Chapter 818: Air Battle over the Bridge

The plane’s engine roared cheerfully. The long wings lifted the fuselage from the grip of gravity, and it began to leap into the sky. The hydraulic struts on the plane’s wheels slowly regained their elasticity, and finally, the tires left the ground and began to retract into the underside of the fuselage.

This Ta-152 fighter left the runway and flew towards the endless sky. Following it was another of Germany’s most advanced piston-engine fighters. The two of them flew east, one after the other, heading for their mission’s designated airspace. Behind them, 20 Ta-152s that had already taken off had long since formed up and were following these two planes, charging into the distance together.

The Soviet side had deployed a full 10 of their advanced P-40 fighters to escort 8 bomb-laden SB-2 bombers. To deal with a single bridge, this could be considered more than enough. But who could have known that the German Air Force was looking for a chance to annihilate the Soviet air force and had sortied a terrifying 22 fighter planes at once for the struggle for air superiority.

After seeing these fighters off, on the ground at the airfield, the German ground crew had already begun to explain their work procedures to the soldiers of the “German Future Youth Army.” They were responsible for educating these young Germans, most of whom were only 15 to 16 years old, and helping them master a technical skill.

These young men were organized into a group called the “German Future Youth Army” and were learning practical industrial knowledge in the relatively safe rear. For example, they were learning lathe operation skills from master craftsmen in factories, learning to repair airplanes at airfields, how to replace engine parts—in short, Akado was drawing up all sorts of plans, trying every means to create talent for Germany’s future and to increase its talent pool.

Most of these young men were learning from workers or soldiers who had exceptional talent in a certain field. In the future, they would have a skill and could continue to serve Germany’s future development. Once Germany finally welcomed peace, then these children who had been in contact with industrial machinery could serve as the technical backbone in the factories, preventing Germany from losing its development momentum due to the war.

Some of them were following radio operators, learning the theoretical knowledge and operating principles of radio. Some were following truck drivers, learning how to drive and repair vehicles. Still others were acting as naval apprentices, enriching themselves in the war by following their seniors, learning scattered but practical knowledge to one day stand on their own.

In fact, it was precisely because the Greater German Party, led by Akado, had reassured the German people on many details that the entire German Empire had maintained a high level of war enthusiasm throughout the long war of more than a year, and had not been dragged down by anti-war sentiment.

“Heinz, you’ve been working with that pilot for a few days now. It seems to me that all you do every day is help him with his things, acting as a little follower. You haven’t learned anything,” a little boy who was learning mechanical repair from the ground crew said to his companion who had just walked over.

“To follow a pilot, you have to start by understanding the ground missions. Do you think it’s the same as you?” Hartmann’s little follower said with some disdain. When he had first arrived, he had also dreamed of flying a fighter plane and becoming an ace pilot who ruled everything in the blue sky. But when he truly understood everything about a fighter pilot, he knew that flying a plane in combat was not a pleasant thing.

Just a few days ago, a German Fw-190D fighter had returned to base, wobbling. He had clearly seen that the plane’s wings and fuselage were riddled with bullet holes. The pilot, covered in blood, had been helped out of the cockpit. Only then did he know that flying in war was not just romantic and pleasant, but also accompanied by blood and cruelty.

If he had a choice, he would rather be a little apprentice his whole life, squatting in the safety of the rear of an airfield, waiting for the ace pilots from the front to return in triumph. He never wanted to land on a runway, drenched in blood, after flying a plane. He just wanted to live a stable life under the sun.

Just as he was fantasizing about never having to go to the battlefield in his life, the German fighters were already roaring in the sky above the battlefield. Also appearing here at the same time were 30 of the German Air Force’s Do-217 medium bombers. These bombers had been ordered to carpet-bomb the Soviet heavy artillery positions. Accompanying these medium bombers were a full 40 Stuka II ground-attack aircraft.

If the helicopters that had appeared on the battlefield earlier were just a minor skirmish mainly for suppression, then the German Do-217 bombers that had come to drop their bombs were here to completely level the ground. After opening their bomb bays, these planes flew over the battlefield at a lower altitude and then dropped a row after row of bombs on the heads of the Soviets.

Before the smoke from these bombs had even dissipated, one after another, the Stuka II dive bombers in the sky began to dive sharply, accurately dropping their bombs on the Soviet army’s cannons, which had already been thrown into disarray by the bombing. Huge explosions rose and fell, and the deep positions of the Soviet Union were everywhere filled with burning flames.

“Lads! It’s our turn to go on stage. The Soviet planes have finally arrived!” the squadron leader’s voice sounded in the headset. And then the German fighters, one after another, charged out of the clouds they had been hiding in. Four German fighters, in their familiar four-finger combat formation, dived down, their powerful engines emitting a piercing shriek.

The Soviet Air Force’s P-40 fighters were not the latest improved model from the United States. These planes were equipped with relatively outdated engines, and the Soviet pilots who flew them were definitely not the somewhat experienced soldiers from the United States and Britain. Most of them were rookies, and like their fighter planes, they were consumables that could be discarded at any time.

Flying his iconic fighter with the black tulip on its nose, Hartmann, without the slightest hesitation, pushed his control stick to the right. His plane then changed its angle, side-slipped down, and then pointed its nose at a Soviet P-40 that was trying to evade the pursuit of a German fighter, and rapidly closed in on the other party.

The airflow made his plane tremble slightly, but its good handling performance meant that this Ta-152 did not lose control in the slightest. This plane was losing altitude, and finally, the distance between the two sides was closed to a range sufficient for the Ta-152’s firepower to be effective.

Hartmann, with practiced ease, pulled the trigger. The two 20mm cannons on his plane’s wings, under his control, fired a short burst. A few cannon shells flew towards the target in the sky, their trajectory even slightly curved due to the violent maneuvers.

But these few shells still hit the poor fighter plane, leaving three huge holes near the root of its wide wing. Black smoke immediately poured out of the holes, and then flames shot out. These few shells had clearly hit some vital part, causing the other plane to catch fire and burn.

This hit P-40 suddenly lost altitude, and then, due to the destruction of its load-bearing structure, its entire wing was torn off by the air resistance. The plane, having lost half its wing, began to spin and fall, its tail spinning as it plunged. At this moment, the Soviet pilot inside the plane finally opened the cockpit canopy and desperately tried to climb out of the plane to bail out.

Hartmann paid no attention to this unlucky opponent. He cautiously climbed his plane and then began to look for his next target. This was his first kill of the day, and also his 196th enemy plane shot down on the Eastern Front. In fact, he was very likely to become the first pilot in the German Air Force to shoot down 200 planes, and also to become the holder of the record for the most planes shot down in the world.

Taking advantage of the brief moment of climbing, he glanced at the ground. There were three conspicuous German national flags. According to his experience, those were three German tanks that were attacking the enemy. But due to the altitude of his plane, the three flags he saw were nothing more than three small red dots.

“Those armored units are really crazy. They’re on the attack! See them?” Hartmann said with a laugh to his squadron leader, who was following behind him, as he maneuvered his plane.

The squadron leader’s voice came through the headset: “I see them. Unfortunately, we can’t lower our altitude to help out. Target ahead, a Soviet bomber. I’ll take this one!”

“No problem, it’s yours,” Hartmann said, pulling hard on the control stick. His plane began to climb rapidly, then flew inverted, and finally dived down in reverse, completing a loop-the-loop. By the time he had completed the maneuver, he had switched positions with his squadron leader, becoming the wingman, with the squadron leader as the lead attacker.

The two planes, one after the other, charged towards their target, as fast as lightning, like thunder. The distance was rapidly closing. They began to sway left and right to deceive the defensive machine guns on the bomber. By the time the crosshairs on the sight were on the bomber’s fuselage, the squadron leader decisively pulled his trigger.

And so, the terrifying 30mm cannon on the central axis roared to life, leaving a huge hole in the fuselage of that Soviet bomber. As its position moved, another hole appeared next to this one, extending all the way to the tail of the bomber.

In the face of Germany’s powerful 30mm cannon, even the tough American B-17 bomber would be instantly broken in two and explode. How much more so a twin-engine medium bomber? This Soviet plane immediately disintegrated in the air due to the collapse of its fuselage, turning into a pile of scattered parts that were scattered across the sky.

With one cheer after another, the Soviet planes fell from the sky, one after another.

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