Iron Cross

"Sir, is there a mission?" Lieutenant Colonel Schiller, the commander of the air force deployed on São Miguel Island, received a call from Vaughans.

Vaughans said simply on the phone: "The reinforcement group sent an urgent message 2 minutes ago. A large number of aircraft carriers were found sailing south 800 kilometers northwest of Lisbon. I don't know if they are British or American. Anyway, they are not ours. The He-218 has insufficient range, so we can only use all your joint attack aircraft."

"How many?"

"4."

"Although it's a bit far, I'll take this job. Hang torpedoes! Special torpedoes!" Schiller answered very straightforwardly.

"Are you sure? The enemy has 4 aircraft carriers, and their defense capabilities should be strong. I'm afraid it's not easy to fight." Vaughans asked worriedly.

Schiller pondered for a moment: "Let all the Bf-219s cover us. The Fw-190's range is not enough... How many Bf-219s do you have?"

"Originally there were 36, 4 were lost, and there are still 32."

"I still have 23, and one has a malfunction. Let them all go out and gather over the airport on San Miguel Island. Remember to hang the auxiliary fuel tank."

"Okay, pay attention to safety and come back alive."

"Of course, I'm still waiting for the oak leaves to be added to my Knight's Cross."

As soon as he put down the phone, Schiller shouted outside the door: "Boys, the deal is here. All joint attack aircraft are dispatched, all with special mines, remember to hang wing auxiliary fuel tanks, and Bf-219s will cover."

"Sir, special mines are very expensive, and there are not many in stock. What kind of deal must use special mines?" Lieutenant Bloch asked with a grin.

Schiller laughed and scolded: "You are the only one who talks too much. I don't know how expensive it is? Go attack aircraft carriers, 4 ships!"

"Yeah!" Everyone was stunned at first, then cheered and rushed to the hangar - this is really a big deal.

What Bloch said is right. The G9s aviation oxygen torpedo, which is nicknamed the special mine, is really not cheap at all. In fact, because of the addition of safety mounting accessories for exclusive aircraft and the difficulty of manufacturing and assembly, its price is 30,000 marks more expensive than the 610mm caliber G9a oxygen torpedo. You should know that a complete Type 4 H tank is only 100,000 marks, and a Bf-109 (excluding the engine) is less than 50,000 marks. One special mine is equivalent to two Bf-109s, which is almost equal to a tank. Of course, it is expensive enough.

However, these safety accessories are absolutely necessary. Without them, the rear part of the torpedo will explode easily if it is strafed by machine gun bullets. The reason why Japan interrupted the development of oxygen aviation torpedoes after successfully studying the lance torpedo was because the risk was too high, so high that even Japan itself could not bear it. After breaking through the window paper of oxygen torpedo technology, Germany has strengthened the safety. Not only has it solved the internal protection of oxygen torpedoes with tungsten-nickel alloy armor, but Germany's exquisite production technology will not cause these torpedoes to always have oxygen leakage accidents like Japan. In addition, when the joint attack aircraft is mounted with special torpedoes, a special bulletproof baffle is attached to the belly to resist direct attacks of bullets below 13mm caliber, but if it is unfortunately strafed by machine guns above 20mm caliber, it can only pray for good luck.

Everyone nervously checked the status of their respective vehicles. The senior officers were studying the flight route and calculating the distance and time. The ground crew was busy one step earlier. Schiller's attack team is not an inexperienced rookie. On the contrary, this group of pilots and ground crew are all members of the Air Force KG54 bomber wing transferred from the Mediterranean coast. In the past few years, they have been fighting wits and courage with the Mediterranean Fleet of the British Royal Navy. After taking Egypt and entering the Middle East, especially after the victory of the Battle of Malta, the Mediterranean Air Force Wing suddenly lost its place. It was thought that it would move to Norway and France, but it did not expect that the entire force would move to the Azores. It was even more unexpected that the "opening business" transferred here would be so big.

After hanging the 1.3-ton G9s oxygen aviation torpedo, the auxiliary fuel tank on the belly of the joint attack aircraft could not be hung, but two small fuel tanks of more than 100 liters could be hung under the wings. Although the fuel tanks are small, they can still extend the engine range by 400 kilometers. With this 400-kilometer base, it is more certain to strike targets more than 700 kilometers away.

At 2:45 p.m., 36 combined attack aircraft and 23 Bf-219s took off and flew eastward with the 32 Bf-219s that arrived earlier.

"Sir, the seaplane reconnaissance plane failed to find any trace of the enemy..." On the bridge of the Victory, Chris, Chief of Staff of the X Fleet, reported to Spruance in frustration, "They searched the 160-degree fan-shaped surface in the south, with a maximum distance of 400 nautical miles, but still found nothing."

"Let them return and continue searching tomorrow. The enemy should still be far away." Spruance was full of confidence, "They will definitely not be able to escape, even if they chase them to South Africa or Brazil."

"Sir..." A terrified voice suddenly came through the radio, "The radar found a large number of enemy planes flying from the west, only more than 100 kilometers away."

"Not good! This must be a group of German attack aircraft from the Azores. How can they fly so far?" Chris was terrified.

"The fleet will immediately form a wheel-shaped anti-aircraft formation." Spruance was fearless and issued combat orders in an orderly manner, "All fighters will take off to meet the enemy..."

The four aircraft carriers immediately increased their horsepower and urgently ejected fighter jets. The deck wind of more than 27 knots made it no longer necessary for the aircraft to fly into the wind. A moment later, one after another F4F Wildcat fighter jets took off one after another, forming a tight formation over the fleet. Defensive formation. The four aircraft carriers carry a total of 65 fighter jets, accounting for more than 40% of the total 162 aircraft. There are already 24 fighter jets serving as cover over the fleet. Spruance looked at the crazy flying speed on the deck and nodded secretly. He nodded, making sure that all the remaining planes could take off before the enemy planes arrived.

He comforted Chris and said: "It may be the enemy's long-range horizontal bomber. Their dive bomber cannot fly so far unless they don't want to go back."

Less than three minutes after all the escort fighters formed an air defense formation, a black group of German attack aircraft appeared in the west. With the help of high-powered binoculars, Chris saw clearly the model of the incoming aircraft, and quickly blurted out: "Those damn ones Hunchback!"

"Hunchback?" Spruance had been hanging out in the Pacific battlefield and had never fought against the Italians. He was not familiar with this nickname and was even more surprised by this attack aircraft with three engines.

"It's an Italian SM-79 bomber. It has a long range and good performance. I often fought against them when I served in the Mediterranean." Chris explained, "They are not accurate enough when bombing horizontally, but they are very effective when used by torpedo planes." good."

"Torpedoes?" Spruance's face instantly became ugly, because he also saw clearly what was hanging under the belly of the enemy plane. The long thing was obviously a torpedo, "This is really not good news. "

Two minutes later, the two sides officially engaged in battle. The Wildcats obviously did not want these attack aircraft to pounce at close range to the fleet, so they pounced ferociously. Not to be outdone, the Bf-219s rushed against each other. Soon, 55 German fighter jets and 65 American fighter jets began to collide face to face. The sky was full of roars and shooting sounds, and it was difficult for those watching below to distinguish who was who.

Although he already knew the parameters and performance of the Bf-219 in advance, and the identification manual also listed pictures and judged performance in a regular manner, Spruance, a veteran of the Pacific Theater, always stubbornly believed that the Bf-219 It seemed familiar, and he firmly believed that he must have seen this kind of aircraft somewhere. After seeing it in actual combat for the first time today, he exclaimed in a flash: "This is the Japanese Hamp!"

His vision and experience are very useful. The Bf-219 was developed based on the Zero Fighter 32. Compared with the common Zero Fighter 21, the wings are not arcs but changed to square wing tips and the wingspan is shortened. , which increases the speed, acceleration, roll rate and dive speed limit, and is more suitable for confrontation with U.S. fighter planes that use high-speed assaults and are good at rolling (part of the horizontal dogfight zone BZ). The disadvantage is that the range is short and the stall resistance is increased. Allied forces Calling the Zero fighter "Zeke", the Type 32's significantly different wing-tip characteristics and performance caused Allied pilots to mistake it for a new model, giving it a new codename of "Hamp". However, when the Type 32 was used in Japan, it happened to be the Guadalcanal Air War. The range could not meet the needs of the attack from Rabaul (one way 1100 kilometers), so only more than 300 were built and ended hastily, which is far less than the number of Bf-219s in the German army. , and Germany has optimized and improved the layout of the Bf-219. Few people in the United Kingdom and the United States associate it with Japanese aircraft. They always think that this is a new model independently developed by Germany. Unexpectedly, Spruance said it The secret is revealed.

"Quickly, use the Saatchi scissor tactics." He roared loudly from below.

This is a tactic that John Thatch explored in the Battle of Midway. It mainly uses a two-plane formation or a four-plane formation to perform reverse snake-like maneuvers with each other to attract the attention of the enemy planes in front of them and create attack opportunities for teammates. However, this kind of attack posture often cannot enter the rear hemisphere, because the enemy will appear from the side, and it requires multiple trainings to achieve good coordination. However, for the Wildcat with inferior performance, this is one of the few that can defeat the Zero fighter. Good tactic. Thaci himself returned to China after the Battle of Midway and served as an instructor, teaching and promoting this tactic among new carrier-based aircraft pilots.

The key premise of this formation tactic is the ability to have clear voice communication. Japan’s Zero War has almost no voice communication, so the Japanese pilots have a headache when they see this tactic. In addition, it starts with a head-on approach, and the fight is In terms of protection and firepower and ballistic performance, Zero War is also at a disadvantage. In addition, there is a problem with the carburetor in the Rong engine used by Zero War. There is insufficient fuel supply during the dive and the speed cannot be increased. Of course, it cannot be fast, either. The fragile structure loses its strength too quickly and easily falls apart.

If it was a zero war, Spruance was right to propose using Satch scissors, but he never expected that none of the problems in the zero war would exist in the Bf-219.