Historically, the Third Reich Air Force was a tactical air force, and its main role was to ensure the safety of its own airspace and to accomplish its objectives. This was the guiding ideology of the Luftwaffe at the time, and it was also determined by Germany's national strength. It is a historical inevitability that the Luftwaffe eventually failed to become a strategic air force like the United States and Britain, and the Luftwaffe's choice was also correct in the general direction, and instead of investing precious and limited resources in four long-range strategic bombers, it was better to establish a tactical air force with campaign objectives as the mainstay.

And in this plane, Germany and its allies are much stronger than the historical Third Reich. Oil in Romania, Libya, Transcaucasia and the Two Rivers Valley has taken the Allied bloc off the worry of fuel shortages. Historically, a tougher industry than Germany had provided the Luftwaffe with more and more advanced aircraft. Add to this Austria-Hungary and the newly occupied Italy, and it is not too much to say that the Luftwaffe has 2 times more production capacity than it has historically! And this plane Germany was not affected by the defeat. Arms research and development and equipment can be carried out without restrictions, whether from the perspective of natural resources, industrial level or technology, the Luftwaffe in this plane is much stronger than in history, and even from the perspective of hardware, it seems that it is not a problem for Germany to develop a strategic air force similar to that of the United States and Britain in history.

In fact, the Germans did amass a considerable number of strategic bombers, and they did launch several strategic attacks, although the results were won and lost. But at least from the facts it turned out that the Germans were capable of launching such an offensive. Outwardly, the Germans could continue to develop their own strategic air force and then crush their opponents with constant strategic bombing, as the Anglo-American did historically.

However, what appears on the surface does not represent the truth. And the commander of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Richthofen, was one of the few people who really saw the truth clearly. After this Monsoon operation, this original champion of strategic bombing finally realized that the future development direction of the Luftwaffe must not be dominated by strategic bombing, which is a pit, a seemingly beautiful trap! If this development continues, then sooner or later the Luftwaffe will shed its last drop of blood in this direction! This strategy must change!

"Whether or not strategic bombing can achieve its goal lies not in how many strategic bombers, fuel, and crews can be saved, but also in what the opponent's ability to resist is, and the goal of strategic bombing is to destroy the opponent's war foundation through continuous bombing, and the premise of achieving this goal is to completely crush the opponent's air force! This involves a question of the balance of strength between the two sides. The Luftwaffe is certainly strong, but the Chinese, American and British air forces are equally strong, and our hard power surpasses that of Britain at most, and it is difficult to surpass Huaxia and the United States! Even if we count the colonies, the area under our control is not as large as the area of China, and it is not as rich as the United States! There are also no advantages in the industrial aspect. Before the defeat of the opposing air force, the cost of strategic bombing is very high, and the cost of a 4-engine bomber and the cost of personnel training are enough to support more than 4 fighters! And in the exchange of air combat, one strategic bomber can definitely not beat 4 fighters, and a modified heavy fighter can completely destroy a strategic bomber. Add to that the unexpected loss caused by an excessively long range, and the cost of being an attacker can be very high! Of course, if we can destroy the opposing air force, then the cost will plummet. "At an internal high-level meeting, Richthofen first raised the issue of the strategic transformation of the Air Force.

This passage seems difficult to understand, but to put it bluntly, the attacking side of strategic bombing will pay more than the defending side in the presence of the opposing air force, and a fighter jet worth $50,000 can shoot down a bomber worth more than $170,000! The other side has the home advantage, they have radar, a complete base system, and anti-aircraft artillery positions, and if the pilot falls to the ground, he can go back and continue to fly the plane if he pats his ass and does not fall. Although radar and other things also cost money, they are really cheap compared to strategic bombers that burn more than 100,000 dollars in minutes! If strategic bombing is likened to doing business, the two sides compete for a piece of the market together. You start with a loss-making strategy to wear down your opponents, and you're definitely losing money at this stage. Only when your capital is enough, after defeating the other party, you can occupy the entire market and then the winner takes all, and the previous losses are earned back, if your strength is not enough, then it must be you who will be dragged to death!

If Xu Jie could hear Richthofen's words, he would definitely give him 100 likes! This guy is so self-aware! His inference is exactly the same as that of Xu Jie, a traverser in later generations. In the case of World War II, strategic bombing is only useful if it is crushed by strength, otherwise, it will be ruined! If you don't believe it, you can take a look at the strategic bombing of World War 2 in history. The total volume of the Luftwaffe was much inferior to that of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union. Moreover, it must fight each other on three separate battlefields, namely the Eastern Front, Western Europe, and the Mediterranean. (Well, some say that the US imperialism is also at war with the Japanese in the Pacific, but to be honest, only from the point of view of air power, the lion's share of US air power is in Europe, except after 45 years.) In terms of production capacity, Germany's peak air force in '44 should be on the same level as Britain's peak production capacity, although Germany built 39,000 aircraft in '44, and the UK only had 26,000 aircraft at its peak. But in terms of gold content, the British must be higher, after all, the number of Lancaster and Halifax is there!

In terms of overall air power, the air power and production capacity of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union are at least three times more than that of Germany! But what is the result? It took more than 3 years for the tripartite air forces of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union to completely destroy the Luftwaffe! Forty-four years ago, the British Air Force was more productive than the German (mourning for the tragic German mobilization), but the impact of the British Air Force's strategic bombing was not too great. There was a successful record of bombing Dresden, but at the same time there was a failed record of British strategic bomber units being violently beaten. If you simply look at the battle damage table, it may not seem like much to lose a dozen planes by more than 150 bombers at a time, but don't forget, this is only a battle loss, and according to this ratio, these bombers will be lost in less than 10 attacks! Strategic bombing is an ongoing process, not just one bombing!

Even after the US imperialists' Eighth Air Force joined the sequence of strategic bombing, after fighting for a whole year in 43 years and throwing away thousands of strategic bombers and other aircraft, the Germans were still not defeated! Only at the beginning of 44 years, the Allies launched a 4-month heavy bombardment, and it is said that after 43 years of see-saw attrition, the German air defense capability should have failed. But in fact, in the air raid of March 24, 1944, 72 of the 726 bombers bombed Berlin were lost, and nearly 10% of the bombers never returned to base! And from a macro point of view, the manufacturing cost of more than 20,000 bombers of various types lost by the United States and Britain is not lower than the estimated production capacity of all aircraft in German history! This shows how costly strategic bombing is. Another reason for the collapse of the Luftwaffe in 44 was the appearance of a large number of P51D and P47 fighters, the addition of long-distance escort fighters and the large-scale and planned development of sweeping operations, which finally collapsed the Luftwaffe!

According to Xu Jie's opinion, the German industrial power in this plane is there, and the production capacity and technology are much stronger than in history, but it is estimated that it is impossible to make the British succumb by strategic bombing! The capabilities of the British Air Force are much stronger than those of the historical German air defense on the Western Front! If Lancaster were replaced with Spitfire and Mosquitoes, combined with ground air defense, the defense would be unimaginable. By the way, if it is the local air defense, then the Meteor jet fighter can also play. Meteor hit HE177 is definitely a very wonderful thing! Moreover, what is more critical is that the Germans lack an escort fighter as good as the P47 and P51 to reduce the losses of strategic bombers, and the Luftwaffe, whose system itself is not sound enough, will be more passive in the face of the British defense and control system, so it is in the best interests of China if the Germans continue to concentrate on strategic bombing. And now, Richthofen's decision put the Luftwaffe back on track!

The Luftwaffe did not possess the ability to overwhelm the adversary through continuous strategic bombing, but it still had the ability to strike at key targets in depth, which, while not overwhelming, would still have a serious impact on the operation of the opponent's war machine for a period of time. Richthofen stressed that the air force's in-depth strikes should be based on the objectives of the campaign, such as the imminent German attack on France. The task of the Luftwaffe was to destroy the airfields and various military installations in depth in France to pave the way for an imminent attack by the army, and then, when Britain and the United States prepared to support France, the Luftwaffe focused on ports and important lines of communication that the other side was most likely to use. Realize battlefield shielding and limit the recovery of magic power. The core of all strike targets is to cooperate with the army to quickly occupy the country, and the entire direction of the attack has changed from destroying the enemy's war foundation to an operational concept that focuses on military objectives and cooperates with other arms.

This concept is relatively close to the concept of the Luftwaffe during the 2nd war, the only difference is that the strength of the Luftwaffe has increased, and the service of strategic bombers has given the Germans a more powerful strike force and attack range. After repeated study, the Germans also believed that in order to ensure the smooth progress of strategic bombing, fighter units needed to play a greater role, and in Richthofen's view, escort was not just about following the bombers out for a walk and driving them away when the opposing fighters came up. Such a defense is too conservative! Richthofen demanded that fighter units must be deployed at the front line, and in addition to accompanying escorts, they also need to take the initiative to cruise in the opponent's airspace to attack the opponent's fighter units. Regardless of whether strategic bombing is carried out or not, fighter units must suppress the air force at the front of the battlefield at all times.

As the saying goes, sooner or later you have to pay it back, today the griffins of the Germans can bomb others, and tomorrow the strategic bombers of Britain, the United States, China and other countries can bomb themselves! Richthofen needed to re-strengthen its own air defense capabilities, especially after seeing the excellent range of the Chinese Cascha Falcon and Flying Fox fighters, Richthofen realized that the Entente's strategic bombing would be more lethal because their strategic bombers could get fighter cover. However, to Richthofen's relief, the new FW190 fighter performed very well, in the first day of the Monsoon operation, none of the FW190 was shot down by the opponent, and the only loss was due to the crash caused by the engine overheating when returning, but fortunately people were fine. Expectations for the new aircraft were still high in the Luftwaffe, and in the eyes of the Germans it was almost all-round. The large range (compared to the BF109 and Spitfire), fierce firepower, good hard indicators and strong payload capacity made the FW190 the first all-round single-engine aircraft in the Luftwaffe! According to the Germans, this aircraft can take on almost all tasks such as anti-air, ground-to-ground bombing and as a heavy interceptor!

In order to cope with the night bombing and the Mosquito twin-engine night combat aircraft that caused the Germans to suffer repeatedly, the HE219 Owl twin-engine night combat aircraft/bomber developed by the Luftwaffe has completed flight tests, and this high-speed night combat aircraft is almost the fastest flying aircraft in the Luftwaffe equipped with radar. They were given the number of owls, in the hope that these guys would keep the skies of the Second Empire safe. The DO335 interceptor, a true high-speed fighter, was also about to be tested, and the Germans abandoned the plan to place a built-in magazine capable of holding 500KG of bombs on the aircraft, and appropriately reduced the fuel. Although the weight is still more important than the average twin-engine fighter, but compared with the history has been a lot lighter, this aircraft firepower is fierce, the speed is also very fast, in addition to the climb is more sad, as an interceptor is quite good, the larger fuel volume allows him to stand by in the air in advance, without waiting for the other party to come like the BF109 fighter before taking off and climbing.

And in addition to propeller aircraft, jet aircraft for the Germans were also developed very quickly. THE FIRST JUMO004 ENGINE WITH A THRUST OF 900 KG (JUST TO PARAPHRASE THE HISTORICAL NUMBER) HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED, AND THE ESTIMATED SERVICE LIFE IS ABOUT 70 HOURS, WHICH IS MUCH STRONGER THAN THE HISTORICAL ENGINE WITH AN ESTIMATED LIFE OF 50 HOURS AND EVEN 25 HOURS, AND THE FIRST JET OF THE GERMANS LOOKED MORE LIKE A METEOR WITH A SWEPT WING THAN AN ME262.

After some preparations, the Luftwaffe strategic and tactical system underwent great changes, and this change had an extremely far-reaching impact on future wars. The Germans have become more pragmatic and more terrible! They performed very well in the air battles at the beginning of World War 2. Restricted strategic bombing allowed the Germans to put effective forces where they were needed most, and the carefully crafted prevention and control system also allowed the U.S. and British strategic air forces to leave more blood than in history! This is a matter of no further aside.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward~~~, as well as the book friend anhei016 and Demani's monthly pass support ~~~~. (To be continued.) )