To be honest, the efficiency of airship air strikes is not high, at least in the premise of using conventional bombs, its effectiveness is very problematic. The speed of the airship is limited, and it takes more than ten hours to fly in one operation, and even if the powerful pill is used, it is impossible for the pilot to insist on flying for more than ten hours, so many positions must be equipped with deputy positions to take turns to rest. Moreover, the flight preparation of the airship and the maintenance after the mission are quite time-consuming and costly. What's more, the airship itself is very expensive.

The Zeppelin, which is more than 100 meters long, needs to use a lot of aluminum, and the hydrogen to hold it up is not cheap. However, the number of bombs it could carry was quite limited, and the British began to deploy some anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns (in fact, they were converted from ordinary cannons and machine guns) in various cities. The threat of these anti-aircraft firepower airships is actually very limited, the rate of fire of anti-aircraft guns is too low, and the firing height is also very limited, as for anti-aircraft machine guns, the effective firing height is not even a thousand meters. Airships can ignore them as long as they fly a little higher. However, their presence also makes it necessary for airships to fly higher, which means a decrease in bomb load, as well as a decrease in bombing accuracy. This also makes it possible to reduce the losses caused by an operation to the British.

However, the Germans still insisted on sending a few airships to the cities of England every day as long as the weather was good, dropping bombs indiscriminately. Although according to calculations, the same amount of Reichsmark was used to kill people on airships far less efficiently than artillery, that is, if the Germans gave up these airships and exchanged the money for producing them and maintaining their bombing operations for cannons, they would kill more enemies, but the Germans felt that the accounts could not be counted in this way, because of the German airship attacks, the British were also forced to invest more resources in domestic air defense, and this investment was greater than the German investment in airships, if the Germans gave up airship attacks, The British could have turned the anti-aircraft guns that had been placed in various cities back into cannons, and then sent them to the French front to kill more Germans.

This is like in World War II in another time and space, the strategic bombing of Germany by the United States and Britain reached its peak in 43-44, but it was also in these two years that Germany's military production also reached its peak, so that many people doubted the effectiveness of strategic bombing because of this. However, if we take into account that in order to resist the strategic bombing of the United States and Britain, the Germans had to use the main forces of the aviation force for domestic defense, but not on key battlefields, and considering that a large part of the large-caliber artillery produced by the Germans must be expensive, and the production consumption of resources and time is significantly higher than that of ordinary artillery anti-aircraft guns, and these things also have to be left in the rear and cannot be put into the front line, the significance of strategic bombing should not be underestimated. For example, in 43-44 Germany produced a third more large-caliber artillery than the Soviet Union, and the shells of the large-caliber artillery produced far exceeded that of the Soviet Union, but on the battlefield of the Eastern Front, the Soviets had an almost overwhelming advantage in artillery firepower, because a very large part of the large-caliber artillery produced by the Germans were anti-aircraft guns, and they had to stay in the rear to protect the city.

It's the same in Britain today, just to defend London, the British had to place hundreds of anti-aircraft guns in London. So, although the airship bombing alone is indeed very inefficient, it allows the British to do something less efficient, which is worth doing.

……

Even in a world war, mercenaries can find a place. For example, Britain now orders a large number of Seabreeze fighters from North American Airlines, but the British immediately discovered that they lacked enough flight personnel. Before the war, the British did not spend much time on airplanes, and in fact, after MacDonald, everyone paid very little attention to airplanes. As a result, there are not many trained pilots in the UK.

At first, the British planned to select some volunteers to try, but in the end, it turned out that letting those guys fly the plane was nothing short of murder. Although the handling of the biplane Sea Breeze fighter is actually quite good, the low-speed performance is also top-notch, and the take-off and landing are quite simple, a football field is enough, and the United Kingdom has many football fields. However, this thing is an airplane after all, and it is not something that novices can use casually. As a result, the British had to buy a batch of two-seat trainer aircraft beyond North American Airlines, and hired a group of pilots from Blackwater to carry out air defense and train new pilots.

Bellman is one such mercenary pilot. According to their contract with the British, in addition to a fixed salary, if he could shoot down a German airship, the British would pay him a full hundred pounds, directly in gold. That's a lot of money, so Bellman is now waiting for the Germans to come and deliver it almost every day.

However, the weather was not very good these days, so the Germans never came. After the weather improved the day before yesterday, the observation posts set up by the British on the shore of the English Channel also spotted the incoming German airships, however, these damned Germans did not come to London, but to Birmingham. The British had not yet had time to deploy fighters in Birmingham, where there were not even many anti-aircraft machine guns. So, the hundred pounds still didn't fall into Bellman's hands.

But Bellman was not discouraged, he knew that even from political reasons, the Germans would come back to bomb London. All he needed was to wait quietly.

At this time, the electric bell in the lounge suddenly rang violently. Bellman quickly jumped up from the sofa, put the half-drunk black tea man on the coffee table, grabbed the flight suit, and ran towards the plane while putting it on.

By this time, the mechanic had already turned the plane and climbed into the cockpit, Bellman put on his helmet and pulled down his goggles to protect his eyes - the planes were still open-top at that time, without which the wind would blow his eyes open.

The propeller spun faster and faster, Bellman glanced at the tachometer, released the brakes, and the plane began to glide down the runway for a short time before taking to the skies. And behind him, several more planes took off one after another.

In this era, there were no radios on airplanes, so naturally there would be no navigation services from the radio, and the interconnection between the planes taking off depended entirely on the gestures made by the pilots. And the less there is radio guidance such as "the target is in your 11 o'clock direction, at an altitude of about 20,000 feet......", the search for the target is entirely up to the pilots themselves.

But the good news is that the Zeppelin is a very, very easy target to spot, because it's not only big enough, but also colorful. The Germans painted it a shiny silver-white color, as if they were afraid that others would not see it. That's exactly what the Germans thought about it. In their opinion, one of the major functions of the Zeppelin is to demoralize the British, so the more conspicuous the better, and the British have no real weapons to threaten it anyway.

So it didn't take long for Bellman to see a group of things glistening in the sunlight ahead. There is no doubt that it must have been the Zeppelin of the Germans. So he shook his wings, motioned for the other planes to follow him, and flew in that direction.

Soon, the little sparkling dots were getting bigger and bigger, and Bellman could now see very clearly that what was floating in the air like a cigar, what could it be if it wasn't a led Zeppelin? Bellman counted, and there were eight airships. He knew that there were two "aerial fish" hanging under his wings. Thunder", just one hit is enough to destroy this huge guy. In general, in order to increase the hit rate, the attack should be launched in the form of a salvo. But Bellman dreams of shooting more Zeppelins, because every airship is a prize. So he planned to launch one by one, trying to get the next airship down.

At this time, the pilots on the Zeppelin had also seen this group of small flies, but they did not panic, first of all, they had seen a lot of flying this kind of thing. In this era, airplanes have indeed begun to be used for military missions, but this use for military tasks is limited to reconnaissance and transportation of certain special items, and no one has used them in combat. At this time, on the front line, sometimes, when the planes of the two sides meet, the pilots will wave to each other, anyway, everyone's planes are not armed, and they can't do anything to each other. So after seeing this swarm of flies again, the Germans did not drop the bombs as quickly as the bombers of later generations did when they were intercepted by fighters, and then frantically dodged all kinds of dodge maneuvers. Of course, the fat airship can't actually do any dodging moves.

Bellman launched an attack from the head-on direction, although the side area of the airship is the largest, but the airship is in motion, if it attacks from the side, the advance amount is not easy to calculate, so Bellman chose the way of head-on attack.

The distance between the two sides is getting closer and closer, and at this time the Germans began to panic a little, in their opinion, the British plane seemed to want to hit head-on, if the British were really willing to launch such a suicide impact, although the Zeppelin was large, but I am afraid it would not be able to withstand it. However, it was useless for the Germans to worry, because the airship was so clumsy that they couldn't hide if they wanted to.

At about four hundred meters, Bellman fired the first "aerial fish. Thunder", Zeppelin is so large that it is almost impossible not to hit when launched at such a distance. With the right wing under the "Fish in the Air. The "Thunder" was launched, and the wings immediately sank to the left, and Bellman took advantage of this to pull the lever and make a sharp turn to avoid the oncoming airship.

The "Fish in the Air. Ray "hit the first airship as Bellman had predicted, first blasting a large fireball on the hard shell of the airship, and then about a second later, the whole airship began to explode continuously - the result of the hydrogen air bag being torn open and the hydrogen gas ignited. In the blink of an eye, perhaps in less than two seconds, that beautiful airship turned into a torch, perhaps more like a meteor, if one considered that it was plummeting straight down to the ground. But Bellman didn't have time to look at this now, and the friends who were following him were starting to fire at other targets, and he had to move a little faster, or else, leave one more "aerial fish. Ray's approach is about to become meaningless.