Chapter 404

Churchill's office door was knocked, and a blonde secretary put the papers on the desk in front of the prime minister and turned away. Recently, Prime Minister Churchill's mood is getting worse day by day, so no one wants to stay in the prime minister's office.

The British Prime Minister raised his eyes and looked at the thick pile of reports. He knew that there was nothing good to do today. He had to pick up the top report and began to read it. These things had to be dealt with anyway. Although they were all mourning documents, he was numb after reading too much.

Sure enough, this is a report on the loss of an escort fleet. It says that a transport fleet No. 96 was attacked by the other party on its way into Britain, causing heavy losses. It was a clich é that Churchill would be surprised if the British transport fleet lost no more than one hour.

But look at, Churchill that already numb face, unexpectedly appeared heavy look. It's not because the loss of transport fleet 96 is too great. After all, the transport fleet that has been completely destroyed by the wolves in Donitz these days is not without it. Churchill was surprised that the way of fleet loss this time, or the means of German attack, had some differences.

Originally, more than 90% of the losses of the British transport fleet were caused by German submarines. These haunting wolves were under the command of a middle-aged man named dennitz. They used group tactics to attack the British fleet on a large scale at night, causing irreparable losses to Britain.

This kind of tactics is quite a headache for the British people, but they haven't found a good way to fight. This time, the Germans have played a new trick. At the outermost part of the transport fleet are generally Royal Navy escort destroyers, which are responsible for driving German submarines to ensure that most of the ships in the core of the transport fleet can arrive in the UK smoothly.

But this time it was the destroyers' turn to be attacked. A "new weapon flying in the sky, like an airplane, directly hit the British warships and sank the destroyers on the outer guard." According to the report, this new weapon can accurately crash into British warships and even change the flight path halfway.

Moreover, according to the report, this kind of strange aircraft, which would automatically collide with British destroyers, appeared on two main British routes at the same time and sank five ships, including a light cruiser and three destroyers. Undoubtedly, the transportation fleet that had been cut out was attacked by submarines that night and suffered heavy losses.

According to the report, this kind of weapon is called "flying torpedo", "suicide plane" and "akkado's darts". Most of them claim that this kind of weapon is a new weapon launched by German submarines. But Churchill's staff were not fools either. They ruled out the possibility of submarine launching.

After reading the report, a weapons expert called to the prime minister's office came to his conclusion: "Mr Prime Minister, this kind of weapon should be launched by destroyers or cruisers, not submarine weapons."

He pointed to several dark shadows and said: "from some blurred photos, we can see that this kind of weapon takes into account aerodynamics, but does not consider the need to travel in the sea. Moreover, the frequency of use of this kind of weapon is obviously much less than the number of German submarines. So I analyze that this kind of weapon is a guided weapon launched by warships."

"It doesn't matter what it's launched from." Churchill sighed and said, "I'm worried about whether it will appear on a large scale on our routes! Will it cut off our transportation lines completely? "

Churchill could not help but be in no hurry. On average, one of every two British merchant ships sailing from New York would be sunk, and about one third of the American aid materials sank into the cold Atlantic Ocean. Britain lost half of its life-saving equipment in exchange for islands and military bases.

Because of the delay in the delivery of materials, only one of the three armored forces expected to be established by Britain has been established. Although the other two are also called armored forces, they do not even have half of the equipment of the German armored forces. The other 20 infantry divisions, more than 300000 troops, are all "World War I infantry" with only small arms and artillery. Only God knows what kind of results they can achieve in the face of the experienced German troops.

Poor Montgomery can't make a living without rice. She even suggested that the British royal family go to Egypt or Canada for "inspection work". Although this proposal was rejected, it has shown that senior British generals are not optimistic about the Strait defense.

On the beach, the 75 minefields laid out by the British economy have been scrapped because of the destruction of the German Navy and air force; Only nine of the 33 mine blockade areas on the sea are complete. Even Churchill didn't believe that he could take the Germans to sea, relying on the coastal guns and the barbed wire in the trenches, not to mention the generals like Montgomery.

So the question before Churchill is not whether to stop the German landing, but how to kill the German on the three British Islands. So he issued the "battle order that the British must defend their homeland" which vowed to turn Britain into a hell on earth. In fact, this order is very simple. All the old stocks of equipment and weapons that are too late to be distributed to the front-line combat forces will be distributed to British civilians, so that they can fight against the German regular army regardless of sacrifice.

The combat Department predicted that 1.5 million British civilians would die in the fight against the German army. Montgomery was even more pessimistic. He felt that once Germany was allowed to retaliate madly and some international conventions were torn up under the pretext of Britain's move, 3 million British people would die in the war. Moreover, Montgomery is not optimistic about these so-called "blocking operations". He once said to Churchill, "these civilians are not trained and will be slaughtered in front of the German regular army. Moreover, these civilians lack the support of heavy weapons and can play a very limited role in facing the German armored forces." At that time, Churchill's reply made Montgomery almost curse: "if the effect is limited, it means that it will work... These civilians will die thousands of people, even if only one German tank can be destroyed, then it will buy some time for Britain. What we lack is precisely time." In fact, it is not the strength of the military, nor the quality of science and technology, nor the contradiction between people's will that Britain and Germany are fighting now - the fight between the two countries is the time! Germany is seizing the time to win Britain at one stroke, and Britain is delaying the time to let the United States and the Soviet Union react and besiege Germany. It's just so simple. Churchill and Montgomery tried their best to ensure that Germany would be dragged into the mire of war. Montgomery secretly deployed the only armored force in the hidden area of southern England. Once the German army landed, he would command this force and another elite infantry to rush to the German beachhead, fight to be maimed by the German air force, and also take the German army to the sea. Because he knew that Germany seemed to be rich and powerful, just like Napoleon's France in those years, it seemed invincible, and it only had the courage to land once. As long as he fought for the loss to bring the German elite to the sea, Britain would be completely safe. By then, it was the war of the people, and the British has the final say. In some sea areas suitable for landing, Britain began to lay out its defense system a century ago. However, the fort and defense facilities in some places are too old to meet the needs of modern war. However, many places can still be used, which saves a lot of time. The original fort has been changed into an "open" machine gun position, the original machine gun position has been reinforced into a trench, the original open space has been laid with barbed wire, plus a few artillery, which is a fairly solid coastal defense position. The British troops are too few, and even fewer soldiers have been trained and fought. Therefore, Montgomery has been strengthening the coastal defense positions in the south in turn by filling the holes. He has put his elite troops on the second line, hoping to concentrate his superior forces to push the German troops back to the sea. However, his troops have an inescapable disadvantage, that is, the quality of the armored forces. All the original British armored forces have been lost to Dunkirk. Now Montgomery's armored forces are recruits who have only trained for less than 15 days, And the weapons in their hands are quite different from those of their German counterparts: it is frustrating to challenge German Leopard tanks with American equipment such as m3lee. The Navy's ability to provide anti landing support to Britain is very limited. The British King George V and the fury aircraft carrier are being overhauled in the northern port. The counterattack has become the only battleship that can fight in Britain. With the lucky Royal ark aircraft carrier, the British Navy's strength is not half that of the German Navy. Moreover, the landing site will certainly be within the operational radius of the German air force. At this time, if the Navy interferes with the landing, it will be the same as sending the German air force for nothing. It is also a question whether the Royal Navy, which has been beaten out of courage, will have the courage to fight at that time. When he thought of these problems, Churchill immediately felt like a fight. He really wanted to throw the burden back to Chamberlain, but that old cunning guy would not stand up and take the blame at this stage. At the beginning, people expected to have this ending, so they played a golden game. When it comes to getting rid of the golden cicada... Churchill seems to have thought of something. He picked up his pen and began to write a report. He also wanted to learn from Montgomery and persuade the British king to take the royal family to Canada to inspect the production line of the new hurricane fighter.