"In total, Japan dispatched 450 aircraft, 8 aircraft carriers, 11 battleships, 23 cruisers, 65 destroyers. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info The United States dispatched a total of 230 aircraft, 3 aircraft carriers, 0 battleships, 8 cruisers, 11 destroyers. Japan's total strength was more than three times that of the United States, but the result was that Japan sank four aircraft carriers and one heavy cruiser, lost 330 planes and killed 3,000 people, and the United States sank one aircraft carrier and one destroyer, lost 98 planes and killed 300 people, and Japan's losses were almost three times that of the United States. What does this mean? In the lecture hall of the Qingdao Naval Academy, almost all the naval officers and men in the world were shocked by Japan's dramatic defeat.

Why did the overwhelming strength of the army suffer such heavy losses? Don't say anything about Japan's strategic intentions leaked before the war, Japan's strategic intentions are to fight a decisive battle with the US Pacific Fleet, attack Midway Island and attack it. Secondly, the day before the Battle of Midway, Japan changed the code book, and all communication commands at the beginning of the war were unknown to the US military, and the so-called cracked code led to defeat was actually unreliable at all.

The reason is the stupidity of the Japanese, whether it is the command of Nagumo or the operation of ordinary soldiers, throughout the whole process of Midway, the Japanese have all exposed their stupidity.

The first is to divide the fleet into forces, the Grand Fleet is divided into two parts, what to play to divide the attack, Nagumo led 4 aircraft carriers, 30 other types of warships as bait, Vice Admiral Keno Awata led 11 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 60 remaining warships after 300 nautical miles waiting for the opportunity to move, the so-called ten to encircle, five to attack, and multiple to fight, this is the basic summary of Sun Tzu's Art of War, the Japanese actually divided their troops with 3 times more troops than the Americans, In the end, the Americans concentrated their forces and basically ate them in one bite when it was 1:1 for the Nagumo fleet, which shows how stupid the Japanese were. Originally, Japan wanted Midway, and occupying Midway Island was the first task, and the second task was a decisive battle with the US Pacific Fleet, and even if it did not divide its forces, the Americans would send the Pacific Fleet to rescue Midway, and if the Japanese did not divide their forces, the sea and airspace they could control would be at least doubled, and they would not have rushed to change bombs and torpedoes, and they would not have even had a fighter plane to cover when the US bombers came.

"The Battle of Midway can be said to have completely demonstrated that Japan was not only 2b strategically, but also 2b tactically." The lecturer's words made everyone present burst into laughter, "However, if you are lucky enough to be the commander of our 7 major task forces, and you also play this stupid so-called tactic, I will definitely stuff you into the barrel of the gun and shoot you as a training bomb." ”

"Then teacher, you have to find such a thick barrel, Lao Xing's size, at least 406 mm is enough. In the future, our main gun may only be 150 mm, or we should launch Lao Xing as a torpedo. A narrow student made a joke about the busiest girl in the class, and then was glared at viciously by the girl named Lao Xing, and it was estimated that he would be chased and killed three streets after class.

Two task forces of the Chinese Navy bypassed Malacca and entered the Indian Ocean, while another task force quietly sailed to the port of Magadan to clean up the mess for the Japanese, who had unwittingly been quietly included in the protected subject area of the Chinese Navy. While the Chinese navy was quietly arranged, the German army had begun to regain the vitality of the offensive after a summer of silence.

At the beginning of the 22nd century, after the Red Russian army won a counterattack victory in the Battle of Moscow, it took advantage of the victory to attack and regain a large number of lost ground, but the German army still stubbornly occupied Tula, a stronghold that threatened Moscow, while being defeated. The commander of Army Group South, Marshal Manstein, also began to plan a counterattack against the Red Russians. He took the initiative to give up some important strongholds and lured the Red Russian army to go deeper, and the Red Russian army continued to attack, and the battle line became longer and longer, while the German army took the opportunity to complete the build-up of troops. Manstein commanded the newly formed Army Group South to launch a counterattack on the Red Russian Southwestern Front between the Donets River and the Dnieper River, the Southwestern Front suffered heavy losses, its 5th Army was destroyed, the Germans began to attack Kharkov, the Red Russian army was forced to abandon Kharkov, which had just been captured a month ago, and retreated to the Oboyan area south of Kursk, in order to prevent the complete collapse of the front, the Red Russian High Command transferred the 1st Tank Army from Leningrad South, In addition, the 21st and 64th armies were also transferred from Stalingrad to these directions, after which the front stabilized.

One of the consequences of this counterattack by Manstein was the formation of a salient centered on Kursk. To its north, German Army Group Center took control of the Orel area. To its south, Manstein's Army Group South took control of the Pergorod region. Within the salient were the Red Russian Central Front and the Voronezh Front. A stalemate between Russia and Germany was formed, and a large-scale battle was about to begin.

On the morning of July 5, the 22nd year of the Taichu Dynasty, a large number of German troops began to attack with the cooperation of aircraft and tanks, but they were stubbornly resisted by the Red Russian army and suffered heavy losses, so they had to go on the defensive. The Red Russian army switched to a counteroffensive in the north and south of Kursk, and the Germans were defeated and had to retreat.

Manstein's victory at the Battle of Kharkov gave the Germans renewed confidence, and Manstein hoped to annihilate the Soviets with a defensive counterattack after a lured attack. He proposed to carry out a bold operation codenamed "Backhand" in the summer, the purpose of which was to encircle the Red Army by making a detour to Rostov-on-Don on the Sea of Azov, but the staff officers of the High Command opted for a more traditional Citadel operation aimed at crushing the salient located in Kursk. Manstein had no choice but to accept the idea. Some people think that the Battle of Kursk was originally planned by Manstein, but this is not true, and the siege and annihilation of the Azov coast was his original idea, and Manstein later formulated the plan for the Battle of Kursk and insisted on carrying out the battle to the end, at best, he retreated to the second best thing without the original intention - to obey the ideas and will of the staff officers of the High Command. Because Manstein had previously reminded Marshal Brauchitsch that in any case, postponing and aborting the campaign would be very strategically disadvantageous, so Manstein was extremely adamant in demanding that the campaign be carried out when Brauchitsch hesitated and retreated during the campaign. This situation is particularly easy to mislead the general public as Manstein's claim to plan and carry out the Battle of Kursk.

As for this retreat to the Battle of Kursk, Manstein also put forward his own two suggestions, one is to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Red Russian Army to launch an offensive campaign in advance, and the other is to wait for the Red Russian Army to attack first, and after it is exhausted and exhausted, the German Army will carry out a counteroffensive and copy the rear road of the Red Russian Army. The latter Manstein is more optimistic. But Brauchitsch rejected the latter, believing it too risky to let the Red Russians attack first. However, although Marshal Brauchitsch chose the former, trying to attack first, he repeatedly hesitated and postponed, and looked forward to an increase in his own forces. Of course, it is well known that the strength of the Red Russian army increased faster.

The Kursk Bulge is like a fist extending from the Red Russian front, its front is about 250 miles long, but the bottom is less than 70 miles, and after careful reconnaissance, numerous formed troops have been found in the salient, and Manstein plans to encircle and annihilate the entire Red Russian heavy army group in the Bulge through a coordinated pincer attack from the north and south flanks. And the success of this campaign will shorten the front of the German troops, which will significantly increase the mobility of the German troops. Manstein's plan was supported by Field Marshal Kruger, commander of the German Army Group Center (who succeeded Manstein) and Chief of Staff of the Army Headquarters, Colonel-General Zeitzler, but was also opposed by the commander of the 9th Army, Colonel-General Modell, and the commander of the Panzer Corps, Colonel-General Guderian. The opposition was justified, in the spring of the twenty-second year, Germany suffered huge losses of tanks on the Eastern Front in Europe, and by May of that year, only 495 tanks remained in the eighteen armored divisions of the Eastern Front, and an average of only 27 tanks remained in one division. Although the improved "Hound Dog" long-barreled tank can suppress the T-34/76, and the performance of the new Tiger and Leopard tanks is greatly surpassed, the numerical gap cannot be made up in the short term. Guderian believed that the assault on Kursk would inflict significant losses on tanks, and his plans to reorganize the armored corps would also go bankrupt. As a Führer who did not understand military affairs, Hess was also hesitant about it.

He once said to Guderian that "I have been in a bad mood since I started thinking about this attack". Eventually, however, Hess and Field Marshal Brauchitsch of the High Command decided to adopt Manstein's plan, and Brauchitsch issued Operational Order No. 6, in which the Germans launched a pincer offensive with Army Group Center and Army Group South to destroy the Red Russian forces in the Kursk salient. The combat code name was "Bastion".

Operation "Bastion" was launched as planned, but due to the late end of the rainy season and the lack of preparation of the German army, the battle plan had to be postponed repeatedly. At a meeting in May to discuss the "Bastion" plan, the commander of the 9th Army, General Moder, brought a stack of aerial photographs, which showed that the Red Russian army had built a large number of fortifications on the German planned offensive route, and that Moder believed that the best opportunity for the offensive had been lost, that the Red Russian army had recovered and that the "Bastion" plan should be abandoned. Führer Hess again showed hesitation, but at the insistence of Kruger, Zeitzler, Manstein, and others, as well as confidence in the "blitzkrieg", Operation "Fortress" was finally decided.

While the Führer Hess and his generals were arguing over the "fortress" plan, the Red Russian army was also planning its next move. The commander of the Voronezh Front, General Vatutin, advocated launching a preemptive attack to disrupt the German army's offensive preparations and regain the strategic initiative lost in the Battle of Kharkov, and Zhugashvili himself was inclined to this plan, while Zhukov, Vasilevsky, etc. believed that the Red Russian army should first maintain a defensive state, consume the German offensive energy with a strong defense, destroy its armored forces, and then launch a counteroffensive. At this time, according to reconnaissance and espionage intelligence on the front, the Germans would launch a large-scale offensive against the Red Russian army in the Kursk salient, and at a meeting, the Georgian uncle was finally persuaded to adopt Zhukov's plan. So the Red Russian army began to move to active defensive preparations in Kursk. The passionate collision between the two sides is inevitable.