The Rise of the Empire

If the J-5 Sparrowhawk fighter designed by Lilienthal and Daimler can be used as the main force of fighters and light bombers in the future German World War I, it will bring some small surprises to the prince. Then the K-4 bomber they brought later made Ruprecht completely overjoyed!

"Why does this look a bit like a Gotha-style bomber in history?" The prince came to this large aircraft, which can be called a giant. From the appearance, the spindle-like fuselage of this aircraft is 14 meters long and 4.3 meters high. . The spread width of the wings is 22 meters. From the appearance, it is similar to the Gotha aircraft, but if you look at the details, the technology used in this aircraft is completely beyond an era.

First of all, from the perspective of the wing, generally early aircraft used wings that protrude up and down. Under current technical conditions, the strength of such a wing will be very low, so a large number of pillars and cables are needed to maintain strength, so that It gives people a more chaotic feeling, but the K-4 bomber adopts the straight lower part of the wing and the raised wing shape of the upper part for the first time, which increases the strength of the wing and reduces the weight of the supporting structure. , It is also why this K-4 bomber gives people a simple and clear feeling, and at the same time, with some metal structures, the strength of this aircraft's wings has been greatly improved. In history, this technology was only applied in 1912. It is not too much to say that it is a cross-age.

And the most intriguing point is that after a little hint from the traverser, Baron Lilienthal and others actually made the slit flaps! This technology can greatly improve the stall elevation angle and the lift coefficient of the aircraft, which is why the K-4 bomber looks about the same size as the historical Gotha bomber wing, but has a theoretical maximum take-off weight of 4.5 tons. Relatively speaking, the wing area of ​​the K-4 bomber is not too large, but it has performance beyond Gotha, and the wing design of excellence is the most critical.

The only thing that makes the prince feel a little depressed is that the engine of this plane has not yet landed... In history, the Gotha bomber used a 260-horsepower engine, but even the engine used by the bomber on this plane did not exceed 200 horsepower. That is to say, although this frame is very good, the engine is still not in place. Of course, if you can get the Eagle-3 375-horsepower engine produced by the British Rolls-Royce, then the performance will be even greater.

But now this aircraft only has a 200-horsepower engine that can make do with it, so with a bomb load of 300KG, the range is only 400 kilometers, and the maximum take-off weight is also limited to about 3800KG. But even so, this is still a bomber ahead of its time.

The prince is also very satisfied with the firepower layout of the new bomber. There is a spherical machine gun turret at the nose of the aircraft. This machine gun turret can be equipped with two 12.7MM machine guns or three 7.92MM machine guns, because the position is at the front. So the shooting range of this machine gun is very good. The bombardier is responsible for controlling the front machine gun and is also responsible for dropping bombs.

Behind the bombardier is the pilot, responsible for flying the plane. At the same time, there are two 7.92MM machine guns in the upper part of the cockpit, which are placed on the circular gun rack to make up for the dead angle of the front and rear machine guns. Behind the wing is the telegraph operator and rear-firing machine gun shooter. Two 7.92MM machine guns or one 12.7MM machine gun can be installed on the ring gun rack. The shooting range of this machine gun is very wide, and it can also perform ground shooting tasks when necessary.

The bomb pylon of the aircraft is placed slightly behind the fuselage to balance the weight of the nose. In theory, a bomb of up to 300KG can be mounted in the middle of the belly.

The pylons near the fuselage on both sides of the wing can hang bombs with a single weight of no more than 150KG. The two pylons on the outside can hang 50KG bombs. In order to improve the accuracy of bombing, this bomber is also equipped with the first-generation low-altitude horizontal bombing sight jointly developed by Bavaria Precision Instruments and Zeiss. Bombing targets such as warehouses and freight yards should not be too bad under the circumstances.

At the same time, in order to ensure the shooting effect of the spherical machine gun tower, the bombardier is also equipped with a very primitive reflex sight. In principle, it is very powerful, but in fact, it is said that the experimental effect is not there, although it is better than visual aiming, but considering the cost, it seems that it is not very cost-effective...

Generally speaking, even if this bomber does not consider the power of the bomb, it is definitely worthy of the title of gunship in World War I. Three 12.7MM machine guns and two 7.92MM machine guns, as well as up to 3000 rounds of ammunition, are enough for this bomber. Other aircraft of the era pale in comparison. Although the amount of bombs is not very good in theory, if you consider the machine gun armament, then the firepower is still amazing, not to mention the first generation of horizontal bombing aiming equipment is still used and it is very primitive and immature, but in theory it can bomb God's Reflex Sight! Coupled with the tall wireless transmitter that may be installed on the plane, at least technically speaking, this plane is really powerful!

In short, it needs to be summed up that the future is bright, but the road is tortuous, especially the engine problem. In history, Germany had an engine with less than 300 horsepower after World War I.... And if the engine is not good enough, no matter how good the design of the aircraft is, it will not work. Compared with the J-5 fighter jet that can be mass-produced and can almost be used on the Eastern Front, the K-4 bomber still needs a long time to perfect, so it will not be mass-produced in a short time.

"The engine problem should be solved as soon as possible. If it can't be solved in Germany, we can go to the United States, even the United Kingdom and France to find suitable engine prototypes. We can do whatever it takes. Funding and personnel issues can be directly approached to me. I hope that in 6 Within a year, our fighter jet engine can be increased to 240 horsepower, while the bomber engine can be increased to about 400 horsepower." Prince said.

As an old industrial powerhouse, the British and even the French still have considerable accumulation in some emerging industries. Not to mention the existence of Rolls-Royce from NB until the 21st century, even the engines of the French in World War I were better than those of the Germans. Be stronger. For things that he can't get for the time being, the prince doesn't mind using some extraordinary means to get them...

"My request is very simple. I strive to produce a 250-horsepower bomber engine within two and a half years, and then enter the mass production stage in three years. Of course, pilots should start training as soon as possible, and they can continue to produce a few aircraft Do the training first. If possible, I hope to have a squadron of pilots before the end of this year.” In the end, the prince gave a timetable. Three years later, that is, 1909, there is probably less than three years before the start of the war. In a year's time, the expansion of the aviation force is definitely enough.

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