Chapter 236: The End of France (6)

The German helicopter unit kept transporting engineers and materials needed to build a pontoon bridge to the banks of the Meuse River.

Just as the engineers were working hard to build a pontoon bridge on the Meuse River, accompanied by the piercing sound of air defense alarms, a large group of black aircraft flew in the distance.

As mentioned earlier, the French Air Force is not as good as the German Air Force. In addition to the performance of the fighters and other reasons, there is another reason that the two sides have different command and use concepts.

Under the blitzkrieg theory, the Air Force will undertake the first wave of strikes against the enemy. The effectiveness of the first round of bombing will directly affect the assault effect of the subsequent armored forces. Germany has a special Air Force Command for overall command and has set up combat units of various sizes such as air wing, brigade, squadron, and squadron, which are more flexible in executing tasks.

When carrying out bombing missions, the German army is wave after wave, not giving the enemy a chance to breathe. The French Air Force's combat method is that a large group of planes come to bomb, and leave after bombing. The next time they come, they have to wait for half a day. The enemy can use this half day to gather troops and launch an attack.

The air commander of the BF-109F fleet, which had been hovering over the fortress, issued an order. "Everyone, drop the auxiliary fuel tanks and prepare for battle. Our target is the enemy fighters, and the bombers will be dealt with by the Mosquito." Last time, in the Battle of the Meuse River Crossing near the city of Liege, the bombers of the British and French Allied Forces broke through the anti-aircraft artillery interception on the ground and dropped bombs on the pontoon bridge. Although the dog-shit accuracy of the horizontal bombing did not allow the bombs to hit the pontoon bridge, the German Air Force also saw the problem.

Because they had to deal with the enemy fighters first, they often had no time to deal with the enemy bombers, which might give the enemy bombers an opportunity to take advantage.

So this time they found a helper, the Mosquito bomber.

The Mosquito bomber was originally a multi-purpose bomber. In World War II, the British Mosquito bomber was the backbone of the British multi-purpose aircraft during the war. There are many improved versions of it, such as photo reconnaissance aircraft, fighter-bomber, night fighter, bombing guidance aircraft, torpedo bomber, submarine hunter, daytime patrol aircraft, minelayer, trainer, special transport aircraft, etc.

The Mosquito uses the "molded glued wood structure" invented by Americans. First, a model is made, and then the spruce wood chips are glued and compacted, and then compressed into compressed air. After the glued material solidifies, it is taken out as a lightweight wood material. The aircraft fuselage made of this material is much lighter than metal and traditional wooden fuselages. Under the condition that the engine horsepower remains unchanged, the bomb load and flexibility of the aircraft using this material can be called a combination of bombers and fighters.

And compared with the current BF-1 machine gun, the Mosquito is equipped with four 20mm cannons, which can be said to be quite fierce.

Soon, the BF-109F fleet and the British and French Allied fighter fleets fought. The German pilots found that there were some new fighters in the other fleet that they had never seen before.

"Be careful, it's the British Spitfire!"

During World War II, BF-109 had four main model series, namely Bf-109E, Bf-109F, Bf-109G, and Bf-109K; and correspondingly, Spitfire also had 4 main models: Spitfire Mk1, Spitfire Mk5, Spitfire Mk9, and Spitfire Mk14.

The time of their appearance and performance are roughly corresponding, Bf-1k1, Bf-1k5, Bf-1k9, Bf-1k14.

The current Spitfire Mk1's opponent is Bf-109F, which is like Tian Ji's horse racing, using a medium horse against an inferior horse. Even if the inferior horse runs its legs off, it can't outrun the medium horse.

More importantly, Yannick has already made a series of improvements to BF109.

The original DB used the most fashionable direct fuel injection technology and continuously variable supercharging technology at the time.

Direct fuel injection technology allows aircraft to fly without fear of negative G, while Merlin still uses conservative carburetor technology, which may stall under high negative G conditions.

Continuously variable supercharging technology can automatically adjust the boost ratio according to altitude, while Merlin uses a one-stage two-speed supercharger, which has poor adaptability to altitude.

It looks awesome, but unfortunately, there is a price to pay behind the awesomeness. Although the DB engine using these new technologies has achieved a temporary performance lead over the British engine, it has completely lost the room for subsequent improvement.

Direct fuel injection is too advanced, resulting in the engine not being fuel-efficient. Direct fuel injection was not truly perfected until the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, German engines do not pay attention to float carburetors, and cannot burn lean fuel, resulting in more fuel consumption.

Moreover, direct fuel injection spark plugs are prone to carbon deposition under high intake pressure conditions, and high-grade fuel is needed to solve the problem, but high-grade fuel is the Achilles' heel of the Germans.

Although Germany had sufficient supply of high-quality Romanian crude oil during World War II, high-grade gasoline would not come out of the ground or be obtained through ordinary distilled liquor. It requires an extremely developed chemical industry, otherwise it is simply a moon in the water. The grade of German B4 fuel is only 87, and no matter how Germany improved it during the war, the grade never reached 100.

At the beginning of the war in 1939, only the United States had the ability to produce No. 100 gasoline, and the British mainly bought it from the United States. At this time, although the grade was not widely used to indicate gasoline performance, the British required gasoline to have a level of 100/125. At the beginning of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire fighters in the UK had already fully used No. 100 gasoline.

Therefore, Yannick vigorously developed the chemical industry and even poached a large number of relevant talents from the United States during the Great Depression ten years ago. Because he knew that the United States could sell it to Britain, but not necessarily to Germany. He might be willing to sell it in the early stage, but once the war escalates, the United States is likely to interrupt supply.

So you have to master this technology yourself.

Unexpectedly, this research took a full ten years. The scientific research department finally worked out a mass-produced fuel additive, tetraethyl lead, not long ago. The raw material is lead. Fortunately, Spain's Leocin is the second largest lead-zinc mine in Europe. , enough to supply them with the lead they need.

It won't be long before German aircraft can use high-quality aviation fuel with a label number reaching or exceeding 125.

He also ordered the cancellation of the BF109's shaft cannon, which not only eliminated the need to place the supercharger on the left side of the engine, but also added an additional stage.

Unfortunately, the frustrating thing is that no matter how it is improved, the too small body of the BF109 is always a bottleneck that cannot be broken through. If you want to break through, it is equivalent to designing a new aircraft.

However, Yannick feels that after such magical modifications, models below BF1k10 can barely compete with the Spitfire Mk14.

Of course, these are all things for the future. Almost all of the 30 Spitfire Mk1s that just entered the battlefield have been shot down. What puzzled the British pilots was that the German pilots seemed to know the performance of the Spitfire very well. The Spitfire pilot finally bit the tail of the German fighter plane, but was quickly thrown away. On the other hand, once the Spitfire is bitten, it will basically end up being shot down.