While Edel was talking with Freit in Bucharest, the military airport near Lviv was brightly lit. On the concrete runway, fighter planes looked majestic under the lights.
The RU18 dive bombers known as Romanian Stukas are parked here. However, compared with their counterparts in Germany who made their debut in the Spanish Civil War, the Romanian RU18 dive bombers seem so unknown.
However, as the latest dive bomber, the biggest difference between the RU18 dive bomber and the Stuka is that its landing gear is more retractable and its horsepower is more powerful. The 1350-horsepower V-type liquid-cooled 12-cylinder engine is enough to allow the aircraft to reach its maximum cruising speed.
It can reach 380 kilometers per hour. At the same time, its bomb load also reaches 1900kg. It can carry two 600kg bombs at the same time and carry out precise bombing on targets. The maximum combat radius is 750 kilometers.
In order to ensure the accuracy of bombing, the RU18 dive bomber absorbed Stuka technology and can also dive bomb targets at an almost right angle of 85 degrees.
Therefore, the RU18 dive bomber must be the main ground attack aircraft for the Romanian Air Force, and this can be seen from the densely packed queues of similar fighters waiting to take off at the airport.
It was a sleepless night! When the mission was issued, everyone was very excited. The ground crew maintained the aircraft, refueled and hung bombs, and prepared for takeoff, while the pilots kept memorizing the targets they wanted to attack and their targets.
route.
"Ding, ding, ding." At this moment, the phone in the pilot's duty room rang. The commander picked up the phone and heard the voice of the superior commander inside. "The war eagles took off immediately and carried out the bombing mission as planned.
"
"Take off immediately!"
The commander immediately gave the order, but at this time, the sky outside was still dark.
Every pilot quickly grabbed their own equipment. They had been waiting for a long time. They quickly ran to their planes from the pilot's duty room.
After turning on various switches and undergoing strict maintenance, these aircraft were in quite good condition. With a burst of electric stimulation, the motor rumbled, and a stream of black smoke came out of the liquid-cooled engine, followed by an even greater vibration.
came.
One after another, the RU18 dive bombers are all starting up quickly. Then they taxi to the runway and take off in a two-plane formation in a predetermined order!
On the wing, there are navigation lights shining in the sky, but they are not bright yet.
After taking off one after another, the planes turned north. They wanted to fly towards the Polish territory. Besides them, there were also large groups of Peregrine RF20 fighter jets in the sky. These kings of the sky needed to give priority to helping them.
Address possible air threats encountered.
This is also the main fighter for the Romanian Air Force to seize air supremacy. They are responsible for the task of seizing air supremacy. This task should be very simple for them, because the fighters currently owned by Poland are basically old-fashioned and adapted to the new aircraft used in current operations.
very few.
At present, the Polish Air Force has a total of about 1,900 aircraft, but there are very few front-line combat aircraft. Among the 1,900 aircraft, 650 are training aircraft. The other 700 are various types of aircraft that are obsolete or have no role when the war breaks out.
There are less than 400 that are actually effective.
The main fighters among them are the PZL P.11 and PZL P.7 fighters, which have less than 200 aircraft. Although these two fighter jets were considered good in the early 1930s, they still fell behind Romania's modern fighter jets.
The top speed of the .11 fighter is only 365 kilometers per hour, which is even lower than the speed of most bombers.
In addition to these two aircraft, there are two bombers that attracted more attention in this air strike. One of them is a twin-engine bomber code-named RU28. This twin-engine bomber was developed by Romania for the purpose of high-speed bombing. So this
It is a high-speed tactical bomber with a maximum load of 3100KG, a maximum speed of 425 kilometers per hour, and a maximum range of 2100 kilometers. It is also the most valued fast bomber by the military.
In addition to this fast bomber, there is also a four-engine bomber that attracts the most attention. This is a high-altitude strategic bomber. In order to deal with the threat of increasingly superior fighter jets, the Romanian military needed a new bomber.
To complete the strategic bombing behind enemy lines, considering that it needs to carry out ultra-long-distance bombing, there will be no fighter escort, so it can only find a way at high altitude and high speed. In the end, this bomber chose high altitude bombing as the basis.
Its code name is Big Swan; the military's requirements are that the aircraft must reach a maximum altitude of 11,000 meters, a maximum speed of 420 kilometers per hour, and a maximum range of 3,000 kilometers.
The Coanda Aircraft Manufacturing Factory, which took over this task, immediately stepped up its technical public relations because this was Romania's first strategic bomber.
The Keanda research team adopted a four-engine design, a conventional aerodynamic layout, a lower single wing, a single vertical tail, and a retractable landing gear at the rear three points. The entire aircraft adopts a metal structure and streamlined appearance. At the same time, in order to enhance its air self-defense capabilities, the aircraft
It also designs up to 12 12.7 mm self-defense machine guns. These machine guns are distributed in the nose, belly, back, tail and both sides of the fuselage. They are equipped with drop-shaped machine gun turrets, which can shoot in all directions in the air and have excellent
Aerial firepower.
This bomber uses four 1,200-horsepower liquid-cooled engines, and its maximum speed can reach 458 kilometers per hour. Due to the use of a turbocharger to improve performance, the aircraft's maximum altitude has reached 10,900 meters (not up to standard).
As for the maximum range, it is also due to the use of a new 1200-horsepower engine, which can reach 3170 kilometers. As for the bomb load of 7500KG, it can be regarded as an excellent strategic bomber that basically meets the requirements of the military.
The main reason is that the military's requirements are too high, which is a test for Romania's aircraft manufacturing capabilities. The excellent performance of the new strategic aircraft naturally leads to a higher cost. Its unit price is as high as 410,000 lei, which is currently the highest cost.
The Air Force's most expensive fighter jet.
Therefore, the military immediately gave the RU80 a serial number after it was finalized, and only placed an order for 98 units. Later, it purchased another batch because it was very satisfactory during use.
Therefore, only 279 of this bomber have been produced so far, and it is divided into two strategic bomber wings (194th and 224th Strategic Bomber Wing).
In this multi-Poland operation, the Air Force also invested it. Mainly to examine its bombing effect and combat performance.
These dark fighter planes took advantage of the faint light appearing in the sky and flew towards the unknown hinterland of Poland.
While the planes were taking the lead in striking, the army on the ground was not far behind.
