Rokossovsky was in big trouble, the ground forces of the Bryansk Front lost their planes because of his miscalculation, and now with the rapid retreat of the German army and the stubborn resistance of the troops behind the palace, the Bryansk Front was helpless.

Of course, neither the Politburo nor the Military Commission would let go of this opportunity to turn the tide, and soon Li Xiaofeng's request was approved, and the Red Army concentrated its powerful air power and prepared to drag down the first and second tank groups with an overwhelming air attack.

"The enemy's air raids were fierce," Guderian wrote in his diary, "and as soon as the morning dawned, hordes of bombers and attack planes would hover over my head and attack everything they found." As big as a tank, as small as a man and a horse, all exposed targets will be mercilessly attacked by the Russian Air Force. In desperation, Kleist and I could only order the troops to go out day and night......"

It stands to reason that the Germans were out day and night, and this should be good news for the ground forces of the Red Army in pursuit, right? But it was not that simple, because the German army behind the palace was very tenacious, and frantically blocked at all costs, often changing hands dozens of times from one straggler to another.

In the face of the German army, which was as tenacious as steel, even Rokossovsky had to sigh: "We are facing a group of strong-willed Nazi bandits who are not afraid of death, and if we want to defeat them, we need to pay a huge price!" ”

The fierce resistance lasted for three days, until the last German tank and the last anti-tank gun were destroyed, and the defensive line collapsed, but these three days gave Guderian and Kleist the possibility of escape. When the armored forces of the Red Army struggled to break through the obstacles. The main forces of Guderian and Kleist had long since fled to Pochop.

on this. Both Rokossovsky and Arxnis looked sorry for the fact that they had done their best, the armored forces were fighting and rushing at any cost, and the air force threw everything into air strikes. But who keeps the enemy stubborn?

In desperation, they can only find a way to Pochop, if they can destroy several key bridges in Pochop's urban area, they can also buy a certain amount of time. So the Air Force once again began to go crazy with gaps, the most important of which was the railway bridge in Pochop. If the bridge could be destroyed, it would mean cutting off the most important escape route for the German army. From the very beginning, the Air Force made the railway bridge a key target.

Of course, the Germans also knew the importance of this railway bridge, so they arranged powerful anti-aircraft fire around this bridge, which was simply a fire hedgehog! And the task of destroying this fire hedgehog was Polbin's 150th regiment.

Before describing the heroic deeds of the regiment, it is necessary to mention Polbin himself. Bolbin was born in prison on January 27, 1905. Yes, his mother was considered a revolutionary and was thrown into prison in his native city of Simbirsk in the middle reaches of the Volga.

Strange to say, the son of this authentic Russian farmer was obsessed with flying at an early age. Even though his adult work was largely unrelated to mechanics and aviation (Polbin barely had anything to do with mechanics than odd jobs on a narrow-gauge railroad for several months).

At the age of 22, however, Polbin began to turn his dreams into reality. He joined the CPSU in 1927 and then the Red Army. In the army, he expressed to his superiors his desire to become a pilot, but he did not have a good basic education and his body did not appear so strong, and it took two full years of hard work for this before he was allowed to go to the aviation academy.

In the aviation school, Polbin performed exceptionally well, and when he graduated in 1932, he was one of the few people who was directly retained as an instructor because of his outstanding qualities. At first Polbin flew the TB-3, and at the age of 32 he became a squadron leader of a bomber squadron.

Later, Polbin took part in the Battle of Nomenkan and the Spanish Civil War, during which time he found the SB-2's so-called rapid bombing useless, and promptly instructed his troops to change their bombing tactics and avoid losses, for which he was awarded the Order of Lenin.

At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Polbin had become the commander of the 150th Air Bombing Regiment and began to equip Su-2 dive bombers. In between battles, Polbin had been thinking about tactics, and he found that the early Su-2 dive bombers had an inexplicable problem, that is, the aircraft often showed a strong tendency to roll to the right in succession when the pilot made a sideways roll in a given situation.

For the rookie pilots of the Red Army at that time, this was a fatal problem, and if they didn't get it right, the plane would be destroyed and people would die. And this problem is so common that the General Armament Department has to send commissioners to verify it. But what is more speechless is that the sudden outbreak of the Great Patriotic War did not give the Red Army time to correct the problem at all, and could only warn all units equipped with Su-2s: it is strictly forbidden for pilots to roll sideways in flight to avoid the plane falling into dangerous continuous rolling.

To tell the truth, this "solution" is equivalent to not having a solution, rolling on the side is a very important maneuver, which is very important for attack aircraft, and not rolling on the side can be said to be equivalent to limiting one-third of the combat effectiveness of the Su-2.

Faced with this problem, most regiment commanders and division commanders chose to honestly carry out the orders of the lower levels, but Polbin was different. When he learned that the young pilots in his regiment had violated this ban, he did not slap the table like other regimental commanders. Swearing or simply confinement. Instead, he is asking: "How did you kid avoid continuous rolling and stand in front of Lao Tzu alive?" How do you do that? And what is the reaction to flying? And then how do you control the plane? ”

Polbin has always believed that it is much better to pretend to be deaf and dumb than to pretend to be deaf and dumb. In fact, Polbin himself took the lead in not enforcing the ban, and he deliberately entered a stall roll in the air on several occasions before trying to regain control of the plane.

The emperor lived up to his painstaking efforts, and Polbin found a solution to the problem, which is actually very simple: as long as you don't panic and always firmly control the joystick, the plane will gradually return to normal after entering a continuous roll.

The discovery of Polbin was also noted by the superiors, and Polbin was recalled to Moscow at the time of the German siege of Kiev. Go to Air Force Operations. Participate in the research on how to give full play to the combat effectiveness of the Su-2 dive bomber. And there it is. Polbin invented a set of maneuver tactics that later became known as "Vatushka".

The so-called Vatushka means "rotation" in Russian. The maneuver is carried out by multiple dive bombers, which refers to the non-stop dive bombing tactics of three or four dive bombers against the target.

Each aircraft pulls away from each other at a distance of 500 to 600 meters and dives at an angle of 70 degrees to the ground. Ideally, when the first dive bomber attack is pulled up, the second is roaring and about to pounce on the target, while the third is just changing from horizontal flight to diving.

Bolbin also made a contribution to the question of how fighters could protect dive bombers: escort fighters were divided into squads, and certain teams flew at high altitudes or in the flanks and rear. The other provided flank protection for dive bombers. And Polbin asked the fighter to provide close protection for the dive bomber, which means that the fighter will dive along with the dive bomber.

At first, the superiors didn't want Polbin to deal with the damn railroad bridge, and the Air Force Operations Department generally thought it was overkill, thinking that the other dive bomber units could easily solve the damn bridge, but the fact made them shatter their glasses!

The first to attack the railway bridge was Major Bailly's 86th Air Bombardment Regiment, and after a brief mobilization at the airfield, Major Bailly began this somewhat pediatric mission. With a full two formations of 20 Su-1s, Major Bailly went straight to Pochope, but two hours later, when the major returned. Only three Su-1s remained, and even the major himself was wounded.

In the words of Major Bailly: "It was a fire hedgehog. The lads fought it heroically, like Andrei. Lieutenant Terchuk crashed directly into the enemy ......"

A day later, Bailly attacked again with another 9 Su-1s that he had managed to collect, but not only did it fail again, but also gave the Germans three more victories.

This surprised the Air Force and threw the 270th Bomber Aviation Division into it in one go, but this massive air raid turned into a massacre. Having learned the lesson of the last air raid, the Germans deployed a large number of fighters in the Bryansk direction. And the 270th Division broke into the German fire network because the fighter unit made a mistake in the formation because of the wrong meeting point. Two fighter groups shot down almost half of the attack aircraft and bombers of the 270th Division.

In this way, the railway bridge has become a hot potato, and no one dares to say that it can be easily taken, and the upper echelons of the Air Force, which has attracted attention, also directly killed the chicken with a knife this time and let Polbin go out.

So what did Polbin himself think about the operation? The legendary pilot recalled: "The task was daunting, aerial photographs showed at least a hundred anti-aircraft guns on the ground, and the Germans had placed a large number of blocking balloons, leaving us with a very narrow passageway to enter. What's even more terrifying is that the German air power here is also very strong, with more than two fighter groups patrolling and hunting over Pochop every minute of the day, and in order to succeed, we must first solve the enemy's air force interference! ”

In order to expel these pesky German flies, the Red Army threw in a fighter aviation division, and for a whole morning, the Yak, Lag and BF-109 and FW-190 fought each other, and both sides lost at least more than 50 fighters.

At noon, when the sun was at its strongest and brightest, Polbin set out with his boys, a small number, a total of 12 Su-2s, but each of them was a good player, even the radioman was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Under the cover of 24 Yak-3s, Polbin's fleet reached the skies over Pochop, and by this time the small city near the Russian border was unrecognizable, the fierce air strikes destroyed almost all the buildings in the city, and the smoke and flashes of explosions were everywhere, and in the sky, Polbin was in a terrible mood - once upon a time, this small city was full of laughter, but now, there are only terrible cries.

Polbin was worried that if he couldn't defeat the enemy, would his hometown also become such a hell? Could his wife and children also be part of the weeping crowd?

Polbin shuddered, then clenched the joystick tightly, and swore in his heart that he would destroy that damn bridge and never let a German devil go!

But the difficulties ahead of Polbin were great, and they were very fast. FW-190 was ghostly and pasted up. The Yak-3 immediately rose to the occasion and fought. The two sides exchanged a rain of bullets, and from time to time fighters with billowing black smoke were planted on the ground.

However, Polbin's attention was not on air combat, he believed that his fighters, the Yak-3 pilots were all good hands, even if they died, they would not let the Su-2 suffer a little damage, he believed in these comrades!

Polbin's attention was on the ground, his eyes wide open searching for his target. Soon in the middle of a blocked balloon, he found the railroad bridge.

"Attention crews, get ready to enter! Repeat, find the target, and get ready to enter the attack course! ”

Polbin carefully straightened the course, his work was very gentle but decisive, without a trace of detachment from the water, and he slipped into the gap that blocked the balloon. And the pilots who followed Polbin maintained the same level, and the Germans' dense blocking balloons did not do much!

But at this time. A greater test is coming, and there are constant flashes of light on the ground. It looks like a naughty child using a mirror to reflect the light. But these flashes aren't just dazzling, they can be a dense and deadly rain of bullets.

Thundered! Thundered!

The shells continued to explode in the air, and the shock wave caused Polbin's car to tremble, and even with his seat belt strapped, the top of his head kept touching the canopy.

"Steady! Steady! ”

Bolbin warned his comrades on the radio while holding the joystick so that the plane would not deviate even a little from its course. As the German anti-aircraft fire became more and more intense, the flutter of the fuselage became more and more intense.

Bolbin could feel his hands tingle, and the blast wave of the explosion was always going to blow him off course, but he had to resist the force and try to hold it down. This clash of forces didn't last long, maybe just a few minutes, but it was extremely intense. In Polbin's own words: "My arms were numb, and at the last moment, I almost gritted my teeth and insisted!" ”

Of course, not all of them made it to the end, and the fighters and dive bombers that followed him were shot down continuously, and Polbin will never forget the scene: "Ralph, the youngest and most promising young man in the regiment." On the way to the target, he was hit and the fuel tank was burning, but he and two other comrades gave up the parachute jump and rushed down from the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery position a few kilometers from the bridge......

When the Su-2 crashed, it flipped several heels in a row, and the scattered parts flew several hundred meters away, and Raffl and three other comrades accurately destroyed an 88 gun and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun, and used their bodies as weapons to combat the enemy's arrogance.

In the end, only eight Su-2s arrived over the railway bridge, and the other four were either blown up in the air, or they were seriously injured and chose the same strategy as Ravl. This also put a lot of pressure on Bolbin, who finally reached the target.

He can't let his comrades die in vain, he must destroy that damn bridge!

Vatushka began, 8 fighters in two groups, four launched an attack for a wave. The sky was now covered with a rain of bullets, and in the midst of the explosions and smoke, the Polbins began to dive. A violent screech heralded the beginning of the final duel, and the Su-2 entered a dive, dropping one FAB-1000 bomb after another on the target.

At this point, time seemed to stand still, and Polbin could see all kinds of shells whizzing towards him, and he could see them exploding, he could see fragments flying sideways, and he could hear the clanging of shrapnel in the cabin. That sound lasted a whole minute! After returning to landing, the ground crew was stunned by the sieve-like bullet holes in the belly of the Su-2.

However, Polbin did not bother with the shells, and he kept his eyes open until the bombardier shouted: "Bomb! With a shock to the fuselage, he immediately began to roll and pull up, grazing his wingtips, and the second plane also went into a dive, and soon dropped the bomb as well, followed by the third and fourth planes.

Polbin had never seen a lad finish such a perfect Vatushka, and this time he could have played 10 points!

Four one-ton bombs hit the ground almost with their front feet and back feet, and you can see the ground trembling, rising columns of water and smoke into the sky. Bolbin seemed to hear the sound of the bridge cracking, and it was a heavenly sound!

The four Su-2s of the second wave were just as perfect, and four more bombs hit the target accurately, and Polbin could see the scene of the bridge deck being blown away and stones flying. At that moment, he sighed heavily, and silently recited in his heart: "Rest in peace, comrades-in-arms!" ”

The railway bridge was destroyed, or rather blown up as a whole, even with the world-class construction machinery capabilities of the German army, in the face of such a broken building, it can only sigh.

"General, this bridge is not at all likely to be repaired in a short time, uh, in fact, I don't think it can be repaired at all!"

Kleist looked at the tattered bridge speechlessly, and then looked at the direction of Bryansk behind him, he knew that the situation was very serious now, the pursuers were imminent, and the way was cut off, could it be that God also wanted him to perish?

Unlike the frowning Kleist, Rokossovsky jumped three feet tall and gave the order like a child: "Mechanized troops must advance at all costs, and must catch up with the enemy's main force within 24 hours!" This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we must seize it! ”

Is it really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? I'm afraid that another German general, Guderian, will not agree, the destruction of the railway bridge is indeed a headache for him, but he does not think that he will definitely lose, and he will not admit defeat...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow to thank Fei Xin, lazy readers and Comrade Juventus!