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Photographs from the recon camera lay spread across a rough wooden table in the base briefing room. Andre, the serious tactician now that pretty girls did not surround him, studied the photos. "Oui, mon ami, eet eez as our source said. Zee launchers are for zee Nazis' new A-10 rocket." He glanced up and saw a puzzled expression on Major Litvyak's face. "Zee A-10 is a larger version of zee A-4 rocket, zee one we call the V-2. Zee A-10 carries a much heavier warhead ten times as far as zee V-2, with greater accuracy."
"It has enough range," Blackhawk said, "that from this forward base it can reach over the Ural Mountains to your factories in the east. If they knock out your industrial capacity, the Soviet Union won't last long."
"Da, tovarisch," Major Litvyak said. "So you plan to attack the rocket base with your bombers?"
"It won't be that simple, Major," Chuck, the Texan technical expert, said. He pointed at smaller rocket launchers in the photos. "These are Wasserfalls. They're a new German anti-aircraft missile that uses an infrared seeking guidance system." This time the puzzled expression was on everyone's faces. "It 'sees' heat and homes in on the hot exhausts of a plane's engine. That's why you couldn't shake that missile, Blackhawk. But the Wasserfall's IR seeker was designed to shoot down bombers like the B-29. Our B-26s ain't as big, but their engines generate 2,000 horsepower each, and are plenty hot enough to make good targets. And the Ratzis have a whole passel of these missiles around their base."
"So, are you saying there's no way past these new AA missiles, Chuck?" Blackhawk asked.
"Not using our ships. But the missiles need a pretty hot target to home in on. The Major's Po-2s' engines only put out 110 horsepower. I reckon they might be invisible to the Wasserfall."
"I see. If the Major's planes could knock out the anti-aircraft missiles, we could come in after them in the Marauders. But the Germans have regular Flak 37 anti-aircraft artillery, too. You won't be invisible to that, Major."
"We face that every night, Comrade Blackhawk. We have developed tactics that work."
"Okay, let's get ready, then. We takeoff a hour after sunset."
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