New World War II Eagle Strikes the Sky

( ) The new fuel-air bombs generally satisfied both the United States and Britain.It is said that the plan for the landing operation was modified specifically for this purpose.Allied Command had classified the bomb's existence as top secret, and even the 21st Strike Aircraft Wing's safari missions were terminated in order to protect this secrecy.Because Allied Command feared that if the pilots of the 21st Strike Wing were shot down, the Germans might learn details about the bomb from them.In this way, before the arrival of Dri, dragged down by this damn bomb, the attack of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing on the German-controlled area had to be completely terminated.

In order to prevent the sudden disappearance of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing from arousing the Germans' alarm, the Allied Command transferred some troops from other units of the 8th Air Force to replace the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing.Ron saw this as a good opportunity to expand the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing.Because it is not difficult to select some pilots from other troops to fly attack aircraft, but it is not so simple to prepare a command and logistics system for these temporarily selected pilots.It will take some time to arrange all these things.Therefore, Ron felt that the easiest way would be to organize these pilots and aircraft into two new squadrons, and hand them over to the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing.

And at this time, the construction of the second airport has also been completed, and the new squadron can just be deployed there.Ron presented the idea to General Doolittle, commander of Eighth Air Force.A day later, he got a reply that his 8st Attack Wing would get a squadron of PA-21s and a squadron of B-38s.

This change made Ron overjoyed, because it almost doubled the strength of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing in Ron's hands.Now, the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing has become a super wing with five squadrons.Honestly, though, there's nothing unreasonable about this approach.Because Ron is already a brigadier general.In the U.S. Army Air Forces, the commander at the wing level is generally a colonel.Only some special alliances will have brigadier generals, such as Ron's previous "Reverse Cross".Now, it is actually quite reasonable to make a brigadier general's wing special.

Two new squadrons were stationed at the newly built airfield.It was the one whose project progress was slowed down by the rabbit.In honor of the rabbits who slowed down the airport's construction, the airport was named "Rogue Rabbit Airport" by some mischievous fellow.

In fact, the raids and harassment of the German-occupied areas are now a relatively simple task.Since the Luftwaffe was kicked out of the skies, the greatest threat to Allied aircraft has become German flak.The density of German anti-aircraft guns is indeed not small, but compared with fighter jets, anti-aircraft guns have a fatal weakness, that is-compared to aircraft, they are almost immovable.This makes it naturally passive in the contest with the aircraft.Germany's industrial capabilities are good, but in any case, it is impossible for it to fill the whole of Europe with anti-aircraft guns.This means that there are always very few targets that can be protected by a large number of anti-aircraft guns.Most of the targets will always break away from the cover of anti-aircraft guns and be exposed to the attack of aircraft.

So on the second day after the new squadron was temporarily formed, they set off for France to continue their harassment missions.As to the effect of their actions, we can learn something from such a letter.

"Since '44 it has become very dangerous to drive on the roads of France, especially near the French coast. American attack planes and bombers hover over these areas almost all the time, day or night. night.

Last Friday night, our convoy delivered a batch of supplies to Boulogne-sur-Mer.My dear, you have to know that now, as long as the car team is not necessary, they will try their best to choose to march at night to avoid the enemy's bombing.

It was so dark that I couldn't see anything clearly, even the road was dark.The bombing by American planes has left many roads completely battered.Of course, compared to those roads in Russia, the condition of these roads is still good.It's just that when we drove at night here, in order to avoid being discovered by the enemy, we didn't even dare to turn on the lights.Only the leading car at the front of the convoy has a flashlight for lighting.Compared with the headlights, the light of the flashlight was as dim as a small candle.

We walked in the dark like this, and we might not be able to cover fifty kilometers in one night.Sometimes, because we can't see the road, some vehicles are stuck in the crater, and at this time it is almost dawn, we have to abandon it.

On the highway, at intervals, there will be shelters.Most of these shelters are in the woods near the road.We'll drive the car there to take cover before daylight.Every time we got out of the car, we immediately had to get back on the road.We have to clear up some traces on the road before dawn.Because the enemy is not a fool, if they have these things, they will judge our approximate location, and then bomb them indiscriminately.Get it wrong and the entire team will suffer.

But even if all this is done, don't think that you are safe, let alone run to the car to catch up on sleep.This is not Germany, this is France.All the French hate us, they all want us to die.There are rebels everywhere.These guys will quietly hide by the side, waiting for the enemy's attack plane to appear, they will quickly launch a signal flare into the sky, and then the enemy's attack plane will launch a merciless attack towards the position they pointed out .

That was the kind of blow we had at dawn that day.At daylight we finished clearing the road and went back into the woods, but we didn't head for the car.Only the Croat named Klaus was thirsty and ran to the car to get water.That's when the bombs fell, and 15 cars, along with that hapless Klaus..."

When the two new squadrons were raging over France, the original three squadrons were not idle. They were even busier than the two new squadrons that were attacking every day.

The British found a beach in Ireland.It is said that the conditions of this beach are very similar to the target beach, so the training destination of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing was set here.

Judging from the current situation, in the absence of interference, the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing's attack efficiency on targets is still good.However, such good conditions will not exist in actual combat.In actual combat, you must consider the cooperation with the landing force and the enemy's high-level artillery fire.Therefore, the next step is to strengthen the cooperation ability of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing and its assault ability under the attack of the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery.

After a large 1.5-ton bomb was attached, the flight performance of the pa-38 deteriorated severely.This made the threat of anti-aircraft guns to it rapidly increase.To solve this problem, there are two ways.One is to increase the altitude of bombing, but this will undoubtedly bring about a bad result, that is, the bombing precision will drop sharply, and the possibility of accidental injury will rise sharply.At the same time, although this got rid of the threat of the 37mm caliber anti-aircraft gun, it also put itself under the threat of the large-caliber anti-aircraft gun.

The second way is to first suppress the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery fire.There are also two approaches to this.The first approach is to arrange for other attack aircraft to mount rockets to escort these aircraft.But this has the following problem, that is, when the enemy's anti-aircraft guns are not actively fired, these escort aircraft may not be able to detect the enemy's anti-aircraft guns; and once the enemy's anti-aircraft guns fire, the main attacking aircraft is already in danger .

The second approach is bolder.That is to first use artillery firepower to suppress the exposed targets on the ground, and the attack aircraft will drop bombs in the interval between artillery attacks.This requires a high degree of mastery of the timing of the attack.Otherwise, maybe some unlucky guy will be shot down by his own howitzers.

Finally, the second option was approved by everyone.The rest is a matter of training.

At a distance of about 12km from the beach, two cruisers were firing live ammunition towards the beach, while at the same time, a group of landing craft were rapidly approaching the beach.At a distance of 1000 meters from the beach, a large group of rockets suddenly rose from a landing craft, shooting towards the beach densely.Before the smoke and dust from the explosion of missiles and rockets dispersed, a group of pa-38s roared down...