"Quick, dear plane, fly, fly!"

"Fly higher, fly higher, you can do it!"

Nearly 10,000 meters above the city of Rome, Hersmann's baby son, Rudolph, was muttering to his beloved Fokker Zero. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

And this Fokker Zero, which is more agile than a bird at 5,000 meters below, is like a fat hen, panting, shaking its wings, desperately yearning for a run. Of course, this is not because the plane is broken, but that Little Hersman is flying a little high today, and the Fokker Zero he piloted has now climbed to an altitude of 10,000 meters!

Such an altitude is almost the limit for the Fokker Zero, although it can barely climb up, but it flies very hard, and the speed cannot be increased, let alone maneuverability.

Originally, the Fokker Zero is a low-to-medium altitude aircraft, and its engine is equipped with an altitude of 4,200 meters for optimal performance. Performance drops significantly above 6,000 meters, let alone up to 10,000 meters.

But there was a special situation today, and it was not possible to fly so high. Because about 20 British bombers are breaking into the circle of anti-aircraft fire in Rome from an altitude of 10,000 meters!

And in order to fight in the Eastern Mediterranean, German and Italian high-performance fighters were deployed to Sicily and Benghazi. Only the two carrier-based aircraft groups of the German naval aviation were left behind in the port of Taranto to wait for the new aircraft to be received because they had no aircraft carriers and had lost all their aircraft. On the 15th, when the British B-17s arrived, the two carrier-based aircraft groups had just been equipped with new aircraft.

The 12 Fokker Zeros that Hersman Jr. and his men are now piloting have just been shipped from the FK-BF complex in Riga, and they are the latest model of the Fokker Zero C-1 (the Fokker Zero is not the same as the modified version of the Japanese Zero).

The Fokker Zero engine was fitted with a supercharger and the MW50 system, which increased engine power in a short period of time by injecting a 1:1 mixture of water-methanol. In fact, this improvement was made so that the Fokker Zero could compete with the Spitfire at medium and high altitudes without the cooperation of the BF-109.

However, the Spitfire did not meet the plane, but it did catch Churchill's B-17 heavy bomber.

"Lieutenant, I've found them! At 10 o'clock, 800 meters below! "Egmont. Prince Lip Wissenfield's voice came through the headphones. "There are 17, no, 18 four-engine heavy bombers, in a very dense formation, flying south-southeast......"

Little Hersman looked down and saw 18 B-17 bombers flying in a dense formation at an altitude of about 9,200 meters below. Hersman Jr. knew that such heavy bombers often had very strong self-defense firepower, and they were discharged in dense formations in order to cover each other. Once their cannons fire at the same time, they would weave a dense web of fire in the air, and the small body of the Fokker Zero could not resist hitting at all. Moreover, the fuselage of such aircraft is usually extremely strong, and it is difficult to deal a fatal blow with a 7.92mm machine gun of the Fokker Zero.

So the only correct tactic is to use high speed to approach the opponent, and then bombard it with a 20mm cannon, and immediately disengage after all the ammunition is gone.

Such a tactic could not have been done with the Fokker Zero model that Hersman Jr. had flown before, but now the plane he was flying could "knock the drug" to the engine.

"Twin aircraft formation, dive attack, open afterburner!" Hersman Jr. gave the order to attack via the on-board radio, "Remember, we only have 10 minutes!" ”

Using the MW50 system to spray water and ethanol on the engine can increase the power for a short time, but this is harmful to the engine itself, so it can only maintain the afterburner effect for 10 minutes.

But when it comes to fighting for your life, 10 minutes is deadly enough!

"Enemy planes! Enemy! It's a Fokker Zero! ”

"Cannon! Cannon ready ......"

"Oh God! The cannon froze! The cannon can't fire! ”

"What?"

When Hersman Jr. and the others began to attack in the drugged Fokker Zero, the B-17 bombers were in chaos.

Flying these planes was the British 90th Bomber Squadron, which was owned by the British bomber force, which had previously flown the "Wellington" bombers to harass the Germans in night sorties. During the day, he also bombed the English Channel and the Atlantic coast of Dunkirk, Calais, Lehr, Harvard, Brest, and other French port cities leased by Germany, and had a lot of combat experience.

But the "Wellington" bombers they used before were only operating at medium altitudes and would not fly at an altitude of more than 9,000 meters at all. Therefore, they also have no experience in high-altitude bombing, and the time to familiarize themselves with the performance of the aircraft is too short. So I forgot to add enough antifreeze to the machine guns on the plane, and after flying at an altitude of nearly 10,000 meters for several hours, the machine guns on the plane froze and could not be used!

"Damn it!" Major Simpson, the squadron leader of the 90th Bomber Squadron, secretly cursed, saying that the good Fokker Zero is a low-altitude aircraft? How did you go up to the sky, and it looks like it's flying pretty fast! And at this time, the machine gun on the bomber could not be used, what else was it for?

"Where have we been?" Major Simpson hurriedly asked the navigator beside him.

"Rome, it's Rome!" The navigator replied, "In a little more we will be able to cross the Tiber, and according to the plan, we will be able to drop bombs after crossing the river, and we will have to fly across the Tiber......"

The reason for this arrangement was that Churchill did not want to drop bombs on the land of the Vatican city-state on the west bank of the Tiber. This is because the current Pope Pius XII is cold to the Nazi and fascist regimes, while friendly to Britain and the United States. In the event that he is blown up, Mussolini is likely to take the opportunity to install a pro-fascist pope.

As Major Simpson spoke, the Fokker Zero's attack had begun. The two B-17s on the edge of the B-17 dense bombing formation were first bombarded by four Fokker Zeros, and the 20mm shells rained down, quickly turning the two planes into a sieve, and one of them had its wing discounted and fell headlong. The other was set on fire, dragging smoke through the sky.

Major Simpson heard the screams of the crew members of the two hit B-17s from the headset, gritted his teeth and ordered: "Don't wait, throw the bomb now, and stretch the height right away!" ”

The B-17C can fly to more than 11,000 meters, but the premise of flying so high is that the bomb must be dropped to reduce weight. So at the moment of life and death, Major Simpson can't control the Pope, anyway, God will bless him, it should not be blown up......

……

God forbids the Pope not to be afraid of bombing, and the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, although he did not have God's blessing, was not afraid of bombs either.

When the B-17 visited Rome, Mussolini was in the Venetian Palace for talks with Kuznetsov, the head of the Soviet Military Observer Corps. Just as he was boasting about how powerful the Italian air force was, how it had blown up the British battleships and aircraft carriers to the ground, the air defense alarm came to mind. Then there was the call from the Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force, Pricolo, to report that 10-20 heavy bombers were attacking from high altitudes.

However, Mussolini did not drill into the bomb shelter, but confidently invited the People's Commissar of the Soviet Navy to go with him to the balcony of the Venetian Palace to watch how the Italian Air Force shot down the British plane.

The Italian Air Force, of course, did not ignore the air defense of Rome, and not only placed a number of anti-aircraft artillery positions in the city of Rome, but also deployed 20 squadrons of fighters on airfields around Rome...... It's just that those fighters were mostly biplane and did not have a closed cabin CR.42 and poor performance G.50. Theoretically, it can also fly above 10,000 meters. However, these planes do not have the MW50 system to take drugs, and they can barely fly 10,000 meters and cannot fight at all.

Therefore, there are many Italian planes flying in the sky now, but the one that is really attacking is the 12 Fokker Zeros of the small Hersmann squadron.

So Mussolini didn't see the imaginary scene of the Italian Air Force annihilating the enemy, and just saw 2 enemy planes dragging black smoke down, and the bombs also fell!

Standing on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia, not far from the Tiber, Mussolini could clearly see huge fireballs and columns of smoke rising near the Vatican City-State and Castel Sant'Angelo.

In addition to the two downed B-17s, 16 B-17 bombers are now dropping bombs, each of which carries more than 1.8 tons of bombs, for a total of nearly 30 tons of bombs. Although it is not a large number, it is still very lethal when thrown in the center of Rome, which is densely populated and ancient buildings.

The Italian leader then shouted: "God, they are bombing the Vatican? What do the British want to do? Do they have God in their hearts? ”

Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, also rushed to the balcony at this time, pulled his old man and said, "Leader, it is dangerous here, you should go to the basement to take shelter first." ”

Bombs kept falling, blowing up columns of smoke and fireballs on the west bank of the Tiber River, and I don't know how many historic monuments were destroyed by British bombs. Mussolini's face was pale, his lips trembled a little, as if he had not heard his son-in-law's words, and suddenly roared: "If they dare to destroy Rome, I will destroy London, and I must blow up London!" Go, get me Marshal Hersman ......" (To be continued.) )