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On the morning of 1 May, the Luftwaffe, which rarely entered the skies over the island of Britain during the day, uncharacteristically began an unprecedented daytime bombardment of 10 counties off the southern coast of England. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

From 9 a.m. on the same day, a group of more than 3,000 bombers that took off from various air bases in northern France and Belgium, escorted by the Fokker Zero, F190 and the HE219, a multi-role fighter that had just entered mass production, divided into 20 assault waves and attacked all the airfields, roads, coastal batteries, and areas that could be troop concentrations from Cornwall all the way to Norfolk.

The most important thing for these German planes to bomb was the line from Dover to Folkestone, near the Strait of Dover. Of course, this is also the most heavily air-defended area on the north coast of the entire English Channel, and there is no one.

The British intelligence service was known for its efficiency, and in this time and space, because of the appearance of the Stasi (the predecessor of the German Central Security Bureau) and the Hirschmann's concealment of the Enigma telegraph, the British ** ** and MI6 did not achieve much success, but it was still a piece of cake to find out the assembly place of the German landing fleet.

In fact, even without the contributions of MI5 and MI6 agents, the British High Command could have guessed that the German landing fleet would have to cross the Strait of Dover. Because the entire shipbuilding base in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark is east of the Strait of Dover.

Although the shipbuilding bases of France and Italy are either on the Atlantic coast or on the Mediterranean coast, they are not blocked by the Strait of Dover. However, France had an ambiguous attitude before the Battle of Hawaii, and did not give up on the German ships, and it was impossible to build military ships for Germany.

And Italy, although it has long been a loyal ally of Germany, the Italians have their own shipbuilding plans. After the victory in the Mediterranean Campaign, the ambitious Mussolini ordered the resumption of the shipbuilding program that had been interrupted due to the world war, and at the same time started construction of 2 battleships with a standard displacement of 45,000 tons (an improved Augustus class of the Veneto class), 2 aircraft carriers with a standard displacement of 15,000 tons (improved on the basis of the Seydlitz), 3 heavy cruisers with a standard displacement of 15,000 tons and 6 light cruisers with a standard displacement of 10,000 tons, as well as 20 destroyers, 20 mine-striking ships and 60 submarines. 【ㄨ】

As a result, the slipways of Italy's own shipyards were now filled with their own warships, and there was no room left to build for Germany.

Therefore, the German landing ships, especially large landing ships (the 1,500-ton T-type ship is considered large), will inevitably be built by German, Dutch and Belgian shipyards. It was impossible for these large landing ships to enter the Atlantic Ocean through the Danish Strait, unless the Germans did anything to build high-speed landing ships with a maximum speed of 278 knots. Otherwise, this kind of slow ship of more than a dozen knots can only risk breaking through the Strait of Dover!

The heavy bombing of the Dover area by German aircraft immediately gave the British base camp an ominous smell - the Germans either wanted to attack Dover directly, or they wanted their landing fleet to pass through the narrow channel.

Either way, it means that the battle for the defense of the British homeland has begun!

"Did the reconnaissance plane make a discovery? Can you find the landing fleet of the Germans? Qiu Fatzi, who was personally sitting in the wartime cabinet headquarters, immediately asked questions.

Although the British have now lost air supremacy over the Channel, they still have significant air power. All the British High Command did not abandon the idea of launching an air strike against the German landing fleet, and in order to launch an air strike, of course, it was necessary to find the German fleet and find out the situation.

"Something has been discovered," replied Viscount Portal, Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force, at once, "our Mosquito aircraft have spotted the large German fleet north of the Dutch territorial sea line, which is currently less than 80 nautical miles from the Strait of Dover, which is expected to pass this evening. ”

"Grand Fleet? Passing through the Strait of Dover tonight? Churchill immediately asked, "Are there battleships and aircraft carriers?" ”

He now knew that the main forces of the German High Seas Fleet had protruded through the Danish Strait into the Atlantic, but who could guarantee that no newly built battleships and aircraft carriers had joined the German Navy in the past few months?

Now the Germans have almost 70% of Europe's shipbuilding capacity! Although it is not comparable to the United States, it is no longer an opponent that Britain can compete with.

"I don't know ...... yet"

Viscount Potter's answer stunned Churchill, "What do you mean I don't know?" ”

"Mr. Prime Minister, our reconnaissance planes now have no way to get close to the Grand Fleet of the Germans, and can only reconnoiter on the periphery......"

"What, what?" Churchill was taken aback, "Can't get close?" What's going on? Wouldn't it be possible to fly mosquitoes? ”

"Prime Minister, our Mosquito aircraft seem to have a strong opponent today." Viscount Potter said very helplessly, "Germany has a twin-engine high-altitude fighter with great firepower, and it has already shot down many Mosquito planes." Unless we send a large number of planes to break through, it will be difficult to break through the German planes. ”

He paused, and then added, "But sending out a large number of planes means attacking, and now is not the time." The Royal Air Force was prepared to wait for the German Grand Fleet to pass through the Strait of Dover before attacking, because the Dover Battery and the Royal Navy's submarines would weaken the German fleet first, and we, the Royal Air Force, would be responsible for the final blow. ”

Churchill had already known the plan that Viscount Potter was talking about, and he had believed that the Royal Air Force could make a difference in anti-ship operations in the English Channel. But now the Germans have suddenly come up with a new fighter that can restrain the Mosquito aircraft, and it has cast a shadow over Churchill's heart.

The British Mosquito was probably the only trump card in the hands of the Royal Air Force in early 1942. Although it cannot be said that you can come and go as you want, the three high-altitude fighters of the Germans could not help it.

The first three high-altitude fighters that the Germans were equipped with, B and F190, were all emergency models (the F190D in the previous article was changed to D to be in test flight, and it was changed to be in the early stage of development). The ceiling and speed at extremely high altitudes are inferior to those of the Mosquito, so it can only barely attack the Mosquito, and it is difficult to shoot it down.

However, this situation changed radically with the entry into service of the new German twin-engine heavy fighter He-219. The HE-219 is equipped with a high-power engine of the DB603 series developed by Mercedes-Benz, and in particular, the high-altitude version of the HE-219 is equipped with a DB603G liquid-cooled engine with a three-speed supercharger. The ceiling reached 12,700 meters, which is more than all the models of Mosquito aircraft that have been put into production so far. The He-219 is also faster than the Mosquito at high altitudes, capable of flying at an altitude of 8,900 meters at a rapid speed of 700 km/h (without weapons and with little fuel).

Moreover, the HE-219 series of high-altitude fighters also has 6 20mm cannons and 2 30mm cannons (the firepower configuration of the main production version), and the firepower is outrageous. Not to mention the wooden-shelled mosquito type, even the B-17, known as the Flying Fortress, cannot withstand the attack of the HE-219.

In addition, the He-219 has a very large range of up to 2000 km. Range was not insignificant for such high-altitude and high-speed interceptors, because the Luftwaffe now had to protect a large area of the sky, and when it was not known where the enemy bombers would break through, the large range gave the He-219 fleet the possibility of scattered deployment and centralized use - historically, because there were not enough high-altitude fighters with a large range, the Germans could not gather a sufficient number of high-altitude fighters to intercept the large fleet of Allied aircraft.

In addition, the long-range HE-219 can sometimes be used as an escort aircraft, and it also has a good night combat capability.

For example, today the squadron leader of the 12th Night Fighter Regiment of the 10th Air Force of the Luftwaffe. Lieutenant Murray led 16 HE-219 planes to cover two squadrons of J.288 night high-altitude bombers, and flew over Dover on the north shore of the English Channel at dusk on May 1, when it was almost dark.

By this time, the daytime air battles were over, and now it was the turn of the night planes with radars equipped with radar FG212 "Richstein" 1 airborne radars.

"Now that the height is 11,000, and the Dover Fortress Group is below, can you still see it?" Lieutenant Murray turned on the airborne radio and began to meet with Squadron Leader Heinrich Murray, who was also part of the 8th High Altitude Bomber Aviation Regiment of the 12th Air Army. Captain Rethman, who is the commander-in-chief of the air raid today, called.

"The outline of the fortress is barely visible, but the armored turret is not clear...... The British seem to have camouflaged the turret, and perhaps there were several false targets. ”

Now that it was getting dark, the visibility was not good, and the distance of 11,000 meters was too far, the huge armored turret seemed to be the size of a matchbox at this height.

"Do you want to fly lower?"

"No," replied Captain Resselman, "we'll wait for the Brits to fire, and if they do, they'll be exposed, and then we'll be able to attack with wire-controlled Fritz bombs." ”

Both the Fritz and the HS293 are based on the same principle, but the former was developed on the basis of the P-1400 bomb, which is a 1400 kg armor-piercing bomb with a total weight of 1570 kg (not counting the weight of the barrel), which is very effective against armored targets such as fortresses and armored turrets and battleships.

"Fire? Will they open fire on their own initiative? ”

"Yes! It says it will, and we'll wait. (To be continued.) )