Iron Cross

Vassily wanted to find trouble with this reckless German pilot. Hartmann's rampage just now scared him a lot. He also saw that those with this style were obviously novice pilots. He had seen many of them in the Red Army. Such rookies were used to improve the performance of veterans. Who else should he hit? But this guy slipped away very quickly. He disappeared in the blink of an eye. According to his previous personality, he would definitely chase him relentlessly. However, today he finally remembered that he had a bomber group to cover, so it was inconvenient to do anything reckless. He only cursed in his heart and continued to rush forward.

At the discussion meeting before departure, Vasily's formation discussed the cover and combat plan in less than 10 minutes. The remaining 20 minutes were all used to criticize Novikov. All pilots said in unison that they would follow Major Vasily's lead and must use practical actions to teach this old bastard a lesson. Vasily suppressed his impulse and said in a calm tone: "Ignore him, let's keep going, don't get too far away from the bomber group."

All pilots felt that Vasily's character was as calm as others today. Everyone was trying to guess the reason for this playboy's change of character. Many people hoped to complete the mission as soon as possible and report back. They were also waiting to see the scene of Vasily getting angry at the Air Force Commander after returning.

"Don't be afraid, I will cover you. After diving, level off as soon as possible. I will meet up with you..." The voice of the leader came to his ears. Hartmann, who had dived and separated, finally heard a reassuring word. He immediately leveled off as ordered, but found that a plane was coming straight from the flank. He became scared again. He kept making maneuvers but could not get rid of the other party. He instinctively wanted to set up air defense, but he was discouraged when he thought that he had used up all his bullets in the previous action. Now the plane was completely disarmed and had no ability to resist. The two planes were getting closer and closer. Poor Hartman shrank his neck and prayed behind the bulletproof steel plate. After a while, he wondered why the other side didn't open fire. While he was wondering, a thunderous scolding came from the headset: "Why are you doing so many maneuvers when there's nothing to do? You have too much fuel to use up?" He finally found out that the "enemy plane" he was trying to get rid of just now was the leader.

He didn't dare to talk back, so he had to tell the leader tremblingly that he had just found a bunch of enemy planes and had used up all his bullets.

"Did you hit them?" asked the leader Lesman.

"No..."

"Hey..." Lesman sighed, and finally could only comfort him, "Although you didn't hit them, you accidentally broke up their formation just now, which made it easier for us to attack the Red Army bombers, and it can be regarded as a little credit."

Upon hearing this praise, Hartman felt happy, and all the frustration was immediately thrown behind his mind.

"You should return home. You can't fight if you stay here anyway."

"But...you..." Hartman finally remembered that he still had the responsibility to cover the leader, and his face suddenly turned red to the root of his neck.

"It's okay, I can do it alone." Lesman thought to himself that this guy has run out of bullets, what can he do to cover me? Fortunately, Hartman is usually a good person, and Lesman likes him very much. Although criticism is inevitable when he returns, he hopes that he can grow up quickly.

"Then... Sir... I'll go back first."

"Be smart on the road and pay attention to safety... Don't go the same way, or you'll run into the planes again."

"Yes." After ordering Hartmann to return, Lesman and other comrades in the squadron began to attack the Red Army's planes without distraction. The SB-2 bombers probably didn't expect the German planes to wait here to intercept them, and they were thrown into disarray. The Vasily formation, which was covering the bomber group in the sky, also discovered the German planes and quickly swooped down. The two sides fought fiercely, and the main airspace of the battle was far away from the Don River.

After Hartmann left the original airspace, he suddenly wanted to observe the ground, especially the battle situation of the Hequ Army, and wanted to see where the warships were, so as to point out the direction for himself. When he was looking down, he suddenly fired a burst of bullets from the opposite side. Before he could react, two more flames passed by the cockpit.

Oh my God! Why are there another bunch of Red Army planes? And the altitude was so low?

Hartman was shocked and angry, but unfortunately his plane had run out of bullets. He could only twist the wings left and right and try his best to dodge. He wanted to turn and disengage, but the leader told him that the probability of being hit in a head-on attack was actually not high, but if someone couldn't hold on and couldn't stand the pressure and disengaged first, the huge fuselage projection would be exposed to the enemy's gun. He was determined not to disengage, and just rushed straight into the pile of enemy planes, thinking that he would knock one down even if he couldn't hit it.

Hartman rushed forward and shouted desperately on the radio: "Sir, I'm surrounded by enemy planes, come and save me..."

"Damn it! Why did this guy rush into the enemy fleet again?" Lesman tried his best to deal with the enemy planes in front of him, and looked into the distance, but he couldn't find Hartman.

"Where are you?"

"Shore... low altitude..." Hartman spoke the accurate information in one breath this time. Lesman finally caught a glimpse of the situation above the ships on the Don River. He secretly groaned. Sure enough, many planes came, but he couldn't tell where Hartman's plane was. But now it's not important anymore. He figured it out in an instant: the planes he intercepted were completely bait to lure his own fleet. The enemy's real killer was to send other formations to attack at low altitude, but now all the planes in the squadron have been entangled by the enemy's escort fighters, and it's not so easy to get away.

Lersman, who was sweating all over, was so anxious that he could only shout on the radio: "Don't panic! Don't panic! I'll ask someone to save you..."

While he was anxious, a calm voice cut into the channel: "I'm Günter-Lahr, what's going on?"

"There are a bunch of enemy planes over the Don River, they may attack the warships, and then we are entangled and can't get out."

"I understand, you continue to perform the mission, I will deal with them..."

During the communication between the two, poor Hartmann's luck finally ran out and he was hit. He saw thick smoke coming out of his engine, and the whole plane quickly fell into the river.

"Am I going to die here today?" Hartmann felt fear for no reason, but no matter how hard he tried, the plane couldn't be pulled up. He decisively chose to parachute and jumped out of the cockpit with instinct and all his strength. Although the Don River was currently freezing cold, jumping down might still have a way to survive. With a "bang", the parachute opened quickly. Hartmann only felt that he was being lifted up while falling rapidly. While controlling the parachute, he couldn't help looking up at the sky, wanting to see who shot him down.

Suddenly he found a plane with an Iron Cross logo flying straight down from the clouds. This plane was completely different from the Bf-109 he was driving. The nose was thicker, but it was definitely not the Fw-190, because it was smaller than the Fw-190, and the captain was not as good as the Fw-190, but the wingspan ratio was obviously greater than the Fw-190. Although Hartmann was young and inexperienced, he could clearly recognize different models.

Only then did the new plane unhurriedly throw away the auxiliary fuel tank under the belly, and only fired twice lightly, and an SB-2 bomber with bombs hanging but not yet dropped was hit in the engine, and then he also emitted black smoke like Hartmann's plane, and finally fell into the water.

"Good!" Hartmann couldn't help but cheer for his comrades. Before he could come to his senses, the plane immediately bit the tail of a Yak-3 with an incredibly fast rolling maneuver. "Tututu" fired continuously. With less than 30 rounds of ammunition, the fuel tank of the Red Army plane was immediately pierced and caught fire. The unlucky Yak-3 pilot could only jump out in a hurry.

Hartmann finally saw clearly now that the plane was driven by the current top ace of the JG52 Wing, Günter Rall. The tail was densely covered with his kills. Although the opponent's name had been circulating in the army, he had never seen him in person. Today, he was fortunate to watch it. He couldn't help but cheer loudly, completely forgetting that he was in the process of parachuting, and it was still uncertain whether he would live or die next.

After shooting down two enemy planes in a row, Günter-Lahr's plane was finally caught by the enemy. He tried several moves but couldn't get rid of it quickly. He simply chose to dive down to get away. Günter-Lahr's plane was getting lower and lower. The enemy's bullets kept firing around him, chasing from an altitude of 1,800 meters to an ultra-low altitude of less than 100 meters. Hartmann's heart was in his throat. Finally, when approaching the water surface, Hartmann saw clearly that Günter-Lahr almost pulled up the plane when it was close to the water surface. He bet that the altitude at that time was less than 5 meters, and the attention of the chasing plane behind was probably focused on Günter-Lahr. It didn't react in time and fell into the Don River and couldn't fly.

Beautiful! 3:0!

Hartmann, who was fascinated by the scene, shouted loudly to cheer. He not only witnessed a wonderful battle, but also quickly reflected on his shortcomings in the battle process based on what happened today. Perhaps because he was too immersed in the battle, he suddenly plunged into the Don River and drank several mouthfuls of cold Don River water. While splashing water to prevent himself from sinking, he tried to shout "Help! Help!" loudly, hoping to attract the attention of the warships not far away, otherwise he would really be frozen in the Don River.