After New Year's Day in 1944, the "Reverse Cross", which had just completed its expansion, welcomed its first batch of new students. It is not particularly appropriate to say that these cadets are not really brand new rookies who have just left aviation school, but more of them are veteran pilots who have come to study in other wings that are fighting on the front line. Most of the pilots are from Europe, and they will be trained mainly in safari and ground attack; There are also fighter and bomber pilots from the South Pacific, and the fighter pilots will mainly be trained in safari training, while the bomber pilots will be mainly trained in striking moving targets on the ground or at sea.

Many of these pilots came to the "reverse cross" for the second time, such as the P-38 pilot Arthur. Arthur was a German-American, who had been dealing with the Germans and Italians in North Africa after entering the war, and then as the Italians withdrew from the Axis powers to join the Allied side, there was little business on the North African side, and the P-38 was not very useful on the European continent - the cockpit of the P-38 lacked heating, and at the high altitude of Europe with higher dimensions and lower temperatures, it often occurred that the pilots on missions suffered frostbite and even became unconscious. Arthur was particularly afraid of the cold, and once when he was on a reconnaissance mission, he was frozen and fainted, and almost crashed. And he was not used to flying other types of aircraft, so he was transferred to the South Pacific.

And when he arrived in the South Pacific, he found that he often had to ~one~book~read~small~say~ybdu to perform a job that he had rarely done before—ground-to-sea attacks. In order to master this new skill, he was sent to the "Reverse Cross" again.

"Arthur, what does the 'Reverse Cross' training look like? The instructor is amazing, isn't it? In the dormitory of the "Reverse Cross", a novice named Tosca asked.

"What does the 'reverse cross' training look like? It's basically constant abuse. I've been abusing you to think you're the biggest stupid hat in the world, and then you'll graduate. And when you graduate and go to the battlefield, you'll find that your opponents often make mistakes that are even more stupid than you. ”

"Then you were abused a lot, weren't you?"

"I'm a special case, I have an innate aura for dodging, and it's always just right to dodge. This was shown when I first entered the 'Reverse Cross'. I was the first rookie pilot to last more than a minute in a confrontation with Chief Ron. Chief Ron complimented Uncle Ben at the time, saying that I was the most promising ...... of the pilots to survive to the end of the war."

"Arthur," Tosca interrupted Clausewitz's boasting, "you are so good, how come it is that until now, you have not independently shot down an enemy plane?" ”

"What nonsense? I have 4 of them shot down together! And, until now, has any guy actually hit me with even a single bullet? Arthur was still haughty.

"Come on, Arthur!" A guy who came to the door came up with this sentence, "Don't lie to the rookie." Those 4 of yours shot down together are all stealing other people's cabbage. ”

"What nonsense are you talking about? Obviously, someone robbed me of my cabbage. Arthur retorted as he turned his head to see who was making such insulting remarks.

"Huh? It's you! Arthur said, "John, I heard that you have been transferred to the 'Reverse Cross' as an instructor?" ”

"Yes!" John from the Mediterranean?? j?? "I heard that an old teammate came here to study, so I came to visit him. ”

"I see, you're here to show off, aren't you?" Arthur said enviously, "Brother, for the sake of me teaching you so many life-saving tricks back then, do you also pull your brother and recommend your brother to the top?" If nothing else, isn't the 'Reverse Cross' training on how to attack the ground right now? This will definitely involve how to dodge ground fire. Can anyone be better than me in this area? ”

"Don't blow it, as far as I know, there's a guy named Yuserin in the heavy bomber unit who is better than you! They flew big guys like B-24 to bomb German targets more than 100 times, and on several occasions they faced the Germans' thousands of aircraft interceptions, and there was not even a bullet hole in their wings. That's a heavy bomber! However, your dodging skills are really not bad, I'm afraid that the students will learn everything from you, and the enemy will certainly not be able to hit him at that time, but he will not be able to touch the enemy! John continued to taunt Arthur.

"That guy is just a bit of dog luck, compared to the 'Memphis Beauty', what's it?"

……

The learning process for new trainees who learn ground-to-sea attack is actually very similar to the process of learning air combat, and the first training subject is target identification. All the trainees were given two thick object identification manuals. The brochure is printed in color on coated paper and is extremely beautiful. The first book contains common pictures of your own and enemy ships from various angles, as well as various data on enemy ships, especially their anti-aircraft fire configuration. However, the data in this area is also the most confusing, the war has been going on for so long, and everyone's warships are constantly refitting, and anti-aircraft fire is the focus of refitting. Now it is no more than at the beginning of the war, when everyone did not anticipate the power of air strikes, so the anti-aircraft firepower of most warships was very mediocre. For example, the German battleship Bismarck actually used the kind of manual 37-mm anti-aircraft guns that were so strange that they had to be pulled to fire a single shot like a bolt-action rifle to defend their defense, and as a result, this powerful battleship was beaten halfway by these old planes when it encountered several Swordfish torpedo planes that were far behind the times in technology and had a maximum speed of only 225 kilometers. In the end, he was tragically watched by onlookers and died in the sea.

With such a series of lessons, the anti-aircraft guns on the ships of the various major powers participating in the war began to grow wildly, and battleships, cruisers, and other big guys of more than 10,000 tons were covered with all kinds of anti-aircraft guns wherever they had free space, and from a distance, they looked like hedgehogs. And the little guy of more than 1,000 tons, such as destroyers, is also increasing the number of anti-aircraft guns as much as possible, even if it costs to increase the center of gravity and reduce the seamanship.

And the anti-aircraft artillery itself is constantly changing. In addition, the war is urgent, and many warships have to wait for a gap before they can return to Hong Kong for refitting, so even if they are warships of the same type, their anti-aircraft firepower configuration is often different, and even the same warship, the situation last month and this month is different. Therefore, in this identification manual, the description of their faces is full of words such as "maybe" and "maybe".

As for the second book, it is full of pictures and descriptions of various local ground targets, such as various vehicles, artillery, tanks and armored vehicles.

Pilots have to memorize all these things, at least those involved in the strategic direction of their units, within a week. So, on the way to the cafeteria, in the spare time of daily training, there were guys everywhere with pamphlets in their hands and reciting them. Seeing this scene, Ron couldn't help but smile.

"General, what are you laughing at?" Scott asked.

"Ah, I'm reminded of some things from the past." Ron said seriously, "When I used to study, every time I had to take an exam, I would have a lot of things to memorize. So at that time, I made a vicious wish in my heart, one day, when it is my turn to test others, I must make more memorization content and memorize them! ”

……

Actually, memorization and the like are just small things. The recognition training after that is the real hard stuff. The identification training is the same as the previous training on the identification of enemy aircraft, and the method of showing various targets on the screen is used to show various targets for the trainees to identify. The identification of targets at sea is nothing more than the addition of some interference in climatic conditions. The clouds are bright, but after all, the sea is unobstructed, and the difficulty is not particularly great. But the identification of ground targets is really not generally difficult.

In line with the principle of gradual progress, at the beginning, the trainees were exposed to directly exposed convoys, armored clusters, and so on in class. It is also allowed to be played several times so that students can see what is inside. But soon, the difficulty began to rise, the film was shown only once, the target appeared for a short time, and after the show, the trainees were asked to answer the speed of the convoy, as well as how many anti-aircraft guns were in the convoy, where they were, and what model. The guy who answered the worst situation was naturally punished, and generally went to the cafeteria to help, and then stood in a row in the cafeteria, watching the other students eat, and at the same time being observed by other students, and then after everyone had eaten, they could only eat after everyone had washed the dishes.

To be honest, this kind of punishment is much gentler than the Japanese army or the set of fists and kicks and whip education in **. But the effect is not necessarily bad, and for those pilots who enter the "reverse cross" study, becoming a joke of teammates is definitely not a glorious thing. As a result, many students even claimed that attending classes was more tiring than fighting, and that they could at least desert on the way to dangerous airspace. And if you really fight, you don't necessarily need to be able to see all of this.

But this difficulty is not the end, and soon, the students' nightmare - the hidden target appears.

In a large classroom, a movie screen shows a clip like this, apparently filmed on an airplane:

A dense forest was coming at a high speed below, and then quickly moving away. Then in the middle of the woods, a monorail appeared, followed by a small station, with a military train parked by the platform, and then the fragment ended, and then the lights in the classroom came on.

The teaching assistant handed out a pen and paper to each student, and on the paper was a map of the vicinity of the small station that had just appeared.

"The military column you saw just now is the target, now give you 3 minutes to mark the enemy's anti-aircraft fire situation that you found in the clip just now on the map!" The instructor gave instructions.

"There are two carriages on the military train, 6 quadruple 20 guns, and then ......" Tosca bit the head of his pencil, "damn it, it's time to watch people eat again today!" He turned his head and glanced at Arthur, who was sitting there, and saw that Arthur was struggling to write, "Arthur, this guy can eat normally again at noon." ”

……

At lunchtime, Tosca honestly stood against the wall in the cafeteria, watching everyone eat. Arthur also stood beside him with a disgraced face.

"Arthur, do you have an anti-aircraft cannon that you haven't found?" Since they weren't forbidden to speak while they were eating, Tosca asked.

"Don't mention it!" Arthur said, "I've drawn them all, a lot!" It's just that the instructor said that I drew twenty more fire points, so ......"