If the choice of fighters of the Germans remained almost unchanged under the strong historical inertia, then there was also this problem in attack aircraft, and one of the ultimate reasons for maintaining history was the need for the German Army, that is, the German Army needed high-intensity and high-precision ground support firepower. The Luftwaffe also believes that the fundamental determinants of the success of an attack aircraft are as follows: first, whether it can provide sufficient firepower to cover the ground attack, and second, whether it can survive from the enemy's dense anti-aircraft firepower. Other aspects are relegated to the secondary level. And this has also caused a very serious problem, that is, in the case of air supremacy, the German JU87 Stuka attack aircraft can be said to be a death-like existence, and when air supremacy cannot be guaranteed, it was decisively beaten into a dog by the opposing fighter!

Is the Stuka a classic? The answer is yes, the JU87D dive bomber was no less powerful until the end of the war, with a maximum of 1800kg of bombs. It is possible to hang a 1000kg bomb on the central shaft, or a 250kg bomb on each wing. Moreover, the large dive angle gives this attack aircraft a considerable attack power. It did play a heavy role in the early days of the war. In terms of attack power and bombload...... The ju87d is much stronger than the Il-2 of the same period. What's even more powerful is that a certain modification of the JU87 can also be mounted with torpedoes, and if it is used as a carrier-based aircraft, it is the world's first attack aircraft that can be used for both dive bombing and lightning strikes. Xu Jie personally believes that the performance of the ju87 is stronger than that of the Il2. But there is a premise for all this, that is, air supremacy is in your hands! The maximum speed is only in the early 400s, if the ju87d has no air supremacy, it will be the result of being swept down when it touches an egg!. …。

The dive bomber concept proposed by Juncker (i.e., the historical JU87 concept) shone in the Luftwaffe tender, and according to the Luftwaffe's requirements, this dive bomber could carry at least 250kg of bombs for dive bombing, and there was some potential for upgrading. If nothing else. The development of German ground attack aircraft will be the same as in history. But at this moment, an accident occurred. Or it is not an accident, but the German Army found that the Russian army attacking Dönitz in China and the Allies often used a large number of attack aircraft with machine guns or 20 machine guns constantly circling in the air in the later battles on the Western Front. Repeatedly strafe targets on the ground. Although the 20 guns were limited, it was enough to attack almost unprotected infantry and vehicles, and it was precisely because of this continuous low-altitude fire suppression by the Allies that the German transport units and lightly protected targets suffered heavy losses.

After comparison, the Germans found that the bombs of dive bombers were indeed powerful, and they were really useful for destroying solid bunkers and firing points, but the bombs were lost after one throw. If a wave of attacks doesn't work, it's a complete loss. Need to go back and re-hang the bomb. Even if the opponent's support points are destroyed, the damage to the enemy's subsequent steady stream of reinforcements and remaining infantry is limited. And low-altitude attack aircraft with a small caliber are not the same. He can hover over the target area for long periods of time, hunting lightly armored targets while holding them back. (Russia's Il-2 has an advantage in this regard.) The Il-2's 23 cannon has a maximum reserve of 300 rounds per gun, while the S37 cannon also has a reserve of 50 rounds, which is much more than Stuka's 37 gun, and of course, the armor-piercing performance is still inferior to the 37 gun of the cannon bird. ）。 …。

"Even if our attack aircraft can't destroy the opposing tanks, as long as we can destroy the opposing infantry and logistics vehicles, then their tanks can't move forward." At a meeting with the Air Force. Such a point was made by an Air Force officer. At the same time, he also mentioned that it is really difficult to destroy tanks with small-caliber machine guns or bombs, and the former is not powerful enough. The latter is a difficult point to hit a small mobility target. Non-old birds can't do it! In fact, there are so many old birds. It is much easier to hit trucks or infantry with rapid-fire weapons such as machine guns, and if you miss once, you can hit twice. Anyway, there are much more shells in reserve than bombs. And you don't need to be too strong to hit a truck. …。

This set of ideas is a bit like the attack idea of the 2 wartime Il-2, but there is a problem that the survivability of such an aircraft when performing combat missions is also a serious problem, because you have to hover over the opponent's land-based head for a long time, and the opponent's air defense weapons are certainly not ornaments, which requires the aircraft to have strong protective performance. And the result of the increase in armor is an increase in weight. The allowable load of an engine with the same aerodynamic layout is limited, so the bomb load will inevitably decrease. And because of the increase in weight, the dive performance of the aircraft also decreases sharply. One of the reasons why the Il-2 can't drop a big bomb at a large angle is that it is too heavy, with an empty weight of more than 5 tons, which is almost the weight of a twin-engine aircraft. (There is a theory that the Il-2 is a steel body.) This lateral position cannot be determined, but the empty weight of the Il-2 is too large. ）。 …。

You can't have both fish and bear's paws. But for Germany now. It is not a problem to develop and equip two attack aircraft at the same time, so it is. The Germans began to develop another attack aircraft. Carry small-caliber cannons and small bombs to carry out long-term sustained damage to soft targets on the ground. In the future, this weapon will also carry rockets and other weapons to attack the ground...... And this DO-87 low-altitude attack aircraft, which was later called the Scythe of Death, was born, and the JU87 attack aircraft, known as the Screaming Reaper, was called the most feared aircraft of the Allied army in the early stage of the war. The results were quite brilliant.

After solving the problem of tactical support for the army, the navy came to the door again, and they also hoped that the air force could get a carrier-based attack aircraft according to the actual needs of the navy. In this plane, the Germans realized early on the importance of dive-bombing and mine-strike compatible attack aircraft. This is still thanks to the British, in the later battles, the British Sailfish torpedo aircraft brought great damage to the German high seas fleet, if it were not for the existence of these terrorist killers mounted on this torpedo, the German fleet still had a chance to completely crush the high seas fleet. German bombers, though, also inflicted a lot of damage on the other side. But the Germans found that the effect of an attack on a capital ship by bombs of limited weight alone could only be described in general terms. At present, it is obviously difficult for single-engine aircraft to carry bombs weighing more than 500 kg to dive. So the only thing that can really inflict fatal damage on the capital ship is the torpedo. The development of carrier-based torpedo machines is necessary, but at the same time, the German Navy also found that torpedo machines also have great drawbacks, the first of which is that the bomb load of torpedoes is too small! According to the German Navy's aircraft carrier plan, the number of aircraft torpedoes on large German aircraft carriers is only between 36 and 45 rounds! …。

Aviation torpedoes are not the same as bombs. Each torpedo is more than 5 meters in length and up and down in diameter. The huge volume occupies a lot of space in the ammunition depot, and it also needs space for debugging before use. According to the German Navy's plan for the first class of 16,000-ton aircraft carriers, the aircraft carrier has about 72 aircraft. According to the ratio of 1 to 1 between fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes, the number of torpedo planes is about 24, and the torpedoes have a total of only 36 rounds, that is, only 1.5 base torpedoes! This means that after the two aircraft carriers engage in battle, at most two attacks, the torpedo planes will face the problem of running out of torpedoes. And if the torpedo machine cannot be loaded with torpedoes and can only bomb horizontally or dive at a small angle, then both in terms of bombing accuracy and power, will be greatly reduced. Therefore, the German Navy asked the Air Force to come up with an attack aircraft that could take into account both lightning strikes and dive bombing in this tender. At least in terms of future potential, it is necessary to have the ability to be compatible with both attacks.

In addition to the single-engine attack aircraft, the Luftwaffe also planned to make a small twin-engine aircraft as a supplement. This seems redundant in terms of attack power alone, and the positioning between a single-engine attack aircraft and a normal twin-engine bomber seems to be very embarrassing. In terms of bomb load and range, it is not necessarily much larger than a single-engine attack aircraft, and far inferior to a twin-engine attack aircraft. However, two engines were required, resulting in high costs. So much so that many people inside questioned whether it was necessary to produce such a bomber? …………。

To this kind of question from the government and enterprises, the front-line personnel in the Luftwaffe gave a very positive answer, "In terms of bomb load and range, this aircraft really has no advantage, but in terms of flight speed, the twin-engine light bomber has a clear advantage under the same load, which means facing some positions with relatively high defensive strength...... Twin-engine light bombers have better survivability. Richthofen said. In addition, there is another reason that cannot be said to outsiders, that is, the Luftwaffe is preparing to develop an "electromagnetic detection device" and use it on fighter planes as a night combat aircraft.

The attack aircraft project after some time of discussion. In the end, three small projects were located, namely a dive bomber, a shallow dive attack aircraft and a twin-engine light bomber. In addition, according to the different needs of the three armed forces, there are some sub-items under these small items. If it is said that the fighter and attack aircraft projects are jointly planned by the army, navy, and air force, the air force must consider the needs of the navy and the army. Then in the last project of a twin-engine medium bomber, as well as in the project of a four-engine strategic bomber, Richthofen's Air Force will dominate! This is also the power that he and his colleagues in the Air Force dream of! Crush the ground with the Air Force!. …。

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the reward~~~, and the book friend Xue Wu Lingshuang's monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued).