USSR 1941

"Petrol bomb!" Paulus replied without hesitation after hearing Fred's report: "If it is a wooden pontoon, I believe the petrol bomb will be effective!"

It should be said that Paulus estimated very accurately.

The reason why he immediately judged that it was a wooden pontoon bridge was because if it wasn't for the wooden pontoon bridge, it would be almost impossible to build five bridges in such a short period of time.

And if these floating bridges are made of wood, then of course they must be attacked with fire.

Colonel Fred immediately put Paulus' idea into practice.

Fire attack has at least several advantages. For example, it can continue to burn on the river, and for example, it can ignite floating bridges or burn ropes. More importantly, throwing incendiary bombs does not need to be too precise...

This is very important for the German night fighter.

Night fighter pilots are ultra-high-intensity operations, as they not only have to deal with threats from the enemy, such as anti-aircraft fire or searchlights.

Among them, the searchlight sounds like nothing. Many people think that it is just the enemy's lighting equipment. After locking the target, it can be used for anti-aircraft fire.

Of course not.

Anti-aircraft searchlight is not only a kind of lighting equipment, it is also a kind of weapon.

If the light beam shines on the enemy's cockpit from the side, the high-intensity light will not only blind the pilot instantly, but also cause dizziness and vomiting after tracking for a long time.

If the plane is flying level at a high altitude at this time, the problem is not too big, but if it is flying at a low altitude or even diving towards the target, if it is suppressed by the light of the searchlight, it will be close to death.

Fighting under such high-intensity pressure, it is very difficult for even the best pilots to drop aerial bombs and hit the target, not to mention that the target on the pontoon bridge is still very small.

However, the gasoline bomb does not need to hit the target directly, the pilot only needs to ensure that the gasoline bomb explodes at a similar location, preferably upstream, and then the fire will spread through the river, and it will spread into a large area... This is for German pilots is a great advantage.

The situation of the battle is indeed the same.

German pilots dropped petrol bombs on the Volga River.

The German pilots at this time used a tactic they called "beacon lights".

To put it simply, the first few gasoline bombs were not expected to blow up the target, but only to explode near the target and illuminate the river.

This fire will provide a reference point for the German follow-up fighter planes, just like the beacon light illuminates the direction of a lost ship, telling other pilots where the river is, so that they can visually measure the distance from the river, and then the reconnaissance plane will instruct the target to fly. The orientation of the base point, and then accurately throw the incendiary bomb to the target step by step.

To be precise, the German army did not have incendiary bombs at this time.

In other words, their incendiary bombs are actually earth-made incendiary bombs... The oil barrels are simply processed, with one side dented and scored, making it easier to be cracked, and then loaded with time bombs before being thrown.

When such an oil drum hits the ground, it often splits due to the impact, and the gasoline overflows, and then the gasoline will be ignited as soon as the time bomb explodes.

If it is an attack on the ground, the German pilots will directly use oil barrels without adding time bombs for safety, and then use tracers or bombs to bomb the location where the gasoline is thrown to ignite it.

But attacking on the river clearly requires a ticking time bomb.

Those oil barrels even floated on the river surface for a while, and then exploded with a bang...In an instant, the Volga River was ablaze, and the gasoline burned and spread rapidly on the river surface.

There is no doubt that these flames will ignite the pontoon bridge, and even a few incendiary bombs close to the pontoon bridge exploded and ignited the Soviet soldiers who were transporting under the rain of bullets on the pontoon bridge, so they screamed after another.

Most of their response was to jump into the river.

But this is actually not a good choice, because gasoline is less dense than water and floats on the river, which means that there are fires everywhere in the river, and there are only two results for jumping into the river: either burn to death on the river, or Or dive into the water and drown.

It is obviously painful to choose between the two, and a considerable number of people switch between the two: diving when they are too hot to bear, and coming out when they can’t hold their breath in the water...

Unless the water quality is very good, it can sneak out of the range of the fire spreading in one breath.

But these are not what Shulka needs to care about.

There is always death in war, and Shulka can't stop it, all he can do is minimize casualties and win.

Of course, Shulka also thought about this situation.

The German army used incendiary bombs when attacking amphibious landing ships before, and of course the pontoon bridge cannot escape the attack of incendiary bombs.

But incendiary bombs obviously can't deal with floating bridges.

The reason is that the pontoon bridges are too simple, so simple that the Soviet army can replace those ignited pontoon bridges at any time.

Just like it is now, with Shulka's order, the two ends of the burning pontoon bridge were cut off by Soviet soldiers, and they soon flowed slowly downstream with a ball of flames.

As for the vacant position of the pontoon bridge, after waiting for a while, a new pontoon bridge was quickly filled and the transportation resumed.

The reason for "waiting for a while" is because the gasoline on the river has to burn out... It doesn't take too long, because the Germans don't have many incendiary bombs, and the gasoline will spread on the river in a short time into a large The area is not fully burned, and it will burn out in a short time or flow downstream with the river.

In other words, the speed at which the German army burned bridges was not as fast as the speed at which the Soviet army repaired bridges.

If the Soviet army had any losses, it was the soldiers who were burned to death and the time that was interrupted.

More importantly, the German army actually didn't have that much gasoline to waste.

"I don't think our tactic will work either!" Fred reported to Paulus with some helplessness: "Because they can cut off the burning pontoon bridge at any time, just like a gecko's tail. Unless we can let Keep the whole Volga burning, otherwise we can't stop their transport!"

It is obviously impossible to keep the Volga burning, because the German army's own gasoline still needs to be transported from Romania to the front line, and it is still in a state of gasoline shortage.

Unless the Germans can occupy Baku.

But Paulus knew that the German war in the Caucasus was also not going well.

"General!" At this time, the adjutant reported to Paulus in surprise: "The third communication unit was attacked by enemy guerrillas and suffered heavy losses..."

"The third communication unit?" Paulus couldn't help being taken aback, and then ordered: "Notify Colonel Fred immediately!"

The third communication unit is actually a radar unit, one of the radar units that cooperate with the night fighter group.

This also means that the night fighter group that is fighting is likely to be in trouble.