Volume 1: The Rise of Elanhill Chapter 0098 Low Profile
If it weren't for the hundreds of skilled workers armed with Chris's magic ball of knowledge, if Chris didn't have complete production processes and design drawings, if he couldn't personally take care of every detail and solve those technical difficulties, it would probably take more than ten years for Ireland Hill's fighter jets to take off.
Now it is no longer necessary, because there is no need to test fly like the Wright brothers, and there is no need to tirelessly design triplanes and biplanes. Ailan Hill directly started mass production of single-wing World War II fighters in one step, and achieved a leap forward.
Because of the existence of the Knowledge Magic Ball and Chris's technology tree golden finger, industrial civilization has seen the development of airplanes and cars together, and they entered the practical stage almost at the same time, which is an incredible miracle.
While the automobile was being tested, the first fighter plane equipped with an engine was also being tested in an orderly manner.
Chris kept choosing among many classic fighter planes of World War II, and finally, due to the limitation of technical conditions, Chris focused on the production line. He needed to produce the most fighter planes in a short time, so the speed and simplicity of production became the primary considerations.
In other words, in order to be able to produce a sufficient number of fighter jets simply and quickly, he can sacrifice some of the fighter jets' performance and make some compromises in terms of usage.
After careful consideration, the Messerschmitt ME-109 fighter became an option that very much met his selection criteria.
Although the Spitfire had performance comparable to or even better than the ME-109, its production requirements were higher, so Chris gave up on this famous British fighter.
Although the P-51 Mustang fighter has excellent performance and an incredible range, it has higher technical requirements, so Chris decided to consider this top American piston fighter when choosing a second-generation piston engine fighter.
Since the Mustang P-51 fighter was put in the future, there were not many advanced fighters left to choose from. Although the FW-190 fighter had outstanding performance, it was not as easy to manufacture as the ME-109 fighter, just like the Spitfire.
Another aircraft that met Chris's requirements was the Japanese Zero fighter during World War II. The engine of this aircraft was very simple and easy to produce, and it was also the pinnacle of aircraft production by Japanese workshops: it was in line with the current production conditions of the workshops in Ireland Hill, which made Chris very excited.
However, what constrained Chris's choice was the production model : although the production conditions of the Zero fighter were very low, it also lacked the production technology support of a large-scale production line.
This can be easily seen from the total aircraft production: Germany produced more than 35,000 ME-109 fighters under harsh conditions of bombing, which is enough to prove the strong production capacity of the production line of this fighter.
Under the same conditions, only 10,000 Zero fighters were produced, which is a huge gap in production speed between the two sides. In human history, Messerschmitt won military orders and defeated its competitors by focusing on increasing production speed.
Therefore, in the mind of Chris, who also required production speed, the Messerschmitt ME-109 fighter, which was easy to produce and had decent potential for improvement, was a very suitable choice.
Of course, the ME-109 fighter is not without its shortcomings. Its poor landing gear design will cause trouble for novice pilot training. However, Chris believes that such shortcomings can be overcome through training. Now the biggest headache for Ireland Hill is not personnel training, but the low production capacity of military industry!
"The new fighter will be ME-109, the next generation will be P-51, and the next will be MiG-15!" Chris was happily thinking about the future development path of air force aircraft in his mind.
No country has ever been able to put together all the advanced weapons in human civilization in such a way that is beyond belief. The path Chris is taking is an exciting and mixed road of development that defies belief.
Starting with German fighter jets, conquering the world with American fighter jets, carrying on the past with Soviet fighter jets, and finally developing into the powerful American third-generation aircraft - no country dares to develop in this way, but Chris knows that he can!
As for Japanese fighters… With better German and American fighters, who would consider leaky Japanese fighters? Chris didn’t care about the huge range of the Zero fighter. When he needed the range, the P-51 fighter with a longer range and stronger combat power would be a better choice.
Using the magic ball of knowledge, he can copy and train a large number of pilots. As long as a Marseille is born in his army, tens of millions of Marseilles can be born within a few days; as long as a Hartmann is born among his pilots, he can copy a Hartmann Manchester United team or a Hartmann Air Force!
Even if such replication is only theoretical, through such replication, his air force pilots will grow rapidly, allowing almost everyone to skip the novice stage and become veterans who can perform missions on their own.
The most annoying part of the air force training can be accelerated by using the Knowledge Magic Ball, which has accelerated Chris's speed in forming an air force tenfold. And with the increase in experienced pilots, the expansion speed can even be ten times faster!
The novice pilots trained through gliders quickly spread their training results to other novice pilots - within ten days, the number of pilots in Ireland Hill increased to hundreds.
At first, everyone was worried that the insufficient number of pilots would affect the construction of the air force, but now everyone is beginning to worry that the production speed of aircraft cannot keep up with the training speed of pilots.
The ME-109 was not chosen randomly, and the weapons had to be chosen accordingly. The German aircraft looked good, but the German aviation weapons were not very reliable.
Chris certainly couldn't let his pilots fly fighter jets and use 7.92mm bullets to fight the dragon, so he prepared a larger caliber 20mm aircraft cannon for the ME-109 fighter.
Although the ballistic performance of aircraft cannons is slightly worse than that of machine guns, the two are completely incomparable in terms of destructive power. The current air combat needs of Ailan Hill are similar to the air combat needs of Germany and Japan in World War II, which is to face the interception of the opponent's heavy air targets.
Obviously, a large-caliber aircraft gun like the 30mm caliber is more effective against targets like the dragon. Moreover, when the anti-aircraft gun was put into production, Chris also considered the subsequent aircraft gun design, so he directly adopted the 30mm caliber aircraft gun, at least in some production links, to maintain versatility.
However, in the subsequent experiments, a series of problems were exposed: because the ME-109 fighter's body is not large, it is obviously a bit cramped to install a 30mm caliber aircraft cannon. In addition, the recoil of the 30mm caliber aircraft cannon is also very serious, which makes the small body of the ME-109 fighter somewhat unable to do it.
Moreover, the amount of ammunition it carries is too small. The ME-109, which is also equipped with a 20mm caliber machine gun, can only carry about 70 rounds of shells. If it is replaced with a 30mm caliber shell, the number will be reduced to about 50.
Although 50 rounds of artillery shells were enough to damage the dragon, Chris still hoped that his air force could fight in the sky for a longer time after taking off once. In addition, the power of the 30mm anti-aircraft gun was actually a bit excessive in actual combat. The experiment with the dragon's corpse confirmed that the 30mm anti-aircraft gun was a bit overkill for attacking the dragon.
Therefore, Chris and Desel plan to adjust the production line in the future to produce 20mm caliber anti-aircraft guns and machine guns to increase the efficiency of steel use. After all, 20mm caliber artillery saves more steel, whether it is the gun body or ammunition.
After saving steel, anti-aircraft guns can use multiple guns to increase their firepower density. The dual 20mm caliber anti-aircraft gun has been designed, and the experimental results show that it has stronger firepower and more powerful than the predecessor single 30mm caliber anti-aircraft gun.
On the other hand, Chris did not think that the dragon's maneuverability required the use of biplanes with better maneuverability like those in World War I to counter it. To put it simply, air combat is a contest of strength over skill.
In the face of absolute speed advantage, all fancy maneuverability is no longer so useful: this is why monoplanes eventually replaced all old biplanes.
Although the dragons have better low-altitude performance and can even take off and land vertically and hover in the air, the flying speed of these dragons cannot be compared with that of monoplanes. Chris believes that the flight performance such as turning radius can be completely cracked by speed.
Because of the aircraft cannon, Ailan Hill's air force also has an absolute advantage in attack range. They can open fire at a distance of 300 meters from the dragon, but the dragon cannot breathe dragon fire at the same distance.
The dense 20mm caliber machine gun shells will cause serious damage to the dragon at this distance. Even if the opponent dodges the first attack, the ME-109 fighter carrying more ammunition can continue to fight and shoot down the opponent.
After some selection, Ireland Hill's first generation of air force fighter jets came out: the ME-109 fighter jet equipped with three new 20mm caliber cannons, using an all-metal fuselage, and a speed of over 550 kilometers per hour, which is almost three times faster than the Dragon!
While fighter jet and automobile manufacturing were booming, quietly, on the outskirts of Ireland Hill, workers were erecting a metal frame woven from steel on a newly built huge bastion tower.
This strange device, which looks like a cult totem, consumes an astonishing amount of electricity. However, its appearance has given the sky of Ireland Hill an eye that can see through everything. The first generation of early warning radar, with its experimental nature, thus quietly entered the stage of history.
