Chief of the U.S. Army General Staff, George Cartlett Marshall.

For Alhower, the veteran can definitely be called his Bole. It was the strong recommendation of Marshall, who was trusted by President Roosevelt at that time, that he assumed the post of commander-in-chief of the multinational force with the rank of lieutenant general.

Although the collapse of the British army in North Africa led to the defeat of the entire African campaign, it almost buried all the multinational forces in the African desert.

After the miraculous withdrawal of nearly a million multinational troops from Africa, Marshall insisted on continuing to believe in his choice under tremendous pressure, believing that Eisenhower was a commander who could work miracles, "In Dunkirk, 300,000 British and French troops crossed the English Channel for more than 100 nautical miles and survived the pursuit of the German army, which is called a miracle." So, Ike safely withdrew nearly a million coalition troops from the encirclement of the fascist army, isn't such an action only a 'miracle' that can be described as a miracle? Isn't a general who can perform miracles the most suitable commander of an expeditionary force in the United States? ”

I remembered the strong argument of the chief of the general staff when he recommended him to the Department of Defense, and the old general's words before his second expedition to Europe: "Even if everyone doubts it, I still firmly believe that you, Eisenhower, will be a hero of the United States." ”

Quietly clenched his fist, "George, I won't let you down. ”

The telegram from the Chief of the General Staff came at a timely time, or rather, from the point of view of the military, Britain must not fall into the hands of the Grand Alliance. Because then the United States will be isolated, and it will lose all its allies.

Eisenhower believed that the process of convincing the White House politicians must have been difficult: I would return to London in two days with Prime Minister Churchill. The President ordered the commander of the US forces in Europe to begin the implementation of the "British Fortress" plan with immediate effect.

The "British Fortress" is a British mainland defense plan that the US military has long drawn up. Although the negotiations between China and the United States had not yet broken down at that time, it has always been a habit for Americans to prepare with both hands.

In the "fortress" plan, 1.4 million combined American and Canadian troops would land on the British Isles, plus the British Continental Army, and 2.2 million multinational troops would be put into defensive warfare, ready to recapture Gibraltar after crushing the landing Grand Alliance forces, in Truman's words: to drive the damned fascists back to the Mediterranean.

Unconsciously, even Truman no longer had the luxury of asking for more, and in his opinion, it was quite acceptable for the United States to be able to block the power of the Grand Alliance east of the Strait of Gibraltar. "The Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean are all given to you, and you still want to touch the Atlantic, isn't it a little too greedy?"

Well, the bottom line for Americans now is to hold on to the Atlantic. It's just that the Han army, which has already established sea and air bases in the Azores, will easily withdraw from the Atlantic?

The answer is obvious. A few days after the signing of the "Azores Agreement", the Supreme Command of the Han Empire announced that the Royal Navy of the Han Dynasty would form the Atlantic Fleet, and the location of the fleet headquarters was the Heroic Port of the Azores, and the commander of the fleet was Rear Admiral Lin Jie, who had been laughed at as the "commander of the Atlantic Fleet" before.

Lin Jie, who was born as a submarine force commander, can be regarded as a "success" and worthy of his name this time.

At the same time, the Atlantic Fleet joined the Allied Atlantic Theater Command, and Admiral Guan Cang, who had been promoted to deputy commander of the Royal Navy, became the second imperial admiral in the Navy to command two fleets, just like Long Fat Man in Hawaii.

Although the newly established Dahan Atlantic Fleet has only two aircraft carrier battle groups (it has just been rowed from the Northern Fleet), due to the addition of the Italian Navy and the Spanish Navy, as well as the arrival of the "Coalition" aircraft carrier battle group in the Kingdom of Judah, the naval strength of the Allied forces in the Daxi Sea Theater is still daunting, with 21 main aircraft carriers and 43 capital ships of various types of more than 10,000 tons -- in fact, in the naval system of the Han Dynasty, the definition of capital ships has been very vague. The former sea giants, battleships of tens of thousands of tons, are gradually withdrawing from the formation of aircraft carrier battle groups, such as the Fengxian and Wenju retained by the Northern Fleet, which have also been included in the detachment to carry out coastal artillery fire support tasks, completely losing the main force of pre-war naval artillery warfare.

In modern naval warfare, the attack power of aircraft is getting greater and greater, and it is difficult to see the two fleets approaching the distance of the artillery battle and bombarding each other with naval guns. Even if it does happen occasionally, the main force of such a battle will not be battleships, but missile frigates.

In the Battle of Gibraltar, six missile frigates of an experimental nature, which worked wonders during the near-shore attack, completed tasks that were difficult for naval artillery to accomplish.

The Royal Navy's tactical thinking on campaigns has changed dramatically. All warships equipped with huge guns at the expense of speed and protection were considered obsolete.

All plans to build battleships and Admiral-class cruisers were terminated, and the Generals and Captains-class destroyers and frigates began to be modernized. Ship-to-ground and ship-to-air missile projects, as well as small and medium-caliber naval guns with rapid response and high firing rates, have also been included in the Navy's latest scientific research projects.

For these, Zhong Yi has always laughed and remained silent. It's time to vigorously develop the Empire's own hematopoietic function in scientific research, and gradually get rid of its dependence on the base.

"Even without the support of the base, there is still me! Although I am not an expert and I don't have Du Niang's help, as long as I can point out the right direction of development in advance and guide the thinking of scientists on the path that has been proven in previous lives, the Empire's technology can continue to lead the world. ”

The indigenous chick with a bigger and bigger belly is about to give birth, and the royal family has added another ding. In this world, His Majesty will have one more concern. But at least for now, it is still the Atlantic Ocean that worries His Majesty the most. More than two million Allied troops were ready to go, and multinational forces began to land in Britain.

What should come will always come," the black clouds crushed the city and wanted to destroy it, and the light of the armor opened to the sun. "Another great war is about to break out to decide the fate of the country, and of course, this time the country that will be decided is Britain - the fateful country.

……

"The landing force of five divisions on the front should be enough, but the second wave of armored forces has only one division, is it enough? Even if we could move faster than the American army, Britain was not without armor. Well, the Cromwell cruiser tank and the Churchill infantry tank are indeed a little dish, but there is also the Pershing-26, and the Americans have not been able to send this tank to Britain during this time to fight our 'Tigers'. ”

Xiao Guoxing is also a loud voice, which seems to be a common problem among officers from the Guards Legion. Moreover, as a veteran of the Golden City Armored Regiment period, Admiral Xiao did not have any psychological pressure when questioning Jiang Shuai's battle plan.

"Old Xiao, I participated in the last battle exercise. To tell the truth, the assault force of an armored division is indeed the biggest hidden danger in the entire landing plan. In the event that the 6th Guards Panzer Division is blocked, the pressure on the Airborne Forces will be very great. ”

Sun Liren, who is in a straight military uniform, is very conspicuous in the command headquarters, there is no way, he is too tall.

Jiang Yunzhi smiled bitterly when he heard this, "What Lao Xiao and Lao Sun said is right. But with the capacity of our navy, if we want to carry out an armored assault in the fastest time, one armored division is our limit. So we can only trust that our paratroopers will be able to hold out until reinforcements arrive. ”

"Uncle, during the Anti-Japanese War, we could transport a group army from Nanyang to Hong Kong at the same time, how did we get here, and we could only send one division at the same time? Lao Jiang, did you hide all the transport ships and run away for smuggling? ”

"I ...... Roll rough, can that be compared? At that time, we were fighting in China, and there were compatriots everywhere, all of whom were our own people, and we could fight with a gun on our back. This is in England, don't tell me you don't know how much transportation a Guards armored division needs, if you really don't know, Lao Tzu removed the commander of your Guards Corps, so as not to disgrace Lao Tzu. ”

"Haha......"

On the eve of the Great War, in the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces in A Coruña, Spain, the atmosphere was quite good. Deterred by a powerful air force, the US military was forced to land only in the northern part of the British Isles. Operation "Overlord", the main enemy of the Allies remained the British native forces.

On June 22, 1943, Allied climatologists had predicted a few days earlier that the south of Britain would be sunny and foggy, which would facilitate the landing force's concealment.

Well, in this era of rapid development of radar technology, how much more can such a thing as fog be covered? Jiang Yunzhi was deeply skeptical. But as long as it's a sunny day, the wind and waves are not too big!

Both sides have been preparing for so long that no one has the luxury of expecting a so-called raid. It is not the infiltration of a small force, and such a large-scale operation will definitely be a tough encounter in the end, compared with the firepower of both sides, and more than the will to fight of both sides.

On the first day of the "landing day," Marshal Jiang Yunzhi and General Long Xiaotian, commander of the theater air force, came to Sama-derangerao. In this area, Allied engineering units rushed to repair the local civilian airfield, increasing the number of runways to four, including two extended runways that could accommodate the take-off and landing of large T-Rex transport aircraft.

Here, the 19th and 22nd Paratrooper Divisions of the Guards Corps, which will be the first to enter battle tonight, are already in order. They would board the plane before midnight, then parachute to the right flank of the landing zone before the early hours of the morning, and capture Vieul before the official start of Operation Overlord, cutting off the Greater London area and Wales to the Tim Bay regional railway bridge, and preventing the British army from rapidly increasing troops to the landing area by rail. Vieul is just a small town, and it is an important transport hub because of its location at the intersection of two railways. The British stationed a Welsh pikemen regiment on the site.

Attacking a British infantry regiment with two Guards paratrooper divisions was simply not a difficult battle. Although the Welsh Lance Regiment has a long history, its history can even be traced back to the "Puritan Revolution" of the English Civil War.

But in an army, history is sometimes a kind of spiritual inheritance, and more often it is a symbol of backwardness and old and weak.

The pressure on the paratroopers was that Vieul was located in the interior of the United Kingdom, within a radius of 100 kilometers around it, there was no shortage of large British troops, and even in Dorchester, there was an absolute elite of Britain - the 11th Armored Brigade.

No one could guarantee that the British armoured force, once the backbone of the Loyalists, had sent his cronies to take charge of the 11th Armoured Brigade after the removal of the Loyalist Brigadier Commander Hobart, but agents of the Imperial Military Intelligence had already contacted a number of officers who promised to remain on hold when the battle began. Neither aimed their guns at their own countrymen, nor attacked Allied forces that had come to "liberate Britain" at the invitation of the royal family.

Jiang Yunzhi did not convey this information to the commander of the paratrooper unit, and in his opinion, it was better not to have too much hope for such an unreliable promise.