The young ground crew stood at attention and saluted the pilot who had climbed onto the wing of the aircraft. The pilot also returned a standard military salute after getting into the cabin.
In front of the FW-190 fighter jet's slender nose, the propeller slowly began to rotate, faster and faster, and eventually all the blades seemed to disappear.
In the airport tower, the commander held the intercom to remind the pilots to check the instruments on their planes, and the officer on the runway directing the plane to take off waved the flag in his hand.
Pushing the output rod of the engine, the FW-190 fighter jet rushed to the end of the runway like an arrow from the string. Then the landing gear left the ground and was slowly retracted into the body of the aircraft.
In the slightly bumpy plane, the pilot, who was leaning on his seat, looked down from the side at the land getting further and further away from him, watching the buildings on the ground shrink to the size of a matchbox.
In order to support the offensive of frontline troops, all field airports were built less than 30 kilometers away from the frontline, so these FW-190 fighter jets had just begun to climb and could almost see the enemy's forward positions.
"Attention to the formation! Attention to the formation!" The pilot of the FW-190 fighter jet with an aerial bomb mounted under the belly was hovering over his own airport and contacting his wingman through the radio.
This is how he learned during training, the two-plane formation would cover each other and use dives to drop bombs as accurately as possible to attack targets on the ground.
"Radio test! Repeat!" In the ground control tower, the commander holding the walkie-talkie looked nervous because this was his first time commanding his troops to participate in actual combat.
"The instruments are normal! The engine temperature is normal!" Above the sky, the pilots were also very nervous. They checked their instruments over and over again and controlled their aircraft to form a larger flight formation.
Soon, a ground attack force consisting of more than thirty fighter jets gathered in the sky and flew densely towards the Qi army's position.
Because there is no need to take into account the enemy's air force interception, all aircraft are performing ground attack missions this time, and the fighter jets are also equipped with bombs and do not use auxiliary fuel tanks.
…
Cyric, a steward, hurriedly delivered a telegram from the Tang Kingdom to Sophia. He was very nervous, and his voice seemed to be trembling: "Sir, the news that was just sent..."
"What's going on?" Sophia frowned and asked when she saw her subordinates were in such a panic.
"Two days ago, someone, someone saw, countless... strange aircraft flying to the front line..." The steward handed the message to Sophia.
Sofia took the telegram and continued to ask: "What? What happened two days ago, why are you reporting it today?"
The informants she arranged in the Tang Kingdom cost a lot of money. They were all reliable people, and the promised benefits were frighteningly high.
In order to spy on Tang Mo's intelligence, Sophia actually spent all her money. She finally established an intelligence system for Datang that had begun to take shape, but this system made the intelligence two days late at such a critical moment!
"Sir, Your Majesty! Tang State closed all the telegraph offices a few days ago, and they only lifted the ban today... We, our people can only..." the manager in charge of intelligence explained quickly.
"Asshole! Didn't I send someone to send them a wireless station? Why not use it?" Sophia was a little furious, and it was obvious that she was unwilling to accept the other party's explanation.
"According to your arrangement, that radio station was deployed in Tongcheng... But, these, these aircraft, did not go to Tongcheng at that time." The steward quickly defended himself: "It was Linshui.
The spy saw it, and then he immediately sent someone to deliver a message to Tongcheng. It was only the people in Tongcheng who sent the news."
"Aircraft...airplane...it seems that not only us, but also the Tang State is also researching aircraft...and it is researching faster than us." Sophia had a gloomy face, knowing that things were starting to get out of control.
She supported Qi's 70 airships, originally hoping that these airships could play some role at critical moments.
But now it seems that these airships in Qi may be facing a very passive situation: the enemy actually has aircraft, and it seems there are quite a lot of them.
Combined with the previous legends that flying dragons and other things could often be seen near Dragon Island and Dongwan Island, Sophia finally confirmed that Tang's aircraft research started very early and progressed quite quickly.
If the Tang Army really had so many planes, it would not be easy to determine the outcome of this war. Sophia narrowed her eyes and felt the pressure from the unknown for the first time.
…
"What is that?" Pointing to a small black spot in the sky, a Qi soldier asked his comrades beside him with a confused expression.
Obviously his comrades didn't know what it was. They just heard the hum of the engine and saw some black spots on the horizon, getting closer to their position.
Then, everyone saw those strange weapons flying in the sky that looked like the word "Shi".
The Qi soldiers, who didn't even know what was going on these days, raised their heads and looked stupidly at the black spots approaching, and then began to swoop down from the sky one after another.
"Besides airships and balloons, have you seen anything that can fly?" A commander of the Qi Army picked up a telescope and looked at the black spots in the sky coming from the direction of the Tang Dynasty.
The officer standing next to the regiment leader shook his head. He didn't know what could fly in the sky so naturally and so quickly.
Seeing those black spots in the shape of the word "Shi" getting closer and bigger, the roar of the engine became more and more clear.
It is a pity that no one of these Qi soldiers who saw a plane for the first time even reacted. Everyone just stood in the trenches, stupidly looking up at the sky, watching the planes flying over their heads.
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"Dive! Dive!" the voice of the lead pilot roared loudly in the earphones. The plane bumped violently due to the disturbance of the airflow. The enemy positions directly under the nose of the plane were filled with panicked Qi soldiers.
"Chug, chug!" Without the slightest hesitation, just like in training, the pilot pulled the trigger, the cannon on the wing began to roar, and a row of tracer bullets was swept to the ground.
A series of white smoke connected into twisted lines on the ground, and all the Qi troops near this white smoke suddenly fell on their backs.
The pilot, who had long been extremely proficient in everything, pulled up his fighter jet. The body of the heavy fighter jet, which was loaded with bombs, slowly leveled out amidst the roar, and then slowly climbed up.
For these Tang pilots, they have become numb to such attacks. Ever since they changed to this new type of combat, they have to train similar attack subjects every day.
How to cut into the attack angle, how to fire at the most appropriate height, and how to pull up the aircraft at a safe height have all become muscle memory for them.
"Buzz..." Due to the violent maneuver, the sound of the engine suddenly changed. The two FW-190 fighter jets covering each other climbed up one after another and left at lightning speed.
"Drop the bomb!" On the other side, the second batch of FW-190 fighter jets entering the battlefield found a high-value target on the ground. The pilot in the cabin shouted the order, and then simultaneously pressed the switch to drop the bomb.
As the plane dived, the aerial bombs hanging on the pylons separated from the fuselage with inertia and hit the ground along the direction of the plane's advance.
Suddenly, the FW-190 fighter jet lifted up as lightly as a butterfly and flew away in full view of everyone.
The wingman following the FW-190 fighter jet did not waste ammunition. After strafing the ground, he also pulled up the nose of the aircraft to avoid the fireball that had exploded on the ground.
Under the same weight conditions, an aerial bomb has much more charge than an artillery shell. The bomb mounted on the FW-190 fighter jet hit the ground and exploded instantly, creating a huge flame.
A black smoke column rose into the sky, and a 200 mm caliber heavy gun next to the explosion point was affected by the shock wave and tilted to one side.
…
On the ground, the Qi army, who could not react at all, was completely frightened by the sight before them. They had been fighting for a lifetime, or they had been ancestral for hundreds of years, but they had never heard of anything that could fight in the sky.
They used to think that airships were almost the most terrifying aerial weapons in the world, but only today did they know what exactly can be called terrifying!
There is no way to defend against those things that come and go like the wind, and the anti-aircraft guns originally prepared for ballooning have no way to aim at them.
The rocker arm was deliberately adjusted for accuracy after three turns before the muzzle was slightly raised a few millimeters. How could it be possible to aim at these things whizzing by at such a calibration speed?
The desperate Qi soldiers suddenly began to collapse, because these planes from Tang not only dropped bombs to destroy the artillery and attack the barracks, but even strafed the soldiers on the ground from time to time.
These demons flying in the sky are like vultures, hovering above people's heads and swooping down to eat their flesh and blood.
"They are here again!" A Qi soldier ran away with his head in his hands, shouting in despair. But he was just one of thousands of Qi soldiers who were already in confusion.
They waited for their opponents for five days, originally thinking that they were waiting for enemy artillery fire and soldiers who rushed forward to die.
As a result, what they were waiting for was a strange bird they had never seen before, a strange bird that could fly above their heads and drop bombs!
"How... how can we fight this battle?" The commander of the Qi Army, who was watching the strange birds swoop down to drop bombs and strafe his position, looked at his deputy, his tone full of despair.
"I...I don't know either..." His assistant also had a dull look on his face, as if his soul had been taken away.