New World War II Eagle Strikes the Sky

On January 1943, 1, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

In the cold morning wind, a star-spangled banner is slowly rising, and slowly rising with it is a black-bottomed flag with a white inverse cross symbol painted on it.This is the logo of the 414th Training Squadron.The inverse cross is a symbol of hell, but the authentic inverse cross is black.The 414th Training Squadron chose such a white reverse cross to represent the virtual hell, which is indeed very appropriate.

In a moment that will go down in USAF history, the world's first professional simulated enemy force, the 414th Training Squadron (Inverse Cross Squadron), was established here.This squadron gathered the best pilots in the United States, and their task was to make every new pilot go to hell a few times before going to the battlefield.From this day on, any rookie pilot of the Army Aviation must come here to accept the ravages for a period of time before he is eligible to go to the battlefield to fight the Germans and Japanese himself.At the end of 43 and the beginning of 44, pilots from some allied countries will also come here for training.

Now this base is not big, and the number of this start-up team is not too large, but after 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 is fully up, the flag-raising ceremony is over. The first day of the 414th Training Squadron begins.

In the first two days, the main thing was to get familiar with each other, the division of labor in personnel, and the familiarity with all kinds of equipment that were 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? Ace) and McGaia and others, (the second ace of the United States in history, originally killed in battle, was selected by Ron to enter the "Reverse Cross" here, which is equivalent to saving his life. But this dude is not at all Appreciate it, and think that he prevented me from getting a higher record. By the way, the first and second aces in history came from the Pacific Ocean, and the level of devils can be seen) Gobleski (Polish) and others from Europe, and G? Poington (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. According to the original standard, it is better to have fewer such people, and one such person is enough for a squadron.But then out of some selfishness, more clearly, out of a celebrity-collecting mania, Ron got them all anyway.In fact, it was almost, Ron even pulled the people from the Royal Air Force over.The arrival of these high-spirited buddies also provided a series of good themes for Hollywood later.Fortunately, Ron had already prepared a set of booklets to frighten them - "Energy Air Combat". After reading this book carefully, he compared it with his own experience.Those coquettish guys finally admitted that although Ron may not be able to do it himself in the sky, his theoretical level is definitely top-notch.Among these people, G. Poington (nicknamed Daddy) who is the oldest and has the most problems even said: "If I had read this book earlier, I would have received more than double the dollar from Chang Kaishen." ( The Flying Tigers are mercenaries, and rewards are paid according to the results.) With this, basically these guys will sell him some face.

Except for Ron, who is in charge of all projects, according to their previous service, others are assigned to a certain research group, such as: European group, Pacific group.

Another urgent thing is to familiarize yourself with your special equipment.

These equipment that need to be familiar with include Ri's own zero battle, German fw190, bf109 and other things.These are extremely precious things, most of which are hard to come by.For example, the Zero Fighter was originally a Japanese fighter plane that made an emergency landing in the Aleutians due to getting lost. There was an accident during the forced landing, and the pilot died, but miraculously, the extremely fragile Zero Fighter hardly suffered any 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 from the Russians.Many of them are not completely authentic, but assembled goods - assembled from parts recovered from several crash-landed and crashed enemy planes.

Obviously, it is extremely difficult to obtain a large amount of enemy equipment, and it is unrealistic for all the Inverse Cross to equip them with bf109, fw190 or Zero War.Not to mention that the quantity is not enough, what's more terrible is that there is nowhere to replace the parts.Therefore, these precious things can only be experienced by the pilots to find out their feelings. A more realistic way is to use the existing capabilities of the US military or the existing allied forces to connect with them while obtaining as much enemy equipment as possible. Airplanes were modified to imitate them.

The aircraft used to simulate the zero battle is the navy's f6f. Because of the variables brought by the p-38, this fighter that originally occupied the deck of the aircraft carrier was squeezed out by the historically defeated f4u.However, Grumman, who was unwilling to fail, still found a place for it-after getting some landing equipment, it was leased to the Russians, and by virtue of its excellent low-altitude performance, greater range and powerful firepower ( Four 20mm rotary-bore guns) and were loved by the Russians. (It took away the p-39 business.) As a carrier-based aircraft, the f6f is already quite close to zero combat in hovering, and its speed is faster than zero strategy, and its dive has an overwhelming advantage. It's kind of tragic compared to the war.But here, with Ron's order, the poor f6f was disemboweled immediately and underwent a zero-combat operation: all the armor was removed, and even the self-closing fuel tank was changed into a zero-combat-style ordinary fuel tank (Anyway, you don't really need to go to the battlefield).Weapons were also cut out and replaced with photo guns and film.As a result, the f6f suddenly became much lighter. Relying on the 2000-horsepower engine, both hovering and climbing have greatly improved, and the speed has also increased a lot, because the body is too light, and the dive performance is much worse.There is even a problem with overcoming the propeller torque (when the propeller turns clockwise, it gives the aircraft a force to turn it counterclockwise) at high speeds.It's quite like Zero War.

The Spitfire obtained from the British was used to imitate the Bf109. The various performances of the Spitfire are very strong, almost like a panacea for simulating an aircraft, but the ability to do negative g movements is far inferior to that of the Bf109.

The f190u used to simulate the fw4 is the Navy's f190u. The main reason for choosing it is that its roll is very good. Of course, in terms of roll, it is still worse than the genuine fw[-].

As for the p-38 that Ron is famous for, well, he can only imitate the bf110, which is really overkill.

After everything is in place, the training in full swing begins.These trainings are not for pilots to improve the level of air combat, but to fly like the enemy and not let those guys be too idle.It's just that I didn't expect that there would be a lot of problems in the first team training.

At that time, Ron took 8 B-17s in a mini-box formation, a few Spitfires acted as escort aircraft, and the rest of the guys took turns imitating the enemy and attacking him.

"Dad! You're fouled, you're flying too fast! You can't fly so fast, and you're not so flexible at high speeds. You can't fly like this!"

"Hey, Poles! How did you play the spiral climb with lifting energy? You imitated the fw190, the German fw190 doesn't fly like this!"

"Hey, Mike! The bf110 can't turn like this, and it can't 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 do you..."

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

"Sir Ron, you're speeding!"

"Executive Ron, climbing like this, you should stall."

"Sir Ron, how could you..."

"Ron, forgot the p-38. You drive a bf110!  …"

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

When Ron got off the plane, everyone saw his forehead full of black lines and laughed together.After all, the 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, don't try 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 that's just the easiest part.

It was late at night, but the lights in Ron's office window were still bright.Together with his staff, he is seriously studying the detailed battle reports sent back from various battlefields.

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

"Sir, this is the detailed battle report of the 305th Bomber Group for the first bombing of the German mainland. The battle report mentions that the Germans have a new 30mm gun and some particularly durable fighter jets..." Major Matthews took Speaking to Ron with a document.

"Oh, show it to me," Ron hurriedly dropped 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 week's training plan fit in?"

"Sir, the queue is until Thursday."

……

"Sir, the newly formed 385th Bomber Group will come to us for two weeks of training next week. Will our attack plan include this tactic?"

"Next week? Totally useful!"

This will be the first client Ron's "Reverse Cross" entertains.Ron and the entire crew of the Reverse Cross decided they had to make a deep impression.At least let them maintain the formation firmly no matter what the situation is.