This time, Student could not control the armament of the German paratroopers, for the simple reason that in order to transport these big guys, it was first necessary to obtain the consent of the air force, that is, only the weapons that the transport aircraft could be equipped with were maneuverable. As a result, the choice of heavy weapons became, first the transport aircraft was set, and then the issue of weapons was considered. And the German paratroopers were transported by nothing more than two points, one was an ordinary transport aircraft, and the other was a glider.

The most common transport aircraft used by the Germans is the JU52 transport aircraft, which is one of the most important carrier aircraft of the German Airborne Forces in history, and is still the preferred aircraft of the German Airborne Forces, this kind of transport aircraft with an empty weight of about 4 tons and a maximum transport capacity of 2 tons will be responsible for airdropping paratroopers and equipment. At the same time, after the capture of the airport, it is responsible for subsequent transportation. This kind of thing obviously can't be airdropped vehicles and complete light artillery, of course, if you say that the mortar is dismantled and packaged and transported, but it is clear that neither a light howitzer nor an anti-tank gun can be airdropped. Or rather, it is inconvenient to airdrop.

The reason is simple, no matter how simple a gun is, there are more than 5 large parts...... It's not a problem to throw it down, but given the wind or other reasons, the parts of a gun can be very scattered. And even if the parts are light, they weigh more than a few tens of kilograms. For example, a light artillery piece can be divided into 9 large parts, scattered within a few hundred meters after the short, and when the paratroopers find 8 of the parts and assemble them, there is only one part that cannot be found or dropped out of reach. What a sad thing that is. Of course, if you can control the walk, you can do this, but at least the German airborne troops of this era can't do this. Therefore, it is inconvenient to airdrop artillery parts. Artillery is not good, and cars are even worse..........

If the paratroopers in the first wave could only rely on their own weapons, they might not be able to destroy some targets, such as light tanks and armored vehicles. And if you wait until you need to occupy the airfield, let the plane land and then unload the weapon, I'm afraid the daylily will be cold. So the top of the German paratroopers began to rack their brains and think about how to do without an airfield available. In the first wave of raids put some artillery. In particular, artillery with anti-armor capabilities was sent to the combat zone.

And so. Gliders, which could transport small cars and artillery in adults, came into the Luftwaffe's field of view, which had no power of its own and were towed by transport aircraft or other multi-engine aircraft, and then reached the target area. Throwing on the towing equipment and landing on its own, this kind of thing is not small, the result is also very simple, the cargo compartment is relatively large, you can drive directly into a small car, or place a full-fledged small artillery. At present, a glider commonly used in Germany is similar to the go242 glider of later generations, except that the speed is slower, and the size and cargo volume are about the same. You can drive into a small jeep-sized vehicle or a small gun. This transport aircraft has a wingspan of 24.5 meters. It is 15.8 meters long and 4.4 meters high. The empty weight is 3200 kg, the maximum landing weight is 7100kg. This aircraft can be towed with a twin-engine bomber. Drop the landing gear directly after takeoff, and land with a belly skid when landing. The rear can be used for small vehicles to get on and ..........

After having an airplane. The Germans began to choose the right artillery from their own list of weapons, mortars were excluded, since Germany already had 50mm grenadiers, and it was not necessary to equip such a functionally similar weapon. So the German Airborne Forces directly chose 80mm mortars and mortars as their own mortar weapons.

Among them, the specific performance of the 80mm mortar is similar to the historical Soviet PM41 mortar, and the gun weighs 45kg. The barrel is 1.32 meters long, the maximum firing range is 4100 meters, and the shell weight is about 3.4kg. And the mortar performance is similar to the historical Soviet PM42 mortar. (Historically, Germany also copied this mortar, known as the GR42 mortar.) It weighs 285 kg and has a tube length of 1.865 meters. The maximum firing range is 6050 meters. The weight of the shell is about 15.8 kg. And the grenade charge is up to 3.1kg. Of course, it was certainly inconvenient to transport such a heavy artillery by manpower, so the Germans prepared a small tractor for him, for example, a barrel truck of the Type 166. It weighs only 685 kg and has a maximum output of 23.5 horsepower. If the terrain is not good, it can also be replaced with a German SDKFZ2 half-track tractor similar to the later generations, and both tractors can be loaded into the GO242 aircraft and can participate in the assault at the first time. …。

In addition to mortars, the German Airborne Forces needed a certain amount of anti-armor firepower, and the anti-armor fire of the Airborne Forces consisted mainly of two parts. One is a 75mm recoilless gun, weighing 175kg, with rubber wheels that can be towed with a barrel car. The specific performance is comparable to the 75mmLG42 recoilless gun used by the Germans in history. The weight is good, the theoretical firing range is quite long, but the effective firing range is relatively short, and the danger zone of this artillery is too large, it is said that it reaches more than 50 meters. More importantly, the technology of armor-piercing shells at that time was very immature, and the theoretical data was much higher than the actual data. (The data on the German recoilless gun is found on Baidu-!) ）。 …。

So the Germans, thinking about it, decided to carry a standard anti-tank gun. Student rummaged through the German arsenal and finally chose the 50mm anti-tank gun. The reason is simple: the anti-tank gun is too small, and the anti-tank gun is too heavy. The 50mm anti-tank gun weighs moderately, and no more than a ton can be transported with a glider as a whole gun. But that's a bit too much. So the Germans went on a series of weight loss ...... For example, replace the solid rubber tires with hollow pneumatic tires, remove the front gun shield or something, and reduce the weight of the gun itself as much as possible.

In fact, the Germans also had a conical gun. The lethality of the lower conical gun of the same caliber is better than that of ordinary cannons, but this weapon can only shoot armor-piercing shells and cannot hit high-explosive shells, the function is too single, and it is normal for the airborne troops to fall behind the opponent and encounter tanks, but it is not normal to encounter many tanks, and the result of encountering such a result is either the commander's brain-dead. (Take, for example, the historic Market Garden Operation.) Or maybe it's too bad luck for the paratroopers to go head-to-head with the heavily armored troops, no matter how powerful they are! Therefore, weapons with too single functions still cannot be considered.

Mortars, recoilless guns and anti-tank guns were there, and then the Germans began to struggle with whether they needed a light howitzer. Because of the problems with the carrier aircraft, the maximum caliber howitzer did not exceed 75mm. And the lethality of shells of this howitzer is also relatively limited. It can't be used to hit tanks either. If it is only anti-infantry or bunker, the mortar is lighter and more powerful than the 75mm howitzer. (The lightest 75mm howitzers of World War 2 in the United States were 635kg.) The only advantage of the howitzer is that it hits farther and with higher accuracy. However, the weight price and maneuverability paid are a bit large, the weight of a 75mm howitzer can be exchanged for at least 2 heavy mortars, although the anti-tank gun is heavier, but this thing is the backbone of the anti-armor, indispensable, there is nothing to replace it, naturally it is a necessary ..........

"According to our intelligence, the Allies and Italy did not have heavy armoured units on the eastern seaboard, and the Italian marines, although well-armed, were not specialized land forces after all, and their most powerful weapons were only wheeled armored vehicles and medium tanks. And there won't be a lot of them. Entente? They may have some heavy tanks. But there will not be many of them, and they will be deployed in deeper places. The chances of us running into them are not great. Student said confidently.

"It doesn't matter if you run into it, after all, the paratroopers are under the Air Force, and we will give you the best support." Richthofen said nonchalantly. "This time we will put in two special attack aircraft to provide you with direct-aim fire support, the first is a modified DO17 bomber, this attack aircraft is equipped with a 50mm cannon in the nose position, which can completely penetrate the top armor of all current tanks. As for another kind of aircraft? I can assure you that this is an unprecedented weapon. We called it the Air Gunboat Machine, which was designed to deal with infantry and lightly armored targets. ”

"Gunboat planes in the air?" Studentt wondered if he had never heard of such an aircraft since he joined the Air Force. "Boy, you're lucky, these things were originally intended to be used in the mountains of northern Italy, but after the army abandoned the battle plan in the mountains of northern Italy and left it to Austria-Hungary, these planes naturally lost their usefulness, so we used them to support the paratroopers." Richthofen said with a smile. …………。

According to the original plan, Germany intended to enter Italy from the north after the war had reached a certain extent, but in the face of complex terrain, the role of ordinary bombers was really limited, the accuracy of horizontal bombing was not high, and dive bombing was also limited by the mountains and terrain, and more importantly, the role of heavy weapons in mountain warfare declined, and the most terrible thing was not a small number of howitzers or mortars of the other side. It's the elusive elite mountain infantry. Dealing with special enemies on a special battlefield naturally requires special weapons.

The best weapons against infantry are always all kinds of weapons with a high rate of fire, such as machine guns and machine guns, the so-called recruits are afraid of artillery, and veterans are afraid of machine guns. So in addition to the twin 13mm machine guns in the nose, the aircraft also installed two 20mm cannons and two 13mm machine guns on the left side. There were also 2 machine guns in the spherical machine gun turret in the rear of the fuselage. In this case, the aircraft will have 6 13mm machine guns and 2 20mm cannons on the flanks, and because it is modified from a transport aircraft, it will carry a huge amount of ammunition, and if necessary, it will be possible to hang bombs under the wings!

There is a more ~~~~ New Year's eve this afternoon.,The author has been busy for a year and it's been very hard~~~.,Ask for subscriptions and support ~~~~~.。 (To be continued).