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In order to avoid interference from the Luftwaffe troops stationed in Spain, the landing site of the American troops was chosen to be far south of Casablanca, but Morocco is mountainous, except for the narrow plains along the northwest coast, the rest of the area is either mountainous or hilly or broken plateau, which has caused great difficulties to the US troops with a high degree of mechanization, while Kerim's Moroccan corps is like a fish in water, giving full play to their advantages of being familiar with the local situation and being good at mountain marching operations, and has won many battles in a row. The American troops, having suffered heavy losses, were forced to retreat to the previous landing strip in full force to seek protection from naval guns

After spending so much time and achieving nothing, but paying more than 20,000 casualties, Eisenhower, who could not bear it anymore, finally dismissed the clumsy commander of the 2nd Army, Ferridenda, and let the wise and brave George Edward. Patton took his place. Patton quickly restored the already low morale of the 2nd Army with his brilliant leadership and seemingly rude but provocative words within a few days of taking office, and Eisenhower's change of command looked like a success

Patton was not only brave but also thoughtful, and long before he took over as commander, he realized that the American army relied too much on fire support and various jishu equipment, and these would be greatly limited in the mountains, and it was not surprising that they could not defeat the already famous Moroccan regiment. So when Patton took over as commander, he urged coach Eisenhower to choose a new landing site, and he thought it would be to land north of Casablanca. Then give full play to the advantages of the U.S. mechanized troops on the plains, and drive south to take this fortified city, which should be a better choice. Because on the one hand, it can reduce the losses caused by the enemy's aircraft, and on the other hand, it can mobilize the enemy and force him down the mountain to the plains to engage himself. If the Moroccans don't go down the mountain, they will have to sit back and watch Casablanca be captured by the Americans, and if they do engage the Americans on the plains, Patton has the confidence that they will not return

Eisenhower listened to Patton's advice, but in order to prevent the Luftwaffe from increasing its forces in North Africa, he turned to China again for help. Only now Roosevelt was anxious to retake the Hawaiian Islands from the Japanese in order to remove the threat to the homeland. The six Essex-class heavy aircraft carriers and the six Independence-class light aircraft carriers that had recently been completed and commissioned were all sent to the Pacific Ocean, so Eisenhower only asked for a few escort carriers

Although the escort aircraft carrier can also carry the same carrier-based aircraft as the fleet aircraft carrier, because of the short runway, it must rely on catapults or aircraft carriers to sail against the wind to take off. The speed of aircraft delivery is far from comparable to that of fleet aircraft carriers. At the same time, aircraft often take off without being fully loaded with fuel and ammunition. This also greatly limited the combat effectiveness of carrier-based aircraft. However, Morocco is a small country and its terrain is long. The depth is not vast, so even carrier-based fighters on escort aircraft carriers have a basically adequate combat radius. Moreover, the mainland of the United States sent 10 escort aircraft carriers at once, all of which were fighter jets, and the total number of them was as many as two or three hundred, if not enough to seize air supremacy, at least it would be able to protect the US ground forces, well, at least it seems

However, the mainland missed a point, before the American escort aircraft carrier came, the German submarines had already gathered, although Dönitz has rarely given orders to the submarines on mission abroad, but there is no problem in issuing new tasks to the submarines returning to the port to replenish, not to mention that Casablanca was originally the most important supply port for German submarines in West Africa, and the Americans' previous attack was simply a blatant slap in the face, so whether it was the German submarine that urgently evacuated Casablanca when the American fleet came, Those who were still in the Dakar or the Spanish supply were all driven to the waters near Casablanca in search of fighter planes, trying to bite the Americans in every possible way

Of course, they did not dare to get too close to the US fleet, so as not to be accidentally discovered by it, but these submarines can launch torpedoes at a distance of 10 kilometers or even more (if they don't care about accuracy at all), and the US fleet is still unable to guard against it, especially the size of the formation is too large to increase the hit rate of German submarine torpedo attacks in disguise, so that they often shoot torpedoes at a distance of 15 kilometers or even 20 kilometers, which greatly increases the difficulty of US anti-submarine warfare.

After the loss of many ships in a row, the US Navy had no choice but to send a large number of aircraft to carry out anti-submarine patrols, although it was not able to sink even a single German drop-shaped submarine, but at least it was able to force the German submarine into the effective range of torpedoes. After all, the airborne radar can find the snorkel 10 kilometers away, and the radar wave detector has a farther warning distance, and hundreds of planes repeatedly patrol back and forth, resulting in the German submarine not daring to stretch out the snorkel at all, and once it can't stretch out the snorkel, the submarine has to rely on the battery to drive, the endurance is extremely limited, even though the drop-shaped submarine is much better than the old boat-shaped submarine, it still can't hold out for too long, and can only helplessly withdraw from the control range of the US aircraft.

Because of this, the cluster attack of the German submarine forces was far less successful than it was during the Icelandic campaign, but it cannot be said that they were in vain, first of all, the Americans had to consume a lot of precious aviation gasoline (although the Americans with deep pockets did not care much about this), and the pilots were also exhausted by the long flight time (three or five hours of continuous flight is very tiring, and now the old American pilots are almost working in two shifts, and the degree of fatigue can be imagined). ）。 And it's not just the body that's tired, it's the mental stress of being in a tense atmosphere that could be attacked at any time all day, but not being able to find the enemy, and this kind of psychological pressure is also painful for the officers and men of the US Navy. This psychological tension is inevitably transmitted to the already irritable pilots, and as a result, their physical fatigue is further exacerbated. If it weren't for the fact that the U.S. government later urgently dispatched five more escort aircraft carriers to turn the "two shifts" into "three shifts," the pilots would have been able to strike

The bigger problem was that a large number of aircraft were used for anti-submarine purposes, and the number of fighters that had to be left behind to defend the fleet against enemy air attacks made the number of fighters that could be sent out to protect the ground forces become extremely limited, and as a result, not only did they fail to protect the ground forces well, but they were also wiped out by the Luftwaffe because they were outnumbered (to be continued......