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Text Chapter 617, Air Defense War

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    To be honest, the efficiency of airship air strikes is not high, at least when using conventional bombs, its efficiency is very questionable.  , the speed of the airship is limited, and one operation will take more than ten hours of flight time alone. Even with Daliwan, the pilot cannot continue to fly for more than ten hours, so many positions must be equipped with deputy positions.  It¡¯s good to take turns to rest.  Moreover, the flight preparation of the airship and the maintenance after the mission are quite time-consuming and expensive.  What's more, airships themselves are very expensive.  A Zeppelin airship that is more than 100 meters long requires a large amount of aluminum, and the hydrogen to hold it up is not cheap.  However, the number of bombs it can carry is quite limited, and the British began to deploy some hasty anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns (actually modified from ordinary cannons and machine guns) in various cities.  The threat of these airships with large anti-aircraft firepower is actually very limited. The rate of fire of the anti-aircraft guns is too low, and the shooting height is also very limited. As for the anti-aircraft machine guns, the effective shooting height is not even one thousand meters.  As long as the airship flies higher, it can ignore them.  However, their existence also requires the airship to fly higher, which means a decrease in bomb load and bombing accuracy.  This also reduces the losses that an action can cause to the British.  However, the Germans still insisted on sending a few airships to British cities every day as long as the weather was good, and randomly dropped bombs.  Although according to calculations, the same amount of Reichsmarks used to kill people on airships is far less efficient than cannons. In other words, if the Germans gave up these airships and spent all the money spent on producing them and maintaining their bombing operations into cannons  , more enemies will be killed, but the Germans feel that the account cannot be calculated like this. Because of the German airship attacks, the British are also forced to invest more resources in domestic air defense, and this investment is greater than the German airship attack.  If the Germans give up the airship attack, the British can turn the anti-aircraft guns deployed in various cities into cannons and then send them to the French front line to kill more Germans.  This is like World War II in another time and space. The strategic bombing of Germany by the United States and the United Kingdom reached its peak in 1943-44. However, in the same two years, Germany's military production also reached its peak, so that many people criticized it.  The effectiveness of strategic bombing was doubted.  However, if we consider that in order to counter the strategic bombing by the United States and Britain, the Germans had to use the main force of their aviation forces for domestic defense and could not be used on key battlefields. Considering that a large part of the large-caliber artillery produced by the Germans must be  Anti-aircraft guns are expensive, and their production consumes significantly more resources and time than ordinary artillery. Moreover, these things also have to be left behind and cannot be put into the front line. The significance of strategic bombing cannot be underestimated.  For example, in 1943-44, Germany produced one-third more large-caliber artillery than the Soviet Union, and produced far more large-caliber artillery shells than the Soviet Union. However, on the battlefield on the Eastern Front, the Soviets  It has an almost overwhelming advantage in artillery firepower, because a very large part of the large-caliber artillery produced by the Germans are anti-aircraft guns, and they must be left behind to protect the city.  The same is true in Britain today. Just to defend London, the British had to deploy hundreds of anti-aircraft guns in London.  Therefore, although airship bombing alone is indeed very inefficient, it allows the British to do less efficient things, which is worth doing. ?¡­ ?Even in a world war, mercenaries can find a place.  For example, the United Kingdom now ordered a large number of Sea Breeze fighter jets from North American Airlines, but the British immediately discovered that they lacked enough pilots.  Before the war, the British did not spend much time on aircraft. In fact, after MacDonald, everyone paid very little attention to aircraft.  Therefore, there are not many seriously trained pilots in the UK.  At first, the British planned to temporarily select some volunteers to try, but the final result showed that letting those guys fly the plane directly was simply committing murder.  Although the maneuverability of the bi-wing Sea Breeze fighter is actually quite good, the low-speed performance is also excellent, and the takeoff and landing are quite simple. A football field is enough, and there are many football fields in the UK.  However, this thing is an airplane after all, and it is not something that novices can use casually.  So the British had to purchase a batch of two-seat trainer aircraft from North American Airlines, and hired a group of pilots from Blackwater to perform air defense and train new pilots.  Bellman is such a mercenary pilot.  According to their contract with the British, in addition to the fixed salary, if he can shoot down a German airship, the British will also pay him a full one hundred pounds, and pay it directly in gold.  This is a lot of money, so now Behrman is looking forward to the Germans coming over to send money almost every day.  However, the weather was not very good these days, so the Germans never came.  After the weather improved the day before yesterday, the British arrangedThe patrol post also discovered the incoming German airship. However, these damn Germans did not come to London, but to Birmingham.  The British had not yet had time to deploy fighter jets in Birmingham, where there were not even many anti-aircraft machine guns.  Therefore, the one hundred pounds still failed to fall into Behrman's hands.  But Bellman was not discouraged. He knew that even for political reasons, the Germans would come back to bomb London.  All he needed was to wait quietly.  At this time, the bell in the lounge suddenly rang violently.  Bellman quickly jumped up from the sofa, placed the half-drunk black tea on the coffee table, grabbed the flight suit, put it on, and ran towards the plane.  At this time, the mechanic had already prepared the aircraft and climbed into the cockpit. Bellman put on his helmet and pulled down his goggles to protect his eyes. The aircraft at that time were all open-top models. Without this, the wind would blow his eyes open.  Not open.  The propeller turned faster and faster. Bellman glanced at the tachometer and released the brakes. The plane began to taxi on the runway and soon took to the sky.  Behind him, several more planes took off one after another.  There were no radios on airplanes in this era, so naturally there would be no radio navigation services. The communication between takeoff airplanes depended entirely on gestures between pilots.  And the less there is radio guidance such as "The target is in your 11 o'clock direction, at an altitude of about 20,000 feet", the search for the target is entirely up to the pilots themselves.  Fortunately, the Zeppelin is a very, very easy target to spot, because it is not only big enough, but also colorful enough. The Germans painted it a shiny silvery white, as if they were afraid that others would not see it.  to it.  This is indeed how the Germans think about it.  In their view, one of the main functions of the Zeppelin is to demoralize the British, so the more visible it is, the better. Anyway, the British have no weapons that can really threaten it.  So it didn¡¯t take long for Bellman to see a group of things shining in the sun ahead.  There was no doubt that it was a German Zeppelin.  So he shook the wings to signal other planes to follow him, and then flew in that direction.  Soon, those shiny little dots became bigger and bigger, and Bellman could now see clearly. Those cigar-like things floating in the air, what else could they be if they weren't Zeppelins?  Bellman counted a total of eight airships.  He knew that there were two "air torpedoes" hanging under his wings. If one hit, it would be enough to destroy this huge guy.  Generally speaking, in order to increase the hit rate, the attack should be launched in a volley manner.  But Bellman dreamed of landing more Zeppelins, because every airship was a bonus.  So he planned to launch them one by one, trying to bring down one more airship.  At this time, the pilots on the Zeppelin airship had also seen these small flies, but they did not panic. First of all, they had seen a lot of things like flying.  In this era, aircraft have indeed begun to be used for military tasks, but this use for military tasks is limited to reconnaissance and transportation of certain special items. No one has yet used this thing in combat.  At this time, on the front line, sometimes when planes from both sides meet, the pilots will wave to each other and say hello. Anyway, our planes are unarmed and cannot do anything to the other side.  So after seeing these little flies again, the Germans did not quickly drop the bombs and then make various evasive maneuvers like the later bombers did when they were intercepted by fighter jets.  Of course, the fat airship can't actually do any dodges.  Bellman launched the attack from the head-on direction. Although the side area of ??the airship was the largest, the airship was still in motion. If it attacked from the side, it would be difficult to calculate the lead time. Therefore, Bellman chose to attack head-on.  The distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer. At this time, the Germans began to panic. In their opinion, the British plane seemed to want to hit it head-on. If the British were really willing to launch such a suicide collision, the Zeppelin airship  Although it's big, I'm afraid it won't be able to withstand it.  But it was useless for the Germans to worry, because the airship was too clumsy and they couldn't hide even if they wanted to.  At about 400 meters away, Bellman fired the first "air torpedo". The Zeppelin was so big, and it was almost impossible to miss it when fired from such a distance.  As the "air torpedo" under the right wing was launched, the wing immediately sank to the left. Bellman also used this to pull the operating lever and make a sharp turn to avoid the oncoming airship.  The "air torpedo" accurately hit the first airship just as Bellman expected. It first exploded a large fireball on the hard shell of the airship, and then after about a second, the entire airship  Explosions began to occur continuously. This was the result of the hydrogen gas bag being torn open by the explosion and the hydrogen gas being ignited.  In the blink of an eye, it may even happenIn less than a second, the beautiful airship turned into a large torch, perhaps more like a shooting star, if you consider that it was plummeting towards the ground.  But Bellman didn't have time to see this now. The friends following him also started to fire at other targets. He had to move faster, otherwise, leaving one more "air torpedo" would be too much.  It's going to be meaningless.
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