All carrier-based bombers in the fleet, a total of 385 aircraft, took off from 15 military airports, assembled, climbed and formed in the sky 30 kilometers southeast of Nanjing.
There are: 175 "Osprey" carrier-based dive bombers, 90 "Swan" twin-engine medium bombers, and 120 "Kingfisher" fighter jets.
For a moment, the large fleet of aircraft covered the sky and the sun, and the world was enveloped in a low roar. The people below ran out of their farmhouses and rushed to watch this magnificent spectacle that they had never seen before.
For this counterattack and to understand the siege of Nanjing, the Ming Empire dispatched more than one-third of its combat aircraft, which can be said to be a huge gamble.
The scale of air raids that humans would not have until the Battle of Britain was due to Xiang Xiaoqiang arriving six years earlier. Before that, there were generally no wars in the world in which aircraft participated on a large scale. Even during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, air battles were only small-scale.
It's a small fight, a few, or at most a dozen or so. Before today, the world's use of aircraft, the role that aircraft can play in war, and the extent to which air combat can be fought, were all still in the exploratory stage.
But after today, the whole world will have their eyes opened. Xiang Xiaoqiang will demonstrate to the old men of the Ming Dynasty Command and also to the whole world how the air combat should be fought after World War I.
In terms of the number of combat aircraft, the Manchu and Qing Dynasties currently have about 1,500 aircraft, and the Nanming currently has about 1,000 aircraft. The Nanming is at a disadvantage. But in terms of the performance of the aircraft and the training level of the pilots, the Nanming is above the Manchu and Qing Dynasties. The Manchu and Qing Dynasties
Of the 800 fighter jets in Nanming, 600 are old-fashioned biplanes. However, Nanming has 500 fighter jets and less than 200 old-fashioned biplanes. The number of new fighter jets in the two is roughly the same.
This is why the Nanming High Command dared to obey Xiang Xiaoqiang and launched a large-scale air strike in the first place. Because from now on, the competition in the aircraft industry between the two sides has begun. Although Nanming’s aviation industry technology is currently not as good as that of Britain and the United States, it is
It is significantly ahead of Beiqing and is almost on the same level as Japan. It will not suffer in the aircraft competition.
In this era, although the Ming and Qing dynasties and other countries around the world paid great attention to aircraft, Xiang Xiaoqiang knew that compared with the role that aircraft would play in war in the future, they did not pay enough attention. Far from enough.
It's time for everyone to pay attention.
…
But Xiang Xiaoqiang was no less nervous than the old men at the headquarters. After all, this was the first time that so many planes were dispatched to attack multiple targets at the same time. No country had ever done this before. Assembly, formation, deployment, liaison,
Command...everything is full of challenges.
The headquarters carefully selected 6 large airports within 200 kilometers of Qingjing. First, these airports are large enough, have enough parked planes, and are close enough to Nanming. Second, the intelligence of these airports is better.
It's relatively certain. Third, according to intelligence, there are relatively large concentrations of advanced aircraft at these airports. The Manchu and Qing Air Force's few new single-wing fighter "Haidongqing" and the twin-engine medium bomber "Wuyun" were parked in large numbers.
If a large number of them can be annihilated on the ground in these places, the balance of air power between the Ming and Qing Dynasties will be greatly improved. The most direct benefit is that we can win temporary air supremacy in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and can attack the Qing troops on the north bank without any scruples, and defeat the defenders of Nanjing.
war.
Xiang Xiaoqiang's original idea was just to mobilize dive bombers to attack the Qing army in the city. He could only rely on dive bombers. But later the idea was expanded to a grand plan to attack the airport and seize local air supremacy. He also asked the Army Aviation
Three bomber groups were dispatched, totaling 90 horizontal bombers.
The maximum bomb load of the "Osprey" dive bombers is 450 kilograms. This time, each aircraft carried two 220 kilogram bombs, responsible for point targets, such as hangars, command buildings, and anti-aircraft guns.
The "Swan" horizontal bomber is responsible for a large number of targets, which are aircraft parked in the open air. As a twin-engine bomber, the maximum bomb load of the "Swan" is relatively small, only 1,000 kilograms. In order to deal with Qing aircraft that may be parked scattered, each aircraft
Ten 100-kilogram bombs were installed, striving to be "small but numerous", with the effect of blowing up a large area.
The mission of fighter jets is of course to protect the bombers. If you are lucky and the Qing fighter jets are unable to take off in time, they will have to participate in strafing to maximize the results.
…
Xiang Xiaoqiang clearly knew how the German army bombed the Soviet airport on the first day of its 1941 raid on the Soviet Union. That air raid was a textbook. The German army specially designed a "butterfly bomb", each of which was only 2 kilograms and was as powerful as a bomb.
Medium-caliber anti-aircraft artillery shells. Each German bomber can carry hundreds of them. They are dropped densely over Soviet airports. The effect is incomparable to 10 100-kilogram bombs. As long as a vulnerable target like an aircraft hits one, it will be completely destroyed.
.
The Soviet Union lost 1,811 aircraft on the first day. 1,489 of them were destroyed by such bombs on the ground.
Xiang Xiaoqiang tried to move that kind of attack here. He quietly asked the Army Aviation Commander if there were any similar small bombs in Ming Dynasty. The answer was no.
Then, he quietly asked if he could use other things instead, such as 60mm mortar shells. The Ming Army's 60mm mortar shells can be provided in large quantities, and they happen to weigh two kilograms. Moreover, the shape of the mortar shells is very suitable, spindle-shaped.
There are tail fins, which were originally designed for falling vertically from high altitudes. If each aircraft could be equipped with hundreds of them, the bombing effect would be great.
However, the reason why Xiang Xiaoqiang asked quietly was that he knew it might be a bit fanciful. After all, mortar shells were not designed for aircraft, so there must be something wrong.
Sure enough, the Army Aviation Commander thought about it for a while and replied that I'm afraid not. He raised some very practical questions. For example, so many small bombs cannot simply be piled in the bomb bay. They will definitely require special equipment. Also, safety is a must.
There is no guarantee. You must remove the safety pins of all the shells when loading. A large number of mortar shells with the safety pins removed are piled together, plus the aircraft takes off, dives, avoids the shock waves of fighter jets, anti-aircraft guns, etc.
Due to possible vibrations, it is very likely that the bomb will explode in the bomb bay, destroying the aircraft and killing people. Or, there may be one or two bombs stuck in the bomb bay and explode when landing.
This idea is good, but the artillery shells need special processing, and special equipment must be installed in the bomb bay. Or simply specially design a small bomb... But this time it was too late.
Xiang Xiaoqiang also knew that he could not risk his own aircraft in order to kill more enemy aircraft. On the one hand, it was a moral issue, and on the other hand, after this air raid, the era of great air battles between the Ming and Qing Dynasties came. Every aircraft
They are all valuable to the Ming Dynasty, especially the valuable twin-engine bombers.
…
The Ming army's 385 aircraft were assembled in formation. In order to remain as concealed as possible, they climbed to an altitude of 6,500 meters, flew over the Yangtze River between Nanjing and Zhenjiang, and then divided their forces into three groups.
The east road flies to Dongtai Airport and Baoying Airport; the middle road flies to Sihong Airport and Fengyang Airport; the west road flies to Hefei Airport and Lu'an Airport. Generally, military airports are just one brigade with dozens of aircraft. And these six
The airports are all regiment-level airports with more than 100 aircraft. These are six daggers pointing at the defense line in the eastern section of the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze River was already behind us. After sending "good luck" radio signals to each other, the three extension groups began to disperse and enter a state of radio silence.
The center and west flight groups turned to fly west, while the east flight group continued to fly due north.
The closest flight distance is East Road. Baoying Airport is only 80 kilometers away from Nanjing and will be the first place to start.
The cockpit of the "Swan" bomber is very crowded. It is not like the later four-engine bombers, which has a large corridor from the beginning to the end, with crew positions at the front, rear, left and right, and up and down. The "Swan" has only four crew members, and they are all concentrated in the front half.
Department: Captain and pilot, nose gunner and co-pilot, rear cockpit machine gunner, bombardier.
The captain patted the co-pilot, pointed down, and motioned him to go to the nose of the plane. The co-pilot nodded, bent down and got under the captain's feet, climbed into the glass cover of the nose, hugged the machine gun handle, and tried it up, down, left, and right.
Tried it, very good.
Although the actual space inside the nose glass cover is small, the field of view is wide and there is no feeling of being cramped at all.
Now we have flown halfway, far away from the thick fog of the Yangtze River, and it is already a good cloudy weather here. Looking down from a high altitude, the land of southern Jiangsu looks like a piece of silk, densely covered with water nets, with paddy fields reflecting the setting sun, and ridges and paths in between.
Vertically and horizontally, the texture is very beautiful.
In between, there were large pieces of white clouds, like cotton wool.
The co-pilot, like most bomber pilots, was flying across the Yangtze River into Qingjing for the first time, and it was also the first real bombing. Nervous, scared, and excited, his hands in big leather gloves held the machine gun tightly, and his eyes nervously searched the surroundings.
.
So far, not a single Qing fighter has appeared. There is no black cloud of anti-aircraft guns under the belly of the aircraft.
Every member is praying: I hope it can be maintained like this until the sky above Baoying Airport.
…
The East Route aircraft group split into two again, and one part flew eastward to bomb Dongtai Airport.
Flying over Gaoyou Lake.
The vast Gaoyou Lake below is gray-yellow in color, and the setting sun sparkles like a huge mirror.
The captain looked at the direction indicator, pulled out the flight chart from under the seat, marked it a few times, then held up the oxygen mask and looked forward.
In front is the dive bomber formation. When the attack begins, they should be the first to pounce down and take out the anti-aircraft gun positions and control towers, and then their own horizontal bomber formation will drop bombs on the aircraft on the ground.
He looked up and saw a formation of fighter jets above. They were spread out in a four-by-four formation and looked very small.
Soon, the Gaoyou Lake below gradually narrowed and finally shrank into a river. - Baoying was just ahead.
The voice of the fleet leader appeared in the headphones:
"Brothers, go back and drink tonight, I'll treat you."
Then, there was a burst of relaxed laughter. Everyone knew that they had already flown over Baoying and had not seen the Qing fighter jets. Even if they took off now, it would be too late. The surprise attack was basically a success, and the remaining problem was the size of the results.
.
The voice of the leader of the dive bomber formation appeared in the earphones:
"Then you are welcome! I have long heard that the duck in Nanjing is always delicious. Haha, I must try it tonight."
The leader of the fighter formation said lukewarmly:
"I told you to be careful. If you let people beat you here, you can only eat Gaoyou preserved eggs at night."
“Gaoyou preserved eggs are also good! I haven’t tried them yet!”
At this time, black clouds began to appear below the fleet.
"Qing anti-aircraft artillery! Shut up," the fleet leader said, "It's starting. Osprey is ready."
The dive bomber leader replied:
"Osprey in position."
"Made them!"
"yes!"
The black clouds of anti-aircraft guns gradually became denser and moved upward quickly. Soon, a muffled sound of "bang bang" could be heard in the cabin, and the bulkheads were also shaken.
…
At Baoying Airport of the Qing Air Force, the air defense sirens were blaring.
Some recruits ran to the bunker very seriously, but most of them took their time. Some were still walking, some were still chatting, and some were still cleaning the plane, as if the alarm had nothing to do with them.
Although Baoying is only 80 kilometers away from the Yangtze River, like other places in Beiqing, it has never been bombed. Since the war began, because it is close to Nanming and is an important airport, air defense drills have been conducted over and over again, but the Qing army had originally
The bureaucracy is unorganized and the people are superfluous. It was quite refreshing for the first few times, but then it became numb and few people followed it seriously. Anyway, the military police stood there and didn't care, turning a blind eye. It's just that the new recruits didn't understand it when they arrived, and they were afraid of being beaten.
A veteran, he ran very seriously.
It wasn't until they heard the anti-aircraft guns ringing around them that everyone realized that this was serious!
Everyone rushed to the air-raid trench like crazy. The pilot who was standing on the plane for maintenance also jumped out, threw the plane down, and ran for his life.
Planes were parked on both sides of the runway, lined up neatly, as if they were being reviewed.
No one is trying to fly the plane.
On the anti-aircraft gun position, the artillerymen were busy firing the 75mm anti-aircraft gun. The gunner opened the barrel of the gun, ejected the smoking shell, and the loader held the shell and stuffed it in. Then the gunner shook it violently according to the data reported by the observer, making the barrel more vertical.
Target the horizontal bomber group high in the sky.
"when!"
The shells were sent into the sky, and there was another one among the dense black spots in the sky.
"Damn it," the observer cursed, "he missed grandma's house!"
"Fuck, why don't you tell me to be more accurate!"
"Hey, what is that?"
A dozen small black spots appeared in the sky, slowly getting bigger.
The gunner suddenly shouted:
"Enemy plane! Shake down quickly!"
The "little black dot" quickly turned into an airplane, roaring and swooping down. The machine guns on both wings were flashing, and smoke and dust exploded on the ground. Several bullets were eaten by the sandbags on the gun base, and a dark thing dropped straight down.
There was a loud noise and the bomb exploded ten meters away.
There was a "Woo--" sound from the top of my head, and the plane flew past my scalp and pulled up again.
Two of the artillerymen of this gun were killed on the spot, and the remaining three were lying in the sandbag fortifications, clutching their heads and not daring to move.
…
After all, the Osprey is a carrier-based bomber. The pilots are not trained to aim at such a small target. The first round of bombs thrown is generally a little off, ranging from a few meters to more than ten meters. Although there is no direct hit, the shrapnel and shock wave still kill a lot of people.
They killed the Qing artillery and made the remaining artillery lie down in the sandbags without daring to raise their heads.
The Qing army had never experienced dive bombing. It could be said that they had never experienced bombing at all. One dive bombing attack almost destroyed their morale.
The leader of the Ming army's fleet was observing from high altitude and was surprised to see that almost no anti-aircraft guns were firing so quickly. He had originally planned to let the horizontal bomber formation attract more firepower for a while.
The leader of the dive bomber was also overjoyed. He pulled the lever and ordered:
"The second wave begins!"
Then he led the remaining dozen or so Ospreys to roll over on the right side and plunge straight down.
The situation overlooking the airport is similar to what the intelligence said. This airport is basically filled with fighter jets. According to the intelligence, there should be almost 120 fighter jets at Baoying Airport, 20 of which are the new "Haitongqing" type.
There are now 40-60 aircraft lined up neatly on both sides of the runway. All that can be seen are biplanes. This is the main fighter of the Qing Air Force. It has a very cool name: Zhebie, which means sharp archer in Mongolian.
There are five small hangars and three large hangars on both sides of the runway. Probably the rest of the aircraft are in several hangars. The twenty precious "Haitongqing" should also be hidden in the hangars.
…
The first wave of fifteen "Ospreys" pulled up and climbed up again, and the second wave of fifteen "Ospreys", led by the leader, pounced on the eight hangars and the airport command building respectively.
Three dive bombers rushed toward the command building, while machine guns spitting flames, and six lines of fire danced and intertwined on the command building. The large glass window of the tower shattered instantly, and the two officers who had not had time to run down were splattered with blood on the spot.
Immediately afterwards, three 200-kilogram bombs exploded on the left, right, and center of the command building. The brick-structured two-story command building and six-story tower collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust.
The twelve "Ospreys" that pounced on the eight hangars also gained a lot. Large targets like hangars are much easier to aim than anti-aircraft guns. Two of the three large hangars each took one bomb, and one took two bombs in a row.
The plane and the oil pump were detonated and plunged into a sea of flames. Two of the five small hangars were hit by bombs and were exploding and burning. The other three were blown away. The bombs were thrown more than ten meters away, and one actually hit the runway.
airplane.
So far, every "Osprey" has dropped a bomb, and each one has one bomb left. The leader of the Osprey led the team to climb again while ordering:
"Everyone, hold on tight, don't panic, try to shoot accurately! If you are not sure, don't shoot, you can try again! ... There is no threat now, we can be more relaxed! But the result must be great!"
Nervous laughter came from the headphones:
"Haha, it's so enjoyable!"
"It's much harder than I thought!"
The original first wave of "Ospreys" had now finished climbing, and nine of them dived down again. This time with some experience, nine bombs exploded around three small hangars, hitting at least one in each hangar.
Parked in these three small hangars are 20 "Haitongqing" monoplane fighter jets. This fighter jet was specially designed by Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan for the Qing army, and its performance is equivalent to the "Kingfisher" designed by the Ming army itself.
A formidable enemy.
The reason for this name is that on the one hand "Haitongqing" is a traditional raptor of the Jurchen tribe, on the other hand the Ming Army first put into service the "Swan" medium bomber, so the Qing Air Force named its new fighter jet "Haidongqing"
.The Haidongqing is specially trained to catch swans, which means natural enemy or nemesis. Unfortunately, the 20 Haidongqing here were bombed into wreckage before they even came out of the cage.
At this point, the main mission of the dive bombers has been completed. At the command of the fleet leader, the "Osprey" formation began to assist the "Swan" formation, bombing the aircraft on the airport. Half of the 20 Kingfisher fighter jets were on high altitude vigilance, and the other half also dived down, constantly strafing anti-aircraft guns.
, don’t give them a chance to fire again.
15 "Swans" swooped down from high altitude. Because there was no threat, the altitude was kept very low, only a few hundred meters, for accuracy.
Horizontal bombing began.
"Open the bomb bay door!"
The belly bomb bay door opened. The cabin began to roar, and the temperature became cold. The bombardier put his eyes against the sight, his hand next to the fatal red button, looked at the runway below, and slowly aimed.
Gradually, the aircraft on the runway entered the sight... and then entered the center of the cross cursor.
"put!"
The bombardier shouted and pressed the red button.
Ten 100-kilogram bombs were released from the rack one on the left and the other on the right. The plane shuddered, became lighter, and began to climb higher.
There was a quick flash of light on the ground, followed by a long fireball and plume of smoke rising up. This explosion belt passed diagonally across the queue of aircraft on the runway, and at least three aircraft fell into the fireball.
Fifteen "Swans" took turns flying over the airport runway, one after another throwing 10 bombs out of the bomb bay. For a moment, dense columns of black smoke rose from the runway, and the fighter jets below collapsed one after another in the fireworks explosion, and they were covered in black clouds.
Smoke and fireballs shot into the sky, and many planes were blown up into the sky.
The "Osprey" dive bombers followed behind, and when they saw a fish slipping through the net, they dropped the remaining bomb. After all the bombs were dropped, they fired with machine guns. The last dozen or so surviving "Zhebie" planes also
He caught fire during machine gun fire and fell down.
The fleet leader looked down and saw that not a single plane on the airport was burning. All eight hangars were also in flames, and the three large hangars continued to explode, with balls of fire shooting out from the large holes in the roof of the hangars.
"Very good," he suppressed his excitement and said calmly, "Brothers, let's go home now."
A burst of cheers erupted from the headphones, almost bursting the leader's eardrums.
…
The battle report of the successful surprise attack was sent back to the Purple Mountain Fortress headquarters in secret words.
There are now two focuses on the large map of the Central Command Hall. One is the defense battle in Nanjing City, and the other focus is the ongoing air raid more than 100 kilometers north from here.
Above the hall, the announcer broadcast in a pleasant voice:
"The first combat report of Operation 'Manjiang Red'... The first combat report of Operation 'Manjiang Red'... The Dong-1 fleet arrived at Baoying Airport twenty minutes ago and did not encounter enemy fighter jets... As of now, about 60 Qing open-air fighters have been destroyed
aircraft, 8 large and small hangars, all targets were successfully destroyed...the Dong-1 fleet was undamaged...and has begun to return."
The hall suddenly burst into joy, and many young officers applauded. After the Qing army invaded the city, the negative atmosphere created here was finally reversed. Everyone saw the hope of winning the battle to defend Nanjing.
Xiang Xiaoqiang sat in a chair and looked at the big map. Xiu Xiu stood quietly beside him.
At the location of Baoying on the map, three small red aircraft representing three brigades of the Qing Air Force were taken down. The "Man Jiang Hong" operation was now one-sixth successful.
In fact, it is not necessary, and Xiang Xiaoqiang does not expect that everything will be like Baoying. As long as Baoying's success can be repeated in two more places, and at the same time, his own aircraft losses do not exceed one-third of the Qing army's, it will be considered a complete success.
But Baoying was the first airport to be attacked by surprise after all. It is very likely that they had already received warnings when they launched air strikes on several other airports. The ideal state of this kind of multi-target air strike should be to strive for simultaneous bombing. But this is very difficult for the coordination of multiple aircraft groups.
The requirements are too high. After all, this is the first time so many planes have been dispatched. It would be great if everyone can take care of themselves and finish the bombing smoothly.
Xiang Xiaoqiang glanced at the big clock on the wall. It was already half past five. In the next half hour, reports from each fleet will be sent back. Then you will know. In the next hour, they will all be back...or
, only part of it comes back.
But he thought about several basic conditions for this operation and became full of confidence.
First, we were a surprise attack and they were caught off guard. Second, our fighter performance and pilot quality were superior to theirs.
With these two items, the situation will not be too bad. It is just a matter of the size of the victory.
Xiang Xiaoqiang felt relieved and began to look at the map and review the next steps.
Next, we need to bomb Pukou while it's still dark. This is mainly the job of dive bombers. With luck, the battle to defend Nanjing will be won on New Year's Eve.
However, with absolute air supremacy, it would be too cheap for the Qing army to just win the "Defense Battle" of Nanjing?
He stared at the map and slowly moved southward to the three pontoon bridges on Zimuzhou.
Then Xiang Xiaoqiang began to calculate his own troop strength.