"Nalotal bombs!" After listening to Fred's report, Paulus replied without thinking: "If it is a wooden pontoon, I believe the gasoline bombs will be effective!"
It should be said that Paulus's estimate was very accurate.
The reason why he immediately judged that it was a wooden pontoon bridge was because if it were not a wooden pontoon bridge, it would be almost impossible to build five of them in such a period of time.
And if these pontoons are made of wood, then of course they have to be attacked with fire.
Colonel Fred immediately put Paulus's idea into practice.
Fire attack has at least several advantages, such as it can continue to burn on the river, and it can also be used to ignite pontoons or burn ropes. More importantly, throwing incendiary bombs does not need to be too precise...
This was very important for German night fighters.
Night fighter pilots engage in extremely high-intensity operations because they not only have to deal with threats from the enemy, such as anti-aircraft fire or searchlights.
The searchlight sounds like it doesn't matter. Many people think that it is just the enemy's lighting equipment. After locking on the target, it can be fired by anti-aircraft fire.
Of course this is not the case.
The anti-aircraft searchlight is not only a lighting device, it is also a weapon.
If the light beam illuminates the enemy's cockpit from the side, the high-intensity light will not only blind the pilot instantly, but also cause dizziness and vomiting if the light beam is tracked for a long time.
If the aircraft is flying level at a high altitude at this time, then the problem is not too big, but if it is flying at a low altitude or even diving towards the target, and is suppressed by the light of the searchlight, it will be a narrow escape.
Fighting under such high-intensity pressure, it is very difficult for even the best pilots to drop aerial bombs and hit the target, not to mention that the target of the pontoon is still small.
However, the gasoline bomb does not need to hit the target directly. The pilot only needs to ensure that the gasoline bomb explodes at a similar location, preferably upstream, and then the fire will spread through the river water, and it will also spread to a large area... This pair of German pilots
It's a big advantage.
The battle situation was indeed the same.
German pilots dropped petrol bombs onto the Volga River.
At this time, German pilots used a tactic they called "beacon light".
To put it simply, the first few gasoline bombs thrown were not expected to blow up the target, but only to explode near the target and light up the river.
This fire will provide a reference point for the German follow-up fighters, just like a beacon light illuminates the direction of a lost ship, telling other pilots where the river is, allowing them to visually measure the distance to the river, and then the reconnaissance aircraft will indicate the target.
The orientation of the base point, and then accurately throw the incendiary bomb to the target step by step.
To be precise, the German army did not have incendiary bombs at this time.
In other words, their incendiary bombs are actually home-made incendiary bombs... The oil barrels are simply treated, with one side dented and scored, making them easier to crack, and then loaded with time bombs before being thrown.
Such oil drums often crack due to impact when they are hit to the ground, and gasoline spills out. Then the time bomb explodes and the gasoline ignites quickly.
If it was a ground attack, German pilots would directly use oil barrels without adding time bombs for safety, and then use tracer bullets or bombs to bombard the location where the gasoline was dropped to ignite them.
But attacking on the river obviously requires time bombs.
Those oil barrels even floated on the river for a period of time, and then exploded with a bang... In an instant, the Volga River was ablaze, and the gasoline burned on the river and spread rapidly.
There is no doubt that these flames will ignite the pontoon bridge, and even several incendiary bombs close to the pontoon bridge exploded and ignited the Soviet soldiers who were being transported on the pontoon bridge in the rain of bullets, causing screams one after another.
Most of their reactions were to jump into the river.
But this is actually not a good choice, because gasoline is less dense than water and floats on the river, which means that the river is full of fire. There are only two consequences for jumping into the river: either you will be burned to death on the river, or
Or dive into the water and drown.
It is obviously painful to choose between the two, and quite a few people switch between the two: diving when they are too burned to bear it, and coming out again when they can't hold their breath in the water...
Unless the water quality is very good, you can swim out of the spread of the fire in one breath.
But these are not what Shulka needs to worry about.
There will always be death in war, and Shulka can't stop it. All he can do is minimize casualties and win.
Of course Shulka had thought about this situation.
The German army had used incendiary bombs before when attacking amphibious landing ships, and now the pontoons cannot escape the attack of incendiary bombs.
But incendiary bombs obviously can't deal with pontoons.
The reason is that the pontoon bridges are too simple, so simple that the Soviet army can replace those ignited pontoon bridges at any time.
Just like now, following Shulka's order, both ends of the burning pontoon were cut off by Soviet soldiers, and they soon slowly flowed downstream with a ball of flame.
As for the vacant position of the pontoon, we only had to wait for a while, and a new pontoon was quickly filled and transportation resumed.
The reason why we have to "wait a while" is because we have to wait for the gasoline on the river to burn out... This does not need to wait too long, because the German army does not have many incendiary bombs, and at the same time, the gasoline will spread into a large cloud on the river in a short period of time.
If the area is fully burned, it will not take long to burn out or flow downstream with the river.
In other words, the speed at which the German army burned bridges could not match the speed at which the Soviet army repaired bridges.
If the Soviet army suffered any losses, it was the soldiers who were burned to death and the little time that was interrupted.
More importantly, the German army actually didn't have that much gasoline to waste.
"I think our tactics are also ineffective!" Fred reported to Paulus with some helplessness: "Because they can cut off the burning pontoon at any time, just like a gecko's tail. Unless we can make
The entire Volga remains burning, otherwise we cannot stop their transport!"
It was obviously impossible to keep the Volga burning, because the German army still needed to transport its own gasoline from Romania to the front line, and it was still in a shortage of gasoline.
Unless the Germans can capture Baku.
But Paulus knew that the German war in the Caucasus was not going well either.
"General!" At this time, the adjutant reported to Paulus in surprise: "The third communications unit was attacked by enemy guerrillas and suffered heavy losses..."
"Third Signal Corps?" Paulus couldn't help but be stunned, and then ordered: "Notify Colonel Fred immediately!"
The Third Communications Troop is actually a radar unit, one of the radar units that coordinates with the night fighter group.
This means that the night fighter group currently operating is likely to be in trouble. (To be continued)