The so-called advanced research work has actually begun a long time ago, but it has always been the personal behavior of Nokia before, or it is simply supported by a certain immortal with his own small treasury. As we all know, although the small treasury of a certain immortal has a lot of real money, it cannot support large-scale investment. It's radar, it's helicopters, it's diesel engines, and it's about solving all sorts of metallurgical and mechanical problems.

It is true that there is not too much money to invest in the guided weapons project, so throughout the thirties, Nokia's guided weapons project was actually in a state of low-speed pre-research, basically solving theoretical problems, and temporarily failed to involve industrial applications.

Of course, theoretical breakthroughs are also quite difficult, for example, Nokia has made certain breakthroughs in radio command guidance and television guidance. In particular, after cooperating with the United States in the thirties, window paper was also pierced in radio guidance. What is lacking now is the investment in large-scale experiments.

Li Xiaofeng proposed to engage in guided weapons, which made the Air Force a little embarrassed, because it was now a wartime state, and all weapons research and development and manufacturing should be carried out around winning the war. In Arxness's view, what the Red Army lacked now was not one or two new weapons, but full-fledged weapons and equipment for mass mass production.

Arxnis wanted to spend money on the improvement and production of existing models, and was not enthusiastic about launching completely new high-tech weapons.

"Comrade Andrey, now our army is facing a severe task of changing equipment, and valuable scientific research resources can only be tilted towards existing mature equipment.

But where can Li Xiaofeng wait, and said categorically: "I have no opinion on the existing resources tilting towards mature equipment." But I ask you. The Air Force will not have any money to invest in new projects? How many resources can be consumed by the improvement of existing equipment such as the Yak-3, Yak-7 and Lag-5, as well as the Tu-3 and Pe-8? If it doesn't work, cut some of the items. For example, the Yak 7, this kind of low-grade fighter is not considered or doing the old job, and it is a training aircraft! ”

Arksnis had a bitter face, to be honest, the Air Force does have a lot of existing improvement projects, which seem a little too messy, such as the fighter project includes two series of Yak, one series of Lag, and Petriakov's Pe-2 and new interceptor projects, a total of 5.

Probably in the eyes of outsiders. You could have cut one or two! For example, the Yak-7, for example, the new interceptor, these are not necessary!

But Arxnis knows that none of these five projects can be cut, why? For example, the Yak-7, it seems that after the Yak-3 and Lag-5 form a high-low combination, the Yak-7 seems to have no need to exist. But this is definitely not the case, the fighter sequence of the Red Army is not a combination of high and low grades, but three grades of high, medium and low. The high-end Yak-3, the mid-range Lag-5 and the Resisting Yak-7.

The Yak-3 is powerful. However, the cost is extremely high, and the requirements for the engine are quite high, and in the long run, the production capacity may be limited. Therefore, the mid-range leather is needed to fill the gap with the rager series. As for the Yak-7, this is a model that bridges the transition from a high-level trainer to a low-level fighter, and it is also indispensable to put it mildly to undertake the training of a considerable number of junior fighter pilots.

These three can't be cut, so then cut the new interceptor or the deep modification of the Pe-2? I'm afraid this will not work, because the new interceptor is the aircraft named by the newly established Territorial Defense Force, and the Territorial Defense Force has had enough of the MiG-3, which is not easy to fly, and strongly demands the development of a new interceptor.

The factional dispute within the Air Force has been mentioned before, and Li Xiaofeng has fought and pulled to resolve the contradictions, but I am afraid that the Territorial Defense Force is still staring at the follow-up actions of a certain immortal to see if someone is really improving the status of the Territorial Defense Department, and the new interceptor is undoubtedly the focus of their attention. If their wishes cannot be satisfied, will conflicts erupt?

Anyway, Arxnis could not agree to cut the interceptor project, not only could it not be cut, but it must also be prioritized. And I'm afraid Li Xiaofeng agrees with this. It seems that the deep modification of the Pe-2 is inevitable?

Otherwise, the Pe-2 is the only twin-engine heavy fighter in the current Red Air Force, and it has an irreplaceable role in long-range escort and night interception. Both the Military Commission and the Territorial Defense Force strongly demanded that the Pe-2 be improved in depth, with radars, more powerful engines, and if possible, larger fuel tanks. Anyway, Pe-2 can't move!

If the fighter project can't move, then move the bomber or attack aircraft? I'm afraid it's not so easy, there are four bomber projects that have maintained development, namely Pe-8, Tu-3, Tu-2 and Il-4.

Needless to say, Pe-8 and Tu-3 are Alksnis' sweethearts, and they can't be moved. The Tu-2 and Il-4 are the only medium-sized bombers that are currently easy to use in the Red Army, and it is impossible to stop these two series after the SB series is discontinued.

As for the attack aircraft, hehe, whether it is the Il-2 or the Su-1/2, it is Tukhachevsky's heart, no one should think about moving, otherwise Tukhachevsky will have to go crazy.

In addition to these, there are only transport aircraft, but there are only a few projects of transport aircraft, Li-2 and An-5 are still too few, and the Military Commission also instructed that larger transport aircraft must be developed, how can it be moved?

It can be seen that Alxnis is indeed quite embarrassed, he can't move any project, and after some bargaining with a certain immortal, he can only reluctantly cut the project to introduce B-24. Yes, the Air Force was quite interested in the B-24 before, and this rugged four-engine long-range bomber was very interesting to the Air Force. Compared with the B17, its range is almost more than a third, and the range of 5,000 kilometers makes Arxnis excited to think about it.

At this time, the Americans also agreed to sell the B-24, anyway, the two sides were close to signing the contract, and now let a certain immortal toss, the B-24 project is not to say completely yellow, and most of it is dead.

"The contract is signed in two parts, one part is introduced first, um. About 12 planes are enough for you to survey and copy, right? Li Xiaofeng taught step by step.

Arxnis couldn't cry or laugh: "But the Americans don't sell 12 planes!" At least 50 ...... have to be sold."

Li Xiaofeng interrupted him again: "Fifty crosses, right?" It's easy! You first give the Americans an order for 12 aircraft. Then tell them that we are short of funds and can't take out so much money for the time being, so we can sign a contract of intent for the follow-up 38 planes, and then implement it when the funds are abundant! ”

The corners of Arxnis's mouth twitched, and with what he knew about someone, the so-called order of intent must be.

Li Xiaofeng replied seriously: "Indifference is nonsense, our purpose is to survey and copy." Why do you buy so much? Forex is very tight right now! ”

"But Americans aren't stupid! They can see through ......"

Before Arxnis finished speaking, Li Xiaofeng interrupted again: "So you have to pretend to be a little bit like it, and you must make the Americans think that you are indeed just short of funds for a while, thinking that you will immediately throw out a lot of orders when you have money." Well, you can pay a little deposit in moderation, and you must act like a little! ”

When he ran into a certain immortal like a hooligan, Arxnis really lost his temper, he could only smile bitterly: "I'll try my best!" ”

However, Li Xiaofeng replied solemnly: "It's not as much as possible, but if the Air Force wants to introduce B-24, you have to deceive the Americans." Otherwise, I'll save you the money for those 12 planes! ”

A certain immortal said so. Naturally, Alxnis can only let it go, hoping that his acting skills will fool the Yankees. Then again, the B-24 is indeed a good aircraft, and the introduction of a long-range bombing capability that will really improve the Red Army's long-range bombing capabilities. Compared with guided weapons, the role is probably greater at present.

So why is Li Xiaofeng not too interested in the B-24? The reason is simple, first of all, the Red Army already has the Pe-8, which has a longer range than the B-24, and in terms of long-range bombing and patrolling, it can be made with for the time being. The same effect can be obtained by improving the Pe-8, which, after all, is its own aircraft, and it is easy to change.

In addition, although the B-24 is good, it is also a rather difficult aircraft to fly, and it will take at least a year from introduction to production to training pilots, right? Will the Red Army be short of long-range bombers in a year? I'm afraid not necessarily, and with the birth of the B-29, the significance of the B-24 is greatly reduced, anyway, there is a chance to imitate the B-29 later, what is the purpose of imitating a worse B-24?

In Li Xiaofeng's view, these precious funds can be invested in guided weapons projects, spending one to two years to tackle key problems, and in 1944, the Red Army will gain precision strike capabilities, isn't it more powerful?

Of course, Li Xiaofeng will not tell Arxnis these words in his heart, and the air marshal, who is obsessed with large long-range bombers, may not accept his opinion, so let's leave him a little thought for the time being. However, the guided weapons project was still too little for the Air Force alone, and soon Li Xiaofeng found the Navy and successfully persuaded the Navy to pay part of his pocket.

Specifically, the guided weapons project was divided into three parts, of which the navy was responsible for the funding of the radar-guided weapons project, and the navy's interest in the radar-guided anti-ship rocket sketched by a certain immortal was not ordinarily large, and it paid for it without saying a word.

In 1944, a P-1 anti-ship missile (NATO codenamed SS-N-1) equipped with a rocket engine on liquid fuel was successfully test-launched, then equipped with destroyers and cruisers of the Red Navy at breakneck speed, and successfully sank several destroyers and cruisers of the Japanese Navy at the end of World War II.

Of course, now we are not focusing on the P-1 anti-ship missile, but on the television-guided missile and the radio-guided missile in the Air Force's ground-to-ground precision strike program. Among them, the former was more successful, but in the early stage of development, the Air Force was more interested in the latter's predecessor, the radio command guided missile.

Why? Because the latter is simpler, at least the Red Air Force thinks it is simpler. Let's put it this way, the principle of this kind of missile originally conceived by the Red Air Force is similar to that of later generations of remote-controlled model aircraft. The bombardier visually locks onto the target, and then attacks the target remotely with the remote control, which is really rudimentary!

But in the process of research and development, the Red Air Force soon discovered that such a rudimentary project was actually not low in technology. First of all, how to remotely control missiles is a big problem. At that time, the level of radio was so substandard that a simple signal transmission made countless technical experts pull their hair.

At first, the experts were ready to transmit by wire (in line with the Germans' thinking), but it soon became apparent. Missiles that fly out can easily rip off wires or be cut off by the propellers of carrier aircraft. And this is still in a calm level flight experimental environment. Replace it with a real battlefield environment. Both the carrier aircraft and the missile are maneuvering at high speed, and the wires simply cannot hold up. Anyway, in the first experiment, the wire broke five times out of ten. The missiles that flew out turned into monkeys, and once again they even flew back and shot down the carrier plane.

Soon, the cable guidance scheme was abandoned, and the Red Army began to work with all its might to conquer the radio command equipment, spending countless money and a lot of time, and finally got it.

At that time, the Air Force thought that this would be no problem. But soon they found out that they were rejoicing too soon. According to the original vision of the Air Force, guidance was completely solved by the bombardier's visual vision, which required the bombardier to accurately observe the target and the missile's every move. But in actual combat, it was soon discovered that this Nima couldn't do it at all!

Why? It's very simple, do you think that the field of view of the bombardier's scope is so large, and you have to lock on to the target and observe the missile, is this realistic in the battlefield environment? If he makes a slight maneuver or encounters a turbulence, he is afraid that he will lose the trace of the missile, and what is the precise control at that time?

So Maozi began to think of a way again, since it is unrealistic for a person to observe both the target and the missile. Then divide the work between two people, and it should be no problem for two people to cooperate, right? However, this idea was soon dismissed. Because I can't cooperate! Those who observe missiles can't see the target, and those who observe the target can't see the missile.

After some careful consideration, Mao Zi categorically gave up the visual guidance scheme and replaced it with radio guidance guidance. Quite simply, equip the bomber with a guidance radar, and after the bombardier visually finds the target, the radar is aimed at the target and emits radio waves. And the missile is equipped with a radar wave receiving antenna, and then flies in the direction of the airborne radar radio waves, this will not be able to accurately guide!

It should be said that this idea is very good, it can be realized in engineering, and it is also simple, the bombardier is actually equivalent to doing a flashlight job, and the rest is left to the missiles themselves. No need for human control, how simple it is!

Is it simple? I'm afraid it's not simple at all, why? The radar performance of those days was too poor, and the targeting radar used by the Air Force was actually a byproduct of the Navy's radar-guided missile project, a single-pulse radar with a conical scanning physique.

Let's put it this way, the center line of the beam (i.e., the direction in which the beam is most radiated) is at an angle to the mechanical axis of the antenna (i.e., the axis of rotation of the beam). As the radar antenna rotates continuously, the beam rotates around a mechanical axis to form a cone.

And as mentioned earlier, the Air Force envisages that the missile flies in the direction of the beam. This creates a problem, that is, the missile does not fly in a straight line in the air, but circles with the beam, showing a spiral trajectory.

It is not a good thing for the missile to rotate in the air, it will directly affect the accuracy of the attack, and this is still the lightest, you think about it, the carrier aircraft also has to maneuver in the air, and the radar beam will naturally follow the disturbance, and if one is not done well, the missile will lose the beam, and the result will naturally be unable to hit the target.

After a long period of experiments, the Air Force found that this radar guidance method is not infeasible, but greatly restricts the maneuver of the carrier aircraft.

Do bombers dare to fly so steadily on the battlefield? Definitely not, that's the equivalent of a live target. So this seemingly promising harness guidance scheme was also abandoned. In desperation, the Air Force could only work in the direction of television guidance.

The so-called television guidance, simply put, means that the missile warhead is a video camera, through which it captures and aims at the target, and then transmits the image information of the target back to the carrier aircraft, and intuitively displays it in front of the bombardier through the TV screen. The bombardier only needs to control the missile to fly towards the target.

It seems simple, but in reality there are a lot of difficulties. First of all, the performance of the "camera" at that time was very poor, and whether it could accurately identify targets in high-altitude and high-speed flight was a problem.

Secondly, the picture captured by the "camera" must be transmitted back to the carrier aircraft, which involves the problem of information transmission, as mentioned earlier, the radio industry was not developed in those years, and the technical requirements for transmitting the picture back in a timely and accurate manner were very high.

At the beginning, Maozi was stumped and was ready to use wired communication to fool him, but soon found that the old problem of easy disconnection still could not be solved. After a lot of research and experiments, in 1944, this extremely rudimentary TV-guided bomb was born.

To tell the truth, at that time, the performance of this missile was really not complimentary, the resolution of the seeker of the TV guidance was very low, and the picture transmitted back to the screen of the carrier aircraft was miserable, so blurry that only the approximate object (ten meters meter) could be distinguished, as if it was overexposed and the focus was set incorrectly. It's such a "photo" that can't be guaranteed to be available all the time, every now and then there is a snowflake on the screen, and you have to control the hand to shake the antenna or hammer the screen to receive the signal again.

But in any case, this is a good start, even if the signal is poor, in sunny weather, the bombardier can launch an attack from a distance of ten kilometers, and the accuracy of the missile attack can be controlled at about 100 meters.

Perhaps in later generations, such accuracy was miserable, but at the time, it was already a remarkable achievement. Even though this first-generation TV-guided bomb could not accurately attack fixed targets and could not be destroyed at a fixed point, the Red Army replaced the warhead with a cluster bomb or submunition bomb, which was specially used to strike and suppress the German anti-aircraft artillery positions from "outside the defense zone", so as to clear the way for the subsequent dive bombers to accurately dive and drop bombs...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to the SS Guard Flag Team, Huyan Haha, Drunk No Feng, Idle Reading the World, Glorious Charter and Comrade Juventus!