Chapter 851: Revival

The cold weather had finally ended, and in the early morning, birds were singing cheerfully once again. As the temperature rose, the earth began to slowly reawaken, and everything seemed so beautiful.

But at this very moment, man-made noise shattered the tranquility of nature. One after another, German bombers weaved through the clouds, forming a giant net, as if to envelop all who dared to defy them in its terror.

Thousands of German aircraft appeared over the battlefield. Though their models and altitudes varied, these planes truly blotted out the sun, and the light in the vicinity dimmed. Around the DO-217 bombers, a dense swarm of FW-190D fighters acted as escorts. This was the most “overwhelming” tactic used by the Americans and British in the later stages of the war in another timeline, turning the dogfights the Germans loved into a relentless war of attrition.

The German fighters were divided into three combat waves. A small but elite number of Ta-152 fighters flew at the highest altitude, maintaining height to prepare to engage the Soviet fighter units that would rush to the battle. The large number of FW-190D liquid-cooled high-altitude fighters flew in the higher airspace with the “Butcher” bombers; they were responsible for bombing the Soviet rear, mainly carrying out carpet bombing of Stalingrad. Finally, flying below were the DO-217 and Stuka II bombers. These planes were escorted by the FW-190D air-cooled fighters, their target being the destruction of the frontline Soviet effective strength.

The frontline Soviet anti-aircraft guns fired fiercely, but they seemed somewhat inadequate in the face of such a massive bomber group. Soon, these anti-aircraft gun positions were taken out by the diving German Stuka II attack planes. Many exposed Soviet frontline supply depots and command nodes were paid a visit by these German bombers one by one.

A D0-217 bomber, trailing a long plume of black smoke, plunged towards the ground. The Soviet anti-aircraft attack was not without its successes. But the German Air Force still dominated this sky, dropping heavy bombs on their targets with impunity.

The sky was filled with the roaring and howling of engines, like vengeful ghosts, impossible to shake off. Compared to the scale of the German Air Force, with over a thousand planes appearing on the battlefield at once, the scale of the Soviet Air Force’s sortie could only be described as pitiful. Dozens of fighter planes had not even gotten close to the German bombers before they were entangled by a German fighter force several times their number. As time went on, these Soviet pilots all became statistics in the German fighter pilots’ kill records, exploding into balls of fire in the sky.

It was like the revival of all things. The German Air Force, which had not been deployed on such a large scale all winter, had once again reminded the Soviets of the terrifying scene they had faced in Poland. The German Air Force, after a winter of accumulation and development, was, in both quantity and quality, a world apart from what it had been.

With the rise in temperature and the continuous supply of fuel, the German Air Force had finally bared its sharp fangs, sharpening its knives and launching the most lopsided battle against the Soviet Air Force.

To cover the operations of the four army groups in the southern region of the Eastern Front, the German Air Force had deployed over 7,000 aircraft of various types, including a full 1,700 fighters for escort. And what these German Air Force elites were facing was the 1st Caucasus Air Army, a cobbled-together force of 713 aircraft, more than half of which were outdated, hastily produced I-16 fighters just to make up the numbers.

Like the Soviet Army, the gap between their air force and the German army was even greater. The only bit of courage that kept them from giving up was their love for their motherland. But unfortunately, a heart full of passion was not enough to defeat the German Air Force, which was a full three years ahead in technology.

Especially since these German air forces, besides possessing the world’s number one advanced fighter planes, also had a fanatical devotion to their motherland and an admiration for the Führer. What was even more terrifying was that, besides all this, they also had something their opponents did not: piloting skills.

One after another, the German planes, with their fuselages under the cockpit glass covered in Iron Cross kill markings, dived down from the clouds. The airflow was cut by the sharp wingtips of the planes, and together with the engines, they emitted a piercing sound. Every one of these German ace pilots could be said to be a treasure of Germany. In the long winter, most of the German pilots had achieved the feat of shooting down Soviet planes.

This was not a group of rookies; they were a flock of fierce vultures and eagles. They were the men at the top of the food chain under this sky. They had shot down thousands of enemy planes. If the Soviet pilots were a group of newly licensed drivers, then the German Air Force pilots were a group of F1 racers, a group of old hands with ten years of driving experience.

In a Soviet plane, a pilot watched in terror as his flight leader’s plane was torn apart from the side by a German fighter. The pilot was engulfed in a ball of burning flames and fell, without even a chance to bail out. He was so scared that he wobbled his wings left and right, trying to find a direction to escape this blood-stained sky.

Unfortunately, the German pilot would not give him this chance. A German plane had gotten on the tail of this Soviet fighter in just two seconds. No matter how much the Soviet pilot wailed and screamed in the cockpit, the German pilot did not spare this poor fellow.

Two cannon shells accurately hit this Soviet plane. One pierced the wing, directly blowing a huge hole in its skin. The other hit the armored steel plate behind the pilot, pierced it, then tore through the pilot’s chest, and finally passed through the instrument panel and into the plane’s engine.

The second after being hit, this Soviet plane, due to the destruction of its load-bearing structure, had one of its wings break off. The plane began to spin and fall. The engine, having been hit, also caught fire, emitting thick black smoke.

In the cockpit, the Soviet pilot looked at the large hole in the instrument panel that had been blown out by the cannon shell, at the flames that were licking out from the hole, igniting his leather jacket and the other flammable items in the cockpit. He felt no pain, and did not even shed a tear as the smoke entered his eyes.

He trembled with the plane’s vibrations, still strapped into his seat. But his hands had already fallen limply, and he no longer had the strength to even close his eyes or to cry. In the end, he saw the earth rushing up to meet him, and darkness replaced everything as dawn arrived.

One hundred and ten Soviet planes, with a tragic sense of determination, had taken off at the risk of their lives to engage the German Air Force’s full 3,000 aircraft of various types. The result was that, including the kills from the anti-aircraft guns, they had shot down 22 German planes. Only three of the Do-217s were multi-crew bombers; the rest were mostly Stuka II attack planes and fighters.

The German Air Force, however, had achieved everything they had wanted to. Stalingrad was once again a sea of fire. The “Butcher” bombers had paid a visit to this city with a combination of napalm and aerial bombs, once again shrouding it in a burning, thick smoke.

The German attack planes and bombers that had been sent to attack 20 Soviet frontline airfields had almost all completed their missions. Seventeen Soviet airfields were destroyed or severely damaged. The 300 I-16s on the ground that were too late to take off, or would have been of no use even if they had, were all destroyed. In just one assault, Germany had firmly seized air superiority in the southern theater of the Eastern Front.

Before the Soviet ground forces, whose ground facilities had been massively destroyed, could even cry out, the second wave of German attack aircraft had once again paid a visit to their airspace. In the same sequence as an hour before, the Soviet anti-aircraft gun positions once again let out a feeble groan.

The Soviet anti-aircraft gun positions, having been damaged once by the first wave of bombers, returned fire on a much more pitiful scale this time. Often, as soon as their shells had been fired, they would see the Stuka II dive bombers in the vicinity of the clouds begin to side-slip into a dive trajectory. The Soviet anti-aircraft gunners could only watch helplessly as these Stuka II bombers destroyed their positions, and they didn’t even have time to salvage their anti-aircraft guns.

If, during the first air raid, the Soviet air force still had the strength and the courage to take off and fight, then in the second wave of the German planes’ attack, the courage and strength of the Soviet air force had been greatly diminished.

They had only sent up 10 planes to prove their existence, and of these 10, four were the completely useless I-16s. These planes had only made one appearance outside the defensive circle of the German formation before they were taken out by the two forward German fighters on alert duty.

The air-raid sirens in Kalach and Volgodonsk had not stopped all day. The people hid in their air-raid shelters, listening to the explosions overhead, one after another, feeling the dust from the ceiling fall in a continuous stream due to the vibrations. Their hearts were filled with a spreading despair, with only a mournful prayer for the ordeal to end quickly.

“Report!” An air force colonel walked to the coordination hall of the air force general headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair and saluted behind Kesselring. “Heil Akado Rudolph, our Führer! News just came back from the front. The second wave of bombers is returning. Our army has lost 16 planes!”

Kesselring turned his head, took the telegram from the colonel’s hand, and, after reading it carefully, said, “The third wave of bombing will continue! We must ensure that on the path of the two army groups’ offensive, all of the enemy’s defenses are destroyed!”

He walked to the map in front of him and, watching as the thirty-odd female NCOs moved the dense mass of aircraft symbols, each with a unit designation, on the map with wooden poles, he felt a sense of heroic pride welling up in his heart—the German Air Force was invincible!

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