Chapter 361 Air Combat (3)

In the original time and space, the German BF109 entered service one year earlier than the British Spitfire in World War II, but the earliest prototype of the BF109 still used the British Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine. In mid-May 1940, a few days before the start of the Dunkirk evacuation, the British Spitfire confronted the German Bf-109 for the first time. At this time, the German army was mainly equipped with the 109E model, and the British Spitfire was the Mark I model.

The advantage of the Spitfire is that it has a smaller turning radius, and its level flight speed is slightly higher than the 109E at an altitude below 4,600 meters; but the 109E has a faster climbing speed, and its speed will exceed the Spitfire at an altitude above 6,000 meters. The 109E is an improvement of the previous generation by the German army based on some experience in the Spanish Civil War, while the Spitfire was still a first-generation work that had not been used in actual combat at this time. In the following two years, the Spitfire and the 109 were both undergoing improvements, with the Spitfire upgraded from Mark I, Mark II to Mark V, and the 109E upgraded to the 109F, with comparable performance.

But just when the Spitfire and Bf109 were in a close fight, the German Air Force brought out another killer weapon, the Fw190. After testing the performance of the Fw190 (in June 1943, an Fw190 belonging to the 2nd Fighter Wing mistakenly landed at a British airfield and was captured), the British were surprised to find that the German Fw190 was superior to the Spitfire Mark V in terms of speed, climb, dive and roll rate at all altitudes between 600 and 6000 meters. The Spitfire's only advantage over the Fw190 was turning and being more durable.

The British quickly developed the Spitfire IX (9), which was finally able to tie with the FW190 and Bf109G.

In 1944, when the Spitfire Mark XIV (14) equipped with the Griffin 61 engine appeared, the performance balance completely tilted to the British side. According to the British Air Force's combat research report on the Spitfire Mark XIV (14) and Fw190A and Bf109G, in addition to the same dive and roll rate as the Fw190, the Spitfire Mark XIV can crush these two German fighters in all other aspects.

Of course, in addition to paper performance, personnel quality and tactics also have a great impact on whether the fighter can fully exert its performance. Because the German army intervened in the Spanish Civil War before World War II, it not only tested the performance of the fighter, but also trained a group of early German Air Force pilots, which also added to the group experience of the entire German Air Force. Marseille, the German pilot who shot down the most British and American aircraft with the Bf109, had 20 Spitfires in his 158 records.

In addition to the advantage of pilot experience, the German army also reformed air combat tactics early, especially the "four-finger formation" that was first used. As the name suggests, look down at your right hand. In addition to the thumb, the fingertips of the other four fingers are the positions of the four aircraft in the "four-finger formation". This formation is more flexible than the traditional British V-shaped three-plane formation.

In the battle of Dunkirk, British Air Force General Hugh Dowding withstood the pressure and only sent a small number of fighters to assist the front line. A total of 67 Spitfires were shot down during the Battle of France, but the British Air Force gained a lot of practical experience and preserved its strength for the upcoming Battle of Britain.

Albert certainly didn't know this. At this time, he had brushed shoulders with death several times. He finally locked onto a lone German BF109F and prepared to shoot it down.

Judging from the opponent's flying movements, there was probably a novice pilot sitting in this German BF109F fighter. The opponent's escape route was messy and looked very nervous.

Yes, it looked very nervous. As an old British pilot, Albert had seen many novice pilots-not only British novices, but also German novices.

So he didn't want to give up such an opportunity. There were not many opportunities to shoot down an enemy plane. He drove his plane up rapidly, and the engine also made a pleasant roar.

His finger had already touched the trigger, and the opponent's plane was shaking left and right in his sight. As long as the opponent continued to shake at this frequency, he could give the opponent a heavy blow when he locked on next time.

"Okay! Okay..." He murmured subconsciously, watching the opponent about to enter the middle position again; at this moment, a chill rushed from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

It was as if the plane was pierced and the cold sea breeze rushed in all of a sudden. Albert was frightened by this feeling.

Subconsciously, the intuition before the strange danger came made him decisively give up this attack.

It only took a moment, no more than one thousandth of a second, for Albert's feet to stagger, causing the plane to roll up and deviate from the original flight trajectory.

And less than half a second after his plane rolled away, the dazzling straight line drawn by the tracer bullet covered the original trajectory of his plane.

"Fuck!" He cursed loudly, because he saw that there were at least five dense tracer bullets. And it was not the cannon and large-caliber machine guns of the German fighter planes, but medium-caliber machine gun bullets of about 7mm!

Therefore, his first reaction was that he was mistakenly hit by friendly forces!

If it was an enemy plane, he would definitely make large-scale maneuvers to get rid of the enemy plane. He was very confident in his escape skills, and basically few German pilots could keep up with his movements.

Unfortunately, his subjective consciousness now told him that this was a friendly accident. He just dodged for a while and did not make continuous maneuvers. He turned his head to see who was so stupid that he could not distinguish between friend and foe!

But in the next second, dazzling tracer bullets poured in again. Beating his left wing to a pulp.

"Shet!!"

Looking at the badly beaten left wing, he knew that he could not delay any longer, so he immediately pulled the hatch cover, climbed out of the plane and jumped out.

However, he finally solved his doubts. It was a German fighter jet that attacked him. With sharp eyes, he discovered that three machine gun barrels protruded from the left wing of the German plane.

""Don't all German fighter jets have cannons and large-caliber machine guns? Why is there still a model equipped with a medium-caliber machine gun?

The power of the cannon is great, but the ammunition capacity is a flaw. After the pilot flies the fighter jet for thousands of kilometers and encounters an enemy plane, he will shoot out all the ammunition with a few bursts of fire, and the escort aircraft will lose the meaning of existence. .

In order to have a high sustained combat capability, long-range escort fighters are best equipped with machine guns. The bomb load of several thousand rounds is enough for pilots to fight. Moreover, as an escort mission, shooting down the enemy's incoming fighter jets is not actually the most important. The important thing is to drive them away, and the goal can be achieved by injuring them.

Therefore, the German army is trying various combinations of machine guns and cannons. What Albert encountered was the FW190 fighter test model equipped with eight 62 mm caliber aviation machine guns.

In mid-air, Albert saw a steady stream of German fighter jets joining the battlefield in the distance, and another group of German fighter jets rushed toward the group of British bombers.