Chapter 255: The End of France (25)

It seems that every country in the war can develop several classic weapons and equipment. Not to mention the nuclear eggs of the United States, even a weak country like Italy has several good weapons and equipment. For example, the Italian 1 heavy howitzer is definitely the best artillery in World War II. Even the picky Germans affirmed it. Even after Italy surrendered, the German army directly took over the Ansardo factory that produced the gun and asked to continue producing the gun. The performance indicators are similar to the German 1rser18 210mm heavy howitzer.

In addition, there are many commendable weapons such as Beretta submachine guns, MC202 fighters, Veneto-class battleships, etc.

In addition to the famous T-34, Katyusha, and PPSh-41 submachine guns, the Soviet Union also has the most effective and creative weapon against tanks and armored vehicles, the PTAB bomb.

Although the Il-2 attack aircraft in the early days of the war was equipped with machine guns, 23mm cannons, 50-250 kg aerial bombs and rockets, these weapons were more or less incapable of dealing with German tanks.

The 23mm cannon was effective against light armored vehicles, but it was helpless against the heavy tanks that were gradually put into the battlefield; the 37mm and 45mm cannons that were later equipped enhanced the armor-piercing ability, but greatly affected the performance of the aircraft, which was also a flaw; the 82mm and 132mm RS-82/132 rockets could effectively attack German tanks, but due to technical reasons, the accuracy was very limited and could only be used to attack cluster targets; although only one aerial bomb could turn a tank back to its original state, it was not easy to hit it accurately due to the Il-2's attack mode, the pilot's training level, and the one-to-one high-speed relative movement between the aircraft and the tank.

At this time, the PTAB-5-5 anti-tank bomb made a brilliant appearance.

The structure of PTAB is very simple. It consists of a cylindrical warhead with a spherical top and a stabilizer at the tail. The external structure weighs 75 kg and is charged with 7 kg of high-performance explosives; the overall weight does not exceed 5 kg.

The diameter of the warhead is 66 mm and the diameter of the stabilizer is 85 mm. The steel plate used to make the warhead and stabilizer is 6 mm thick. In order to increase the fragments produced during the explosion and enhance the attack power against the enemy's soft targets, a 5 mm thick fragmentation sleeve is also added to the cylindrical part of the warhead, which is also made of steel plate. Because of its "small" size, an Il-2 attack aircraft can carry more than two hundred PTABs in its bomb bay.

Its attack principle is very simple: because the bomb is small and the cost is low; the Il-2 fighter flying at ultra-low altitude can release a large number of bombs like rain at a time, causing a carpet-style bombing under the belly of the aircraft. As long as a bomb hits the armor of an enemy tank, the high temperature of the bomb explosion can make the bomb stick to the tank armor, and the armor-piercing bullet in the bomb will drill inward. The powerful armor-piercing ability enables it to rely on high-speed hot metal jets to kill people in the vehicle, ignite the vehicle's fuel tank, and even detonate the ammunition stored in the vehicle after penetrating the weak top armor.

When PTAB was first developed in the original time and space, the Soviet army used the captured No. 3 assault gun to test the armor penetration depth and found that when in vertical contact, the armor penetration depth can reach 52 mm, which is enough to penetrate the weak top armor. Even when the contact angle is 30 degrees, the armor penetration depth can reach 30 mm.

During the reliability test, the test aircraft flew at a speed of 280 kilometers per hour and dropped the PTAB at an altitude of 50 to 100 meters. All bombs can be detonated normally.

PTAB has shown great efficiency in actual combat. Theoretically, if an Il-2 flies at a speed of 340-360 km/h at an altitude of 200 meters, the PTABs it drops are enough to cover a wide area of ​​15 meters wide and about 200 meters long. The Soviet army found in battle that many enemy vehicles attacked by PTABs were severely damaged and completely lost their combat capabilities, and even caused ammunition explosions and vehicle disintegration. This weapon, which weighs only 5 kilograms, is extremely cheap and does not require much training when used, so it is very suitable for large-scale production and equipment during wartime.

In actual combat, an Il-2 attack aircraft can carry a total of 4 cluster bomb boxes in the bomb bays on both sides of the fuselage. Each ammunition box close to the fuselage is loaded with 72 PTABs, and the outer ammunition box is loaded with 68 bombs. In this way, the bomb load of each Il-2 reaches a terrifying 280 bombs. When launching an attack, the aircraft quickly passes at low altitude, and the ammunition boxes dropped in the air scatter hundreds of PTABs on the enemy's head like a rain of flowers, which is really a metal storm.

Now, de Gaulle was experiencing this terrible metal storm firsthand, and he was almost crying.

"Quick, shoot down those damn planes!" No matter how hysterically he shouted, he still couldn't stop his tanks from exploding one after another.

Nearly a hundred Il-2 attack aircraft circled above the tank troops led by de Gaulle, constantly dropping PTAB.

De Gaulle deeply felt God's malice towards France. The tank troops gathered here were the last hope of France. Originally, there were two seriously understaffed armored divisions, which were mixed into one by de Gaulle, plus an armored brigade supported by the United Kingdom, with more than 300 tanks.

Once this tank unit was severely damaged, the demise of France would no longer be sensational, but would become a fact.

"Call for air support!" In fact, he had already seen the German fighters hovering in the sky. Now everyone knew that the British and French fighters were no match for the German fighters. Even if the air support arrived in time, it would be powerless.

But he still tried desperately to save the fate of France. "All weapons, fire at the sky!!"

Whether it was the few anti-aircraft guns, the soldiers' machine guns and rifles, or even the officers' pistols, they all desperately pulled the trigger at the Il-2 attack aircraft in the sky.

In order to drop bombs, the Il-2 attack aircraft lowered its flight altitude to below 200 meters and its flight speed did not exceed 300 kilometers. It seemed that it would be easy to shoot it down.

But the ground troops fought for a long time, but no fighter plane crashed. Charles de Gaulle even saw an anti-aircraft machine gun not far away firing a whole magazine at an Il-2 attack plane, and at least three or four tracer bullets hit the fuselage. You should know that machine guns usually load one tracer bullet for every five bullets, which means that the plane was hit by at least a dozen bullets, but it was still safe and sound.

Although it was a 5mm caliber, even if a fighter was hit by so many bullets, it should have some reaction.

What he didn't know was that the Il-2 was the world's first heavily armored ground attack aircraft. The fuselage was built with steel instead of aluminum commonly used by other aircraft; key parts such as the cockpit, fuel tank and engine were protected by thick armor, which was more resistant to attacks than other aircraft, so it was nicknamed the "flying tank".

Finally, 20 anti-aircraft shells hit an Il-2 attack aircraft, but the aircraft did not explode and disintegrate in the air, but fell for a distance with thick smoke, and finally stabilized the fuselage dozens of meters above the ground, and flew back in the direction it came from.

Charles de Gaulle stared at this incredible scene in amazement, not knowing what to say. "How strong is this aircraft?"

However, no matter how strong it was, the Il-2 fleet that dropped nearly 20,000 PTAB bombs did not entangle too much, and flew away in the direction it came from.

Charles de Gaulle looked at the tank troops with thick smoke in despair, with only one desperate thought in his mind.

France, it's over! !