It's the end of September, and the weather in Washington is already starting to get cooler. Hewitt's heart was hot, or rather, uneasy because of anxiety.

As early as a few months earlier, he had been given the task of landing in Northwest Africa, which was the policy set by the Allies at the Acadia Conference on Christmas Day in 1941, and Prime Minister Churchill specially proposed the "Northwest Africa Plan" -- codenamed "Sportsman", to land in Algeria, Africa in order to gradually tighten the encirclement of Germany, and said that if France agreed, American troops would also land on the Moroccan coast. Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not interested in this plan, President Roosevelt himself endorsed it and repeatedly pushed for it.

The plan was perfect: the British 8th Army would achieve a decisive victory in Cyrenaica, and then cooperate with the Anglo-American Allied forces to land in Northwest Africa, so that the North African Axis Army could be completely eliminated. But in June of this year, not only did the expected victory not arrive, and the African Army, led by Rommel, even preemptively attacked the Jazara Line and led to the collapse of the British army in North Africa, but Churchill's enthusiasm for this plan continued unabated, not only renaming it "Super Sportsman", but even advocating for the Allies to land in Northwest Africa as soon as possible and advance to the ****** border. The Joint Chiefs of Staff saw the predicament of the British forces in North Africa and resolved to pull these "poor and pathetic Anglo-Saxons" by the hand - this was what Hewitt had heard from General Marshall, and the exact words of the president's special envoy and close friend Hopkins in private, and whether or not President Roosevelt meant it. The promised siege of the Axis turned into a relief for the British, and he felt irritated anyway.

In July, the US-British Joint Chiefs of Staff held two more meetings in London, and finally at Churchill's initiative, the battle plan was renamed "Torch." Hopefully, this will be inspiring. And it was determined that the American Lieutenant General Eisenhower would be the commander. But in addition to the agreement between the two sides on the choice of commander, the differences in time and place are even greater. In their eagerness to relieve the North African forces, the British suggested October 7 as the target date, while the Americans suggested November 7, and finally President Roosevelt reconciled and demanded that the landing date be no later than October 30. As for the choice of landing site, the two sides disagreed even further - the British side strongly advocated landing on the north coast of Africa in the Mediterranean, so that it could advance quickly to the ****** and force the German and Italian troops to return to their divisions, but the American side obviously did not want to take the British fire. The first draft of the "Sportsman Plan" revised in June was revealed, and it was decided that it would be most reasonable to limit the landing site to Casablanca on the west coast of Morocco. During the hottest two months of July and August in Washington, Hewitt's daily work was spent in endless bickering, and he felt that he needed to explode once a day to vent the nameless fire, but unfortunately he was the lowest rank among the attendees, and he could not find a person to be angry with.

In the end, Eisenhower, the commander-in-chief of operations, proposed a compromise plan: it was proposed to land both inside and outside the Mediterranean, but not east of Algiers, since the Germans might send air strikes from Sicily and Sardinia, and only make a small landing at Ponik to seize the airfield. Unfortunately, the British were not satisfied and insisted on a large-scale landing at Pony or further east. After more than half a month of quarrels. Roosevelt and Churchill exchanged countless telegrams until September 15, when the two sides finally agreed that November 8 would be the designated landing date. The Algiers landing was agreed to be included in the plan, but the American troops landed only in Casablanca, Morocco, and Oran, Algeria, and the British landed in Algiers and further east.

Hewitt received the order to lead the U.S. Task Force 34 with 102 U.S. warships (including 29 transports) and a total of more than 30,000 U.S. troops from Hampton Anchorage, Virginia, to Casablanca, Morocco, on an expedition spanning 4,500 nautical miles. The task of capturing Orlan was given to the Central Task Force, which numbered nearly 20,000 American troops. Commanded by Rear Admiral Fredendel, Commodore Thomas? Trubbridge commanded the British Navy to escort the troops, which had been transported to Scotland and Northern Ireland in early August, and had spent two months of idleness amid numerous high-level bickering.

I thought that the plan was decided like this, but I didn't expect that only 10 days later, Hewitt was pulled to a meeting again, and before he could enter the door, he heard a fierce quarrel.

"The hostile situation has changed drastically, and we can't simply follow the original plan." An American staff officer said something with a red ear, while the British liaison officer stationed at the Joint Chiefs of Staff had a look of righteous indignation on his face.

"What happened? Tom? Huwittera stopped a lieutenant colonel with whom he was acquainted, and pointed to the two groups of people who were in a heated mood, "Why are they arguing again?" ”

"You don't know? No wonder. The other party handed over a document and whispered, "This is recently collected and sorted out by the intelligence department, and the British have a lot of things to hide from us." ”

"Malicious concealment?" Hewitt's heart was beating suddenly, and he speculated for no reason, and when he opened the file, he found that the truth was even more outrageous than he had imagined:

First of all, the British boasted of the victory in the Battle of El Alamein was an out-and-out deception, the British 8th Army lost more than 50,000 men, 700-800 tanks and aircraft, more than 1,000 artillery pieces and a large amount of military supplies, 3 of the 4 main armored divisions were routed or heavily damaged, and the infantry units of 2 divisions and 2 brigades were severely damaged or neutralized, and there were more than 5,000 people below the brigadier general who were captured; And their gains were basically achieved by the Italians, except for 3 Italian infantry divisions that surrendered without a fight, the Germans lost less than one-tenth of the British.

Secondly, the Germans did retreat to Tobruk's defense as the war report said, but their strength was growing rapidly, according to the report sent by Tobruk's intelligence officers, Guderian received reinforcements from 1 armored division (4th Panzer Division) and 1 armored brigade (Flying Fortress Armoured Brigade) from China, in addition to a large number of tanks and personnel replenishment, 2-30,000 tons of various fuel alone, the British base in Malta failed to intercept these fleets, and their bombers were severely attacked by the escorting German fighter wing, The loss of more than 30 planes sank and damaged only one ship each, and the damaged transport ship struggled to dock in the port of Tobruk.

In the end, although the Germans had slightly inferior tanks to the 8th Army, they were far superior in quality, and the new German tanks were all newly rolled off the line, the No. 4G type, which was difficult to deal with, and the Germans also invested nearly 200 T-34 tanks captured from the Russian front. After analyzing the wreckage left by the Germans on the battlefields in North Africa and combining it with the technical parameters obtained from Russia, it is difficult for the current tanks owned by the US military, whether it is the M3 General Grant Lee or the M4 Sherman, to pose a threat.

Considering that this report may be sent to naval officers, who may not understand tanks, the campaign staff also thoughtfully attached a comparative analysis report on tank performance:

The Sherman tank is equipped with a 75mm L/40 tank gun, and theoretically the M72 armor-piercing projectile can penetrate a 60mm/30° steel plate at a distance of 914 meters, but due to the special inclined shape of the T-34, the ricochet effect is particularly good, and it can only be effectively killed within 600 meters, and in the face of the German thickened armor No. 4G 80mm frontal armor, it can only be effectively penetrated at 100 meters - when the tank exchange distance is generally still 800-1000 meters, It's almost a suicidal distance.

"Tom, does this mean that our tanks can't hit people, but they have no difficulty hitting us?"

The other party nodded, and said in a tone full of worry: "That's pretty much it, it's like we take a destroyer and fight someone else's light cruiser, theoretically a destroyer can kill or even sink a cruiser at close range, but whoever tries on the battlefield will die." Not to mention the fact that the Germans accounted for 80% of their overall possession of new tanks. ”

Hewitt began to have a headache, and he was not willing to take the destroyer to fight the enemy's cruiser.

So the reason for this quarrel is quite understandable, in addition to the meaningless war of words that accuses each other of concealing the situation (the British believe that the Americans concealed the defect of the Sherman tank's lack of firepower), it is a quarrel about the timing of the operation.

Marshall, the chief of staff of the Army, who was obligated to land, proposed that since the Sherman tank lacked firepower, it could not be stupidly rammed into it, and it was necessary to rectify it first. Artillery experts have come up with rectification opinions through case verification, the Sherman tank should be replaced with the M1 76mm L/52 gun as a whole, this tank gun uses the M62 cap armor-piercing shells to 500 meters away vertical steel plate penetration force of 116mm and 106mm respectively, 500 yards (457 m) and 1000 yards (914 m) of 30 ° (normal angle) steel plate penetration force of 98mm and 90mm respectively, with the ability to kill all German tanks. The trade-off was a 40-day delay in departure in preparation for Operation Torchlight on Christmas Eve 1942.

The British, on the other hand, resolutely disagreed with this request, and they were eager to set off as soon as possible, and there was even a sarcasm in their words about the Americans' greed for life and fear of death.

Considering that the British were currently confronting the Germans outside Tobruk and were in urgent need of tank reinforcements, the U.S. military not only withheld the tanks sent to Russia to support the British, but also offered to give priority to replacing British tanks with new tank guns. But the British did not appreciate this, saying that they did not need to change tank guns, and only needed the Americans to leave as soon as possible.

The two sides were at a stalemate. (To be continued.) )