"Is it true that we can't do anything about you at night? Joke! Hundreds of kilometres away in Belgrade, Richthofen took a sip of coffee. This coffee was brought to him by a colleague in Turkey, and the pitch black was very refreshing, and just a small cup left him refreshed. Keep him energized to work. Night has always been the worst enemy of the Air Force. As early as a few years ago, the Luftwaffe began to think about how to use the cover of night to launch an offensive and defend against the enemy's attacks. Although until now, the problem of how to find the opponent's plane in the dark of night has not been well solved, but the Luftwaffe has figured out how to attack targets on the ground at night, and Foligno is the first whetstone!

There are two problems to be solved in order to bomb at night, the first is how to get the plane to fly to the target area and then let it fly back, and the second is how to find the target in the target area! Think about it, in the dark of night, all the ground references are gone, and the pilots can barely determine their position after losing them. And the solution of the Germans was this.

First of all, they will build a directional radio transmission base station on the roadbed, and the range of this radio wave is very narrow, even if it is 400 kilometers away, its spread range is only about 1 kilometer. This electromagnetic wave technique will be directed at the target, like the light of a searchlight. Then they installed a sensitive receiver on the plane. When the plane takes off, the receiver starts working, and if they walk in the beam of this radio wave, the receiver will remain silent. When the aircraft is on the left or right, the receiver will make a different sound to alert the pilot to deviate from the course due to the strength and angle of the radio waves. And when the correction is completed, the receiver is silenced again (historically the Germans bombed Britain as they did). There may be some discrepancies in the details, but the principle is not wrong. ）

With the help of radio guidance and maps, German planes were finally able to fly over the target area. But flying over does not mean that you can find the enemy, below is an area of dozens of square kilometers, and the Germans' night bombing force is not enough to use bombs to blow up an area of dozens of square kilometers! What to do if you want to attack ground targets at night? The easiest way to do this is to throw flares and use searchlights, but there is a problem when planes are flying through the sky. How do you distinguish the other person from your own people? How to solve this problem of friend or foe identification? Don't go down to the last bomb. Kill 800 enemies and lose 1,000 yourself, then you can get away!

In addition to withdrawing from the war zone in advance, let your own firepower completely cover a certain area. The Germans also came up with a way to target designation. This is the streetlight squad that Stud mentions in his newsletter. They are the troops that use guò radio to direct attack aircraft to carry out focused strikes in a specific area. The most important piece of equipment for this team is a radio station, and a small radio base station that can determine its own orientation. The former is used for liaison with the Air Force. And the signal from the latter can be used as coordinates for the Air Force to strike at ground units! And according to the pre-selected coordinate points and maps. German pilots can also determine the local terrain. In order to avoid the tragedy of accidentally hitting the mountain directly. By the time the German paratroopers had withdrawn into the city and the Americans had moved on, twin-engine planes painted black and gray had quietly arrived in Foligno. The Grim Reaper has taken out a glowing scythe from his cuff, and on the ground are lambs at their mercy!

"Nightmare is coming!" When Student heard the code that the attack was about to be launched, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and he had been preparing for a long time to watch today's game! In fact, Student didn't have much hope for the effectiveness of the night attack!

"If the street lights below are correct, then there should be the opposing attacking force below us." One of the bombers responsible for guidance flew in the air at 900 meters. How to solve this dilemma that the gunboat needs to reduce its altitude in order to attack accuracy, and that it needs to maintain a certain altitude in order to ensure that the flare stays in the air for a certain time? The best thing to do is to do it separately. Some of the planes were responsible for throwing flares to maintain flight altitude, while others were responsible for dropping bombs and shells over the heads of the opposing side.

After successfully tearing through the opponent's first line of defense, a large number of American troops began to attack along the road opened up by the attacking force, and the gunfire in front was still fierce, but there was no exchange of fire on the passage, and it was unusually quiet. The Germans didn't even use mortars, could it be because of the sequelae of the failure of the daytime landing? Americans don't understand, then don't think about it. Anyway, the US and French armies have a numerical advantage, and as long as they can gain a firm foothold in the city, sooner or later they can pull each other out one by one and pinch each other to death!

"Something seems to be in the sky?" Although the background noise of the battlefield is a bit loud, some people with better ears or auditory hallucinations still feel the difference. "My squad leader looked up at the sky, he said that there seemed to be a huge shadow flying in the air, we all laughed at him at the time, and at night there would be nothing else in the battlefield sky except birds, but in the end, it was the squad leader who saved our lives!" This is how an American soldier recalls the situation after the war.

When the light of the flare illuminated the entire battlefield, the Americans suddenly found that what they thought was impossible had finally happened, a small number of people looked at the flares with parachutes slowly descending with a little blank, while most of them took the opportunity to look for the enemy who could be hidden, they were not on the battlefield for the first time, knowing that once they were discovered, the blow would come quickly. But it's a pity that even if they react at the first time, no matter how fast they move, they can't move as fast as bombs and bullets!

One by one, 250-kilogram high-explosive shells fell from the pylons in the lower part of the wing and fell directly above the attacking troops. The road cleared by the Americans was not wide, and a single passage was only a rectangular area 700 meters long and about 400 meters wide, and the attacking troops had to enter the city through several such passages, because if they left this area, they were likely to get scattered at night or step on mines that were not cleared next to them. Therefore, in this case, even the bombs dropped in poor visibility at night still caused a lot of casualties to the US military.

More than a dozen thick columns of smoke rose from the offensive formation. The shock wave of the high-explosive explosives of hundreds of attacks and countless shrapnel wantonly harvested the lives on the ground like the scythe of death, and the American GIs who were caught off guard in the almost uncovered field paid the price of blood! And this was only the beginning, when the attacking troops were blown to pieces with bombs, the gunboats that continued to hover over the battlefield continued to attack the remaining enemy like vultures looking for carrion. And the remaining planes flew separately to the artillery positions in the rear of the American army. There is the pillar of fire of the other side!

"It's not easy to attack artillery with towing capabilities at night, they will follow a pre-planned path to withdraw from their positions, and sometimes they don't even have their lights on. We had limited flares and could not search each area one by one, but at least the Air Force guaranteed the silence of the opposing artillery at night. A German pilot once said of the night attack.

The follow-up forces were scattered, the supporting fire was silenced, and the troops that had already entered had to fight the German paratroopers who had become completely unfamiliar and armed to the teeth. The roads in the city have been filled with various obstacles and mines. Even if you don't take a step in the dark night, it's like dancing on the tip of a knife. Deadly bullets and occasional grenades continue to wear down the will and lives of the attackers. Even with the support of various rapid-fire artillery, Ridgway had to be defeated in the end, and the scattered anti-aircraft vehicles could not pose a threat to the Grim Reaper in the air without unified command and searchlights.

From time to time, strings of tracer rounds swept the ground from the sides of the gunboat, and even threw incendiary grenades into the surrounding woods or suspected assembly areas. "From ten o'clock in the evening to six o'clock the next morning, for a whole night, the opponent's attacks did not stop. We are constantly trying to forge new paths to support our brothers who are attacking the city, but the other side always finds out and uses a special means to guide the planes to attack. When the sun rises again, we know that we have failed. Foligno is finished, and so are the defenders at Ancona! "After returning from the prisoner of war camp, Ridgway once commented on the experience of that night." The casualties caused by the other side were limited, but they cut off our last chance! ”

As Ridgway later recalled, after the carefully prepared night attack was repulsed the next night, the casualties and losses were secondary, and most importantly, the blow to morale and determination to fight. The Luftwaffe's precise support and powerful strike capabilities made it difficult for the American and French forces, which lacked air defense and heavy equipment. The defenders of Ancona, which had lost logistical supplies and reinforcements, were finally annihilated by the German Army three days later. At this point, the American and French armies on the northern front had no other way but to resist and organize each other's advances as much as possible.

And the main forces of the US-French coalition, which were entangled with the German Army in Pescara head-on, also had to consider a way out, and the collapse of the northern front was only a matter of time, and if it was a little later, it would not be possible to go. But what Patton and de Gaulle could think of, the Germans could think of the same thing. The German Army and Air Force are not going to let go of this big fish like this, and a new plan is in the works.

Thanks to the support of zhouyu1976 ~~~, and the monthly pass support of systex ~~~. (To be continued......)