The sea view of the English Channel is so beautiful that it can cleanse the soul. The sun rises in the eastern sky, casting a golden glow on the blue sea. The rumble of gunfire is heard from the direction of Dunkirk, and the smoke is mixed with flames rising to the sky. It appears and disappears in the distant sky.
More and more warships and civilian ships appeared on the sea. Some were sailing to Dunkirk, with sailors on board; some were withdrawing troops from Dunkirk overnight and returned to the British mainland, with soldiers on board.
People looked up into the sky and watched the three fighter jets chasing, rolling, and fighting at mid- and high-altitudes with their trailing water-like contrails. Tracer bullets were flying horizontally against the blue-white background, which made people feel extremely thrilling.
"That was one of our Spitfires against two Messerschmitts."
The owner of a large cargo ship departing from the British mainland to Dunkirk to assist in the evacuation stood on the bow of the ship, waving his fists and shouting. Next to him were his introverted, timid and cowardly 14-year-old son and Several sailors disguised their cargo ship as a fishing boat before going to sea to avoid German bombing.
"You know, Mike?" A sailor in his forties looked at three fighter jets chasing each other in the sky, clenching his fists nervously and saying, "I almost couldn't go to sea with you."
The captain, named Mike, stared at the battle in the air and casually asked his companion: "Why?"
"Just yesterday I went to Air Service and some stupid Air Service officers refused to let me become an RAF pilot because they said I was a little older."
"Slightly older? Come on, you're almost fifty." Mike said, "I would have rejected you, Fleck."
"Hell, Mike, I'm certified in a glider and I've flown a trainer aircraft."
"But you're too old, Fleck. Look at your big belly. You can't even fit in the Spitfire's cockpit... Oh, damn it, Fleck... This Spitfire actually competed with the Messerschmitt in climbing... "
Fleck didn't seem to hear the ridicule of his old friend, and he clenched his fists tighter: "Hell, doesn't the Spitfire know that Messerschmitt's climbing ability is unparalleled?"
Mike shouted anxiously: "This Spitfire may be a rookie. Not only did he climb up, but he climbed almost vertically... Damn it... This is Messerschmitt's specialty... Sure enough, the German guy followed up. .”
The 14-year-old boy stood aside, looking up into the sky with wide eyes, constantly picking at his fingernails, raising and lowering his toes, putting them down and raising them again... His face was full of anticipation and nervousness.
Fleck, who had a flight record, shouted anxiously: "The Spitfire's climb is getting slower and slower, and the speed of the two Messerschmitts behind them has barely dropped... They are slowly catching up... God... the Spitfire will not stop... He was about to be overtaken after he recovered... Sure enough, the Spitfire recovered first, which was very detrimental to him... Was he going to fight two Messerschmitts at high altitude or was he going to dive to escape... There was no way. The Spitfire could only dive... The Spitfire dived... One of the Messerschmitts was the first to recover, and it also dived, like a cannonball, hitting the sea vertically... The other Messerschmitt Mitt also swooped down, come on Spitfire... God... Spitfire is about to be caught up by the Germans..."
At this moment, everyone on the ships looked up to the sky, especially the soldiers on several warships. They knew that once the Spitfire was defeated, the two Messerschmitts would launch an attack on the Allied warships on the sea. attack.
They have suffered so much from Messerschmitts and He111 bombers these days, and they have also seen that in the skies above Dunkirk, the Allied forces lost more battles against Messerschmitts and won less, but now the jets Fire is one against two, with almost no chance of victory. Everyone knows that Messerschmitt's diving attack is invincible.
Many of these soldiers witnessed the heavy casualties suffered by the Allied air forces under Messerschmitt's attack in what was codenamed "Operation Meuse".
Just at the beginning of this month, the German army blitzed Belgium and the Netherlands. On the 12th of this month, when the German armored forces launched a blitzkrieg, they quickly penetrated into the soft underbelly of the Allies - the road leading to the English Channel, trying to seal off the Allies. retreat.
In order to stop the momentum of the German blitzkrieg, the Allies sent the air force to carry out a code-named "Operation Meuse" to bomb the bridge over the Meuse River near Sedan, hoping to curb the momentum of the German blitzkrieg.
As a result, the German Air Force and the Allied Air Force launched a fierce air battle in the air above the bridge over the Meuse River.
The Allies sent their strongest fighter jets, the Spitfire and the Hurricane.
The German Messerschmitt finally had the opportunity to sharpen its fangs and claws with spitfire and hurricane force.
After two days of fierce fighting, the Luftwaffe defeated the British and French forces' attempt to blow up the bridge over the Meuse River.
In this heavy air battle between the two sides, the Bf109 shot down at least 89 Allied fighter jets, more than half of which were Spitfires and Hurricanes, as well as a small number of Dauntless fighters and Blenheim bombers.
From then on, Messerschmitt's reputation began to spread far and wide. All Allied pilots knew that Messerschmitt's dive attack and vertical climb capabilities were almost incomprehensible, but no one could find a way to contain Messerschmitt. Special dive attack method.
Because in air combat, diving and pulling up are the most intuitive combat capabilities of a fighter jet, so much so that there is a popular saying among the Allied air forces: Don't use Emily more than climbing and diving, because it is the devil.
The nickname of the Messerschmitt Bf109 test machine E1 is Emily.
So at this time, when people saw a Spitfire and two Messerschmitts entering climbing combat, they all knew that the Spitfire was over.
Just now, when the energy of the Spitfire's upward climb was almost exhausted, the experienced Zhou Zhihan suddenly felt that the 1030-horsepower "Merlin III" engine equipped with the Spitfire was showing signs of suffocation, and he immediately pulled out.
Zhou Zhihan used to fly a Spitfire with a "Roto" variable-pitch fixed-speed propeller in [Air Overlord], but the Spitfire he flew still had a two-speed propeller. When it just climbed to a certain altitude, the engine stopped. There are signs of stalling. If you cannot predict it in advance, the engine will stall and you will be killed by the opponent in an instant.
During the August 14 air battle in 1937, the ace pilot Zhan Huo of the Chinese Air Force was shot down by Shichiro Yamashita and died because his engine stalled while climbing to high altitude.
Zhou Zhihan knows that the reason why Messerschmitt is so good at climbing is that the DB601 engine installed in the Bf109E relies on a direct fuel injection device to continuously provide full power during large overload maneuvers, while the Spitfire engine uses Ordinary carburetors cannot deliver enough fuel, causing stalling or even parking. When this phenomenon occurs, Zhou Zhihan immediately used a half-tumble to avoid and solve the problem of insufficient fuel supply.
Zhou Zhihan has long known the advantages and disadvantages of these two fighters, and also knows the reasons, but he cannot say that he can only put forward the advantages and disadvantages of these two fighters and improve them based on the experience gained after actual combat. Spitfire's shortcomings, while finding ways to restrict Messerschmitt.
Therefore, before the "Merlin III" was about to suffocate, the S703 Spitfire was the first to recover. After a rollover to solve the problem of insufficient engine fuel supply, it quickly entered a dive, and the two Messerschmitts immediately followed.
Sergeant Paul Kohler's Messerschmitt quickly recovered from Lieutenant Carl Ebichhausen. It was the first to recover and entered a diving attack posture. Three fighter planes jumped from the sky, leaving behind three white condensed contrails, like A landscape painting hanging in the blue sky soaks in rhyme and stretches on the paper, becoming more and more delicate and enchanting...
The screeching sound of propellers and the sound of wind could be heard in my ears. The three fighter jets dived down from an altitude of 8,600 meters, getting faster and faster. When the Spitfire entered an altitude of 4,000 meters, the ordinary carburetor it was equipped with could not deliver enough fuel. The signs of stalling or even stopping appear again.
Zhou Zhihan retracted the throttle valve slightly to eliminate the hidden danger of insufficient oil supply to the carburetor. From the reflector, he saw the Messerschmitt's yellow nose and the blue quenched muzzle getting closer and closer.
When the fire-breathing brown back of the machine appeared in the center of the circle of the Levi C/12D sight, Staff Sergeant Paul Kohler was so excited that he pressed the button of the 20mm cannon without hesitation, and two brutal bullet trails were drawn. Reach out and directly harvest the hearts of all the people on the sea.
"No………"
Mike on the fishing boat roared and waved his fist, slamming it on the railing of the boat, unable to bear to look up.
"Damn Germans..."
Fleck covered his face with his hands, lowered his head and shook in frustration.
"It's over..."
"It's over... the fire breathing is over..."
Mike and Fleck closed their eyes almost at the same time, shook their heads and sighed. After a few seconds, a violent explosion sounded in the air.
"Oh yeah……"
The 14-year-old boy who had been silent and biting his fingernails suddenly jumped up crazily, roaring and waving his fists, "Kill it, finish it... oh ho... ho..."
The two old men looked angrily at the 14-year-old boy waving his fists and shouting loudly to vent his inner excitement. If it weren't for the fact that this boy was still young and ignorant, and was naturally timid and weak-tempered, he would have shouted out loudly.
"The Spitfire took out the Germans!"
The boy roared loudly. At this moment, he was no longer timid and kept shaking his fists.
"What?"
The two old men looked up.
A Messerschmitt exploded in the air, its flaming wreckage falling, and a German pilot hanging from a white parachute kept praying not to crash into a British troop transport.
The Spitfire with the serial number S703 was fighting with another Messerschmitt two thousand meters above the sea level. Surprisingly, this time the Spitfire bit the Messerschmitt.
This reversal is too great.
"Oh! God! What happened just now, what did I miss? Damn, damn..."
Mike and Fleck began to feel annoyed and looked at the 14-year-old boy with apologetic expressions on their faces.
Just when Messerschmitt opened fire and almost everyone closed their eyes, unable to bear to watch the Spitfire being shot down by Messerschmitt, the S703 Spitfire made a 360-degree nose-up reverse motion one second in advance. A big roll, rolling towards the back of the belly of the Messerschmitt that was firing. After using the rolling maneuver to gain altitude in exchange for distance, the Spitfire quickly recovered and quickly pushed the rudder, causing the aircraft body to drift...
Lieutenant Carl Ebichhausen, who rushed over immediately, watched helplessly as the S703 Spitfire made an incredible drift in the air, and the nose of the aircraft pointed ahead of time at the diving Messerschmitt of Staff Sergeant Paul Kohler. Specially in front of the nose, the shooting advance is completed.
"Whoosh whoosh..."
The eight machine guns of the S703 Spitfire fired simultaneously, starting from the wing and blasting all the way into the right abdomen of the Messerschmitt, hitting the eight millimeter bulletproof armor, the ten millimeter bulletproof armor, the fuel drop tank, the machine gun, the ammunition box, and the wing equalization rod. , liquid cooling radiator, cartridge case discharge groove, rudder trim tab, tail navigation light...
There was a ruckus...
"Boom! Boom boom..."
The auxiliary fuel tank of the hit Messerschmitt began to catch fire and explode. The pilot had just jumped out of the cabin. The entire aircraft disintegrated in the explosion. The fire burned and the body fragments fell one after another.
When he was studying abroad at the Lundol Air Force Academy, Zhou Zhihan flew Spitfires and Messerschmids, and had a general understanding of the performance of these two fighter jets, but he had never had a close PK like today.
After some diving and level flight battles, he had a deeper understanding of the respective advantages and disadvantages of the two fighters.
After entering a low-altitude level flight state, the Spitfire can easily bite Messerschmitt. As long as the opponent does not enter a dive, it can easily eat the opponent. However, if Messerschmitt recovers or slows down during the dive, When performing strenuous maneuvers such as climbing at high speed or extreme angle of attack, it would be difficult for the Spitfire to keep up.
In circling air combat at mid-altitude, the Spitfire has a clear advantage, thanks to its roll rate advantage. The Spitfire can throw off the Messerschmitt by performing a rapid half-roll or a large roll, and change from a rapid roll. At this time, due to the rapid accumulation of speed during the dive, the Messerschmitt's elevator was difficult to control, the fuselage was difficult to recover, and it was immediately bitten by the Spitfire.
However, if the Spitfire pilot is inexperienced or does not dare to roll toward the belly of the Messerschmitt at a large angle because he is afraid of stalling, he will immediately lose the fighter plane and be turned quickly or reversed by the Messerschmitt. Flying bites, which is the main reason why every time Spitfire and Messerschmitt fight, they always fall behind.
If the Spitfire pilot is chased by a Messerschmitt during a dive, he can easily bite the Messerschmitt as long as he dares to make a bold 360-degree roll into the direction of the belly of the Messerschmitt's fuselage.
At this time, most Spitfire pilots were not brave enough, so they lost their fighters and were shot down by the opponent.
Lieutenant Carl Ebichhausen inevitably rushed forward and quickly raised the nose of the aircraft. If he rushed forward again, he would be in danger of falling into the sea. As soon as his Messerschmitt recovered, he found that it had been bitten by the S703 Spitfire. Lived in the posterior hemisphere.
Lieutenant Carl Ebichhausen made two small-angle turns in a row, hoping to get rid of the S703 Spitfire, but he found that his previous efforts were in vain. The S703 Spitfire was like a dexterous eagle. Biting tightly on his rear hemisphere, but strangely, the S703 Spitfire did not fire.
