Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

In addition to ground armor, the Soviet air power was also deeply worrying.

Although as early as the nineteenth century, many people in Russia were actively involved in aviation development research. This includes the talented Russian designer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky. This great designer is famous for two "firsts", one is the first helicopter put into production, VS-300, and the other is the world's first four-engine large bomber - "Ilia Muro" Metz" heavy bomber. And this bomber achieved many firsts: the first night bombing, the first aerial photography results evaluation, etc.

However, the efforts of one or two people could not save the overall backward situation. The aviation industry in Tsarist Russia was generally quite backward, and the development of aviation technology was very slow. When the Soviet Union was founded, it inherited less than a thousand dilapidated foreign aircraft.

During the Soviet period, the national industrialization policy was dominated by military modernization, and the aviation field naturally also received attention. As early as 1917, Ulyanov proposed: "Aviation is one of the major cultures of this century!" "The Soviet Union should have its own air force!" and said while supporting the retention and exhibition of the old aviation factory. “There should be no more enterprises like perfume or balsam factories in the Soviet Union.”

After some hard work, in the 1930s, the Soviet Air Force ranked first in the world in terms of scale. Before the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the Soviet Air Force had more than 12,000 fighter aircraft, which was enough to frighten most major powers.

As a result, when the Soviet-German war broke out, the German army destroyed more than 2,000 Soviet fighter planes on the first day. The Soviet Air Force's losses during the entire World War II were as high as 100,000.

There are many reasons for such heavy losses. For example, the Soviet army inherited the tradition of the Russian army and paid more attention to quantitative advantages and despised qualitative advantages. Although the Soviet army was equipped with a large number of fighter aircraft, most of these fighters were crudely designed and poorly manufactured. Roughness does not mean reliability, but rather reflects its low level of craftsmanship, which directly affects the performance and reliability of the equipment and will inevitably affect combat operations. This bad habit not only existed on aircraft, but also affected the training of pilots. Until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the training of Soviet pilots lagged behind that of the United Kingdom and the United States.

What is even more tragic is that very few of the Soviet flying elite at that time were wiped out in the great purges. The new pilots got on the plane after only simple training. They were no match for the German pilots who had undergone long-term training and rich combat experience. At that time, only 15% of Soviet pilots had undergone night flight training, and most of the novice pilots had only 10 hours of flying time. They were simply monsters of the Luftwaffe trying to gain experience.

Coupled with the imperfections in the leadership system and the relatively low level of combat tactics and strategy; in general, the Soviet Air Force did not completely defeat the German Air Force on the Eastern Front during World War II. At best, it crushed it with its own weight.

What slightly pleased Zhukov was the newly produced Yak-7 fighter jet produced by the Yakov Design Bureau not long ago. Engineers were full of confidence in it and patted their chests to ensure that it would be enough to compete with German fighter jets. However, these days the Germans are sending out high-altitude bombers without fighter escorts. As a result, the two sides have not had a chance to fight until now.

The engineers' confidence is not groundless. The performance of this fighter is indeed quite excellent. In the original time and space, a total of 6,399 Yak-7s of various types were produced. Moreover, this aircraft can be said to be an excellent aircraft model that connects the past and the future in terms of design. The Yak-9 fighter with a total output of 16,769 was improved from the Yak-7.

As for taking the initiative to send fighter jets to challenge the German Air Force, Zhukov never even thought about it. At the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War and the Soviet-German War, most of the experienced pilots were wiped out. Today's Soviet pilots can't even be called the Air Force. 90% of them are just people who can fly planes, not those who can take to the air to fight. soldiers.

Under such circumstances, Zhukov naturally cannot let the fighter jets rush into battle. He can only urge the pilots to step up their training, otherwise the fighter jets, no matter how good their performance is, will only be targets.

But training also requires flying an airplane into the sky, and airplanes need to consume fuel to go into the sky. Today's Soviet fuel reserves are not rich. The Baku oil fields were occupied by the Germans early on, and the developed second Baku was bombed by German bombers at regular intervals and was almost paralyzed. Moreover, the Soviet Union in the original time and space also lacked high-quality aviation fuel, and almost relied on assistance from the United States, Britain and other countries. This involves the Far East again. The Americans also provided a lot of fuel before, but most of it was accumulated in the Far East.

As a result, these poor pilots could only do flight training on the ground most of the time. They attached two simple wing-shaped paper shells to the handlebars of their bicycles and formed a formation to circle back and forth.

And Zhukov is worried whether the performance data of these new fighter jets have been completely mastered by the Germans. You must know that once the performance of a fighter jet is mastered by the enemy, the combat effectiveness of this fighter jet will be greatly reduced. After all, no fighter jet can be perfect in all aspects, and there must be certain weaknesses. This is like the "vital gate" in martial arts. Even for a powerful master, once the "vital gate" is exposed, it is very likely that his life will be lost.

The best example is the Zero fighter from World War II. The Zero fighter stole the show in its early days of service. With its small turning radius, fast speed, and ultra-long range, it completely overwhelmed a series of U.S. fighter jets. The U.S. Air Force suffered a lot in the early stage, and American pilots almost got Zero fear. disease. Before 1942, the Zero fighter was unmatched and unmatched.

As a result, in 1942, the U.S. military accidentally obtained a complete Zero fighter and after thoroughly studying it, the arrogant Zero fighter instantly became the "Mariana Turkey".

What Zhukov fears and hates the most is the intelligence capabilities of the Germans. Various signs indicate that the Germans have laid a huge intelligence network within the Soviet Union, penetrating into every corner, and it is simply pervasive. Maybe there are spies planted by the Germans around him. It's simply unbelievable that these damn spies were able to escape several major purges, purges, and internal investigations intact.

If these spies are not uncovered, the combat plan formulated today may be placed on the desk of the German high command tomorrow for study by the German top brass.

But he did not dare to raise this opinion to Comrade Stalin easily. Now that the war is imminent, if there is another counterintelligence storm at this juncture, the consequences will be disastrous. Maybe there would be no need to wait until the German army comes over next spring, and Moscow will collapse first. This is naturally not the outcome he wants to see.