() On the night of the heavy bombing of Berlin, Marshal Catherine went to the headquarters of the Third Air Force and took over command from Marshal Spehler.

Marshal Catherine, who took over the command, was worried. He said to Marshal Speller who was about to leave:

"Marshal Spehler, I know the current situation is very difficult. Can you brief me on the current situation?"

"Ah, of course, but knowing this is of no use to you."

To be honest, Marshal Spehler's answer didn't sit well with me, but Marshal Catherine knew that it was not directed at him. In the German Air Force, Marshal Spehler was famous for his big mouth.

"Even so, I still hope to know more about the situation."

"Okay, if you insist, I'll talk to you." Marshal Speller threw his marshal's staff on the sofa and sat down.

"The Americans have adopted a very unique escort tactic. Their P-51 fighter jets have an extremely excellent range, which allows them to fly thousands of kilometers above our heads, and then fly to where all our aircraft are.

When the fuel is exhausted, they can still fly thousands of kilometers back.

Their commander is very cunning. He will let the fighter jets take off early to occupy the airspace that the bomber is about to pass. If we take off to meet the enemy at this time, our fighter jets will run out of fuel before the bomber arrives and have to withdraw from the battle.

The result was that not only were we unable to attack the bombers, we even suffered heavy losses due to being pursued by American fighter jets when we retreated from Germany."

Marshal Spehler's eyebrows furrowed. It was obvious that although he was no longer in the position of commander, he was still troubled by the enemy's tactics.

"If we wait until the bombers are approaching before taking off, I don't think I need to tell you, you know what kind of situation we will face... It's just, it's just like..."

"Just like those Soviets faced us," Marshal Catherine said, "even, even worse."

In the air battles on the Eastern Front, the German army was always able to achieve a good exchange ratio. This was partly due to the high technical level of the German pilots, but the tactical advantage of the German air force was actually more important.

The core force of the Soviet air force is the il-2 attack aircraft. Almost all other aircraft surround and serve the il-2 attack aircraft. The il-2 is an attack aircraft specially used to chew up soil.

Their flying altitude almost never exceeds 1,000 meters. Most of the time, in order to ensure that once they are attacked by enemy fighter jets, they can quickly lower their altitude to more than ten meters.

The only weakness of the Mi (il-2) is the radiator on the belly of the machine. As long as a few 7.92 bullets hit that place, the il-2 will be killed. So once it encounters an attack, the il-2 will carry out ultra-low altitude

Flying, so the enemy must risk hitting the ground and crashing if they want to hit this part.) The usual flying height of il-2 before arriving on the battlefield is only about 200 meters.

The IL-2 does not fly high. The Soviet Air Force fighter jets that escort it cannot fly too high. In fact, the flying altitude of the fighter jets that escort the IL-2 is generally only about 500 meters higher than the IL-2.

.The German aircraft that come to intercept generally fly at a much higher altitude, which makes the Luftwaffe fighter jets go into battle.

Before the fight, they generally had the energy advantage brought by altitude. In addition, in order to avoid the Germans' plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain, the Soviets forced the escort fighters not to stay away from the attack aircraft group to attack the retreating German fighters. This is almost equivalent to saying

, once the German fighter jets were in trouble and increased their power to escape, the Soviets would not be able to pursue them.

In fact, during the Kuban air battle, the situation was completely reversed, and the German Air Force had to continuously send attack aircraft to delay the attacks of Soviet ground forces, while German fighter jets had to escort those low-altitude attack aircraft. Both sides

The exchange ratio is completely reversed.

And Marshal Catherine's so-called "even worse" makes sense. First of all, now, Soviet fighter jets are at least as good as German fighter jets in terms of performance. Especially at low altitudes, some of the key performance of Soviet aircraft are even

There are still advantages. In the confrontation with the Americans, except for the me-262, other fighter jets are obviously inferior to American fighter jets in terms of performance. Especially at high altitudes where American bombers are located, the gap is even more obvious.

In fact, if you do the math, the German fighter jets are really tragic. On the Eastern Front, the IL-2 attack aircraft, which has the highest production volume in the world, is at low altitude, resulting in almost all air battles being conducted at low altitude. The Soviet Air Force's fighter jets only need low altitude capabilities.

Excellent is enough. On the Western Front, American and British heavy bombers were operating at high altitudes, resulting in air battles being basically conducted at high altitudes. American fighter jets had superior high-altitude performance.

That's enough. Only Germany, when dealing with the Soviet Union, they need the aircraft's low-altitude performance to be superior, and when dealing with the United States and Britain, they require the aircraft's high-altitude performance to be excellent. And these two capabilities must be unified into one.

On the plane, it was very difficult. The final result was that towards the later stage of the war, the situation became more serious that low-altitude performance could not match that of the Soviet Union, and high-altitude performance could not match that of the United States and Britain.

"Under such circumstances, only the brand-new Me-262 can break through the interception of US military escort fighters and launch an effective attack on the enemy bomber force." Marshal Spehler frowned, "However, such aircraft now exist

The problem is also obvious.

First of all, the number of this kind of aircraft is still too limited. The number of these aircraft in my hands does not exceed one hundred. You know, although this thing has obvious advantages in performance, if the number of aircraft is too large compared to the enemy, according to Lan

The exchange ratio finally obtained by Kester's equation is not very good-looking either.

Secondly, the current reliability of this aircraft is really poor. If it weren’t for the current situation being so bad, I think this thing should even be sent back to the flight test department.”

"Haha, is it just like the Panther tank back then?" As a commander who has commanded both the air force and the ground forces, Marshal Catherine immediately thought of the Panther tank when it first entered the war. Once dispatched, half of it would be possible.

Stopped halfway due to breakdown.

"It's much worse than that. The tank is broken and will stop there at most, but the plane is different. It will fall down."

"So, brother, you just want to accumulate more me-262, and wait until there is enough to launch a counterattack?" Marshal Catherine asked.

"Apart from this, is there anything else you can do?" Marshal Speller asked.

Marshal Catherine was silent.

After a while, Marshal Catherine said: "Do you know there is news?"

"What news?" Marshal Spehler asked.

"It is said that the Führer plans to create an SS air force."

"SS Air Force? Is this news reliable?" Marshal Spehler stood up.

"Quite reliable. In fact, it is said that our commander will also serve as the commander of this team."

"That wave... I mean what on earth is the Führer planning? What's the use of creating such a duplicitous team?" Marshal Spehler obviously did not support Hitler's approach.

"The head of state is dissatisfied with our results, you know this." There was something in Marshal Catherine's words.

"Does he think the current situation is because we haven't tried our best?" Marshal Spehler said, "I knew that was the case...Okay, you will have a lot of things to do now, so I won't disturb you anymore. I should go home and rest.

Rest."

Marshal Speller picked up the Marshal's Staff, raised it to Marshal Catherine, and was about to leave. Before leaving, he turned around again:

"Catherine, you have to protect the pilots, especially the old pilots, and don't let others poach them all away."

…

Ron is inspecting an airport in England. Just today, a unit equipped with brand-new fighter jets just arrived here.

"General, this is our newly equipped long-range heavy fighter." In front of a huge aircraft, a man without a military uniform was making an introduction to him.

This is a very strange-looking fighter jet. Compared with other aircraft, its most obvious feature is that it has a propeller at the front and rear of its fuselage.

"General Ron, I have to say that this design is a patent you originally sold to the company. With this layout, this aircraft has achieved very good performance." The man in casual clothes said with admiration.

"How fast is this plane?" Ron asked. Now, under the shadow of me-262, speed has almost become one of Ron's most important indicators.

"Compared to the P-38, because the new design greatly reduces the windward area, plus the installation of two R-2800 engines, the power has also increased, coupled with the use of swept wings, the speed of this aircraft is faster

Quite a few, the maximum speed reached 770 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 7,000 meters!" the man replied.

The speed of 770 kilometers per hour is already quite high for a propeller aircraft. But compared to the speed of more than 800 or even 900 kilometers of the Me-262 fighter jet, it is still much slower. However, it is a propeller after all, so I hope

It's unrealistic to exceed a jet.

"What's its dive speed, and what's its climb rate?" Ron asked. Climb rate? This is one of the greatest advantages of this aircraft." The man talked about the advantages of this aircraft as if he was praising himself.

Same as his son.

"At sea level, it can climb 1,500 meters per minute! It only takes 4 minutes to climb to an altitude of 5,000 meters! And the ceiling is as high as 12,000 meters. In addition, it can roll and hover as much as a single-engine aircraft, plus it is faster than p-

51 with a range as big as 51 meters - this is definitely the pinnacle of propeller aircraft."

"It seems that it is not impossible to use this kind of aircraft to attack the me-262 by diving." Ron thought.

"How reliable is this thing?"
Chapter completed!