"One second, two seconds, three seconds...... Ten seconds! In the bar of the Fort Benning Base Service Club, Bison and Tomato are in the midst of the seconds of their comrades competing to see who can finish a full glass of beer first. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

"Smack!" When everyone counted to 10, the bison had already taken the lead in drinking the beer in his hand, and slapped the tomato on the back excitedly: "Haha, I won!" Tomato, my dorm duties are all yours next week! ”

"Poof~" The tomato was slapped by the bison, and a mouthful of beer squirted directly from the mouth and nose. "Damn it, Bison, do you want to kill me?" Holding on to the table and coughing for a while, Tomato straightened up and yelled angrily.

Everyone has long been surprised that they "love and kill each other", and they are now settling gambling money around Richard. Richard also wanted to bet $5 on the bison, but the stakes were too big for him to play, so he had to play the role of "dealer" again.

At this time, the bar is almost full of people from Camp 501, and everyone is partying for the successful first jump and the next three days of vacation. After today's parachute training, General William Lee generously gave them three days off (because there were not enough transport planes, and the other three battalions would have to parachute training in the next few days), and allowed them to apply in batches to go around the base.

Since Richard and the others entered the training base, they have not left the gate of the camp. Even if there is no training on Christmas and New Year's Day, they can only stay in the dormitory, and they have long been suffocated.

"Cheers! Kolahi! (American Airborne Forces Battle Cry, meaning Independent Combat) "Not far away, more than a dozen soldiers of Company A shouted the battle cry of the Airborne Forces as they clinked glasses, and wine glasses filled with golden beer collided together with a crisp sound.

"Kolahi!" The soldiers of the 501st Battalion in the bar all raised their glasses and shouted in response. A mischievous ghost also shouted, "Long live Daddy William!" It caused the audience to burst into laughter.

While Richard and the others were cheering and celebrating the success of today's first jump, Gavin and the other airborne training officers gathered in a conference room, busy summarizing and analyzing today's training. General William Lee is still waiting for their final report.

"Tell me, Gavin. You jumped with Battalion 501 today, how do you feel? Lieutenant Colonel Willis, Chief Airborne Training Officer, asked as he flipped through the training record sheet.

"It's a good start for a beginner." Gavin wasn't really happy with today's skydiving training results. After jumping from 1,500 feet, the novices almost forgot about their usual training routines. Very few people can perform an air correction operation on a parachute in excess of 30 seconds. Most of the people landed in a daze like a pocket during the whole landing process.

However, this is the first time in the history of the U.S. Army that it has been trained in a formed parachute jump, and Gavin understands that now is not the time to pour cold water. As long as there are no casualties, no matter how many other problems there are, they must be put aside first. What they need now is a result, a highlight, a summary report that will allow General William Lee to get to Washington to secure more resources for them.

Therefore, Gavin still racked his brains and found a few shining points from the performance of the 501st battalion today. Among them, Richard, as one of the few elites who passed the A-level evaluation and was able to correctly manipulate the parachute to the designated position, naturally became the object of his introduction.

Lieutenant Colonel Willis, of course, also knew that the current unit was still some way from the standard of qualified airborne troops. However, in a little more than a month, thousands of novices were able to pass the C-level or above assessment and start to conduct actual jump training, and their airborne training officers also took a lot of painstaking work.

In this field, the US military does not have much experience accumulation, and there is very little foreign military information to learn from. All training methods and combat tactics must be explored and tried by them little by little. So in this report, Willis still has a lot of real things to write about, and it's not exactly empty words and clichés. Soon, with the gossip of other trainers, a flowery summary report was freshly released.

"Gavin, you come with me. The general may ask for specific details, and you have been on the scene in the morning and are more familiar with the situation. Willis took the freshly typed report and took Gavin to General William Lee's office.

It was past 9 p.m., and William Lee was still in his office calling the Army Air Corps' "Ferry Division" (a department responsible for delivering planes to bases), urging them to get the other six C-47 transport planes that Arnold had given him as soon as possible.

However, William Lee's communication was clearly not going well, and a lieutenant colonel on the other end of the phone kept talking about the official tone, and never let go of their delivery plan to the front row.

In the end, William Lee had no choice but to put down the phone. There's no way, who told Stimson to put the Airborne Forces under the jurisdiction of the Army. If it had been part of the Army Air Corps, there would have been no such trouble. General Arnold was still interested in William Lee's "air infantry" program, and the deputy chief of staff of the Army had always wanted the Army Air Corps to have a small ground force.

"Report!"

"Come in!"

"General, this is a summary report of today's parachute diving training." Lieutenant Colonel Willis walked into General William's office with Gavin.

"Okay, you guys sit down first." William Lee took the report and flipped through it. In less than two minutes, he finished reading the report, which was only a few pages: "This report is for Washington, not for me." What about mine? ”

"General, what do you mean?" Willis asked, hesitantly.

"Recently, the training of the troops has been going very well, and you have really worked hard, I am very satisfied." William Lee praised Willis a few times, and then changed the subject: "But we can't just look at the results. Finding problems and adjusting them in time is the focus of our work now. Is there any problem with today's live jump training? ”

"Understood, General." Willis nodded again and again, "Let's go back and study and summarize." ”

Seeing Gavin's appearance of wanting to speak on the side, General William Lee directly ordered his general: "Captain Gavin, you led the team in today's training, can you tell me what the problem is first?" ”

"General, the biggest problem at the moment is that the paratroopers are being dropped too slowly." Gavin said: "Now the side hatches of the C-47 can only pass through one paratrooper at a time. There were 22 people on the plane I was on, and there was a total of 41 seconds between the first paratrooper taking off and the last paratrooper exiting the cabin. And during these 41 seconds, the plane is always moving horizontally at high speed. This is also the reason why today part of the paratroopers is beyond the range of the landing site. If you want to reduce the depth of the airborne, you have to find a way to increase the speed of delivery. ”

"Anything else?" William Lee was intrigued by Gavin's words and motioned for him to continue.

"Then there's the issue of the take-off height. Today's take-off altitude is 1,500 feet, and the average soldier stays in the air for between 30-40 seconds. Regular training can ensure safety, and if there is a problem with the main wing, there will be time to adjust in time. However, in actual combat, it is more dangerous to stay in the air for a long time, and it is easy for paratroopers to become targets for ground anti-aircraft fire. ”

Gavin thought for a moment and added: "But if the flight altitude is reduced, the risk of the transport plane itself being hit also increases." We still have to work with the Army Air Corps to find out what the right take-off height is. ”

"Judging from today's actual jump, is there anything that needs to be adjusted in the previous ground training subjects?" William Lee asked again.

"The training on wing handling has been further strengthened." Gavin said: "The T5 parachute we are using a static rope traction parachute, the advantage is that it can achieve an orderly landing to avoid collisions in the air, and the disadvantage is that the main parachute is difficult to correct direction in the air. Although we taught the soldiers how to operate the parachute with the control rope on the sling, it was more difficult to operate than expected. Soldiers also need to do a lot of simulated operation training to master. ”

William Lee was very pleased with Gavin's statement. "Good, that's what I want. Willis, you go back and hurry up and summarize all these questions. Next Tuesday, there's a seminar on airborne warfare at Fort Leavenworth, and you and Captain Gavin will join me. ”