On the B-17 bomber, the machine gunners responded almost stomping their feet and trembling - at an altitude of 9,000 meters, the outside temperature was only minus 35 degrees, and the firing port they were responsible for was an open window, and although they were heated by electric flight suits, they had to move their bodies, especially their fingers, frequently, to avoid freezing or frostbite. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Pilots also increased their vigilance, keeping an eye on maintaining their altitude and speed, especially to avoid getting into the wake of the propellers of other bombers, which became more difficult the closer they were to the tail crew.

"Enemy aircraft are descending at altitude, 8600 meters...... 8400 m ...... 8200 m ...... 8000 meters! Inside the zoo's command tower, the staff officer loudly reported the altitude of the US military fleet, and with each number read, the tension rose a little.

"Anti-aircraft positions No. 1, 9, 17, shoot!" Major General Erich Klinsmann, commander of the 1st Air Defense Division of the Luftwaffe, who commanded the command, calmly issued the order.

"Boom!"

Amid the deafening roar, Li May looked out of the porthole, and a large black cloud rose around him—it was the German anti-aircraft gun positions that were firing rapidly, and the heavy artillery fire made him secretly frightened—and after a few months, the anti-aircraft fire in Berlin was getting more and more intense.

The altitude of 8,000 meters is the combat range of the German 105mm heavy anti-aircraft guns, and the 88mm medium anti-aircraft guns can be covered together and can play a good lethal effect, and in just 2 minutes, more than 700 anti-aircraft guns poured tens of thousands of shells. From time to time, Li Mei heard the exclamation of "Ah, we were shot" from the earphones, and her brows furrowed tightly.

The bomber group continued to fly forward, preparing to enter the core air defense zone of Berlin, in which the anti-aircraft towers played the role of pillars.

"Benta implements barrage tactics!"

With Klinsmann's order, all anti-aircraft guns fired a salvo at maximum speed, and the four turrets could use 96 shells per minute to create a square "barrage" with a range of 240 meters, which could inflict maximum damage on the incoming enemy planes while forcing them to disperse their formation. It's just that due to the special requirements of 128mm anti-aircraft guns, open-air anti-aircraft positions are usually not equipped with such artillery, and with the exception of a small part of which are maneuverably deployed by trains, all the others are located on top of anti-aircraft towers. If this kind of artillery is everywhere, it will be a disaster for large formations.

Britain and the United States were well aware of the existence and power of the air defense towers, and they also bombed the air defense towers, and after many futile attempts to lose their troops, they were forced to abandon this attempt, and only tried their best to avoid them when formulating the route, but with the increase in the density of the construction of the air defense towers, no matter which direction they entered Berlin, they would encounter at least one air defense tower, and later they could not avoid it, so they could only charge hard.

This is also one of the reasons why the Eighth Air Force was reluctant to bomb Berlin, but this operation was a political task assigned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Arnold himself, and he could not escape it if he didn't want to come, and in order to show his attention, Li May volunteered to rush to the front line, so that the rest of the people calmed down a lot -- he was only a major in 1941, and he actually became a brigadier general two years later, and it is no exaggeration to say that the person who was the fastest promoted in the United States, and the other person who had such good luck was Eisenhower, who was only a colonel in 1940, Now he is a lieutenant general and the commander-in-chief of the theater of operations, but seeing that he is suffering in Africa now, everyone is also very peaceful - if you want to rise quickly, how can you do it without taking risks?

"Spread out...... Spread out ......"

With the order of the commander of the formation, the US bomber group began to evacuate and widen the gap, which is the standard tactic of the army aviation, shrinking when encountering enemy planes and evacuating when encountering anti-aircraft artillery. However, in just a few minutes of anti-aircraft fire, more than 30 bombers have been shot down, and many more have been wounded, and these wounded planes have to hurriedly abandon the bombs they were carrying and return home.

Li Mei instinctively sensed the threat: before the bombing of the Berlin target, the bomber group lost nearly 200 planes due to factors such as lost flight, malfunction return, shot down, and injured return, and the power of Berlin's anti-aircraft firepower increased indeed a little frighteningly. What he didn't expect was that with the maturity of the German proximity fuse on 88mm shells, all 88mm, 105mm, and 128mm caliber guns were loaded with near-explosion Indian letter shells, and the combat effectiveness had been doubled.

He didn't know that in addition to the 128mm guns, Germany was inspired by Japan's three-type anti-aircraft bombs, and in Hamburg it also experimentally modified large-caliber naval guns to act as the backbone of air defense, and by forcibly raising the elevation angle, those 283mm caliber naval guns could hit special anti-aircraft missiles to a height of nearly 20,000 meters, and with the close bombing of the Indian letter, it could form a kill circle of about 100 meters, which was the best weapon for breaking up the formation.

"German fighters are coming, all FW-190!"

"Let the escort fighters deal with them!" Li Mei did not hesitate to give the order, and he brought out 400 fighters, of which 100 were the latest P-51B, which were used at this time.

The escort fighters rushed out, quickly abandoned the drop tanks and tried to take advantageous combat positions.

The fighters on both sides quickly tore and fought together, but gradually Li Mei discovered the problem: those FW-190s were suddenly as desperate as chicken blood, and their speed and maneuver were no worse than the P-47 in their hands, and the firepower was far superior - how could the power of 4 20mm MG213 cannons be withstood by 6-8 12.7mm aviation machine guns? No matter how strong the P-47 is, it will not be able to withstand more than 10 rounds of 20mm thin-shelled shells.

The P-47 climbed desperately, trying to overwhelm the FW-190 by relying on higher altitudes, but now the A8 series, which is in a state of "drug abuse", is not afraid at all, and climbs synchronously against the enemy, and even climbs faster, after all, the engine power of the two sides is now close, and the FW-190 is much lighter than the P-47, and the P-47 is not afraid of climbing or diving, and the bulky P-47 is not an opponent when it comes to rolling and circling.

The battlefield is full of catch-to-kill, small team kills, and even medium-sized group kills of 20-30 planes. Obviously, the technical level of German pilots is much higher, any one of them can be up to the US ace standard, in just a few minutes, the P-47 fell in piles and piles, and it was basically the turn of a German fighter to drop after 7-8 planes, the P-51 performed better, but after all, it was not the world-famous P-51D, and it was still crashed by the A8, and the exchange ratio was about 5:1. The excellent pilots who fought in the mountains of corpses and blood on the Eastern Front were still at ease on the Western Front.

Li Mei was very worried, seeing that the escort fighters were fighting less and less, and the opponent's fighters were still pouring out, she hurriedly ordered the formation to shrink and provide support for her fighters with dense firepower, and the machine gunners in the bomber cabin continued to fire, and the floor was soon covered with 12.7mm machine gun bullet shells, and many even jumped out directly. Experienced machine gunners control the speed and fire with bursts, while inexperienced rookies hold the trigger and fire non-stop - this kind of person is the majority.

And the bomber group had to fire fiercely, because more and more FW-190s, after not being able to find fighters to fight, began to aim their offensive targets at the bombers - they first climbed, and then dived and fired from top to bottom, in the process the B-17s could not dodge and maneuver, they could only rely on luck and the structure of the body to forcibly endure, holding through is everything going well, failing to survive is crashing, there is no other way out. The only good news is that in order to prevent accidental injury, when the fighters of the two sides are engaged, the fire of medium- and large-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the ground is suspended, and only small- and medium-caliber antiaircraft guns closely monitor the low altitude to prevent the enemy from sneaking attack.

There were so many German fighters that they came to intercept today, and it was chilling to see them in a dense package, and Li Mei's preliminary estimate was no less than 400 -- in fact, 500! Moreover, the skills of the German pilots were too good, and they beat the rookies on their side.

At 15:36, the bomber group continued to advance closer to the core target, nearly 300 of the 400 escort fighters were shot down, and the remaining planes were basically on fuel to return - the remaining road was for the bombers to go on their own. Two minutes later, the entire P-47 retreated, and the last remaining P-51 was strangled clean, but Li Mei also noticed the fact that the enemy fighters seemed to have been reduced a lot. Among them, less than 80 FW-190s were lost due to firefights with fighters and bombers, and he believes that most of the other aircraft are in urgent need of replenishment because they are running out of fuel and ammunition.

He thought it was a good time to bomb, and even though his fleet had lost more than 150 bombers in the fierce attack just now, and the entire flight box had been flattened and shrunk a lot, there were still more than 600 effective combat planes.

Li Mei's guess is not entirely correct, in addition to the downed FW-190, there are indeed some German fighters who withdrew because of the running out of ammunition, but more because the "medicine strength" has passed, without this strength, the combat effectiveness will be reduced a lot, so experienced pilots have begun to reduce the altitude, from the airspace above 7800 meters to about 6000 meters, they do not believe that the Americans can drop bombs at an altitude of more than 7000 meters, unless the other side only needs the bomb to sound, do not want the hit rate at all.

Just as Li Mei commanded the formation to descend further in height, the navigation officer in front suddenly exclaimed: "Look! What the hell is that! ”

"What the hell?" Before Li Mei could react, more shouting began to stir up on the radio.

"Oh my God...... What's that? ”

"Did the Germans hire an alien flying saucer?"

"Is there anything in the world that can fly without a propeller?"

"The Germans came to hit us on rockets?"

"Broken ......" Li Mei looked outside, and more than 200 strange-shaped planes swooped down from a height of 10,000 meters, with extremely fast speed and a long white wake pulled out from behind, and the scene looked quite spectacular. (To be continued.) )