Chapter 1725 Bomb From Hell (Part 1)

The vultures symbolizing black death hung high in the sky and swooped down to the earth. What awaited the German soldiers on the ground who thought they had seen hope was only endless death that would cut their flesh and bones and even annihilate their souls.

"These guys came just in time. If they were any later, something serious would have happened."

Malachenko would not forget that Vatutin had specially prepared a ground attack aviation regiment for him, which was on standby at a field airport not far from the front line. It was obviously the most appropriate to call these ground attack aircraft to deal with the Germans' tin cans.

Malachenko did not intend to use the Guards Artillery Division to blow up the Germans now. In comparison, this last trump card had to be kept until it was needed more, and then suddenly appeared to give the Germans the heaviest blow and complete destruction, burying them all.

A large number of Il-2 attack aircraft swooped down from the sky, and the roaring engines drove the propellers to rotate at high speed, making a whistling sound. The German infantrymen, who were stunned by the sudden scene in front of them, even forgot to escape for a moment and just stared at the sky.

"Air raid! Russian air raid! Get out of the way! Find cover!!!"

Finally, someone remembered to shout loudly to remind the comrades standing around in a daze, but it was too late at this moment.

Unlike in the past, the "flying tanks" that roared down did not carry the air-launched rockets that frightened and terrified the German army.

The panicked German soldiers who fled and looked for cover did not know why this happened and had no time to think about it.

Perhaps those black death gods only hung bombs in the belly bomb bay? Added wing cannons to attack their own side?

Maybe, but it is not important at the moment.

Because no matter what, these terrible flying tanks will definitely not come to celebrate their birthdays. Even idiots with brains dumber than pigs know that these Russian planes are definitely here to settle accounts and harvest their lives.

So there is no need to talk too much nonsense now. It is important to escape quickly. When those shells and bombs are really thrown at your face, you will not have time to regret. One second earlier and one step faster will give you a little more hope of survival.

Some German soldiers guessed correctly that these Il-2s were indeed carrying iron bombs to deal with them.

But what the German soldiers on the ground never expected was that the iron bombs mounted in the belly bomb bay of the Il-2 were not ordinary aerial bombs. This was a "special express" specially prepared by Malashenko to send off the German armored forces: anti-tank cluster bombs code-named PTAB.

Compared with most ordinary aerial bombs, PTAB anti-tank cluster bombs are definitely a special type of ammunition.

As its name describes, this is a special anti-armor weapon that is specialized in attacking ground armored units and uses a mother bomb body to wrap a large number of small bombs.

Each PTAB bomblet weighs only 5 kilograms, and a mother bomb can be loaded with up to 72 such small bombs and clustered.

But don't think that this 5-kilogram little guy has no lethality. In fact, this is a free-fall attack weapon with a shaped-charge armor-piercing warhead that is similar in principle to the German iron fist.

Because it is a chemical energy armor-piercing attack principle, its anti-armor power is always constant and is not affected by the release height and kinetic energy. It can stably break 52 mm equivalent rolled homogeneous steel armor.

The 52 mm armor-piercing power was not worth mentioning on the battlefield in 1944. This level of anti-armor firepower, let alone against main tanks, could not even penetrate the Type 4 tank that Malashenko usually didn't even look at.

But there is a crucial factor. These small bombs are free-fall scattered and launched from top to bottom.

The target armored part is neither the strongest frontal armor nor the side armor with the second-best defense, but the top armor and turret dome armor of any armored vehicle, which are the most vulnerable in defense.

No matter how strong the heavy armored tank is, it will not set the top of the head as the key protection area. No armored vehicle can be said to be indestructible.

Although the armor penetration depth of 52 mm is small, it is enough to tear open the top of the head of all the German tanks in service.

The delivery accuracy is not good, and it cannot be guaranteed that it can be thrown accurately on the top of the German tanks. Then use quantity to make up for the lack of accuracy. Load 72 bullets in a mother bomb, and let a group of Il-2 fully loaded with this PTAB anti-tank cluster bomb attack intensively, forming the most efficient intensive air strike, effectively covering the entire ground area where the enemy armored cluster is located.

It doesn't take too many small bombs to really hit the German tanks. As long as they hit the vital parts, such as the heat dissipation window on the top of the power compartment or the top armor of the turret, even one bomb is enough to make the German 70-ton steel behemoth scrapped on the spot and forced to withdraw from the battle.

If you are lucky enough, for example, if you hit the top armor of the tail end of the King Tiger's turret, then this fatal attack is enough to penetrate the armor and pour the hot metal jet into it, thereby detonating the first ammunition rack at the tail end of the King Tiger's turret, turning it into a pile of hot scrap metal in the ammunition explosion like a volcanic eruption.

Of course, such scenes are rare, and the actual effect of the attack still depends on luck.

After diving to the bomb drop height, the Il-2s shook their fuselages and swung their wings. In an instant, they threw out the PTAB anti-tank cluster bombs that had been prepared from the already opened belly bomb bay, detached from the rack, and fell straight down towards the target that was already within reach on the ground.

The huge mother bomb, which was more than one person tall, split into countless small bombs in mid-air, like flowers scattered by a fairy. After these densely packed black cylindrical objects separated from the mother bomb, they quickly fixed their flight mode because of their top-heavy nature. The five wings that played a role in stabilizing aerodynamics bounced straight open, and the heaviest warhead fell straight down towards the ground.

The German infantrymen who were only concerned with escaping had no time to see what the Russian death gods above their heads had dropped, and they didn't care at all.

But the weapons that fell straight down would not stop just because the enemy turned a blind eye. After a flash of lightning, the crisp but quiet explosions, like the muffled sound of a water tank being smashed, exploded one after another in the entire area where the German army was located, like a heavy rain.

Boom boom boom boom boom——

Malachenko, who was in his own tank commander position and protected by heavy armor, could not hear clearly what the small bombs that exploded one after another made.

But if Malachenko combined the general inference of what he saw with his eyes, the sound might be similar to a large pot of boiled beans suddenly thrown into a boiling oil pan, which was definitely a "crackling" sound.