Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 113

Eddie Hill held up two fingers in front of his eyes, then placed them on his sister's forehead. His sister understood and took the two fingers in her hands, gently bringing them to her lips and sucking on them. Then she happily nestled back into the colonel's chest.

"Hey! Lieutenant Colonel! When did your girlfriend arrive? She's been hiding her well!" As they spoke, a group of soldiers walked past the brother and sister, singing cheerful and rousing war songs.

"This is my younger sister! Let me introduce her to everyone!" The lieutenant colonel rarely smiled so brightly in front of everyone. "Keep singing, warriors! For our families and friends! For our honor! Keep fighting!"

"yeah!--"

The songs filled the air, and the streets of Berlin were no longer cold and silent. The laughter and joy that had emerged from the bloodshed and the crucible of war no longer instilled fear in anyone for their enemies.

……

But what about the dead?

Chapter 116, Section 174: Mailing Address – Frunze

Under the midday sun, a La-7 fighter jet, which had just returned from a sortie, with its gray-white silhouette, gently touched the runway of a field airfield with its landing gear among a group of slowly landing fighters.

The fighter jet, with the red star on its tail and rows of red tadpoles on its sides, moved to the side of the runway. The propeller blades on its nose, under the action of friction, gradually slowed down like a piece of wood sliding down a snow slope, and finally came to a steady stop.

A long time had passed, and the plane's engine cover was almost cold. At this moment, the plane's owner and two young pilots, each holding a pencil and a notebook, sat on the wing of the plane and talked calmly.

"So, Major..." a young man asked his "master," "I saw that I only managed to shoot down one of those puppets today, so I'd like to know, what exactly are they?"

“You can take it lightly, but you must also take it seriously.” The major paused. “In the past few days of operations, I’ve noticed something strange about these puppets: some of them can maneuver flexibly to entangle us, but many others don’t even make timely turns or rolls. And it seems that it’s not that they can’t do it, but rather that they don’t know how.”

"Uh, I don't quite understand, comrade. You mean, simply put?"

"The gap in technical skill and combat experience among these enemies is too obvious. The skilled ones can shoot down several of our comrades on their own and then engage me in aerial combat for a while, while the mediocre ones don't even know how to keep moving in the air. Although I don't know how these puppets can hover in mid-air without propellers, I think the people who use them must be very unfamiliar with their own weapons and their tactics are very rigid."

“That’s true, Major,” another comrade said. “I encountered two today. They were walking side by side before being shot down. Neither of them intended to spread out for maneuvering. It was as if they were about to be heard in mid-air, and then they turned around and opened fire on me.”

"So I have a very bad feeling right now that we are definitely not engaged in combat with the air forces of the US and UK." The major lowered his head, deep in thought. "This kind of idiotic tactic is absolutely not something a qualified pilot from either of those countries could pull off..."

"Actually, those Western pilots are probably about the same level as us, Major. But that's not what I'm worried about..."

"what?"

"That night, the enemy launched such a large air assault with a bomber or transport plane group. I saw those that were shot down... let's call them bombers for now. I want to know, how do you deal with such big planes?"

"Ah, you've reminded me, comrade." The major smiled. "Here's what you'll do: test me. If you were in that situation, how would you deal with it?"

"Hmm... keep throwing warheads into its cabin?"

“That’s a waste, comrade.” The major shook his head and told the young man to take his arm off.

"how?"

"If the tip of my pencil pierces the flesh of your arm, will you still be able to lift your hand?"

"Ouch...that must hurt a lot..."

"Pain is one thing, but whether you can lift it up after enduring the pain is another matter entirely, right?"

"Well... I feel like as long as one of my internal organs isn't pierced, I'll be fine..."

“Yes, so the second question.” The major picked up a rock from beside the plane. “If this rock hit your arm, could you still lift it?”

"I..." The young comrade was so frightened that he covered his arm and pulled it back. "This could break bones, Major!"

"Come on, comrades." The major stood up and led the two men, talking as they walked.

“Those transport planes are like your arms, arms that feel no pain, while the machine guns on your aircraft are like pencils and needles. Trying to paralyze or destroy them with your own tiny bit of strength is a very difficult and unwise choice.”

"The space inside those planes is very large, while the aftereffects of our machine guns are relatively limited. Just like we can't kill everyone in a small house with a single shot unless we take off with the cannons of an IS-2 tank. Even if its fuselage armor isn't thick and the machine guns can penetrate it, the damage caused by the bullets entering the cabin won't be good. And if we waste all our ammunition on one plane, it would obviously be a very unwise decision in large-scale air combat. It's very likely that we won't even be able to break its 'bones'."

"As for those airplanes, the fact that they are capable of flying with such a large volume and such heavy cargo means that they are destined to be very tough. Just like this thing."

Walking to the edge of a bush, the major picked up a rotten branch, swung it around a few times, and the branch broke.

"If those aircraft are as structurally fragile as this tree branch, then I really doubt why they didn't disintegrate as soon as they took off. So remember, if you ever encounter these behemoths again, be very careful and cautious. If your aircraft only has a Schwak cannon, then concentrate your ammunition on the engine, cockpit, or vertical stabilizer... Ah, of course, I'm pouring cold water on that, whether you can hit them in the air depends on your luck."

“Understood, Major.” The two young men nodded to each other. “Have you encountered anything like this before?”

"Of course I have encountered them, but they weren't Germans, but..." The major suddenly stopped, as if he had thought of something and deliberately paused.

"Ok?"

"Ah, it's nothing. I just saw those huge American and British bombers when I was on patrol near the end of the war. That's all."

The major quietly exhaled. He had been so engrossed in his lecture that he almost blurted out some historical details and images that should have been kept secret—look, it was after it took off from an American B-17 Flying Fortress that the pilot of that bomber watched in terror from inside the cockpit as his two buddies' Mustang fighters crashed to the ground with fiery tails.

Just then, a Soviet soldier carrying a small bag came along and helped the major out of his predicament.

Hey comrades! Do you have any letters to mail?

"Yes, yes, yes! Wait for us!" The two young men said goodbye to the major and hurriedly ran back to their barracks.

And you, Major?

"Please wait a little longer."

……

The major returned to his desk in his barracks, opened a drawer, and took out a series of sealed envelopes.

He didn't leave immediately. He stared at the words on the envelope, recalling the words he had written on the letter, and stayed there for a long time.

……

Mailing address: Frunze Military Academy, Moscow.

"To: Alexander Pokryshkin"

"Respected Colonel:"

"Nearly half a year has passed since the victory in the Great Patriotic War and our separation. The echoes of the cannon salutes have not yet faded over Moscow, and now, Germany has become another hot potato for us."

"We were ordered not to disclose anything about Germany to our families in our letters, but writing these things to you is not against the rules. So it seems that these trivial matters have already had a considerable impact on the higher-ups in the country, but they just can't be made public yet. I wonder if you will have to give up your studies if the situation in Germany deteriorates further in the future, but before that, I think it is necessary for me to say something to you."

……

The major gently scraped a clod of mud off the envelope, quietly drawing out the letters in his mind—most of which he had just discussed with the two young comrades.

"...So far, I haven't found any enemy weapons like fighter jets to engage us in aerial combat. What they have in the sky are just puppets: puppets wielding machine guns, puppets running around with knives, and puppets carrying cannons. They entangle and fight us in the sky, and then our comrades keep stepping over their corpses and becoming part of the fallen. They have so many of them, it's going to be hard for us to deal with them in a short time."

"These puppets have advantages and disadvantages compared to fighter jets. First, they can hover in the air and use their moving arms and incredible self-steering to arbitrarily change their firing direction and field of view. This is undoubtedly very disadvantageous to our fighter jets, which are required to point their cannons forward without any deviation, even at the slightest angle."

In the middle, I received a sketch drawn by the major himself, which was full of circles, dots, and indicator lines.

"Secondly, there's their size and survival rate. They're generally less than five meters tall, even when spread out on both sides. This is smaller than any five-meter-tall fighter jet, so we need to be more careful when aiming at them. What's even more outrageous is that although we can easily detach their arms and legs with machine guns, in some situations, this only makes them fly less steadily and doesn't affect their ability to continue flying! In other words, if we don't turn the torsos, large hatches on their backs, or wings of those puppets in the picture above into scrap metal, they won't crash. This is undoubtedly unfair to ensuring the survival of enemy pilots, even though once they're unarmed, they can't do anything to us except for mutual destruction and become easy targets."

"But that's all. You understand, on the battlefield, if you only think about survival and not how to take down more enemies, the only outcome is defeat. These puppets are somewhat troublesome, but their weaknesses are also very obvious. First of all, their weapons—I won't even mention the swords and knives—are fine for ground attacks and competing with the 'flying tanks,' but I really don't understand why they would use these things to fight us in the air. Do they think they're too small and want to carry something bigger so we can spot them more easily?"

"As for the machine guns they usually carry, that's a bit baffling. Our fighter jets, and the German fighter jets back then, even the British and American fighter jets, since the outbreak of the World Wars, wouldn't dare say they were there to fight if they didn't take to the skies with two or three cannons and five or six machine guns. But these puppets, they actually took to the skies carrying a large machine gun with a power level almost the same as our cannons, so... I don't even know how to describe this kind of meager armament. It's not like they're going to use machine guns to snipe generals or marshals or anything, why be so frugal?"

"Their weaponry was laughable enough, but what shocked me the most was their tactics. When we launched our first formal attack on Berlin and began suppressing our air and ground forces, those puppets actually formed a stationary square in the sky in an attempt to intercept our massive air force. I really didn't understand. We thought that with such a large enemy force, the casualties would be terrible, but they turned it into something like a game of hunting air-defense balloons... Why don't they even have the most basic air combat awareness? I've thought about this question more than once."

"And it's been half a month since that aerial hunt, and we've been forced to leave Berlin. They've made some progress, but they're still stuck in their 'rigid' ways. They rarely manage to win in the air with small-team coordination; they either fight us in slow-moving square formations or they rely on sheer numbers to wear us down, resulting in a Pyrrhic victory. Good heavens, if the Germans had all fought like that back then, would Moscow have been forced to prepare for such a desperate scene in the winter of 1941?"

"However, it's worth mentioning that a few of these puppets possess abilities that amaze me. They are not much different in appearance from the other puppets, except for their brighter paint jobs. Yet, these puppets can perform all sorts of unexpected maneuvers on our fighter jets, and have shot down multiple of our comrades single-handedly on several occasions. Apart from the fact that most of them prefer to use swords, I have nothing to criticize. I just wonder, is this the true strength of these puppets? Or is their tactic simply to defeat us with these strange freaks? This is not realistic at all. To be fair, if a war can be won by a few elites, then it is either a war of utter nonsense or a boring product written in the laughable 'hero' stories of fascism, where one person can take on a thousand men."

"I'll stop here. I hope that when you return to the barracks someday, I can find you in time to talk to you face to face again. I think there is so much I still need to learn from you, and so much I lack knowledge that I need your guidance. The skies of the Soviet Union await your continued protection, and the enemies of the Soviet Union await your help in sweeping them away."

"Yours sincerely."

"Your eternal student: Major Ivan Kozhedub, 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment."

"Written in Germany on November 18, 1945."

Chapter 117, Section 175: The Roaring Minotaur

Germany's land was thrown into a blazing cauldron, already fragmented, and then constantly stirred, pounded, and chopped up by the spatula of artillery fire under the rising temperature. The unpleasant symphony of land and steel created a cacophony that pierced the ears of everyone.

Not every ingredient or seasoning in the pan is being stir-fried, because it's impossible for them to be lifted up with every push of the spatula. So, things that haven't been heated evenly are just a matter of time before they're cooked.

There is now such a secluded place on German soil, surrounded by the sounds of artillery fire, engine roars, and the rumble of warplanes overhead like thunder before a storm. Only here, there is no drumbeat of gunpowder, no blaring of fuel, only the busy conversations and movement of Soviet soldiers around the trenches.

Everything was still somewhat peaceful.

In the trenches, there was something even quieter than the Soviet soldiers running around – two female snipers, each wrapped in their clothes and with their faces covered by their hats, lay there quietly with their rifles to one side. It seemed they had just returned from a mission and had not yet completed their scheduled rest.

"It doesn't seem so," one of them said, sitting up. Ekaterina tossed her hat aside, rubbed her face a few times with one hand as if wiping a table, and looked sleepily at her comrades around her.

"Hey, hey, hey! Comrade Ilya!" She nudged the blonde female soldier next to her with her knee.

"Is there a situation?"

"Oh dear, I can't sleep much longer, I should get up now so I don't get hit by a fall."

"Could you bring me the kettle?"

Ilya slowly took a sip, while Catherine continued to scratch her face a few times before looking towards the back of the trenches.

"What time is it now?" Ilya asked, but the person opposite her obviously didn't respond.

"Hey! Go ask me what time it is!"

Ekaterina didn't move, but instead shifted her position a few feet closer to hers.

"No need to ask anymore, hey!"

"What?" she asked, completely bewildered.

Suddenly, Ekaterina shrugged her shoulders and pressed them against her ears, then made a wide circle with her arms and slapped Ilya's head like swatting a fly, covering her ears!

"Ok?"

"Shut your mouth!"

As soon as Ekaterina finished speaking, a dull, booming sound like a gong mingled with the clanging of a hammer, accompanied by wisps of sand and gravel falling from the edge of the trench beside them. A gray, howling dust storm nearly buryed the two of them.

"This? This?"

"Come on! Look over there!" Ekaterina grinned as she looked behind the trenches. "It's about time anyway!"

Upon closer inspection, Ilya finally understood.

……

While they were sleeping, countless ISU-122 assault guns had already taken up position behind them, standing in neat rows at the firing positions behind the trenches. Now, with enough shells piled up behind them and their comrades awakened in front of them, these iron-boned brown bears, holding 122mm field guns in their mouths, raised their heads and, at the command of the artillery commander, unleashed the shells from their chambers with the utmost fervor.

Another squadron of Soviet Air Force fighters flew overhead, passing overhead, above the ISU-122s firing behind them, and amidst the sudden, simultaneous roar of heavy artillery fire all around, they brushed past the trajectories of the shells. Flying over the small town far from the front lines, they left warm contrails, signifying that one heavy shell after another, with lightning speed and unstoppable force, swept across this tragic and unfortunate land.

Fighter jets are flying, artillery fire is roaring, and on the distant ground to the side, familiar yet unfamiliar tanks are slowly advancing!

……

"Calling Lieutenant Angelie Vorian! Orders from headquarters to expedite the battlefield reconnaissance. Reports from the flank indicate that another Soviet unit is advancing towards them!"

"Understood, we will."

On the other side of the battlefield, Angelina, along with her two sisters and several other squadrons, had just finished an encounter battle—on this not-so-wide open ground, they had repelled an attacking enemy force at a considerable cost. Now, in this area yet to be touched by the air force, only two or three T-34 tanks, an uncountable number of corpses, and a pile of KMFs still sparking were left.

"Hmm, it seems everyone is getting used to it here." Angelie breathed a sigh of relief and called over the last remaining young man from the KMF squadron.

"Go over there and take a look. If you spot any enemies approaching, let us know."

"Yes!"

“Oh, really…” Angelie frowned. “Mr. Griffin is still slacking off in his hospital bed, and I feel like I can’t handle it all by myself…”

"Cheer up," Lilizia suddenly spoke up. "The result of this battle was quite impressive."

"Oh? When did your attitude suddenly change so drastically?"

“I’ve been thinking about what Lieutenant Griffin said for a long time… In fact, being too concerned about combat is a burden.”

"Well, so..."

Just as Angelina was about to say something more, she suddenly felt the ground trembling slightly—not the hammering sensation of artillery fire, but more like the grinding of flour by a millstone.

"Hello!" The radio crackled to life; it was the KMF pilot who had just gone out. "Lieutenant! I...I have a situation here!"