Chapter 899 German-Soviet War (122)

In addition to ground armored forces, the Soviet air force is also worrying.

Although as early as the 19th century, many people in Russia have actively participated in aviation development research. This includes the Russian genius designer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky. This great designer is famous for two "firsts", one is the first helicopter VS-300 put into production, and the other aircraft is the world's first four-engine large bomber-"Ilya Muromets" heavy bomber. And this bomber has won many firsts: the first night bombing, the first aerial photography results evaluation, etc.

However, the efforts of one or two people cannot save the overall backward situation. The aviation industry in the Tsarist Russia was generally quite backward, and the development of aviation technology was quite slow. When the Soviet Union was established, it inherited less than a thousand dilapidated foreign aircraft.

In the Soviet period, the national industrialization policy was dominated by military modernization, and the aviation field was naturally valued. As early as 1917, Ulyanov proposed: "Aviation is one of the major cultures of this century!" "The Soviet Union should have its own air force!" And said when supporting the preservation and development of old aviation factories. "The Soviet Union should no longer have enterprises like perfume or balm factories."

After some efforts, in the 1930s, the size of the Soviet Air Force ranked first in the world. Before the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the Soviet Air Force had more than 12,000 fighter planes, which was enough to deter most of the great powers.

As a result, as soon as the Soviet-German War broke out, the German army destroyed more than 2,000 Soviet fighter planes on the first day, and the Soviet Air Force lost as many as 100,000 planes during the entire World War II.

There are many reasons for such heavy losses. For example, the Soviet army inherited the tradition of the Russian army and paid more attention to the advantage of quantity and despised the advantage of quality. Although the Soviet army was equipped with a large number of fighter planes, most of these fighter planes were crudely designed and manufactured. Simple does not mean reliable, but reflects its low level of craftsmanship, which directly affects the performance and reliability of the equipment, and is bound to affect combat. And this bad habit not only exists on airplanes, but also affects the training of pilots. Until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the training of Soviet pilots lagged behind that of Britain and the United States.

What's even more tragic is that the Soviet flying elites at that time were washed out in the Great Purge. New pilots only received simple training and boarded the plane. How could they be the opponents of the German pilots who had been trained for a long time and had rich combat experience? At that time, only 15% of Soviet pilots had received night flight training, and most novices had only 10 hours of flight time, which was simply a small monster for the German Air Force to gain experience.

In addition to the imperfect leadership system, the relatively low level of combat tactics and strategy; in general, the Soviet Air Force did not completely defeat the German Air Force on the Eastern Front in World War II, and at best crushed it with its own weight.

What made Zhukov a little relieved was the Yak-7 fighter jet that was newly produced by the Yakovlev Design Bureau not long ago. The engineers were full of confidence in it and patted their chests to guarantee that it was enough to compete with the German fighter jets. However, these days, the German army sent high-altitude bombers without fighter escorts, and as a result, the two sides have not had the opportunity to fight so far.

The confidence of the engineers is not groundless. The performance of this fighter is indeed quite excellent. In the original time and space, a total of 6,399 Yak-7s of various types were produced. Moreover, the aircraft can be said to be an excellent model that connects the past and the future in design. The Yak-9 fighter jet with a total production of 16,769 units was improved from the Yak-7.

As for actively sending fighter jets to challenge the German Air Force, Zhukov never thought about it. At the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War and the Soviet-German War, most of the experienced pilots were wiped out. Today's Soviet pilots can't even be called air forces. Ninety percent of the personnel are just people who can fly planes, not soldiers who can take off and fight.

In this case, Zhukov naturally couldn't let the fighter jets go to war rashly. He could only urge the pilots to step up training, otherwise the fighter jets with the best performance would only be targets.

But training also requires flying the plane, and flying the plane requires fuel. Today's Soviet fuel reserves are not abundant. The Baku oil field was occupied by the German army early, and the developed second Baku was bombed by German bombers every now and then, almost paralyzed. Moreover, the Soviet Union in the original time and space also lacked high-quality aviation fuel, and almost relied on the assistance of the United States, Britain and other countries. This brings us back to the Far East. The Americans also provided a lot of fuel before, but most of it was piled up in the Far East.

As a result, these poor pilots could only do flight training on the ground most of the time, sticking two simple wing-shaped paper shells on the handlebars of their bicycles and forming a formation to circle back and forth.

And Zhukov was worried whether the performance data of these new fighters had been completely mastered by the Germans. You must know that once the performance of a fighter is mastered by the enemy, the combat effectiveness of this fighter will be greatly reduced. After all, no fighter can be perfect in all aspects, and there must be some weaknesses. This is like the "life gate" in martial arts. Even if it is a powerful master, once the "life gate" is exposed, it is very likely that his life will be lost.

The best example is the Zero fighter during World War II. The Zero fighter was in the limelight in the early days of service. With its small turning radius, fast speed, and ultra-long range, it completely crushed a series of US fighters, causing the US Air Force to suffer a lot in the early stage, and American pilots almost suffered from Zero phobia. Before 1942, the Zero fighter was unrivaled and had no rivals.

As a result, in 1942, the U.S. military accidentally obtained a complete Zero fighter, and after studying it thoroughly, the invincible Zero fighter instantly became the "Mariana Turkey".

What Zhukov feared and hated most was the Germans' intelligence capabilities. Various signs showed that the Germans had laid a huge intelligence network inside the Soviet Union, infiltrating every corner, and were simply omnipresent. Maybe there were spies planted by the Germans around him. These damn spies were able to escape several major purges, purges, and internal investigations intact, which was simply incredible.

If these spies were not caught, maybe the combat plan formulated today would be placed on the desk of the German High Command tomorrow for the German high-level to study.

But he did not dare to easily raise this opinion to Comrade Stalin. Now that the war is imminent, if an anti-espionage storm is set off at this juncture, the consequences will be disastrous. Maybe there is no need to wait until the German army attacks next spring, and Moscow will collapse first. This is naturally not the outcome he wants to see.