Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 170

Chapter 202, Section 273: Dancing in the Sky Fortress Amidst the Storm

"Commonplace" can be used to describe the daily sunrise, or it can be used to describe how Germany faced the overwhelming Allied bombers before the swastika was burned.

From bombers being bitten and bleeding by Iron Cross birds, to bombers being escorted to the Brandenburg Gate, and finally to every German truck appearing on any road never returning. The enemy changed, but the Army Air Corps pilots sitting in the cockpits still wore their distinctive uniforms and armbands, and even the Mustang fighters never removed their black and white wing paint scheme.

“Bloody hell, guys…” There was a seasoned veteran with “Easy” painted on his fighter jet. “I hope we can have some fun this sortie.”

"What's going on, boss? Enjoyable? Wouldn't it be more enjoyable for us to watch our brothers on the ground visit the graves of these aliens?"

“Sorry, but these guys are blocking our way to Berlin with this huge thing that’s practically standing in the air,” Easy sneered. “And the bombers we’re protecting still haven’t pulled it out of the ground.”

"How much longer will it take to pull this radish out?"

"I don't know, buddy, but it looks like we're in for some trouble today."

The bombers slowly descended to their bombing altitude, and the fighters also dropped slightly. He squinted and looked ahead, vaguely spotting a dense cluster of black dots appearing in the sky above Berlin, directly in front of them.

"I have a bad feeling..." What's going on? Why are some of the black spots so big?

……

"Captain Griffin, go to our left wing. Thank you for your help."

Having assembled a number of aviation KMFs, this flying puppet, whose size is not much inferior to a bomber formation, seems to have gained more strength to fight after being repeatedly slashed by the white star and the red and blue concentric circles.

"Ah, it's nice to be with you all." Griffin scratched his face unhappily. "How many of you are there?"

Huh? Why isn't the KMF team leader saying anything anymore?

"Hey? What's wrong?"

"I imagine you didn't have a very pleasant time dealing with another wave of enemies in the air, did you? Don't worry, this time you'll not only have to say less to me, but you might also be the first to witness some things."

"Oh?"

"Alright, that's enough, Captain. Look up there, the birds in the west are coming to challenge us again."

No sooner had the words been spoken than the fighter jets with machine guns and cannons on their wings began to roll, somersault, and dive down. But before they could even unleash their ammunition belts, the KMFs nimbly spun around at wide angles and disappeared into the distance.

"Oh, look." Griffin seemed pleased, because he hadn't seen any humanoid weapons set ablaze. "It seems our partners are much more reliable this time?"

"Watch out behind you, Captain, there's a bird trying to bite you."

After tracing several arcs across the sky, the control of this airspace gradually became unclear.

"Are you guys okay?"

"Just focus on yourself, Captain." The KMF leader's words were as calm and confident as ever.

"Hey, look behind you." The six of them were still a little unaccustomed to this environment when they discovered that a bunch of their own armed transport planes were flying in the opposite direction from where the KMF was moving, heading straight towards the direction from which the bomber formation was coming.

"What, what are they doing? Are they sure they shouldn't have taken the avoidance route?"

……

"I took it down, pack one! I took it down!"

Easy, on the other hand, ended up in trouble. Two Gloucesters nearly kicked him off the plane, but he escaped with the help of his wingman. The entire sky was a chaotic mess of birds and puppets, turning the area into a muddy mess even before the bombers arrived.

"OK, guys, get the birds up, now we're... um?!"

As they climbed higher, they came into view of the several enormous aerial structures that were gradually becoming clearer.

"Huh? What's going on?" Easy's eyes widened. "What are their bombers doing here?"

"Did we collide with the flight path, boss? Holy crap!" The wingman cursed as he dodged several bursts of KMF ammunition, nearly getting a hole drilled in his wing. "OK, I'm fine, I'm fine... Has our objective changed?"

"That's what I think, buddy."

As the group lowered their noses again and charged towards the giants amidst the chaotic battle, suddenly, like a burst dam, the armed transport planes unleashed a barrage of rockets, which flew straight toward the B-17 formation.

"Holy shit! Are they insane?!"

"Who the hell invented this? Boss, shouldn't we...?"

"Shut up, all of you! Charge! Don't let them get close to the bombers!"

Easy led the chase and caught up to the rear of an armed transport plane—a blind spot for its defensive firepower. The others were either trying to correct their trajectories or busy driving away the KMFs that were following them.

"Damn it, damn it." The control stick in his hand trembled incessantly in the airflow behind the behemoth. He had no way of accurately aiming the machine gun ammunition belts on the Mustang's wings at its vertical stabilizer and tail fin. Instead, the ammunition belts fell into the cargo hold below, leaving a bunch of holes in the hatch—such damage was nothing compared to what he was doing.

"Yes, it seems I need to aim higher."

"NO sir! NO!—"

"Huh?!" Easy was about to pull the stick back and look up when he noticed a B-17 flying close to the back of the thing in front of him, following the formation of other aircraft. If he pulled the stick back any further, they would definitely crash into it.

"Oh god..." The scene around him made him less concerned about the life or death of the monster in front of him, because there was more than one such monster, and they were all doing something rather insane. One after another, Britannian armed transport planes dropped more rockets than the pilots in the sky, crashing into the American and British bombing formations.

These "flying fortresses" had never seen anything like this before. Perhaps the Germans did use rockets to try to disrupt the box formation back then, and after firing, they would come close to the gaps in your defensive fire. But this time, what they were facing was something almost twice the size of the B-17 itself, and much more durable than the Bf 109 and Me 262.

"Scatter, scatter! Get out of the way! Are these guys crazy?" Easy tried her best not to lose sight of the giant in front of her, but the situation was getting worse and worse. Obviously, no one wanted to crash into a pile of scrap metal in the air with such a behemoth, not to mention that their defensive firepower was much more violent than an M2 heavy machine gun.

Now, a scene unfolded in the sky that neither the Mustang pilots nor the Flying Fortress pilots had ever seen before: after dropping their rockets, those fat guys were actually looking for gaps in the bomber formation to turn around, while simultaneously firing their twin-mounted self-defense cannons at the Flying Fortresses.

This is going to be interesting. The bombers' self-defense gunners don't like watching enemy planes fly in front of them without firing. Who cares about anything else? With their .50 machine guns in hand, why wouldn't they fire? The American Flying Fortresses and the British Lancasters actually started exchanging fire with these armed transport planes before the KMFs even had a chance to arrive.

"Bullshit!" Easy and the guys in the squadron had to back down—not because they were afraid to go head-to-head with the air fortresses, but because every single self-defense gunner around them was busy shooting at these guys. What were those Mustang fighters doing blocking the line of fire? They couldn't contact the bomber squadron commander, so why weren't they getting out of the way? They couldn't hit the bombers with their defensive ammunition belts, and they were afraid of getting hit by the shrapnel that detached from their planes.

"What are we supposed to do, boss? This bomber squadron is completely insane!"

"You're asking me? Who should I ask? Ike?" Easy's breathing became extremely rapid. "Those guys who were responsible for carrying rockets to attack the ground are long gone to curse the sons of bitches on the ground. Can you help me fix those bastards' engines? Forget about everything else, keep an eye on the surroundings, and don't let any more dolls get close to our bomb boys!"

……

"Oh, who came up with such a brilliant battle plan?"

Back at the front of the bomber formation, Griffin and his team continued to follow their allies, maneuvering against the fighters and taking the opportunity to slowly knock down the disorganized bombers in the formation.

“Be careful, Griffin,” Angelie said, moving below her. “Don’t try to break through their defensive fire; it’s a mess inside.”

"know."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a burst of machine gun fire erupted behind them. But before Griffin could even maneuver, a fighter jet that had been tailing them was reduced to fragments.

"Cheer up, Captain." It was that KMF team leader again. "Spotting each other at six o'clock shouldn't be too difficult, right? Ready for something big?"

"OK, its reliability caught me off guard."

The sky seemed to have transformed into a lush tree of flames, with the missile belts and wakes of the aircraft forming the intricately intertwined branches of the canopy. Every object involved in the aerial combat was like a caterpillar perched on a branch node. The tree swayed and burned continuously in the storm of propeller airflow, igniting the bodies of all the unfortunate among the clouds, which then slowly fell to the earth.

"Hey! That's too reckless!" The squadron leader suddenly spotted a black KMF, leading the charge with several brightly colored companions, rushing ahead into the bomber formation. "Don't do that!"

“Captain, it’s me.” Lilizia’s voice came through the radio to the team leader and Griffin. “Follow me. We need to find those British bombers painted with red and blue concentric circles first! Their defensive machine guns can’t hurt us, I can guarantee that!”

This news was like throwing a fishy scent into the vast ocean to attract sharks. Even though the fighter jets in the sky were still desperately pursuing them, the stalemate in the air battle remained, with neither side having a clear advantage, whether in terms of numbers or the overall situation.

“This will be our first step.” Lilizia gripped the MVS rifle in her hand, aimed at the Lancaster bomber flying straight towards her, and let the .30 machine gun bullets hit the armor plates. She swiftly sliced ​​the cockpit down to the top defensive turret in one go, leaving a straight and long slit on its forehead. After that, the bomber’s swaying body gradually began to drift toward the ground.

That wasn't all. After turning her course ninety degrees and targeting the tail of the second Lancaster, cutting off its rudder and elevator, two more fighters, both painted with concentric red and blue circles, approached her.

"Lieutenant Lily, please don't do this all the time, okay?"

"Excuse me, Lieutenant Shishian." After the latter came to her rescue, she turned around and chased after the bird that had almost hit her. "Excuse me, I want to write the names of these Spitfire fighters on them."

Lilizia fired her gun, shooting several large holes in the enemy's wing, and quickly dove away, no longer wanting to engage with the more pursuing fighters.

"Hey! It's bad! Ypel! Ypel has been shot!"

"Go catch her, Juliet, and get her back to the ground. We'll cover you!"

……

"Phew..." After a long battle, Easy took advantage of a break in the air to dejectedly wipe the sweat from her face.

The skies were now tangled and indistinct. KMFs and fighters grazed past the battered Flying Fortress and Lancaster, the air filled with bomb belts being increasingly replaced by black plumes of smoke from engines. The once orderly bomber formations were now resembling... As for the armed transport planes that had forced their way into the defensive firepower, only about ten remained, accelerating away from the bomber group and heading towards the airfields on the ground.

"Hey sir, maybe we can catch a lone one around nine o'clock?" The wingman pointed out a behemoth that was trailing thick smoke as it headed down to the ground.

"Let's go, let's go." But as they opened fire, he suddenly remembered something. "Hey, how many bullets do you guys have left?"

"You jinx!" he stammered. He was aiming at the behemoth's engine when, after firing only a few shots, the machine gun went completely silent.

“Jesus…”

"What should we do now, boss? Who knows if those flying dolls will chase after us and beat us up? It's probably better to keep some information in reserve, right?"

Easy was in a dilemma when, just then, she looked up and found that two B-17s riddled with holes had also come down.

"Looks like the guys in the air fortress are trying to flatten themselves out and parachute?... Oh shit, they're followed by the enemy! Abandon the objective, everyone, abandon the objective! Stop the enemy from getting any closer, hurry!"

Chapter 203, Section 274: Berlin Sky, Snow at the End of Winter

"Four o'clock, facing upwards! Four o'clock!"

"Hit! Hit!"

A hail of .50 caliber machine gun ammunition burst forth from the defensive machine guns of the Eighth Air Force bombers. In stark contrast to the dazzling rain of bullets swirling in the wind, however, lay the fate of the bombers and their crews. The air fortresses were busy reorganizing their formations after this recent incident, while the other group of White Star monsters traveling alongside them remained somewhat disheveled.

The B-24 "Liberator," for reasons unknown, is a bomber that, despite its immense numbers, is not as popular as the B-17. Perhaps it's the B-17's more rounded, curved shape and its more imposing nickname; the Liberator's taller, more slender, and boxy form is simply less appealing. Of course, the fact that it has fewer defensive machine guns than the Flying Fortress might also be a factor.

It must be said that being a bomber's defensive gunner is a job more unpredictable than the dice on a gambling table—though not much better than being a pilot whose life is as precious as a worker bee. One second, you might be guarding the machine gun on the side of the fuselage, watching a Sunderland beetle be shot down, and then cheering with the gunner on the roof of the cockpit for the fruits of your labor; the next second…

Previously, it was the 20mm cannon of the Bf-109, but now it has been replaced by a dummy flying through the sky, delivering a bullet that pierces the fuselage of the bomber, splattering the blood and flesh of the machine gunner in the cabin. Or, if things get even more unfortunate, when the ammunition box of the self-defense machine gun is ignited, then this attack is not just a tragedy for one person.

Whether the fire can be brought under control before it completely destroys the aircraft remains to be seen, and experienced interceptors won't just stand by and watch it burn. The Griffin and Lilizia, the two Vincents, one blue and one black, still need to accelerate and escape before the surrounding fighter jets arrive in pursuit.

……

"Oh God... Lily, do you feel like we're more tired in the air than usual today?"

"It's only physical, not mentally." The girl's answer was full of confidence. "At least I can believe that our comrades can still hold their own against these planes, it's just that they've been firing too many bullets at us."

"Hmph, great." Griffin wiped the sweat from his face and called out to the KMF team leader he had spoken to earlier, "Uh, Major? How are things going with you guys?"

"Not bad, Captain, not bad. We can hold out until the enemy turns away."

"You're not hurt? Oh, that's great! By the way, could I ask you your name while we're at it?"

“Maier, I’m sorry for the late introduction, and…” The major suddenly stopped talking, as if he was receiving some new information.

"Captain, one of our armed transport planes is in trouble. The captain's name is Haino. Try to contact him."

"Hey! Hey! Griffin, I need help!"

“Angelina?” His heart skipped a beat, wondering what it was about.

"I've already approached Captain Haino's plane with Shisian. He's descending now, and there are four American fighter jets following at six o'clock. Two bombers are slowly approaching. Judging from the situation, it shouldn't be out of control?"

"What the hell?! You mean, their entire plane is being attacked by six enemy planes, each armed with twenty or thirty machine guns?"

Before Griffin and his companion could even finish their surprise, several more fighter jets caught up with them.

"Ahhh, okay, okay, we'll come over after we've sorted out our troubles!"

……

Now look at Captain Haino's plane, he's having a headache about how to get down, when he hears the clanging of machine guns behind him. The behemoth beneath him doesn't shake at all, but instead, several American fighter planes led by an "Easy" are entangled with two Gloucesters, one blue and one green, with several Sunderlands taking advantage of the situation to stab at him from behind.

"Captain, respond if you hear me." It was clearly Xixi'an's voice. "We will clear the threats around you. Hold on, defensive fire, please be aware of friendly aircraft!"

"Okay!" Haino wiped the sweat from his brow, looked around, and saw that the two American bombers on either side of him were still dragging their battered bodies alongside him, even enjoying firing back at Angelie and her group. "Huh? What's going on? Shooter, can you see what's happening on the other side?"

"Their fuselage is badly damaged, and the engine is smoking. It probably won't last much longer."

"Continue to observe, pay attention... wait?!"

"My God." He stared in disbelief as the two bombers, after chasing away the KMF, each turned their guns on him. "These two aren't going anywhere on the way, are they? What are they standing there for!"

In that instant, two B-17s flanked the lone aircraft and launched an attack—a twin-turret on the top and belly of the fuselage, two single-barreled guns on the sides, and a total of six machine guns on each plane, a total of 12 guns—and they dared to open fire. Left with no other choice, Haino's crew also unleashed a barrage of machine guns from all over their aircraft, retaliating against the olive-green paint scheme of the Flying Fortress.

"Come on! Come on! Fall down!" Many bullets were aimed at the cockpit. The captain and co-pilot could only huddle in their seats. Fragments of the fuselage armor and cockpit glass echoed like ghosts in front of the instrument panel with the sound of bullets shattering. All they could do was grip the control stick tightly and pray that the self-defense gunner could help them escape.

"They're insane! These American pilots are all lunatics!" But the gunner was even more furious. The armored transport plane's cannons had already riddled the right-hand airborne fortress with holes in its rear half, and its vertical stabilizer and wings were riddled with cracks and wounds like an eggshell. But all this did was silence one machine gun; it was utterly useless. The B-17, unfazed and unperturbed, continued to stand alongside the behemoth sandwiched between them—another equally battered behemoth—showing no sign of breaking apart.

"What's going on on the right? Why didn't you shoot its engine?" Haino was starting to lose his composure. The strong and turbulent airflow flying into the cargo hold from the breach was already causing the fuselage to shake uncontrollably. "The left side, what about the left side?!"

"This big guy is a bit wobbly, sir. I think you should shut off the engine on this side; it's on fire!"

"Phew..." The captain felt his hands and feet were ice cold. His prayers had no effect, and the KMF fighters still hadn't arrived.