Chapter 766 Bad Horse vs. Good Horse
The air attack by the German army seemed to be massive and caused a riot in the Soviet army. After a while, the formation of the Soviet army was in a mess, with flames, car parts, corpses and stumps everywhere, but in fact it caused losses to the Soviet army. But very limited.
The reason is that basically all the valuable things of the Soviet army, such as tanks and ammunition vehicles, were parked on the side of the road, and those bombed by the enemy in the middle of the road were actually vehicles used by infantry or artillery to pull artillery.
As for the soldiers who were killed by the bombing... these are hardly considered "losses". As long as the Soviet army needs it, a bunch of soldiers can be pulled up to supplement it at any time.
The German Air Force suffered heavy losses. Eight fighters, thirteen bombers, and twenty-five attack aircraft were destroyed in the battle.
The reason why the "Henschel" attack aircraft has much more casualties than the "Stuka" is because it needs to straf the target at low altitude and close range, and at the same time it needs to slow down to increase the hit rate when strafing or bombing the target.
This will undoubtedly give the Su fighter a good chance to shoot it down.
The Stuka is different. Its way of attacking the target is to dive at a high speed and a large angle. This makes it difficult for Su fighter jets to keep up with it, or it can be said that it requires considerable flying skills. Knocked down.
Of course, the Soviet Air Force also lost more than 30 fighter planes.
Most of these fighter planes were shot down by German fighter planes. In other words, if the battle between Soviet and German fighter planes is really counted, it would be eight to thirty-three, and the battle loss ratio even exceeded 1:4. Usually, the battle damage ratio of one to three points is higher.
The reason for this is because the Soviet Air Force adopted a tactic: not to entangle with German fighter planes, but to find enemy bombers and attack planes.
This is a bit similar to Tian Ji's horse racing tactic of "bad horses against good horses". Fighter planes can't beat others, so they focus on the enemy's weaknesses, especially attack planes.
As a result, the Soviet Air Force exchanged forty-six enemy planes.
The news reached Manstein, and Manstein couldn't help being furious.
"These idiots, don't they know that the enemy will definitely have air cover?" Manstein said: "They should send more fighter escorts!"
The German Air Force did exactly that. In the second wave, fighter planes from two air brigades were sent to escort.
However, the results are still not satisfactory.
Even Manstein found this result a bit inconceivable, why the Luftwaffe could crush the enemy's air force, but the end result was a similar exchange ratio and could not achieve the goal of preventing the enemy from advancing.
The reason is actually very simple, it is because of the previous "bad horse vs good horse" tactic.
The goal of the German Air Force is to attack the ground, but the bombers and attack aircraft on the ground are always suppressed by the Soviet fighters or attack aircraft, so the effect on the ground is not good.
To put it simply, the Soviet army was actually trading aircraft for the safety of the ground troops. They were almost in front of the German fighter planes and aimed their machine guns at the enemy's attack planes regardless of casualties and their own safety.
After going back and forth like this a few times, the Luftwaffe seemed to have learned how to behave. They had two waves of attacks with only fighter planes.
But it also disappointed the German army.
The Soviet Air Force didn’t even pay any attention to such German air strikes... Soviet reconnaissance planes detected a large number of German fighter planes from a long distance, so the Soviet fighter planes stopped taking off.
The German fighter planes had no choice but to use their machine guns to shoot at the Soviet troops on the ground and then walked away.
Fortunately, the German airborne troops finally landed in Karachi on time, and used a glider to transport a batch of anti-tank guns to the 91st Infantry Division... Gliders are the means of transportation for the German airborne troops. landing on complex terrain.
Major General Moritz immediately deployed these anti-tank guns in the defense line and dug anti-tank trenches.
"They will block the enemy's attack!" The adjutant said: "The enemy only has one armored division!"
It is no wonder that the adjutant said so, an ordinary Soviet armored division is nothing in their eyes.
But Major General Moritz didn't think so.
"The enemy's armored division is no ordinary armored division, York!" Major General Moritz said.
"You mean this armored division is equipped with a large number of T34?" The adjutant asked back.
"No, it is more terrifying than T34!" Major General Moritz replied thoughtfully: "I have never seen such a battle. Marshal Manstein is in a hurry. Have you seen it?"
"No, no!" replied the adjutant.
"That's right!" Major General Moritz said, "It's the enemy's commander, understand? I don't know who, he tricked our armored division from Karachi to Miloway, and then attacked here with heavy troops...and Manstein has nothing to do with him! This is the scariest thing!"
Paused, Moritz continued: "If Marshal Manstein can't deal with him, do you think we will still be his opponent?"
The adjutant was speechless.
The bombing of the German Air Force gave up as it got dark... During this period, Manstein considered sending a night bomber, but he was strongly opposed by the air force commander.
"It's too dangerous, Your Excellency the Marshal!" Air Force Major General Yannick said: "And it won't do anything!"
Manstein knew that Major General Yannick was right, because Karachi's terrain was more complicated, with mountains, power lines, and tall buildings, which were nightmares for night fighters. There is an obvious difference in fighting in flat areas...Fighting in flat areas only needs to know the approximate height, and usually the aircraft will not crash into anything and kill people.
But in the Karachi area, fighter planes operating at low altitude at night will not pose much threat to the enemy, but will cause heavy casualties to themselves.
"Anyway!" Manstein said: "Send your plane up, even if you drop a few bombs on the target!"
"Yes, Marshal!" Major General Yanick replied helplessly.
The result is indeed as Manstein said, the German Air Force just dropped a few bombs from the air towards the Soviet convoy... Due to the high altitude, these bombs even deviated from the target by a few miles.
For the Soviet army, this is also a refreshing fireworks.
But the Soviet tank soldiers really need this, because they have been marching almost non-stop for more than fifteen hours, and they have to keep going...Driving a tank in this era is a kind of hard work, and driving a tank continuously for several hours can knock people down, not to mention It is ten hours.
If they had a break in the middle, it was during the bombing by enemy planes.
Therefore, the tank driver even hoped that the German Air Force would bomb a few more times.
(end of this chapter)