The B-29 "Super Flying Fortress" bomber was the largest, most advanced and most powerful bomber in the world at that time, as well as the most comfortable bomber in the world. The cockpit of the high-speed update // B-29 is a closed pressurized cockpit, so sitting in it, it feels similar to taking a passenger plane, there is no need to wear an oxygen mask at all, and the cold high-altitude atmosphere outside can't get in, and the cabin is quite warm. In addition, the self-defense machine guns and other things are remotely controlled, and the safety and comfort of self-defense weapons have been greatly improved.

After taking off from Saipan, the B-29 bomber flew northward, gradually climbing until it reached an altitude of 6,000 meters. Then the plane remained at such an altitude and continued to fly north. The speed of the B-29 bomber is very fast, the maximum speed is as high as 570 kilometers per hour, this speed is already comparable to Rì's own Zero fighter, considering the sad high-altitude Xìng energy of the Zero fighter's engine without supercharged equipment, at a higher altitude, the Zero fighter will definitely not be able to catch up with the B-29 bomber, if it is a little higher, then even the "Hurricane" such a famous fighter with "high speed" may not be able to catch up with the B-29 bomber.

In contrast, the main B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on the European battlefield has a top speed of only 480 kilometers per hour, which is 90 kilometers slower than the B-29, and a cruising speed of only 270 kilometers per hour, which is 80 kilometers slower than the B-29's 350 kilometers per hour. Such a cruising speed also made it much faster for the B-29 to reach a target at the same distance.

The combination of these factors makes pilots less likely to fatigue from long-haul flights. In fact, this further enhances the combat capability of this aircraft.

"General, the front is already approaching the Ryukyu Islands, and the radar that Rì himself has placed there may have already spotted us. We're ready to climb further. Captain Thomas explained to Ron, who was sitting nearby.

"Oh," Ron, who had been a little drowsy from the long and boring flight, said to the god and looked out through the huge window in front of him.

Outside, there is still a vast sea and sky, there are a few small clouds under the plane, it is already October, the season is already autumn, the weather is always exceptionally sunny. Occasionally, one or two uninhabited islands would appear on the surface of the sea, and they would slowly move towards the plane, and then towards the back of the plane.

Rì himself has an airport in the Ryukyu Islands. However, fighters taking off from these airfields will never have time to intercept the B-29. Now the B-29 is already 6,000 meters high, and it is still climbing at an accelerated pace, and it takes about 7 minutes for a rìben fighter, even if it is the best rìben fighter to climb to such an altitude. By this time, the B-29 had already climbed to a higher altitude and flew far away. And if we take into account the fact that after receiving the radar signal, it is necessary to interpret and inform the troops of the time for such a response, then the Rìmoto fighters taking off from Okinawa simply did not have time to intercept the B-29 bombers.

Since it is impossible to successfully intercept at all, coupled with the fact that Rì Ben has been short of fuel. Although Rì himself occupies many oil fields in Southeast Asia, their refining capacity cannot be improved all at once. Although Rì himself worked hard to improve his refining capacity, the fuel consumption during the war was also staggering. In addition, the Allied submarine forces were very active, and they constantly attacked Rì's own sea transportation lines, which caused Rì's transport ships to be sunk continuously, which further exacerbated the fuel shortage.

Compared with the United States, the national strength is inherently insufficient. If all industrial capacity is not invested in the production of weapons, the front line will immediately be unsupportable, but if this is done, there will be no forces to expand oil refining capacity, increase the production of transport ships, and the number of escort formations for anti-submarine use. The overstretched Rì himself has little to do about this dilemma.

In such a situation, of course, if you can save fuel, you have to save fuel. Knowing that it could not be intercepted, the Rìben fighters deployed in Okinawa certainly would not consume fuel in vain to intercept them. So, until the bomber group crossed the Ryukyu Islands, Ron didn't see a single rì plane.

However, flying further down is not necessarily, where the rìben fighters get a longer pre-jǐng time, they have more time to take off and climb, and are likely to appear at the front of the group. By this time, the coastline of Kyushu Island had appeared in Ron's eyes, and the B-29 bomber had climbed to an altitude of 8,000 meters.

"Attention, the Rì Ben fighter is found below 12 o'clock!" The voice of the pilot on the front guide was heard over the radio.

Ron looked in the direction pointed out on the radio, and sure enough, he saw that there were 8 small black dots in front of him and at the position of the first point, which were rapidly approaching. Ron quickly determined that these planes were Rì's own "Type 2 Zhong Kui" interceptors. This aircraft climbs quite well among military fighters, taking only 5 minutes to climb to an altitude of 5,000 meters. However, at later altitudes, its climbing speed decreases significantly. Due to the technical defects of the engine supercharging, Rì's own aircraft engine can drop very much when it is at high altitude. As a result, the climb of their planes at higher altitudes was a mess slow. For example, in the zero battle, you can climb 5,000 meters in a little more than 6 minutes, but if you want to climb to 10,000 meters, it will take more than an exaggerated hour and a half. Some noobs can't even climb to this height at all.

Now these Rìben fighters and B-29s still have an altitude difference of nearly a kilometer, so they still can't threaten Ron's B-29 fleet. The group flew directly over the heads of these "Zhong Kui" interceptors, and Ron noticed that the planes also turned around and followed relentlessly.

But now the B-29 has increased its horsepower, and the speed of the aircraft has reached more than 500 kilometers per hour. The initial speed of these "Zhong Kui" interceptors following behind is not high, only less than 400 kilometers per hour, if they continue to climb, they will definitely not be able to keep up with the speed of the B-29, if they want to keep up with the B-29, they must give up climbing, and even need to dive down a little to get enough speed to keep up with the B-29 group.

The Zhong Kui interceptors gave up climbing, made a shallow dive as Ron had imagined, and continued to follow the B-29 bomber group, looking like they were escorting the B-29 bomber group. But Ron knew what they meant. With them following, the B-29 could not descend in altitude and could only drop bombs from a height of 8,000 meters. Dropping a bomb at such an altitude, if you add a little wind, the dropped bomb can be more than a kilometer away.

"These tails are so annoying." Ron said.

"Yes. They followed, and it was very difficult for us to lower the altitude. Otherwise, they'll just run into it. Captain Toms replied, "Ah, General, the target is ahead." ”

By this time, the fleet had approached their target, the Yawata Iron Works. Looking down from an altitude of 8,000 meters, you can see smoke coming out of the factory's blast furnace and chimney.

The bomber group began to change formation and enter the bombing route. At this time, Rì's own high shè cannon began to fire, and several shells from the large-caliber high shè cannon exploded in the air.

Both the Type 88 75mm Shè Gun and the Type 4 75mm Shè Gun were able to hit shells at the height of the B-29 bomber. Especially the Type 4 75mm high shè gun, the xìng can be even better, even if it is placed in the world, it is also a very advanced high shè gun. But compared to the German anti-aircraft fire, the anti-aircraft fire of Rì himself was much more sparse. Ron had followed Li May on a B-17 bomber to fly over Europe on a bombing mission, and at that time, the sky was covered with shells fired by German high-flying guns. And now, Rì himself has been making trouble for a long time before he hits a little shell. In terms of the density of the shells, Ron estimated that the number of anti-aircraft guns below was only a dozen at most.

It's not that Rì himself doesn't pay attention to the protection of such an important target as the Yawata Iron Works, but because the production of cannons in Rìmoto is too low. During the entire war, only 3,306 anti-aircraft guns over 75 mm were produced. Among them, there are 44 11-year 75 high shè guns, 70 14-year 105 high shè guns, 2000 88 type 75 high shè guns, 1000 99 type 88 high shè guns, 120 3-type 120 high shè guns, 70 4-type 75 high shè guns, and 2 Type 5 150 high shè guns. The largest number of them is still the 88 Type 75 high shè gun that is the oldest in technology and has long been behind the times. That's all there is to it, how much can a single target, even if it is a key conservation target?

In contrast, in the war, the Germans produced 88 guns with only 13125 mm guns. Plus 105 mm and 128 mm high shè guns. The Germans produced as many as 18,235 large-caliber high-speed guns alone. So in the opinion of Ron, who had seen the anti-aircraft artillery fire of the Germans, the density of firepower of Rì's own anti-aircraft artillery, well, was simply symbolic.

So the B-29 bomber group was not moved at all and continued to fly along the established course. The high shells that exploded around from time to time were like salutes to welcome them.

"Enter the bombing route...... Attention, prepare to drop bombs! 1, 2, 3, bomb! Allen the Bomber aimed his bombing sight at the most obvious target, a smoky blast furnace, and pressed the bomb drop button. The magazine of the B-29 bomber opened, and a barrage of bombs fell from it. The bomber continued to fly forward, and Ron's eyes widened as the bombs grew smaller and smaller, until at last he couldn't see anything.

After a few more moments, Ron saw some sparse flowers blooming on the ground—bombs dropped by bombers exploding. Ron looked at the location of the explosion and shook his head. The area where these bombs hit was at least one and a half kilometers away from the target identified at the time of the strike. Most of the bombs never made it to the factory, and the ones that did happen to fall within the factory range were far away from important targets like blast furnaces. This is the consequence of throwing a bomb too high. Just as the B-29 fleet could almost ignore the anti-aircraft fire of Rì himself. The rì himself below can almost ignore the bombs dropped by the Americans.

In fact, this result was also expected by the pilots.

"Alan, your luck isn't good today!" First Officer Klaus laughed, and there was no sense of loss in his voice. It seems that they are used to such results.

"Alright, the goods have been delivered, we should go back." Captain Thomas said.

After dropping the bomb, the plane was much lighter, and the group began to climb rapidly, accelerate, and turn. In addition to the "Zhong Kui" interceptors who followed behind, Rì himself may have taken off other planes to intercept them. Most of these planes are now climbing very high and are waiting on the way home for the B-29s, waiting to intercept them. And the "Zhong Kui" who were following them might be constantly reporting their location to the other planes so that they could intercept them.

"Speed up the climb and get rid of those little rì books! Get ready to climb to 10,000 meters! "The command to lead the captain came over the radio. The fleet began to climb to greater heights. Rì's own "Zhong Kui" naturally tried to follow, compared to other rì fighters, the "Zhong Kui" high-altitude xìng can be a little better. So after following the previous paragraph, I accumulated some speed, and I barely caught up.

The B-29 group made a big turn and began to fly in a southeasterly direction. Each time the route of the B-29 bomber during the retreat was different. This will also greatly increase the difficulty of enemy interception. When the group of planes had already flown to the deep blue sea, the voice of the newspaper jǐng came from the radio: "At 9 o'clock, the enemy plane has been discovered!" Quantity 20, distance 6km, model may be 'nick'! ”

"They can't catch up." Captain Thomas said.

"Nick" is the name given by American pilots to Rìben's "Ki-45 two-seat fighter", a two-seater, twin-engine fighter that somewhat resembles the German BF-110. Rì himself gave it a very imposing nickname called "Dragon Slayer", but as far as Xìng is concerned, this kind of aircraft with a majestic nickname is actually very bad. Not even comparable to the BF-110, which is notorious for being an "escort fighter in need of escort." Its maximum speed is only 540 kilometers per hour, which is not as good as the object it is trying to intercept now, and as long as it is not in a head-on position, it has no possibility of firing at the B-29, which has already dropped its bombs and is lightly armed.

The fleet turned a little in one direction, and these "nicks" completely lost the possibility of catching up. But the 8 "Zhong Kui" that followed behind finally followed. They even chased from 6 o'clock to the distance where they could immediately fire at the American bombers.

However, the B-29 fleet was never afraid of fighters from the direction of 6 o'clock. The proximity rate of fighters coming from this direction is not high in any case, and there will be plenty of time left for self-defense fire. And because of the low proximity rate and small relative speed, even if the enemy plane collides, the damage caused will be much smaller. As for the use of machine guns against shè, with 12 .50 machine guns and 1 20 mm rifled gun in the tail section, plus extremely strong mechanisms. "Zhong Kui", with only 4 12.7 mm machine guns, was not an opponent at all.

Ron came to the tail of the plane and looked back. He saw that several B-29s behind him had already opened fire. Rì's own "Zhong Kui" tried to get closer under the fire. At this time, a spark came out of the right wing of a "Zhong Kui", and it was obvious that it had been shot. The "Zhong Kui" made a barrel roll, avoided the shuffle of the Americans, and swooped down with black smoke - apparently, it had given up on the volley.

The other "Zhong Kui" also failed to take advantage of anything, and after a while, another "Zhong Kui" was hit and ignited a fire. The pilot had no choice but to parachute out in the vast sea. The rest of the planes didn't please him, or maybe they ran out of fuel, so they turned around and flew towards the landing.