Chapter 159: Army reform
The happy and stable holidays are always short-lived. After Christmas, the European people started to get busy again.
As time went on, the cloud of war looming over Europe grew thicker.
At the beginning of January, Germany adjusted its troop structure. The original three army groups of the Central, South and North were cancelled and replaced by five army groups A, B, C, D and E, of which the A and C army groups were deployed. On the German-Polish border, Army Group A has the first, third, and fourth group armies under its command, with a total of 432,000 troops.
Army Group C has two major armies, the fifth and eleventh, with a total of 192,000 men. Of these, only the Fifth Army is fully staffed, while the three armies under the Eleventh Army have only one light infantry division each. .
Army Groups B and D were deployed on the German-French-German-Swiss border.
Army Group B has the second, seventh, and ninth group armies under its command, with a total number of 240,000 people. Among them, only the second army group is fully staffed. The seventh and ninth army groups are the same as the eleventh army. There are only three divisions of troops.
Army Group D under the jurisdiction of the Eighth Army and Tenth Army, the total number of 144,000 people, the Eighth and Tenth Army are not full.
The Eighth Army had only five infantry divisions and one armored division, while the Tenth Army had only three infantry divisions.
Deployed on the German-Danish border, Army Group E is the weakest army group in Germany. The 6th and 12th Army Groups under their jurisdiction only have six infantry divisions with a total of 96,000 men.
However, since the imaginary enemy of the E Army is the Danish army (there are only three infantry divisions in the whole country), more than 90,000 people are enough.
The Air Force has nothing to regroup. They now have 4,000 ME109 fighters of various types, of which the latest ME109K accounts for 2,800.
In addition to the ME109, Germany has also developed and equipped a brand new fighter - the F190.
The F190 is different from the ME109. It is a high-altitude high-speed fighter with poor fighting performance.
However, it was not developed to "dogfight" with the enemy, its use is to use high-altitude, high-speed performance and powerful firepower to attack enemy bomber formations.
If you have to fight with the enemy fighter, you need to try to avoid getting entangled with the opponent's fighter. Instead, you should take advantage of your excellent high-altitude and high-speed performance to occupy the high altitude, and take advantage of the enemy's high-speed dive when it doesn't react. Fatal blow.
However, the F190 German army is not equipped with many, only less than 800. The reason why there is so little equipment is that the German Air Force strategy is mainly offensive and requires a large number of fighters with excellent "dogfighting" performance, and the second is that the German army has recently been flying a more powerful aircraft - TA152.
TA152 is also a high-altitude and high-speed fighter, but its low-altitude fighting ability is also very strong (refer to the history of TA152 double-killing "Storm" fighters at the height of treetops), and after Lyon's physical skills requirements, this life's TA152 is also strengthened With the addition of auxiliary fuel tanks, the range can reach a terrifying 2,600 kilometers, which makes its airborne combat quite powerful and is one of the main models of the Luftwaffe in the future.
After talking about the air force, the next step is the navy.
After Lyon established a naval base with Finland, Germany separated a small number of warships from the High Seas Fleet and formed a new fleet, the German Northern Fleet.
First, let's talk about the current German High Seas Fleet.
The High Seas Fleet has a total of 6 aircraft carriers of type 3, 4 battleships of type 2, 15 heavy cruisers of type 3, 15 light cruisers of type 3, 62 type Z destroyers and 115 U submarines.
The Northern Fleet has 1 heavy cruiser, 3 light cruisers and 7 Z destroyers.
Compared with the changes in the Army and Air Force, the Navy has not developed much. The only change is that the Naval Air Force has developed and equipped brand-new aircraft.
The fighter was changed from the ME109T, which was originally changed from the road-based ME109, to the DO.38 fighter specially developed by Dornier for the aircraft carrier.
Compared with ME109T, DO.38 uses a high-horsepower engine and a large propeller to enhance performance. However, in this way, the landing gear has to be lengthened to prevent the large propeller from scraping on the deck, but if the landing gear is lengthened, it will bring another Problem - A landing gear that is too long can cause it to be weak and break easily during landing.
In order to solve this problem, the wing of the DO.38 adopts an inverted gull-wing layout similar to the JU87, and the "inverted V" on the wing compensates the length of the landing gear, which solves this problem.
More than that, the DO.38 fighter with an inverted gull-wing layout has also been significantly improved in lift and pilot vision compared to the ME109T, which is not used.
But what the Naval Aviation needs to improve the most is not fighter jets, but dive bombers and torpedo attack aircraft.
During the Spanish Civil War, the German aircraft carrier force lost a total of more than 40 JU87C dive bombers and more than 20 FI-167 torpedo attack aircraft, exposing many shortcomings.
The disadvantage of JU87C is that because it was modified from roadbed, the field of vision during takeoff and landing is very limited, which leads to the loss of more than half of all JU87Cs that are non-combat losses.
The shortcomings of FI-167 are even more deadly. As a biplane, it is destined to have low survivability. Even the dispensable anti-aircraft firepower of Spain can bring huge damage to FI-167, not to mention Speaking of the Royal Navy it will face in the future.
Recognizing these shortcomings, the Germans immediately ordered the development of new dive bombers and torpedo attack aircraft exclusively for the carrier.
Therefore, while DO.38 was equipped with the German aircraft carrier on a large scale, the new two fighters were also equipped with the Navy.
The new carrier-based attack aircraft is manufactured by Junkers and is named JU90. It is not much different from the JU87C in general shape. It also adopts the inverted gull-wing wing layout. Compared with the JU87, the main changes are made. Focus on the landing gear and cockpit.
The new torpedo attack aircraft was developed by the F190's manufacturer, Fokker Wolf Aircraft Factory, and was named the F200.
The F200 is similar to Japan's "Meteor" carrier-based torpedo attack aircraft in appearance and performance.
The production process of the F200 is simple, and the main wing is an inverted gull like the DO.38. In order to improve its torpedo attack capability, Fokker Wolf also designed a unique double flap and aileron flap linkage to improve low-speed performance.
In terms of combat, it can not only undertake torpedo attack missions, but also part-time dive bombing missions. In addition, because of its excellent aerodynamic shape, it can also fight with enemy fighter jets when necessary. Of course, this situation is rare.
In general, although the Navy has not changed much in terms of the number of ships, it has made great progress in terms of naval aviation strength.
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