Chapter 201 Air Combat (1)

The success of the four commandos "Granite", "Concrete", "Steel" and "Iron" also announced that Army Group B officially entered a state of war and launched a full-scale attack on Belgium.

In the sky, groups of Stuka dive bombers, Mosquito bombers and Il-2 attack aircraft crossed the border under the cover of dense BF-109s and carried out fierce bombing on Belgian airports, railway hubs, heavily concentrated areas and cities.

"Attention! We found Airport A4!"

"They are preparing to take off!"

The air commander quickly assigned tasks. "Stuka First Formation is responsible for the air defense position on the east side of the airport, the second formation is responsible for the air defense position on the south side, the third formation is responsible for the west side, and the fourth formation is responsible for the north side; the BF-109 formation is in high-altitude cover." Today's sky is cloudless. If the enemy attacks, they can be found from a long distance.

"Understood!"

"Received!"

After receiving the order, one Stuka bomber after another began to dive down. As the speed increased, the sound of the buzzer gradually changed from low to high, and finally turned into a heart-wrenching roar of hell.

Most of the Belgians below were encountering dive bombers like the Stuka for the first time. The terrible buzzing sound shook them to the point of trembling, and they looked up in horror at the planes that were diving straight down at them!

"God! The plane is about to hit! Run!!"

The airport was in chaos in an instant, and even the loud reprimands of the superiors were deaf to them. The anti-aircraft artillery positions around the airport began to fight back in a chaotic manner, but this firepower was simply a drizzle for those Stuka pilots. One bomb after another was thrown down calmly, accurately hitting the anti-aircraft artillery positions around the airport. For a time, there was thick smoke from the explosion everywhere, and cries and orders were mixed together.

Because the primary target was the anti-aircraft position, the several Belgian fighters on the runway had not been attacked by chance; the ground crew quickly started the engine and signaled the pilots to take off quickly, and the tower's frantic urging sound came from the headset.

In fact, everyone saw the German fighters circling in the sky, and they knew that even if they took off forcibly, it would not be much different from struggling to death. But they couldn't stay on the ground and wait to be bombed, at least they had to take off and fight.

As for the result, it seemed to have been doomed.

These fighters began to slide forward slowly, and before they slid halfway, the tower's exclamation came from the headset. "Be careful behind!"

Several Stukas that had dropped their bombs did not climb, but attacked several fighters on the runway directly. Although the bombs were all dropped, they still had two 20 mm machine guns, which were more than enough to deal with old-fashioned biplanes like Belgium.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!!" The 20 mm machine guns roared dully, and two of the shells directly smashed the upper wing of a Belgian fighter into pieces. The fighter plane suddenly lost control, rushed out of the runway, and turned upside down.

The remaining Belgian fighter planes wanted to take off by force, but even the most maneuverable biplanes could not take off at such a short distance. They could only watch the terrible tracer bullets getting closer and closer, and finally crashed into their own fuselages.

The exploded fuselage parts of the fighter plane and the burning gasoline were scattered on the runway. It was impossible for other fighter planes to take off.

The Stuka formation climbed and dived repeatedly until even the 20mm machine guns were used up, completely paralyzing the airport. The BF-109 in the sky only found the belated reinforcements in the distance.

The leader Garand whistled excitedly. "Guys! Someone is here to deliver the record!!"

Yannick set a rule that any pilot who shot down ten enemy planes must serve as an instructor at the flight school in the rear and pass on combat experience to the trainees for a period of half a month. So after shooting down the tenth fighter plane in Poland last time, Garland was sent to the rear. He only finished his training a few days ago and returned to the battlefield.

Now he can finally fly up to the sky and beat the enemy again. Every pore in his body is trembling with excitement.

The BF-109 formation began to accelerate. When the distance was close enough, Garland found that it was the French 406 fighter plane. He snorted with disdain. "Rubbish!"

During the "Strange War" (the Germans called it the "Sit-Down War"), the 406 only participated in a few contact battles, mainly against German reconnaissance aircraft and Messerschmitt Bf109D fighter planes.

Actual combat has proved that the performance of the early single-wing fighter 406 is inferior to the faster Bf109D. Sometimes even the Dornier reconnaissance aircraft is difficult to beat down. The weapons of the 406 are too poor and inefficient. The 20mm machine gun of the aircraft has a too slow firing rate, and the two 5mm machine guns are too weak. Despite this, the French pilots still stubbornly drove this fighter to fight against the German Bf109D.

The current BF-109 has been upgraded to 109F, which can completely crush these Gallic chickens.

"Wingman, follow me closely. This is your first actual combat, don't rush to attack the enemy, just remember my every move." Garland reminded in the intercom.

German fighters use a two-plane formation as the smallest combat unit, consisting only of a leader and a wingman. The two planes are spaced far apart during combat cruises. This way both sides can easily see the situation behind each other and can effectively cover each other. During flight, the leader is in front and the wingman is behind, so that the leader can concentrate on searching without worrying about the visual blind spot behind him. In combat, the wingman is responsible for covering behind the leader when the leader attacks. The leader is generally an experienced pilot, who can better play the technical advantages of skilled pilots to create results, and every two two-plane formations can form a four-plane formation that covers and supports each other to further enhance safety in air combat.

The British and French used a triangular formation of three fighters. This formation method still came from the inertia of the First World War. Because the fighter pilots in the sky were disturbed by the noise of the splitter and the aircraft engine, they could basically not communicate without radio. They had to fly closer and maintain a distance where they could see gestures to communicate. Sometimes they even had to communicate with a writing board. In order to see the text clearly, it was necessary to fly closer, and the triangular formation was very suitable for this kind of communication.

In addition, because the French and British air forces have long been in combat readiness and unwilling to fight and bleed, their usual training subjects are not how to shoot down opponents in air combat, nor do they consider what kind of formation is more conducive to air control operations, but how to complete flight performances beautifully. Even today, flight performances are about flying in large clusters. In this way, Allied pilots who are used to flying in large clusters for a long time will not think of the formation mode of the German army.

The disadvantages of this three-plane formation are also obvious. The pilots in the three-plane formation must carefully control the aircraft, because the three aircraft determine that each pilot must pay attention to the positions of friendly forces in two directions to avoid collisions or contacts between fighters. In this way, the pilots have no extra energy to pay attention to the battlefield environment, so the maneuverability of the Allied fighters is difficult to play, because the pilots either hit their teammates or were shot down by sudden enemy aircraft. In addition, the high density of the formation also makes it easy for the entire cluster to be killed by ground anti-aircraft guns.

Therefore, at the beginning, the German Air Force was able to overwhelm the British and French air forces in one fell swoop. German pilots kept refreshing their records, and the British and French air forces suffered heavy losses. Later, due to the insufficient number of fighters, Britain had to form a formation of 1 leader and 1 wingman to fight in the air.

"Wingman received." The wingman replied with a little nervousness.

The fighters of both sides began to climb, and both wanted to take the lead in gaining the height advantage, but the climbing speed of the French fighters was obviously not as fast as that of the German fighters. The two sides, which were originally at about the same height, soon became a situation where the German aircraft was taller than the German aircraft.