Chapter seven hundred and fortieth six bad horses against good horses
This German air raid seemed massive and caused a commotion in the Soviet army. Soon the Soviet army's formation was in a mess, filled with flames, car parts, corpses and mutilated limbs, but in fact it caused a huge amount of losses to the Soviet army.
But very limited.
The reason is that basically all valuable items of the Soviet army, such as tanks, ammunition trucks, etc., are parked on the roadside. The vehicles bombed by the enemy in the middle of the road are actually vehicles used by infantry or artillery to pull artillery.
As for the soldiers who were killed in the bombing...this is almost not considered a "loss". As long as the Soviet army needs it, a bunch of soldiers can be brought in to supplement it at any time.
The Luftwaffe's losses were quite heavy. Eight fighters, 13 bombers, and 25 attack aircraft were destroyed in the battle.
The reason why the "Henschel" attack aircraft suffered much greater casualties than the "Stuka" was because it needed to carry out low-altitude close-range strafing on the target, and at the same time it also needed to slow down when strafing or bombing the target to increase the hit rate.
This will undoubtedly give Su fighters a good chance to shoot it down.
The Stuka is different. The way it attacks its target is to dive at high speed and at a large angle. This makes it difficult for Su fighters to keep up with it, or it can be said that it requires considerable flying skills, let alone taking it down.
Shot down.
Of course, the Soviet Air Force also lost more than thirty fighters.
Most of these fighters were shot down by German fighters. In other words, if we really count the battle between Soviet and German fighters, it would be 8:33. This battle loss ratio even exceeded 1:4.
Normally, the battle damage ratio is higher than one to three points.
The reason for this is that the Soviet Air Force adopted a tactic: not to entangle with German fighters, but to focus on looking for enemy bombers and attack aircraft.
This is somewhat similar to Tian Ji's horse racing tactic of "pitting a bad horse against a good one". If the fighter cannot defeat others, it will focus on the enemy's weaknesses, especially the attack aircraft.
The result was that the Soviet Air Force received forty-six enemy aircraft.
This news reached Manstein, who was furious.
"These idiots, don't they know that the enemy will definitely have air cover?" Manstein said: "They should send more fighter planes to escort!"
The German Air Force did indeed do this. In the second wave, they sent two aviation groups of fighter planes to escort them.
However, the results were still not ideal.
Even Manstein found this result a bit unbelievable. Why was it that the German Air Force could clearly overwhelm the enemy's air force, but the final result was a similar exchange ratio and was unable to achieve the purpose of stopping the enemy's advance.
The reason is actually very simple, it is because of the previous "bad horse versus good horse" tactic.
The Luftwaffe's target was the ground, but the bombers and attack aircraft that were attacking the ground were always suppressed by Soviet fighters or attack aircraft, so the effect on the ground was not good.
To put it simply, the Soviet army was actually exchanging aircraft for the safety of ground troops. They almost put their machine guns in front of German fighter planes, regardless of casualties or their own safety, and pointed their machine guns at the enemy attack aircraft.
After several such exchanges, the German Air Force seemed to have learned the lesson, and they launched two waves of attacks with only fighter planes.
But this also greatly disappointed the German army.
The Soviet Air Force did not even pay attention to such German air attacks...Soviet reconnaissance planes detected a large number of German fighters from a long distance, so the Soviet fighter planes stopped taking off.
The German fighter planes had no choice but to use their machine guns to fire at the Soviet troops on the ground and then flew away.
Fortunately, the German airborne troops finally landed in Karachi on time, and used gliders to transport a batch of anti-tank guns to the 91st Infantry Division... The glider was the means of transportation for the German airborne troops, and its characteristic was that it could carry heavy equipment in
Landing on more complex terrain.
Major General Moritz immediately deployed these anti-tank guns to the defense line and dug anti-tank trenches.
"They will block the enemy's attack!" said the adjutant: "The enemy only has one armored division!"
No wonder the adjutant said this, an ordinary Soviet armored division was nothing in their eyes.
But Major General Moritz didn't think so.
"This enemy armored division is no ordinary armored division, York!" Major General Moritz said.
"You mean this armored division is equipped with a large number of T4s?" the adjutant asked.
"No, it's more terrifying than T4!" Major General Moritz replied thoughtfully: "I have never seen such a battle. Marshal Manstein was in a hurry. Have you seen it?"
"No, no!" replied the adjutant.
"That's right!" Major General Moritz said: "It's the enemy's commander, do you understand? I don't know who it is. He deceived our armored division from Karachi to Miloway, and then attacked here with heavy troops...
But Manstein couldn't do anything about him! This is the most terrifying thing!"
After a pause, Moritz continued: "If Marshal Manstein can't deal with him, do you think we will still be his opponent?"
The adjutant was speechless.
The German Air Force's bombing was reluctantly given up as the sky turned dark... During this period, Manstein considered sending out night bombers, but was strongly opposed by the air force commander.
"This is too dangerous, Marshal!" Air Force Major General Yannick said: "And it won't do anything!"
Manstein knew that what Major General Yanik said was right, because the terrain of Karachi is relatively complex, with mountains, wires, and tall buildings. This is a nightmare for night fighters, unlike the Volga River area.
There are obvious differences when fighting in flat areas... When fighting in flat areas, you only need to know the approximate height. Normally, you won't hit anything and cause damage or loss of life.
However, in the Karachi area, fighter planes operating at low altitudes at night will not pose much of a threat to the enemy, but will inflict heavy casualties on themselves.
"No matter what!" Manstein said: "Send your planes up, even if you drop a few bombs on the target!"
"Yes, Your Majesty Marshal!" Major General Yannick replied helplessly.
The result was indeed as Manstein said, the German Air Force only dropped a few bombs on the Soviet convoy from the air... Due to the high altitude, these bombs even missed their targets by several miles.
To the Soviet army, these were just fireworks to refresh themselves.
However, the Soviet tank soldiers really need this, because they have been marching almost continuously for more than fifteen hours, and they have to keep moving... Driving a tank in this era is a strenuous job. Driving a tank for several hours continuously can knock people down.
Not to mention more than ten hours.
If they had any rest along the way, it was during the bombing by enemy planes.
Therefore, the tank driver even hoped that the German Air Force would bomb more times. (To be continued)