"Tut, tut! What a spectacular sight! Hundreds of bombers dropping their bombs at once—even if they were medium bombers, they must have dropped more than nine hundred tons of bombs in one go!" A fighter pilot could not help marveling as the German military's H-11 medium bomber formation destroyed an entire district.
The H-11 medium bombers carried a limited number of bombs, with each aircraft able to carry only a little over two tons. But there were simply too many H-11 medium bombers! More than four hundred H-11 medium bombers dropping their bombs together dealt enormous damage to Moscow's urban areas.
And this was only the beginning.
After those H-11 medium bombers had dropped their bombs and begun to climb away, the H-21 heavy bomber formation waiting in the sky launched its attack as well.
Large numbers of H-21 heavy bombers descended in altitude and began dropping bombs amid dense anti-aircraft fire from the ground.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A dense succession of explosions rose and fell across Moscow's streets. Vast stretches of the city were destroyed amid the thunderous blasts. Towering buildings collapsed one after another, and the defensive fortifications the Russian army had painstakingly constructed were likewise obliterated in the explosions. Even those who had taken shelter in air-raid shelters before the German Air Force bombing suffered grievous losses. The intensive bombardment caused some already flimsy air-raid shelters to collapse. Not to mention the troops who had not made it into the shelters and remained at their positions.
"Damn it, are the Germans really trying to wipe Moscow off the map?" General Zhukov cursed after learning of the German Air Force's bombing. He knew only too well how much damage this method of bombardment would inflict upon Moscow and the forces garrisoned there.
"Order our anti-aircraft fire to strike