Munitions Empire

Chapter 578: 537 Artery

As the first rays of dawn touched the airstrip, Tang Army fighter pilots rushed out of their barracks at the sound of command after command.

The ground crew had long been prepared; they had inspected the airplanes before daybreak, aided by the lights of floodlamps.

This time, every FW-190 fighter that took off had two 250-kilogram bombs mounted beneath its fuselage; their mission was to completely paralyze the target they had forgotten the day before.

Soon, the engines of these planes began to roar, propellers spinning rapidly, the leading aircraft already aligning its nose with the runway.

The first FW-190 fighter screamed down the runway and soared into the sky, followed closely by the second and third.

All the planes formed up in the sky and then majestically advanced toward the distant Qi Army defenses.

The Qi Army ground troops, having just woken up, were stunned; they had barely risen from their beds when they saw the scene that had terrorized them the day before.

Dozens of planes swarmed over their heads, each with the telltale “cross” of their engines roaring as they raced past their location.

Everyone silently prayed that these planes wouldn’t suddenly lower their altitude and circle back to their position.

Thankfully, it seemed their prayers had been effective. Those Tang Army planes, emanating a killing intent so early in the morning, apparently had no intention of attacking their position.

Whizzing toward the horizon, the planes disappeared from view, to the quiet relief of all in the Qi Army.

"Those damn guys… where are they off to bomb now?” a Qi Country soldier said, clutching his weapon with a shaking heart.

"Why bother about that,” another Qi Country soldier spoke up, “As long as they’re not bombing us, let them go bomb wherever they want.”

"Don’t worry; I heard our main forces are preparing a counterattack. The Tang Army is going to be finished soon!” the squad leader of the Qi Country position confidently reassured his subordinates as he watched the Tang Army planes growing distant.

…

Some were lucky, others were about to face misfortune. Behind the Qi Country positions, an airship had just dropped its ropes and begun to lower its altitude.

Clearly, the previous night’s attack hadn’t been successful, so the returning airship was landing cautiously. It carried a large amount of ammunition and had a significant volume of hydrogen in its canopy, making it extremely fragile and dangerous.

The ordeal of landing such a contraption was quite troublesome, often taking more than 40 minutes for an airship to descend.

The good news was that much of the hydrogen had already been released, as the airship needed to lower its altitude and gradually dock next to a specially constructed building in coordination with the ground crew.

Inside the building, there were machines for generating hydrogen and stacks of raw materials, with a power plant and munitions depot nearby.

In short, this was a very complex and specialized “dock,” an essential base that had to be constructed for the use of airships.

At this moment, the entire base was a hive of activity. Even though the airship had returned ahead of schedule, it still took a substantial amount of time to process the return of these huge vessels.

During the bustle, a sentry post deployed around the outskirts of the airship caught sight of Tang Army planes that had already sped across the sky.

To maximize the potential for deep strikes into enemy territory, airship bases were often built very close to the front lines. In fact, this base was less than 60 kilometers from the main Qi Army defenses.

Adding the distance between the Tang Army airfield and the defenses, along with the skewed flight path, the actual distance between the two sides was only about 150 kilometers or so.

The high speed of the FW-190 fighters meant that covering 150 kilometers would take less than 20 minutes. In truth, the Qi Army could hardly react before the Tang Army planes were practically upon them.

"Is that? Tang Army planes?” The previous attack had spread the word about planes throughout the Qi military force, with those who had seen them and those who hadn’t now discussing this impressive piece of war equipment.

"Enemy raid! Enemy raid!” another Qi Army soldier began shouting loudly, alerting his comrades to get ready for combat.

But as he turned his head, a scene of despair filled his vision: The huge airship was still hovering in midair, its ropes dangling and swaying.

The vulnerable factory was completely exposed, its roof even deliberately painted bright red to avoid collisions during the airship’s descent.

No joke, apart from a few anti-aircraft and anti-balloon guns, and some machine guns from the ground alert troops, there was next to no combat power here at all!

"Quick! Get the machine gun positions ready!” The duty officer of the Qi Army, already in despair, hastily ran over and shouted the orders as he arrived.

Just at that moment, the Tang Army’s fighters had already swooped down, simultaneously adjusting their formation, diving one by one toward their target.

"It’s over… it’s all over The Qi Country officer murmured to himself, looking up at the enemy planes in the sky with no thought of struggle left.

…

In the sky, inside the cramped cockpit of the fighter plane, the Tang Army pilot steeply banked and surveyed the targets on the ground.

He saw the bright red roofs and the slender white airships that seemed to be docked along the quay.

So, without hesitation, he began his attack, then reminded his wingman via radio to follow his lead: “I’m starting my dive bombing! I’m starting my dive bombing! Follow me! Watch for ground fire! You handle the suppression!”

"Wingman understood!” came the response over the headset, and then the two planes swung their noses down, diving toward the ground: “I’m following you! Watch your altitude!”

In a flash, the two planes had found their targets. They pulled the bomb release at a critical low altitude, and two 250kg bombs detached from their racks, carried by momentum toward the ground targets.

Ground fire rang out in response, but sadly, the 76mm caliber anti-balloon gun shells couldn’t keep up with the planes and were lost in the distance.

If at this time a plane were shot down by a 76mm caliber anti-balloon gun, it wouldn’t be because the enemy’s gunnery was superior, but rather a stroke of extreme misfortune for the pilot.

"Machine guns! Machine guns! Someone’s strafing!” shouted the lead bomber pilot as he pulled up, warning his wingman.

He had just seen the enemy’s tracer bullets, a dense swarm streaking across the sky, creating some trouble for the dive-bombing FW-190 fighter squadron.

To speak frankly, the FW-190 fighter actually didn’t perform very well at low altitudes. The pilots were trained primarily in air combat, and ground attack was only a makeshift role for them. Therefore, most FW-190 pilots were reluctant to linger at low altitudes.

So when machine gun fire came their way, most pilots would immediately pull up to change their flight path, avoid the attack, and quickly regain altitude.

In terms of anti-air defenses, ten defenses might be in vain nine times. The existence of ground fixed anti-air firepower was mainly to force the attacking enemy planes to abandon their targets, thereby preserving the strategic targets they were ordered to protect.

Put plainly, the purpose of anti-air firepower is not so much to shoot down enemy planes as to disrupt them, preventing them from hitting their targets.

As long as airfields, factories, and bridges were preserved… the anti-aircraft guns could claim victory, regardless of how many enemy planes were shot down.

Therefore, judging from the results, the few machine guns hastily deployed on the periphery by the Qi Army as temporary anti-aircraft defenses did manage to somewhat disrupt the Tang Army’s bombing.

Unfortunately, these peripheral anti-aircraft machine guns were too far away and didn’t provide real coverage over the airship base, so their effect was extremely limited.

After locating, or probing for the locations of these few machine guns, the Tang Army fighter squadrons began to skirt around these fixed points of fire and continued to attack the conspicuous airship base.

By this time, the first bombs dropped had already reached the airships and the airship base, exploding on impact and destroying everything around them.

The massive explosions instantly brought down the already not-so-sturdy, and never intended-to-be-sturdy workshop buildings, crushing the machinery inside completely under the rubble.

This was just a temporary frontline airship base—inflating airships and performing minor repairs were its primary functions. Shireck didn’t have time to build sturdy structures here, nor did he have any emergency repair plans.

After the first explosion tore off the roof, everyone in the vicinity from Qi Country knew they were done for, that this place was about to become a living hell.

As expected, a second bomb hit an airship just outside the workshop, causing it to burst into flames instantly, becoming a massive fireball.

In the interest of cost-saving and mass production, Shireck’s choice to use hydrogen instead of helium to fill the airships proved fatal as the airship detonated almost instantaneously, destroying the entire base.

The following FW-190 fighter pilots were completely taken aback, realizing that the explosives were so intense that they could no longer find a path to continue their dive bombing.

Flames engulfed everything, explosions occurred everywhere, and burning updrafts swirled about. The air currents near the airship base were now too unstable, causing the planes to tremble violently each time they approached due to the churning air.

It’s no exaggeration—the pilots of the planes that had just dive-bombed suspected they had hit a giant ammunition depot. The continuous explosions beneath them had become a vast fearsome spectacle.

That feeling was like plunging a knife into a major artery; blood gushing uncontrollably, not only taking the life of the adversary but also terrifying the criminal wielding the knife…

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