Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 226: Rise of the Red Baron



Fielding dedicated fighter aircraft was not exactly something anyone had planned for—other than Germany, that is. It was because of this that the Germans pretty much established air supremacy around their own borders.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Opting to ensure their planes detected enemy movements and coordinated attacks with other assets on the ground, such as tanks and armored vehicles, they employed a form of combined arms tactics that the world had not yet truly begun to understand.

The way it normally worked was that German planes acted as either reconnaissance or ground attack craft. They would spot enemy movements and send their positions back to intelligence over the radio.

Meanwhile, a strike would be coordinated on the enemy position in conjunction with artillery, bombers, and any armored reconnaissance assets hiding behind enemy lines that were in a position to strike.

The result of this was rather devastating for the French and British troops that dared to attack Germany's borders. The Germans did not shy away from the opportunity to utilize such tactics in Luxembourg, where the battle lines had advanced after France violated the unarmed neutral Grand Duchy's sovereignty without provocation or notice.

Leon found out rather quickly that escaping the eyes of German pilots in the skies was the fever dream of a madman. Because of this, both the French and British began investing in air power and fighter planes that could compete with the He-51s employed in substantial numbers by the German Army.

Drastic measures were needed to combat German air supremacy. Because of this, France basically strapped a machine gun onto the top of the Nieuport 10, allowing it to be fired via a serpentine lever by the pilot.

It was not exactly what one would call an original or well-thought-out design, but quite honestly, it was more or less the same thing they did at the start of the war in Bruno's past life. There were obvious problems with this design, and to put it simply, it was inferior in every conceivable way to what the Germans were fielding.

From the French perspective, it was better than not contending for the skies at all and instead having all their reconnaissance planes either shot down or forced to flee the moment they spotted German fighters in the distance.

Because of this and their newly retrofitted "fighter planes," the French boldly decided to contest Germany over their own airspace-or at least they would have if Germany had not mustered a force of its own to prevent them from reaching the border.

Frankly speaking, Bruno had gone overboard with preparations for the war. The border defenses were completely impenetrable by the enemy, and this included the WWII-era anti- aircraft weaponry they were fielding. The 2cm Flak guns alone were more than enough to obliterate every single plane the French tried to use to cross German borders.

But if the 3.7cm Flak guns were considered overkill, then the 8.8cm Flak guns were just plain sadistic. Though the German Flak Units had little to do, the German Army saw fit to actually fight an aerial battle with the French at the first given opportunity, rather than simply sit back and shoot them out of the sky with the tens of thousands of flak guns along the German border.

Because of this, famous pilots of the era, such as Manfred von Richthofen, were up in the sky, speeding towards their opponents at breakneck speeds—or at least relatively speaking. The French pilots were naturally intimidated. Those who had survived previous engagements with the Luftstreitkräfte knew all too well what they were up against.

Though they were promised by their superiors that these new fighters were more than capable of shooting the German planes out of the sky, those with more brains than bravery understood that the German machine guns were hidden and not mounted awkwardly on top of their planes like their own.

Hence, French pilots with some form of intelligence performed the sign of the cross as they flew headfirst into potential death.

As for Manfred von Richthofen, he had already shot down 12 enemy aircraft-even if they were fighters without the means to combat him in a fair engagement. Despite this, he was far from overconfident. Intelligence reported that the French had equipped weapons onto their planes in an attempt to equalize the playing field, and because of this, he took the threat very seriously.

That level of respect instantly flew out the window the moment he opened fire on a French plane and its canvas-and-wooden structure lit up like the Fourth of July. He was shooting 7.92x57mm Mauser incendiary rounds. They were not large enough to explode, but they did ignite upon impact.

Even riddling the canvas fuselage and wooden frame with more than a dozen bullets would turn the entire plane into a bonfire. Meanwhile, the 8x50mmR Lebel rounds fired from the Maxim guns mounted on the French planes were standard-issue bullets without any armor- piercing or incendiary capabilities.

Because of this, the bullets, while fully capable of punching through the aluminum fuselages of the He-51s the Germans fielded, had no chance against the modifications Bruno made to their overall design.

Bruno had more or less learned from his past life. Not only did he increase the overall power of the He-51's engine, but he also gave it two additional upgrades to make it comparable to its rivals from his past life.

One was an armored seat/cockpit. The other was a total of four 7.92x57mm Mauser MG 17 machine guns. This meant that the He-51s the Germans utilized in this life protected the pilots from the weapons of the era-unless, of course, they were unlucky enough to get domed in the head-while also providing a whopping 4,800 rounds-per-minute fire rate across their four guns if fired simultaneously.

In other words, when compared to the singular Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun mounted awkwardly on top of the French Nieuport 10 wood-and-canvas biplanes, the German fighters could ignite them aflame with a single burst while remaining completely unfazed by their shots, moving onto the next target and taking them out before they could respond.

Needless to say, exceptional pilots like the "Red Baron" had more than doubled their total kill count thus far into the war within this single battle.