Of course, the Soviet Air Force also had a similar problem to the German army, that is, the problem of attack aircraft and fighter aircraft competing for engines.
But unlike the German army, which left outdated engines for fighter aircraft, the Soviet army preferred to leave advanced engines for attack aircraft, and even scrapped fighters using the same engine for this purpose... used with the "Il" attack aircraft.
The fighter with the same engine is the "MiG" fighter.
In the case of insufficient production capacity, the "Il" and "MiG" could only choose one or the other, and the Soviet Army firmly chose the "Il".
This approach should be said to be wise, because the Soviet army also has another excellent fighter "Yako 1", and the more advanced "Yako" has also been finalized.
Therefore, it is not necessary for the Soviet Army to retain the "MiG" with various defects. It simply discontinues its production and reserves all the engines for the "Il".
Therefore, one side is slow, clumsy, and carries ground-attack equipment and has no air combat capabilities. The other side is faster, more flexible, and has considerable air combat capabilities...
Needless to say, the 80 "Il"s had an absolute advantage over the 60 "Henschels". One after another, the "Henschels" rolled from the sky to the ground with black smoke and flames.
This is also the reason why Colonel William rushed to rescue the "Henschel". His so-called order to "cancel the protection of the B Group" was just to let his subordinates let go of the battle, but it did not mean that he did not need to take care of the B Group.
Colonel William hoped that he and his two fighter planes could break into the enemy's attack aircraft group and use the absolute advantage of the fighter planes against the enemy's attack aircraft to disrupt the enemy's attack aircraft group. This would give Group B a chance to breathe.
This idea may be correct.
Because although the Soviet "Il" attack aircraft retained some air combat capabilities, it was still unable to cope with the BF109 flown by an experienced pilot like Colonel William who had rich combat experience.
Soon, Colonel William locked an "Il" from the bottom up. With a burst of "click-click" machine gun sound, dense bullets poured from Colonel William's car towards the target.
Some missed and some hit.
However, Colonel William looked back when he passed the enemy plane and found that the hit enemy plane continued to roll and pursue the "Henschel" as if nothing happened.
"Go to hell!" Colonel William cursed, and then he quickly understood... The "Il" is an attack aircraft. In order to deal with the machine gun fire from the ground, the "Il" is an attack aircraft, so it has thickened armor underneath.
Especially the engine, fuel tank and cockpit, so attacking them from the bottom up will have little effect.
This is indeed true. The "Il" attack aircraft is known as a "flying tank" in the Soviet army... It is called a "flying tank" because its armor protection even reaches the light tank level, not only the engine, fuel tank, but also
The cooler ammunition compartment is protected with a thickness of 7 mm, and the pilot cockpit even reaches 1.7 mm.
This makes it possible for "Il" to return to the airport safely despite being bruised and bruised after participating in a war.
"Attack the target's tail!" Colonel William ordered to his wingman: "Or attack from top to bottom!"
"yes!"
The wingman followed Colonel William in a tacit understanding, raised the nose of the plane, and then dived towards the enemy aircraft group below... The advantage of being fast is that he can adjust his position and angle at will to occupy a favorable position, but the slower one does not care
No matter how you evade the situation, you can never escape the opponent's Wuzhishan.
Colonel William bit the tail of an "Il" attack plane, but Colonel William did not shoot.
The reason was that the "Il" was constantly making snake-like maneuvers in an attempt to get rid of Colonel William's lock.
Since there was not much ammunition left, Colonel William did not dare to try his luck with the hail of bullets. He hoped to get closer and be more confident before shooting... The target was just an attack aircraft with a top speed of only more than 400 per hour. How could he get it from the aircraft he owned?
Escaped from the pursuit of BF109, which was traveling at over 600 kilometers per hour.
What's more, Colonel William is very confident in his skills.
Closer, closer... However, at this moment, Colonel William suddenly saw something on the back cabin of the target that would make all soldiers feel dangerous: a long gun barrel, and it was pointed at himself.
The barrel, the muzzle cannot be seen due to poor visibility, but it is undoubtedly the barrel.
"No, this is impossible!" Colonel William reflexively steered the plane to avoid it, and at the same time ordered his wingman: "Avoid, danger..."
But everything was too late. The gun barrel in the rain curtain sprayed out a stream of flames, and the bullets hit Colonel William's cockpit with a crisp "pop" sound, and when the bullet collided with the aircraft body, it was too late.
Stirred up debris.
However, Colonel William escaped the disaster in the end. The wingman was not so lucky. Colonel William saw it losing control on his flank and falling to the ground at high speed.
Colonel William knew what was going on. Although there seemed to be nothing wrong with the plane, with no smoke or fire, if the pilot was directly killed by a bullet...
Colonel William sighed for this subordinate, but when he turned his head, he found that his fuel tank was leaking oil.
Oil leakage is almost a dead end for pilots in combat, unless Colonel William chooses to parachute.
But Colonel William thought about it for a while and finally gave up. This was not only because this area was a Soviet-controlled area and parachuting would not end well, but also because he still had something to say.
"Attention all!" Colonel William said into the walkie-talkie: "What we are facing is the enemy's new attack aircraft. They have added a rear cockpit and installed a backward machine gun on the rear cockpit. When approaching the target from the tail,
Watch out for this machine gun!"
At this time, the plane was out of control, and Colonel William finally said: "I wish you good luck!"
Then, the plane plummeted to the ground.
Colonel William is right, this is indeed the latest modification of the "Il", named "Il M".
Everything else about this modification has not changed, except that the single-seater has been changed to a two-seater. The back seat is not a co-pilot, but a 1.7mm Berezin UBT rotary machine gun is simply and crudely installed, and then an additional passenger is installed.
Machine gunner.
Since this modification had almost no technical difficulties, it was produced very quickly, and the old single-seat model was quickly replaced... The pilot in the rear cockpit was not even a pilot but a machine gunner. The only requirement for him was to ride on the rolling aircraft.
Fighters will not vomit and can shoot normally.
But just such a small change has allowed the "Il" to increase its survival rate by 30% when faced with enemy fighter jets.
Because Colonel William did not know about the existence of this modification, he was caught off guard and became the first victim of the "Il-M". (To be continued)