Chapter 266 Attack Channel

The German Heinkel 111 bomber, which has a clear division of labor like the ground tank crew, is equipped with multiple crew members with different responsibilities, including the navigator who guides the flight direction, the pilot who controls the flight and maneuvering of the fighter, the machine gunner who controls the firepower of the fuselage's self-defense weapons, and the bombardier who is responsible for throwing death on the enemy's head. These well-trained elite German pilots and their vehicles together form a powerful aerial killing machine.

The goal of this German twin-engine medium bomber group that received the task of bombing the Soviet defensive position was very clear, that is, to destroy all the technical equipment of the Soviet army on the position as much as possible while giving the combatants the maximum damage.

It is not known whether it was a mistake by the air force liaison officer stationed on the ground force or a real communication problem that caused some misunderstanding.

In short, when these nine Heinkel 111 bombers fully loaded with 250 kg aerial bombs took off from the airport, they did not hear the important news in the mission briefing that the Soviet defensive positions on the ground were actually equipped with tanks.

The only reminder and warning received was that a Soviet fighter unit appeared near the airspace of this battlefield yesterday, and a large-scale air battle broke out with the German escort fighter unit.

In the end, after destroying and injuring a total of more than a dozen German Stukas and BF109s, they withdrew from the battle first due to heavy losses. What remained on the ground battlefield were the burning black and hot wreckage of more than 30 Soviet fighters and attack aircraft.

"Do you think those Ivans' planes will come today? We don't have BF109 to protect us this time. Those fighter pilots are even busier than the hardworking Dr. Goebbels."

The pilot holding the joystick asked the bombardier who was crawling in the transparent canopy under the nose of the plane beside him as if to kill time. The latter, with his hands lying in front of his bomb sight, obviously did not have much free time to answer words that would affect his concentration.

"Why are you talking so much nonsense? Keep the plane steady. The crosshairs are close to the edge. Keep your flying attitude!"

The German pilot who was ruthlessly scolded by his comrades had nothing to say. He immediately began to concentrate on the operation of the fighter plane based on the supreme truth of the mission.

Because the mission intelligence received by the German Air Force field airport in the rear was that the bombing target was just an ordinary Soviet field defense position, equipped with a small number of anti-aircraft guns and light artillery, it could hardly pose a substantial threat to the German bomber group in the sky. It only needed a wave of covering bombing to completely wipe it off the surface.

Based on this mission goal of killing the surface and requiring secondary bombing for the fish that slipped through the net as much as possible, the German Heinkel 111 bombers on standby at the airport chose the mounting plan of 8 250 kg aerial bombs with the most diverse combat options when refueling and loading to take off.

After all, unprotected ground infantry and artillery units do not need those 1-ton heavy aerial bombs that can only carry two at a time to destroy them. If that is the case, it can be said that it is completely overkill.

The most common 250 kg aerial bombs not only have a greater lethality to unprotected soft targets, but can also carry multiple bombs at a time to reach every blind spot of the Soviet defense position as much as possible. Even if there are fish that escape the net in the first wave of bombing, they can still turn around and correct the attack route to make another wave of attacks. It can be said to be the most versatile battlefield mounting solution.

But at the moment, the German bombardier frowned after seeing the Soviet heavy tank troops on the ground in his optical bomb sight.

The accuracy of the Heinkel 111 bomber in horizontal flight is not as good as that of the Stuka dive bomber. The optical bomb sight equipped on the Heinkel 111 bomber is not designed for ground targets of the size of a tank. It is essentially a rough aiming system made for bombing ground buildings and large-area defensive positions.

The bombing error rate at a flight altitude of 1,500 meters is about 50 meters, and this is the theoretical bombing error range after excluding human factors and the possibility of errors.

In actual combat operations, some German bombardiers who were not experienced and could not accurately grasp the best bombing time even made a joke of dropping bombs 200 meters away from the target.

The simple optical bomb sight, which is based on the operator's own experience and timing, is absolutely impossible to be as accurate and efficient as the airborne bombing computer on later bombers.

If a 250 kg ordinary aerial bomb is not dropped directly at a very close distance from the KV1 heavy tank, it will not cause any substantial damage to this heavily armored steel behemoth. The miserable performance of the German engineering corps who used TNT explosives that were enough to instantly collapse a two-story house to bomb the side of the KV2 heavy tank, but only broke one track, is very telling.

The German bombardier, who had tried to bomb the Soviet ground tanks many times in actual combat but had little success, naturally knew that the 250-kilogram sweet potato in his hand could not take away a few Soviet heavy tanks. The difficulty of accurately throwing a bomb on the face of a Soviet tank at a horizontal flight altitude of 1,500 meters is almost the same as shooting a person in the head with a machine-aimed rifle without a scope from 800 meters away.

The German bombardier, who could clearly see the Soviet tank target on the ground, had no confidence in the unreliable instrument in his hand. After hesitating for a long time, he finally made up his mind to speak decisively to the pilot in the seat next to him.

"Descend, Hank, now! I'm not sure I can kill Ivan's tanks with these 250 kg little sweet potatoes at this altitude. Only by descending to below 1,000 meters can we ensure that we can kill them!"

"Damn it! Burns! You little brat from Bavaria always likes to play pranks! This wave of attack route is ruined, we have missed the opportunity to drop bombs, wait for the next wave of attack opportunity after I turn! Take this time to adjust the broken sight in your hand, I don't want to hear any more malfunctions in it later!"

Because of the sudden request to descend the flight altitude while maintaining a level flight speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour, the German bomber group that temporarily changed its tactics has lost the best opportunity to drop bombs. The relatively bulky and fully loaded Heinkel 111 bomber must be re-turned before entering the next wave of attack routes.