When piloting the German Navy's Albarrot H-25 carrier-based fighter from the Galway naval training base, Japanese Navy Lieutenant Hiroshi Sugita was completely focused on the plane's maneuverability, and he did not think about what kind of "bizarre" situation he would encounter in the next confrontation training. www.biquge.info The Japanese military had long been aware of the fact that the Chinese pilots were studying in Ireland and had used the Germans to put pressure on the Irish government in an attempt to get the Irish to repatriate these Chinese soldiers, who posed a great threat to the Japanese air force, in advance, but the Irish side believed that this was a reasonable clause in the arms purchase contract, so it ignored the Japanese government's request and continued to train pilots for the Chinese Air Force.

The other H-25 that participated in the confrontation training was piloted by Captain Hansen, an experienced German naval pilot, who took off ahead of Sugita and waited until Sugitta's plane climbed to an altitude of 2,000 meters, then swooped down from above the rear, then suddenly pulled up the nose of the plane and jumped upward, and then rolled to the right for a circle, demonstrating to the Japanese pilots the powerful maneuverability of the so-called "Europe's No. 1 carrier-based fighter" in a series of flowing movements.

The air maneuvers made by Captain Hansen can be achieved by most fighters, and what really distinguishes the performance of fighters is the speed and consistency with which they are accomplished, and the performance of the H-25 is many times stronger than that of Japan's active carrier-based aircraft. During this trip to Europe, Sugita opened his eyes and admired Germany's aviation technology, and he and most of his colleagues on this trip have reached a consensus: the H-25 is the ideal choice to raise the strength of the Japanese naval aviation to a higher level!

In the state of close companionship, Sugida saw Captain Hansen make a "I go up" gesture to himself. The theme of this confrontation training is attack and interception rather than search and evasion, so the attacker's flight line is established, and the defender's two fighters only need to wait on this line, and the difficulty of winning the confrontation is that the opponent has three fighters, and they only need to entangle the defender's fighter plane and cover the only torpedo plane to reach the open position of Galway Bay, so before departure, Captain Hansen's tactics are clear and simple: Sugita's fighter planes conduct frontal interception at mid-altitude, Captain Hansen ambushed at high altitude, and after spotting the opposing group, he aimed at the torpedo planes and dived down to try to knock out with one blow.

Hansen was a German pilot stationed at a naval base in northwestern Ireland, and Sugita had first contact with him, so he didn't know much about his strength, but he didn't have much confidence in himself. Counting the trip in Germany, he had less than 30 hours of contact with the H-25, and the actual flight was not even 10 hours. If Hansen's tactics work, no matter how well he performs in this confrontation training, it will not detract from the image of the Japanese naval aviation, but on the other hand, the intent of examining the IR-30T will not be achieved. After thinking about it, Sugita already had his own ideas, and before the plane took off, he also reported to Major General Yamamoto, the leader of the team, and received his approval, and his heart was steady.

After greeting each other, the H-25 piloted by Hansen climbed with its head held high, and Sugita looked up to see it off, silently estimating the rate of climb of the H-25 in such weather conditions, so as to provide valuable first-hand material for the comprehensive assessment of the Japanese Navy. When it hid in the clouds, Sugita put his eyes back on the front, and there was no trace of the opponent's fighters in his sight - the attackers only determined the flight route, and did not fix the flight altitude and tactical arrangement, they took off at the same time as the defender's fighters, which could not only allow three fighters to open the way in front, but also form an escort formation, and could also be disassembled and combined at will, and they could circle in place on the prescribed route, anyway, their respective fuel was enough to go back and forth in the airspace of the exercise many times.

Sugida estimated that the Irish pilots would adopt the common tactic of fighting for air supremacy on the battlefield, that is, to use the numerical superiority of the three carrier-based fighters to destroy the defenders first, so that they did not need to consider the cover of the torpedo planes, directly won the confrontation training, and demonstrated the performance of the fighters according to the opponent's wishes. If both sides didn't make any additional moves in the battle, it would only take four or five minutes to fly straight to each other's field of vision, so Sugita did not use the last opportunity to grope for the tactical maneuvers of the H-25, but maintained a high level of mental concentration. Sure enough, unnatural flying objects soon appeared on the edge of the clouds to the southeast, and in such weather, the white livery of the Irish Navy's carrier-based aircraft was slightly more dominant than the German's silver-gray livery, and it took a while for Sugida to confirm that there were two "enemy planes" in his sight instead of three.

Two frontal interceptions, one high-altitude ambush?

Sugida gritted his teeth, he was not sure that he would fight one against one, let alone with one against two. If Hansen had swooped down from the clouds before he had discovered the opponent's torpedo plane, even if he successfully "shot down" an opponent's fighter, he would still be tactically "against the trend", unless he could survive the start and not be killed by the highly skilled Irish pilots, then the odds might be greater.

Seeing that there is only one fighter flying under the clouds on the attacker's side, it is also easy for the defender pilot to guess the opponent's plan, and then it is up to the attacker to see who can play better in direct conversation. Not surprisingly, two Irish carrier-based fighters swooped straight towards the lone H-25, they kept a moderate distance from one after the other, this is a standard two-plane battle formation, Sugita had seen such air tactics in German training before, and thought that he had only one chance to break the formation, so he clenched the joystick with both hands, pulled the shooting button with his thumb, and kept tapping the pedal with his two feet as if he was warming up, his eyes focused on one place, his heart beat faster, his pupils dilated, and his whole body was in a state of being excited......

The Germans' approach is to see who can get close to within 50 meters and let the target stay stably in the shooting scope, which is difficult to make an objective and fair assessment from a third-party perspective, usually relying on the camera installed on the plane to judge the results, and the shooting button on the plane is the camera switch.

Getting closer and closer to the two Irish fighters, Sugita was ready to carry out an extremely risky "frontal charge", this tactic could cause the plane to be destroyed and killed if he was not careful, so it was not common in training, and Sugita gambled that the Irish pilots would not dare to "fight" with him. As soon as the long plane in front of him turned to avoid it, he immediately adjusted its course and launched an attack on the wingman behind him who was moving a beat slower.

Coldly, Sugita realized that the two fighters in front of him were not exactly the same as he took for granted - in his opinion, the two IR-29Ts should be in a formation together, and the better performing IR-30T was ambushed at high altitude, but there was a difference between the two in front of him in the shape of the fairing and the wing layout, so it seemed that they were actually a mixed formation of an IR-29T and an IR30T?

Sugita's mind may have only wandered for a few tenths of a second, just between the lightning and flint, the opponent's long plane swung its wings, looking as if it was about to turn and avoid, but the next scene appeared was a wonderful picture: the white fighter plane rolled sideways for a week and a half, the movement was like a kite off the line, completely out of the established trajectory, and the erratic figure quickly moved to the oblique position above Sugitta's line of sight, and continued to approach in an upside-down flying posture. Sugita subconsciously pulled back the joystick in order to raise the nose of the plane and aim the sight at the target, but in an instant, the white fighter suddenly spun down, rushed to the ground at Sugita speed, and then disappeared from his field of vision!

Sugita's mind went blank, not knowing what to do next, and his retina almost passively received feedback from a moving object: the opposing wingman actually rushed straight from above, and seeing that the two planes were about to collide in the air, the white fighter flicked its wings lightly, drawing a beautiful arc in the air, just right to avoid the H-25 piloted by Sugita. When the two fighters were closer, the wingtips and wingtips were probably only a dozen meters, but Sugita only realized that there was a figure in the cockpit of the other party, and he didn't even see what the other party looked like. When he came to his senses, he found that his hands were still gripping the joystick, but his feet were stiffly pressed against the pedals, and he had done nothing but pull and push the joystick slightly.

Isn't it already ...... just now

Covered in a cold sweat, Sugita turned his head to follow the trail of the enemy fighter, only to see the silver-gray H-25 fighting the white fighter. When did Hansen come down? Did his dive pay off? What is the current situation on the battlefield?

Sugida's brain crashed again, isn't this the feeling of a mortal watching a master's moves?

However, on the Chinese battlefield, Japanese pilots fought most of the time in a situation in which the situation prevailed, and they did not learn much combat experience from the weak Chinese Air Force, and the Japanese naval aviation fought far less in China than the army aviation, and most of the experience was gained through daily training. The same is training, the Germans have to hold large-scale joint drills every year, this tradition has been continued from the Prussian era, almost never interrupted, the investment of funds and energy determines the quality of training, not to mention that Germany has always pulled the Allied countries to spar after the war, and in recent years, it has been in the Caucasus, Persia and South America to get the opportunity to fight with the fierce rivals, the effect can be imagined.

Maybe he hasn't been shot down yet, maybe the opponent's torpedo plane is ahead, maybe he still has a chance to save the situation of confrontation training, with these not sober thoughts, Sugita drove the H-25 forward at full speed, and when he didn't feel right, a white fighter plane had already appeared in the corner of his eye, he turned his head in great shock, and saw that the Irish fighter plane was flying close to him like Hansen before, but it was not a blonde, blue-eyed and white-skinned European sitting in the cockpit, The hair peeking out from the lower edge of the flight cap was black, the forehead and facial skin were yellow, and the eyes behind the windbreaker goggles were also black, with a fierce look in their eyes......

Chinese!

Sugida was stunned, and watched at a loss as the other party made two gestures to wipe his neck, and then a downward thumping motion, could it be that he had been killed twice?

Without waiting for Sugita to make any announcement, the white fighter turned to the right lightly, and a moment later, it swerved, climbed, and rolled in the air, and the fighter made a series of dazzling movements, and the humming sound of the engine as it increased its horsepower was clearly audible.

Seeing that the white falcon once again occupied the attack position behind him, Sugita hurriedly swung the control stick and frequently stepped on the flight pedal used to control the rudder and coordinate the steering of the aircraft, trying to get the plane out of the pursuit of the other party, but it was ineffective, and what made him feel even more devastated was that after each successful attack, the yellow-skinned pilot had to fly to the side and make a gesture to himself to wipe his neck and represent the number of shots.

In less than 20 minutes, Sugida, known as the No. 1 ace of the Japanese naval aviation, was shot down nine times by the other side, and he did not even catch a chance to counterattack. When he returned, even Hansen threw him a sympathetic look, and he was ashamed, while Sugita only hated that he didn't have a rib at hand, so that he could kill himself directly in the cockpit, so as not to bring this indescribable shame back to the ground.

(End of chapter)