"Not transport soldiers, a transport fleet of this size can only transport tens of thousands of people...... At this time, transporting tens of thousands of people to Iceland did not do much at all. A German intelligence analyst frowned at the information in his hand, and finally spoke to the people around him.

An officer in the distance immediately opened his mouth to express his thoughts: "It is necessary to confirm to what extent the naval power of the Allies has been strengthened throughout the North Atlantic, how many more warships and how many transports they have." ”

Another army general sat in his place and asked the officer beside him worriedly: "Is the Atlantic barrier foolproof? You must know that on the British side, we do not have many forces." Once the United States and Britain landed on British soil, I wonder if we would have the ability to drive them out to sea there. ”

The general beside him nodded, and then pointed to the British and Irish coastal areas with the whip in his hand: "We have laid 300,000 mines on several beaches suitable for landing, and these places have reinforced coastal fortifications with 50,000 tons of reinforced concrete. ”

"There are main machine-gun positions reinforced with reinforced concrete for every kilometer, supplemented by temporarily reinforced machine-gun positions for an average of 300 meters. We have at least 70,000 troops deployed in Ireland, supported by an armoured battalion. ”

"We still have at least 300,000 soldiers on British soil. They had an armored corps capable of repelling at least a landing operation of more than 200,000 enemy troops. The German officer responsible for the defense of the British occupation zone gave a detailed account of the composition of the defense system in some key areas, as well as the tactics of the German army's preparation.

"Resisting the landing is in fact only an intermediate link in the entire Atlantic barrier defense system, once the long-range reconnaissance planes and submarine forces discover the enemy's movements, the aircraft carrier fleet will go to sea to prepare for battle, counting our aircraft carrier fleet, we can gather more than 1,000 aircraft near the enemy's landing site at most, seize air supremacy and annihilate the enemy's landing transport fleet. A head of the naval department confidently said: "Under the cover of land-based aircraft near the sea, it is impossible for the enemy to seize air supremacy, so the Atlantic barrier is impregnable." ”

"On the other hand, we also have a mobile force of more than 100,000 men in France, and we are also able to carry out rapid support across the Channel if the enemy lands in England. Another German army officer joined the discussion, agreeing that a transatlantic landing was an impossible task: "The British and American navies were not yet strong enough to do so. ”

From the defeat of the British to the present, the Germans had a year to strengthen the defenses of the entire occupied zone. In fact, the Germans did exactly that. They requisitioned a large amount of cement to build coastal fortifications, arranged a dense radar air defense network, and deployed reconnaissance planes and submarine warning networks in the open sea.

There were also hundreds of thousands of German troops waiting for an Allied attack in Britain and Ireland, as well as in France, with a large number of tanks and automobiles, and a very strong ability to maneuver quickly. And the Luftwaffe in these areas has maintained a strong combat strength of more than 700 aircraft.

With more than 200 aircraft in Germany ready to support if necessary, this force was not the SS youth regiment that had been defeated from the Soviet-German battlefield in another time and space, but a well-trained and well-armed main force. One out of every 10 of them has participated in a real war, and they are no less than the Soviet-German troops on the battlefield.

In addition, the main fleet of German aircraft carriers, which was not moving at all and was willing to exist in Wilhelmshaven as the main force of the navy, the Americans had to at least mobilize all of them before they dared to fight a landing operation with the Germans on the Western Front whose outcome was unknown. This is another reason why the main forces of the German navy do not go to the Mediterranean to fight the autumn wind, and they have to guard against some sudden attacks by the United States, such as the current one.

"If it's not personnel, it's just supplies. In the same way, it is not tanks or land equipment, and anti-aircraft guns cannot be ......" Because of the inaccuracy of the intelligence, these German generals had to use the method of elimination to guess little by little what the British and American forces were planning. This stupid approach, while inefficient, can rely on guesswork to be the most prepared.

A German general waved his hand and dismissed the previous speculation: "It's not anti-aircraft guns or cement for defense." We did not log in any of Iceland's operations, and the Americans were not going to give Iceland a sudden convulsion to strengthen Iceland's defenses. They're still preparing to attack! ”

"Bombers! Their B17 bombers are very similar to our butcher bombers and can cover a lot of places below its attack radius!" said an air defense authority from the Air Force. He felt that the Allies would mobilize bombers to raid German industrial facilities without fighter escort.

It is not an attack on land, nor an attack on the sea - then the threat of attack from the air is particularly prominent. Large bombers can fly directly from Canada or the United States to Iceland, so they only need to transport ground crew, ammunition, as well as some maintenance equipment and fuel. And the amount of these supplies is not small, which can fully explain the increase in the volume of other side's transportation, which was detected by the submarine forces.

There is a certain difference between knowing that the enemy is preparing to attack and knowing where the enemy is preparing to attack. There were so many places to attack from Iceland that a full-scale German defense was clearly unrealistic.

The raid on Ireland or even the bombing of Liverpool had little impact on Germany, which had just regained some of its port functions and was not worthy of being the target of a large-scale bombing, as was Ireland, where the bombing had very limited impact on Germany other than to anger the locals.

The bombing of northern Britain and the bombing of Ireland were essentially a waste of troops, and the United States and the British could not have gone to such great lengths to prepare for an attack at such a low cost. Isn't it sick that it bombed someone else's land, and it didn't interfere with or destroy Germany at all?

It is also unlikely that they will cross the skies over Britain or Norway and then attack the mainland: first, because the range is too extreme and the bomb load of bombers will be severely weakened, and second, these planes will be surrounded and intercepted by land-based fighters deployed in three directions on the British, Norwegian, and German mainland, and will be wiped out in the North Sea.

"Norway! The Americans want to bomb Norway's iron ore production plants!" The German air defense authority who had just spoken clapped his hands and came to his conclusion: "Only by bombing Norway can they be worth investing such a huge amount of air power! Only by bombing Norway can we interfere with our local production!"

......

"Bombing! Bombing Norway is our only option now. Britain's infrastructure is relatively perfect, and if we bomb Germany, we will inevitably pass through there, and it will be easily detected by German radars deployed there. A British officer triumphantly looked at one B17 bomber after another landing on an Icelandic airfield: "We've been working hard for a long, long time to get to where we are today." ”

The British insisted on Iceland, and one of their original plans was to save the last shred of hope for the bombing of Europe. Now the production of B17 bombers in the United States has finally met the needs of the front, and finally accumulated a scale of almost 300 on the mainland. This makes the Icelandic air base have a certain strategic value.

On the other hand, it took time for Britain to build Iceland, and after a full year of tug-of-war with German submarines, the slow-building Icelandic air base finally became a working base, so the United States and Britain immediately came up with this plan and began to implement it.

The last reason why the U.S. military is now starting to carry out this plan is that during the battle of the German air defense in Romania, it proved that its fighters had the ability to tear through the defenses of the Allied bombers - so all the B-17s produced had to be modified to be equipped with more powerful firepower and more advanced air engine engines.

The Americans hoped to evade the German Ta-152 fighters and suppress their 30 mm cannons with higher flight altitudes, better fire defenses, and faster flight speeds. The new B-17s were fitted with thicker steel plates and were equipped with larger caliber cannons for this purpose - which severely affected the B-17's bomb load and lost some range.

This time the Americans felt that their preparations were foolproof, after all, such a huge air force was concentrated, and it was another covert surprise attack, and it can be said that a certain result in the first battle could be said to be a certain victory. All pilots were rigorously selected and trained to deal with the threat posed by German fighters.

"The Norwegian spies brought back the news that the Germans had only a few fighter units in Norway, about 100 fighters, and they simply could not withstand attrition and could not stop our bombing of targets in time. An American officer looked at a series of B-17 bombers on the ground and proudly boasted to the British officer beside him: "The only question now is how to ensure the safety of the Icelandic base once we start bombing Norway......

"We have the most advanced Meteor fighter in the world, more than 20 of them...... There are also 20 Hurricane fighters and 31 P-40 Rolls-Royce modifications. Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of the British air base and current commander-in-chief of the British government-in-exile in Iceland, said: "There have been no German planes here since the meteor appeared. ”

"That's good! We'll take off in a few hours and attack the Norwegian iron ore factories at night!" said the American officer with his hands behind his back: "God bless America!"

"God bless the British Empire!" said Hugh Doudin, who prayed at the same time, and now all he could do was pray.