Chapter six hundred and ninety third attack aircraft
The air battle between the Soviet and German armies was clearly divided into two areas. One area was a high-speed fighter area and the other was a low-speed attack area.
All Soviet fighters were MiGs.
This was rectified during the reform of the Air Force. Fighters were integrated according to Shulka's streamlined thinking. The goal was to facilitate maintenance and command, so of course an aviation division must be equipped with the same fighter aircraft.
This fighter is a new Soviet fighter, and its performance is very good. It is not an exaggeration to say that its performance exceeds that of the BF109 used by the German army. For example, its flight speed at an altitude of 5,000 meters is faster than that of the BF109, and the aircraft only needs to climb to an altitude of 5,000 meters.
5.1 minutes. (Note: MiG and Yak-1 are the two fighters of the Soviet Air Force that can compete with German fighters)
The reason why the Soviet Air Force suffered a complete defeat in the early stages of the war was due to the lack of preparation at the beginning of the war and the chaotic command of the Air Force organization, which resulted in a large number of aircraft being blown up at the airport before they even took off. On the other hand, it was due to the quality of the pilots.
Another very important point is that the MiG's performance is only on paper, or during testing. In actual combat, its performance is greatly reduced due to many problems of this kind.
For example, a large weight and a large turning radius... The most important thing in air combat for fighter aircraft in this era is speed and flexibility. Of course, being fast can give you an advantage, but if you are not flexible enough and fall behind as soon as you turn, you will be easily thrown away by the enemy.
There is also the problem of lack of and backward radio equipment, which is related to the coordination between fighters.
However, these are only minor problems, or it can be said that they are problems common to most Soviet Air Force fighters. The more serious problem of the MiG is the combination of two problems:
One is engine overheating, which will cause the cabin to overheat.
If this is just the problem, that's it, because there are ways to solve the overheating of the cockpit, such as opening part of the canopy to dissipate heat during cruising flight, and then closing the canopy to fight when there is a situation that requires combat.
The problem is that the MiG also has a very strange problem, the canopy cannot be opened during flight.
This will not only make it impossible for the pilot to escape, but will also cause the temperature inside the canopy to continue to rise, making it unbearable for the pilot, especially in this hot summer.
Therefore, MiG pilots usually have a habit of always keeping the canopy open when flying...the canopy is useless.
The result of flying with the canopy open is that the flight speed drops sharply.
In this way, the MiG, which was originally faster than the German BF109, was slower than its opponent. In addition, it was not flexible enough, so its performance lagged behind.
This was one of the reasons why MiG was discontinued.
But even so, the MiGs were still capable of fighting against the German BF109s, not to mention that the number of MiGs at this time was more than twice that of the German BF109s. This made the German BF109s miserable, although they shot down a few.
MiG but also BF109 was shot down and injured at the same time.
Colonel William controlled the fighter plane to deal with the enemy fighter planes while shouting through the walkie-talkie: "Each team reports the battle situation!"
"First Squadron, lost one aircraft and shot down three aircraft!"
"Second Squadron, one aircraft was lost and two were shot down!"
"Third Squadron, lost two aircraft and shot down four!"
Colonel William briefly analyzed the battle situation. Including the two fighter planes he shot down, they shot down eleven enemy planes and lost four of their own.
For the ambushed side, the battle loss ratio is close to three to one, which is a good result.
If the fight continues with these results, the Russian fighters in front of us will suffer all casualties before the German fighters.
However, Colonel William knew that this was not the case.
The reason is that there is an ammunition problem... The number of enemy planes is more than twice that of our own, which means that the enemy has at least twice as much ammunition, but our own side consumes more ammunition to shoot down enemy planes one after another.
, especially some of the fighter planes were damaged even though they were not shot down.
In other words, if the fight continues like this, the German aircraft fleet will undoubtedly suffer.
After thinking about it, Colonel William ordered: "Hold on for a few more minutes and I will cover Group B!"
As he spoke, Colonel William pulled the nose of the plane and rushed towards the attack plane with his wingman...
At this time, Colonel William discovered that the enemy's main target was actually Group B, because Group B had suffered heavy losses and was beaten to the point where it was no longer able to parry.
In fact, the Soviet army did not have much advantage over the German attack aircraft in terms of the number of attack aircraft, 80 to 60. Logically speaking, as long as the quality of the German pilots was excellent, this quantitative gap would not matter at all.
The problem is that the air combat performance of German attack aircraft lags behind that of Soviet attack aircraft.
This depends on the definition and requirements of the Soviet and German armies for attack aircraft.
The German army generally did not pay enough attention to attack aircraft. This was due to the widespread belief during World War I that fighter aircraft were not suitable for attacking ground targets.
This idea was correct for World War I, because the fighter planes at that time were too fragile and slow, while ground targets such as infantry and artillery had a large number of machine guns, anti-aircraft machine guns and other air defense equipment.
When I saw several fighter planes flying in from a distance, the ground troops had already set up their machine guns and were waiting. When the planes flew closer, a row of bullets would pass by and the planes would often disintegrate before they could fire.
Therefore, aircraft during World War I either conducted air combat, reconnaissance, or bombed fixed targets with basically no air defense preparations.
The German army was influenced by this idea and its attack aircraft started late.
Then German scientists calculated... If we want to produce ground-attack aircraft, we should stagger the engines of fighter aircraft and attack aircraft. Only in this way can we ensure the production of fighter aircraft.
Otherwise, if the two use the same engine, the attack aircraft will seize the production speed of the fighter aircraft.
Then it is obvious that the German army believes that fighter aircraft are more important than attack aircraft, because fighter aircraft are used to compete for air supremacy, and after possessing air supremacy, attack aircraft do not need any air combat capabilities and can only concentrate on dealing with ground targets.
As a result, the German "Henschel" attack aircraft basically abandoned its air combat capabilities and used backward engines. This determined the shortcomings of the "Henschel" such as its slow speed and clumsiness.
The Soviet Army did not see it this way when it came to the development of attack aircraft. The Soviet Army was a land-based country. They once believed that fighter aircraft were just tools to provide fire cover for infantry, so they began to develop attack aircraft in 1988. Before the outbreak of the war, "Il
"The Strike entered mass production and entered service, and it also retained some air combat capabilities.
More importantly, the goal of the German army in this battle was to deal with Soviet tanks, so the ammunition carried by the "Henschel" were all aerial bombs and armor-piercing bombs, while the Soviet "IL" was designed for air combat from the beginning.
All rockets, which are mainly used for ground combat, have been eliminated. (To be continued)