Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 166 Field Airfields and Transport Aircraft Squadrons
a few days later.

Since the parachutes were issued, the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment's garrison has been given a new name.

Internally, it is still called the 102nd Air Force Special Service Fleet Dock, both in official documents and in the names of other units.

However, to the outside world, Ostend transformed from an air force fleet anchorage into an air transport hub.

Thanks to the flat terrain of the outskirts of Ostend and its advantage of facing the sea, the engineering corps sent by the Imperial Air Force arrived in Ostend on the third day after the parachutes were distributed and began to build a simple field airfield around it.

The purpose of the construction was to fulfill Rein's initial vision for the 502nd Regiment—to transport and deploy troops to the enemy's rear by plane or flying vehicle.

Today marks the completion of the field airfield.

Even though Farland, dozens of kilometers away, was still covered in heavy snow, the Kingdom of Perij was only slightly affected.

The temperature and wind speed in the border region are not significantly different from other regions, so the climate in Ostend is actually starting to resemble that of the Empire's homeland.

The warm wind turned the snow in the sky over Farland into raindrops, turning it into a continuous drizzle. However, because the rain was so light, it hardly fell to the ground, only slightly wetting Renn's hat.

The sound of the Junkers 52 military transport plane filled everyone's minds. The three engines, each with over 700 horsepower, made the soldiers, who had never seen an airplane before or had ever actually ridden in one, cover their ears in frustration. But everyone's face showed excitement—they had finally arrived in their own plane.

More importantly, they will never have to parachute from an airship again!

Ryan calmly looked at the young men under his command, and although he could see what they were thinking, he didn't say it.

After all, compared to airplanes, airship parachute training is far too simple and safe.

But these young men don't seem to have realized this yet.

As is well known, there are significant differences in the classification of aircraft and airships.

Airplanes are heavier than air vehicles, while airships are lighter than air vehicles.

Based on these two different characteristics, the flight characteristics of the two types of vehicles are also completely different.

In the past, airship training was mostly conducted by the captain and navigator of the Wave-class ships, who determined the wind speed for the day, then allowed the airship to climb vertically to the designated height, and then opened the hatch so that the soldiers could jump out.

During this process, the airship had almost no forward speed, or rather, it was simply fixed in the sky.

Therefore, airship parachuting is very safe; it won't fly into random, chaotic places, and there won't be any situation where people get so stunned by the wind that they forget to open their parachutes.

In short, it's like a group of young men going skydiving at an altitude of several thousand meters; the only question they need to consider is whether they dare to go down.

Parachuting from an airplane is different.

Grandma Junkers' flight speed is 265 kilometers per hour.

Although it can't match the Empire's current Zeppelin-class airships or the maximum speed of the Wave-class, this thing flies at a low altitude!

Both the Inspur and Zeppelin classes require altitudes above 8,000 meters to achieve speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour, but the Junkers Grandma's service ceiling is less than 6000 meters, and its maximum speed is achieved at an altitude of around 4500 meters.

Even more critically, because airplanes are not airships, he had to drop paratroopers while flying at high speed.

In layman's terms, the soldiers had to crawl out of the cabin of an aircraft traveling at speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour, watch the plane fly away, and wait for their parachutes to open and land.

This is completely different from a fixed aerial platform like an airship.

Therefore, when the first Junkers plane landed at the field airfield amidst the cheers of the soldiers and opened its doors to Rennes, Rennes immediately called on the commanders of each unit, then plopped down in the co-pilot's seat of the Junkers plane, put on his headset, and patted the captain on the shoulder.

"No?" McQuay had a sudden thought when he saw this. "Colonel, aren't you going to jump with us?"

For some time prior, Ryan had been undergoing parachute training alongside regular soldiers.

He has so far had more than 300 skydiving experiences, averaging 20 to 30 jumps a day.

This is something you can only do with an airship; if it were an airplane, the pilot would be exhausted to death.

But the situation is different now.

He's the commander; there are things he can do himself, but that doesn't mean he actually has to do them.

Therefore, he immediately looked at McQuay and said, "I am a pilot today, not a paratrooper."

"Are you scolding me?"

McQuay frowned: "Although I don't understand, I feel like you're insulting me, Colonel!"

"You're talking nonsense!"

Ryan immediately reached out and tapped McVeigh's head, which was sticking into the cockpit, before locking the cockpit door behind him.

He didn't even need to guess what would happen next.

When the one-and-a-half-hour flight mission ended and the plane finally returned to the airport, two platoon leaders had already been injured and hospitalized due to excessive excitement during the parachute jump.

They forgot the standard landing posture when they landed; one broke his leg and went straight home, while the other was granted a week's leave due to an arm injury.

That's right, the injured one in the back is Schultz, the platoon leader with a ton of future battle wound medals.

Brinkman, on the other hand, was exhausted in the cabin.

Because the soldiers who were used to parachuting from airships were blown into a daze by the wind that rushed in from outside the cabin the moment the door opened, and they all stuck in the cabin, too afraid to jump.

It was fortunate that Kenneth was the first one; otherwise, Brinkman really wouldn't have been able to get these grown men out of the cabin.

The training that followed was not difficult.

The officers and sergeants who had already jumped without injury began to return to their units and boast about it. They also took off their parachutes with great anticipation and began to serve as parachute training instructors on different aircraft.

Then the more than two thousand people in the group exclaimed that they had been deceived.

It was at this moment that Brinkman suddenly realized that McQuay seemed perfectly normal on the plane, a stark contrast to his behavior on the airship.

Realizing this, she reported it to Ryan at the party that evening, but Ryan didn't take it seriously.

His exact words were: "He didn't have a relapse, so what are you reporting? Wait until he has a relapse like last time he came to Ostend before you report. Dismissed."

Brinkman could only helplessly put the matter aside and never mention it again.

Then, when the two were traveling from the Empire to the United States after the war to sign the contract for the construction of an overseas military base for the Empire, they were driven to a nervous breakdown by McVeigh's erratic behavior in the airship.

Starting today, the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment has officially been equipped with forty-eight Junkers JF-17s, totaling a squadron-sized fleet, as the main transport force for the regiment. Later that night, two days before Christmas...

After stuffing the journal entry he had just finished writing back into the drawer beside him, Ryan looked up at the camp outside the window.

The camp, constructed using modular blast walls and a mixture of concrete, is now almost as large as the city of Ostend.

He is currently on the top floor of a five-story building with an elevator, which is the highest floor in the camp.

About five or six hundred meters away, there stands a small control tower built to coordinate and command the newly built field airfield.

The number of planes transported from the mainland has increased significantly during this period.

However, most of them were used to protect the Junkers fighter jets or to carry out reconnaissance missions to monitor the strait.

Ryan's attitude toward these flight squadrons that were not under his jurisdiction was not bad, but it wasn't much better.

The reasons why things turned out this way are quite complicated.

If I had to pinpoint the reason, it would be that the pilots came from a very diverse background.

As for reconnaissance aircraft, it's not too bad. The pilots are basically all trained by the Empire, and they are impeccable in terms of background, loyalty, and obedience.

But the group of fighter pilots is much more abstract.

As has been said before, the level of science and technology in the Empire was not the same as that of the rest of the world at the same time, but overall it was roughly the same as the technology between 1927 and 1932, with some parts being more backward and others more advanced.

Fighter jets are a prime example.

Most of those fighter planes were biplanes, and although the pilots were officers from noble families, most of them had joined the army voluntarily, bringing their own planes with them.

Why they didn't join the army before the war is another matter entirely.

At least Renn doesn't want to think about these things.

The problem is that, precisely because of this, there have been frequent reports recently of female sergeants and soldiers being harassed by fighter pilots.

Although Ryan has repeatedly ordered that male officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers prioritize the personal safety of their colleagues, there have still been cases in the past two days where fighter pilots have almost had their fifth leg broken.

However, this is still acceptable.

After all, not everyone is willing to fight with that leg up.

The real problem is what they say when they fight.

Inside the office, Ryan's gaze remained fixed on the window, behind him stood a newly assigned pilot and a deputy company commander from the Third Battalion.

He pulled a cigarette from his coat, lit it with a lighter he couldn't even remember where he'd swiped from, and only asked after he'd smoked half of it: "What do you mean the United Kingdom's fleet is trapped in Farland's port?"

Both the United Kingdom and the Empire supplied Falland with supplies via warships and cargo ships, because if supplies were sent directly by train, only the major cities could receive a large amount of supplies, while the general towns of Falland would not be able to be served.

Therefore, they chose the more complex port freight as the main form of assistance.

Firstly, this could cause a temporary labor shortage in some port cities, allowing them to expand their recruitment efforts.

Secondly, this would also prevent Farland, who value the Continental Army, from receiving immediate supplies, thus ensuring that they could not immediately return to a state where they could launch large-scale offensives as before.

Why are the ships of the United Kingdom stuck in the port of Farland?

Renn couldn't understand it.

After a while, the pilot who had almost had his fifth leg broken finally spoke: "I heard it happened in the Mediterranean."

"Mediterranean?"

Some of the place names here are no different from those on Earth, so Raine simply nodded: "Continue."

“There is a pilot from the Republic of Thalia in my flying club. He wrote to me last week saying that a fleet of 32 warships from the United Kingdom is currently stuck in a port in the Mediterranean Sea in Farland and cannot leave. It is expected that they will not be able to get out of the predicament until February.”

When did the fleet enter the port?

Ryan immediately pressed for more information.

A fleet of thirty-two warships is no small force.

In the Empire's case, a fleet of thirty-two warships would be enough to be called a main fleet, and would even be larger than the Empire's current main fleet.

It's not a good thing that such a large fleet is stuck in the port of Farland.

Although Farland is not stupid and would certainly not attack the United Kingdom's warships at this time, these thirty-two warships are enough to cause panic in the United Kingdom for a period of time.

Although the Empire and the United Kingdom signed a brief peace agreement, the United Kingdom continued to urgently recall its fleets deployed overseas during this period.

The United Kingdom's North Sea base, Scapa Flow, is currently overflowing with returning warships, yet they continue to call back ships, clearly preparing for a battle around the spring.

Perhaps those thirty-two ships were the main force they would later deploy to the battlefield, but now the situation is completely different.

A main fleet is trapped, while the United Kingdom has been boasting about the number of its warships and the size of its fleet for some time now...

Add to that the situation in Scapa Flow...

Regardless of what Ryan thought, he felt that nothing good would come of this.

"At the beginning of this month."

The pilot said, "I heard they only entered the port in early December. They should have arrived at Scapa Flow a week ago, but..."

"The beginning of the month?"

Raine immediately stood up, rummaged through the newspaper box beside him, and finally found a newspaper from southern Farland: "The Asia-Pacific Fleet consisting of the battleship Neptune and its escort ships?"

"Yes, yes, that's them."

The pilot nodded vigorously: "It seems that something went wrong during maintenance, and they only found themselves completely frozen in the port after the maintenance was completed, unable to get out at all."

How did you know about your club's good amico?

Renn frowned, then turned his gaze to the pilot: "No one should know this much, right?"

(End of this chapter)