Erich Rudolph.

If you believe in name divination, it can be said that this lieutenant colonel was born with the Luftwaffe.

Distinguished in the military academy, he joined the Federal Luftwaffe and went through the selection into the 71st Fighter Wing. Since joining the team, Erich has been seen as the new hope of this aerial powerhouse; This is not only because of his superior flying skills, some kind of chengdù, but also because he has the same name as the genius who was the first captain of the wing.

Erich Hartmann, the most shot down pilot in human history. On the eve of the final battle on May 8, 1945, when he won the last shot down, he became an unprecedented super ace in the history of world air combat with an incredible number of 352 aircraft.

As the number one ace, Erich Hartmann's record is naturally unmatched; But since it is under the name of the Red Baron, the 71st Wing, of course, has to tell its own story.

The honor of the JG71 continues from the fame of Manfred von Richthofen during the First World War.

German names, only first names and later surnames; Feng in the middle is not a name, but only a noble birth. This Luftwaffe pilot, who was born in the city of Voloklau in present-day Poland, flew old biplanes and triplanes frequently in World War I when aircraft were not fully used, and successively shot down 80 planes, and was the number one air killer in World War I.

Richthofen, who was dubbed the "Red Baron" by the enemy, usually flew only partially painted red, but at the end of his combat career, he did fly a Fokker Dr. I triplane with a bright red color. The Red Baron, known as a well-known name in both warring countries, was killed in the chest by a bullet fired from the ground on April 21, 1918, while chasing a British destroyer.

As an ace of air combat, this method of death was rather ironic, and seemed to foreshadow the tragic end of the war for the German Empire, which was already in decline.

In the era of World War II, the first fighter wing of the re-formed Luftwaffe JG132 was named after the Red Baron, although the reputation was not as glamorous as the JG52, which later gave birth to the world's number one and second ace pilots, but many Luftwaffe ace pilots were trained in this wing.

After the war, when the Federal Republic of Germany formed its first jet fighter wing, the iconic name of the Luftwaffe, the Red Baron, was once again a natural choice.

Inheriting such a glorious history, Erich Rudolph, the new squadron leader, had to face an unprecedentedly severe operational environment. After finally receiving some supplies from the Americans, the tentative attack with his comrades in the previous few days did make some gains, but the 38th Fighter Squadron also suffered some losses from the fierce counterattack of a large number of Russian fighters.

Evacuated from the western territory, these German elites and their fighters seemed to be motherless children, and even worse, the supply of spare parts and consumables was scarce, which had begun to affect the combat sortie ability of the wing. Relying on foreign support to sustain the war is not a long-term solution; But honor and dignity drove these German air knights, and if they could not take to the skies to fight for their country, it would be even more maddening than death.

However, if there is any hope for weapons and fuel, their landlines are now unsustainable.

Rudolph knew very well in his heart that today, when the Federal Republic of Germany was almost completely occupied, the production plant of Eurofighter in Frankfurt could no longer be counted on, and I am afraid that it would have been overturned by the Soviet mobile forces. As a model jointly developed and manufactured by many countries, the production lines of other countries lack the ability to manufacture the middle section and vertical tail of the fuselage, and even a complete EF2000 cannot be manufactured in a short period of time by relying on such a production state.

Originally, it was a fighter division of labor production system that hoped to promote the development of the aviation industry of various countries and enhance European cooperation, but now it has become an idiot arrangement that loses everything; Faced with the cruel reality that if one plane is lost, one will be reduced, these front-line combatants are quite distressed, but they are also helpless.

Not only that, the AIM-120 advanced air-to-air missile, which was originally planned to be used on the EF2000, has been firmly covered by the Americans although it has been successfully developed, and until now it has not allowed the allied fighters to adapt and improve to have the ability to launch. Without the original design of the active radar-guided missiles, the EF2000 of the wing can only continue to use the AIM-4F/AIM-7M that was in service in the F-7F era.

As for the advanced missiles developed by Europe itself? Now that the war is raging, don't even think about it.

But even then, the German knights would never bow down to any enemy.

Although the Russian tanks had been stationed on German soil for decades, they now had wide track marks in the homes of these knights; The artillery fire in the sky resounded all over the land, and the Russian warplanes painted with red five-pointed stars in the sky obscured the sky......

But to say that a qiē is over?

That's still early.

In the next two or three days, over the European front, which had been caught in a brief tug-of-war, sharp fighters of the "Richthofen" wing began to appear frequently.

Unlike previous sneaky raids and interceptions, the formed EF2000 cruised the northeastern border of France from time to time, and sometimes penetrated deep into the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany to carry out combat missions. In the name of the Red Baron "Richthofen", the 71st Wing, which had just taken over the new fighter planes and was still unskilled, fought in the air, and achieved more than 10 results in a short period of time, most of which were obtained by the 38th Fighter Squadron, which was extremely hard-working.

Such continuous sorties not only achieved considerable results, but even attracted great attention from the Warsaw Pact front-line command.

The information that the opponent put in the new fighters was quickly transferred to the front-line combat units, including the 309 front-line fighter regiment to which Viktor Rezenov belonged. Following the 309th Regiment to move forward and move to Long Yun near Würzburg, Federal Germany, Long Yun was about to make his first contact with the German knights.

Of course, Long Yun and his comrades-in-arms also have their problems.

After experiencing the chaos in the early days of the war, the logistics support and fighter maintenance of the 309th Regiment were not in the best state for a long time; Compared with its simple and sturdy MiG predecessors, the MiG-29, which is equipped with a large number of electronic equipment, is relatively difficult to serve, and the failure rate of fighters at front-line airfields in harsh conditions has gradually increased.

Although these failures are minor problems in electronic equipment, which may not necessarily affect basic flight safety, the impact on the combat effectiveness of fighters is quite fatal. The failure of the seeker of the R-73 before was only a symptom, and the conversation with the mechanic in the hangar coupled with his own observations, Long Yun was keenly aware that after nearly half a month of continuous high-intensity operations, the situation of the fighters in the regiment was no longer optimistic. In other words, he must be mentally prepared for the failure of the weapon system and the use of aerial artillery to fight.

In this way, the two opposing sides, whose stations are less than 300 kilometers away, have no hope of succession on the one hand, and exhaustion on the other; But the exact opposite of these disadvantages is an increasingly fierce desire to fight.

Obviously, this will be a fierce contest like never before.