Steel Soviet Union

If you compare the air battle on the Western Front battlefield to a super-high-altitude duel between air knights to escort and intercept heavy bombers, it is elegant and highly entertaining.

Then the low-altitude aerial combat on the Eastern Front battlefield was like a gangland fight to the death in the alleys of the market. It was dark, deadly, and used every killing move without mercy. It was worse than a pit bull fight to the death in an underground dog fighting ring. It's going to be even bloodier and even more bloody.

The losers often don't even have the chance to parachute because the altitude is too low, so naturally they won't have the chance to return to the blue sky.

In many cases, failure is tantamount to death. The Stuka pilots who were held down by a large group of La-5 fighter jets at low altitude and slaughtered madly were facing such an end result.

Speed, climb, roll, turning radius, acceleration performance, high-speed nose directionality

Among all the above-mentioned crucial factors that determine the final outcome of an air battle, even if one of them is inferior to the opponent, it may lead to failure. Stukas, which are bulky and designed earlier, have no advantage and are at an absolute disadvantage. In this case, all that is left is to lead the neck to the slaughter.

Of course, as a dive bomber performing ground attack missions, it is unrealistic to hope that the Stuka can outperform the latest La-5 fighter in air superiority performance.

The absolute disadvantage in fighter performance did not stop these Stuka pilots from their strong desire to survive. After discarding all the remaining ammunition, the Stukas immediately began to maneuver as hard as they could to escape or even kill their opponents. With the extremely slim chance of survival, he tried his best to win the last hope of survival.

However, the heavy body like a pregnant seagull greatly restricted the maneuverability of these Stukas. The fat body like a huge black hole crazily devoured the output energy that had already been unable to make ends meet during the turning maneuver, so that these Stukas could not make ends meet after a few maneuvers. The Stukas, which were on the verge of stalling, completely became targets.

The Soviet pilots, who were laughing at their opponents' strong desire for survival with raised corners of their mouths, could get a chance to paint a bright red star on the fuselage of their brand-new aircraft with just a flick of their fingers.

"Oh, poor Fascist lackey"

This air battle, which was destined to be without any suspense from the beginning, soon decided the winner.

The La-5 fighter, which attaches great importance to combat performance below 6,000 meters, is powerful and maneuverable. The newly adopted leading edge flap design greatly improves the maneuverability of this latest Red Army fighter.

Not only the German pilots flying the Stukas were amazed by the powerful low-altitude maneuverability of this unprecedented Soviet fighter jet, they were even a little dazzled.

The self-defense machine gunners who were manipulating the self-defense machine guns in the back seat and trying to drive the Soviet fighter jets away from the six o'clock position were also extremely shocked.

If this powerful maneuverability were not due to the very distinctive appearance characteristics of those Soviet fighter jets, the self-defense machine gunners who were so shocked that their jaws almost dropped to their feet would not be able to believe that these plump and seemingly harmless Soviet soldiers The fighter jet actually has amazing combat power that is comparable to our own BF109.

The spar was directly broken by the 20mm Schwark cannon, and the Stukas, which had their wings folded on the spot, fell straight down with black smoke. The 7mm Berezin gun blasted the front and back seats of the plane into a bloody mess. bathtub.

In order to pursue production speed, the very early version of the La-5 fighter adopted the same firepower configuration as the later version of the La-3 fighter. It will take some time for the real mass-produced La-5 fighter to be fully equipped with two 20mm Schwack cannons to join the battle. time.

But for these Stukas who are so weak at this moment that they can't even fight back or even protect themselves, the firepower configuration of a 20mm Schwak cannon and a 7mm Berezin machine gun It's enough.

The Stuka flies that were originally buzzing and buzzing overhead were quickly wiped out by Lavochkin's powerful insecticide, because the German Air Force, which was getting better and better at fighting, was so arrogant that even the bombers on the bombing mission were half-empty. Cheng escort or not escort at all. This rash and reckless move finally suffered a complete disaster due to this unexpected major change.

Seeing those Stukas that were disintegrated by air explosions or whose wings were broken and continued to fall downwards with black smoke swirling around, Malashenko, who had been in a bad mood recently, suddenly felt an unprecedented soreness. He blurted out the words with a hearty smile that almost reached his ears.

"What a bastard! You German guy is here too!"

Malashenko was happily grinning from ear to ear, and there were naturally some people who were looking sad as if they were attending a funeral, such as Major General Osheim, who had just watched the live broadcast of this ace air battle through binoculars.

"Didn't the Russian fighter air force say that the Russians have no more aircraft available? What is going on!?"

Major General Osheim maintained the final calmness before the volcano erupted, but this calmness was obviously superficial. Even the chief of staff next to Major General Osheim had no idea how long it would last.

"This was so unexpected. Who could have imagined that such a situation would happen. I immediately went to the Air Force liaison officer to ask what was going on."

The dedicated Air Force liaison officer assigned to Major General Osheim is a young Air Force Major named Steinauer. Major General Osheim had heard before that he had just returned from injury and returned to the front line. However, because he was discharged from the hospital early and still had a bandage on his chest, he was not suitable for airborne combat yet. After comprehensive consideration, he was simply left to Austria. Major General Scheim was first used as Air Force liaison officer.

Following the chief of staff, he arrived in front of Major General Osheim. Major Steinauer, who had also witnessed the massacre in the air just now, didn't look well. He looked like he had swallowed two flying flies alive. Just as uncomfortable.

"Major Steinauer, I am an army general and I don't understand the professionalism and combat skills of your air force, but please tell me why our fighter jets can't even escort bombers, so they just let the Russians massacre us. Pilots! Protecting armored personnel carriers is something our army will focus on. Is there any special situation in your air force? "

There was a touch of sarcasm in Major General Osheim's tone, but Major Steinauer did not show any dissatisfaction or anger after hearing this, because even he felt that it was in vain for the fighter jets not to escort the bombers. It's fucking outrageous to do something like this.

Staring at Major General Osheim, who was obviously sullen in front of him, Major Steinauer took a deep breath and blurted out the words that had been brought to his lips.