Even if Li Xiaofeng made a harsh request, Churchill still agreed, and I have to say that this old smoker is sometimes well versed in the essence of Taoguang and obscurity. And with the sudden addition of the British, the bombing campaign became even more complicated.

The first is the question of coordination, initially according to Churchill's idea, the Royal Air Force and the Red Air Force will go together in formation to bomb Ploiesti. However, the idea was quickly aborted due to technical and confidentiality issues, as well as political issues.

Let's talk about the technical problems first, the performance gap between the Tu-3 and Pe-8 of the Lancaster and the Red Army is too large, and the cruising speed of the two sides is completely different, and it is impossible to sail together in formation. Moreover, the pilots of the Royal Air Force and the pilots of the Red Air Force had never flown together, and both sides did not know each other very well, and because of the urgency of the bombing mission, the two sides did not have so much time to practice coordination.

Not only is there a problem with coordination, but also with the identification and communication between friend or foe. And this technical problem is much more serious than the one above, and almost at the beginning it was sentenced to the death penalty of coordinated bombing.

Let's talk about confidentiality, in fact, this item is closely related to the above one. Neither the Red Air Force nor the Royal Air Force wanted their communication frequencies and passwords to be leaked to potential enemies. So when it comes and goes, no one is willing to give in, and naturally, there is no play in coordinated bombing.

As for the last political question, it is actually the least important. Although Britain and the Soviet Union did not form an alliance, they had a common enemy, and the two sides could have a tacit understanding on the issue of attacking Germany.

However, tacit understanding is only a tacit understanding, which is completely different from a substantive treaty alliance. Even the treaty can turn around and deny it. What's more, it is the so-called tacit understanding of the free mind. Moreover. Whether in the USSR or in England, there were a large number of people who did not like each other. The Soviets considered it unforgivable for the British to be despicable in their attempt to attack Lenin, and the fight against imperialism was also an established strategy of the Bolsheviks; As for the British, they always believed that communism was evil, and that the Bolsheviks in Russia were the best of the evil forces, and naturally they had to be eliminated as soon as possible.

It is unlikely that these two types of people will put aside their prejudices for a while. Natural. Even if the Politburo and the British Cabinet had approved the idea of coordinated bombing, it would be impossible for the two sides to truly coordinate their efforts.

So this coordinated bombing was actually divided into three parts, the first two were the original air raid plan of the Red Air Force, and the last one was the Royal Air Force to bomb Ploiesti through the Soviet Union's airspace.

There is almost no overlap between the air forces of the two sides, and the so-called cooperation is only on paper. However, even this kind of cooperation on paper has its fair share of problems. On the details of the bombing of Ploiesti, the differences between the Royal Air Force and the Red Air Force were considerable.

The Soviet Red Air Force was preparing for an ultra-low-altitude bombardment of Ploiesti during the day, while the Royal Air Force wanted to bomb at a high altitude at night. These two tactical schemes are almost completely opposed, and there is no possibility of reconciliation at all.

So why did the British want to carry out night high-altitude bombing? To put it bluntly, in order to reduce losses, night bombing is safer, and high-altitude bombing can also avoid the interference of anti-aircraft artillery on the ground.

Merely. Arksnis did not like the British's scheme, which in his opinion was too conservative. And it doesn't work out at all. What he wanted was to destroy Ploiesti completely, not to put on a show.

After some verbal rhetoric, the British had to agree to the low-altitude bombing plan of the Red Air Force, of course, this so-called consent is actually everyone doing their own thing, since you Russians are not afraid of death, then you go to low-altitude bombing. And our great Royal Air Force will keep its own traditions.

According to the agreement between the two sides, the Red Air Force first carried out daytime low-altitude bombing, and after evaluating the bombing effect of the Red Air Force, that is, after the aerial photos of the bombing came out, the Royal Air Force went to carry out supplementary bombing at night.

At 3 a.m. on November 10, ground crews at Sevastopol, Odessa and Simferopol airports began to clear the snow from the runway in snowplows. And it was already past five o'clock in the morning.

After a simple breakfast in a hurry, the ground crew once again entered a tense and busy state, refueling and hanging bombs one bomber after another, and worked for more than an hour to complete all the preparations before takeoff.

At half past seven in the morning, the propellers of the first wave of Tu-3 bombers rumbled and struggled to climb into the blue sky with the fat airfield. Over the next half hour, the rest of the Tu-3 and Pe-8 will take off one after another, then complete the formation work over the Black Sea, and then go straight to Ploiesti under the escort of the Ra-series and Yak-series fighters that took off from Odessa.

It should be said that the Red Army was lucky, the take-off efficiency was very high, and the weather over the Black Sea was ideal on this day, and hundreds of bombers and fighters completed the formation without much effort. Ten minutes later, the group of planes that had completed the formation began to lower their flight altitude to evade the German radar in Romania.

The group of planes sank and flew steadily at an altitude of less than 1,500 meters, and the pilots could see the idyllic scene of the Balkan countryside. Many people are thrilled by the slightly yellowish earth below. In the years of artillery fire, there was such a paradise in the heart of Europe, which somewhat surprised Ivan.

Walter of the 97th regiment. Lieutenant Stewart, a native of the Balkans, fled to the Soviet Union alone after the Nazis occupied his homeland, and soon joined the Red Air Force. This time it was enough to see the scenery of his hometown again, which made him excited. And what surprised him even more was that this trip home seemed so peaceful: "There was no anti-aircraft artillery, no enemy planes, no blocking balloons, nothing, only infinite scenery." ”

Lieutenant Stewart could even make out the peasants toiling in the fields, harvesting winter wheat, constantly wandering among the golden landscape, the only difference in color being a meandering river that glowed white in the sunlight. By this time, Lieutenant Stewart's eyes were already full of tears. He knew it was the Danube of his homeland!

This famous river has finally come into view. But to the surprise of many Red Army boys - it was not "blue" at all. The Ivan laughed at each other, pointing to the "brown swamp" underneath. The river is nowhere near as beautiful as the tune.

The Danube is the boundary river between Bulgaria and Romania. Flying over it means that the fleet has entered Romanian airspace. Lieutenant Stewart, who was quietly watching the Danube, suddenly remembered that he once read in a poem: "Only those who truly love the Danube can discover the beauty of her blue!" ”

After flying over the Danube, the group lowered its altitude again and carefully bypassed Bucharest, a stretch of the escort fighter group's greatest fear if they were discovered by the Germans. This will be the most likely area for interception by enemy aircraft.

In order to deal with the possible interception of a large number of enemy aircraft, the Red Air Force was very brainless, and it was said before that the range of the Yak-3 and La-5 was really enough, and the combat radius was actually 300 kilometers, which was not enough to escort the bombers throughout the whole process. And the Pe-2, which can escort bombers, is a damn interceptor, and it is not pleasing to meet a clever German aircraft.

So once the aircraft group is discovered by the radar of the Germans, it is really a life of nine deaths! So is there a way not to be detected by German radar? It's a pity that there was no F117 and no B2 in those days, and the bomber group was a strong reflector of radar waves, and they generally operated at high altitudes. There's really no way to escape the radar's gaze.

The bomber group seems to be dead and dead? Not necessarily, the Red Air Force came up with a solution. They thought that powerful electromagnetic interference could be used to blind the radar of the Germans. The Red Air Force proposed to drop a large amount of jamming chaff and then use the Tu-3 modified electronic jammers to suppress the German and Romanian army's artillery radars, so that the two-pronged approach would certainly ensure the safety of the bomber formation.

It's just that Li Xiaofeng didn't fully agree with this suggestion, the reason is very simple, the sky over the Black Sea is too narrow, and it is useful to put a lot of jamming chaff here, but it also invisibly reminds the Germans and Romanians that the Red Army has a big operation. In a clear day, a large group of bombers is definitely the best target, even if the Tu-3 electronic version with jamming can suppress the enemy's artillery aiming radar, it is of little significance, because this time the bomber is a low-altitude bombardment, and there is no need for artillery sighting radar, and the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery can also play a role.

Therefore, Li Xiaofeng means that he must not startle the snake, otherwise the consequences are difficult to say. Of course, it is not possible to ignore the threat of the enemy's air defense radar, but a certain immortal tends to solve these threats by more direct means. That is, to destroy the German network of air defense radars in Romania before the outbreak of the fighting.

It may sound like a lot of work, but to be honest, it's a lot of work. In order to destroy the air defense network, it is first necessary to find the specific location of these radars, and it is clear that this must be highly secretive, and whether it is the Germans or the Romanians, these radars must be highly fortified and camouflaged.

In order to find the specific location of these radars, the KGB made another sortie, and it has to be said that the most high-tech tools of the Red Army in those years were controlled by the KGB. This is the Red Army's first-generation electronic reconnaissance aircraft, the Tu-3D electronic reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft dismantled the original magazine and converted it into a large radio reconnaissance equipment, capable of intercepting German radio and radar signals.

Of course, it was not enough to have electronic reconnaissance aircraft, and in order to find out the location of the German radar, the Red Army also carried out targeted deception tactics. For example, bombers were sent to bomb Bucharest to trick the German air defense radar into activating it.

After several attempts and certain losses, the Red Army basically figured out the exact location of the Romanian air defense radar. The night before the start of the bombing operation, the elite Vympel special forces of the KGB, approaching the Romanian coast under the cover of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet, secretly infiltrated Romanian territory by helicopter. When the Red Army bombers took off, they attacked the German radar stations, and with little effort, they easily destroyed them.

Without radar, the German and Romanian air forces were basically blind, so to speak, no matter how strong the air forces of these two countries were, it was impossible to pose any threat to the Red Army. In fact, if it were not for the fact that the long-range aviation of the Red Air Force was really limited, it would have been possible to take advantage of the blindness of the Luftwaffe and the Romanian Air Force to do a ruthless vote, not to mention completely destroy their air power. It's okay to fight half to death.

So when Lieutenant Stuart flew over from near Bucharest. And when there is no interception. It's hard to describe his mood. There are relaxations and exhilarations, and all in all it is complicated.

At about 8 o'clock, the first wave of Tu-3 bombers easily arrived in Astra. Over the Romana refinery, a horde of Romanian workers was about to enter the factory gate to start their day's work, when a group of bombers large enough to cover the sky appeared above them, and without saying a word, opened the hatch and began to drop bombs.

In an instant, the sky was full of round aerial bombs, and until this time, Astra. It was only then that a sharp air raid siren began to sound over the Romana plant. After a brief moment of shock, the workers on the ground immediately ran hand and foot towards the bomb shelter and all the buildings that looked relatively sturdy.

According to the recollection of a Romanian oil worker who witnessed all this at the time: "At eight o'clock in the morning, I rode my bicycle to the factory gate as usual, just after breakfast, and then it was a day of hard work, and the damned Germans simply treated us like livestock, and the working hours were not usually tight, and we had to deduct our wages for every second late!" Damn vampires! ”

"Just as I was idly waiting to get to work and finish my last cigarette (smoking is not allowed in the production area), there was a deafening roar from the south, as if a herd of horses were galloping in the sky. A few minutes later, I could see a black cloud sweeping across the skyline. They were so dense that I didn't recognize them as Russian bombers at first. ”

"The Russians flew very low. Almost flying close to the roof of the building, the air generated by the group of planes passing over the ground blew down many passers-by. But none of them dared to scold as usual, because everyone was stunned, what did so many bombers want to do? ”

After a few minutes of stupid stupefiing, it dawned on me that the Russians were coming for the refinery, and that if I stayed here, the only possibility was to be blown up with the Germans in the factory. God forbid, I still have my wife and two children, and I can't die yet! Soon, I yelled at my co-workers: 'Run! Then he jumped on his bike and pedaled as hard as he could! ”

"Just as I was speeding to escape, the Russian bombers began to drop bombs, and the strings of bombshells landed on the ground almost as soon as the hatch was opened, and one of them flew over my head, taking my favorite cap with me. Thank God again, the Russians still have a little conscience, they did not choose the instantaneous fuse, most of the bombs did not explode immediately after they were dropped, they only exploded in ten to fifteen minutes, and the long ones exploded in half an hour to an hour, which left us a certain amount of time to escape! ”

Actually, this is not the Red Air Force that is open to the Romanian working class, and the reason why it does not choose the instant fuse is simple: if the bomb explodes immediately, it will produce a lot of smoke regardless of whether it hits the Romanian refinery or not. And this damn smoke will have a bad effect on the bomber fleet that follows up.

Therefore, the principle of setting the fuses of the Red Air Force is that the first batch of bombs is timed for one hour, the second batch is forty minutes, the third batch is twenty minutes, and the fourth batch is instantaneous. It can also be seen from this that the interval between the Red Army's attack waves is actually twenty minutes, and when most of the bombers have finished dropping bombs, all the bombs will be detonated together.

Of course, this does not mean that the first three waves did not give the Romanians additional casualties, as the Russian version of the B17, the Tu-3 greatly strengthened the nose firepower, and the effect of the two 23mm guns on the ground is also quite good, and because the bombing range is not long, the Tu-3 carries a lot of ammunition. Flying over the main target, the gunners and machine gunners of the Red Army gave vent to their own devices.

Artillery shells and machine-gun bullets rained down like unscrewed taps, and all visible targets were targeted by the Red Army gunners, and soon a large number of cars and houses were destroyed, and the red-eyed Red Army gunners even began to fire at the fields, and the flying incendiary shells burned the winter wheat.

By the time the first wave of bombers left, Ploiesti was already scarred. Before the Romanians could catch their breath, the second wave of bombers arrived, and the bomb-strafing action was so smooth that the Romanians, who had just poked their heads out of the cover, fled back with their tails between their legs.

The only difference between this wave of bombing and the previous wave was that the Romanian and German anti-aircraft gunners finally reacted, panicked into the gun position and began to try to return fire, but the Germans were equipped with 88 mm anti-aircraft guns to protect Ploiesti were really not suitable for dealing with low-flying targets, and before they could finish aiming, the Red Army bombers had already thrown off a large number of aerial bombs and flew away from their heads.

At the same time, Bucharest exploded, and when the news of the air raid on Ploiesti came, the Germans, on the one hand, questioned why the radar station had not been able to warn in advance, and on the other hand, ordered the fighters to quickly take to the air to intercept it...... (To be continued.) )

PS: Bow and thank you to the sweet potatoes in the melon field, the parasite schistosomiasis, the fat man fly and fly, llkkjjllkkjj, the glorious charter, the king of mending knives and comrade Juventus!