One day in 1958, an old farmer in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, was hoeing grass in the field when he found a strange thing in the crop field, a bit like a cannonball, but very different from a normal shell.
Zhejiang farmer Lao Bo
Although he couldn't be sure what he saw, he had heard a little about the recent air battle, because he was afraid that it would explode at any time, and the old farmer did not dare to touch it easily.
Instead, the situation was immediately reported to the township government.
What exactly is the origin of this shell, and why has it attracted the attention of experts? Even the Soviet Union heard about it and wanted to study it?
After careful study, military experts realized that the old farmer found this one was not a shell, but the world's most advanced AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.
AIM-9 Sidewinder missile
This missile was first successfully developed in the United States in 1953, and it is also the world's first short-range infrared guided air-to-air missile with combat capabilities, because it is made to imitate the structure of the sidewinder cheek nest, so it is named the sidewinder missile.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="82" >how did the missile fall into the Wenzhou farmland intact? </h1>
After the Kinmen Artillery Battle began, Chiang Kai-shek went to the United States for assistance. At the instigation of the United States, the Nationalist government escalated the artillery battle into an air battle.
Battle of the Golden Gate
To complement the Nationalist air battles, the United States also supplied F-86 fighter jets and Sidewinder missiles.
On September 24, the Kuomintang troops flew advanced fighters to launch an air raid on Wenzhou, and China's air force did not show weakness, and immediately gathered a J-5 fighter formation to intercept.
In this way, a vigorous air battle was fought over Wenzhou, which was the world's first air-to-air battle using air-to-air missiles and the first actual battle of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.
For this air battle, we also formulated a detailed command plan. In order to continue to play the role of the Air Force in the air, we have applied the strategy and tactics of "time difference" - that is, batch operations.
Air combat
However, because the take-off time of planes at each airport is different, it has surged over Quanzhou almost at the same time. However, this move made the enemy planes panic, we surrounded them, disrupted their formation, and the short distance battle did not give them the opportunity to launch missiles.
After a fierce confrontation, both sides have suffered a lot of losses. Unfortunately, when our army was retreating, the pilot Wang Ziwei accidentally fell behind and was surrounded by 12 local fighters. Although Wang Zizhong was left alone, he was not afraid, and still calmly fought against the Kuomintang troops, during which he also shot down two American fighters of the Nationalist army, which completely angered the other side.
Seeing that Wang Zizhong was so heroic, the Kuomintang troops did not hesitate to use a rare number of AIM-9 air-to-air missiles, that is, Sidewinder missiles.
Air Force pilot Wang Ziwei
In the end, Wang Zizhong failed to dodge the 5 missiles fired intensively, the plane was hit on the spot, and he was unfortunately killed and died for the motherland.
Wang Ziwei's sacrifice has exchanged the country for the remains of a crucial missile, and most fortunately, one of the Sidewinder missiles has not yet exploded, that is, the one discovered by the old farmers in Zhejiang, which has become an excellent research object.
Ye Shuai
At that time, Liu Yalou also found that the infrared sensitivity of the Sidewinder missile was not high and there was no friend or foe identification system, so it was also suggested that the unexploded missile could be used as an excellent sample for the development of air-to-air missiles.
However, things are not going well. The researchers carried out a series of research tests to try to dissect the principles in the missile and thus realize the imitation plan, but at that time, the domestic industrial level was not yet developed, and the research equipment was relatively backward, so there were not enough conditions to support the research.
Under the leadership of Ye Shuai, the researchers worked overtime for several months, but they still failed to crack the principle of the missile, and could only draw a helpless conclusion - it was not possible to imitate it at present.
USSR
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > just when our country was at a loss, the Soviet Union suddenly came to the door and asked for the missile. </h1>
In the first few years, the two sides were both socialist countries and got along very well.
However, as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union entered a white-hot stage, the Expansionism of the Soviet Union intensified day by day, and in order to consolidate its status as the leader of the socialist camp, the Soviet Union did not hesitate to arm the country with hegemonism, which was incompatible with China's diplomatic thinking, and a gap gradually arose between the two countries.
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union
Because of this, in the international environment at that time, Sino-Soviet relations were poured with a basin of cold water.
Khrushchev
Therefore, we did not agree to Khrushchev's request at the first time, but ignored it.
This greatly puzzled Khrushchev, for the Sidewinder missile such a sophisticated technology, China will certainly not be able to do it for a while and a half, why is it unwilling to give it to the Soviet Union?
According to the "Memoirs of Khrushchev", he was very angry about this incident, and directly said to his secretary: "The Soviet Union has shared all its secret military technology, drawings, production processes, and samples with China, and has also directly provided military assistance to China, but China is not willing to give us even a small missile."
Memoirs of Khrushchev
Not only that, but this incident also had a huge impact on the defense deployment of the Soviet Union.
But the tyrannical Khrushchev did not give up. On the eve of the National Day in 1959, the Soviet Union officially announced that it would stop exporting Samur missiles to China.
Sidewinder missiles
At that time, China mainly relied on such missiles to fight against the Kuomintang American fighters, and there were only 40 left in the inventory, and the Soviet Union's card neck behavior seriously threatened China's national security.
Two months later, the Soviet Union violated the agreement signed between China and the Soviet Union and delayed the transfer of the means of production of the P-12 medium-range missile to China, and used this to blackmail China.
At this time, we already knew what Khrushchev meant, he would not give up without getting the Sidewinder missile, and the technical level of our country at that time was indeed limited, and I am afraid that the imitation would not be successful in one or two years.
After careful consideration, our country decided to proceed from the overall situation and send the sidewinder to the Soviet Union, just when the Soviet Union softened its tone and repeatedly promised to share the research results with China, and in this way, the two sides completed the handover of this advanced missile.
After the Soviet side got this missile, it was immediately shocked, and the American model was much stronger than the Soviet-made PC-2Y.
In this way, after six months of research, the Soviet Union successfully developed the famous K-13 missile based on the American missile.
K-13 missile
Fortunately, this time the Soviet Union kept its promise, and china not only got all the drawings of this missile, but also obtained a lot of MiG-21 fighter-related technology from the Soviet side.
Through the efforts of Chinese researchers day and night, in the 1960s, China successfully developed its own Thunderbolt II missile on the basis of the K-13, which also means that China has taken a historic and crucial step in the field of air-to-air missiles.
Thunderbolt II missile
Since then, China's missile industry has advanced by leaps and bounds, and today's Thunderbolt-15 missiles have been equal to the latest Us models, and the Dongfeng series of missiles has made the entire Western world tremble. When we lamented the ever-changing national defense science and technology of the motherland, who could have imagined that the first to promote this development was an old peasant in Zhejiang and an air force martyr?