Steel Soviet Union

The German Heinkel 111 bomber, which has a clear division of labor like a ground tank crew, is equipped with multiple crew members who perform their own duties, including a navigator who is responsible for guiding the flight direction, a driver who is responsible for controlling the flight and maneuvering of the fighter aircraft, and a pilot who is responsible for operating the fuselage for self-defense. Machine gunners with weapons firepower, and bombardiers responsible for throwing death on the enemy's head. These well-trained elite German pilots and their vehicles together form a powerful aerial killing machine.

The goal of this German twin-engine medium bomber group, which was assigned the task of bombing the Soviet defensive positions, was very clear, that is, to eliminate as much as possible all the Soviet technical equipment on the position while inflicting maximum damage to the combatants.

I don’t know if there was a mistake by the air force liaison officer stationed on the ground, or if there was a real communication problem and there was some misunderstanding.

All in all, when these nine Heinkel 111 bombers, fully loaded with 250-kilogram aerial bombs, took off from the airport, they did not hear the important news in the mission briefing that the Soviet defense positions on the ground were actually equipped with tanks.

The only reminder and warning received was that a Soviet fighter force appeared in the airspace of this battlefield yesterday, and a large-scale air battle broke out with a German escort fighter force.

In the end, after destroying and damaging a dozen German Stukas and BF109s, they were the first to withdraw from the battle due to heavy losses. What remained on the ground battlefield were more than thirty burning Soviet fighter jets and attack aircraft. Black and hot wreckage.

"Do you think those Ivan planes will come today? We don't have BF109 protection on this trip. Those fighter pilots are simply busier than the hard-working Dr. Goebbels."

The pilot holding the joystick in his hand asked the bombardier who was prostrate in the transparent canopy under the nose of the plane as if to pass the boring time. The latter who had his hands lying in front of his bombsight obviously didn't have much. Use your free time to answer words that will affect your concentration.

"Why are you talking so much nonsense? Steady the plane. The cross mark is already close to the edge. Pay attention to maintaining the flying attitude!"

The German pilot, who was mercilessly beaten by his comrades, had nothing to say. Then he began to concentrate on the operation of the fighter plane based on the supreme truth above the mission.

Because the mission information received by the Luftwaffe field airport in the rear area was that the bombing target was just an ordinary Soviet field defense position, equipped with a small number of anti-aircraft guns and light artillery, and it was almost impossible to target German bombers in the sky. The swarm poses a substantial threat, and all it takes is a wave of covering bombing to completely wipe it from the surface.

In line with this mission goal of requiring surface-to-surface destruction and requiring secondary bombing to be carried out as much as possible on fish that have slipped through the net, the German Heinkel 111 bombers on standby at the airport were refueling and loading and preparing to take off. It has the most diverse combat options for mounting eight 250-kg aerial bombs.

After all, unprotected ground infantry and artillery units do not need those 1-ton heavy aerial bombs that can only carry two at a time to destroy them. If that is the case, it can be said to be a fuss over a molehill.

The most common 250-kilogram aerial bomb not only has great damage to unprotected soft targets, but can also carry multiple bombs at one time to cover every blind spot of the Soviet defense positions as much as possible, even the first If a fish escapes the wave of bombs and survives, it can still fly and turn, straighten the attack channel, and then hit a wave of last hits. It can be called the most versatile battlefield mounting solution.

But now, the German bombardier couldn't help but frown when he saw the Soviet heavy tank troops on the ground from the perspective of his optical bombsight.

The Heinkel 111 bomber that dropped bombs in horizontal flight was not as accurate as the Stuka dive bomber. The optical bomb sight equipped on the Heinkel 111 bomber was not designed for ground targets the size of tanks. It is essentially a rough targeting system made for bombing ground buildings and large-area defensive positions.

The bombing error rate at a flight altitude of 1,500 meters is approximately within the range of 50 meters, and this is the theoretical bombing error range after excluding the possibility of human factors and errors.

In actual combat operations, some German bombardiers who were inexperienced and unable to accurately grasp the best time to drop bombs even made a joke of dropping the bomb two hundred meters away from the target.

A simple optical bombsight based on the operator's own experience and timing cannot be as accurate and efficient as the airborne bombing computer on later bombers.

If a mere 250-kilogram ordinary aerial bomb is not thrown directly into the extremely close range of the KV1 heavy tank, it will not be able to cause any substantial damage to this extremely thickly armored steel behemoth. The miserable record of the German engineering unit, which used enough TNT explosives to blow up a two-story house in an instant to blow up the side of a KV2 heavy tank, only to break one track, speaks volumes.

In actual combat, the German bombardiers, who had tried horizontal bombing of Soviet ground tank units many times with little success, naturally knew that the mere 250-kilogram sweet potato in their hands could not carry away a few Soviet heavy tanks. . The difficulty of accurately throwing a bomb into the face of a Soviet tank at a flight altitude of 1,500 meters is almost as difficult as shooting a person from 800 meters away with a machine-sighted rifle without a scope. It's no different with a headshot.

The German bombardier, who could clearly see the Soviet tank target on the ground, always had little confidence in the unreliable instrument in his hand. After much hesitation, he finally made up his mind to attack the pilot on the seat next to him. Speak decisively.

"Descent, Hank, now! At this flying altitude, I can't be sure to kill those Ivan tanks with these 250 kilograms of sweet potatoes. Only by descending below a thousand meters flying altitude can I be sure to kill them!"

"Damn it! Burns! You little devil from Bavaria always likes to play pranks! This wave of attack channels has been destroyed, and we have missed the opportunity to drop bombs. Let's wait for the next wave of attack opportunities after I turn around! You take advantage of this! Use this time to quickly adjust the broken sight in your hand, I don’t want to hear it malfunction again later!”

Due to the sudden requirement to lower their flight altitude while maintaining a level flight speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour, the German bomber group that temporarily changed their tactics has lost the best opportunity to drop bombs. The relatively heavy and fully loaded Heinkel The 111 bomber must be redirected before it can enter the next wave of attack channels.