Chapter 864 Air Raid on Airport

The German army attacked very quickly. After the outbreak of the war, it took only one week to capture Usti, an important town in the northern part of the Czech region, and marched towards Prague, the administrative center of the Czech Republic and the seat of the Czech government.

The Czech region is called Bohemia in the German tradition and has been a very important part of Germany since the Holy Roman Empire.

What is more difficult for the Austrian Empire is that once Prague is conquered, the entire Czech region will completely lose its fighting spirit.

As an important part of the Austrian Empire, if the Czech Republic is lost, Austria will no longer have room to fight back in this war.

In order to save the Czech Republic, the Austrian government urgently dispatched the newly formed Sixth Army to the north to the Czech region.

This Sixth Army is composed of a small number of veterans, grassroots officers and most of the recruits. It is a comprehensive mixed army.

They have only one task, that is, to defend Prague, and rely on the terrain in the north of Prague to try to keep the Germans out of the defense line.

Before the Sixth Army arrived in the Czech region, a worse news had come, that is, the Germans set out from Regensburg and were advancing towards Vienna in the east.

Which is more important, Prague or Vienna? The Austrians did not hesitate too much and immediately ordered the Sixth Army to go south to support Vienna.

This also caused the Czech region to be somewhat powerless when facing the attack of the German army.

The army of the Austrian Empire barely broke through one million, and most of them were deployed in the Austrian region. In addition to Austria being the central region where the imperial government is located, another point is that Austria is facing the north and south attack from Germany and Italy.

But this also means that the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are far away from the Austrian region, have deployed relatively few Austrian troops.

In addition to a small number of Austrian troops, there are only regional armed forces composed of pure Czechs and Slovaks commanded by their respective governments.

The total army in the Czech region is less than 400,000. When facing the attack of a larger number of German troops, it is inevitable to fall into a disadvantage.

If the Germans did not want to quickly take over the Czech industry and thus did not destroy the Czech industrial base and transportation hub, I am afraid that the Czech army would never persist for so long.

At present, in the Czech region, the Austrian Fifth Army and the Czech armed forces are fully resisting the attack of the German Third and Fourth Armies.

There is a big gap in the weapons and equipment of the two sides. After the German army had the experience of fighting against Poland, it was generally equipped with a large number of tanks and aircraft.

As for the Austrian army, although it also had tanks and aircraft, the number was still far behind.

There was no way. For the Austrian Empire, the focus of defense must be the Austrian region. Although the Czech Republic also had armed forces, these regional armed forces would definitely not get equipment comparable to the Austrian regular army.

When Austria was busy dealing with the attacks of the German and Italian armies, the supply of weapons and equipment received by the Czech region was much less than before.

In the battle between the German and Austrian armies, the most intense was actually the struggle for air supremacy.

In terms of the number of aircraft on both sides, Germany had more than 2,500 aircraft, of which nearly 1,000 were the latest fighters.

As for the Austrian Empire, when the war broke out, they had less than 1,000 aircraft. Only after receiving support from Britain and France did the number of aircraft in the Austrian Empire rise to about 1,500.

But as mentioned before, in order to prevent German air raids, Austria deployed most of its aircraft near Vienna and on the battlefields in the Austrian region.

The number of aircraft allocated to the Czech and Slovak regions was less than 500, which was no match for the thousands of German aircraft on the opposite side.

After several rounds of fierce air battles, the German army gradually gained air superiority and launched a fierce bombing against the Austrian army on the ground.

Although the Austrian army also had a certain number of anti-aircraft weapons, it had no good way to deal with these new and faster aircraft.

Although it was possible to shoot down a few aircraft with anti-aircraft weapons, that was when the enemy's bombers lowered their flight altitude and bombed their own troops.

This often also meant that the enemy's aircraft had dropped bombs and caused huge casualties to their own troops.

April 27, 1936, the headquarters of the German Fourth Group.

The German general who was the chief of staff of the Fourth Army Group was excitedly introducing his plan to the commander of the Fourth Army Group: "Based on our recent investigations, we have preliminarily determined the distribution of military airports deployed by Austria in the Czech region.

If we can destroy these military airports as soon as possible, we will no longer have any enemies in the sky. After completely gaining air superiority, it is time for us to launch a general attack on the Czech region."

The commander of the Fourth Army Group nodded, and did not have much objection to the plan of attacking the enemy's military airports mentioned by the general staff.

Although the country had once instructed not to destroy the Czech industrial base and railways as much as possible, military airports were obviously not within these scopes.

As long as the enemy's military airports were completely destroyed, it would take a long time for them to rebuild.

This period of time is the best time for the German army to attack. With its own air superiority and air force support, the Austrian army will be suppressed by the German army from both sides, and defeat will become inevitable.

No matter how elite the army is, it is destined to be unable to withstand the huge bombing for several days. In such a long battle, the German army had already figured out the combat effectiveness of the Austrian army.

Although there are some elites in the Austrian army, most of the Austrian army are just barely qualified ordinary soldiers, and have not participated in a war for a long time. They are obviously not mentally prepared for such a large-scale war.

Don't underestimate the impact of psychology on a soldier. With good psychological preparation, soldiers will not be too panicked on the battlefield and can exert strong combat effectiveness.

But without adequate psychological preparation, facing such a cruel real battlefield all of a sudden will have a huge psychological impact on these soldiers.

After all, soldiers are also ordinary people. They are flesh and blood and can be injured and die. Once fear far exceeds their passion for the country, the impact on soldiers and even the army will become an unpredictable problem.

"If we want to attack all military airports in the Czech Republic, how many aircraft will we need to dispatch?" After a brief thought, the commander of the Fourth Army asked aloud.

"At least 120 bombers, and each bomber needs at least 3 fighter jets to escort it." The Chief of Staff of the Fourth Army said calmly: "This is just the most basic number. We cannot guarantee how many enemy forces are left in the Czech Republic. If we want to ensure that the plan is foolproof, we will have to dispatch at least 500 planes.”

"Contact the Third Army." The commander of the Fourth Army nodded, his eyes showing fanaticism and determination: "All air hazards must be eliminated at once. I hope we are the first army to enter Prague."

The coordination and execution between the German armies is far inferior to that of the Austrian army.

After formulating the plan, the Third and Fourth Group Armies quickly cooperated and dispatched more than 600 aircraft to make full preparations for bombing.

In the early morning of April 28, after careful preparations, hundreds of bombers formed into groups, escorted by three times as many fighter jets, and headed for various regions in the Czech Republic.

At this time, inside an Austrian military airport in the Czech Republic.

Andrew Thiemann is a radar monitor at a military airfield in Austria. His task is simple, that is, keep an eye on the airport's radar data and report any anomalies as soon as possible.

Although it seems that he needs to maintain concentration at all times, for Andrew Thieman at this time, it is not as nervous as imagined.

After all, more than half a month has passed since the war. The location of this military airport is very hidden, and no enemy reconnaissance planes have been found around it.

At this time, the radar screen was obviously blank, and no suspicious flying objects were seen.

This also allowed Andrew Thieman to relax and engage in the most exciting moment of every night shift, which is to take a nap secretly.

After many tests by Andrew Tieman, there will be no problems if you take a nap quietly after midnight every night.

After all, radar monitors like them are ordinary people and cannot avoid the fatigue caused by using their eyes for a long time.

But today is obviously different. Just as Andrew Tieman was taking a nap as usual, a warning sound that had never appeared on the radar suddenly woke up Andrew Tieman.

"Damn, what's going on?" Andrew Tieman cursed quietly and quickly looked at the radar screen.

After seeing a few small dots appearing on the edge of the display screen, Andrew Tieman rubbed his eyes in disbelief. After confirming again that it was correct, he shouted with some surprise and sharpness: "An enemy attack has been discovered! An enemy attack has been discovered!" "

While shouting loudly, Andrew Thieman manipulated the phone next to him and quickly dialed the military airport command room.

"Andrew, what problem did you find?" the guard at the military airport asked.

"Enemy attack discovered! Enemy attack discovered!" Andrew Thieman shouted twice, then carefully observed the number of dots on the display screen, and said with a nervous and frightened face: "A total of seven dots were discovered. Point, four of them are larger flying objects, damn, these must be German planes, they are coming for an air attack!"

The Guards League conveyed the news to the ears of Major Gordon Kaufman, the general director of this military airport.

"Damn it, all fighter jets take off immediately to intercept this group of German planes. Others quickly clear the runway, and all anti-aircraft weapons enter combat readiness." Gordon Kaufman quickly issued this order.

For this military airport, this was the first time it faced German bombing. But as an Air Force officer, Gordon Kaufman still has some experience with such scenes.

"Major, there are only seven German planes. There is no need to be so nervous." The staff officer next to him smiled and said: "Believe me, we only need to dispatch ten planes to intercept these German planes."

Hearing what the staff officer next to him said, Gordon Kaufman quickly calmed down, but still said with some caution: "The Germans have more planes than us. Before we are sure of the specific number of German planes, we should be careful. For good.”

"By the way, how did the Germans determine our location?" The staff officer next to him asked with some curiosity and surprise: "Based on the intelligence we have now, the German reconnaissance plane did not approach our airport.

Could it be that these Germans have the ability to obtain intelligence without field investigation? This is simply incredible."

"I don't have time to think about that now." Gordon Kaufman said seriously: "We can't be sure whether the German attack was accidental or premeditated.

If it is the former, it's okay. We only need to deal with this wave of German attacks and don't need to worry about anything else.

But if the Germans have premeditated it, I'm afraid other airports at this time may also face German attacks."

"What do you mean?" The staff officer looked at Gordon Kaufman with a hint of surprise and astonishment in his eyes.

"Yes, I'm afraid the Germans have premeditated it. We must remind other airports to avoid heavy losses from German attacks."

For these military airports, facing attacks is still very troublesome. It takes a certain amount of time for the planes on the airport warehouse and runway to take off, and the enemy's attack is often sudden, and they will not be discovered until they are within the radar observation range.

Although this airport uses the most advanced radar in Austria, the detection range is only about 35 to 40 kilometers.

Such a distance seems far, but for an aircraft that is already in high-speed flight, it only takes a few minutes to reach.

But how many planes can take off quickly in a few minutes at the airport? After all, those pilots cannot stay on the plane anytime and anywhere. They also need to eat, sleep, rest and do other things.

Especially at night, those pilots wake up from their sleep, carry their weapons and equipment and rush to the place where the plane is.

And let the plane fly into the sky in an orderly manner. A few minutes is obviously not enough.

Especially if you want to let multiple planes take off at the same time, it will take even longer.

Even for pilots who have been trained in relevant aspects, it usually takes at least ten minutes from being notified of the attack to driving the plane into the sky.

And these ten minutes are also when the airport defense force is the weakest. Facing a sudden attack by the enemy, the only thing the airport can rely on are the air defense weapons deployed around the military airport.