“I certainly hope so.”
The roads at the Artillery school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma were as crowded as at every other base they visited. Here the congestion was made worse by the number of artillery guns being towed from place to place. Beside the paved road was a wide dirt track where self-propelled guns moved quickly and noisily at dangerous speed.
The Commandant put on a good show, a line of guns that increased in size from left to right. First came the ‘French 75,’ a holdover from the last war that could fire as fast as a pistol. The gun itself was a new-build to the proven design. The crew all of second lieutenants explained that it was used as a pack gun and antitank weapon using a new sabot round. Next was the 105, this one towed. The carriage featured a towing arm that split into three legs, allowing the gun to rotate in all directions quickly. This would be the gun, in its towed or self-propelled variant, attached to regiments.
Divisions would add the 155 for longer range and greater firepower. The 175 was in the tracked vehicle they saw at Leavenworth. The young officers explained the tracked carriage was in short supply, but more and more were supposedly coming available each month. Next came a surprise, a common six by six field truck with a rocket launcher in the cargo bed. At the sound of a whistle, a half-dozen student officers formed a fire brigade passing six-foot long rockets from a supply truck, loading two of them in each of the tubes. The evolution took less than ten minutes.
“Would you care to do the honors?” the Commandant asked Larry.
“Please feel free, Captain,” he passed the control box to his aide who walked the device to the end of its cable. The Commandant made sure all his young officers were at a safe distance and nodded. Sixty rockets flew downrange toward some unseen target. Now Winston understood, the two rockets were placed head-to-toe in each tube. First one then the other flew out of each tube in turn. One of the young gunners pointed out the twelve-foot rockets filled the entire tube, but had twice the range. Behind the firing line was pair of tracked vehicles, one was the fire direction center in an armored personnel carrier.
The other was also a modified APC, this one equipped with a chute that let it pass shells to the guns while still under armored cover.
“I thought the Sherman APCs didn’t have roofs.” Larry asked.
“We just fabricate them locally. We don’t have proper armor steel to work with of course, but it keeps the rain off at least.” The Commandant replied.
At Fort Hood in Texas Winston observed the Army’s two antiaircraft guns. The ninety was mounted on a fairly traditional towed mount. When in place it had a striking resemblance to the old photos Winston remembered of the German 88 batteries. One difference was the advanced shells which featured a metal sabot. When fired the sabot fell away from the shell, allowing the smaller shell to use all the power of the oversized gun.
“Darn clever,” Winston observed, “like an antitank round.”
“Came from Don and the British, those guys are going to take a pounding from the Germans and have done a lot of thinking about how to knock the bombers out of the sky.”
The mobile gun was in fact a pair of 40mm barrels mounted in a Sherman tracked vehicle.
After the now-traditional firepower demonstration, Winston and his minders wandered among the guns.
They came to an enclosed trailer with a number of antennas next to a loud generator.
“Radars?”
“Not for the tactical gun, that is all done by eye, but the Brits have shown us how to slave the 90s to a fire-direction set, like I said, they are leading the way on the antiaircraft defense.”
Several nondescript fuel trucks were parked nearby, each had a trailer carrying what looked like a tall garbage can. The crew gathered around the visitors in an unscripted moment. Apparently no visitor had ever inspected the smoke generators before.
“The air defenses control the smoke line.” Larry explained, “these trucks will not be near the guns in the field, we let the wind position them.”
“But the I read the reports,” Winston objected, “the Germans are using blind bombing at night.”
“Against cities, yes, but these will hide the units in the field. Our guns are radar-directed, but the bombers won’t be.”
Winston arched an eyebrow and nodded approvingly.
“The British again.” Larry admitted. “Still we have some of our own tricks.”
Chapter 11: More Airplanes
A crane placed the tiny aircraft on its launcher atop an old flatcar. At a signal, some men gave the contraption a push and sent it rolling down the arid hill. The tiny engine reached operating speed and fired the drone into the air, clawing for its preset altitude. Several miles away it crossed a tarred road and entered the range proper. The first flight of circling fighters swept down from out of the sun. Both swept past their target, never firing a shot.
The next set did better. Coming in from the rear, the student pilots were able to loose long streams of tracers well behind the target before running out of ammunition.
A third pair sought vengeance against the obdurate device. Again approaching from the rear, they flew more slowly and allowed the stubby target to fill their sights. A rain of fire struck it repeatedly, forcing the target to releasing a white flare of surrender. The observers on the ground heard the instructor on the radio order his students to “Knock it off.” The target crossed another road exiting the range. It pulled into a stall and released a parachute to return to the ground.
“What was that?” Winston asked, putting down his binoculars.
“I would call that a good start.” Tom replied with a grin. They have an official designation of course, but the crews are calling them ‘buzzards’ from the sound.”
“Pulse jet?”
“As close to a copy of your V-1 as we can make, as I said a start. We want to improve accuracy quite a bit more. We hope to get them rigged up with the blind-bombing system too.”
“When will the real ones be ready?”
“These drones are already are coming out from Hughes in California. We are keeping the cameras off of them as long as we can. The real thing is being prototyped, a couple dozen handmade ones for testing.
Any thoughts?”
“Don’t make them too good. The V-1 was a marvel of cheap design; I think it burned pure alcohol. I suspect the Germans just got lucky, but their version flew just fast enough to require front line fighters to be wasted on homeland defense. They flew low enough that the British had to man their light AA guns, and high enough that they also had to keep their heavy guns in service until the end of the war.”
Tom replied, “Ours are sort of upside-down looking from the information you gave us, the wing on the top and the jet on the bottom, it is designed to hang under the wing of a bomber. That helps a lot with the range, but as I said we are not happy with accuracy yet. They will be able to carry a couple of different warheads.”
“What about those fighter aircraft?” Winston indicated the aircraft still flying overhead.
“Well, that is more an advanced trainer more than a real fighter, we call it a Maverick. It is as close as we can get to the Mustang you described until Packard can supply enough Merlin engines. When the Merlins become available, and some other things mature we will have a cadre of pilots ready.” The aviator was fumbling with his binocular case. “The Maverick is teaching us a lot. It is already fairly capable as a fighter, our first with electronic navigation, first with a new type of supercharger, first with oxygen for the pilot.” Tom waved his charge to the jeep.
“I see we are still learning aerial gunnery too.” The professor quipped.
“That too.” Tom agreed.
The next stop was to the airfield, where several dozen Mavericks were lined up for inspection. They certainly looked like war machines to Winston.
“In truth, everyone thinks they are fighters. The Maverick is our front-line fighter now, it’s in all the newsreels, the Mustang is proceeding more discreetly. So these men thi
nk they are flying a hot-shot fighter, when in fact they are just learning to fly the next generation.” Tom stopped the vehicle. “Four fifty caliber machine guns, fully-enclosed cockpit, all-metal construction. The first ones used fabric on the control surfaces, but we had to change that.” He climbed up on a wing. The cockpit was a confusion of gauges and instruments. “Not like when I learned to fly,” Tom said. “See anything of interest, Winston?”
“Does this have the predictive sight we discussed?”
“We figured out what that meant, and yes, it reflects on the canopy here.” Tom pointed at the gadget.
“How about an ejection seat?”
“No, no need for one at the low speeds this flies at. Still someone somewhere is thinking about ejection seats I wager.”
Winston stroked the leather seat. “We will need to add a headrest up here, something to protect the neck in a hard landing. Fighters in my day had rear-view mirrors up here.” He tapped the greenhouse.
“When will we have the all-glass canopy?”
“The Mavericks coming off the line already have them, these are the older type.”
The pair got out and walked around the airplane. A lone military policeman kept nonexistent curiosity seekers away.
“I don’t know why, but modern planes in my day had a nose wheel. Something about that they are easier to handle on the ground like that.”
Tom nodded silently.
“Down here, the Mustang is supposed to have a radiator array here,” Winston indicated the belly of the aircraft under the wing.
“Is that important?” Tom asked.
“The radiators heated the air passing through a cowling, causing it to expand. It was sort of like an early jet assist, called the Meredith Effect.”
“Was that on purpose?”
“No idea, but the radiator thing was important for another reason. It was the one weak spot on the armor, the pilots used to joke a kid with a rifle could shoot it down.”
“Could they?”
I don’t know, pilots like to make jokes.”
“We will have to find Meredith and tell him how to invent his effect I suppose.”
“Is the propeller adjustable?” Winston ran his hand over the airscrew.
“Right here, doctor.” Tom pointed at the mechanism at the hub.
“I never claimed to be an aeronautical engineer you know.”
“Don’t worry, all we need are some clues, you are helping a lot.” Tom assured him. He got back in the jeep’s driver’s seat.
Halfway across the airfield, Winston called a halt. He got out and stood on the bumper to get a good look. “You asked for my impressions, got your notebook?” he asked.
“Always.”
“First off, the weather here is too nice. Our guys need to fly and fight, and maintain in nasty rainy cold conditions.”
“Got it.”
“Next, all these airplanes are in a row, a perfect target. When the shooting starts, they will need to be dispersed.”
“This is a training field, Winston.” Tom protested.
Visions of Pear Harbor came to Winston’s mind. “So train to park the aircraft correctly. We will need revetments too. Also decoys.”
“Target decoys like the drone?” Tom asked.
“No, dummy aircraft here on the ground, to draw attacking planes from the real ones on the flight line.
Nothing elaborate, plywood, tin and cardboard mostly. We need to learn to make and use them now.”
“Also I have always wondered why aircraft are silver. We need to use some sort of camouflaged paint scheme.”
“Sky blue?”
He got back in the passenger seat. “No, runway gray. Did I tell you about sortie rates?”
“I don’t think so.” Tom’s pencil was flying across the page.
“The Israelis first learned to do it in the 1960s. If we can speed up the rearming and refueling aircraft on the ground, we can get more flights each day from the same number of aircraft. The ground crews have to service the aircraft like the pit crew refuels a race car. The planes need to be designed for fast servicing.”
“More airpower with the same number of aircraft?”
“Exactly.”
“Israelites?”
“Israelis.”
“Whatever. Now off to the other side of the field before we get landed on.”
The jeep roared toward a second set of hangars in the distance. As they approached, Winston could see a pair of large cargo planes clustered around a number of vehicles. The local commander had arranged a demonstration of air mobility for his guests. The C-13 Hercules had a high wing and four engines, a narrow ramp acted as a rear hatch and on a signal the soldiers drove two jeeps each with a towed field gun into the belly of the aircraft. That done, the crew added power to the engines, taxied to the end of the runway and took off with an impressive roar. Winston thought it looked the C-130 he remembered, but smaller and simpler.
After an explanation of the features of the new aircraft, the colonel yielded to the mysterious VIP
delegation who asked for a few minutes alone with the aircraft.
“Not half bad, eh?” Tom asked.
“Very nice, how does it compare to the DC-3?” Winston walked up the ramp into the cargo hold.
“Twice as many engines, faster, longer range and with more cargo. We used a lot of the features of the B-17 in this one. It can fly across to Britain with a light load.”
“That can only get better as we improve the engines.”
“We hope. This is it, our most advanced transport. The Maverick will be followed by the Mustang, but the Hercules is it; nothing else in the pipeline.”
Winston sat in the cockpit, moving the controls gently, “I’m speechless, I can’t think anything to add or change.”
“Just as well, as I said we are pretty well stuck with it at this point.”
The two men paused to watch a number of aircraft fly the pattern and land.
“What ever happened to Charles Lindberg, by the way?” Winston asked.
Tom smiled, “Well his attempt at an airline failed, so he became a bit embittered toward the US, he made some pacifist speeches, we made sure the German ambassador was there to hear him, and then he went on a tour of Europe in a Pan Am prototype.
“Why?”
“His plane has some very good, very discreet, cameras. We have him mapping everything he flies over.”
“Can we trust him?”
“He knows your history made a monkey out of him. This time he is eager to do his bit. On the other hand, his wife insisted on coming along this time.”
“She knows about his other, German, ‘wife?’”
“He told her.”
Chapter 12 Poland
The phone rang next to Winston’s bed with at an alarming hour.
“Hitler’s hit Poland,” Larry was calling from the big office downstairs.
“Give me a few minutes.” The long day ahead should begin with a shower, Winston presumed.
The lounge had been papered with maps, the Pacific on one side, the Atlantic and Europe on the other. A specially-made table in the center already held an unrolled map of Poland.
“What do we have from the British?” Winston asked.
“Not as much as you might think. They alerted us as soon as the Poles told them, but our British friends seem to have their hands full at the moment.”
“Why? They haven’t declared war, have they?”
“No, but the French will in a few hours I suppose. The Brits did not give a guarantee to Poland this time around. The French persisted. Still I suppose that the war finally starting has their full attention right now.”
Winston went to the coffee pot nearest his desk. Percolated coffee would have to do. “Any word on where the Germans are attacking?”
“We have some stuff from the wire services. Bombing in Warsaw and other cities, several columns crossing the frontier, one from Danzig. We are not even plotting it on the map;
it is all sort of academic after all, nothing we can do from here.” Larry swept his hand across the pristine chart.
“The Poles don’t stand a chance.” Winston observed for the thousandth time.
“I would have liked to get some bazookas to them, it is tough to do nothing,” Larry said morosely.
“Better than doing something dumb. “Anything from our embassy there?” Winston felt the need to change the subject a bit.
Larry passed him a thick manila folder. “Warsaw? A mixed bag. The aerial survey only got about half-done. The ambassador has managed to save a few trinkets. Nothing important really. Still we did get some Jews out.” Drop in the bucket really.”
“Yep.” Winston opened the paperwork. “A couple of cryptographers, some musicians, some rabbis, less than a hundred all told.”
“Also a copy of the Polish computer, the ‘bombe.’ I suppose that helps. Maybe we can get some more people out, issue them passports or whatever.”
Melancholy closed in around them.
As a result of the invasion, the President went to Congress to authorize the nation’s first peacetime draft. At Winston’s urging, selected men from the Civilian Conservation Corps and other ‘make-work’
programs were taken into the Army and given the stripes to match their experience. The National Guard was mobilized state by state and their equipment brought up to modern standards.
Factories already making war material went to three shifts and other production lines still idle from the Depression were brought online. In months, shortages of engines, gun barrels and critical castings eased and then became a surplus. Almost unnoticed were the finishing touches on improvements to the Intercoastal Waterway on the East Coast, the Saint Lawrence Seaway in New England and the Alaskan Highway and Railroad in the West. Once considered huge projects, they were now dwarfed by hundreds of other programs all proceeding with breakneck speed. The highly secret Manhattan Project continued their secret race with the unknown, desperate to complete their bomb before the Germans. Winston ensured that Oak Ridge and Idaho were passed over in favor of Nevada this time in case his German counterpart remembered their significance.
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