Over time, the context of the Allied operation in Normandy became clearer. Gradually, Li Guang realized that the Normandy operation was very different from history.

On 6 June, the Allies suffered more than 40,000 casualties in the landing, including more than 10,000 killed. Historically, the Allies lost only about two thousand people. It was only because of the propaganda of the United States, Britain and other countries in later generations that Li Guang thought that the landing battle was very cruel, and only then did he think that the casualties of the Allied forces were basically reasonable.

Could it be that Li Guang ordered the Haitang seaplane carrier to attack Normandy at the end of '43?

No. The Haitang seaplane's sneak attack on Normandy did not attract much attention from the German general Rommel. Rommel, as in history, was confused by the various feints of the Allies, and the focus of the defense was still in the Calais direction, not in Normandy. On the day of the Allied landing, he went home to celebrate his wife's birthday, and his negligence can be seen.

From this point of view, Rommel is really difficult to call a famous general. Although a famous general does not mean that he has never lost a battle, the meaning of defeat and defeat is different. It is absolutely unforgivable to make an error of judgment in such a battle that is at stake in the fate of the nation, no matter how many reasons there are.

The change in Allied casualties came from the deployment of German troops in Normandy. Historically, due to the lack of heavy artillery, Germany was only equipped with ten anti-tank guns and one heavy gun every ten kilometers on the Normandy Line.

But after the Germans took control of the Baltic Sea, they captured a large number of Soviet Baltic warships. However, the captured battleships were all at the bottom of the sea - all the battleships were blown up at the time of the Soviet defeat. After a long period of salvage, the Germans did not repair much. But the naval guns captured thousands. Among them, there are more than 200 doors with a diameter of more than five inches.

More than 200 guns were used by the Germans to strengthen the Atlantic barriers, and Normandy was also given more than 10 heavy guns. And it was this small number of heavy artillery that played a great role in blocking the Allied landing.

The Allies landed in Normandy. A total of five offensive beachheads.

One of the most heavily fought beaches in Omaha.

In another time and space, the Germans did not deploy a single heavy artillery piece on Omaha Beach, but only built four telephone poles to scare the Allies. And in this battle, four poles turned into four 203-mm naval guns. What is the concept of four 203 naval guns? It's not a big problem to fight a battleship alone.

These four guns alone sank three Allied destroyers, one cruiser, and damaged six other Allied warships, one of which was a British battleship. The law of war that naval artillery cannot confront shore artillery has once again been verified.

As for the damage caused by the four heavy guns to the landing infantry, it was even more tragic.

Almost ninety percent of Allied casualties that day were on Omaha Beach. The sea water was stained red with the blood of the American army, and it was extremely tragic.

Fortunately, the other four beachheads where the Allied forces landed did not have such large-caliber shore guns, otherwise the Allied landing might have failed.

The Allied seizure of Omaha Beach. Completely different from history. In fact, this beach was not occupied head-on, but three days later by the Allied roundabout forces from the rear.

As the landing battle deepened, the progress of the Allies began to be difficult. Li Guang was not clear about the pace of the Allied offensive in history. But when the campaign was carried out into July. The Allies were still trapped in an area of less than two hundred square kilometers around Normandy. Based on this alone, judging by his military vision, the Allied offensive was certainly not as smooth as it was in history.

The Haitang General Staff also analyzed several reasons, and from Li Guang's point of view, it also picked out a bunch of mistakes in the Allied landing operation in Normandy. Of course, Li Guang's mistake was purely that he didn't have a backache when he stood and spoke.

First of all, Li Guang believed that the Allied strategic bombing of Germany before the landing was insufficient. Although the amount of ammunition dropped in half a year reached a staggering 200,000 tons, the damage to Germany's industrial capacity was still insufficient.

Li Guang slandered the allies in the belly. In fact, he is also responsible. A few months ago, Li Guang had recommended an American general for MacArthur - Li Mei.

This Li Meinai is a US military general that Li Guang knows in his memory. This man can be remembered not because of his position, but because he has one of the most famous records - the record for the most Japanese killings.

The most casualties inflicted by the US military on Japanese civilians were not the atomic bombs, but Li Mei's strategic bombing of Japan, which burned Tokyo and Japan. It can be said that more than one million Japanese civilians died at the hands of Li Mei.

After the war, Japan hated this Li Mei to the core, calling it "Ghost Animal Li Mei". And it was this ghost animal Li Mei who really knocked out the soul of Japan, the devil is an animal, bullying the weak and afraid of the strong, and later a group of surrendered officers gave Li Mei a big medal.

Li Guang did not have much selfishness in recommending Li Mei to MacArthur, after all, Li Guang did not know this Li Mei at all. I don't even know what his position was at the time. Rather, it is because since the commander of the U.S. Army Air Force, Admiral Arnold, returned to his homeland (in the struggle to become commander of the Air Force), the U.S. military's strategic bombing has lacked a strong commander.

When Li Guang really saw Li Mei's resume, he knew that this was really a bull. Li Mei is not an American general from a professional background, but a general who has fought step by step from the grassroots level. He flew bombers and took out five German fighters, an experience he had in the Allies.

But Li Mei's most powerful in the European battlefield is not here. Having assumed the post of commander of a strategic bomber group, he gave an astonishing order - no dodge.

The reason was that he found that when Allied bomber pilots dropped bombs, they were often interfered with by ground anti-aircraft fire. But in terms of probability, the probability of being hit by dodging and not dodging is not much different, and the hit rate of throwing a bomb is much worse. Therefore, he gave this order to be cruel to himself and to his enemies.

In a country like the United States, very few generals dare to give such orders. However, Li Mei was not afraid of fame and insisted on carrying out this order to the letter. Sure enough, under such a cruel order, the bombing effect skyrocketed.

It is a talent, and it is necessary to make full use of it. Therefore, Li Guang recommended Li Mei to MacArthur. With the status of Mai Dashuai, a small major general was transferred. It's just a matter of words. Li Mei went to the Pacific Theater a year earlier than in history, adding a lot of color to the Pacific Theater.

But as soon as Li Mei left. In the Atlantic theater, there was a death and political retention, and the strategic bombing of the Allied forces once again embarked on the old path of indiscriminate bombing.

In modern warfare, individual capabilities have been greatly depressed. But the role played by some of the world's most stunning figures should not be underestimated. The Allied strategic bombing of Germany was not effective, and the Normandy landing was not as severe as it was historically. The air power is completely suppressed, but it can still make a limited counterattack.

Another mistake of the Allies was, in Li Guang's view, a bit of a woman's kindness. The Allied strategic bombing of France was very incomplete. One might even say tickle. The Normandy landings had begun, and France was still supplying the Germans with supplies, ammunition, and cars.

This was what Churchill insisted on. Because even the Tickle Bombing by the Allies is said to have killed 15,000 civilians in France. Churchill feared that the bombing would go too far and push the French over to the side of the Nazis.

Of course, Li Guang scoffed at this. He wished he had blown France into ruins. To know. Li Guang has always been worried that Haitang will face France after the war, after all, Haitang occupies Datang Island, which really slapped the French in the face.

In a sense, it cannot be said that Churchill's consideration was wrong. Li Guang's reluctance to invest too many troops on the domestic battlefield actually has this reason. The strategic air force of the Haitang Army fought at home, often holding back from the fact that the reason was similar to the attitude of the Allies towards the strategic bombing of France.

You know, as long as you fight on your own soil, the number of civilian casualties exceeds that of soldiers. Not at all. War is about suddenness, and the people are notified to evacuate before the war. Hardly feasible.

This can be seen from MacArthur's victory over Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Marshal Mak almost bombed Manila to rubble, and the Filipinos died more than 100,000 in the Battle of Manila, more than the Japanese died.

On the battlefields of Europe, when the Allied forces landed a month after the offensive was blocked, Churchill's concerns were finally put aside. The Allies dispatched thousands, if not tens of thousands, of warplanes to bomb the German army's transport lines or advance routes almost every day, and the German divisions were bombed one by one, so that Rommel could not organize a large army to counterattack. In desperation, the famous generals also had to add fuel tactics, and the army was constantly divided into troops and thrown into the battlefield, and the German army could only struggle.

After the Allies gained a foothold, the Allies began an all-out offensive with superior firepower, and the French capital Paris became the next target of the Allies.

The battlefield seemed to be in good shape, and the Allies were jubilant. But as August approached, the battlefield suddenly took a turn.

Historically, the German army had only a group of second-line troops on the Western Front, and its composition was composed of the Eastern Battalion, which was composed of prisoners in addition to the old and weak soldiers of the German army. On the Eastern Front, the main force of the German army was firmly pinned down by the Soviet army, and it was impossible to transfer elites to the French battlefield.

But now it was different, Hitler had been preparing an offensive from the northern front of the Soviet-German battlefield in June, but the offensive was halted due to the Allied landings in Normandy. Although the German refueling tactics on the Western Front suffered huge losses, they bought time for the Germans to mobilize the main forces. More than half a million German troops, who were used to prepare for the offensive, were quietly moved to the French battlefield.

On July 30, the Germans suddenly made a strong effort.

The scale of the German counterattack was unprecedented for the Allies: nearly a million German troops (more than 600,000 in fact), tens of thousands of artillery pieces, more than 3,000 tanks, 2,000 aircraft.

The Allies did not have any superiority in artillery and tanks, except for outnumbering the Germans in terms of strength and air power. As for the quality of the soldiers, eighty percent of the soldiers in the Allied forces who had never been on the battlefield could not be compared with the German army, which had fought with the Soviet army for several years.

Tactically, the Germans were even more familiar with the tactics of great depth as soon as they made a move. First, 10,000 artillery pieces fired in unison, directly tearing apart the Allied defense line, and then thousands of steel torrents were divided into dozens of arrows and penetrated directly into the Allied rearguard.

In the first three days of August, there were six tank battles between the Allies and the Germans, and the Germans won all of them. The U.S. military finally saw the strength of the German army's iron armor, and the proud Sherman tank of the U.S. army was simply a cardboard box in front of the Leopard tank and the Tiger tank.

For a time, the Allied army of more than 2 million troops was defeated and retreated. By 15 August, the Allies were forced to retreat to the last line of defense, less than 50 kilometers from the beaches of Normandy.

In this battle, the Allies not only lost more than 400,000 troops, but also lost a large amount of supplies, ammunition and weapons. More than a thousand intact tanks were captured by the Germans alone.

At the end of the campaign, the Germans were said to have continued to attack for half a month because of the irrationality of the mustachioed Hitler, and lost more than 200,000 troops.

Due to the brutal attrition of the German army, the air power was crippled in half a month. Coupled with the consumption of fuel and machinery, the ground forces were unable to continue the offensive. And the mustache shouted that he would drive the Allies into the sea, and the German generals had to muster up their courage and storm for half a month. In the case of the loss of air supremacy, both in terms of troops and heavy weapons were lost.

By the beginning of September, both the Allied and German armies had exhausted themselves and turned to positional warfare. Either side is trying to raise supplies and troops to prepare for the next big war.

War is also a contest of economic power, and this is the most obvious manifestation at this stage. Whoever raises enough supplies for the next big battle first will be the victorious side.

Originally, Li Guang was still a little secretly happy about such a result, and the European battlefield might end better than the Asian battlefield. But what Li Guang didn't expect was that it was this competition of the speed of raising materials that pulled Haitang back. (To be continued......)