(I’m so glad I got transmigrated!)
I knew it was an embarrassingly childish thought, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Most women probably wouldn’t understand the feeling.
(No offense intended.) Pacifists would probably criticize me, and considering what I was planning to do in the future, maybe I should have felt guilty instead.
But every man here?
(Again, no offense intended.) They’d understand.
Both Katsumi Nakajima and the little-mustached man whose body I now inhabited were absolutely thrilled.
Because right in front of me stood a Bf 109.
And not just that.
The He 112, which would end up as little more than a prototype, was here too.
So was the twin-engine heavy fighter Bf 110.
Beyond them stood the bombers—the He 111, the Ju 87 Stuka, the Do 17—all lined up in a single row.
I was standing at Schleswig Air Base on the outskirts of Berlin.
Three weeks earlier, I’d ordered Goring to gather the Luftwaffe’s leadership.
Originally, the meeting had simply been meant to unveil the new Bf 109, so holding it at an air base made perfect sense.
But after I ordered practically the entire Reich aviation industry to attend, every manufacturer had shown up—not just with production aircraft, but with prototypes and experimental designs as well.
The result was a display that looked like the world’s greatest military aircraft exhibition.
For anyone who loved airplanes, it was paradise.
A sight like this would never exist after the war.
In fact, even in this era it was almost impossible to gather this many cutting-edge aircraft in one place.
The proof was standing beside me.
Goring was excited.
Udet was excited.
The two of them looked like little boys who’d just been handed every toy they’d ever wanted.
Even Schacht, who usually cared only about economics, couldn’t hide his enthusiasm.
For that matter, Todt had somehow shown up despite never being invited.
All around us, engineers from every aircraft company stared at each other’s machines with shining eyes.
Professor Messerschmitt and Professor Tank looked especially dangerous.
Their expressions had crossed the line from passionate to downright obsessive.
“So then, Mein Fuhrer, what do you think of our new fighter, the Bf 109?”
Goring puffed out his chest proudly.
“By combining a compact, lightweight airframe with a powerful engine, we’ve achieved unmatched speed, climb performance, and excellent manufacturability.
It is, without question, the strongest fighter aircraft in the world.”
Messerschmitt beamed with pride.
The engineers from Heinkel looked thoroughly annoyed.
As for Professor Tank—whose own fighter at this point wasn’t even in the same league—he was practically examining both the Bf 109 and the He 112 inch by inch, clearly trying to absorb every detail for his next design.
(It’s an outstanding fighter…
in peacetime.)
The Bf 109 really was brilliant.
Its compact airframe made mass production easier while still allowing a lightweight, high-output engine to deliver exceptional speed and climb performance.
Its wings were works of art—thin enough that they contained neither machine guns nor the landing gear.
There wasn’t an ounce of unnecessary structure anywhere.
And that was exactly the problem.
There was no room left to grow.
The wings were so thin that adding heavier armament later would be incredibly difficult.
The landing gear was too lightly built to cope with a heavier aircraft.
And although it hadn’t entered service yet, the engine intended to power it—the Daimler-Benz DB 600 and its future derivatives—had problems of its own.
Compact and lightweight, yes.
But mechanically far too complicated, relying heavily on roller bearings and intricate manufacturing.
In peacetime, none of that mattered.
Military orders would never outstrip a manufacturer’s production capacity.
If demand exceeded supply, you simply explained the situation and asked for time to expand the factories.
Likewise, improving a fighter didn’t require frantic, piecemeal upgrades.
You could take your time, fix several issues together, and roll out improvements gradually.
War was different.
The front would always demand one more fighter.
Pilots would always ask for one more kilometer per hour over the enemy.
That meant the ideal aircraft wasn’t simply the best one today.
It was the one whose performance could continue improving without forcing the factories to rebuild their production lines from scratch.
Viewed through that lens, the Bf 109 looked very different.
Neither Goring nor Professor Messerschmitt was looking at it that way.
No one was.
That’s why they naturally concluded that the Bf 109 was superior to the He 112, and that the DB 600 was a better choice than the Jumo 210.
Of course, that was only natural.
In 1936, no one imagined that within four years the entire world would be consumed by a catastrophic war.
Not even the little-mustached Fuhrer himself.
No one in the Reich believed such a thing was coming.
That’s why everyone assumed there would be enough time to complete the Second Four-Year Plan before the military had to be fully prepared.
It’s why people could seriously discuss enormous naval programs like the Z Plan—though I’d already strangled that idea before it could be born in this timeline.
“An outstanding fighter!” I declared loudly.
“A machine worthy of defending the skies of the Reich!”
As soon as I praised it, I noticed that not only the Heinkel engineers, but several Luftwaffe officers also wore conflicted expressions.
The truth was that even inside the Luftwaffe, the Bf 109 hadn’t been accepted unanimously.
Its fastback canopy gave poor rearward visibility.
Its small, heavily loaded wings sacrificed maneuverability.
Those same wings also resulted in a high landing speed.
And because the landing gear was attached to the fuselage instead of the wings, the wheels sat unusually close together, making takeoffs and landings far more difficult than they should have been.
The He 112, by comparison, had taken a very different approach.
Its broad elliptical wings increased weight and drag, reducing both top speed and ease of mass production.
In return, it offered much better maneuverability.
Its bubble canopy provided excellent visibility.
Its wide-set landing gear made landings considerably safer.
Honestly, each aircraft had its own strengths and weaknesses.
The Luftwaffe understood that perfectly well.
They simply panicked after learning that the Royal Air Force had adopted the Spitfire.
The He 112’s design still wasn’t fully mature—it had even suffered crash accidents during testing.
Combined with Professor Messerschmitt’s considerable political influence, that was enough for the Bf 109 to win the competition.
(This is exactly where my reincarnation cheat comes into play.)
“…However.”
I let the pause hang in the air.
“I will not approve it for standard service in its current form.”
“…What?!”
Every single person present cried out in disbelief.
There was no way someone who already knew the headaches waiting in the future was going to adopt the Bf 109 as the Reich’s main fighter without making changes first.