The German 11th Panzer Division, which lasted nearly one month of operations, galloped across the country, repeatedly thwarted Allied offensives, achieved remarkable results, and became a heroic and combative fire brigade. Its main experience: First, it moved quickly, the division moved 1,500 kilometers in more than 1 month, with a daily average of 50 kilometers, and moved quickly, causing the Allied forces to be dizzy and at a loss.

Second, tactical flexibility. Whether it was retreating or counterattacking, the division was able to seize the fighter planes, flexibly use a variety of tactical means such as blocking, ambushing, and attacking, make full use of the terrain, and attack the opponent suddenly and covertly, and won many brilliant results of winning more with less.

The third is to be brave and tenacious. Under the condition of being passive in the overall strategic situation, the division was not afraid of a strong enemy, was not afraid of fatigue, calmly coped with the battle, and defeated the opponent with amazing courage and perseverance.

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By this time, Eisenhower had already understood that the 550,000 Allied troops led by Patton had no hope of breaking through the encirclement, and could only be sacrificed as outcasts, as long as they could hold out in the encirclement for seven days, Aha was confident that he would break through the Maginot Line and Siegfried Line arranged by the German army, which was simply a matter of life and death for the entire Allied army.

Eisenhower gave Patton an order to "hold on to the last soldier." Patton, an ardent warmonger, directly expressed his willingness to accept this order for the sake of the honor of the soldiers.

Eisenhower and Arthur, nicknamed "The Bomber"? Air Admiral Harris developed a large air attack plan to strike at Germany's war potential, and at the same time to disperse the forces that the Germans had placed on the Maginot Line.

Harris was a fanatical "bomber mechanic triumphant" who advocated strategic bombing of German cities. Reducing Germany's war potential, and demoralizing its people, and striving for an early end to the war, he was still immersed in the dream of victory for the Allies.

Prior to Harris, the Allied air forces had been bombing Germany at night for more than a year, as night reduced the chance that bombers would be hit by German anti-aircraft fire. However, these bombing operations by the British army were not large-scale, often about dozens, and sometimes only 200 planes. In the face of the tight air defense network of the German army, this small-scale bombing was very ineffective, and its own losses were quite serious. Harris decided to go for massive bombing. And mainly incendiary bombs were used. Turn German cities into flames.

Harris was resolute and did what he said he could do in order to test his theories. 191 bombers were sent to attack the old city of Lubek, and although more than 80 bombers were shot down by the Germans, it also caused a 32-hour fire in the old town of Lubek: the next day. Harris sent another 468 bombers to attack Rostock. More than one hundred and sixty aircraft were lost. It also caused more than 60% of the buildings in the Old Town of Rostock to set on fire. Seeing that the effect was good, Harris decided to make a bigger ticket and called it the "Thousand Machines Project". That is, 1,000 bombers were used to bomb a German city at a time.

This tactic is completely a helpless tactic of fighting for attrition and national strength, when this is exactly what Germany cannot bear, as long as the Allies dare to fight with Germany, even if Germany has an incomparably brilliant victory in the early stage, it will eventually shed the last drop of blood. Even if Li Mo is a traverser, there is no way.

The only way out for Germany is to annihilate the Allied forces that landed as soon as possible, capture their officers and soldiers as much as possible, and then use the prisoners to force the Allied forces to negotiate peace.

In early October 1941, Eisenhower asked Harris if he could come up with 1,000 bombers. Harris replied in the affirmative. At that time, the Allied Air Force Bomber Command had a total of 437 medium and heavy bomber squadrons under its jurisdiction, equipped with 10,000 bombers, but in Li Mo's last full-scale air raid, the losses were very large, but the Allies still had more than 2,000 left, plus the British inventory, the Allied bombers were quickly restored to more than 3,000, and it was not a difficult thing to touch more than 1,000 bombers at one time.

If the air raid operation is 48 hours, there are 1000 reserve bombers that can be used. In addition, the Allied Naval Coastal Defense Command could supply 2,100 Wheatley, Hudson, and Hampton bombers. As a result, the number of bombers reached 17100 units. There were about 2,500 escort fighters, and the total number of air raid planes reached more than 4,200, which was almost 60 percent of the remaining aircraft of the Allied forces.

In order to ensure the implementation of the "Thousand Machines Plan", Harris lobbied Eisenhower and finally received strong support. Li Mo didn't want to fight an air force war of attrition with the allies, but the allies would not give him such an opportunity.

But the use of so many bombers for air strikes at one time has never been done in history, and it faces many thorny problems. First, the air attack must pass through the German "canopy bed" system, that is, the detection and guidance system composed mainly of the "Würzburg" air defense radar, as well as the "Konhube" defense line composed of Bf110G-4a night fighters and a large number of FLAK anti-aircraft guns.

In previous air raids, British bombers suffered in front of this line of defense and suffered heavy losses. And 1,000 bombers were an unusually fat prey for German anti-aircraft fire. How can you reduce your battle damage

Second, the "Lancaster" and other new bombers are equipped with advanced navigation equipment, but many old bombers do not. How can these different types of bombers be formed in order to avoid collisions in the air?

Third, the air raid was planned to last one hour, with the aim of increasing the intensity of bombing with a short period of intensive bombing. But in such a short time, will 17100 bombers be able to reach the target area and drop bombs?

Harris left these issues to the experts to solve. The expert is worthy of being an expert, and he quickly came up with a solution. In response to the first question, the experts suggested that it was better for the bombers to carry out a long "stream" dense formation at night, so that the probability of the bomber group being discovered by the German "canopy bed" system would be greatly reduced (at that time, the Germans could only guide one night fighter to intercept the operation at a time, and could only carry out direct interception at most six times in an hour, which was only suitable for dealing with small-scale bombing). It is not enough to intercept the strip-like dense formations with long and short lengths).

And the German anti-aircraft artillery could not concentrate on a large number of targets in a very short time, so experts believed that the dense formation of the "stream" type could greatly reduce bomber losses. The solution to the second problem is for the old and new bombers to attack three different areas of a city in separate formations, and to fly at higher altitudes, so that the chance of collision will drop to only once per hour.

The third problem is better solved, extending the duration of the air attack to 90 minutes, so that the bomber group will fly more calmly and will not have much impact on the intensity of the bomb. Satisfied with the solution proposed by the experts, Harris immediately assigned the chief of staff, Charles? General Potel drew up a detailed battle plan. (To be continued......)

PS: The new book of the fallen leaves is still a few days to be uploaded, please brothers must collect and support, the end of the Ming Dynasty to save the stream, thank you.