The Rise of the Third Reich

With the arrival of daylight on June 1, 1942, fierce air battles began across thousands of kilometers of fronts.

The Soviet Red Air Force dispatched a large-scale air strike, not only attacking the Kirkuk Oil Field in Iraq and the Palatine Oil Field in Iran, but also targeting targets in Poland, the Baltics, Lithuania, Western Ukraine, East Prussia, Romania, and Finland. launched a large-scale air assault.

Facing these Soviet aircraft in the air was the 6th Air Force commanded by the German Air Force general Hans Jeshunek. As early as March 1942, the 6th Air Force under the command of the German Eastern Front Headquarters had been greatly strengthened. As of mid-May, the number of commonly used aircraft owned by the air force had reached an unprecedented 3,300, accounting for 10% of Germany's total. Nearly one-third of the total number of commonly used aircraft owned by the Air Force and Naval Aviation (more than 10,000 aircraft)! Among them, the number of commonly used fighter jets with excellent performance such as Fw-190, Bf-109, He-219 and Fokker Zero exceeds 2,000.

By the end of May, the air forces of Finland, Romania, and Croatia-Hungary (Germany’s common monarchy did not have an independent navy and air force, and the defense force only had an army), as well as the volunteer aviation units sent by the two neutral countries of Sweden and the Netherlands, also belonged to the 6th Air Force Command. At this time, the number of advanced (level in the 1940s) commonly used aircraft owned by the 6th Air Force has reached 4,500, including 2,500 fighter jets.

However, compared with the 12,000 commonly used aircraft deployed by the Soviet Union in the Northern Front, Western Front and Southwest Front, the 4,500 aircraft in Jeshunek are still too few.

However, Jeshunek, which has relatively small capital, is unable to compete with the Soviets for air supremacy across the board. As a last resort, he could only divide his defense zone into two air superiority zones and one air guerrilla zone.

One of the two air superiority areas is the Baltic Sea air superiority area, which includes the area near the Finnish capital Helsinki, the Baltic States, Lithuania and East Prussia. About half of the 6th Air Force's fighter jets are deployed at airfields in these areas. And in order to avoid being wiped out by a sudden attack by the Soviet Air Force, these fighter jets were all deployed at airfields far away from the Soviet border. Since the Fokker Zero and He-219 both have long ranges, the Fw-190 was equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks. The range is also acceptable, so deep-deployed fighters can still conduct air combat on the front line.

The other air superiority area is the central air superiority area, including central Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bohemia and other regions. The remaining fighters of the 6th Air Force are deployed in this area, also adopting the principle of deep deployment.

As for the aerial guerrilla zones, they are Poland, western Ukraine, and northeastern Romania. In these areas, all airfields have only false targets and almost no real aircraft. But this does not mean that Jeshunek will hand over the air supremacy in these areas to others. In fact, Jeshunek's purpose is to use these areas where the ground is temporarily controlled by the German army as a battlefield that consumes the vitality of Soviet pilots. In these areas, the fighters of the German 4th Air Force were not defenders, but hunters. Under the guidance of ground radar stations, they attacked the intruding Soviet bomber groups. Eliminate Soviet aircraft as much as possible over German-controlled land - this means that for every aircraft shot down, the Soviet Red Air Force loses an excellent pilot.

This set of tactics to eliminate pilots is the most commonly used by the German Air Force in this time and space over the English Channel and the North Sea. The British Royal Air Force was crippled by this set of tactics. At first they had good pilots but no good airplanes. Now they have good airplanes but no good pilots.

And now, the same fate is about to befall Soviet pilots!

"Erich, listen to me. Don't get entangled with the Yak-1 later. This aircraft has very good low-altitude performance. Just let the Fokker Zero deal with it. Our target is the Soviet Union's Iraq Er-2, Pe-2 or SB bomber, got it?”

Second Lieutenant Hermann Graf, who was flying a high-performance Fw-190 fighter at an altitude of 5,000 meters, was talking to his wingman pilot Erich Hartmann via the radio. Erich Hartmann is only 20 years old this year. He was still in high school when the war broke out in 1939. He joined the German Air Force six months later. Today is his first time on the battlefield.

And Hermann Graf was already a glorious Nazi German fighter pilot at this time. Although he did not participate in the Polish campaign, he participated in most of the subsequent battles, from the skies over France to the deserts of North Africa. He also participated in the bombing of the British mainland (not many people participated). He has very rich combat experience. However, Graf's record in hundreds of combat missions was a big duck egg, without any results!

Most of the fighter pilots of his generation who are still serving in the Luftwaffe/Navy Air Force have more than 10 combat achievements, and at least 30% of them have received the Blue Max Medal and have become eye-catching figures.

And Graf... is quite famous. He is the holder of the "non-shooting" record for Luftwaffe/Naval Air Force fighter pilots! During the entire Western Front campaign, no shot was fired in 21 consecutive sorties. As a result, his superiors thought that his skills were too poor and kicked him back to pilot school for re-education. The instructor who taught him how to masturbate turned out to be his classmate when he first joined the Air Force Sergeant School in Kasruhe.

Because he maintained a record of "not shooting" for 21 consecutive games, and often "missed" in subsequent combat missions, Graf, a veteran with rich experience in "avoiding battles", became the "leader" of his 52nd Fighter Regiment. "Old Hen" is responsible for taking rookie pilots up to the sky to experience the atmosphere of the battlefield - anyway, it is very safe to follow him, the probability of encountering enemy planes is very small, and most of them will not be able to fight...

"Second Lieutenant Graf, an enemy plane has been spotted ahead!"

At this time, the voice of Flight Sergeant Stanbaz, another lead pilot in Graf's detachment (4th aircraft detachment), sounded from Lieutenant Graf's earphones.

"At 9 o'clock, at an altitude of about 4,000 meters, there are about 20 planes...oh, they found us! There are about 8 planes flying towards us!"

The Graf detachment encountered 12 IL-2s and 8 Yak-1s, which were ordered to bomb a ring fortress held by the Polish Defense Forces. Due to the active withdrawal of the German Air Force, most of Poland's air supremacy now belongs to the Soviet Red Air Force.

After successfully blowing up multiple airports in Poland and destroying thousands of "model aircraft" on the ground. Major General Kobiec, commander of the Soviet Western Front, believed that German air power was basically suppressed on the Polish battlefield. So he ordered the start of the second phase of the air strike mission, sending a large number of IL-2 attack aircraft, escorted by Yak-1 fighter jets, to attack ground targets of the Polish Defense Forces. Because the targets that need to be attacked are scattered and not large in scale. Therefore, the dispatched fleet is relatively small, with a scale of more than ten or twenty aircraft.

The experienced Luftwaffe staff had long anticipated this situation, and they themselves had fought this way in the Polish battlefield, the Western Front battlefield, the North African battlefield, the North Sea battlefield, the English Channel battlefield, and the Atlantic battlefield. So the Luftwaffe came up with their old method, a dual-detachment combination of high and low tactics.

To put it simply, 4 Fw-190s or Bf-109s form a "high-altitude (actually medium-high altitude) detachment", and 4 Fokker Zeros form a "low-altitude detachment". The two detachments cooperate to attack. The high-altitude detachment is responsible for the high altitude and can leave with one blow. The low-altitude detachment is responsible for circling and fighting below. The British, who had been fighting the Germans for a long time, also adopted the same tactics. Now they used Spitfires and low-altitude Mustangs (P51).

However, although the Soviet Red Air Force also knew about this fighting method, they believed that dismantling the 8 aircraft was a dispersion of forces. It was better to concentrate the 8 aircraft to kill one unit first, and then attack the other one.

So now 8 Yak-1 fighter jets bravely rushed towards 4 Fw-190A-4 fighter jets!

"It's the Yak-1, be careful not to get entangled with them, hit and run!" Second Lieutenant Graf didn't want to fight with this Soviet aircraft with superior combat performance. He just wanted to use the powerful firepower of the Fw-190A-4 safely. I shot down an Il-2, but now I have no choice but to fight.

He is currently driving the long-range combat model of the Fw-190A-4, which has two MG17 machine guns, two MGFF cannons and two MG151 cannons, which is enough to shoot down relatively sturdy enemy aircraft. And this Fw-190A-4 is also very fast, and can fly up to 670 kilometers per hour with the W50 afterburner system. This is almost 100 kilometers per hour faster than the Soviet Yak-1, so Lieutenant Graf quickly bit the butt of a Yak-1, but at the same time there was also a Yak-1 following behind him.

However, Lieutenant Graf did not choose to dodge, but wanted to kill the Yak-1 in front first. But just after he pressed the firing button, there was no response from the two machine guns and four cannons. Only then did he notice that he, an old bird, had actually lifted the safety and fired. At this moment, he noticed a string of tracer bullets passing by the cabin cover! This is the Yak-1 behind it firing!

"Damn it!" Graf noticed that the string of tracer bullets was very close to him! This is not a good sign. At this moment, he suddenly heard an explosion from behind, but there was nothing abnormal about his plane. When he looked back, he saw that the Yak-1 was falling on fire.

"Second Lieutenant, I have shot down an enemy plane. It used to be easy to fight, but now it's your turn." The cheerful voice of rookie Erich Hartmann, who had just entered the battlefield today, came from Graf's earphones.