"It's a pity that I don't have much time." Tsukahara 243 shook his head slightly, "It has exceeded my expectations to be able to complete the repair and installation of catapults within the specified time, if all 5 aircraft carriers are equipped with catapults, will Germany have so many catapults for us to use, not to mention, I am afraid that the construction period alone will take half a year." Moreover, I didn't bring too many pilots with me this time, and after the early combat losses, all the reserve pilots have not yet been fully staffed, and who will drive the planes if they are retained? ”

"Hey......" Ryunosuke Kusaka could only shake his head and sigh: Compared with Germany, the gap between Japan and Germany in the number of pilots is too big, the German Navy has only been in operation for a few months, and all personnel are drawn from the air force, and now a pilot team of about 800 people has been established, and there are more than 100 pilots with the ability to stably board ships. However, the naval pilots trained by Japan for many years before the war have been repeatedly attritional, and so far they can only maintain a low standard of about 300 pilots, and this time the combined fleet still recruited a group of base pilots to make up for the number of aircraft carrier pilots. Everyone does not deny the elite of Japanese carrier-based aircraft pilots, but the number is an out-and-out dead end.

Although the overall and reserve scale of German pilots is not comparable with that of the United States, it has also established a team of more than 1,000 aces (more than 5 planes shot down or similar results) and nearly 10,000 pilots (including crews, many of whom were trained by Hoffman after he concurrently served as commander of the Air Force), ranking second in the world in terms of scale, and ranking first in the world in terms of overall quality. In recent times, the top management of the mobile fleet, the trio of studying in Germany, and Richthofen have been mingling all day long, and during the conversation, Minoru Genda, an aviation staff officer, complacently explained the plan to increase the number of pilots by eight times, and also mentioned that Horiyoshi intends to build a pilot that is at least twice the number of carrier-based aircraft that the aircraft carrier can hold.

But when Richthofen opened his mouth, everyone was dumbfounded: the German Führer was very dissatisfied with the current size of the air force, and ordered the chief of staff of the air force, Senior General Jeshunek, to personally take charge of the training work, and strive to expand the pilot team by calling back the top pilots to train cadets in turn, and ambitiously proposed to establish an air force with an annual output of 50,000 aircraft, 20,000 pilots, and 4,000 ace standards by the end of 1943, plus Italy to achieve an annual output of 60,000 aircraft, The total number of pilots in the large air force will exceed 25,000, and at the same time, the number of pilots in the navy will exceed 2,000 -- Japan's so-called eightfold expansion plan is simply a drop in the bucket in front of Germany.

Another problem that is far from being the organization and organization of Japanese pilots is that Japan does not have an independent air force, and its planes are owned by the army and navy respectively, and not only are the training methods different, but even the piloting models are completely different, while Germany at least has the same basic training of pilots, and the planes used are generally similar -- the He-218 and Bf-219 with the ship-hook removed are the new models vigorously adopted by the Air Force, and this provides a very reliable source for the replenishment of the pilots of the HNA. At the Führer's order, the air force units with rich experience in naval attacks, including the pilots stationed in the Norwegian JG5 Wing and stationed on the Atlantic coast of France, Sicily in Italy, and the Mediterranean (now the attack mission in the Mediterranean direction has been greatly reduced), have successively changed their structure to the HNA -- this is why no one thinks that the expansion of the German HNA to 2,000 personnel is bragging. And in Japan, it is more difficult for the Navy to get a pilot from the Army than it is to ascend to the sky.

Seeing that Ryunosuke Kusaka's face had become very bad, Tsukahara patted him on the shoulder and comforted: "Don't think too much, Chief Horikichi has a comprehensive consideration for this, and he has ordered a set of catapults from Germany, and Germany promises to work overtime to complete the delivery before the end of February, and he is ready to take it back to China to install it himself, and at the same time, we have obtained relevant drawings from Germany, and we can imitate it ourselves in the future." The so-called learning and progress are all coming little by little, and it is unrealistic to expect to reach the sky in one step, why did Chief Horikichi sell battleships and then buy so many engines? It is because we know that there is still a considerable gap between our technology and manufacturing level and Germany, and we must buy it in order not to affect the follow-up operations. ”

There is one sentence that Tsukahara did not say: Horikichi has opened his mouth, and if the domestic engine in Japan does not meet the quality of Germany, he will continue to find a way to buy German goods.

At the same time as the two exchanged the follow-up development of carrier-based aviation, the Japanese and German pilots who took off from the four aircraft carriers had been divided into two attack waves and advanced in the direction of Mombasa, which was the first time that the German naval aviation pilots really took off from the aircraft carrier and entered the battle, and everyone's excitement was overflowing, although their ability to leave the ship and land on the ship was not as good as the Japanese pilots, but the familiarity of the piloting model far exceeded that of their Japanese counterparts, and the pilots who entered the battle this time were all selected from the top of the layers. In particular, many of the fighter pilots were veterans from the Condor Legion who had experienced the Spanish War, and as soon as they met, they entangled with enemy planes with their nimble Bf-219 and quickly achieved one victory after another.

In addition, Japanese fighter pilots, including the Sweep Trio, also swarmed up, each finding their own target and fighting. On the one hand, there is an offensive team composed of more than 70 cutting-edge fighters, on the other hand, there is a defensive team composed of about 50 old planes of all kinds, on the other hand, there are well-prepared, experienced, and top-notch fighter pilots, and on the other hand, there are rookie pilots who are in a hurry to meet the battle, lack experience, and have very low ability. The result can be imagined, if you hunt turkeys, one after another Hurricane, Tomahawk, F4F fighters are beaten down from the air by Japanese and German pilots, and the whole process is as easy and comfortable as hunting turkeys.

When "a large aircraft carrier was found, suspected to be the British Fury...... 3 small warships and 4 transport ships", Admiral Richthofen, who was sitting in the command tower of the Shozuru and commanded the entire air battle with the assistance of Ozawa, Minoru Genda and other senior Japanese staff, stood up excitedly, and even Tsukahara 243 and Kusaka Ryunosuke, who had been talking in a relaxed and calm tone, turned their heads in amazement: "And the aircraft carrier?" ”

"The lightning striker is immediately responsible for sinking the aircraft carrier and other ships!" Richthofen gave the order decisively, and just as he was saying this, the second wave of Japanese lightning strikers who were in charge of leading the team, Shigeharu Murata, had already led the Ju-98 formation to attack.

But before him, a dive bomber had spotted this tempting target and swooped down to attack first, so angry that he yelled in his headset "Bastard!" Bastard! ”

According to the original plan, the fighters were responsible for solving and pinning down enemy aircraft during the attack, the He-218 was responsible for solving the inshore anti-aircraft fire and enemy airfields and warehouses, and the torpedo-mounted Ju-98 was responsible for dealing with the possible presence of the navy in the harbor. No one expected that the British and American fighter units that came to meet them would be so careless, and within a few minutes they were all shot down by Japanese and German pilots one after another, and the fighters who had nothing to do immediately played the role of ground attack, causing a mess of ground anti-aircraft fire -- this again robbed the dive bombers of the job, so the He-218 in turn came to rob the Ju-98 of the job.

Although the speed of the Ju-98 piloted by the lightning strike team far exceeds that of the original 97 ship attack, the problem is that the He-218 flies faster than the Ju-98, and the speed not only greatly exceeds the old 99 ship explosion, but even the original Zero Battle is not an opponent. As a result, the British and American warships, which had just received an air defense warning and had not even gotten up their speed, became the number one target, and the aircraft carrier Fury, which was slow, large, and of high value, had obviously become the most tempting target -- what was even worse was that the carrier-based attack planes on this aircraft carrier had gone to play the role of a transport team, and the fighter squadron had been completely wiped out, and they could not find any means of counterattack at all except the only anti-aircraft fire on the warship.

Murata Shigeharu saw with his own eyes that six bombs were dropped on the Fury, including at least a 500-kilogram aerial bomb, which had achieved its goal from the point of view of paralyzing combat effectiveness -- he had no carrier-based aircraft to take off anyway, but now, the lightning strike team could not go back empty-handed, and he lowered the altitude and launched the torpedo regardless of the consequences of excessive firepower, and the three German lightning planes following him had no choice but to drop the torpedo at this target.

The poor Fury hit 8 bombs and 3 torpedoes in 3 minutes, not to mention a mere cruiser-converted aircraft carrier, even the George V-class battleships had to kneel here, and soon the aircraft carrier sank rapidly and died no longer, but the water was not deep enough, and the deck roof was still exposed, and the main channel was blocked by the way.

The remaining attack planes had nothing to do but drop torpedoes on the transport planes and small warships moored in the harbor, and the He-218 took the lead - the transport ship, which had just arrived from Madagascar to deliver gasoline to Mombasa, became the second casualty, and a 250-kilogram bomb pierced the deck and fell into the hold and exploded, detonating the gasoline that had accumulated inside and causing an earth-shattering explosion. All the pilots looked at each other, this is hitting the ammunition depot? But this is obviously a transport ship!

Eisenhower, who was hiding in a bomb shelter, watched in a daze as planes coated with the Rising Sun Pill and the Iron Cross flew over Mombasa, and the news from all quarters almost made him bite his teeth: all the fighters were shot down, the shore defenses were destroyed, the airfield was bombed to the ground, and seven warships and transports, including the Fury, were sunk...... Now these planes are starting to attack other worthy targets, including radar stations, warehouses, oil depots, and even fighter jets that have penetrated deep into the harbor and fired machine guns at ground troops with impunity. (To be continued.) )