777 Four Engines!

Dallas, April 26, 1917. ※※※※※ I ※ I ※ ※

White clouds dotted in the amber-blue sky, and the hot wind blowing from the Gulf of Mexico gave this Texas the first taste of summer heat.

A handful of cowboys rode their horses toward the chimney-lined city of Dallas, which has become the heart of the American Southwest, with several refineries since the discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Texas, especially 20 years ago when the East Texas oil fields were discovered at hand.

In addition to oil, Dallas is located in the cotton planting area, and the cotton shipped to the United States from here accounts for more than 40% of the United States every year, plus Texas has a large livestock breeding area in the United States, so the textile and animal husbandry industry is very prosperous, which has gradually made the city one of the commodity trading centers in the United States.

Following in the footsteps of the cowboys, the city of Dallas gradually showed its full picture, April was not a busy assembly, but today no matter where the street is, it is full of horses and people.

Every train that leaves here is packed with people, and even then the train station is packed. Even the Trinity River, which divides the city in two, is full of boats of all sizes ready to leave, and some black-hearted merchants have even begun to charge high fares for rides, making many people have to look at the boats and sigh.

The cowboy sped down the street, and a piece of paper, blown by the breeze from the horse's hooves, drifted to the side of the car. "They're leaving ......." George Marshall picked up the piece of paper, glanced at it twice, and handed it to his mentor next to him, Lieutenant General Shippe, the former principal of the West Point Military Academy, and said, "Because of this." ”

The leaflet was printed with the news that the squadron was about to attack Texas, and it also revealed the so-called "truth and conspiracy" of the federal government to launch the war.

After Shipp folded the flyer carefully and put it in his pocket, he got into the car that came to pick him up, looked out the window of the car and fled Dallas residents in a hurry, sighed deeply in his heart, turned his head and asked, "George, how is the situation now?" ”

Facing his principal and mentor, Marshall sighed frankly: "It's bad. Beginning yesterday afternoon, Albuquerque, Kent, and Presidio were all under heavy enemy attack. ”

"Presidio?" Shipp's heart jumped, and he exclaimed, "The Mexicans are also involved?" ”

Marshall nodded: "Yes, we have received information that the first batch of 370,000 troops from Mexico are moving north along Presidio, and about 4 Chinese infantry divisions and a tank unit are helping them.

This is also where General Pershing worries, the strength of the Mexican army is not strong, but if you want to contain them, you must send enough troops, but we need to invest in Albuquerque and Kent, and the troops are already seriously insufficient! ”

Shipp smiled bitterly, since the day the war began, the United States has armed no less than 6 million troops, who would have thought that just over two years later, this country with a population of nearly 100 million would begin to run out of troops!

Marshall, who had also looked bad, had been personally involved in the surrender negotiations for the Karl Department a few months earlier, and although it was to ensure the safety of more than a million soldiers, the consequences were so great that he quietly returned to Dallas before the negotiations were over.

"General Pershing has sent a telegram to Washington urging the retreating troops from San Francisco to come as soon as possible, but it is ......."

"I know."

Shipp is in the War Department, how can he not know the situation, although the Chinese offensive spearhead is directly aimed at Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, but there are still more than 100,000 troops on the border between California and Oregon, so the War Department does not dare to transfer the San Francisco troops withdrawn there.

"George, tell me, how long do you think General Pershing can hold out?"

Marshall squirmed his Adam's apple, he didn't expect that his former principal and mentor would ask this question, could it be that he was not optimistic about the United States?

"George, you're a good student of mine, and I don't want to cheat on you. (Full text reading, all in. (.i. Want. Wen. "I've gotten some information that President Melkin is secretly considering the demands of ceding Alaska and California to the Chinese, and is also considering returning several southwestern states to the Mexican government in exchange for withdrawing from the war. ”

"What!"

The car braked suddenly, and in the harsh rubber friction sound, George Marshall's hands trembled a little, what did Melgin want to do? He's ah!

"Don't look at me, I just knew, but the president is still hesitant because we need to see the final outcome of the battle of Paris, and ......, Congress has no idea of withdrawing from the war at the moment!"

George Marshall nodded indifferently, and the wheels began to roll forward again.

The car stopped at the temporary headquarters set up in the suburbs, and as soon as the two got out of the car, they suddenly heard a buzzing sound overhead.

Two Chinese reconnaissance planes appeared in the sky, and these reconnaissance planes, which come and visit several times a day, did not cause much panic, or the soldiers should have been used to it, not to mention that the reconnaissance planes are not bombers, and throwing a few more bundles of leaflets to take some pictures will not pose a real threat to Dallas, after all, it is 970 kilometers away from the nearby Chinese temporary aircraft base.

The reconnaissance planes circled over and over again, and Shipp, who had seen the Chinese reconnaissance planes for the first time, borrowed binoculars from the soldiers, hoping to take a closer look at what the Chinese planes, which had been rumored to be in a roar by the outside world, were like.

Only Marshall always felt that something was wrong, and usually the reconnaissance plane circled twice and left, and the main reconnaissance area was mostly concentrated on the outer defense line of the city and the railway line, but today it was hovering over the city vigorously, and it was ...... The height seems to be a lot lower than usual!

What are they looking at?

Probably seeing an opportunity, dozens of American-made camels and Curtiss D300 biplanes rushed into the sky and flew towards the hovering Chinese reconnaissance planes, and many American soldiers were ready to cheer up their pilots. But Marshall knew very well that this was a futile effort, because the wing was at the top, and the stout reconnaissance aircraft could rise above 33,000 feet (about 10,000 meters), an altitude that no American and Allied active fighter could reach.

The biplane's clumsy pursuit began to disappoint the soldiers, and many simply ignored the sky and continued to work, and just as Shipp was about to put down the telescope, a few dazzling reflections in the distance made him suddenly feel a pain in his eyes.

"Chinese planes!"

In Shipp's shouting, he saw about 20 silver-white monoplanes suddenly appear west of Dallas, and these planes were at a speed of at least 120 knots (about 220 km/h) in his opinion.

Marshall was also stunned, he never thought that the enemy fighters would appear here, only to see that these fighters suddenly threw a black dot under the belly, and then accelerated again into a tiger and rushed towards the scattered American planes.

The black dots quickly fell to the surface, and when everyone thought they would explode, they didn't make any sound at all, as if they were just a few lumps of iron.

"Is it an auxiliary fuel tank hanging outside?" Marshall secretly guessed, because he couldn't think of a way to get the plane here across nearly a thousand kilometers other than this explanation.

He guessed correctly, but then another thought made him open his mouth wide, and his pupils suddenly constricted!

If the Chinese had auxiliary fuel tanks that allowed small aircraft to increase range, would they use this technology for those two-engine bombers? If it is used, does it mean that their bombers can easily fly to a thousand kilometers away ......!

His eyes were sharply aimed at the two reconnaissance planes that were still circling, no! Wrong! They are not here to reconnoitre, they are providing coordinates for the large forces behind!

"Notify everyone to evacuate from Dallas!"

"Tell General Pershing that the Chinese are coming to bomb!"

"Leave, let the plane leave, they will be slaughtered... Scheer shouted frantically, and the soldiers, including Shipp, didn't understand what he was doing, and while the sound was still echoing, those Chinese planes had already wrung into the middle of the American fleet.

"Oh God......!"

Everyone saw that when a Curtiss D300 was about to turn left, one of the enemy's fighter planes had already dived down from a high altitude, and in the piercing whistling, several tongues of fire suddenly erupted from the nose and wing roots, and in the blink of an eye, the Curtiss spiraled down like an angel with broken wings.

Before it could hit the ground, the devilish fighter had already passed by and circled to the right of another camel.

The camel was being chased by another Chinese plane, and the pilot didn't even notice another one on the right, and when he found out, the distance between the two sides was less than a kilometer, and as he slammed the lever, the other side sprayed bullets like a torrential rain had penetrated his cabin.

The second, third, fourth ......!

This is not a fight!

Rather, a one-sided massacre!

Shipp's face turned white when he saw this scene for the first time, and at this moment he understood why front-line pilots were reluctant to fight in the air, and even many would rather disobey orders and be court-martialed than sit in the cockpit.

In less than ten minutes, only the rampant Mustang fighters were left in the sky, and when everyone finally remembered Marshall's words, dozens of silver-white large planes that they had never seen before appeared in the west again.

"Four engines!"

Through the binoculars, Shipp was the first to see the appearance of the enemy plane, and then thought of Marshall's shouting, and suddenly understood everything.

But it's late!

In the leading No. 1021 bomber, Guan Ning straightened the photos taken by the reconnaissance a few days ago, looked at the big chimneys on the horizon, and turned on the radio with a sneer on the corner of his mouth: "Wild Yak Squadron, start reporting." ”

"Wild Yak No. 1 is ready."

"Number two is ready."

"Number three......."

The loud number of announcements again and again was transmitted to the entire formation through the headphones.

After a long and silent flight of nearly four hours, the "Wild Yak" squadron of 66 Imperial Thor bombers suddenly woke up like a giant beast that had been awakened.

Thor is in the sky, and the clouds are moving.

This is where the name Thor comes from.

Raytheon, codenamed -3 in the Chinese Air Force, is a four-engine large bomber developed for the Air Force's long-range bombing after Emperor Li put forward the idea of a decisive battle abroad ten years ago.

-2 The Kunpeng bomber has now moved the world, but everyone doesn't know that in fact, as early as the beginning of the development of the Kunpeng, the Thor project was launched together, but because the Air Force was already developing bombs at that time, it was proposed to be able to carry at least 18 tons of 1 Xiaopang, or 3 800 kg of Manniu, or 5 500 kg of high-explosive bombs, and the range should reach more than 2000 kilometers, and the combat radius should reach at least 800 kilometers and a series of hard indicators.

At that time, these indicators of the Air Force were really outrageous, because according to experimental findings, in order to carry 25 tons of bombs, it was necessary to ensure a range of 2,000 kilometers, even if four engines were used, and the power of a single unit also needed to reach at least 950 horsepower.

The engine that the Kunpeng was equipped with at the beginning was only 700 horsepower.

In terms of engine design, because of Li Mo, a power expert of later generations, Hua is outstanding, but he can't change the defects in the basic materials, and if he wants to get high horsepower, he must make a breakthrough in materials, so it was not until half a year ago that the second-generation aluminum-magnesium alloy with good heat resistance came out, and the aero engine finally met the requirements.

In addition to the engine, in order to meet the requirements of the Air Force, the designers also borrowed from the interior of the Hummingbird's design, using a lot of balsa wood to reduce weight, so unlike the all-metal fighters and tactical attack aircraft currently used by the Navy and Air Force, the Thor is not an aircraft made entirely of metal.

The shape of the Thor bomber seems to be a combination of the famous Junkers 88 and B17, which does not continue to use the cut wing used in the fighter, but adopts a stable circular lower wing, three-bladed asymmetrical propeller, and installs four 970 horsepower water-cooled Kunlun 6 12-cylinder V-engine, with a maximum speed of 320 km / h, a cruising speed of 220 km / h, and a large ceiling of more than 10,000 meters.

Due to the progress of the engine and the obvious effect of balsa wood weight reduction, and there is no need to arrange a large number of machine guns to increase the weight as in later generations, so in the case of a large take-off weight of 21 tons, the large bomb load reaches a terrifying 3500 kg, and it can also fly continuously for more than 2300 kilometers under full load.

In terms of self-defense, since the opponent was not a big threat, Raytheon installed only a millimeter machine gun, so that the crew configuration consisted of 5 people, in addition to the pilot and co-pilot, there was also a navigator, a bombardier and a machine gunner.

66 Raytheon, it took several months of domestic aircraft factories, not that the workers are slow, but because the aircraft is always troublesome at the beginning, and the current speed can only reach about 30 per month, and the output must wait for a few more months to slowly rise.

The hatch slowly opened, and the air flow caused the bomber to jolt, and the 12 250-kilogram high-explosive bombs in the bomb bay showed a hideous black shell.

Some fire points began to appear over the city, and since Hua did not expect that Hua had bombers that could span thousands of kilometers, it could even be described as "Dallas undefended".

Guan Ninh's target this time is the oil and industrial zone in the north of the city, and the chimneys have become good coordinates.

The grenadier lay down in front of the bomb scope, and when the first large chimney was pressed into the doji, the bombs left the magazine one by one.

From a distance, the three Thor planes were lowered under the belly and it rained bombs.

Both George Marshall and the Shippers looked stupid, they never imagined that a plane could carry so many bombs.

"Boom......."

"Boom......."

66 Thor, 792 bombs totaling 198 tons, half of which were high-explosive, while the other half were all white phosphorus incendiary bombs.

Bombs exploded in the industrial area, and looking down from the sky, countless black and red flowers seemed to bloom on the ground, and the rising mushroom clouds could be clearly seen more than ten kilometers away.

Huge cotton warehouses were set on fire, chimneys and factories were crumbling in pieces, and when 66 Raytheons had finished their bombardment and started their return voyages, Dallas was covered with scorched earth.

The successive shocks from under his feet made the faces of Marshall, Shipp and other officers turn dead.

RO！ ~！