"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" A pilot, holding his parachute, was running and urging the ground crew following him.
The young man on the ground was holding an orange life jacket and a fuel rod that could burn violently, and ran with him towards his plane.
They were running and putting on their equipment. The alarms in the base were blaring, and all the pilots on duty were already preparing for an attack.
On the runway, planes were refueling one after another, and ground crews were running back and forth holding tubes.
The special cars used to hang ammunition for bombers were loaded with bombs and drove tremblingly past the aircraft that were preparing. The ground crews were busy taking down the 500 kilograms of aerial bombs from their racks.
Technical workers constantly check the status of the aircraft. All instruments must be normal and the engine must be in a good working range before it can carry out bombing missions.
There were shouts and gestures everywhere, and the planes that were first prepared were already being pushed towards the long take-off runway.
The Stuka dive bomber is ready. Although the range of this aircraft is not as good as the Flying Fortress and the load capacity is not large enough, it has one advantage, that is, it is accurate enough!
In the era before missiles, how to accurately drop bombs on the enemy's head from high altitude has always been a topic, a difficult topic that has left countless engineers scratching their heads.
In order to solve this problem, dive bombers came into being, shortening the distance of bombing as much as possible, lowering the height of bombing, and aiming at the target with the nose of the aircraft. In this era, dive bombers are the most accurate solution for air-to-ground attacks.
The same is true for the sea! Dive bombers can drop bombs as close as possible to the battleship, and the bombing accuracy is obviously higher than that of the Flying Fortress.
But this time, Flying Fortress will also participate in the attack mission. These huge aircraft will attack the enemy in a rare and desperate way.
"The Stuka dive bombers will attack first! If they paralyze the enemy's fleet, we can more easily carry out low-altitude bombing!" Under the wing of the Flying Fortress, the officer in charge of the frontline command emphasized this to all pilots participating in the battle.
The discipline of a bombing.
The tactics they adopted were very crazy, relying solely on the fact that the enemy did not have any decent anti-aircraft firepower.
"All flight altitudes are set at 1,000 meters! We must maintain the formation! If the enemy attacks with anti-air weapons, evasive actions are not allowed!" He said, gesturing, and kept repeating the need to maintain the formation.
a little.
Carpet bombing, covering the enemy fleet with bombs like raindrops, may have been a crazy tactic in early air-to-sea combat.
After the officer finished speaking, he did not forget to comfort these nervous pilots: "Theoretically, the enemy does not have powerful anti-aircraft weapons! The Maxim machine gun is the best weapon they can find!"
You must know that the Flying Fortress is not suitable for low-altitude bombing. This can indeed ensure the bombing coverage efficiency. However, for such a huge aircraft, low-altitude bombing also means considerable risks.
"Keep dropping bombs at a high altitude! Destroy these warships with carpet bombing! We only have one chance to attack! I don't want to waste any of it!" The officer continued to emphasize that after their bombing was over, night would come and they could no longer continue bombing.
This is the fleet.
On the other side, ground crew technicians were explaining escape techniques to the navigator and other aircraft crew members: "If you are shot down, try your best to pull your plane to a safe position and crash it! The sea is very flat, and your plane can fly on the sea.
Float for ten minutes!”
In fact, in the past ten days, the Longdao factory has manufactured many thoughtful gadgets for aircraft performing maritime combat missions.
These equipments had just been manufactured not long ago, and although they were often mentioned in daily training, in this large-scale actual combat, the staff still took the trouble to repeat how to use these new equipments.
"Pay attention here! This is an inflatable lifeboat! Next to it! There is a cylinder! Do you see the valve above? It can help you quickly inflate the lifeboat!" The ground staff holding the compressed gas bottle raised it
With the gas bottle in his hand, the instructor pointed to the valve above and shouted to everyone.
"Be careful with the order of use! Don't mess up! First open the straps that fix the lifeboat, and then inflate! If you inflate it first, the straps may tear the lifeboat!" The explainer raised what looked like explosives in his other hand.
An inflatable lifeboat as big as a bag, he pointed to the straps tied horizontally and vertically on it and said.
He kept opening the straps, and then unscrewed the valve on the inflatable bottle: "If the sequence is correct, the lifeboat will open! Then you can wait for the subsequent search and rescue at sea! If you have not completed the steps of inflating the lifeboat,
Then you can only soak in the water! Do you understand?"
"Our patrol opportunities are always nearby! The navy's search ship will be here soon! You can light your fuel rods when you hear the sound of the ship or see the ship!" As he said, a man standing next to the commentator
The female ground crew shook the long orange stick in her hand and shouted.
This thing contains combustion accelerants such as magnesium, which can burn quickly, emit dazzling light, and emit thick smoke. It is an artifact that indicates one's position.
After she finished speaking, she pointed to the whistle hanging on the life jacket on her shoulder: "Every soldier has a whistle on his shoulder! When you encounter search and rescue ships or airplanes, you can blow this whistle to increase the number of people found.
The probability!"
"Hey! Beauty, is there really an airplane that can hear the whistle?" A pilot shouted with a wry smile, questioning this apparently useless device.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Otherwise, do you have any better ideas? We have used all the methods we can think of! You'd better not be shot down! Do you understand? Don't be shot down!
"This female ground staff member, who was not exactly beautiful but also very strong, looked at him and answered his question.
"The Flying Fortress has a very solid body! It is impossible for the Maxim heavy machine gun to shoot you down under normal circumstances! Pay attention to the altitude! Follow the plane in front! That's it!" Seeing that the pilot's side has disbanded, the ground crew headed here
The officer also began to make final summaries.
He clapped his hands: "Theoretically, the enemy has no anti-aircraft weapons! So you just need to drop bombs!"
"The dive bombers will be the first to attack and destroy the air defense capabilities of the enemy warships! By that time, their warships should have emitted smoke, burst into flames, and exploded. No one will attack you! It's actually very safe!" After that, he made a
With a disbanding gesture, the crew members gathered around them ran towards their respective planes.
The Stuka pilot who was watching the explanation from the Flying Fortress got into the cockpit and complained to the helping ground crew: "Damn, those Flying Fortress pilots have lifeboats and inflatable bottles, what do we have? This
Torn vest?”
"This thing can at least scare away sharks. It's orange-red. I heard that sharks don't like this color." The ground staff helped him put on his hat and comforted him.
The pilot didn't buy it at all: "What nonsense? Disguise yourself as a swimming carrot? And then pray to sharks not to become vegetarians? Stop making trouble, who came up with all this?"
There is no such thing as carrot in this world, so the long orange-red radish is called carrot...
The ground crew smiled and patted the pilot on the shoulder: "Hehehehe! If you are afraid of death, fly back and blow all our enemies into the sea and let them feed the sharks!" After saying that, he turned around to help the machine guns behind him.
The pilot, or navigator, has gone.
"Yes! Let them feed the sharks!" the pilot echoed loudly with a smile.
"Hahahaha!" the pilot also laughed.
On another Stuka aircraft on the other side, the pilot had already pressed the intercom and loudly tested: "Radio test!"
The voice from the tower came very clearly: "The radio test is completed! The call is normal! The channel is very clean!"
The pilot was also very satisfied with the signal: "I can hear it! Control tower, control tower, the signal is very clear!"
Because a very long communication antenna can be pulled on the back of the aircraft's crest, and it flies in the sky where signal interference is relatively weak, the aircraft's radio communications are actually much less disruptive than the interference of tank troops.
From the tower, the order to approve takeoff came: "You can take off! Pay attention to receiving radio navigation signals."
"Understood!" The pilot adjusted the plane and steered the plane toward the runway. The engine was already spinning very hard, and the propeller also disappeared from the pilot's field of vision due to its rapid rotation.
"The pilot's flying fortress is at your 3 o'clock position!" As the plane rushed out of the runway and left the ground, the tower's reminder came from the earphones.
"Climb! I'm in front of you!" The lead aircraft in front is already on standby in the air: "Climb, climb! Start formation!"
"Are you kidding? We still have fighter escorts?" While climbing, the Stuka pilot saw a formation of Butcher fighter jets in the sky.
"They are not escort fighters. They perform attack missions just like you! However, they are responsible for covering." The navigator behind him explained.
"Cover?" the pilot mumbled in surprise. He didn't think these fighter jets had any ability to attack the sea.
"Yes, cover!" The navigator nodded and affirmed, regardless of whether the pilot could see him.
"I hope they won't cause trouble." The pilot gave up questioning and controlled the plane to catch up with the leader in front. The black Stuka dive bomber group rushed towards the distant horizon.