Imperial Elite

Chapter 171 Helicopter

Because a large number of military observers from the United States came this time, including a brigadier general, Dwight, who was the head of the military observer group and was a rare figure in the US military at the time.

Actually, it should have been those old friends who had dealt with Old Joe during the last war who came, but officers with combat experience were a rare resource for the US military. The Department of Defense felt that you old guys already had combat experience, so why were you competing with the young people for opportunities? Go to the training camp and train!
Furthermore, this military observer group was paid to participate in the war, and after arriving in NATO countries, they showed interest in everything.

Just like in the last war, once they joined NATO, they wanted to buy everything they saw. If it weren't for the fact that NATO itself has a high demand for weapons, they would even want to buy tens of thousands of NATO assault rifles and rocket launchers.

As for other NATO-standard technology and equipment, everything was new and exciting to them. Moreover, their attitude towards Old Joe was not like it was during the last war, when they rushed over to see the spectacle as if they had seen a famous tourist attraction.

Their current attitude towards Old Joe is like that of a young man who has secretly loved a girl for many years and suddenly gets the opportunity to do group work with that girl. Their attitude towards Old Joe can even be described as fawning.

Since everyone in Citibank has this attitude, Old Joe naturally teaches them whatever comes to mind.

So, after two decades of peace, what is Joe's best skill now?

Naturally, it's for making movies and promoting them.

Old Joe liked to drive to the front lines in his tank painted with the number 001 or a modernized Indomitable off-road vehicle, not only because he enjoyed mingling with the frontline soldiers and personally observing the situation to formulate plans, but also because the front lines were so photogenic.

So after arriving in NATO, as good students of Joe, the Citi Military Observer Group not only began to replace their equipment with NATO gear, but some unlucky members were even tricked into eating canned herring by some bad guys. They also discovered that many of NATO newsreels were actually filmed by Joe himself on the front lines.

The Citi Military Observer Group also quickly organized a military press office, composed of professionals from the First Film Team, as well as operational officers responsible for protecting the photographers and developing the shooting plan.

Then John, the head of the military press office, and Ronald, the deputy head, made a big news story.

Although the first use of helicopters in actual combat left a deep psychological scar on the Teutons, many of them would experience a stress reaction upon hearing the sound of the propellers.

However, as a completely new type of weapon, helicopters still had many problems at this time.

For example, the mechanical reliability and stability when encountering crosswinds in valleys are not very good. In particular, the special airframe structure of helicopters means that helicopter pilots do not have the option to parachute like pilots of fixed-wing aircraft.

In the event of an accident, these pilots either manage to save the plane or suffer a fatal crash.

Even in the helicopter battalion, there was a pilot who, by using his skill in firing rockets from above, destroyed a Teutonic anti-aircraft gun position and then wiped out most of a Teutonic company before escaping. He could be considered an ace pilot by any measure, but just before receiving Old Joe's medal, he died in a crash due to mechanical failure.

Faced with the possibility that even elite pilots could perish due to mechanical failure, the Citi Military Observer's press office responded that death is such a trivial matter that it shouldn't stop them from making the news.

So John, the head of the press office, and Ronald, the deputy head, personally took cameras and boarded the helicopter to film a news segment.

Meanwhile, before the arrival of the Citibank military observer mission, while Joe was still fighting a bloody war in the Sudetenland, and while the entire Old World was watching indifferently, many of the Emerald Isles people who had used their votes to get James into Congress were angrily denouncing the Britannia as a bunch of vermin. They bought their own tickets to NATO countries, including Plug.

These Emerald Isles people not only replenished Wagner's ranks, but also brought him something he had never imagined: rock and roll, which the Teutonics at the time considered decadent music.

In the spirit that the enemy’s opposition meant that we were right, Wagner would broadcast rock music to the Teutonic-occupied territories whenever he had the chance on the front lines.

Since the Teutons were forced to listen to Wagner's music presenter say on the radio, "Good morning, Teutons, I am your old friend Patrick. Yesterday's deadliest lottery was five hundred, thanks to the activity of the helicopter battalion, three hundred of them were killed in the air raids alone..." and then have to enjoy the Führer's roll call and the rock music that, like jazz, is something only Teutons can appreciate.

If the Teutons were forced to listen to rock and roll, then the Caucasians naturally heard it too.

However, since the Governors series of films used a lot of rock music as background music, Americans are quite accepting of rock music.

After filming the helicopter raid, John and Ronald returned to the airport and happened to hear Wagner Radio playing "Fortunate Son." Still immersed in the shock of the helicopter attack, John and Ronald thought the music was incredibly catchy.

So soon after they edited the video and added music and voiceovers, it was all over again.

Citi cinemas began showing a newsreel titled "The Raid on Wagner," produced by the Citi Military Observation Group.

As Ronald shouts, "Good morning! Teutonic! Hey, this isn't a sound check, this is rock and roll!" a burst of loud music begins, and close-up shots of helicopters in flight appear on the screen, followed by a shot of the helicopter pilot wearing sunglasses giving a thumbs-up to the camera.

Next came a formation of three helicopters that covered ground troops as they launched a surprise attack on a Teutonic position.

After the battle, the Teutonic flags on the Teutonic positions were taken down, and NATO, Wagner, and American flags were raised instead.

This newsreel swept through Citibank's theaters upon its release, even temporarily pushing the first "Governor" movie, which had been re-released countless times, off the box office charts.

Everyone at Citibank thinks Wagner is cool, and Wagner helicopter pilots are the coolest of the cool, it's practically the coolest job in the world.

Especially after some media outlets, having consulted engineering professors to estimate the helicopter's potential price and its piloting difficulty, started to claim that piloting a helicopter was as difficult as flying a five- or six-story building, and that its combat capabilities were comparable to those of Space Marines from the 2K era!

As public opinion grew, both the officials in Congress and those at the Pentagon became increasingly uneasy.

In fact, the men in the Pentagon were already getting restless when bombarded with a deluge of reports.

After all, for them, the desire for such a new toy was like a child seeing a new toy in a shop window—they couldn't wait a moment longer. And now that even the bigwigs in Congress couldn't sit still, they could discuss with Old Joe about the price per kilogram of this helicopter. Was it guaranteed to be ripe?

Old Joe was actually quite pleased that the Americans were interested in helicopters, since he had been funding their development all along. Although Old Joe wasn't short of money, that was before the war.

Since the start of the war, although the Lucia military government has not yet taken any action, business on Paradise Island, which was Old Joe's cash cow, has plummeted.

With military spending skyrocketing, even Joe is finding it hard to keep up.

So at this point, Citibank expressed their interest in the project, and what could Steve Jobs possibly say?

He immediately pulled out three plans from his crotch and lined them up in front of him, indicating that the helicopters they were using were only in a rudimentary stage.

As an early prototype for testing and training pilots, I have three plans for a more specialized version, one of which is a dedicated attack helicopter.

This helicopter, loaded with rockets and even equipped with machine guns, is a perfect tank opener.

The next plan is unarmed transport helicopters, which will be used for tasks such as troop assault and infiltration, as well as pilot rescue. We could even try to see if they can be mounted on ships for anti-submarine missions.

The final plan is to combine the two into an armed transport helicopter, but this is quite difficult, so it's just a concept for now. Tell me, which one do you want to work on?
Looking at these three plans, Citibank thought for a moment, and then made an adult choice: I want them all!
Although NATO's industrial center is in Bohemia, Bohemia's geography is so bad that after Steve Jobs reached an agreement with Citibank, the senior engineers and industrial equipment that had been transferred from Bohemia were relocated thanks to the previous industrial relocation plan.

In addition to the industrialization projects that Wagner Group has undertaken in NATO countries, Joe will establish a joint research center and an aircraft manufacturing plant with Citibank in Plug, dedicated to the research and development and production of helicopters.

Then Old Joe's action naturally attracted the attention of others.

Since the embassy of Bunitania was located in the United States, its most important task at this time was to improve relations between the United States and Bunitania so that the United States could provide support to Bunitania.

Therefore, Bonitania's diplomats were very sensitive to the US's movements. So when they learned that the US was going to cooperate with Joe Biden on the development of new weapons, Bonitania immediately jumped in and said, "We have the technology! Count us in!"
Just like the MCS project initiated by Old Joe, which was originally intended to build up the armored forces of the Bunitania so that the Bunitania could win the next war with ease, the MCS project was actually largely realized by the People's Revolutionary Union.

When the People's Revolutionary Union learned of the collaborative project between Citibank and Joe, it also became very interested in helicopters as a weapon.

After all, following the Battle of Warsaw, the People's Revolutionary Union, like the Teutons, concluded that it should not engage in costly armored battles lightly. However, in the post-battle debriefing, they also discovered a problem.

That is, their anti-tank efficiency is still not high enough.

Although the Teutonic tanks were roughly equal in specifications to their tanks, their heavy tanks had slightly thinner armor, but their artillery was slightly more accurate.

This slight difference, when applied to armored warfare, gave the Teutons a slight advantage.

At the same time, although the attack aircraft launched a fierce attack, the attack efficiency was slightly reduced due to the attack window issue.

Therefore, if they had access to equipment like helicopters, they might be able to gain an advantage in future armored warfare.

Therefore, the People's Revolutionary Alliance also sent a proposal to Old Joe to conduct joint research and development and cooperative production. Although there is a huge ideological gap between the two sides, the strength of the People's Revolutionary Alliance means the strength of NATO.

Meanwhile, the Teutons, who had been rendered ineffective by the helicopter attacks, were also expressing that they needed two things most: helicopters and anti-aircraft equipment to counter them.

Helicopters were not an option in the short term. Even if a leader of state obtained a newsreel of a helicopter from a third country and watched it, he would say that the Teutons also wanted their own helicopters.

The Teutonic engineers couldn't conjure up a helicopter immediately either.

However, the lack of helicopters did not mean they could not develop anti-aircraft weapons. The configuration of mounting 20mm cannons on half-tracks at the front line was deemed to be effective.

The Teutonic engineers immediately began a makeshift, factory-made modification.

The training tanks that were designed and manufactured in the Caucasus region were gathered together, and after the original enclosed turrets were removed, a semi-open turret and twin 20mm cannons were installed.

Although this anti-aircraft vehicle is so poorly designed that its theoretically spacious semi-open turret is so cramped that it doesn't even have enough space for the commander during an attack, forcing the commander to leave the turret to direct the vehicle.

But given the current situation, anything that's put on the plate is food, so the troops on the front lines shouldn't worry about it too much.

Meanwhile, since they didn't know which weapons were most effective against helicopters, the ordnance department creatively mounted the 37mm anti-aircraft guns from the warships onto truck trailers and sent these armed trucks to Oslo along with the armored regiment supporting the front lines.

Because the war in the north was not going well at the time, in order to prevent the Teutonic military presence in the north from being driven into the sea by George, the Führer increased military investment in the north.

Since military spending in the north has increased, military spending in other areas will naturally have to be reduced somewhat.

The region where military spending was cut was the Northern Dark Continent.

However, since there were no significant military operations taking place in the Northern Dark Continent at the moment, the leader felt it was more important to stabilize the north first.

(End of this chapter)