Chapter 208: Bombing Victory Theory

"Long live our emperor! Long live our leader! Long live our empire!"

When the review convoy consisting of 400 Type 2 tanks drove neatly through the Brandenburg Gate, a bomber formation also flew through the air at the same time. The Germans watching the military parade seemed to be intoxicated by the tanks and planes in front of them, and cheered like crazy.

The German Emperor Wilhelm, who was sitting on a temporary reviewing stand under the Brandenburg Gate, also stood up excitedly, raised his right arm and performed the "German Salute" like his people. Adolf Hitler, wearing a brown military uniform, looked even more proud and raised his hands frequently to greet the cheering crowd.

The German and international guests sitting on the viewing stands on both sides also stood up, cheering, applauding or pretending to be excited.

As a member of the British delegation, Lieutenant General Hugh Caswall Dowding even forgot to pretend to be excited. At this time, he was tilting his neck, holding a Leica camera, and taking a series of photos of a four-engine heavy bomber in the sky that he had never seen before.

Today, he actually saw two new four-engine heavy bombers at once! They should be the product of the German Air Force's "new heavy bomber" bidding in 1932. They have been strictly confidential before, and no one has taken a photo. I didn't expect that so many of them would appear at the parade today.

After a series of photos, Lieutenant General Dowding wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and regardless of the cheers of the people around him, he just closed his eyes and began to recall the two new four-engine heavy bombers he had just seen in his mind.

He is a lieutenant general of the Air Force, and he has been a member of the Royal Air Force Committee since 1930. He knows all kinds of aircraft models and technical routes. So he is different from those Germans who get excited when they see big planes. Those are laymen who just see the doorway. But he is an expert and sees the doorway at a glance.

The two "new heavy bombers" of the Germans, if we only look at the range and bomb load, are probably not much better than the J.28H. Just look at their size, these two aircraft can only carry three or four tons of bombs at most.

To the layman, it seems that the Germans spent a lot of money to develop two not-so-advanced aircraft-although there are still many improvements, such as the use of recyclable landing gear, the use of lighter and thinner high-strength aluminum alloys, improved aerodynamic performance, etc., but the progress is not obvious. However, in Hugh Dowding's view, Ju.89 and Do.19 are two very terrible weapons!

Because they use a brand new liquid-cooled engine! Hugh Dowding saw the shape of their engines through the camera lens and knew that both aircraft were equipped with four liquid-cooled engines.

The Germans' technology in this area is not advanced and cannot be compared with their air-cooled engines at all.

According to the information Hugh Dowding has, the stable output horsepower of Germany's best in-line liquid-cooled engine is only around 1,000. And the horsepower of their last air-cooled engine must have exceeded 1,600, and this is the performance indicator of the mass-produced model.

But the Germans used liquid-cooled engines with obviously insufficient horsepower on their bombers. This was definitely not to improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft - the four-engine heavy bomber did not care about the resistance brought by the large air-cooled engine.

So why did they put the air-cooled large displacement and install the smaller horsepower liquid-cooled engine on the bomber?

Is it because the engines of Mercedes-Benz and Yumo can't be sold?

Lieutenant General Hugh Dowding shook his head slightly and whispered a word: "Altitude!"

"Altitude?" British Foreign Secretary Eden and Hugh Dowding were sitting together, and he also tilted his neck to look at the big plane, "It's not flying very high."

"No, the Germans used liquid-cooled engines that they are not good at, for only one purpose..." Hugh Dowding saw another batch of large planes in the sky, picked up the camera and continued to shoot.

He went on to say: "It is high-altitude penetration! The high-altitude performance of air-cooled engines is very poor. In high-altitude environments, the power of air-cooled engines will drop rapidly. Therefore, the J.28H equipped with air-cooled engines can only operate at medium and low altitudes, and our ground firepower can easily shoot it down.

So in actual combat, the J.28H can only take the form of night raids. The accuracy of night bombing is very low. Although it may cause great casualties to civilians, the damage to our military bases and industrial facilities will not be too serious. And these two German bombers are equipped with liquid-cooled engines, which means that they are pursuing the performance of high-altitude penetration and are ready to bomb us during the day!"

The Strategic Deception Bureau of the German General Staff will certainly not tell Hugh Dowding that the German aviation industry is now looking for ways to make air-cooled engines have excellent high-altitude performance, and has found a very effective way, which is to install turbochargers.

Historically, because Germany's non-ferrous metal reserves were insufficient, it could not produce many high-performance high-temperature alloys. Therefore, German aircraft engines cannot withstand too high temperatures, and turbocharging will increase the temperature. Therefore, although Germany has mastered the turbocharging technology, it has not made sufficient investment and accumulation in this area. In the middle and late stages of World War II, British and American aircraft were generally equipped with several superchargers, called "N" stage supercharging, while German aircraft usually only had one stage of supercharging.

In this time and space, Hersman has long started to make strategic reserves of non-ferrous metals. Although it cannot be used as freely as the United States, it is still enough to ensure that some air-cooled engines are equipped with high-performance turbochargers and mechanical superchargers.

The Fokker F.3W700 series is a "verification product" that is equipped with both mechanical superchargers and turbochargers.

However, this BMW700 is very large because it is equipped with a huge supercharger (now only the first generation of products), and it cannot be installed on ordinary fighters-this requires continuous improvement, reducing the size of the turbocharger, and designing a better cooling system (intercooler) to significantly improve performance.

In a sense, the Fokker F.36 also exists only to improve the high-altitude performance of German air-cooled aircraft engines. In fact, the production of this aircraft is not very large, including verification aircraft, bomber type, reconnaissance type (long-range reconnaissance aircraft, ready to be equipped with airborne radar to search for sea targets), transport type, and attack type (ready to be equipped with artillery to bombard ground and surface targets), there are only 90 aircraft.

The 30 Ju.819s that are now showing off their muscles are not all bomber-type, they just look like bombers. After the military parade, except for 10 Ju.819s that will be incorporated into the Condor Legion to bomb cities in Spain, most of the remaining 40 aircraft will be converted into passenger planes and sold...

Because in the plan of the German General Staff, there is no intention to really use thousands of heavy bombers to force Britain and France to surrender. At present, they are developing four-engine heavy bombers precisely to deter the Soviet Union, the "red ally" in the future - the Baku oil field is the target that needs to be considered in the medium term.

Now Hersman just wants to divert the attention of various countries from the German armored forces and tactical aviation by exaggerating the influence of the "bombing victory theory".

"My God, how many four-engine heavy bombers do the Germans have?" Maurice Gamelin, vice chairman of the French Army Senior Military Committee, was also intimidated by the German heavy bombers that covered the sky.

As a top figure in the French military, he had long heard that the "bombing victory theory" was very popular in the German Wehrmacht.

This theory first originated in Italy and was proposed by General Douhet. Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Balbo were very superstitious about this principle. In their view, the air force is the key to the victory or defeat of future wars, and the army is just a show. They cannot be relied on to fight. If a war between major powers really breaks out, the army can only squat in trenches and defense lines to block the enemy-if there are really such stupid enemies who will crash into the solid defense lines!

The real victory or defeat depends on large aircraft bombing cities to decide! Think about beautiful cities like Paris, Lyon, and Reims turned into ruins in cruel air raids. Do the French people still have the courage to resist?

"General, they still have a lot of tanks!" The one who reminded Gamelin in his ear was an unbelievably tall French Army Colonel named Charles de Gaulle. He is a figure from the Weygand and Renault faction (right-wing, fascist, etc.). In today's French Army, he is not very successful, but he is not bad. Because he is considered an expert in mechanized warfare, Gamelin brought him to see the tanks at the German military parade.

Gamelin shook his head, "I saw them, they are all very small, they can't beat our tanks, and it's impossible for them to break through the Maginot Line."

This is also true! Charles de Gaulle's view on these German Type 2 tanks is the same as Gamelin's. They are definitely not the opponents of French tanks, and they can't break through the Maginot Line, which is like a copper wall.

"What is there to worry about?" Gamelin glanced at Charles de Gaulle, who still had a frown on his face. "If they want to bypass the Maginot, we and our British friends can also defeat them with more advanced tanks and artillery. Charles, don't worry... I will support you. The idea of ​​100,000 mechanized professional troops is very good. We need to build such an army."

"100,000 mechanized troops" is a concept of Charles de Gaulle, with a mechanized professional army of about 100,000 people as the main strike force of the French Army. This view was not taken seriously by the French Army at first, but after Germany expanded its military and prepared for war and organized a large number of mechanized troops. The French Army has started its own mechanization process. They have begun to reorganize some infantry divisions into motorized infantry divisions (planning to reorganize 7 divisions), and have also begun to form light mechanized divisions (the first light mechanized division was established in July 1935). They are currently preparing to form a powerful armored force - the reserve armored division (planning to form 3).

"However," Gamelin shook his head, "even if we have 100,000 mechanized professional troops, we can't rely on them to break through the German's 'Siegfried' line." He pointed to the sky, "The war still depends on them, right?"