The successful landings of German troops in Puerto Rico and Dominica greatly shook the top of the U.S. military.

Four months ago, when Germany sternly rejected the White House's peace statement and began to build up strength in Guyana, the US military top brass felt that the situation was serious, but there was no imminent threat. After all, Guyana is still thousands of kilometers away from the core of the U.S. mainland, and the U.S. has ample territory and time to deal with the threat that arises from the southern front. During the months when Germany was transporting supplies to Guyana, the United States also gradually completed the overall transformation from a peacetime economy to a wartime economy: massive quantities of arms and weapons were produced in densely populated factories, and millions of young people were drafted into the army, greatly inflating the weak armed forces of the United States before the war.

However, the German attack in the Caribbean suddenly made the American war situation, which was still somewhat calm, suddenly tense. After the fall of Puerto Rico, the German front advanced 1,500 kilometers to the northwest, almost half the distance from the continental United States compared to the previous time in Guyana; The landing of the other side in Dominica opened the door to the strategy of comprehensively seizing Dominica and advancing into Cuba. Not to mention the fact that the 76,000-square-kilometer island of Hispaniola is less than 1,000 kilometers from the southern US mainland, and that bombers can rain bullets on Miami or even Orlando, and the crisis in the opening of the Panama Canal alone is enough to make the US military top brass intolerant of the German landing.

If you look at the map, you can see that the canal connecting the two oceans has been thrown behind the German landing in Dominica; Once the Germans gained a foothold here, their air force and fleet would be able to control the sea at the eastern end of the canal, thus blocking the use of the canal by the United States. And this is obviously absolutely unacceptable to the United States. One direct reason is. Almost all of the large shipyards in the United States are concentrated on the eastern seaboard; If the Panama Canal is blocked. Then the U.S. Navy will not be able to replenish the Pacific Fleet, which is still inferior to the Japanese Navy, and the consequences of this will undoubtedly be fatal!

In order to drive the German landing force in Dominica into the sea and ensure normal navigation in the eastern waters of the Panama Canal, from 22 October, land-based air forces stationed in San Diego were dispatched in groups to cooperate with two army divisions deployed in Dominica to storm the southern port area controlled by the Germans. However, the Germans also established airfields on the nearby island of Puerto Rico and dispatched a large number of FW-190 fighters to counter them, competing with the Americans for air supremacy. The modified fighter has a range of more than a thousand kilometers. Enough to strike from the island of Puerto Rico and fight in the skies over Puerto Romana, less than 300 kilometers away. After several days of fierce fighting, the American forces were never able to gain the expected air supremacy, while the German landing positions were constantly strengthened with the arrival of transport ships; The U.S. Army's repeated attacks resulted in heavy casualties and had to repeatedly halt its advance.

"We must cut off the sea transport lines of the Germans in the eastern Caribbean. At present, their transport ships depart from Guyana and continue to strengthen their beachhead presence in Dominica; However, due to the presence of Zài in the dark of night and the frequent sorties of German fighters, our land-based aviation has never been able to effectively intercept such reinforcements. In fact, even the fuel and spare parts needed for the normal sorties of the German fighters were transported by sea by merchant ships. It was these ships that supported the entire German battle in the Caribbean theater of operations! Therefore, there was no reason for the Atlantic Fleet of the United States to continue to anchor in its native ports; Only a decisive battle in Tongguò achieved sea supremacy in the Caribbean. Only then can we really drive these damned Germans out of our back garden. After several days of fighting, Bradley, commander of the U.S. Southern Theater, sent a telegram to Washington asking for help.

Receiving Bradley's telegram, the American Commander-in-Chief, who were already deeply aware of the threat posed by the German lightning advance in the Caribbean, immediately made the decision to attack the fleet after a tense meeting. In any case, there is no room for error in the Caribbean islands, the only place to pass through the Panama Canal from the east coast, and this is at the heart of the victory or defeat of the United States in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters! On 25 October, a telegram from Washington reached the commander of the Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Kimmel, who ordered him to immediately lead the fleet south to Bermuda and cooperate with the army forces to destroy German forces on the Caribbean islands. If this is not possible, then cut off the sea route for transporting people and goods from Guyana to the north; As long as a number of German merchant ships were sunk, their current military occupation in Dominica and Puerto Rico would be unsustainable because of the lack of logistical resources.

For this order, Kimmel, who was leading the fleet, had a bitter word. Although in terms of the battle itself, it can be said that it is easy to sweep away the landing ground of the German army in the Caribbean Sea with carrier-based aircraft and shore artillery; But the point is that the Germans have also deployed their fleets in South America, and it is clear that the other side cannot sit idly by and watch their own wanton behavior against their landing grounds, which they have so hard to build! According to the information obtained by the intelligence department, Austria-Hungary and Italy also sent a large number of cutting-edge warships to participate in the German expedition to the Americas as a help, so the lineup of the opposing fleet is bound to be more powerful than what their own air forces observed in the naval battle in the North Atlantic. Now, even the most conservative estimates put the number of aircraft carriers on the other side at more than 10, and the number of battleships at 22; After all, Germany alone had more than 16 battleships, and Italy and Austria-Hungary could increase this number by another third!

In the field of logistics and maintenance, the other side also relied on it: Brazil, Venezuela, and the Netherlands all allowed the German fleet to use their ports, which solved the most difficult problems facing the Germans. Even if a large warship cannot enter the local dock due to tonnage problems, considering that it is the norm for a warship not to dock for half a year, it is also difficult to expect how much the opponent's combat effectiveness will be weakened as a result.

In contrast, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet is at a complete disadvantage: only five of its nine carriers are of the new Essex class, and the remaining four are all treaty-sized carriers with a miserable aircraft capacity and flight capacity. Due to the fact that the Italians were the first to taste crabs in the field of "aircraft carriers" and the US Navy was thinking of making up for the combat power of the cruisers, the aircraft carriers built during the treaty period were always equipped with quite powerful guns, and they were not at all aware of the revolutionary combat power possessed by the air force. Although the US Navy has woken up to the disastrous defeat of the British fleet and dismantled the useless 10-inch gun crew on its own aircraft carrier, since the size of the ship has been determined, it is unlikely that the aviation combat power of the original aircraft carrier will be greatly improved. According to Kimmmel's estimates, the four Yorktown-class aircraft carriers in his hands, with an average aircraft carrying capacity of just over 40 aircraft, are only equivalent to the combat strength of one and a half Essex-class; Due to the limited deck length, the attack aircraft that this class of aircraft carrier can take off at a time is extremely rare, and the strike capability against the ship is not at the same level as Essex.

As for the battleships, Kimmel did not report any illusions. Although the number of 16 ships is very impressive, only 4 South Dakota-class and 2 Iowa-class can be called the main force; The latter is still a brand-new warship that was commissioned after the outbreak of the war, and all equipment is still in the run-in and commissioning stage. The remaining 10 are old ships from the treaty period, and the maximum speed is as slow as a turtle's climb, all of them 21 knots; And 4 of them are the first generation of dreadnoughts equipped with 305mm guns, and Kimmel even doubts whether there is a need for them to continue to serve! Although the U.S. Navy still has 8 capital ships on its active list, including 2 North Carolina-class and 2 Lexington-class, they are all at the Pearl Harbor base in the Pacific Ocean at the moment, and they do not contribute to the current Caribbean war situation!

"As long as we can wipe out the German Army on the island, right?" Looking at the telegram of command in his hand, Kimmel suddenly moved in his heart and muttered to himself, "Then things are not too bad to be done." ”

The sun was shining, the clouds were fluttering, and the gentle sea breeze was blowing, blowing a satiny blue sea.

In the midst of the surging waves, a submarine was slowly sailing with the sudden sound of diesel engines, and several sailors in white uniforms stood on the flat deck, looking comfortable and breathing the strange air belonging to the western Atlantic. On the protruding conning tower, the black and white iron cross logo is impressive: in today's world, there is no country whose military and civilians can not be in awe of the army with this spray!

The young captain Prion leaned half of his body out of the conning tower and looked at the nearby sea with a calm expression. Although his submarine has been equipped with a sea search radar, and its detection range of 14km is far better than his visual inspection on the command tower at low altitudes, as a rising star who is well-known in the submarine force, Prien already has the awareness of observing the weather like an old bird. Experienced captains who are well versed in this can minimize the impact of weather factors on the submarine while on cruise, thereby greatly increasing the cruise time of the submarine at sea. At present, the supply base of German submarines is still in a French port about 3,000 nautical miles off the eastern coast of the United States, and there is not enough time left for its own cruise; Even with the relay supply of camouflaged oil tankers, Prien has every reason to be careful about his conventional submarine with a theoretical range of 10,000 nautical miles.

"Captain, there's a radar echo coming from 286 directions!" Prien, who was observing his surroundings, suddenly heard Pao Ze report loudly to him from below. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the reward of zhouyu1976~~