Take Taobao to fight against Japan

After everyone arrived, President Roosevelt said without any haste: "There are two main topics in calling everyone for a meeting today, the first of which is about the visit of the First Lady of the Nationalist Government."

Speaking of this, President Roosevelt paused slightly and said: "I think our great United States of America should do something for the suffering China. Gentlemen, what do you think?"

Chapter 1436 Light Foot Operation

Secretary of State Hull nodded and said: "What Your Excellency President said is very true. The visit of the first lady caused a great sensation, and the United States and even the entire Allied camp set off a wave of anti-Nazi and anti-fascist protests.

This is indeed a very good opportunity. The U.S. government should take advantage of the situation to further stimulate the potential of the world's anti-fascist allies and accelerate the growth and expansion of the world's anti-fascist allies. "

Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, went on to say: "The current Huaxia Kingdom is no longer the former Huaxia Kingdom. They already have the strength comparable to the world's military powers. It is indeed time to adjust our policy and position towards China."

"very good!"

Then, President Roosevelt threw out his thoughts,

"As everyone said, whether it is for the current anti-fascist cause or for the post-war world structure.

We should all release enough goodwill to China and pay enough attention to it, so I decided to continue to increase aid to China and at the same time advocate that Western countries cancel the unequal treaties signed with China in history! "

"Your Excellency, the President, has a long-term strategy!"

"I agree too!"

"As it should be!"

Hull, Marshall and others nodded their heads one after another, happily reaching a consensus.

In fact, this is also the case. A few months later, under the initiative of the United States, several Western powers successively canceled the unequal treaties signed with China in history.

In the great Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese people won independence, sovereignty and equal status in the world, and stood among the nations of the world.

"Then it's decided. Now let's move on to the next topic, which is the current anti-fascist war."

Hearing that everyone agreed, Roosevelt laughed happily. President Roosevelt changed his subject, "General Marshall, what is the current situation in the North African battlefield? How long will this stalemate continue?"

Marshall quickly replied: "Your Excellency, according to the information sent back by General Stilwell, the Allied Command in North Africa is deploying a counter-offensive campaign. Presumably, it will officially switch from defense to offense soon. launched a counterattack"

"Oh yeah? That would be great!"

President Roosevelt raised his eyebrows, nodded and said, "This is indeed a pleasant news, and I am also looking forward to Yang Fan's amazing performance again.

The Allied camp has survived the most difficult period, but this is far from enough. The world security situation is still extremely grim! "

Marshall nodded and said: "The Allied forces have taken the initiative in air and sea control in the North African battlefield. Yang Fan is a commander with a very strategic vision. He will definitely seize the opportunity to expand the results of the battle!

Moreover, he is now more anxious than we are to reverse the situation in the North African battlefield. I think he will do his best to win this battle! "

"Then when will the United States turn from defense to offense in the Pacific battlefield? Don't we have the ability to retake Guadalupe Island and drive the damn Japanese invaders far away from the west coast?"

Before Marshall could answer, President Roosevelt showed an angry expression and said loudly:

"I've had enough of these days, and now even the Huaxia Kingdom can win such a beautiful victory in the domestic battlefield.

There is no reason for our great America to continue to hide and defend, and it is time to let those despicable and shameless invaders feel our anger. "

When Pearl Harbor was attacked and the entire Pacific Fleet was wiped out, President Roosevelt announced in Congress in front of the whole world that an eye for an eye would be an eye for an eye.

But a full year and a half has passed, and the Pacific battlefield is still dominated by the Japanese. The U.S. Pacific Fleet has been unable to set sail for a long time, and the West Coast of the United States is still under the threat of the Japanese combined fleet at all times.

Marshall replied: "Your Excellency in General, I am afraid that it would be more appropriate for General Stark to answer this question."

Chief of Naval Operations Stark met President Roosevelt's questioning gaze, nodded and said: "Your Excellency, I am very happy and proud to tell you that the Pacific Fleet of the United States of America has already achieved considerable combat effectiveness.

Boys of the Air Force of the United States of America, after months of relentless fighting, we have firmly established control of the West Coast.

Now that the Japanese combined fleet no longer dares to continue to attack and harass the west coast of the United States, we naturally have the conditions to retake Guadalupe Island, and we will even be able to launch a counterattack on the Pacific battlefield in a short time! "

President Roosevelt's eyes brightened immediately, and he said excitedly: "If that's the case, what are you waiting for? The great America should become the backbone and leader of the World Anti-Fascist Alliance.

If we want to dominate the future world structure, we must show sufficient strength and responsibility! "

……

At 5 o'clock in the evening on May 4th, it was a calm and clear moonlit night, and the "Operation Light Foot" of the Battle of Matruh officially started.

It kicked off with five and a half hours of continuous shelling by 1450 guns, each of which had fired about 700 rounds by the end of the shelling.

During that time, a total of more than 300 tons of artillery shells fell on the enemy's positions.

There is a legend about this bombardment that the ears of the Allied gunners bled from the deafening sound of the bombardment.

The name "Operation Lightfoot" has a source.

The first thing to hit is the light deminer and infantry, they won't trigger the anti-tank mines because they're so light, so the whole plan is called Operation Light Foot.

While the demining vehicle leads the infantry forward, the remaining demining vehicles and engineering units will open a safe passage for the subsequent armored troops in another breakthrough direction.

This channel will be more than 30 meters wide and 30 kilometers long, allowing at least 5 tanks to move forward side by side, and the tank armored units will charge forward in columns.

It is not only too dangerous to rely on manual work to search and clear landmines one by one, but it will also consume a lot of time and cost, as well as a lot of manpower and material resources.

In order to improve efficiency and quickly break through minefields, Yang Fan specially purchased a demining vehicle called "Formula [-] Landmine Detection Vehicle" from the system.

The rover looks like a car in appearance, but with large "Formula [-] tires".

From the outside, it does look like a "Formula [-] car"

The main body of the vehicle, made from parts of an ordinary car, resembles a small bulldozer with an elevated cab.

The cockpit is primarily armored and designed to protect the operator from mine blasts or small arms fire.

At the bottom of the cab, there is a V-shaped reinforced base, which can push explosives away from the lower part of the demining vehicle.

Its sensors resemble a rectangular wing, perpendicular to the underside of the cockpit, and very close to the ground.

It's designed on a simple principle: make the vehicle as light as possible, which typically won't detonate anti-tank mines, so that buried mines can be dug out and detected.

When the troops are marching, the demining vehicles usually lead the way in front of the convoy, and can travel at a speed of up to 50 kilometers per hour.

Demining vehicles remove or detonate mines in front of infantry to ensure the safety of subsequent convoys.

It should be noted that this wheeled demining vehicle is only suitable for demining on flat land and road conditions, and cannot be used in steep mountainous areas where it is difficult for people to walk.

As for the more advanced modern demining vehicles and demining robots, they are not yet sold in the system mall. This "Formula [-] mine detection vehicle" can be regarded as the most advanced and practical type.

Chapter 1437 Strategic Air Force

The battle plan formulated by Yang Fan is similar to the second Alamein battle in the original history. In the plan, the Allied forces will use 15 days to win the victory in three steps: "break in, melee, and defeat".

The Allied forces deployed from north to south in the Matruh area. The entire attack line was more than 50 kilometers long. The main force carried out the main assault on the northern section of the front line. First, the British 10th Army broke through the opponent's defense line, and then the Chinese 1st Army, The US 15th Army and other units carried out a deep assault.

At the same time, the U.S. 6th Army, the British 13th Army and other troops will feign attack directly from the south to divert them, and they will engage in fierce firefights with the German armored divisions and Italian armored divisions there.

In this way, the Axis forces in the south will not go north for reinforcements, so that the main force of the Allied forces can concentrate their superior forces to wipe out the main force of the German and Italian forces in the coastal area.

Two months before the battle, Yang Fan had already started to use some deception tactics against the Axis forces, in order to make the Axis countries unprepared when the war started.

Not only did Yang Fan have to deceive them on the location of the battle, but also let them get the wrong start time.These deceptions were code-named "Operation Troy."

In March, Allied forces dumped derelict items such as dismantled suitcases and ammunition boxes in the north and camouflaged them to make them look like ammunition depots and grain silos.

The Axis forces naturally spotted them, but the Allies did not launch a large-scale attack after that,

And after a period of time, the positions of those "ammunition depots" and "granary warehouses" did not change, so the Axis forces did not take them seriously.

This allowed the Allies to exchange those scraps for real ammunition depots, oil tanks, and grain stores on the front lines at night without being detected by the enemy.

At the same time, the Allies also began building a fake oil pipeline on the southern front.

This will make the Axis forces think that the campaign will begin later than the Allied planned start time, and that the location will be in the south.

To further confuse the enemy, the Allies covered jeeps with plywood in the south to look like tanks, and tanks in the north were covered with plywood to look like convoys.

In the "Operation Light Foot" to be implemented tonight, Yang Fan plans to use two commandos to cross the minefields laid by the German army in the north and clear them out. After that, the armored forces will pass through here to defeat the German armored forces.

At 10 o'clock in the evening, when the large-scale shelling operation started, the infantry of the British 30th Army followed several demining vehicles in front of them.

Their goal is to advance to an area of ​​the Axis army's middle road and destroy the Axis outer defense line there. Then the Allied forces will send an armored force to consolidate the position, thus forming a forward position fulcrum.

At the same time, in the north where the main attack was, the engineer units began large-scale demining operations to open up a safe passage wide enough for the armored units.

On May 5, at 5 o'clock in the morning the next day, under the cover of continuous shelling, the infantry of the British 4th Army successfully captured the central outer line of defense of the Axis army.

The engineering troops on the North Road did not disgrace their mission to open up a safe passage 30 meters wide and 30 kilometers long.

Several troops including the 6th Army of the US Army and the 13th Army of the United Kingdom had already set off an hour ago, launching a feint attack on the southern defense line of the Axis army.

"Since that's the case, what are you waiting for? Order all the troops to attack by land and water as planned!"

At this time, Yang Fan and others were already in command of the Allied Command.

With an order, 200 tanks of the Central Route Army and 600 tanks of the North Route Army started to march at the same time

As the leading tank had already entered the minefield, billowing smoke was billowing from behind its buttocks, and at the same time billowing dust was rolled up.

Soon there was no visibility along the road at all, and we could only rush forward one after another, and the congestion became more and more serious.

But fortunately, the armored units walk in a straight line. As long as they are close together and do not fall behind, they will not get lost, and there will be no problem of going astray and diving headlong into the minefield to play self-destruct.

At the same time, the naval fleet also began to anchor from the sea near Matruh Port and move forward along the coastline to cooperate with the army forces in coordinated operations.

As for the air force, they will not be idle either. Hundreds of bombers took off from the port of Matruh and Cairo further away, and under the protection of a large number of escort fighter jets, they attacked the Axis powers on the Umm Saad Army defense line.

It has to be said that the industrial production capacity of the United States is strong. In just a few months, despite the extremely serious consumption of various technical equipment of the Allied forces in the North African battlefield, the tanks and planes of the Allied forces did not decrease under the crazy supplement. increase.

Especially in terms of combat aircraft, the Axis army has been thrown out of the way by a few blocks at this moment.

Moreover, compared with the "tactical air force" of the German army, the "strategic air force" created by the Americans is really powerful and has no friends.

The concept of "strategic air force" originated from the large-scale strategic bombing launched by the United States against Germany and Japan during World War II.The original concept referred to an air force "with a strategic bomber force".

The strategic bomber refers to a large bomber that conducts long-range bombing to weaken the enemy's war capabilities.

Unlike tactical bombers, which are used to bomb troops and military equipment in a theater, strategic bombers are used to carry out strategic bombing, that is, to fly into the heart of the enemy to attack strategic targets such as major military installations, factories, and cities. .

The Ju-88, He-111 and Do-17 bombers that Germany basically used in World War II were relatively light and not suitable for participating in strategic bombing missions.

They can be called heavy only Junkers Ju 89, which was a heavy bomber developed by the Luftwaffe before the outbreak of World War II and canceled before it entered production.

The range of the German Air Force's combat aircraft is just over 1000 kilometers, which can only guarantee the cover of attacks on the battlefield, and is unable to carry out large-scale attacks on the enemy's rear.

Because Germany does not have the ability to attack strategically, it will be a mess in the air battle against Britain, let alone attack thousands of miles to attack the enemy's rear industrial base.

The B29 bomber owned by the U.S. Air Force has a range of 6000 kilometers, and is equipped with a large number of weapons with self-protection capabilities. It can attack thousands of miles to attack the German rear industrial base. This is called the strategic air force.

The U.S. long-range bomber fleet has the ability to comprehensively bomb the defense lines of the Axis forces on the North African battlefield, and even cover the entire territory of Italy.

Especially when the German fighter force has lost its air supremacy after a series of attrition wars, this advantage is still infinitely magnified.

In the past period of time, the long-range bomber fleet of the US military has caused the Axis forces to suffer. Tobruk, Benghazi, and even Tripoli, the capital of Libya, have been bombed several times.

At around [-] o'clock in the morning, before the Allied armored forces were about to exchange fire with the Axis forces, the Allied bombers who had traveled a long distance began to bombard indiscriminately amidst the dense German anti-aircraft artillery.

Chirp, chirp, heavy aerial bombs rained down with sharp screams.

Chapter 1438 Breaking Through the Minefield

Boom boom boom!

A series of shocking explosions exploded on the German positions, clouds of black gunpowder smoke rose into the sky, and the soft desert was even stirred up to billow dust.

After a while, the thick smoke mixed with billowing dust covered the sky and the sun, covering the huge area tightly, as if returning to the night all at once.

Under the carpet-style saturation bombing, the German artillery and tank units, which had been waiting in the minefield for a long time and prepared to hit the Allied armored units that were about to rush out, were hit hard at once.

Although the German ground anti-aircraft firepower was desperately resisting and caused a lot of casualties to the Allied bomber formation, it was impossible for them to stop the Allied bombing without the strong assistance of the Air Force.

Rommel expended great efforts to plant more than 50 landmines in front of the defense line. From the very beginning, he never expected that this vast minefield could block the Allied attack. His real intention was to slow down the Allied attack.

In this way, the Axis forces could mobilize enough artillery and armored forces to intercept the Allied armored forces at the exit of the safe passage opened by the Allied forces before the Allied forces broke through this minefield, and give them a head-on blow.

The narrow and straight safe passages are actually vulnerable to bombers and artillery bombardments from the Axis forces.

They don't need to make too much effort, they only need to smash the dozens of tanks in front of them, and this safe passage that has been opened up with great difficulty is tantamount to abolished.

In the original history, the safe passages opened up by Montgomery in Operation Lightfoot were just two narrow passages only 7 meters wide, which could only allow a tank to pass through in a column.

As a result, under the double bombardment of Axis planes and artillery, they were directly destroyed, which led to a stalemate. The armored forces had no way to break through the minefield as planned and start a decisive battle with the Axis forces.

But obviously it is impossible for Yang Fan to repeat the same mistakes.

And this time, the safe passage opened up by the Allied forces is not only 7 meters wide, but a full 30 meters wide, enough for at least 5 tanks to advance side by side.