Chapter 182
< World War II - Continuation War (4) >
March 27, 1941
West of Leningrad in the Baltic Sea, Kotlin Island – Baltic Fleet Base, Kronstadt
“Damn it, those damn Germans…!”
Admiral Tributs, Commander of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, ground his teeth as he looked up at the sky.
In the sky, a German Arado Ar 196 floatplane reconnaissance aircraft was leisurely flying, observing the Baltic Fleet.
Germany had launched a swarm of Ar 196s from the Finnish island of Ahvenanmaa (the Åland Islands) in the middle of the Baltic Sea, the Finnish mainland, and airbases in East Prussia, covering the entire Baltic region.
Even when they tried to scramble their few remaining fighters to chase them off, the German Army sent out a large number of heavy Bf 110 fighters to prepare for any potential Soviet Air Force attacks.
It was a heavy fighter whose aerial combat performance was so unreliable that the Luftwaffe treated it as a white elephant, but to the already weakened Soviet Air Force, it was not such an easy opponent, and its long range made it perfect for such missions.