Captain Shimizu Kazuki can be considered a senior bomber commander. When he led four Type 13 carrier-based bombers of the 3rd Bomber Squadron to take off from the Kaga aircraft carrier, he didn't feel any different from usual.
This mission was nothing complicated. It was about a hundred kilometers deep to bomb the Huangdu Railway Station on the Huangpu River. Intelligence said that a train full of munitions had just entered the station an hour ago.
Shimizu Kazuki thinks this is also a very simple task. In fact, since the war broke out, all aviation tasks have not been challenging. Now the Chinese Air Force basically poses no threat to them. I heard that there were several Chinese Air Force Hawkers in the past few days. -2 fighter jets came to harass them, but were shot down by the Imperial Air Force and injured one each, while the others all ran away.
Hum, how can the performance of the Hawker-2 fighter be compared with the Empire's Type 3-2 carrier-based fighter? Besides, the Chinese can also fly planes?
If he is lucky enough to encounter a Chinese plane today, Shimizu Kazuki believes that the two 7.7 mm caliber machine guns on the nose and tail of the Type 13 carrier-based bomber he is flying will be enough to teach those vulgar Chinese pilots Be a human being.
Although the mission was simple, Shimizu Kazuki was a little excited at the thought of bombing a train full of munitions. He had never bombed an munitions train or an arsenal before, so he must have bombed a 500-kilogram bomb suspended from a Type 13 carrier-based bomber. -With the bullet's presence, the flames on the ground will be unforgettable, right?
The four Type 13 carrier-based bombers led by Shimizu Kazuki are bi-wing carrier-based torpedo/horizontal bombers commissioned by British engineers from Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with a crew of 3 (pilot, bombardier and rear gunner).
In fact, the performance of this aircraft is not very good. The top speed is less than 200 kilometers per hour, which is not as fast as some sports cars of later generations. The key is that it cannot dive bomb, but must first dive to lower the altitude. After approaching the target, the aircraft must be leveled and lowered appropriately. Only speed can ensure the hit rate of bombing. This is the disadvantage of standard bombers in this era.
During World War II, light horizontal bombers were basically replaced by dive bombers, such as Germany's famous Stuka dive bomber, as well as the American SBD Dauntless dive bomber and Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bomber.
Of course, the Type 99 dive bomber of the Japanese Navy in the early days of World War II also performed well, but it is not available now, right?
The Type 13 carrier-based bomber's speed after being loaded with ammunition is only about 150 kilometers per hour. In addition, during horizontal bombing, it needs to reduce its speed a little to ensure the bomb delivery rate. This is when the bomber is most vulnerable to being hit by ground weapons. According to the plan of two air defense experts, Mo Dahai and Wang Zhili, if the Japanese bombers attacked in the direction they guessed, then when they dived and leveled, they would just enter the cross-deployed air defense fire network of two machine gun companies.
Captain Qingshui Heshu didn't know all this. He was still looking at the vast green land under his feet with satisfaction, as well as the snake-like, sparkling Huangpu River.
Seeing that they were approaching their destination, Qingshui Kazuki looked at the dazzling sunshine in front of him. He picked up the microphone and said: "Everyone follow me, fly north first, and then turn south after seeing the railway. Just follow the railway to find the bridge." Start swooping to lose altitude and avoid the damn sun in the west."
"No. 2 understands."
"Three understands."
"Four understands."
The replies from the three planes behind came through the earphones.
It seems that Zhou Wen and others guessed the enemy plane's attack route is correct, but they don't know the main reason. The main reason is because the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway is close to Huangdu Station and there is a railway bridge across the Huangpu River. The Japanese map of Shanghai is better than the Chinese military map. To be more precise, after careful calculation by the Japanese Air Force Command, after seeing the railway bridge with the naked eye, it can start to dive at 45 degrees to lower the altitude. After crossing the bridge, the aircraft will be leveled, just reaching the bombing height at Huangdu Station, and then the bombardier will Can aim and release bombs calmly.
These are all flight and bombing plans that the bombers have made before taking off.
You must know that the aircraft of this era do not have any radar search, let alone a positioning system. Finding targets depends entirely on searching with the naked eye, and sometimes using a telescope to observe, so it is very important to find targets that can be located on the ground during flight, so Huangpu Jianghe Bridge is the only sign to find Huangdu Railway Station.
Since Zhou Wen and the others had guessed the attack route of the Japanese aircraft, the two air defense experts, Mo Dahai and Wang Zhili, would naturally take into account the distance that the Japanese aircraft leveled off after diving in the selection of machine gun positions. This was a professional advantage.
It’s not that they all understand the specific performance of the Japanese Type 13 carrier-based bombers, but almost all biplane bombers in this period have the same attack mode, and there is not much difference in flight speed, including the light bombers currently in service in the Soviet Union.
Qingshui Kazuki has led the team to fly a certain distance north, and the flying altitude of the four bombers is about 800 meters.
At this time, he felt relieved because he saw the railway.
Like his many previous bombing missions, Qingshui Kazuki began to direct the aircraft behind him to follow him around a big bend, and then flew south along the clearly visible railway.
Not long after, they saw the bridge across the Huangpu River from a distance. Qing Shui and Shu looked at the watch on their wrists. It was now 4:47 pm. Because it was winter, the night came early, and there were still two days until dark. For an hour, Qingshui and Shu didn't want to land the ship at dusk, because the sea outside Shanghai sometimes fogged up at dusk and accidents were prone to occur. So the best way was to blow up the target with only one attack, and then sing Returning to the song of victory of the Imperial Navy, he returned to the aircraft carrier before dusk.
If one attack is to be effective, then the three bombers behind him need to be closer to him, and then after he finds the target and drops the bombs, they drop bombs one after another, and when the planes dive to lower their altitude, they need to Keeping the action highly consistent, all four planes fly levelly together.
In addition, in order to ensure the hit rate of bombs, Shimizu and its trees also ordered all aircraft to drop bombs at an altitude of 150 meters and to maintain a speed of about 100 kilometers.
In his opinion, this technical requirement is not difficult for these time-tested Imperial Navy pilots, and there is no safety problem. The few anti-aircraft guns of the Chinese army are still groaning feebly on the Zhabei front line. Look, this place already belongs to the rear of the battlefield. He can't think of any other threats from the ground. Is it just a few tattered light machine guns?
As a result, Kazuki Shimizu's tactic, which usually didn't seem risky, sent him and his third bomber squadron on a journey of death.
