In the early morning of 7 February, the Maltese island offensive reached its climax, and military observers from all over the world watched with bated breath as the war progressed, and although it was unanimously agreed that it was only a matter of time before Malta was lost, there were still many people who were concerned about how long the island could be defended.

At 8 o'clock, the main fleet of the Axis Combined Navy entered the 300-kilometer air defense circle of the island of Malta, and more than 100 planes were always circling over the fleet to escort it, but not a single plane was sent in the direction of Malta, which was strangely surprising.

In fact, there was a heated debate when the Maltese defenders rejected the ultimatum, but in the end the pride of the British Empire soldiers made them decide to fight to the end, still expecting victory, believing that although they had lost their air and sea power, the strong fortifications would help them through this difficult phase, as they had been a few months earlier.

At 8:35, Malta ushered in wave after wave of air raids, thousands of aerial bombs, napalm, etc. were smashed almost without money, and now that Germany has oil, the more used napalm this weapon is, the more accustomed it is, and the more it is used, the more it feels easy to use. In a short time, the whole island of Malta seemed to be burning. This is not the first time that napalm has visited Malta, and now there are no trees left on the island, and the vegetation used by the defenders to shelter them has burned to the ground, and it looks like a volcanic eruption from the sky. But all German and Italian pilots knew that there were still people in Malta, who lived in rock fortifications, in underground bunkers, and lived on stored supplies. Conventional bombardment does not destroy these underground moles, but only increases their psychological pressure and crushes the attempts of the defenders to restore their surface positions.

Some people have proposed a strategy of besieging Malta without fighting and trapping the island with starvation, but no one dares to pack a ticket on how long the island's storage supplies can last. In fact, the idea of a siege was not ideal, and although Malta was cut off from all other supply channels, the submarines of Gibraltar could occasionally sneak in once, and by this means of transport, the days when Malta ran out of ammunition and food would be postponed until at least half a year later - something Hoffman could not tolerate.

Horizontal bombers can now confidently and boldly drop bombs at low altitudes, the airfields on the island have been completely destroyed, the British army now has only eight aircraft still available, and there are dozens of pilots - unfortunately they cannot get supplies, and after the destruction of the main force of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria, after the complete blockade of the ****** Channel by the Axis air power, none of the ships can reach Malta. Originally, the group of pilots was going to retreat to Gibraltar with a submarine, but they all hoped for a miracle and were unwilling to abandon their other comrades and escape alone, and finally remained stranded on the island.

At 9:30 a.m., nearly 300 planes roared over Malta, all ground counterforces, including anti-aircraft guns, were gone, and the Maltese defenders moved into underground fortifications ahead of schedule, awaiting the arrival of the Axis landing force - after rejecting the ultimatum, they were fully prepared for the encounter.

But the planes that came at 10 o'clock were clearly different, this was the German KG-300 special bombing group, all equipped with the newly put into service Ju-188 bombers. Today they are carrying a specially modified giant bomb that can be used by the Ju-188 - the SC2500+ type, a single weight of up to 2500 kilograms, although it is not yet comparable to the British goblet (the Grand Slam has not yet appeared), but it is the largest bomb that Germany can come up with at present, and the new bomb is figuratively called the Driller.

Compared to the SC2500 bomb originally dropped on the Brest Fortress, the Driller has undergone a number of improvements, with a hard reinforced steel casing and a stiff head cone made of tungsten steel - to maximize the penetration effect, while also ensuring that the projectile body is basically not deformed after penetration. In addition, the engineers installed the remote control device used on the Hs-293 bomb, which was successfully used in the North African campaign, and because the Driller was much larger than the Hs-293, the radios and tracer lights could be larger, more reliable, and more visible than the Hs-293, so that the bomb could have a very high-precision bombing effect - provided that there was no interference from the defenders.

In addition to the external shape and control system, the technical experts also carefully designed the bomb to fill the inside of the explosive-charge, the whole bomb was filled with a total of 1,176 kilograms of mixed explosives mixed with aluminum and magnesium powder, accounting for more than 47% of the total weight of the bomb, the explosives after the formula improvement burned more fully and violently, the explosion pulse lasted longer, and the power exceeded 50% of the same weight of TN-T explosives.

In addition to the SC2500+, there are also 3500kg SC3500 bombs being manufactured, which are expected to be carried by He-477 bombers, and larger and heavier bombs have also been established, but the development progress is not very fast because there is no suitable aircraft to carry them.

The He-477 is a 4-round bomber version of the regular layout of the He-177 and was designed in response to a tender for heavy bombers recently submitted by the Ministry of Armaments. The heavy bomber is divided into two sections, weighing heavy bomber A and heavy bomber B. Lot A takes the British Lancaster bomber as a benchmark, requiring a cruising speed of 350 km / h, a maximum speed of 520 km / h, a range of not less than 4000 km with a load of 5 tons, and a maximum load of not less than 8 tons (with a range of more than 2500 km), of which a single bomb weighs not less than 3500 kg, and the Heinkel company made a large number of modifications on the basis of the He-177, restored the conventional 4-round arrangement at the fastest speed and built a prototype (with Ju-213E engines), The verification of the relevant technical indicators is fully achievable and still has a certain amount of wealth, so it was quickly determined as the winning bidder of bid A.

Lot B is a simplified version of the so-called American bomber, and the Air Force has launched a tender for the American bomber, which generally requires a range of more than 13,000 kilometers. Under Hoffman's instructions, the Ministry of Armaments changed the technical parameters, lowered the range requirements, but increased the requirements for reliability, bomb load, speed, altitude, etc., clearly stipulating that the cruising speed is not less than 365 km / h, the maximum speed is 550 km / h, the range is not less than 8000 km when the load is 10 tons, and the maximum load is not less than 15 tons (the range is 4000 km at this time), of which the single bomb that can be mounted is not less than 6000 kg. The figures were all put forward by Hoffman, and the implicit reference in his mind was the B-29 bomber, but no one had ever seen the B-29 now, so he could only push these figures to intelligence gathering - anyway, this is not the first time to shirk this, because the intelligence department is now reporting directly to Hoffman, everyone only feels that the Führer is becoming more and more mysterious.

Many companies submitted applications for this bid, including Ta-400, Ju-488, Me-264 and other models, although the Navy once favored the Ta-400 of Wolf Company, but the Me-264 of Messerschmitt Company was the fastest progress, the closest to the success of the large 4-engine heavy bomber, so Hoffman immediately decided to speed up the development process of the Me-264, complete the relevant subject test flight and technical demonstration as soon as possible, and ensure that there was a mature heavy bomber available in 1945 - If a super bomb is built, someone has to be responsible for throwing it.

As for the range, 8,000 kilometers from the European continent to the United States is actually enough, and if it is only more than 4,000 kilometers from the Azores, the question of returning is not in the table - Hoffmann has long brainwashed the designers, why do you have to fly back again? It is completely possible to parachute in the middle of the return voyage and let surface ships or submarines take charge of the rescue, learning that it is not realistic for Germany to carry out large-scale air strikes by the United States, there is no pressure to rescue a few crews, Germany cannot afford strategic bombing, and getting a few planes to drop super bombs is a very ideal carrier.

Since the Luftwaffe had no need for long-range bombers, the Navy had always preferred the Ta-400, and the Me-264 had basically ended up in history, but with the direct intervention of Hoffmann, the situation changed significantly, and the prospects for the Slowest Progress Ta-400 were not favorable, and the Me-264 was instead prioritized, which overjoyed Dr. Messerschmidt, and the Navy's need for 6000 km bombers \ maritime patrol aircraft was filled by the Italian SM-79 and Ju-290C, I couldn't raise even a single word of objection. In fact, Hoffman, dissatisfied not only with the progress of the Ta-400, but also with the combined design of its propeller and jet engine, did not hesitate to shoot it. As a result, Wolff's attention was focused entirely on two aircraft, the Ta-152 and Ta-183.

At 9:18, Captain Warnes dropped the first driller, and after dropping it, the plane with reduced weight slammed upward, and he smoothly maintained the flight altitude at 5,500 meters, and controlled the speed at about 330 km/h, and then watched intently as the blue bomb fell -- the Germans stipulated that the bomb should be painted dark gray for less than 1 ton and sky blue camouflage color for more than 1 ton, so that the bomb would be integrated with the sky when it fell, preventing the bomb from being too large, and it would be detected and hit by anti-aircraft guns when it fell in the air and exploded in advance. Although Malta's anti-aircraft artillery positions have been destroyed, there is no guarantee that nothing will slip through the net.

The bombardier on the other side has been controlled by a radio switch, using a tracer light to determine the location of the bomb and adjust it to ensure that it always lands on the correct course - the bomb was aimed at a chain bunker on the north coast of Malta, which is said to contain a group of 152mm twin guns and dozens of heavy machine guns, and has complete control of Malta's most accessible beachhead. Dive bombers and horizontal bombers have bombed it many times, but the effect has not been good, and today it is the turn of the drillers to try. (To be continued.) )