On June 27, the battle of Ceylon entered the fourth day, after four days of fighting, most of the nearly 50,000 British and Indian officers and soldiers were captured or killed, and only a small number of them were still stubbornly resisting in the deep areas of the island under the leadership of company and battalion officers, but it was only a matter of time before they were destined to be eliminated. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The German marines fought a magnificent armored assault campaign that combined amphibious landings and air-ground integration not only shocked the British and Indian officers and men, but also stunned the admirals watching the battle on various warships. The Germans not only used 6,000 to 50,000, but their own casualties were very small, adding up to less than 700 casualties, and only more than 200 were killed.

Now not only the artillery fleet, but also the mobile fleet are docked at the docks, and the captured Indian soldiers are being used as ready-made coolies, not only to repair the airfield, but also to help unload supplies. What is a deep headache for the RB people is that although the Indians are obedient, the labor efficiency does not seem to be very high, and thousands of people tossed for two days, and even the airport has not been fully repaired. In the end, Cole figured out a way to get the Japanese to use guns to force British officers to direct the Indians to do their work.

The British officers were not very afraid of the Germans, because the Germans were generally reasonable, but they were terribly afraid of the RBs: Lieutenant General Percival, the commander of the Singapore garrison, told Yamashita about a lot of conditions before surrendering, but the RB people only asked "yes-or-no?" Otherwise, they were ready to open fire and force the British to surrender unconditionally, and all British officers who had heard of this knew not to try to reason with the RB people. As for the nonsense of the Geneva Conventions, it is completely blind, and RB is not a party to it at all. The only thing to be thankful for is that the RB Navy is under the command of the Royal Navy, and English is very slippery, so there is no language barrier.

Cole's strategy was successful again, and the labor efficiency of Indian prisoners of war under the supervision of British officers was greatly improved, and through these events, the Japanese generals understood that it was not easy to run the Indian colony well, and that there was still a long way to go.

Trincomalee airfield was the first to be repaired, carrier-based pilots began to move to land airfields, and batches of new aircraft were unloaded from transport ships. In the first two days, there were sporadic British planes that came to harass them, and after being shot down most of them, they did not dare to come again.

The unloaded aircraft include a lot of FW-190A series, with the BF-219, now even the aircraft carrier pilots can learn the Luftwaffe to play the double-layer tactics of combining high and low, several ace pilots such as Akamatsu Sadaaki, Murata Shigeharu, etc. are not willing to be lonely, and went to test fly the F6F fighter or C-47 transport aircraft unloaded from the Borg, but the test flight forgot to erase the US military logo on the plane first, and was almost surrounded by their own fighters and beaten, fortunately there are RB fighters next to the flight, which is exempt" cannibalism".

"How's the Grumman fighter?" Minoru Genda asked Akamatsu Sadaaki, who had just gotten off the plane, curiously.

"It's a good plane, stronger than the previous F4F of the Americans, the speed and maneuverability feel better, although it looks a little ugly, but the fuselage is stronger than our military aircraft, and the engine horsepower is also very strong, except that the firepower is a little weak." Akamatsu Sadaaki thought about it seriously, "If you still use the original Zero Battle, whether it is the 21, 32 or 52 type, it will be difficult to deal with, but fortunately, the improved Zero Battle of the Germans is good, I personally think it is stronger than this batch of F6F." ”

Minoru Genda breathed a sigh of relief: "That's fine!" Before returning from Europe, I was instructed by my commander to inquire about the design of the next generation of aircraft, and was told that I would encounter some difficulties and that it might be possible to start mass production later than expected. ”

"When is it late?"

"The German side said that there is no hope for mass production before September, and hopes to catch up with mass production in December."

The new aircraft in Genda's mouth refers to the DO-412, and the main problem is the engine: in order to achieve high indicators, the DFK Design Bureau chose the BMW W901C series that imitates and improves the R-2800, and BMW said that it can be completed together with the aircraft, so Dornier proposed to start small-scale mass production in September. In early May, BMW said that it could not guarantee that the mass production of the 901 series would be completed in September, and even small-scale trial production could not be reached, and at most it could only provide laboratory products, which would be delayed by at least 3 months.

It doesn't matter to Dornier whether there are laboratory products or not, after shooting down a large number of P-47\A-26s, Germany has collected a lot of working R-2800s, and it is not a problem to pick some engines that are in particularly good condition for the verification of new aircraft.

The DFK design bureau had no choice but to turn its target to the backup engine - the imitation of the RB series, but the model problems also emerged one after another, the reliability shown during the test flight was very poor, the short-term test flight was normal, and even the performance was better than the R-2800, but after a long time, it overheated, and even caused burning, and the test pilot encountered this terrible problem during the verification process, but fortunately, the parachute jump was successful in the end.

At first, everyone thought it was a problem with engine manufacturing, but the German quality was completely impeccable, and RB swore that it had given a full set of drawings and that there was no concealment. It wasn't until one day that the technicians went to BMW to observe the production and came to the conclusion that the problem with the engine was not a manufacturing problem, but a design problem.

As an 18-cylinder engine, it is known as very downsized, not only lighter than the BMW801, but even smaller in diameter - the BMW801 only has 14 cylinders. In order to pursue a good aerodynamic shape, the Japanese designers designed the cross-section of the engine very small according to the idea of Rong series engines, and designed it very compact and fine in all aspects.

The idea is very good in theory, but there is a fatal problem in practical application - heat dissipation! Those tightly wound heat sinks have a rapid decrease in heat dissipation, and their performance is not obvious in the short term, and they are easy to overheat after continuous operation for a long time. Due to the low engine power of the Rong series, the problems were not obvious, but for the reputation of the 2000 horsepower class, the problems were so serious that they could not be used - the RB had gone too long on the evil path of one-sided pursuit of small cross-sections of the engine.

If you want to solve the problem at all, you have to modify the original design before you can use it, and in such a tense state during the war, it is equivalent to a direct death sentence for this model. There are only two options in front of Dornier, first, the progress is postponed, and the BMW W901 series will be mature before it is launched, and the R2800 will be used for testing first, so that other subsystems of the aircraft can mature as soon as possible; Second, immediately let the aircraft be retrofitted with a mature and reliable BMW801 engine, although the maximum horsepower of the 801E engine is only 2000 horsepower, which is 300 horsepower less than the 901 series, but its diameter is slightly smaller than that of the 901, and the performance on the plane after considering the aerodynamic shape will not be so bad.

Dornier told his old friend Dr. Tanker about his distress, hoping to hear what he thought. Tan Ke initially sympathized with the DO-412 being forced to choose the 801 engine due to BMW's skipping, and after looking at the drawings carefully, he suddenly widened his eyes and shouted: "Isn't this the idea of the FW-190 carrier-based version?" Not only did you solve the problem of maneuverability at low speeds, but also made it lightweight? ”

"Yes, the DO-412 is a little lighter than the FW-190, you know, the planes that the RB designers have made are light, and I've strengthened the structure once."

With the help of Tan Ke and combined with the design ideas of the FW-190, the DO-412 with the 801E engine quickly completed the design modification, and the overall was indeed slightly worse than the original preset indicators: the empty weight was 3016 kg - Dornier strengthened the structure of the aircraft on the one hand, and reduced the weight on the other hand, reducing the ammunition capacity of the cannon that was obviously too large in the original design from 200 rounds per gun to 120 rounds per door, and the four cannons were reduced by 320 rounds, which reduced the weight by nearly 100 kilograms.

Under normal working conditions of the engine (without drugs), the DO-412 has a maximum land speed of 655 km / h (636 km / h for the carrier-based version), a maximum range of 1600 km, can be equipped with 4 20mm MG213 aircraft guns (120 rounds of ammunition), the fastest climb speed is 1080 m / min, the range is roughly more than 2400 km after the addition of auxiliary fuel tanks, and the performance at high altitudes above 6000 meters will deteriorate, but this is not something that carrier-based aircraft should consider. The overall performance is still stronger than that of the BF-219, but the advantage is greatly reduced.

What made Dornier laugh the most was that in mid-June, after he finished changing the design and adapting to the 801 engine, BMW informed the DFK Design Bureau that the 801F engine might be successful in December this year, and the horsepower was expected to be 2300 horsepower - the same as the R2800. It is still necessary to retain and continue to improve the design of the 901 engine, and you can't bet all on one engine.

Seeing that the DO-412 project, which had been making great progress, was slowing down, the Gale Gai (code BF-339) project in cooperation with Messerschmitt and presided over by Jiro Horikoshi was catching up, although it also faced engine problems, but according to the schedule, the BF-339 would be designed and finalized in October at the earliest, and then mass production was only considered in the spring of 1944, and the first demonstrator did not even roll off the assembly line, and the progress was more than half a year slower than the DO-412.

Hoffman had high expectations for the DO-412, but was forced to agree to the 801E engine, which was less powerful than originally planned. (To be continued.) )