Iron Cross

Major General Bei knew that the British would find this place soon, but he did not expect it to be so soon. Moreover, the first batch of aircraft that came also puzzled him: they were Mosquito fighters and Spitfires that could only bomb horizontally. However, he was not in the mood to think about it so much. On the one hand, he commanded the fleet to form a wheel-shaped air defense formation, and on the other hand, he watched the battle situation of the Bf-219s to see if they could escape from the air defense circle safely and avoid repeating the fate of the "Bismarck" It all depends on the skill of these fighter jets.

Seeing that 18 German planes were coming towards him, and there were still 6 planes left above the artillery formation, Major Smith, who was leading the British bomber group, also secretly complained: He did not expect that the Germans would prepare so many covering fighters, which would be even more troublesome. Unfortunately, the original plan may not work.

Although the Spitfires serving as escort missions were equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks, their range was still only 1,200 kilometers, which was not enough to cover the entire Mosquito attack. In the plan drawn up by the staff, the Spitfires should escort the bombers to the scene first. Break in, attract the attention of the German escort fighters as much as possible, and then retreat while fighting, turning around as quickly as possible to create a gap and provide cover for the bombers to attack. But now that there are so many German aircraft, this tactic is obviously wishful thinking, even if the Germans Renzhen allocates 8 fighter jets to deal with the Spitfire, and there are still 16 aircraft that can cover the fleet - just in time to match up with the Mosquito.

But the matter was at this point, and there was no point in struggling any longer, so he could only bite the bullet and let Spitfire get through first, hoping to make the other commander misjudge. Moreover, he had a vague expectation in his heart that Spitfire was the most powerful person in Britain. A good fighter, he hopes to suppress the enemy escort fighter. But he never expected that the German HNA pilots, especially the fighter pilots, were all transferred from the Air Force aces. They generally had records of shooting down more than 30 enemy aircraft. Some individuals even recorded more than 70 aircraft, with at least 14 victories. So there is no way you will be fooled by this simple tactic. Although the performance of the Spitfire is excellent, it does not have a clear advantage over the Bf-219 in low-altitude dogfights. Whether it can exert its power depends entirely on the quality of the pilot.

Mosquito bombers are a troublesome opponent during night air raids. They are fast and have low radar reflection. However, when dealing with high-speed maneuvering surface ships, this ability is not enough. Horizontal bombers must be arranged in a tight formation to be effective. The Bf-219s with improved hit rate, excellent maneuverability and fast speed obviously would not let the British achieve their wish. The formation commander Major Wagner quickly divided the fleet into two, entangled the Spitfire on the one hand, and used The speed advantage impacted the Mosquito's dense formation, which was quickly broken up, and its mobility and flexibility were not brought into play. The clever tactical arrangement finally turned into a flying melee.

At 8:56, the first round of British air strikes ended. 6 of the 16 Mosquitoes were shot down, 3 of the 8 Spitfires were shot down, and only 1 Bf-219 was shot down. The British paid a heavy price. The results of the first wave of air strikes were pitiful. A total of 32 bombs were dropped. Except for one near-missile bomb on the Tirpitz, the other warships were unscathed. This relieved the nervous German officers and soldiers.

At 9:07, before everyone could take a breath, the first air strike group sent by Iceland arrived again. This time it was 12 Blenheim medium bombers and 6 Firefly fighter jets. For the first time, The confidence of the artillery formation has improved a lot. Colonel Top joked: "Why do the British always send horizontal bombers? Do they think they can deal with Tirpitz in this way?"

Major General Bei shrugged: "I don't know, maybe horizontal bombers fly faster? Those slow attack planes are not even as fast as our seaplanes..."

"That's a really good reason!"

Colonel Top never thought that the reason Major General Bey said was actually true. Due to the sharp difference in speed between various types of British aircraft, Fraser could not gather all the aircraft into battle at once. He could only Invest in batches. His wishful thinking was that the German escort fighters would always run out of fuel. As long as he continued to launch wheel battles, he would definitely kill the Germans - but he had no idea that the Bf-219 was the type that could fight for 5 hours. Xiaoqiang, this wishful thinking will soon be shattered.

The difference in aircraft speed also makes the British attack aircraft and escort fighter aircraft very difficult to match. Originally, attack aircraft with slow speed and poor defense such as Swordfish, Barracuda, and Big Mackerel need excellent fighter escorts like Spitfire. , but the speed difference between the two is too big to be combined together. If the Spitfire is forced to fly at the speed of the Swordfish, the plane will easily fall into a stall, or it will crash due to premature exhaustion of fuel - the Swordfish attacks back and forth once. It takes 5 hours, and the Spitfire cannot fly for 5 hours even if it is equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks. Therefore, the Spitfire can only escort the fast Mosquito, but it is difficult for horizontal bombers to deal with the fleet.

It was the first time for German naval fighter pilots to see the Firefly, but they had generally seen the Fulmar, and seeing that this aircraft was somewhat similar to the latter, they guessed whether it was an upgraded version of the Fulmar. This was indeed the case. The Firefly fighter was developed on the basis of the Fulmar. Due to the use of a new type of wing clip, the wings can be rotated 90 degrees and then folded to both sides of the fuselage. After improving the wing strength, the wing area is also increased, making it stronger and easier to control. At the same time, the firepower level is also enhanced, with 4 20mm cannons. But this improvement is only equivalent to the Fulmar. After fighting, the German pilots found that the performance of these aircraft was slightly worse than that of the Spitfire, slightly equivalent to the level of the Hurricane, and everyone finally put down their hearts and fought.

Historically, the Firefly fighters were not used on Royal Navy aircraft carriers until June. Now Fraser was so hungry that he took out all the aircraft he could use, even the Firefly he had just obtained. Although these fighters with a maximum speed of only 505 kilometers per hour had excellent maneuverability at low altitudes, they were still slightly inferior to the Bf-219. However, the Firefly was better than the Spitfire in terms of range, and could provide full escort for the bombers.

This round of British air raids finally achieved substantial results. A 500-pound bomb exploded on the front deck of the Tirpitz. The 50mm thick upper deck withstood the test, but the two twin-mounted 105mm anti-aircraft gun positions were blown up, killing 5 soldiers and injuring 4. The Lützow was hit by a near miss, and the shrapnel splashed in the air caused 3 casualties. After the fierce battle, 4 Fireflies and 5 Blenheims were shot down, and the German Navy also lost 2 Bf-219s. The pilots who fell into the water were quickly rescued by the destroyer.

The artillery formation that continued to move north and carried out high-speed maneuvers many times was not delayed too much by the air raid. At 9:25, it had arrived 400 kilometers away from Iceland. However, due to the continuous air raids, the fleet's position was firmly controlled by the British side, and soon it ushered in the third wave of air raids-a joint attack team of 16 Jaguar dive bombers and 8 European swallows sent by Iceland.

Seeing the figure of the Jaguar appear in the air, Major General Bei felt a sharp increase in pressure and his face became solemn-the destructive power of dive bombers and horizontal bombers is different. Although the speed of the Jaguar is less than 370 kilometers per hour, which is slightly slower than the Stuka, the light cruiser Königsberg in Norway was killed in the Jaguar air raid that year, and everyone has been afraid of it. Although the European Swallows were not as capable as the Bf-219, the two sides were entangled, leaving a lot of gaps for the Skua.

The largest and most threatening Tirpitz became a thorn in the eyes of British aircraft. A total of 8 Skuas swooped down one after another. The speed of the Tirpitz had accelerated to the highest 29 knots, and it spun left and right like a flexible gyroscope. 4 Skuas were shot down by Bf-219 before they entered the dive orbit. The remaining 4 successfully dropped their bombs. 3 bombs were avoided, but the one that fell on the stern could not be avoided anyway. Moreover, Captain Top did not dare to toss too hard when commanding the engine to avoid it - the tail of the Bismarck class was relatively fragile. The Bismarck was destroyed by the British army hitting the propeller and steering gear. Therefore, Top would rather let the bomb fall on the stern deck than below.

The 500-pound bomb penetrated the upper deck, but was then blocked by the 80mm thick main deck and exploded violently. The armor plate was ruptured and twisted to form a grotesque pit, which also caused a fire and billowing smoke, and the flying debris was scattered all over. After the hearing loss team reported the situation, Major General Bei and Colonel Top finally breathed a sigh of relief - although the warship looked a little ugly, it did not cause substantial damage.

Perhaps the smoking appearance of Tirpitz gave other aircraft an illusion, and another 5-6 Jaguars rushed over desperately. The Bf-219 shot down 3 of them, but the last one entered the dive at a very tricky angle, and it was too late to stop it. At the critical moment, the twin 37mm near the tail turret performed meritorious service. A shell hit the diving Jaguars head-on, blowing it to pieces.

At 9:48, the skuas and European swallows began to retreat. Both sides suffered heavy losses in this round of attack. The British lost 9 skuas, 5 European swallows, and 4 escort fighters. Counting the previous losses, the total number of escort fighters dropped from 24 in the early morning to only 17. The only good news was that only one pilot was lost, and the other 6 were rescued after falling into the water.

At 10:06, the bombardment fleet was 420 kilometers away from Iceland. Just when everyone thought they could breathe a sigh of relief, the lookout reported the most frustrating news. More than 30 enemy planes came from the southwest...