In fact, the British government has long been well aware of the importance of the Shetland Islands, so the defense of the islands was actually quite strong at the beginning, but here near Norway, a member of the Axis powers, the Luftwaffe occupied absolute air supremacy, so that several airfields on the Shetland Islands had been seriously damaged by German bombers taking off from Norwegian airfields long before the German raid on the Faroe Islands, and they were continuously attacked by air raids for many days, so that they have not been repaired to this day, and the air defense forces stationed on the islands have almost been lost.

As a result, when Germany launched a full-scale attack on the Shetland Islands, the British government could only send planes from Scotland to the rescue, which did not have much advantage over the German planes from Norway in terms of distance, and the air defense forces had almost all been blown up before, so the British Royal Air Force's advantage in internal combat could not be reflected at all. However, the number of German aircraft occupies an absolute advantage, and the British Air Force has to fight more with less, and there is also a gap in the performance of aircraft and the quality of pilots, so the exchange ratio is extremely different.

Originally, with the characteristics of the archipelago operation, the British Government could send naval ships over to assist in the defense, which would be of great help to the sea, the ground, and the air, but with the arrival of three capital ships from Germany and the protection of a large number of aircraft, it was already rare that the Royal Navy was able to sneak up on the battleship Bismarck.

Despite the disastrous defeat in the Battle of Shetland under so many unfavorable conditions, Churchill could not blame the British officers and men who participated in the battle. But no amount of reasons can change the cruel reality that Britain is in crisis. And the Germans were not going to give the British a respite, and in less than a week they made a forced landing on the coast somewhere in the north of Scotland

Just when Roosevelt was considering whether to abandon Britain. The British, however, unexpectedly launched a Jedi counterattack, annihilating all the three German infantry divisions that had landed on the British mainland in more than a week, plus the casualties caused by the sinking of German ships by the British submarine forces, especially the transport ships, a total of more than 70,000 German troops were killed and wounded, of which the number of permanent attrition alone exceeded 60,000, and the British army won the first real victory since the outbreak of the European war

However, Hu Weidong, who had been paying close attention to the situation in Europe, soon realized that the British had won an unexpected victory not because they had suddenly fought a chicken, but because the Germans, especially the Führer's mustache, were too conceited and the root cause of this defeat.

It turned out that although Germany had achieved air supremacy and even sea supremacy. However, due to the insufficient number of transport ships (Germany has limited capacity to build ships. Capital ships and submarines had been built so vigorously that there was a serious shortage of light cruisers and destroyers, let alone transports. ), and the British submarine forces continued to harass. Therefore, the ability to project troops during landing operations is very problematic. Even without any interference. Only one light infantry division can be sent ashore in a day, and the British mainland, which has already completed the general mobilization, has more than one million regular troops alone, including hundreds of thousands of land forces that can fight in mobile operations. Moreover, it could be expanded several times if necessary, and the territory of Britain was not very large, and it could be assembled quickly, so in the first few days the landing force had to face at least ten times the enemy force of its own, and the German army was no match no matter how strong it was. Moreover, the German army was sent ashore division by division, and it inadvertently became a "refueling" style of play, and it is no wonder that it can be won

In addition, the British were amazed by the outstanding performance of the British submarine force during this campaign, although the British paid the heavy price of sinking 11 submarines in less than ten days, but at the same time sank and damaged no less than 50 German ships (including non-combat ships such as transport ships), and caused more than 20,000 German army officers and men to sink forever to the bottom of the sea before they even set foot on the land of Great Britain. The originally unknown submarine force of the British Royal Navy has also been shocked by this, and all countries have realized that they have not been conspicuous before, but they have no chance to perform, and in terms of strength, in fact, they may not be much worse than the German Navy, which claims to be the world's first submarine force

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the battle cruiser Scharnhorst, which posed a great threat to the counterattacking British Army, was also damaged by a torpedo fired by a British submarine and was forced to return home for overhaul. This battle will be the ultimate victory.

Due to the poor performance of the Royal Air Force after the outbreak of the European war, Churchill did not pin all his hopes on them, and the ground (fleet) air defense forces were the key to the victory or defeat of this battle. After losing an unknown number of light warships, the British Royal Navy still has more than 100 light warships, more than half of which are anti-aircraft models, and after the German capital ships retreated, it took the British Admiralty to send more than 30 light cruisers and destroyers to the sea area closest to the front line of the battle in less than 24 hours, showing its deep heritage

At the same time, the British Royal Army also took advantage of the well-developed road network and the cover of night to send hundreds of field anti-aircraft guns of various calibers and a large number of vehicle-mounted artillery sighting radars to the front line in the same time. In this way, whether at sea or on land, the British weaved an impermeable network of anti-aircraft fire, and the Luftwaffe, no matter how strong it was, desperately gave up support for the landing of German troops after losing more than 100 planes almost in vain.

As a result, the landing Germans lost any support from the sea and air, were completely cut off from the necessary logistical supplies, and began to be heavily shelled by British warships, and the number of casualties increased rapidly. At this time, the mustache could not provide any support except for the promotion of the officers of the besieged troops in a telegram, which caused the morale of the troops to plummet

Note 1: There is a big gap in tonnage, protection, and the caliber of the main guns, even if the battleship Prince of Wales is not completely repaired, but after all, the main guns and fire control are no longer in question, and the armor of important parts is also repaired intact.

Strictly speaking, therefore, the decision of the German Admiralty was not wrong, but from the overall perspective of this battle, the departure of the battle cruiser Gneisenau without a fight undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow to the already declining morale of the German landing force (to be continued......