Beiyang 1917

1918年7月29ri10:35萨马拉联军司令部

"Commander-in-Chief, according to the situation reported by the Allied Powers, the entire Luftwaffe has more than three times more aircraft than ours, and our current domestic aircraft production capacity is far from enough. I will let it go, and if the opponent concentrates the planes on the eastern front and then transfers the flying wing from the western front, will our aviation team lose too much, and we are afraid that we will hurt our vitality."

The person who spoke was Jiang Hongyu, the chief of staff and logistics commander of the coalition army. This man is in charge of a large amount of logistics. In less than a day, 3 fighter planes and 2 pilots were lost. The loss of both the planes and the pilots was unexpectedly large. This made Jiang Hongyu a little worried after the great excitement and excitement of winning the first battle.

"Jiang Sang, I disagree with your statement. The Southwest Front Army is imminently launching a Ukrainian campaign. If the coalition air force avoids the battle due to heavy losses, they will hand over the air supremacy over Ukraine. How can the Ukrainian campaign be fought like this? Originally, the German Army had more heavy artillery than us, what if the sky allows the opponent to bombard us wildly, and the casualties of our ground troops have greatly affected the implementation of the Ukrainian campaign?"

General Yoshiichi Tanaka, the deputy chief of staff of the coalition forces, the commander of the 1st Japanese army, and the commander of the mechanized 8th army of the central and yang front forces of the coalition army, was the first to stand up to oppose it. Of course, what this guy said was correct. If the army cannot control or at least partially control the air superiority above the Ukrainian theater, then Utsunomiya Taro's ground troops will encounter huge troubles in advancing. The Soviet Russian Red Army suffered a crushing defeat in the previous Ufa battle, and the coalition forces have completely mastered the air superiority. relation.

In the face of the indiscriminate bombing of the air and ground, no matter how strong the troops are, they may not be able to hold the front line. The artillery positions may be attacked by the air at any time and have to move and hide. How can we use artillery to support the defense or attack of the ground troops? Of course, Ground anti-aircraft artillery troops can support a certain air defense network, but in this era, it is extremely difficult for anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns to shoot down aircraft at medium and high altitudes. An average of 5000 rounds of small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery fire may not be able to shoot down an enemy aircraft .

In 1918, most of the anti-aircraft machine guns of various countries were modified similar to the Maxim heavy machine gun, while the anti-aircraft guns were basically small-caliber 20mm or 37mm anti-aircraft guns. Although the Germans also had 57mm anti-aircraft guns, they were slow-fire It is a daydream for medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns to shoot down high-speed fighter jets. The main target of the ground air defense firepower is the slow and low-flying bomber. Of course, the ground air defense firepower network is more often used as interference. The accuracy of the opponent's ground air strikes.

No matter how brave the bomber pilot is, he will feel nervous when facing the fireworks of high-speed shells constantly blooming around the fuselage and hope to get out of the opponent's fire net as soon as possible. The bomber will often aim and drop bombs more hastily than usual. The fear in front of me has always existed objectively, and it does not depend on personal will. Of course, a good pilot will use maneuvering flight to avoid the most intensive area of ​​​​ground artillery fire as much as possible.

Jiang Fangzhen listened on the sidelines and did not speak. As a former member of the Infantry Department of the Japanese Non-commissioned Officer Academy's third class, he can certainly understand Tanaka Yoshiichi's position as a Japanese general. The Southwest Front Army is based on Utsunomiya Taro's Japanese Third Army The front army composed of three divisions as the main body is tasked with carrying out the Ukrainian campaign. The Japanese 3rd Army, which did not get much opportunity to perform in the Ufa campaign, is now trying its best to fight the old Imperial Japanese Army. With Japan's glory and prestige, at such a critical moment, if there is no coalition air force controlling the air, how can Japan agree.

"Your Excellency Tanaka, I am not saying that we should avoid war, but we must face the reality. China's industrial foundation is not even comparable to Japan's. The foundation of a series of industries such as steel, petrochemicals, ordnance, automobile and aviation manufacturing is still very weak. Now the production capacity of Zhonghua Aircraft Manufacturing Company has been expanded again and again. It is very difficult to continue to expand in the short term. We can only produce a few aircraft a month. If every air battle is the same scale and battle damage as yesterday and today , then our aviation team will only fight less and less! At that time, the problem will be serious!"

Jiang Hongyu was obviously not intimidated by Tanaka Yoshiichi's aura, what's more, since he followed Wang Geng for a year and a half, his whole person's vigor and spirit had improved to a higher level. Now that the King of China was behind him, he With the identity of the chief of staff of the coalition army, it is estimated that even if the Japanese land minister Yusaku Uehara is in front of him, he will not be able to frighten himself. What's more, the Japanese army is now even less than half of the standing troops of the Chinese army. What I can't afford is that Japan is not China.

Qian Tianfu, the chief staff officer in the war room at the side, murmured in his heart, this old boy Tanaka Yoshio, could it be that he wants to consume our freshly-baked ace unit because he is jealous of the strength and record of the Chinese Air Force of the Allied Forces?

Among the allied forces on the Eastern Front of the Allied Powers, only the air force is completely composed of the air force of the Chinese participating army. Start temporary mixed operations, not to mention the ongoing coalition central yang front army, 6 infantry armies and 4 mechanized armies are completely mixed to the mixed brigade and brigade level.

Of course, Japan’s Army Ministry also wanted to send its pitiful air force with a negligible size to join the coalition air force, but Wang Geng didn’t let go at all. Japan’s early aviation construction often bought a few British, French, and Italian aircraft When I came back, I disassembled and tossed it myself, and then tried to make a Japanese domestically designed aircraft. As a result, most of the ones I fiddled with were completely different, and they were not one or two points worse than the British, French and Italian prototypes.

Most of the more than 100 aircraft equipped by the Japanese Air Force at this time are old and imported aircraft of various models. The British biplane fighter jet SE5, the Japanese Air Force cannot even make up a squadron of SE5, so Wang Geng After the Japanese Air Force refused to accept them to join the coalition, the Japanese Ministry of War accepted it. Of course, there was an unwritten mutual commitment behind the conclusion of the strategic alliance between China and Japan. The era of the Sino-Japanese alliance , the development and construction of Japan's military power is mainly based on the army and navy, while China is mainly based on the army and air force.