Clark was also relieved to hear that Patton had finally assumed the position of commander of the Fifth Army and was willing to lead his troops to carry out a landing mission behind enemy lines. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

In his view, the navy's sudden proposal to land behind enemy lines at this time was quite unreliable and unserious action, reflecting its impatient and rash mood. According to his idea, the navy should cover the army attack, slowly advance from the east coast cities of Brazil such as Salvador - Ileus - Porto Seguru - Victoria, and then try to take the city of Rio in one go.

Does this tactic make sense? It certainly makes sense.

The terrain of Brazil between El Salvador and Rio Negero is very peculiar, and on the eastern coastline of Brazil there is a plain belt of less than 10 kilometers at its narrowest point and only about 200 kilometers at its widest point, and this plain belt is a series of mountainous hills and forests to the west, which is not suitable for heavy equipment group movements, and at best can only pass light infantry or mountain infantry - this is why Sauken estimates that the American army can only use a maximum of 20,000 troops, beyond which the American army cannot provide sufficient logistical support.

But Sauken still overestimated the Americans, saying that 20,000 men were calculated by German standards, and in his mind, the troops could march on foot, and the necessary vehicles were used to carry supplies and equipment, so that the size of 20,000 could be maintained with a little more compact and arduous. However, the problem is that the American young master soldiers need to take a car for more than 5 kilometers, not to mention that this offensive distance is not a few kilometers or tens of kilometers, but at least 300 kilometers or more -- such a long march on foot and carrying personal equipment is basically the same as asking for their lives.

What's more, the U.S. infantry division is much heavier than the German infantry division, and has a lot of tanks, according to German standards, each U.S. infantry division can basically be regarded as an armored grenadier division (refer to the old German army), which is why Germany has more than 30 armored divisions in one go, and the U.S. Army, which has more tank production (after deducting the output of aid to the Soviet Union and Britain, it is basically the same as Germany), is only 16 armored divisions, because the U.S. army has allocated a large number of tanks to traditional infantry instead of centralizing to supply armored divisions.

With the capture of the entire 8th Armored Division stationed in Britain, the US Army now has only 15 armored divisions, of which the 2nd Armored Division, although fully numbered, is a unit that has experienced the African campaign - it is a unit that has been rebuilt after being wiped out.

As a result, the number of vehicles and equipment required has greatly increased, and as soon as the number of vehicles increases, the demand for fuel and spare parts has also increased, not to mention that the demand for other daily necessities, including rations, for the US military has surpassed that of the German army. According to Clark's calculations, it can only maintain a surprise attack team of about 5,000 people, and no one wants to carry out such a thankless task - a surprise attack team at best, a death squad at worst.

Everyone, like Clark, wants to use the tactics of advancing head-to-head, relying on the superiority of air force and ground firepower to press all the way through this slender plain belt, what if they can't press it? Let the Navy press with naval guns! -- Most of the coastal strip is within the control of naval artillery, which is enough to clear a battle line.

According to Clark's idea, he has more soldiers than the Germans, more artillery and tanks than the Germans, more planes than the Germans, and the navy to provide close support and supplies.

It's a pity that no one, including Clark himself, knows that this set of tactics has actually been used by him in history - in the process of the successful landing of the Allied forces in Sicily and advancing in northern Italy, Clark led the Fifth Army to run headlong into the German army commanded by Kesselring, who gave the American army a head-on blow, and the Allies successfully landed in Italy in September 43, but until May 45, the Allies failed to break through the German defense line, and hit their heads in front of Anzio and the Gustavus Line, and only advanced 70 kilometers in 4 months; In the Battle of Cassino in 1944, Clark, then the commander of the Fifth Army, reaped four times the casualties of the German army under his absolute air superiority and firepower superiority, and the Fifth Army under his command accounted for 90% of the Allied casualties in the entire campaign, so much so that Clark was called a "murderer" by the officers and soldiers at the grassroots level.

Even if Nimitz no longer understood the Army, he instinctively thought that this tactic was inappropriate - too dull and too time-wasting, which meant that the Germans could intercept the American heavy group as long as they held on to a certain point, and even if they could not hold on, it would be easy to retreat to the next defensive point and snipe again. The reason why the Japanese 422nd Regiment was able to hold on tenaciously and rescue friendly troops was that it soon relied on this special terrain?

Not to mention that the navy doesn't have so much time to accompany the army to slowly consume, even if it has time, it can't do so, what if the German fleet suddenly appears when it is crushing? Is it in charge of the army or the navy?

Admiral King had long seen through Clark's level, thinking that he was just a powerful man of words, and he was still closely related to the classical theories and the tactical mysteries of famous military strategists, but in fact, he couldn't fight at all, "It's slightly worse than Patton or Richie!" Fearing that he would blindly command and delay things, he did everything possible to get Nimitz the position of the Allied commander in the South American theater of operations, and asked Turna to telegraph Nimitz: "Don't care how Clark is noisy, fight as much as you want, and let Barton think of a way." ”

As a result, there was a rather strange scene in the Allied command system: the theater commander Nimitz was in command on the USS Franklin, but the theater command was located in Recife, and the headquarters of the Fifth Army was far away in Venezuela.

The German army was not much more than capable of this posture: the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Theater of Operations, Machar, was still in Europe, the Theater Command was located on the Falklands, and the main force of the Army's Schauken cluster was far away in Rio de Janeiro.

But there is one thing that the German army is much stronger than the American army, Sauken is not Clark who sits and talks, nor is he busy asking to go to the front Patton, he has real power and the best armament, and the day after Berlin decided to adopt a radical plan, he commanded the troops to launch a sharp attack by the American army, and the first target was to intercept the Japanese 422nd Regiment advancing by the German army.

After receiving the retreat of their own troops, the 422nd Regiment retreated all the way to the north, but because they gave up a large number of vehicles to the retreating troops, plus they had to cut off the rear cover, the pace of retreat was not fast. Clark wanted the retreating troops to assist the 422nd Regiment in guarding the forward line, but the guys had lost all their heavy equipment and could not use their role at all, so he had to mobilize an anti-tank battalion and a tank battalion from the rear to assist the 422nd Regiment in the joint defense of the first line of battle - near the city of Guarapari in Espírito Santo, which was the narrowest part of the entire plain of the east coast of Brazil, the narrowest point was only 8 kilometers, and the continuous hilly terrain next to it could effectively block the passage of German heavy troops.

The 422nd Regiment had lost a quarter of its men and horses in the first blockade, and now the remaining men and horses of the regiment and the two new battalions were holding the narrow passage and preventing the Germans from passing. To accomplish this task, they not only cut the coastal road, dug three successive anti-tank trenches, but also skillfully deployed anti-tank fire.

No matter what other aspects of Clark's personality were, at least he had nothing to say about the 422nd Regiment in terms of personality charm - when other American troops disliked, discriminated against, and even disliked the 422nd Regiment, he not only did not show such feelings, but also pulled them over to serve as the headquarters guard regiment, which fully demonstrated his importance and heart; After the 422nd Regiment covered the retreat of other troops, he did not treat it as a discarded discard, but sent supplies and reinforcements (still Japanese) in time, transferred two heavy battalions to coordinate the defense, and even made it clear that the commander of the 422nd Regiment had full command of all troops.

The 762nd Tank Battalion and the 898th Tank Destroyer Battalion are not general, the former is equipped with M26 heavy tanks, which are rarely seen in the US army, and the latter is equipped with M36 tank destroyers that are urgently modified.

After the Battle of Cape Verde, the production of the M6 heavy tank was recognized by the U.S. military as a failed model and stopped, and more than 1,000 M6s that had been produced were given to the British and more than 100 to the Canadian troops, and the rest were left in the rear as training vehicles. However, the U.S. military's thirst for heavy tanks not only did not quench with the defeat of the M6, but was intensified by the stimulation of the Tiger tank. At the same time as the development of the M6, the US T25 \T26 tank is also accelerating the exploration, which is still a project that Roosevelt personally grasped.

Under the night and day of tackling key problems, the installation of 90mm tank guns, based on the T26E2 (the second improved model) M26 finally came out earlier than in history, of course, this is a premature baby, because in history M26 was improved on the basis of T26E3, but the Americans are eager to equip, how can they take care of so much, they can only improve while groping. The new M26 has 120mm frontal armor for the hull and 102mm frontal armor for the turret, and the new engine with 500 hp has been reduced in height thanks to the new dual-chamber carburetor, which significantly reduces the height of the vehicle, and the overall weight is controlled at about 42 tons, which is slightly lighter than the Tiger but more than the Panther.

According to the US military's point of view, the vehicle's defense capability is close to the Tiger, the artillery (90mm) is slightly better than the Tiger using the 88mm/L56 tank gun, and the mobility is basically the same, which is the closest to the Tiger heavy tank. Now there are third and fourth modifications of the T26, of which the fourth modification is very popular with the army top brass -- that is, a hybrid version of the M26 turret and American-made components installed on the basis of the IS-2 tank chassis, and the Army Armament Bureau even gave a special model for the first time - M26/SP (a combination of Stalin's S and Pershing's P), which gave the Detroit General Motors factory the task of producing 800 units as soon as possible. As for the copycat IS-2 chassis, the Americans, who have a full set of drawings in hand, do not think that it is a matter.