Chapter 869 The Vast Ocean Is a Casino (Continued, 1500 Votes and More)

The intelligence shocked the British cabinet, and Churchill ordered immediate verification. The next day, spies in Italy also sent news that German troops had indeed disappeared. The total number was about 30,000, and the specific number was unknown. For this news, Big C Menzies lost a lot of men.

"Didn't you say that the Germans were just bluffing and would not really come to land? Didn't you say that the German fleet would retreat soon?" Churchill shouted angrily at an emergency meeting in the basement of the Prime Minister's residence. "Now that the intelligence is like this, what are you going to do? manage?"

In fact, "bluffing" was Churchill's mantra. In the past two days, when he expressed his position in public, he spoke with certainty, as if he knew everything and had an insight into the overall situation. Unexpectedly, it was he who became suspicious first when things came to pass.

"Prime Minister, now we are not sure whether this information is true." Brooke, who was dumbfounded, said in a serious tone, "To say the least, even if it is true, a force of this size is only 50,000 people, so you won't be able to You don’t even have that much confidence in the Army, do you?”

Churchill's old face turned red, but he refused to admit defeat: "Didn't you say that placing troops and heavy equipment in the south would be vulnerable to enemy attacks? Then it was you who persuaded me to move the troops to the north? I was afraid that you would not have time to react. ! Once the Germans find a foothold, they will be in big trouble."

"That won't be like this. We have prepared at least 350,000 troops in the south. No matter which direction the Germans come from, it won't be a problem for 2-3 days." Brooke sighed, "What I'm worried about is that the Germans won't come. ”

"You!" Churchill was furious, but not as knowledgeable as Brooke, so he changed the subject and asked, "Okay, please analyze where the Germans might land? Is it Plymouth in the west? Portsmouth in the middle? Or is it in the east? Dover?”

Without waiting for the other party to answer, he seemed to remember something again and asked: "By the way, how is the situation in Dover? Have those damn railway cannons been destroyed?"

"We are working hard..." Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Porter (since Churchill directly serves as Secretary of Defense, so the Air Force Chiefs of Staff are the highest commanders of the Royal Air Force) reported hesitantly.

The railway gun that Churchill mentioned was the 1-caliber K5 railway gun owned by Germany. This kind of artillery made an appearance during the attack on the Strait of Gibraltar, but it has not shown much since then. This time, 6 of them suddenly appeared in the Calais area of ​​France. Appeared, the improved Type 43 255kg ordinary grenade has a range of up to 63 kilometers. If a 248kg rocket extended range missile is used, the range is nearly 87 kilometers. Launched from Calais, it can cover the surrounding area of ​​Dover. Although it is not as powerful as the V2 rocket, it is better than It has high landing accuracy and low cost, posing a great threat to the British side.

The General Staff has an opinion that the German army will land near Dover. These railway guns are prepared to attack the beachhead and cover the German landing. The basis is quite sufficient: there is only more than 40 kilometers between Calais and Dover. , the landing craft can make a round trip in 4-5 hours, which is very convenient, and the British also saw a lot of ground troops and landing craft in the direction of Calais.

Another voice derived from this is that it is not that Germany has no rockets, but that the rockets are hidden and waiting to be used during the landing. They are used to block possible support from other places to Dover after the landing battle breaks out, and only launch rockets to London. However, in order to test the effect first - this argument is very popular, Brooke and others also believed that it cannot be completely ruled out. In the end, even Churchill himself became suspicious.

In order to nip the risk in the bud, the Royal Air Force dispatched thousands of Mosquito, Blenheim and other medium bombers to deal with suspicious rocket launch sites and train gun bases, and even used Lancaster at the expense of precious fuel. Four heavy bombers carried Goblet bombs to blow up, but these artillery pieces had extremely strong concrete bunkers. Ordinary bombers were ineffective against them, and the Goblet bombs were inaccurate. Coupled with the fierce air defense system of the Luftwaffe, the The Royal Air Force suffered heavy losses.

In the past two weeks, the Royal Air Force has lost more than 1,000 aircraft and more than 200 pilots in domestic air raids (some aircraft were destroyed in manufacturing plants and on the ground), and has lost more than 700 aircraft and nearly 600 pilots in counter-air attacks (group ) pilots (some of the lucky ones escaped across the strait or fell in the strait and were rescued), more than 100 twin-engine and four-engine bombers were lost in Calgary alone, and the Luftwaffe's losses were much smaller.

The bombing effect against the V2 rocket company was slightly better, but it only achieved limited results. The British did not understand that the real value of the V2 rocket was the rocket body and manufacturing factory. The launch bases and facilities they tried so hard to blow up were not. It's rare, but it's a waste of fuel and planes. With the large number of Do-412s in service, the loss rate of Mosquito bombers, which had been achieving great success by flying high and fast since the beginning of the war, also began to rise sharply. Although night air defense did not have a particularly good way to harass Mosquitoes, it could The British could not find the rocket launch base at night, so even if the losses were heavy, they could only attack during the day.

"Trash, trash..." After hearing the news that the bombing was ineffective, Churchill cursed a few words angrily, then ignored General Porter and just asked Brooke, "How do you judge that the Germans will not land there?" ?”

"If it were to land at Dover or Portsmouth, there would be no need to go to all the trouble to mobilize troops from the Mediterranean. It would be enough for the Germans to just push the troops to the Low Countries and then board the ships." Brooke explained patiently, "I'm worried about them Go play Iceland or Ireland.”

"Do you agree with Nimitz's analysis?"

"Sir, the American analysis is not unreasonable. If there is no fleet to defend Iceland, can the more than 80,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft on the island stop the German landing? Or do you think that 60,000 lazy American troops plus more than 20,000 of our troops can withstand 50,000 wolf-like German troops?"

Churchill was speechless. He wanted to scold Brooke for his argument that he was trying to boost others' morale and destroy his own prestige, but he knew that this was the truth - the British people did not know the situation in Iceland, so did the British high-level officials not know what kind of people the Americans were? "The Italians on our side" was the first to be shouted by these high-level officials.

But even so, the British could not drive the US troops away. On the contrary, they had to pinch their noses to welcome the Americans, speak well of the Americans, and hype up the friendship between Britain and the United States - if the US troops did not come, Iceland would have to be defended by the British Empire itself, and the necessary materials and equipment would have to be solved by Britain itself. Great Britain is currently unable to take care of itself, so how could it have the spare energy to carry the burden of Iceland? Naturally, they could only reluctantly push it to the American tycoons for support. Even the commander of the Icelandic garrison was replaced by an American, and more than 20,000 British troops also obeyed the command of the Icelandic headquarters.

Churchill knew very well that Iceland was very important and just blocked the key to the British-Canadian route. He had to pay attention to it. Once Iceland fell, I dare not say that the British-Canadian route would fall 100%, but at least the loss rate would rise to more than 80%. Now the Americans are already crying out that they can't bear the loss rate of 50%, and if it is 80%, it can basically be declared finished.

Brooke finally said his concerns: "In addition to Iceland, I am particularly worried that the Germans will land in Ireland. The Irish are not very friendly to us at present, and Hitler has been spreading rumors to win over the Irish."

Everyone agreed: In the EU concept elaborated by Hoffman, it was clearly stated that Northern Ireland is an integral part of Ireland, and Great Britain's occupation of Northern Ireland is completely a colonial rule. This mistake should be corrected. This made the whole of Ireland jubilant, and they mentally considered themselves a member of the Axis Powers. It also made all the efforts of Britain and the United States to further win over Ireland come to naught - no one dared to explicitly promise to hand over Northern Ireland to the Irish.

In fact, in the first two years after the outbreak of the European War, the relationship between Germany and Ireland was very strange. The German army believed that Ireland would be used by Britain sooner or later, so they not only sent bombers to drop bombs on four cities in Ireland, but also air raided Dublin twice, and refused to apologize afterwards - this made Hoffman indignant about the brainless behavior of the Third Reich. You must know that after Hitler committed suicide in history, only Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera went to the embassy as the head of state to express condolences. If such a staunch ally was not quickly won over, could he still expect to gain the forgiveness of the British?

Later, after the failure of the Battle of Britain, the Third Reich re-examined its relationship with Ireland - the Irish did not do anything after bombing them several times, so they apologized privately and tried to ease the relationship.

While facing the military risks of Germany, Ireland also faced pressure and sanctions from Britain, because before the outbreak of the European War, the Irish government explicitly prohibited any British warships, submarines and aircraft from entering Ireland. The exasperated Churchill withdrew the maritime protection of Ireland and launched an economic war. He also significantly reduced the export of food to Ireland, saying that Britain itself was not enough, and secretly prevented Ireland from trading with other countries by sea. Ireland's food supply has always been a problem. The reason why the Irish do not like the British is because the *** that swept the country killed too many people in Ireland.

At this time, Germany wanted to win over Ireland again, promising to provide supplies and weapons and equipment to help Ireland resist British pressure, and volunteered to send troops, but the Pearl Harbor incident interrupted this process. The United States agreed to provide Ireland with weapons and equipment, food and all industrial raw materials, and verbally promised to support Ireland to end its division, on the condition that the port would be opened to American warships for supplies. Although de Valera was reluctant, he could not refuse when Britain and the United States controlled the sea power and Germany was powerless. By 1942, Ireland had become the strangest country in Europe. Although it was loyal to Germany, it had to provide convenience to Britain and the United States due to internal and external difficulties, and at the same time it was at odds with Britain.

Hoffman quickly changed this situation through the EU's explanation, and broke all kinds of rumors with practical actions - saying that the Führer had been waiting for the British-German cooperation, and he was determined to pull Ireland to his side.

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