The sound of thumping footsteps, heavy and urgent, the staff in the wartime cabinet headquarters under King Charles Street all put down their business and looked in the direction where the footsteps sounded, and then turned their heads and sighed softly. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Although Churchill had been boosting the morale of the people through various speeches, and had achieved good results, the majority of the British people remained confident in the prospects of the war. However, during the war, the Cabinet Headquarters was full of "insiders" who knew the core secrets of the war, but they were frightened by the news brought by such heavy and rapid footsteps. And those who work in the wartime cabinet command today know that another major detachment of the German High Seas Fleet has gone to sea and will soon be at war with the Royal Navy. But can the Royal Navy win a big enough to change the balance of naval power between the two sides? Even the most optimistic about the prospects of the war shook their heads with a wry smile.

said secretly: "There must be something tight again." ”

They were right, the wartime Cabinet Command Communications Office had just received a report that the Faroe Islands would soon be bombed indiscriminately.

"How is it the Faroe Islands?" Churchill and the new Deputy Prime Minister Attlee exclaimed almost simultaneously when they heard the report of Third Sea Secretary Fraser, who was on duty at the wartime Cabinet Command today.

"This must be a trap!" Winston. Churchill immediately made his judgment. "If the Germans were to seize the Faroe Islands, they would not have allowed two Bismarck-class and one Scharnhorst-class to break into the Atlantic last December. The three battleships had 22 380mm cannons, which were used to bombard the coast. ”

He was correct in this judgment, and the German bombardment of the Faroe Islands was indeed a trap to attract the main force of the British Home Fleet to the Faroe Islands, but Churchill's reasons were not entirely correct.

The main reason why the Germans did not attack the Faroe Islands now was that they did not look down on them, the Faroe Islands consisted of 18 small mountainous islands or rocky reefs, and there were not many places where large airfields could be built, and because of the polar night phenomenon, as soon as the autumnal equinox passed, it was easy for British battleships to approach under the cover of night and destroy the airfields there with naval guns.

Moreover, the British defenders on the Faroe Islands also had a large number, full of 30,000 or 40,000 people, in addition to a large number of shore-based aircraft, they also had dozens of large-caliber coastal defense guns (mainly 10 in/254mm and 8 in/203mm naval guns), and it seemed that the difficulty of capturing the Faroe Islands was smaller than the landing in Ireland.

"Would the Germans have been able to capture the Faroe Islands without the Bismarck and Tirpitz?" Attlee, the new deputy prime minister and minister of state affairs, asked.

Clement. Richard. Attlee was the leader of the British Labour Party and was originally the Lord Keeper of the Seals in the wartime cabinet. However, as the war situation became increasingly unfavorable and the prestige of Churchill's government continued to decline, in order to appease public discontent, Churchill reshuffled the government in February 1942, and appointed Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party, to the post of deputy prime minister, and also made him minister of state affairs and president of the Privy Council.

"Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, I think they have the ability." Vice Admiral Fraser, Third Sea Lord, replied truthfully, "According to the reconnaissance of the Mosquito aircraft, the Germans have in their fleet two 'Hindenburg' and two 'Barbarossa' classes, the former armed with eight 406mm cannons and the latter with six 380mm cannons, both of which pose a serious threat to the batteries on the Faroe Islands. In addition, a large group of German bombers is now heading towards the Faroe Islands, which are expected to start bombing there in 15 minutes. ”

The "Mosquito" planes were really annoying guys, and these fast high-altitude planes equipped with radar could not only detect fleets on the sea, but also detect groups of aircraft flying in the air, and even use their speed and high-altitude performance to fly over German bomber groups to get up close.

"A huge group of bombers? How many planes are there approximately? Air Force Minister Sinclair, who was attending the meeting, hurriedly asked.

"The Coast Air Force reported that Mosquito aircraft that had gone to reconnoiter near Bergen had spotted a fleet of at least 100 four- and twin-engine heavy bombers flying towards the Faroe Islands. And these planes are not German, but Italian and French ones. ”

"Italian aircraft...... What the? How can there still be French planes!? Churchill was stunned and stunned, "They are not mistaken, right?" ”

"That's right, it's the livery of a French plane." Lieutenant General Fraser said with a wry smile, "According to reconnaissance, the Italians dispatched P.108 heavy bombers, and the French dispatched bombers of the Amio 350 series...... And these bombers flew at a very high altitude, reaching 9000-10000 meters! ”

"Damn, it's a high-altitude bomber!" Churchill gritted his teeth and said, "The turbocharged engines of the Germans must have succeeded!" ”

Churchill guessed only half right, the Italian P.108 heavy bomber did have an engine with a turbocharger supplied by Germany. However, the Amio 357 bomber, which was sent by the French Air Force to support the Germans, was indeed installed by the French's own Espano. Siza 12Z-9 turbocharged engine.

France, like Great Britain, neglected tactical bombers before and during the early years of the war, but invested heavily in strategic bombers, so it also developed turbocharging technology to improve the high-altitude performance of its engines. By the end of the campaign on the Western Front in 1940, French turbocharged engines were close to success. However, due to the defeat of the war, the French aviation industry experienced a period of downturn.

But after the Mediterranean campaign of 1941, the French aviation industry began to recover rapidly, and many projects that had been interrupted after 1940 were revived. Among them, the fastest progress is the French D.520 series fighters and the Amio 350 series bombers, the former is a fighter with better performance than the BF-109 series (if the same level of engine is used), and the latter takes a high-altitude and high-speed route, positioning is similar to the "mosquito" type.

At the same time, the strength of the French Air Force is rapidly recovering. Relying on the D.520 series of fighters and the Amio 350 series of bombers, the French Air Force has now rebuilt 10 fighter clusters and 10 bomber clusters. And from the beginning of 1942, the French Air Force began to fight side by side with the German and Italian air forces.

Clearly, the vast majority of the French had come to terms with the inevitable defeat of England, and had really begun to side with Germany.

And the Italian P.108 heavy bomber, after almost a year of repeated refinement and test flights, has finally matured.

Bruno Brown, who is now leading 60 P.108S bombers and 48 Amio 357 bombers on a mission to bomb the Faroe Islands. Major Mussolini (Mussolini's son) was now very pleased with the performance of the latest P.108S heavy bomber. With the installation of the BMW BMW-801R series engines and the pressurized cockpit, the P.108 heavy bomber had the ability to drop bombs at an altitude of 10,000 meters and a range of nearly 4,000 kilometers.

However, high altitude and long range are not the biggest killer features of the P.108S bomber - the American B-17 and the British "Mosquito" also have the same capability, but the P.108S has the precision strike capability that the B-17 and the "Mosquito" do not have!

The Germans put their "black tech weapon" HS-293V2 gliding bomb on the P.108! This bomb is similar to the laser-guided bombs of later generations, except that there is no laser and only a pair of human eyes with a vision of 2.0 or more. Dr. Wagner installed aluminum alloy wings and tail on the SC-500 ordinary aerial bomb, and also designed a set of radio remote control devices. Enables the controller on the aircraft to fly by radio control HS-293V2 gliding bomb! In December of the same year, Henschel also added a liquid rocket engine to the belly of the HS293V3, making it a simplified version of the missile, and the code name was changed to HS293A0.

However, the Luftwaffe and naval aviation (in fact, Hersmann meant it) were not very interested in the HS293A0 missile, but in the relatively simple HS293V3 controllable gliding bomb. Because both HS293A0 and HS293V3 are "artificial intelligence" with "human eyes", "human brains" and "human hands", as long as the human eye cannot see clearly, it is impossible to hit, so the practical significance of long-distance launch is not great. And in order to evade enemy anti-aircraft artillery and aircraft, it is obviously more reliable to attack from a high altitude than from a distance.

The 20mm, 37mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns of this era were generally 2000-4000 meters high, and the medium-sized anti-aircraft guns below 100mm usually hit 6000-8000 meters high, and if you wanted to hit more than 10,000 meters, you had to use heavy anti-aircraft guns of more than 100 meters. And there are generally few such heavy anti-aircraft guns on surface ships.

In addition, the high-altitude performance of carrier-based aircraft is usually not very good, after all, below 5,000 meters is the main battlefield of carrier-based aircraft, and bombs dropped from above 8,000 meters are basically unable to hit surface ships without "artificial intelligence" and "cat's eye skills."

Therefore, it is far more reliable for aircraft to attack from an altitude of 8,000 meters than from 8,000 meters away.

So the combination of "artificially guided bombs" and high-altitude heavy bombers has become the latest mode of anti-ship warfare. The P.108S, which has a large range and ultra-high-altitude performance, and a large enough bomb load and cabin area (requires space to place an "artificial intelligence" operating system), and is already a mature model, became the first Axis bomber equipped with HS293V3.

So the P.108S is now also the killer feature of General Gunther Lütjens! (To be continued.) )