Chương 119: 119
October 25, 1941
Insterburg Air Force Base, East Prussia, Germany
I was now flying in a clear blue sky without a single cloud.
Flying in the sky has been a long-standing wish of mankind since the days of ancient Greece.
If you ever fly in the sky, you will understand why humans desire to fly so much.
It's not that humans had a desire to fly in the sky because they have flown in the sky in the past, but that's the meaning anyway.
A thrill that sends shivers down your body, as if electric current instead of blood flows through the blood vessels of your body.
The thrill was something that could not be compared to any other stimulation or thrill I had ever experienced.
"Mr. President, we will land now."
"already?"
I felt regretful at Gallant's words. Can't we just stay a little longer?
"Can we land in 5 minutes? "I have plenty of time anyway."
"I hate to tell you this, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. I must have drank a lot of water today... ."
"ah… . Then there's nothing we can do."
Physiological phenomena are a very important issue. Moreover, even if it is not today, there are many opportunities to board a fighter jet.
After giving permission to land, leaving the disappointment behind, Gallant landed the aircraft on a straight runway.
"It was a fun flight. It really feels different when you see it from the ground and when you board it. "It felt like I was flying."
"thank you. However, I think the last statement is a bit misleading. "It wasn't like I was flying in the sky, I was really flying."
"really. Right."
My first jet experience ended on a good note.
After getting off the B-1a, a two-seat trainer version of the Me262, Gallant asked for understanding from the officers waiting outside the runway and quickly ran to the bathroom.
It seems that saying that I had urgent business wasn't a lie.
"Mr. President, how did you feel aboard the Me262?"
Göring, wearing a flight suit instead of the air force marshal's uniform he usually wore, approached and asked.
Göring often visited front-line units and spent time in the sky directly at the controls.
It would have been impossible if he had the body shape of the original history, but it was possible because the current Goering was not the Hermann Mayer that history remembers, but a middle-aged man with no flab.
I smiled and placed my hand on the surface of Me262.
"It was really amazing stuff. "When Gallant told me, 'It felt like an angel was pushing me from behind,' that was definitely not an exaggeration."
"It seems that His Excellency the President also really liked this fighter jet."
Dr. Wilhelm Emil Messerschmidt smiled broadly and rubbed his hands. Officials from Heinkel, a rival company of Messerschmitt, looked even more contrasted as they showed shocked expressions.
I know it hurts your stomach because your competitor is doing well, but don't make your girlfriend look like she's been NTRed. To make people feel embarrassed.
Honestly, what if this one makes it better?
The Me262 Schwalbe (Swallow) is known as the world's first jet fighter, but this information is actually incorrect.
Junkers, famous for creating masterpieces such as the Ju87 Stuka and Ju52 transport aircraft, introduced the EF009 jet fighter in 1938, and in 1939, the He 178 made by Heinkel succeeded in flight, earning the title of the world's first jet fighter to successfully fly. did.
It's because formal recruitment failed... .
The Me262's title was 'the world's first operational jet fighter', and although it was completed in 1942, mass production began only in 1944, around the time Nazi Germany was being defeated due to the indifference of the Nazi leadership.
Even Hitler, who was a bomber universalist, committed a foolish act that fueled Germany's defeat by ordering the Me262 to be mass-produced as a jet bomber rather than a fighter plane.
However, I know very well how foolish Hitler's fanatical bomber theory is, so I plan to use the Me262 purely as a jet fighter.
It's also something that was created that way in the first place. Using something developed as a fighter plane as a bomber is no different from asking a sushi chef to make pasta.
"Now that the Me262 has appeared, the Bf109 will soon sound outdated."
The Bf109, which has been in charge of Germany's skies, is now available in the G-6 type. The Bf109 continued to be improved until just before the end of the war, reaching the K-6, but since the Me262 appeared earlier than in history and the situation in Germany was much better, it seemed unlikely that additional derivatives would be released.
The Ta152, a new propeller fighter based on the Fw190D, is already under development, and Dornier is also researching a new fighter.
However, stopping development does not mean ending mass production.
There is a saying that if there are Panzer 4 and Hatcher on the ground, there is a Bf109 in the air. The Bf109 is such a valuable product that it is being exported to many countries around the world.
We'll keep selling them until there are no more countries looking for the Bf109. Wouldn't that help the national finances?
In terms of the German Air Force's next jet, Messerschmitt was pushed out, but that does not mean that Heinkel is completely without opportunity.
For Dr. Ernst Heinkel, who still could not let go of his attachment to jets, I entrusted the development of a jet aircraft to be operated by the Naval Air Corps to the Heinkel Company.
They promised that they would release the finished product by next spring, so you can trust me.
Now that full-fledged jets have been released, you might ask why they continue to make prop planes with lower performance, but there is a complicated story here.
Unlike Germany, which suffered from a shortage of resources toward the end of the Great War and mass-produced low-quality parts, even the United States and the United Kingdom, which had abundant resources, had engine lifespans of around 50 hours due to limitations in technology at the time.
In particular, Germany, which was short on resources, had no choice but to make the combustion chamber and exhaust turbine, which had to withstand exhaust heat, from steel rather than rare metal, and even unskilled workers were used indiscriminately in production, which seriously deteriorated the performance of the engine.
The sabotage of foreign prisoners brought to Germany and forced to work was an added bonus.
Originally, the time when a fighter jet was most vulnerable was during the takeoff and landing process, and early jets with underdeveloped technology were bound to be more vulnerable than prop planes.
In particular, in Germany, where air superiority was taken over by the Allies, fighter planes were often attacked by enemy planes during takeoff and landing. At this time, when the throttle was raised to gain power, the combustion chamber and exhaust turbine could not withstand the high heat and melted, causing the fighter to crash.
However, if you stay still, it is natural that you will be shot down by the enemy, and the altitude is so low that even if you escape, you will likely be thrown to the ground and die before you can see the effect of the parachute.
Because of this, Germany had to operate a separate cover unit composed of prop planes called 'Papagei Staffel' to cover the Me262's takeoff and landing process.
Fortunately, there was no need to worry about the supply of resources here, and the war was over, so unskilled workers would not install scrap engines made of steel into fighter jets, but the low fuel efficiency of the jets mentioned above was also a problem that could not be ignored.
It took quite a long time for jets to completely replace prop planes due to insufficient engine life, low fuel efficiency, and various other problems.
It is not for nothing that prominent powers such as the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union continued to fly prop planes for a while even after the end of World War II.
After Hess' final flight, Göring, Weber, Richthofen, and Messerschmitt discussed the development of Germany's next long-range strategic bomber and maritime reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Fw 200 and He 177.
I briefly explained to them the specifications of the next heavy bomber I had in mind.
It uses 4 engines, has a crew of 8, a maximum speed of 560 km/h, a weight of approximately 3 tons, and a range of approximately 6,500 km.
Although the explosive amount is less than that of the He 177, in terms of range, it is superior to not only the He 177 but also the American B-24 heavy bomber.
Of course, if it can be made according to the specifications listed above.
"The Soviet Union has friendly relations with Germany, but no one knows how long this relationship will last. The Soviet Union must be thinking the same thing as us. Of course, it is better not to have a war than to have one, but if war does happen, we need new bombers with long ranges that can bomb the entire Soviet Union."
Even the He 177, which is the largest and longest-ranged bomber currently in the German Air Force's possession, is limited to near the Ural Mountains.
However, with the next bomber, it is possible to bomb beyond the Ural Mountains and into Siberia.
Bombing Soviet Siberia using 'Siberian bombers' would not only cause damage but also have a significant impact on the morale of the Soviet people.
"I plan to call this next heavy bomber 'Me264 Siberia', meaning 'Siberian bomber'. "If anyone has a different opinion on the name, they are welcome to speak up."
"I think it's an appropriate name indeed."
"Siberian bombers, haha! "It's the perfect name to scare the Russians!"
There was no disagreement about the name of the bomber.
In fact, the target of the Me264 that the Nazis wanted to develop was the United States, not the Soviet Union's Siberia, so it was also called 'Me264 America', meaning American bomber.
Since it had to bomb the United States on the other side of the Atlantic and return, the range had to be that long, and it was required to have a range of as much as 15,000 km.
To what extent is this, the B-29, which had the longest range of all bombers used in World War II, was 9,000 km, and the B-52, a masterpiece bomber created during the Cold War and expected to be in operation until at least the 2050s, was 16,232 km.
At this point, you will have a sense of what kind of monster the Nazis were trying to create.
Even the United States, which had a lot of money and was considered the best in the world in terms of aircraft technology, needed a huge amount of time, money, and manpower to build a bomber with a range of over 10,000 km, but Germany, which was suffering from a shortage of resources and manpower at the end of World War II, It is unlikely that it was created.
Not only was it unable to conquer the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, which were right around the corner, let alone the United States, and Nazi Germany itself knew how difficult it was to make, so it only built one prototype and gave up on development.
It is said that the prototype that was made was destroyed in an air raid by the Allied Forces.
However, they did not completely give up their ambition to bomb the United States, so they planned several heavy bombers such as the Ju390, Ju488, and Ta400, but development, like the Me264, was halted before all three could be properly built due to the worsening war situation.
One day, we will have to build a bomber that can reach the United States, but for now, it makes sense to build what is realistically possible first.
And even if they could build a bomber capable of making a round trip from Europe to the United States, it seemed unlikely that the day would ever come when it would be used.
… .No. The day will never come when I can use it. No way. I've gone through a lot of hardships to get this far.
The number 0 thing that must not happen is war with the United States.
No matter how much I send a love call, the chances of America accepting it are slim.
The current US president, Roosevelt, was a fierce anti-Germanist, and the US policy was to prevent the emergence of a hegemony that threatened or had the potential to threaten its security, and the only country that met those conditions as well as the Third Reich was Japan. There was nothing else.
In terms of national power, Germany is several times greater than Japan, so it is natural for the United States to be several times more wary.
Nevertheless, efforts to be friendly with the United States should not stop.
The United States is the only country on earth that can turn the Third Reich into a sea of fire on its own.
"Next item on the agenda."
When Weber gave the signal, an Air Force major brought in a huge drawing and spread it out on the table for everyone to see.
"Regarding the development of the so-called 'earthquake bomb,' a very large bomb designed by the President a month ago… ."
***
Hideki Tojo was the head of the military, especially the army, and held an absolute position among the hardliners in the Japanese military.
He made it a habit to say that withdrawal from China and Indochina was unacceptable no matter what, and that we should even be willing to go to war with the United States.
"How can you give up the territory that the noble soldiers of the empire gained through their blood and sweat! "This is disrespectful to the Imperial Army soldiers who fell like straw for His Majesty the Emperor and the Yamato people!"
"That's right!"
"That is a valid statement, Your Excellency!"
However, when he became prime minister, Tojo opened his eyes to reality.
With the cooperation of the Soviet Union obtained by sacrificing South Sakhalin, they succeeded in pushing China into a corner, but China is still stubbornly resisting, showing its will to fight.
It was too risky to start a war with the United States and Britain when China could not be conquered right away.
Tojo, who grasped the reality, changed his attitude 180 degrees and argued that the start of the war should be postponed, saying, 'Until the war in China is over, it is dangerous to open a war against the United States.'
And the ones who were enraged by Tojo's attitude were his comrades who were in the same boat as him, the hardliners in the military.
"Dojo, you stupid bastard!"
"Whenever you talk about going to war, now you change your words like you're flipping the palm of your hand!"
"You coward!"
"Are you going to just turn these guys over at this point?"
Tojo, who was not unaware of the growing dissatisfaction of hardliners, found himself in a dilemma.
Currently, Japan is not in a state to go to war with the United States and Britain. However, even if we try to negotiate, the United States is unwavering, and the military is making a fuss about going to war right away.
If he delayed any longer, the military might stage a coup and try to slaughter him.
Tojo, with his feet on fire, went to the emperor and reported the current situation as it was.
It would not be strange if a coup broke out at any time, and in the end, war with the United States is the only answer to prevent the military's coup.
Even Japanese public opinion was calling for war with the United States. To the Japanese, who were intoxicated by the news of victory coming from China, the United States was an evil that wished for Japan's downfall, and they had no doubt that the invincible imperial army would easily defeat the United States and achieve victory.
To appease public opinion and the military's dissatisfaction, Hirohito came up with his own solution.
"If that's what the Lord wants, I can't help it. "Prepare for war with the United States, but don't give up and continue negotiations just in case."
"I will follow Your Majesty's orders."
As Hirohito's intentions were conveyed, the military, which had been boiling like magma, calmed down a little.
but-
"What on earth does this mean?"
"You fucking Americans! "How dare you, how dare you!!!"
When the US negotiation conditions were announced, Japan was shocked.
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