In response to General Collins' question, Ron replied, "General, in this attack of ours, the coordination of ground and air forces is of paramount importance. Especially close direct fire support like this. If you are not careful, you may be injured by mistake. And the different weapons used by our attack aircraft have different safety distances. The ground forces need to be aware of the safe distance of these weapons. And due to the smoke on the ground, as well as the interference of the enemy's camouflage, it is difficult for us to see the target clearly in the air. So, we need the ground forces to show us the target in a visible way, such as light or smoke that stands out from the sè color. Our wing will send ground liaison commanders to your front-line assault forces. They will be responsible for direct liaison with attack aircraft, as well as target designation for attack aircraft. In order to avoid accidental injury, the attack aircraft will attack only after receiving an order from the ground liaison officer. We hope that this approach will make the attack more effective. ”

"That's a good idea." General Collins said, "We're going to protect those liaisons." But their actions must also be subject to the command of the ground forces. You know, you're asking them to go to the front line, and the Germans there aren't vegetarians. Also, how many trained ground liaison officers do you have now? ”

"We now have 24 trained liaisons. The two of them formed a group, one responsible for directing the target, and the other responsible for air liaison. Ron replied.

"When will they be able to come to us, Ron, you should have brought them just here. That way we have a little more time to get used to them. ”

"General, I've brought them here, including their equipment. It's in a truck just now. ”

"Very well, Pasha, you go and arrange for them to be assigned to the company that will be on the attack mission tomorrow in small groups."

……

All night, the artillery of the Navy opened fire on the fortifications on the outskirts of Cherbourg. However, their firepower is not intensive, and it seems that they are only interfering with their opponents. It was not until more than 4 o'clock in the morning that the Navy stopped such a low-intensity, long-duration shelling. With the pause in the shelling, the world immediately fell silent. It's as if everything fell asleep at this moment. Birds and grass insects are silent, except for the gentle sound of waves gently caressing the black basalt cliffs on the beach in the distance.

However, everyone knows that this is only a temporary calm before the great war. As the sun rises, the artillery fire on both sides of the United States and Germany will once again tear this tranquility to pieces.

The sun rises early in June, a little after 4:30 a.m., and the sun rises in the east, spreading a reddish glow all over the land. At this time, there was a thick layer of sea fog on the ground. If you stand on top of a small hill nearby, you will see that the blue and white mist under your feet rises higher and higher as the sun rises, and the face begins to change constantly, from blue and white to crimson, and then to a patch of red, as if the color of the sun fell on the ground.

By half-past eight, the fog began to dissipate gradually, revealing the blue sky. At this moment, the sound of heavy bombers' heavy engines was heard from the blue sky.

That's a full 8 B-500 of the 17th Air Army. They flew in a tight formation towards Cherbourg. In previous battles, many of Cherbourg's large-caliber high-caliber guns were destroyed by air strikes. So now, Cherbourg's anti-aircraft firepower has become very sparse, and the threat to bomber groups is even less, so these bombers now dare to drop bombs in dense formations at an altitude of about 2,500 meters.

Countless bombs were dropped from the bombers in strings. Immediately, the earth shook. Even in the trenches, about three or four thousand meters away from the bombing area, Ron could feel the earth tremble. And General Collins, who was putting his eyes on the binoculars on a tripod, also took his eyes off the telescope. He smiled and said, "The shaking was so great that I couldn't see anything in the telescope." ”

As soon as the magnification of the telescope is high, any slight shake will cause the scene in the field of view to jump violently, making observation difficult. Generally speaking, any telescope with a magnification of more than 10 times is difficult to use in your hand, and a telescope with a magnification of more than 15 times must be equipped with a tripod to use. Therefore, the magnification of the telescope carried by ordinary officers is only 7-8 times, for example, a friend once gave Ron a Zeiss military telescope captured from the Germans, and its magnification is only 8 times.

The bombers dropped their bombs and began to slowly climb and move away. When the figure of the bomber faded away. The naval guns of the Navy, which had been silent for several hours, roared again. This time, the naval shelling was completely different from the kind of shelling that sāo disturbed xìng last night. Last night, the Navy had only used two destroyers, and with their 127mm guns, they had fired some intermittent shells at a lower speed at the fortified area outside Cherbourg Harbour. And by this time, the entire fleet, 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, 11 destroyers were mobilized, they opened up outside the port of Cherbourg, ready for shelling. And the fleet's own school shè planes have long since completed their takeoff, and are now hovering over the target area, outside the killing range of the Germans' high shè firepower.

Each warship fired one or two shells at its own target. This is a trial shè in order to determine the point of impact. The Varsity planes would observe their impact points and report back to the fleet. Three minutes later, the fleet fired another round of shells based on the information given by the school's planes. Then they stopped again and waited for news from the school's plane.

Perhaps this time their shè shots were quite accurate, so, two minutes later, these large and small naval guns began to enter the effectiveness shè strikes.

The shè of naval guns was a shocking thing, especially for the tall battleships. With each shot fired from their 16-inch cannons, a one-ton shell smashed into the Germans' positions. Almost every time a cannonball hits the ground, the ground shakes violently.

However, the frequency of shè strikes of the battleship was not high. The barrel life of a battleship's guns was very short, and even if a high-explosive shell with lower bore pressure and less ablation of the barrel compared to armor-piercing shells was used, its lifespan was only a few hundred rounds. And the cost of this tube is very expensive. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the issue of saving when using it. In addition, now is not a duel between battleships, and it is necessary to use maximum speed and send out more shells to overwhelm the opponent. Of course, they could have slowed down the speed of their shots, and with each round of shells, they quietly waited for the school planes to send back new data, and then corrected them. Moreover, such a low shè speed can also reduce the wear and tear of the barrel.

However, the 152 mm secondary guns on the battleships and the 203 mm or 152 mm main guns on the cruisers did not have this concern. So they were all spitting flames at maximum speed. Especially those 152 mm, because of their super high speed, they even gained the reputation of 6-inch machine guns.

Of course, the 127mm guns of the destroyer could not be compared with the 16-inch, 8-inch or 6-inch guns of the battleship cruisers, but the 127-mm guns were more fast and fought with full firepower, and the effect was also very good.

After 10 minutes of rapid shè, the armour's guns slowed down their firing. The burst of naval artillery was much faster than that of the army's artillery of the same caliber. But with the same conditions, they don't end up running much faster than the Army's artillery.

However, the decline in the speed of naval guns does not mean a decrease in the density of US artillery fire. Because, the artillery belonging to the Seventh Army also joined in this organ concert. The 203-mm, 155-mm, 105-mm, and even 76-mm guns of the Seventh Army were spewing flames at enemy positions.

"Under such shelling, are there any living people on the other side?" Looking at the other side, Ron couldn't help but say this.

"Definitely! And no less! "When I was in the Pacific," said General Collins, "I thought the same way you did when I saw the guns of the ships striking the enemy's positions. But once you start landing, those damn guys will come out of their holes and fire at you like a bunch of unbeatable rats. ”

"Well," Ron nodded, "I know that, actually, because on Kuah Island, I've been shelled by the battleship Rìben." Shelling alone will not solve the problem. But even though I know this, seeing such firepower, I can't help but wonder if there are any living people over there. ”

"Soon we will see, you see, the naval shelling is over, now it's our turn to attack!"

By this time, the naval shelling had gradually stopped, except for the battleship's 406-mm guns, which were still firing at the German core position one by one, the other artillery had stopped firing. When the navy was attacking on the other side, due to communication problems, it was difficult to keep the shells always about 100 meters in front of the charging soldiers like the army's own artillery, so when the army was about to attack, the navy's artillery fire had to stop, so as not to accidentally injure the army's comrades. As for the 406-mm guns of the battleships, because they are now hitting targets far from where the army units will now be impacting, they can continue to fire. As soon as the army soldiers approached the area, they would stop immediately.

"Look! Our attack has already begun. General Collins stretched out his right hand and pointed forward.

Led by nearly 100 M-4 tanks, soldiers of the Seventh Army of the U.S. Army are attacking Cherbourg from several directions. Through the captured German Zeiss 8x binoculars, Ron saw that just behind an M-4 tank, a soldier with a Springfield rifle loaded with a grenade and another soldier with a heavy radio on his back and an M1 carbine in his hand were following the tank forward - that was the contact team he had sent.