Hearing Admiral King's ridicule, Hull's face suddenly fell, but the latter never expected that Marshall also had a big opinion of him, thinking that letting a secretary of state point the fingers here and not there completely crossed the line, does the military need to come forward and tell the diplomatic system what to do? Isn't that the same as Japan?

Roosevelt pretended not to hear Admiral King's complaints, and only asked, "Can time be faster?" The situation in Argentina has a serious impact on South American countries, and all countries are waiting for our quick response, and it is useless for the State Council to express its position, it is a mouth cannon, and we must come up with real guns and live ammunition......"

Hearing Roosevelt's use of "mouth cannons" to describe his diplomatic efforts, Hull's face darkened even more, but he did not dare to refute a word -- who made himself say that Europe was important two days ago, and that South America was important after being pressured in the past two days. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info is at both ends of the rat, and it's good not to be directly scolded by the president. The Navy's vague performance of the retreating warships and when to strike back has also caused panic in South American countries, and everyone is asking: What does the United States mean by this? Do you want to leave South America to the axis and retract yourself to live on the North American continent?

"It's fast enough, I suspect that a counteroffensive may not even be launched at Christmas, and now the situation is clear, this group of enemy troops on the Falklands is the same group that passed through the Suez Canal in late July, and the enemy has been planning for at least a few months from planning to implementation, and in hindsight, they have not only connected with Peron a long time ago, but also coordinated with each other seamlessly." Admiral Kim did not forget to knock Donovan again, "It's a pity that some of us are complacent and always think that everything is under control. ”

Donovan didn't dare to refute, only lowered his head.

Roosevelt knew that Admiral Kim was full of grievances, and he had to let the other side vent it -- Admiral Kim had always been a man who repaid grievances with grievances and repaid virtues with virtue, and it was better to expect Admiral Kim to be able to convince people and repay grievances with virtue than to expect Horikichi to lead the combined fleet to defect to the United States tomorrow.

"What positive work can the Navy do in these months?"

"We have a heavy task, really." Admiral Kim sighed and poured bitter water.

At the beginning, in order to protect the Azores campaign, they went crazy to build a specially built escort aircraft carrier, but now it seems that the number is guaranteed, but the qualified manpower is not easy to muster, not to mention that the deployment of more than 1,000 qualified carrier-based aircraft pilots is a fatal problem, and the crew alone has made the Admiralty scratch the scalp. In the past two years, especially in the last year, the Navy has been sinking ships one after another, and although Spruance has used destroyers to carry personnel, the loss of personnel has continued to grow rapidly. After all the major battles in the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea, and Tarawa, the navy lost more than 100,000 direct personnel (killed, wounded, and captured), and if we add in the successive losses in the Pacific region, such as seizing islands, submarine operations, and escorting warships, the loss of personnel has exceeded 150,000, and if we count from the beginning of the Pearl Harbor incident, plus the losses of the Marine Corps, the loss of the number of naval personnel has exceeded 250,000.

This is a very frightening number, because before the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the entire US Navy (including the Marine Corps) was less than 250,000, which means that the Axis countries took two years to completely "wash" the US Navy. The problem is that the losses of merchant ships are also not small, in the Atlantic submarine warfare, the tonnage lost more than 1 million tons per month, and at the peak, the Axis dispatched a fleet and submarines to jointly blockade and kill 1.65 million tons in one breath a month. Throughout the period from January to August 1943, Britain and the United States lost 9.4 million tons of merchant ship in the Atlantic direction.

At present, the shipbuilding capacity of the United States is only 1.5 million tons/month, about 18 million a year, on the surface, it seems that Germany has sunk not as much as the United States has built, but the places where American merchant ships have to use are not only the North Atlantic, Brazil and South Africa in the South Atlantic, and India, Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean all rely on the supply of the United States, and the total losses there are also two or three hundred thousand tons. Added up to eat up exactly the number of new tonnage added to the United States each month. The only thing that secretly pleased the Admiralty was the month when the Germans completely cut off Atlantic shipping, and because they did not need to carry out almost certain tasks, the losses of merchant ships plummeted to less than 400,000 tons - the result was that Great Britain was almost strangled to death that month.

Of course, as the world's tycoon and industrial hegemon, the United States still has potential to be tapped, and with the arrival of a large number of British shipyard workers, it is expected that the annual construction volume in 1944 can be increased to 2 million tons/month, and more than 24 million tons a year - the peak of World War II in history is only 19 million tons/year.

Roosevelt kept promising Churchill to provide 1 million tons of refined oil products per month, in fact, it was almost never realized, whether it was 1.2 million tons or 1.5 million tons, and finally the British always had to give some discount when they received it, or 7% or 6% off, President Roosevelt wanted to increase the quantity, such as 2 million tons per month, but the Navy told him that this could not be done, because the construction speed of the T2\T3 tanker to transport the finished product was far less fast than that of the Liberty Wheel (Victory Wheel). Even the large escort aircraft carriers, which the Navy had been expecting to be converted from oil tankers, were forced to cancel - and the Sangamon class became a swan song.

However, what Admiral Kim wants to complain about this time is obviously not tonnage and materials, this should not be his concern, what he is worried about is personnel. The average construction period of the freeship is 40 days, and the fastest time is 5 days, and now with the help of British shipbuilders, the speed can be accelerated. But whether it's 5 days or 40 days, a qualified crew can't change it. According to American tradition, a qualified ocean-going seafarer generally needs 2-3 years of training in a junior college, and then a few months of practice on board before he is completed. Now it's better to rush on land for 6 months, then stuff into a ship on a mission, and as long as you can make a round trip alive, you can immediately brag about being an "old sailor".

"Now our monthly tonnage loss can be converted into 100 free ships, and no matter how much we reduce the number of personnel on one free ship, there are hundreds of people, and the net loss is tens of thousands every month. If this operation were to redeploy manpower from among the seafarers, I am afraid that there would be big trouble. ”

Marshall felt strange and asked hesitantly: "I remember General Turner said that it is perfectly okay to get together 45 escort aircraft carriers in October. ”

"The Azores are less than 2,000 nautical miles from U.S. ports, and as long as those rookies don't mess around, it won't be a problem to drive around the Azores and release carrier-based aircraft." Admiral Jin said helplessly, "It is not so simple to go to the Falklands 8,000 nautical miles away to fight, and we must strengthen training." In my plan, these three forces are ready to work together. Venezuela first settled French Guiana, Brazil deterred the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and provided ground aviation support, and then the navy seized the island. When politicians counterattack, an army threat on the border, and the island occupied by the navy, the Peron regime will be over. (To be continued.) )