January 27, 1943, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

In the cold wind of the morning, a Stars and Stripes flag is rising slowly. Along with it, there is a flag with a black background and a white reverse cross painted on it. This is the team logo of the 414th Training Squadron. Inverse

The cross is the symbol of hell, but the authentic reverse cross is black. It is indeed very appropriate for the 414th Training Squadron to choose such a white reverse cross to represent the virtual hell.

This is a moment that will go down in the history of the U.S. Air Force. The world's first professional simulated enemy force, the 414th Training Squadron (Reverse Cross Squadron), was established here. This squadron gathered the best in the United States.

A group of pilots whose mission is to make every new pilot go through hell several times before going to the battlefield. From this day on, any rookie pilot in the Army Aviation must go here and undergo a period of ravage before he is qualified to go to the battlefield.

Go up there and fight the Germans and the Japanese themselves. And by the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944, some pilots from allied countries will also come here to receive training.

The base is not large now, and the number of people in this start-up team is not large, but in a few years, this base located in the vast sea of ​​​​sand will become one of the most important research and training centers of the U.S. Air Force.

When the sun fully rose, the flag-raising ceremony ended. The first day of the 414th Training Squadron began.

The first two days were mainly about getting familiar with each other, the division of labor in personnel matters, and getting familiar with various equipment that was gradually put in place.

In terms of personnel, there are not many people in the team now, but the pilots who can enter the "Reverse Cross" are basically aces from various battlefields, including Ron from the Pacific, R?I? Banger (the first in American history)

Ace) and MacGeah and others, (the second ace in history in the United States, who originally died on the battlefield, but was selected by Ron into the "Reverse Cross" here, which is equivalent to saving his life. But this guy is not at all

I appreciate him and think that he hindered me from achieving a higher record. By the way, the first and second aces in history are from the Pacific, which shows the level of the Japanese) Gobleski (Polish origin) and others from Europe, and

G. Boynton (a member of the Flying Tigers) and others from the Chinese battlefield. It should be said that most of these people are not fuel-efficient lamps. Originally, according to the original standards, it is better to have fewer such people. A squadron has such

One of them was enough. But later, out of some selfish motives, or to put it more clearly, out of a craze for collecting celebrities, Ron still attracted them all. In fact, it was almost, Ron even

People from the Air Force came over. The arrival of these high-minded buddies also provided a series of good themes for Hollywood later. Fortunately, Ron had already prepared a set of pamphlets to shock them - "

"Energy Air Combat", after carefully reading this book, and then comparing it with my own personal experience. Those awesome guys finally admitted that even if they go to heaven, Ron may not be able to do it better than him, but his theoretical level is definitely

Outstanding. Among these people, G. Boynton (nicknamed Dad), who is the oldest and has the most problems, even said: "If I had read this book earlier, I would have gotten more than double the US dollars from Chang Kaishen."

." (The Flying Tigers are mercenaries, and bonuses are paid based on the results.) With this, basically these guys will sell him some face.

Except for Ron, who oversees all projects, others are assigned to certain research groups based on their previous service status, such as the European group and the Pacific group.

Another urgent thing is to become familiar with your own special equipment.

These equipment that need to be familiar with include the Japanese Zero Fighter, the German fw190, bf109 and other things. These are extremely precious things, most of which are hard-won. For example, the Zero Fighter originally made an emergency landing in the Aleutian because it got lost.

The Japanese fighter plane had an accident during the emergency landing and the pilot died. But miraculously, the extremely fragile Zero Fighter suffered almost no major damage. As a result, it fell completely into the hands of the Americans.

As for those BF109 and FW190, most of them were obtained through diplomatic channels from countries that were at war with the German army, mainly the Russians. Many of them were not completely genuine, but assembled goods - from several aircraft

It was made from parts recovered from crashed enemy planes.

Obviously, it is extremely difficult to obtain a large amount of enemy equipment. It is unrealistic to equip all the reverse crosses with bf109, fw190 or zero combat. Not to mention the insufficient quantity, what is more terrible is that there is no place to replace the parts.

.So these precious things can only be experienced by pilots and get a feel for it. A more realistic way is to obtain as much enemy equipment as possible and use the existing capabilities of the US military or the allied forces to interface with them.

Advanced aircraft are modified to imitate them.

The aircraft that simulated zero combat was the Navy's F6F. Due to the variables brought by the P-38, this fighter that originally occupied the aircraft carrier deck was squeezed out by its historical defeat, the F4U. However, Grumman, unwilling to fail, still gave

It found a place to go - after acquiring some landing equipment, it was leased to the Russians, and relied on its excellent low-altitude performance, large range and powerful firepower (four 20mm rotary cannons).

It is deeply loved by the Russians. (It took away the business of P-39.) As a carrier-based aircraft, the F6F is quite close to the Zero Strategy in terms of hovering, the speed is faster than the Zero Strategy, and the dive is even more overwhelming.

xing advantage, but the climb is a bit tragic compared to zero combat. But when we got here, Ron gave an order, and the poor F6F was immediately disemboweled and underwent a zero combat operation: all the armor was removed, and even

The self-closing fuel tanks were changed to zero-war-style ordinary fuel tanks (you don’t really have to go to the battlefield anyway). The weapons were also cut off and replaced with camera guns and film. As a result, the f6f suddenly became much lighter, relying on the 2000

With the powerful engine, both hovering and climbing have been greatly improved, and the speed has also increased a lot. Because the body is too light, the dive performance is much worse. It is even difficult to overcome the propeller torque at high speeds (when

The propeller rotates clockwise, which will give the aircraft a force to rotate counterclockwise). This is exactly like a zero war.

The Spitfire obtained from the British was used to imitate the BF109. The Spitfire's performance was very strong, almost like a snake oil simulated aircraft, but its ability to perform negative g movements was far inferior to that of the BF109.

The one used to simulate the fw190 is the navy's f4u. The main reason why I chose it was because of its good roll. Of course, in terms of roll, it is still worse than the genuine fw190.

As for the P-38 that Ron is famous for, well, the only option is to imitate the BF110, which is really overkill.

After everything was in place, the training began in full swing. These trainings were not to improve the pilots' air combat skills, but to fly like the enemy and prevent those guys from being too idle. I just didn't expect that the first team training would have a problem.

A lot came out.

At that time, Ron took 8 B-17s in a mini box formation, with several Spitfires acting as escort aircraft. The remaining guys took turns imitating the enemy and attacking him.

"Dad! You're in violation, you're flying too fast! Zero Fighter can't fly that fast, and it's not that flexible at high speeds. You can't fly like this!"

"Hey, Poles! Why are you using the energy-lifting spiral to climb? You are imitating the FW190. This is not how the German FW190 flies!"

"Hey, Mike! The BF110 can't turn like this, nor can it climb like this. Forget that you are flying a P-38. Remember, you are flying a BF110!"

"Hey, Bong, you can't do this..."

"Hey, Kahn, what the hell, how did you..."

As a result, after the aces with dark faces got off the plane, they kept urging Ron to fly up and show them.

"Sir Ron, you are speeding!"

"Sir Ron, when you climb like this, you should stall."

"Sir Ron, how could you..."

"Ron, forget the p-38. You are driving a bf110!..."

"Hey, Ron, how could you..."

When Ron got off the plane, everyone looked at the black lines on his forehead and laughed together. After all, habits formed over the years cannot be changed by deliberately changing them all at once.

However, if you can't change it, you have to change it. Take your time and do not want to be exactly the same. At least as time goes by, the way they simulate the enemy's flight has gradually become more and more similar. But this is only the simplest part.

It was late at night, but the lights were still bright in front of Ron's office window. He and his staff were carefully studying the detailed battle reports returned from various battlefields.

"Sir, this battle report mentioned that a Japanese fighter jet that dived quite well was found in Rabaul..."

"Sir, this is the detailed battle report of the 305th Bomb Group on its first bombing of the German mainland. The battle report mentioned that the Germans have a new 30mm gun and some particularly durable fighter jets..." Major Matthews said.

Holding a document and saying to Ron.

"Oh, show it to me," Ron quickly put down the other battle report in his hand and reached out to take this battle report.

"Ah, assault formation tactics. This set has finally appeared. We can also imitate it." Ron turned his head, "Stern, can this be included in this week's training plan?"

"Sir, the queue is not until Thursday."

…

"Sir, the newly formed 385th Bomb Group will come to our place for training next week for two weeks. Should our attack plan include this tactic?"

"Next week? It will come in handy!"

This will be the first customer that Ron's "Reverse Cross" entertains. Ron and all the members of "Reverse Cross" decided to leave a deep impression on them. At least let them make a deep impression in the future no matter what the circumstances.
Chapter completed!