USSR 1941

Colonel Niels was not as optimistic as Lieutenant General Linus, he believed that the enemy's attack would pose a considerable threat to Butur Village.

This is not only because of the sensitivity to the battlefield cultivated by Colonel Niels in the front line for a long time, but also because he knows who is in charge of this battle.

"This idiot!" Colonel Niels complained when he turned off the communicator: "He doesn't know that the 'Breakout Hero' is commanding this army, and that guy has already given us too many 'surprises'!"

There were indeed many "surprises". Not to mention, just now he caused the famous German general Manstein to advance and retreat. Everyone can see that the Don Army is in trouble at this time.

"Which team are we going to attack, Colonel?" the adjutant asked through the communicator.

After thinking about it, Colonel Niels ordered: "It's not any team, Colin, it's all of them!"

"You mean we have to divide into three teams to fight?" The adjutant was a little surprised: "But we only have twenty planes!"

"Yes!" Colonel Nils said, "so we have to be fast, understand? Shoot down every enemy plane you see as fast as you can, and don't let any plane approach the village of Butur !"

"Yes, Colonel!" The adjutant replied, and immediately divided the team into three teams to fight from three directions.

This is almost an impossible task, especially at night...Night combat is a test of the pilot's eyesight, because they must use a little moonlight or starlight to observe the position of the enemy plane, and even be able to distinguish the enemy plane from its outline. is friend.

And such a battle will take time, because they can't suddenly dive down from the clouds at high speed to attack the enemy like in the daytime... In the dark night, they don't even know where the enemy is, and the result of diving down from the clouds at high speed is likely to be a head Hit the enemy plane.

Therefore, the tactic of night combat is usually to maintain a speed similar to that of the enemy plane, to be exact, a faster speed, keep up, and then shoot it down.

Some night fighters simply install the machine gun on the nose and tilt it upwards. The pilot controls the fighter to shoot down the target after reaching the target and shoots down the target from the bottom up... This is because night battles are usually bottom-up with the starry sky as the background It is easier to determine the location of the target.

Therefore, Colonel Niels ordered to divide the 20 planes into three parts to face the enemy planes, and destroy all the 60 targets in a short period of time... This is beyond the capabilities of the German pilots, even if the enemy If you don't fight back or change your course, you can't use it as a target drone for German pilots to shoot it.

However, the purpose of Colonel Niels is not really to complete the task.

As an experienced commander, he certainly knew that this was an impossible task.

Colonel Niels had other plans for doing this. He hoped to create an atmosphere in this way, that is, the atmosphere in which the Luftwaffe has the ability to intercept every enemy plane, and then frighten the Russian pilots to let them "know it." Difficult to retreat."

Colonel Niels is right in thinking this way, this is actually a kind of psychological warfare.

If intercepted separately, although one of the teams can be wiped out, the other two teams will fly to the target without any scruples... This is a big taboo for military strategists, at least a few planes should be harassing them to make the enemy nervous and flustered , Only in this way can they make mistakes, and only in this way can the enemy's combat effectiveness be minimized.

Facts have proved that Colonel Niels is correct, because a considerable number of "Il-2" attack aircraft fired rockets in a hurry under the harassment of German fighter planes, although they were experienced and considered excellent pilots.

This feeling can only be experienced by pilots who actually fly the "Il-2" attack aircraft: German fighters shot down their own fighters one after another, just like a roll call, and no one knows whether they will be the next one. And they only need to finish firing the rockets before they can turn around and escape from this area, and no one can even condemn them... Because in the dark night, no one knows who is the gangster and who is not, and there is no name written on the rocket, Even if the name is written, it will disappear due to the explosion. No one has definite evidence that the pilot did not aim.

Therefore, it is only necessary to report to the superior: "I have aimed!" and then "swish" to shoot the rocket out...Turn the nose and leave, and it will be safe.

They didn't even need to return to base to be "safe", as long as they turned their noses around, the German fighter planes would not be targeting them, and any fool would know to intercept those aircraft that hadn't finished firing their rockets.

As a result, many rockets actually smashed hard on the positions of the Soviet paratroopers.

But that's all for later.

Major Gavriel, who was in charge of commanding the "Il-2" fleet, saw several fighter planes passing by the starry sky from a distance, so he ordered: "Attention, enemy plane interception! Enemy plane interception! Machine gunners, prepare for battle. !"

The machine gunner immediately tensed up.

As I said before, the advantage of the "Il-2" attack aircraft is that it has certain air combat capabilities, especially there is a machine gun with the muzzle facing backwards in the back seat, which can directly shoot at the enemy aircraft following it.

This is especially useful in night battles, because night battles often mean that the distance between the two aircraft is closer and the speed is slower.

But the German fighter planes are all veterans. They are well aware of the performance of these Soviet fighter planes, so they will not follow the target in a rigid manner, but lower the nose slightly and hide under the tail of the target plane...there is the rear seat machine The gunner's shooting blind spot, unless the machine gunner can lower the muzzle and break the tail of his own plane, there is nothing he can do even if he can see the plane below.

Then, the German fighter plane raised its nose slightly again, and a string of "da da da" bullets flew towards the rear seat machine gunner... This is the standard procedure for shooting down the "Il-2" attack aircraft. First kill the rear seat machine gunner, and then speed up. The slow, maneuverable "Il 2" became a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

As a result, the battlefield immediately boiled over, with the sound of motors and machine guns. From time to time, a few "Il-2" were hit or even exploded, and the flames illuminated the dark night sky.

The German pilots even consciously shot down the high targets first, and then illuminated the targets below after the targets caught fire, which enabled them to launch another attack more quickly.

"Hold on!" Major Gavriel called into the walkie-talkie. "Stay on course! No dodge, repeat, no dodge!"

They really can't dodge, because they need to know their own altitude, and only in this way can they calculate the target position from the firelight... In other words, they are actually target drones.