon in Germany. Berlin’s anti-aircraft group has not yet Time to configure, the first batch of trial production products all made the head of state transferred to the French front. But if they are able to go back alive from this trap this time, maybe they will be able to see the system again next time they bomb Berlin, the Germans have accumulated sufficient experimental data on the front line, and soon these improved radar models will be able to Mass production, and assigned to all local air defense artillery units.

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

The latest German anti-aircraft gun is equipped with an automatic fuze loading system. This is a small electronically controlled mechanical device. The shape is like an iron box with a keyhole. There are two pointer dials on it, showing the settings in the machine at this time. parameter. When the radar intercepts the target data, it automatically enters the parameters into the firing commander, and then the piloting device calculates and then displays the firing parameters required by each gun to the firing dial through the cable, and enters the fuze setting parameters into this automatic setting device.

Before firing, the gunner only needs to cram the bullet fuze of the projectile into this setting instrument, and it can automatically adjust the delayed explosion 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 projectile is quite terrible. Many people forget that it is an antiaircraft gun. In fact, the number of pilots who died under the 88 gun far exceeded the tank driver, and the total value of the aircraft was much more than the tank destroyed by it. Until the end of the war, the arrogants of the sky were still in awe of this terrible anti-aircraft weapon, and the sky-covered anti-aircraft clouds still often awakened them from their dreams, screaming the number 88 and burst into tears.

The Wellington fleet suffered an extremely cruel blow. Imagine that a high-explosive shrapnel exploded in the air about ten meters away from the plane. There was only a thin layer of canvas skin between you and this murderous weapon. It didn't even have time to feel the explosion. Thousands of broken steel fragments and metal projectiles had already penetrated the layer of canvas at the speed of seven times the speed of sound and shot at the machinery, equipment, ammunition and your body behind the cloth.

Even the complex mesh-like damage-resistant structure of Wellington has been beaten to pieces. In an instant, more than ten planes were hit hard, one of the bombers was torn from the back of the wing into two pieces, and immediately rolled down and fell. Two other Wellingtons were hit by shrapnel into the engine. The broken fuel pipe ejected fuel and poured onto the hot engine exhaust pipe. Two seconds later, the wing had burned into a ball of fire. The pilot risked and tried to control it. Turn the plane away from the formation to avoid the explosion and the safety of teammates. (To be continued.)