Munitions Empire

The young ground crew member stood at attention and saluted the pilot, who had already climbed onto the wing of the plane. The pilot, after slipping into the cockpit, also returned a standard military salute.

In front of the slender nose of the FW-190 fighter plane, the propeller slowly began to turn, faster and faster until all its blades seemed to vanish.

Inside the control tower of the airfield, the commander reminded the pilots to check the instruments on their planes while holding the talker. On the side of the runway, an officer directing the takeoff waved the flags in his hands.

Pushing the throttle forward, the FW-190 fighter plane sped toward the end of the runway like an arrow released from a bow, then the landing gear detached from the ground and was slowly retracted into the aircraft’s fuselage.

Inside the slightly jostling plane, the pilot leaning back in his seat peered down at the ground growing ever more distant, watching the buildings shrink to the size of matchboxes.

To support the offensive of the frontline troops, all the field airfields were built less than 30 kilometers from the front lines, so these FW-190s had barely started to climb when they could already see the enemy’s forward positions.

"Attention to formation! Attention to formation!” The pilot of the FW-190, which carried aerial bombs beneath its fuselage, circled above their own airfield, contacting his wingmen by radio.

That’s how he had learned during training—to fly in pairs, covering for each other and using dives to bomb ground targets with as much precision as possible.

"Radio check! Repeat!” Inside the control tower, the commander, clutching the walkie-talkie, was nervous because it was his first time directing his troops in actual combat.

"Instruments normal! Engine temperature normal!” Above in the sky, the pilots were also very anxious as they repeatedly checked their instruments, maneuvering their planes into larger flight formations.

Soon, a force of over thirty fighter planes assembled in the sky for ground attack, densely packed, they flew towards the Qi Army’s position.

As there was no need to worry about enemy air force interception, all planes were on ground-attack missions, and the fighters were all equipped with bombs instead of drop tanks.

…

Shireck, a steward rushed to Sofia with a telegram from the Great Tang Kingdom, his voice trembling nervously as he spoke, “Ma’am, the message just delivered

"What’s the matter?” Sofia frowned at seeing her subordinate’s panic.

"Two days ago, someone, someone saw, an uncountable number of… strange flying objects arrive at the front line The steward handed the telegram over to Sofia.

Sofia took the telegram and then asked, “What happened? Something that occurred two days ago, why is it being reported only today?”

She had invested a lot of money in her spies placed within the Great Tang Kingdom, using reliable people and offering them frighteningly high remuneration.

To gather intelligence on Tang Mo, Sofia had indeed spared no expense. She had finally managed to establish an intelligence system targeting Great Tang, only for it to deliver a report two days late at a critical moment!

"Ma’am! Tang Country closed all their telegraph offices several days ago, and only lifted the ban today… Our people could only The steward responsible for intelligence hurriedly explained.

"Damn it! Didn’t I send them a radio? Why didn’t they use it?” Sofia was visibly frustrated, clearly unwilling to accept the explanation.

"In accordance with your arrangements, that radio was set up in Tongcheng… But those, those aircraft, at that time, they didn’t go through Tongcheng.” The steward quickly defended himself, “It was a spy in Linshui who saw them and immediately sent a message to Tongcheng. The message was then sent from there.”

"Flying machines… Airplanes… It seems that not just us, but Tang Country is also developing airplanes… and they’re advancing faster than us,” Sofia said grimly, realizing things were getting out of hand.

She had provided the Qi Country with 70 airships, hoping they would be useful at critical moments.

But now, it seemed that Qi’s airships might be at a significant disadvantage: The enemy had airplanes, and by the looks of it, not just a few.

Taking into account the rumors that one could see dragons and such near Dragon Island and Dongwan Island, Sofia finally confirmed that Tang Country’s work on airplanes started very early and was progressing rapidly. ȓά𐌽оᛒÈs

If Tang Army really had that many airplanes, the outcome of the war would not be as easy to predict. Sofia narrowed her eyes, feeling the pressure of the unknown for the first time.

…

"What is that thing?” Pointing at a small black dot in the sky, a Qi Country soldier asked his comrade in confusion.

Obviously, his comrade did not know what it was either. They had only heard the humming of engines and seen some black dots at the edge of the sky steadily approaching their position.

Then, everyone saw those strange weapons flying in the sky, resembling the Chinese character .

Qi Country soldiers, who had no idea what was happening these days, looked up foolishly as the black dots approached, and then one after another began to dive from the sky.

"Besides airships and balloons, what else have you seen that can fly?” A Qi Army regiment leader lifted his binoculars to look at those black dots coming from the direction of the Tang Country.

The officer standing next to this regiment leader shook his head, he also had no idea what could fly so naturally, so swiftly in the sky.

As those “knight-shaped” black dots got closer and larger, the roar of the engines also became clearer.

Unfortunately, none of these Qi soldiers, seeing airplanes for the first time, responded in any way. They just stood in the trenches, foolishly looking up at the sky, watching the planes fly over their heads.

…

"Dive! Dive!” Inside the headphones, the voice of the lead pilot roared loudly; the plane shuddered violently due to the turbulence of the air flow, and below the nose, all over the enemy’s positions, Qi soldiers were panicking.

"Tat-tat-tat-tat!” Without any hesitation, just like during training, the pilot pulled the trigger, and the wing-mounted cannons roared, sweeping a row of tracer bullets to the ground.

A series of white smoke twisted lines connected on the ground, and all the Qi soldiers nearby were thrown to the ground.

The pilot, who was quite familiar with everything, pulled up his fighter, and the bulky body of the bomb-laden fighter slowly leveled out amidst the howling, then slowly climbed.

For these Tang Country pilots, they had become numb to such attacks; ever since they were equipped with these new fighters, they trained every day in similar attack drills.

How to cut into the angle of attack, how to open fire at the optimum altitude, and how to pull up the plane at a safe height had all become muscle memory for them.

"Buzz Due to the intense maneuvering, the engine’s sound suddenly shifted, and two FW-190 fighter planes, covering each other, climbed one after the other, speeding away like lightning bolts.

"Drop bombs!” On the other side, the second batch of FW-190 fighter planes entering the battlefield found a high-value target on the ground. The pilot in the cockpit gave loud orders, then simultaneously hit the bomb release switch.

Accompanied by the dive of the plane, the aerial bombs hung on the racks were released from the plane’s body due to inertia, smashing toward the ground in the direction the plane was flying.

The FW-190 fighter plane that suddenly felt lighter, like a butterfly, lightly pulled up, and under all eyes, flew away swiftly.

The wingman following this FW-190 didn’t waste any ammunition, and after strafing the ground again, also pulled up the nose, avoiding the fireball that had already exploded on the ground.

Under the same weight conditions, an aerial bomb contains far more charge than a shell, and the bombs carried by the FW-190s hit the ground and exploded instantly, throwing up a huge flame.

A black column of smoke rose into the sky, and a 200mm caliber heavy cannon nearby the blast was caught in the shockwave, tipping to one side.

…

Ground troops from Qi Country, unable to react at all, were completely dumbfounded by the scene before them. They had been fighting wars all their lives, or rather their ancestors for hundreds of years, but had never heard of anything that could fight in the sky.

They had previously thought that airships were about the most terrifying aerial weapon in the world; only today did they realize what true terror was!

Those things that came and went like the wind were simply undefendable; the anti-aircraft guns prepared for shooting balloons were completely unable to aim.

The precision-adjusted cradle had to be turned three circles before the barrel tilted up a few millimeters; how could such slow adjustments aim at these roaring objects?

The now desperate Qi soldiers suddenly began to unravel, because these planes from the Tang Country were not only dropping bombs to destroy gun emplacements and barracks, but even occasionally strafing the soldiers on the ground.

These demons in the sky looked like vultures, circling over people’s heads, diving down to peck at their flesh.

"They’re coming again!” A Qi soldier ran with his head in his hands, crying out in despair. And he was just one of the thousands of Qi soldiers already in chaos.

They had waited for the opponent for five days; they thought they were waiting for the enemy’s artillery and soldiers to come up and die.

What they got instead was something they had never seen themselves, strange birds that could fly over their heads and drop bombs!

"How… how are we supposed to fight this?” Looking at one strange bird after another diving down to bomb and strafe his position, the Qi Army regiment leader turned to his deputy, his tone filled with despair.

"I… I don’t know His assistant was equally dazed as if his soul had been sucked out.

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