In the autumn of 1933, on the island of Flores in the northern part of the Azores, more than 3,000 Allied troops relied on the port of Dargaard to confront more than a dozen times the American and British forces. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info In the wargame deduction, this is a battle with little hope, because modern war is not only a contest of strategy, but also a contest of strength, the quality of soldiers, the level of equipment, the superiority of the sea and air, the geographical environment, the offensive and defensive situation, the morale of the military and even the tactical thinking, etc. are all factors that determine the outcome of the battle, and under normal circumstances, the referees who evaluate the victory or defeat of the wargame value more objective data than subjective inference.

Fortunately, on the Azores front, Natsuki only needs to act according to his own judgment, and does not care about the opinions of others at all. The attack on Flores Island was risky, but it was a clever move to win. On that night, the Confederate troops hastily footed on the northern tip of Flores Island were like a piece of cheese with a tantalizing aroma that made the rats who had been curled up and hiding for a week ready to move, although any defender commander knew in his heart that the Confederate fleet stationed offshore was the deadly rat trap, and if the enemy was allowed to gain a foothold, the end of the defenders would come as soon as dawn came.

In the first half of the night, the American and British troops launched two rounds of attacks on the landers, and without exception they were scattered by artillery fire from the sea, and the artillery bombardment of the field artillery was also quickly suppressed, and the battle really developed in a direction that was extremely unfavorable to the defenders. Faced with such a situation, Lieutenant General Jim Davis of the US Army neither chose to be passive on the defensive, nor did he decisively give it a go, but gathered the remaining armored forces on the island, and launched a third wave of offensive with the field strength of two infantry brigades, with nearly 14,000 troops engaged in the battle, including 46 tracked combat vehicles, 30 wheeled armored vehicles, and was supported by nearly 70 artillery pieces from 5 artillery battalions, but unfortunately the fighters were fleeting, and the Allied landing force had increased to more than 5,000 people at this time, The soldiers perfected their defenses on the basis of the abandoned fortifications of the defenders, properly equipped with heavy machine guns and mortars, and stockpiled ammunition relatively well. Under the aerial observation of the cruise planes and the land guidance of the landing force, the Allied light ships directly supporting the operation continued to export firepower, and the battleship groups on standby in the distance also became furious after the appearance of the enemy's armored forces, and simply repaired the opponent to a temperless position.

As the night passed, Allied warplanes continued to dominate the skies of Flores, and the landing force quickly increased to more than 10,000 men, with amphibious tanks, medium tanks, and even heavy tanks coming ashore. At first glance, the attacking side was still far less numerous than the American and British forces on the island, and the main forces of the defenders were holding the fortress of St. Cruche, and with ample reserves of war materiel, it seemed that holding out for a few weeks would not be a problem. Leaving aside the casualties and ammunition consumption of the Allied forces during this period, if the main fleet is stranded here for several weeks, the favorable situation may not be maintained -- recently there is information that the repair work of some of the US and British capital ships damaged in the early stage and returned to North America has been completed or is close to completion, including the US main aircraft carrier "Yorktown" and the British aircraft carrier "Brilliant"; once these US and British warships return to the Azores battlefield, the US and British main fleets that have retreated to Pico Island will have another opportunity to counterattack.

The battle of the Azores reached such a crucial juncture, whether it was the American and British commanders who gritted their teeth on the island of Flores, or the senior generals who were in the rear and strategized, they were clearly aware of the importance of holding the fortress of Santa Cruz. After the Allied troops landed on Flores Island, the US-British Joint Operations Command tried every means to supply the trapped troops, and although the night transportation of seaplanes, destroyers, and submarines was not very efficient, the continuous supply of supplies and spiritual encouragement from all walks of life rebounded the morale that had fallen into a low point. However, as time went by, the situation of the defenders on the island became more and more difficult, and in the situation that it was difficult to get the assistance of their own air force, the officers and men looked forward to the worst weather every day, and only then would the hateful enemy dive bombers temporarily stop attacking the defenders' fortifications, and the destructive power of the shells from the enemy ships would be correspondingly weakened.

As the commander of the garrison of Flores Island, General Jim Davis also expected the heavens to favor him, but unlike the ordinary officers and soldiers under his command, in addition to praying, he could alleviate the current bad situation through his own decisions, and it was this subtle psychology, coupled with the discovery that the enemy troops had exposed the weakness of the flank forces in combat operations, he carefully launched a counterattack on the third day of the enemy landing, and unexpectedly, the seemingly tough enemy was beaten to the ground, Not only did they abandon the onslaught on the seaport of Faga-Goland on the west side of the island, but they also abandoned a number of positions that had already been gained, and retreated in panic to the port of Delgada in the north and Shante-Cruz in the northeast. Although General Davis was suspicious of the enemy's retreat and could not resist the persuasion of his officers to divide and annihilate the enemy, he expanded the scale of the counterattack that night, and ordered the advance force to penetrate between Delgada and Shante Cruz, successfully splitting the Confederate forces on the island in two, but the siege of Shante Cruz, like the battle of the first night of the enemy landing, was thwarted by the strong intervention of the Allied fleet.

Late at night, listening to the rumbling of cannon from the north, Jim Davies's heart was pounding, and he was saddened by the fact that he had ordered a counterattack at the thought that he might be playing against the invincible Hohenzollern genius. With more than three hours to go before dawn, the US Army Lieutenant General, who could not bear the suffering, decided to preserve his strength, and he ordered all the units in the front to quickly retreat, and the main force engaged in the counterattack must retreat to the fortress of St. Cruz before dawn -- with the normal marching speed of the troops, this intention could be completely realized, but he never imagined that the short eight-kilometer journey would become a road of death for thousands of American and British officers and men. After nightfall, Allied ships quietly set up an ambush on the sea around the island, and when the American and British troops finished their counterattack and retreated south, they reconnoitred the land situation with flares and searchlights, blocked the march route of the American and British troops with heavy artillery fire, and swept every area where the enemy was found, forcing Davis's counterattack force to retreat in a roundabout way over the ridge in the middle of the island, so that most of the troops could not return to Santa Cruz before dawn.

In the early morning of the next day, despite the light rain in the sky, the Ju-17s that had taken off from Corvo Island still swooped down in groups like piranhas smelling blood, bombarding every village, town, and stronghold where the American and British officers and soldiers had gathered, and with the direct support of naval artillery, the Allied landing force also turned against the previous day's despair, and launched the attack with ferocity, all the way along the east coast of Flores Island to the fortress of Santa Cruz, all the way along the open area west of the central ridge, and until noon, The Confederate forces had largely cut off St. Cruz from the rest of the island, which meant that the remaining 30,000 or so defenders had been split in two, with about half continuing to hold on to the fortress and the other half trapped in various villages and towns.

After lunch, watching the rain get heavier and heavier outside, Davis decided to take a desperate gamble and send his last two infantry brigades with more complete combat strength to pick up the trapped troops. Although the Confederate forces that landed on the island of Flores were durable, and had built field fortifications on the side of the fortress of Santa Cruz, the thin cordon was quickly overwhelmed by opponents several times their size. By 3 p.m., the defenders' counterattack had achieved the desired results, and most of the town strongholds besieged by Allied troops were relieved, and Davis's troops even captured more than 400 German soldiers.

After 3 o'clock, the rain subsided slightly, and the sky, which had been silent for several hours, was again filled with the roar of engines and the thunderous sound of artillery......

By nightfall, tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides fought fiercely around many villages and towns outside Santa Cruz, the Allied army was at a disadvantage in strength, and the equipment was not superior, but the support from the sea and the air made them imposing on the battlefield, more and more American and British troops were overwhelmed and surrendered, and the British troops who gave up resistance in the formation were obviously more than the American army, and the occurrence of this phenomenon echoed the discouragement of the British people about the war, because of this, Although millions of native inhabitants were willing to follow the royal family and government out of Britain for Canada, less than half of the population, the Anglo-Saxon peoples seemed far less willing to contend with the fate of defeat than in 1915.

After dark, the Confederate forces, which had regained superiority on the battlefield, no longer took the initiative to attack, but relied on several port towns along the coast to go on the defensive, and by this time, Davis had neither the courage nor the strength to carry out even a small counterattack, and he ordered all the troops except Santa Cruz to withdraw to the fortress, and then anxiously awaited the report of his officers. That night, the Allied forces did not cause trouble for the retreating American and British troops, and the battalions and companies that had survived the hard fighting returned one after another, and the increasing number of soldiers comforted Davis and his officers a little, and when they went to inspect the troops, they saw the frustration and despair on the faces of the remnants of the defeated generals, and learned the rate of depletion of the stockpiled medicines and equipment, and they would understand why the enemy would let these people retreat.

On the fifth day after the Allied troops landed on Flores Island, all areas were occupied by Allied forces except for a corner where the fortress and harbor of St. Cruz were still in the hands of the American and British troops. On the 12th day of the landing operation, the Allied forces besieging Santa Cruz suddenly made a strong force, with armored combat vehicles as the vanguard, large-caliber naval guns as the backup, and the use of flamethrowers and anti-tank guns to carry out the positional attack, and the fierce battle lasted from early morning to early afternoon, and the remaining more than 20,000 defenders of Flores Island raised the white flag to the opponent under the leadership of Jim Davis......

(End of chapter)