November is almost the most comfortable time in the Philippines, when the rest of the Northern Hemisphere is already winter, but the weather is just getting a little cooler. The hot and rainy rainy season has passed, and the Philippines has ushered in the coolest and driest season of the year, and the typhoon has moved away from the region, and the sea is calm.

The front has been stalemate in the central part of Leyte for some time. With the help of the rainforest and the tunnel fortifications, Rì himself has been stubbornly resisting. Compared with the naval and tactical level of the Rì Navy, which has obviously regressed, the technical and tactical level of the Rì infantry is not bad. This doesn't seem to be the same as Ron's second brother's description. However, the decline in the combat capability of the Rì Army in Shandong was actually caused by the change in the situation in the Pacific. Over the years, Rì himself has been constantly bringing experienced, well-trained troops out of the Chinese battlefield and replenishing them into the Pacific. Relying on such means, the ground forces of the RÌ Army in the Pacific still maintained a good technical and tactical level, but the price paid for this was that the technical and tactical level of the ground forces of the RÌ Army in the Chinese battlefield and in the northeast of the confrontation with the Soviet Union declined rapidly.

Rì himself has always emphasized long-distance training in jīng, which should have given Rì a lot of snipers in his army. But I don't know if it's because of the influence of the so-called "bushido" god jīng, or simply because I don't understand what real sniper tactics are, and I just regard it as a "cold gun" that can't be put on the table. Rì himself was very clumsy in sniper combat. For example, in order to get a better view, they will climb to the top of a large tree. Snipers in the U.S. military would not choose such a sniper point, because although it would expand their field of vision, it would also allow more people to discover themselves. Also, staying in a tree can make it difficult to move. And for a sniper, it is very important to quickly move the shè attack position and change places with one shot. Some rì themselves will even tie themselves to a tree.

Although the rì himself had poor sniper tactics, they would stay in inappropriate places, and they would constantly shoot and confront their opponents in one position, but they still caused a lot of trouble for the Americans. Coupled with Rì's own tunnel, it annoyed the US military even more. Rì himself built a kind of fortification with multiple exits underground, and the exits were camouflaged, and Rì himself hid in such a cave tunnel, waiting for the American army to approach, and then suddenly and quickly attacked the American army. All of these things greatly increased the casualties of the American army and slowed down the pace of the American army's advance.

In the past, the U.S. military's way to deal with this kind of fortification was to suppress it with firepower, and then the flamethrowers stepped forward and used flamethrowers to solve the problem. This is quite dangerous, as flamethrowers are always the enemy's top priority. And once he is hit, especially the fuel tank on his back, it is almost equivalent to a direct cremation.

But now, the Americans have a safer way, which is to drop "Thor's hammer" fuel air bombs with attack aircraft.

It was already noon, and at the Leyte airfield, several P/A-38 attack planes were ready for sortie and were waiting at one end of the runway.

"The Temple of Odin calls Thor One, Thor One please pay attention, Thor One please pay attention!" Romney, the pilot on duty in the cockpit of the P/A-38 attack aircraft, was bored with ice cream when a call suddenly came over the radio. Romney immediately threw away the half-eaten ice cream and replied:

"This is Thor One, this is Thor One. Please instruct! ”

"Enemy fortification groups were discovered in the area of Tor No. 1 and No. 31, and immediately set off to launch an attack on the targets indicated by the ground forces!"

"Understood, Thor One requests to take off immediately!" Romney smiled excitedly, and it was clear that he liked such a combat mission.

"Thor-One, you can take off!" The headset came the command of the tower.

Romney started the two engines in turn. Due to the increase in the weight of the P/A-38, the original two 1475 hp V-1710-111/173 water-cooled engines were a bit underpowered compared to the significantly heavier body, which made its flight Xìng much lower than that of the original P-38 fighter. If it were in other countries, the P/A-38 as an attack aircraft, its current flight performance would be very good, but the extravagant Yankees were not satisfied, so they replaced it with two more Cade V1650-7 liquid-cooled engines with a maximum horsepower of 1720 horsepower, which is the American-licensed version of the British Merlin engine on the P-51D.

When Ron was in Europe, his P/A-38 attack plane hadn't had time to change into something like this, but now he had a lot of new gadgets in his hands. Although the flight of the P/A-38 attack aircraft after the replacement is still not as good as the original P-38 fighter, it has already fought against most of Rì's own fighters, and may even have a slight advantage.

Both V1650-7 liquid-cooled engines spun happily, and Romney's P/A-38 began to glide down the runway at high speed, and finally near the end of the runway, the plane began to gradually move away from the ground. Under the belly of the P/A-38 attack aircraft hung a thick and long giant bomb. This is the 2.5-ton "Thor's Hammer" fuel-air bomb.

When Romney lifted off, his wingman, Second Lieutenant Collins, took off in another P/A-38, followed by two P-81s, escort on the one hand, and two P-81s loaded with rockets on the other—they also wanted to see if there was any advantage to be gained.

"Thor One, climb to an altitude of 1000 meters, direction 035." The command center command came from the headset again.

"Thor One understands!" Romney adjusted his direction and flew toward his goal. A little behind his left was his wingman, while the two escort P-81s flew about 600 meters above their heads.

In fact, the area of engagement was so close to the airfield that it took Romney less than ten minutes to reach the target area.

"Thor-1 calls Valkyrie-3, Thor-1 calls Valkyrie-3, please indicate the target area and ensure that there are no of our personnel in the relevant area." Romney begins calling ground directions.

The so-called "Valkyrie" refers to the liaison officer assigned to the ground forces. After a while, Romney heard an answer from the "Valkyrie": "I'm Valkyrie 3, we're going to mark the target with mortar smoke grenades, there's no more of us near the target, you can attack!" ”

"Thor One understands!" Romney replied with a forced smile. Every time I hear the voice of a big man say "I'm a Valkyrie," Romney finds it particularly funny.

Two clouds of red smoke rose from the ground, and the target was there, and Romney quickly lowered his altitude and flew towards the target. At an altitude of 700 meters, Romney dropped the bomb, then quickly pulled up the plane and flew off into the distance.

A white mist spread, followed by an earth-shattering explosion. The whole earth trembled in the explosion, and even Romney, who was flying in the air, felt the plane shake violently. He turned the plane around and flew back to observe the effect of the blow.

The already bare hillside (rì himself cut down all the trees in front of the fortifications in order to expand the shè realm) is charred and black. Romney knew it was the result of the grass on the ground being carbonized in the heat of the explosion of the fuel-air bomb. Because the bombs ran out of oxygen in the vicinity, they couldn't burn, and they all turned into a large black sè like this.

"Well done! Thor One, there's a suspicious target, and you still have a Mjolnir? The headphones reminded me of the extremely masculine voice of "Valkyrie".

"Yes, please indicate the target!"

As a result, a cloud of red smoke rose about four hundred meters from the explosion point just now.

"We see the target! We will attack! ”

This time it was Ensign Collins' turn, and this was the first time he had dropped such a giant bomb. But in fact, it is easier to drop such a bomb than a normal one. Because it has lower requirements for jīng degrees.

The bomb also painted a large black spot on the hillside.

"'Mjolnir' has been dropped." "We're heading back, and good luck to you," Romney said. ”

"Thank you, brother!"

Romney turned the nose of the plane and flew in the direction of the airport, and after about four minutes of flying, the shouts of the escort fighters suddenly came from the headphones: "Enemy aircraft found at 3 o'clock!" We are ready to attack. ”

Romney turned his head to look, and sure enough, he saw a group of rìben fighters in the distance at 3 o'clock.

This is a group of Zero fighters, they are divided into two layers, the bottom layer has 6 aircraft, flying at an altitude of about 800 meters, a little higher, at an altitude of about 1300 meters, and 4 Zeros. Romney immediately realized that this was probably the suicide plane formation of Rì himself.

Although he was flying an attack plane, Romney felt that his plane still had a clear advantage over the bomb-laden Zeros above and below. So he said to the wingman, "Follow me, let's go and have a game too!" ”

Hiroshi Nishizawa was escorting a group of "kamikazes" in the direction of the American fleet, when he suddenly spotted a group of American fighters. There were four U.S. fighter jets, two of which were bizarre planes with propellers on the front and rear of the fuselage, and two that seemed to be P-38s.

Hiroshi Nishizawa had no plans to fight the Yankees in the past. Although he is very confident in himself, his main task is to escort, and if people don't find him, then it is best to be safe. The P-38 was not an easy target to deal with, it was too sturdy to take down. As for another quirky plane, it doesn't look like it's easy to deal with.

But air combat isn't something you can avoid if you want to. The enemy had apparently spotted him and began to turn towards them. Hiroshi Nishizawa hurriedly pulled up the plane and began to prepare for the upcoming air battle.

The two bizarre fighters of the enemy rushed straight ahead first. Hiroshi Nishizawa knew that the firepower of heavy fighters was terrifying, so they were all more willing to fight their opponents. But if Zero Zhan goes to play with others, it will really be an old man hanging himself, and he thinks that his life is long. Hiroshi Nishizawa stared at his opponent, estimating his opponent's speed and distance, preparing to avoid the enemy's shè blow with an upward abrupt pull and occupy the enemy's 6 o'clock position.

"This plane is speeding so fast!" Hiroshi Nishizawa sighed in surprise.

With a kilometer and a half of ground to go, the P-81s fired all the rockets under the wings at Rì himself. There is not much hope of shooting down nimble fighters with these things, but sending them out can at least interfere with the opponent, and at the same time reduce the mass of the aircraft and make it more agile.