"Blocking the other side's Atlantic shipping lanes is now the only way to save the United States from destruction!"

In the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Marshall, Chief of the Army General Staff, spoke in a heavy tone, and after not seeing him for more than a month, his mental state seemed to be ten years older. Even in the room where the supreme power of the United States was presented, his face was just as depressed and gloomy; In his moves, he no longer had the spirit and anticipation that he was ready to show off when he was promoted to this high position a year ago. Just five weeks earlier, the U.S. Army had suffered its worst defeat in history, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a devastated miè; Nearly 600,000 troops were systematically wiped out on the island of Cuba, and less than a fraction of them could escape, and this unbelievable thing happened!

In the past few days, Marshall has tried his best to cover up the disaster that occurred on the island of Cuba to the country, and as always, he has fabricated a large number of lies to annihilate the enemy in order to stabilize the hearts of the people in the country, but because the number of dead and captured is too high, the withdrawal of US troops from the island of Cuba has still aroused strong doubts from all walks of life in China. In order to level these personnel one by one, Marshall can be described as laborious and physically and mentally exhausted. What made him feel even more headache and pessimism and despair was the tragic combat effectiveness of his own army, which was completely unable to compete with the Germans.

In all fairness, the upbringing of officers in the U.S. Army is not bad. As early as the beginning of the 20 th century, West Point, located in New York, was a military academy ↘ with a small reputation in the world, and the reserve officers had become deeply familiar with the Western set of operational concepts during their four-year study. The U.S. Army, however, is one of the least popular groups at home. For many years, it played a translucent tragic role in the Union army. If the Navy is still his own son. So much so that the Congress, although dissatisfied with his various misdeeds, still has to allocate for his living expenses so that he will not starve. Then the army is completely handicapped and imbecile picked up from the side of the road; Congress will only throw out a few slices of black bread to keep him from starving to death when he's in a good mood, and he doesn't care what his life is!

Under the protection of the blue ocean, successive US governments, congressmen, and ordinary people believe that they have an unshakable city of gold; Coupled with the long-standing isolationist ideology, the U.S. Army has completely degenerated into a force that is no different from the police. Not only did they have no funds to conduct combat exercises under all circumstances, but even the most basic daily training was in a state of laxity and laxity for a long time: live artillery firing was considered a senseless act, and its only use was to swallow the blood of taxpayers. Troops stationed in Cuba and other overseas areas are tasked with suppressing local revolts, and the situation is slightly better. But they were still only suitable for colonial warfare, and there was still a world of difference between them and the major European powers.

Since Roosevelt's presidency, the lack of training and equipment in the U.S. Army has improved somewhat with the removal of isolationism, but the United States has been drawn into the war before the process can be decisively achieved. The battle on the island of Cuba has fully demonstrated that the US military is not only completely incomparable with the other side in terms of personnel, but also has an intolerable gap in equipment performance. Tiger phobia has developed among them, and the number of heavy tanks destroyed so far is still one-handed!

At present, the US Army is also facing an extremely grim situation. That is, the troops with a certain combat experience, all of them have been captured by the Germans on the island of Cuba. Although for the United States, a highly industrialized country with a population of 100 million. It is not difficult to regroup and arm 40 divisions, but experienced personnel cannot be compensated for in a short period of time. Due to the frozen and abandonment of the army for decades, the German reserve system was never established until the outbreak of war, and the current new recruits in the country have only experienced a few months of basic training, and they are completely novices in front of the battle-experienced German army, and Marshall himself did not expect these troops to be able to hold off the German attack.

Under such circumstances, cutting off the enemy's rear supply is the only hope for the current US military to turn around. As soon as the Germans ran out of fuel and ammunition, their fearsome land divisions would be forced to halt their advances, and the Americans, with their superiority in steel, would even be able to pursue victory over the enemy. In the early battle on the island of Cuba, the 3rd Armored Division of the US Army achieved a clear advantage in the confrontation with the German paratroopers.

In the face of Marshall's proposed strategy, Johnson, commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, also understood that the army had reached its limit. Although he was extremely contemptuous of the Army's inferior combat effectiveness in previous battles, he also had to admit that the Navy had indeed received much higher financial allocations than the Army in the previous decades, and that the officer corps and rank-level personnel were far better than the Army's almost self-made Army. And now, the navy has reached a critical point in time when it must be dispatched: according to the information sent back by its intelligence officers in Mexico, a large number of German convoys have landed in its southeastern port of Cancun and even the central port of Veracruz. If no decisive action is taken, the US mainland will soon be strongly entered by foreign enemies, and judging from the previous appearance of the army in Cuba, they can not hope for any fighting on the mainland: you know, the US mainland is also dominated by the plains, which is really beneficial for the German armored forces!

"The Navy will send a fleet with heavy cruisers as the core to the Atlantic Ocean to break diplomatic relations." After a long silence, Johnson finally gritted his teeth and spoke. Sending the main fleet into the Atlantic was too dangerous for German submarines and destroyers in the convoy to threaten it, and in the current situation of a disadvantaged lineup, the best option for these valuable ships was to stay in the relative safety of the near sea. In contrast, the value of cruisers was much lower, and even the loss of a few ships was within acceptable limits. According to the intelligence of the US Navy, in order to reduce the daily attrition of the capital ships and increase their attendance in key areas, the Allied fleets did not have battleships and aircraft carriers to escort the fleet, which also made it possible to send its own cruisers to succeed.

Facing Marshall's slightly unkind eyes, Johnson hurriedly explained: "Although the cruisers we built during the treaty era may be inferior to the German heavy cruisers, they still have a good chance of winning against the Italian and Austro-Hungarian ships. In addition, the Navy will also send the latest Baltimore-class heavy patrol to participate in the operation. This battleship was designed to eliminate ordinary heavy cruisers and would not have any pressure against the non-capital ships of the Germans. ”

On the night of April 16, in the pouring spring rain, a large fleet slowly pulled anchor from the east coast of the United States and set sail. At first glance, the huge hull is tall and wide, and the bridge is strong and majestic, and it seems to be the main battleship of the United States; In fact, all of these ships were light and heavy cruisers with tonnage several times smaller. During the naval holidays, the United States had a total of 18 light and heavy cruisers, which exceeded ninety percent of the total tonnage of Germany, and even outnumbered the German fleet with heavy cruisers by 36 to 33. After the treaty ended, the United States, driven by the stimulus of domestic demand and the economic crisis, started construction of 36 new cruisers in one go within four years. In this plane, stimulated by the heavy fire of the German heavy cruisers, the Americans equipped their new Baltimore class with nine 254mm L50 naval guns, and had the power bay immune to the conventional heavy patrol main guns at normal engagement distances, and the ammunition depot immune to its own main guns.

Of course, the standard displacement of this all-round warship, which has a speed of 32 knots and a range of 10,000 nautical miles, has soared from more than 10,000 tons to 18,500 tons, and the length of the hull is even more than that of the South Dakota-class battleships with twice the tonnage of its own due to the high speed requirements. From the night, there is a majestic scene. However, this is the biggest waste that the US Navy has made in the new round of ship construction. Even with the dilution of the cost of batch construction, the cost of a single ship of this class is more than $41 million; For comparison, the price of a South Dakota-class battleship is only $77 million, and the price of an Essex-class aircraft carrier is only $38 million! Even if the aircraft carrier needs to be fully equipped with aircraft and has much more daily maintenance and personnel expenses than the heavy cruiser, it is enough to prove that this kind of "cruiser killer" is not up to the bottom of the cheat daunt price. If all this capacity is invested in the aircraft carrier field, the size of the US aircraft carrier fleet can be almost doubled, which allows the US Navy to have at least the same number of aircraft carriers on paper as Germany.

In contrast, the German Navy's shipbuilding plan is not known to be much higher than that of the United States. After the construction of two Kaiser Wilhelm-class battleships, which are mainly based on symbolism and smoke grenade attributes, there is only one new type of new ship with more than 10,000 tons, that is, the Hindenburg-class armored aircraft carrier with a standard displacement of 35,000 tons. Under this, the cruiser also evolved into the only 7,000-ton air defense cruiser, and further down was the 2,600-ton large armored destroyer. The single model made the price and construction period of these warships significantly reduced, which had excellent promotion and benefit to the overall strategy of the German Navy. In 1935 alone, Germany had 12 heavy aircraft carriers and 18 air defense cruisers laying keels, overwhelmingly superior to the five fleet carriers of the United States.

And this time, the attacking American fleet ran into the spearhead of another German air force. (To be continued......)

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