The difference between Type A and Type B is that in addition to the carrier-based take-off and landing equipment, the Type B is equipped with the MW-50 system (water/methanol jet), which is slightly heavier than the carrier-based aircraft and has a slightly faster maximum speed. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Carrier-based aircraft have also been tested to equip the B type, but if the B type does not "take drugs" after installing take-off and landing equipment, the performance is not as good as the A type, and if the drug is used, the engine life will be shortened a lot, and for the carrier-based aircraft that cannot replace the spare engine in sea operations, this is not only equivalent to scrapping an aircraft in vain, but may also bring danger to the pilot -- who knows when the engine will have a problem, and the land problem can still be saved, and parachuting at sea is obviously a life of death, so in the end, the A type was uniformly chosen.

After the improvement of the A and B types, due to the arrival of the team of Japanese designer Jiro Horikoshi, the Messerschmidt company, known as the "king of patches", further developed the C type, hoping to extend the life of the BF-219 and hold on until the company's new generation of carrier-based fighters (Gale modification) was successfully formed, so as to defend the company's position as the absolute king of the fighter market - after the ME-262 was determined to be the main fighter, the production volume began to rise sharply.

The Japanese team is mainly composed of four people: chief designer Jiro Horikoshi, structural calculation expert Sone, weapons and instrument expert Shonaka, and landing gear expert Kato Dinghiko, and behind him are more than 40 professional designers and technical experts of the DFK Design Bureau.

Faced with the results of the previous changes on the German side, Horikoshi Jiro himself expressed surprise, he did not expect such a drastic change, as if giving Zero War a new life. One of the most interesting is Sone, who was in charge of carefully calculating the weight reduction, and now not only adds back the weight lost, but also racks his brains to figure out how to further strengthen the structure without affecting the flight condition.

Type C improvements are relatively large and mainly include:

First, it was replaced with a new engine. Under the premise of thoroughly understanding the technology, BMW company uses its own exquisite manufacturing technology, by boring the diameter of the cylinder block by 3mm, further pressing the limit, to achieve a total displacement increase, compared with the original engine power increased by 45 horsepower, the weight is almost the same, based on these 45 horsepower, the follow-up performance has changed a lot.

The second is the development of folding wing tactics. In the BF-109T, Messerschmitt has developed a folding wing, the original Zero Combat has not been able to fold due to insufficient structural strength, and the C type has strengthened the wing part on the basis of the A type, and the wing can be folded upwards and inwards about 1.6 meters on one side, saving a lot of parking space.

The third is to reconstruct firepower. In order to counteract the increase in weight and performance after folding and strengthening the structure, Jiro Horikoshi boldly proposed to cancel the two 13mm aviation machine guns, and then move the two 20mm/MG151 guns to the wing root position, and increase the reserve ammunition from 150 to 220 rounds per gun. Overall, the firepower projection per unit time has decreased, but the firepower persistence has increased.

After improvements, the total weight of the BF-219 increased by 27 kg, the maximum flight speed was increased from 619 km / h to 631 km / h, and the rest of the flight performance remained essentially unchanged.

The benefits of using folding wings are obvious, with a 25% increase in fighter capacity, and 38 aircraft in the hangar that was supposed to carry 30 fighters at once, which is obviously even more significant for an aircraft carrier that has to be careful and utilized to the extreme.

Ozawa pulled Horikoshi Jiro aside and whispered to him in Japanese, "Is it okay to do firepower like this?" ”

"No problem, compared to the MG151, our 99 guns are simply rubbish, and the ammunition power is only half of that of the Germans, and you must know that the domestic zero combat 20mm ammunition reserve is only 60 rounds, mainly relying on machine guns, and now the MG151 is still retained, and the ammunition has increased."

Seeing his confident appearance, Ozawa was relieved and asked him about the follow-up progress of Gale Reform.

"It's going to take some time." Jiro Horikoshi admitted that he had been delayed in the country, and said indignantly, "If I had come three months earlier, this would not have been the case...... But you know those bureaucrats. ”

Ozawa could only sigh at this.

After in-depth discussions and listening to the pilots' opinions on test flights, everyone has always believed that the impact of the weakening of firepower on the elite-dominated naval aviation fighter pilots is not particularly great, but the benefits of folding wings are too great, and the C type should be the direction of use of carrier-based aircraft in the short term. Mashal and Ozawa thought about it for a while, and in the end, for the sake of safety, they didn't choose to change all of them, but only half of them.

Subsequently, the senior echelons of the fleet, accompanied by the Ministry of Armaments, went to the Heinkel company, and they took a bigger step to upgrade the HE-218 and launched the HE-218D model.

The aircraft engine was changed from DB601E to DB605B (605 is an upgraded version of the 601 series), the engine is installed with a first-stage two-speed supercharger (mainly taking care of low-altitude performance) and has stable mass production capacity, the power reaches 1475 horsepower, which is 125 horsepower more than the original 601E engine, but the size, diameter and volume of the engine are basically similar to DB601E, and the weight has only increased by more than 50 kg. After several wind tunnel tests, Heinkel accurately adjusted the center of gravity distribution of the whole aircraft, and appropriately lengthened the fuselage and tail to maintain balance, and the fuel tank volume also increased.

This is a major improvement of the HE-218 series, with a top speed of more than 611 km/h, and more importantly, better take-off and landing and maneuvering performance at low speeds.

Heinkel told the fleet that the next generation of modifications is also being promoted, and it is expected to use the latest DB605D engine, increase the overall power to more than 1,600 horsepower, and then introduce features such as folding wings.

Machar and Ozawa did the same, preparing to replace half of the fleet of He-218s.

Originally, it was a little strange for Machar, last time I heard that the new generation of Heinkel modification will include the folding wing function, why did he rush to launch a new model this time without waiting for the folding function design and finalization to be completed? It wasn't until Junkers saw the technical demonstrator of the Ju-198 that he understood what Heinkel meant: they had clearly felt the pressure from Junkers and were ready to use technical improvements to seize the market as much as possible.

The ju-198 is not an upgraded version of the ju-98, these are two models with different ideas entirely.

The Meteor is both a dive bomber and a horizontal attack, and is very simple to produce, making it ideal for mass production, and is designed with the main wing folding in mind. Compared to the Japanese original, the German version was stronger, faster, and most critically had an increased bomb load - a torpedo that could be hung in the 1,000-kilogram class or an 800-kilogram aerial bomb.

Ozawa asked the Japanese experts present, and he generally believed that compared with the HE-218 and BF-219, the number of parts in the Meteor was the least, and the production requirements were also the lowest, and it was basically easy to get back to Japanese production -- as for the first two aircraft, they did not dare to pack tickets.

In terms of engine selection, due to the experience of the DO-412 and the success of the AR-352, Junkers wisely chose the BMW 801 series engine, but reserved the interface for the 901 series, the only disappointment is that the aircraft is still under development, and the expert group said that it will not be put into mass production until at least December.

As the commander of the aircraft carrier formation, Ozawa was very fond of the Meteor Change, which combines dive bombing and lightning strike capabilities, excellent maneuverability, and particularly simple production.

On the way back, the two quickly calculated that if the He-198 was successfully developed, the aircraft carrier would still be equipped with three types of aircraft in the future, and the composition ratio could be adjusted to about 40%-45% fighters, about 5% carrier-based reconnaissance aircraft, and then 50% attack aircraft. In the face of different tasks, this universal model can bring great convenience and combat efficiency improvement, if you consider the base increase brought by folding. Ozawa is optimistic that the combat effectiveness of the fleet can be increased by at least 40%.

His only concern was that the Meteor attack plane had set higher demands on the quality of pilots -- it would be more difficult to train pilots who had to master both lightning strikes and dive bombing.

When he told Machar about this doubt, the latter laughed dumbly: "Why do you want to do this? Wouldn't it be better for me to have more pilots? It is certainly very difficult for a pilot to be able to strike and dive bomb at the same time, but it is much easier to separate it into two pilots, and I am overequipped with both dive bombing and lightning attack pilots, and it can also form an effective rotation - the plane is still the same plane, and different pilots are on different missions. ”

Ozawa nodded yes, but when he thought about the actual situation in the country, he felt gloomy: "Germany has the means to have enough pilots, what about Japan?" When the new planes with folding wings are on board, I'm afraid that even the pilots of the new aircraft carrier will not be able to get together. ”

"Don't worry about General Horikichi, he will definitely vigorously train reserve pilots when he returns to Japan this time." Mashal comforted him, "Besides, we can also provide some pilots, so when the Combined Fleet goes west again, we don't have to worry about this." ”

Late on the night of July 23, the main forces of the huge German naval fleet set out from Italy, ready to begin the implementation of the "Pearl of Peace" program...... (To be continued.) )