The Rise of the Third Reich

Since the empty weight of the Me264 bomber is much lighter than that of the B-29, the engines used by the two belong to the same level, both are 18-cylinder air-cooled engines with turbochargers. Therefore, the Me264, which has an empty weight of nearly 10 tons, can fly higher and faster than the B-29 after dropping the "Silver Death" jet. Therefore, Commander Genda can witness the battle between the "Silver Death" and the B-29 at an extremely high altitude of 11,500 meters.

Through a 6x military telescope, Genda Minoru clearly saw two "Silver Reapers" forming a two-plane formation. First, they chased behind the US military's B-29 fleet at an altitude of about 10,000 meters and continued to accelerate (the current jets The engine has a problem of slow acceleration). After flying for about 3 minutes, the two "Silver Reapers" had already flown at a speed of about 800 kilometers per hour. It was like two silver falcons flying across the sky and pounced on one of them. The Me264 is also a huge American heavy bomber.

"It's going to be doomed!" Genda Minoru said to himself. According to his experience, the four 20mm cannons of two "Silver Reapers" firing together are enough to defeat a Me2e264. It is not a sturdy aircraft, and its firepower is not strong. In these two aspects, it is simply not as good as the Japanese's own " "Swallowing Dragon", "Flying Dragon" and "Galaxy", its strengths are flying high and fast, it can avoid anti-aircraft firepower on the ground and water, and it can also be out of reach of enemy fighter jets.

Therefore, after Genda Minoru and most of the Japanese aviation commanders heard that the United States had a B-29 similar to the Me264, they all took it for granted that the B-29, like the Me264, was a thin-skinned and large aircraft.

According to Genda Minoru's estimate (refer to the Me264 for estimation), using 40 "Silver Reapers" to intercept them, it only takes one attack to ensure the downing of 20 American B-29s. If you include the Army's "Jiebi" fighter jets and As for the results of ground anti-aircraft artillery, there is no problem in achieving 40-50 kills in the first battle against B-29s. Even if the Americans dispatch 150 B-29s at a time, they will suffer a damage rate of more than 30%.

This is definitely an unbearable loss for the bombing aviation!

But when the two "Silver Reapers" that passed over the B-29 at high speed opened fire violently, Minoru Genda was shocked.

Two of the four tongues of fire clearly hit the fuselage of the big and stupid-looking B-29, opening several large holes in an instant. But the B-29 seemed to be fine, and continued to fly forward swaggeringly.

"Baga, it didn't come down. It's too strong..." Genda Minoru was so shocked that his jaw almost dropped.

He quickly moved the telescope left and right, trying to see if other B-29s had been shot down. It turned out that the B-29 fleet in the sky was still stacked in layers and mighty. Although there were two planes dragging black smoke forward, they did not seem to be about to fall.

The attack of 40 "Silver Reapers" just now may have shot down one or two B-29s, and damaged several others. But compared to the huge fleet, that loss is simply insignificant.

Genda Minoru's face turned pale because the "Silver Death"'s interception was over!

Although the "Silver Death"'s high-altitude performance and speed are enough to deal with the B-29. But it is not a real fighter. It has no air combat flaps. The two 20mm cannons have too little ammunition and can only support one round of violent shooting. Moreover, the endurance of the "Silver Death" is very short, only 300 kilometers, which is not enough to support the aircraft in long-term operations. After completing an interception operation, they must fly back to the Singapore base.

After the Japanese Army's Type III "Feiyan" and the Japanese Navy's "Silver Reaper" failed to intercept one after another, the only weapons that can protect the Palembang Oilfield are the Taisho 11-type 75mm anti-aircraft gun and the Type 88 75mm anti-aircraft gun. , Taisho 14-year-old 105mm anti-aircraft guns and Type III 120mm anti-aircraft guns.

Although the army deployed a powerful anti-aircraft division (the 5th anti-aircraft division) around the Palembang oil field, it also deployed more than two hundred 75mm, 105mm and 120mm (including only 36 three-type 120mm anti-aircraft guns).

But as a Japanese naval aviation warfare expert, Genda Minoru certainly knew how poorly medium and large-caliber anti-aircraft guns performed in actual combat. Unless equipped with sufficiently sophisticated fire control radars and radio proximity fuses, these anti-aircraft guns will not pose any threat to targets around 10,000 meters away.

The Palembang Oilfield is going to be hit by a lot of bombs now!

…

On June 5, 1944, at 10:20 am, 133 B-29 Super Fortress bombers had already flown over Palembang. Contrary to the original imagination of the Japanese, these American aircraft with excellent high-altitude performance did not drop bombs from an extremely high altitude of 10,000 meters. Instead, they circled and descended to a medium-high altitude of less than 5,000 meters before starting to drop a series of bombs.

The Japanese anti-aircraft artillery positions had already begun to counterattack. All the anti-aircraft guns were spitting out tongues of fire and shooting countless black smoke balls in the sky. However, the American bombers directly ignored the shrapnel fired by the Japanese anti-aircraft guns and passed through these black smoke balls, dropping strings of bombs and solidified bombs while circling.

Looking out from the cab of the "Valsburg Mountain" on the Musi River, along the east coast of the Musi River, where there are many oil production derricks, a burst of fiery red light suddenly rolled past. Immediately, large tracts of land were enveloped, and then there were thunderous sounds, then hot waves came out through the open windows of the cockpit, and finally, the fire was burning everywhere.

The intensity of the fire was unimaginable, and it spread all at once, igniting everything. At first, it was still burning one by one, but in a blink of an eye, the fire on the east bank of the Musi River burned into a large area, and there was a "boom, boom, boom" sound, as if the earth was also burned miserably by this sudden fire from the sky. cried.

Major Knopmann, who participated in the First World War, had seen many scenes of artillery bombardment, but he had never seen such a scene that seemed like fire from the sky. Major Knopman didn't think that ordinary explosives could produce such an effect. This was not even a fire caused by incendiary bombs (it was actually solidified ****). Could it be that the incendiary bombs dropped by American planes happened by chance? Did it ignite the light oil stored in the Palembang oil field?

Major Knopmann thought to himself: The Japanese are too careless...

At this time, another string of bombs fell from the sky with a harsh whistling sound. The target of this bombing was the Palembang city and oil refinery to the west of the Musi River - the so-called Palembang oil field is actually the general name of a series of oil production areas in the upstream and downstream areas along the Musi River near Palembang, which had just been dropped by American bombers The solidification fire burned only an oil production area. All the extracted oil will be sent to Palembang's refineries and oil storage facilities by pipelines for processing and storage, and finally transported away through Palembang Terminal.

Therefore, it is more difficult to destroy scattered oil fields, which require repeated air strikes, but it is very easy to blow up centralized oil refining and storage facilities. Therefore, in the American bombing plan, Palembang's oil refinery, oil storage facilities, and an oil production area near Palembang City were the first targets to be blown up.

The cargo ship "Valsburg Mountain" was relatively close to the oil refinery in Palembang, so the violent explosion of solidified liquid immediately gave the crew a feeling of earth-shattering. Moreover, the air waves hitting the ship were even hotter. Every exposed crew member felt as if they were in a furnace. The hot smoke filled their respiratory tracts and lungs, making them breathless.

"Major," the first mate of the Valsburg Mountain shouted at Major Knopmann at this time, "we have to get out of here...or we will be burned by the damn fire."

Major Knopman suddenly reacted and shouted: "Camera, get the camera quickly... take pictures of the scene outside, they will need these photos."

"Yes, Major!" The second officer of the ship was also an old German navy man, but his legs and feet were still nimble. He responded and ran off to get his Leica camera from somewhere.

"Weigh anchor! Let's get out of here first." Major Knopman then gave the order to the first mate to lift anchor and leave. He was quite lucky. Just before the boiler went out, the air raid siren sounded. Therefore, Major Knopmann did not give the order to shut down the boiler. Now the freighter can start at any time and drive to the lower reaches of the Musi River to avoid the terrible fire and air raids.

Genda Minoru, commander of the 343rd Air Force of the Japanese Navy, was also witnessing the fire in Palembang at this time. The Me264 he was riding was at an altitude of seven or eight kilometers near Palembang. Through the cabin cover on the head of the aircraft, he could see the fire below. The scene of the fire and the American planes flying through the smoke from the anti-aircraft guns without fear could be clearly seen.

Obviously, everyone underestimated the power of the B-29... No, it should be that they underestimated the strength of the United States!

This opponent is on the same level as the European Community. Compared with Japan's strength, it is completely on a par with the world.

In the past, Japan was struggling to cope with just using submarines, mines and destroyers (including aircraft carriers). Now that the B-29 is added to the mix, can Japan continue to fight like this?

It seems that we should just give up and make peace with the United States, and then sit back and watch the life-and-death fight between the United States and Europe...