Battle of the Third Reich

"It's raining, general. The weather forecast is very accurate. ●⌒," Guderian picked up the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee for Ronderstad.

"Two pieces of sugar, thank you." Longstad tilted his head and looked at the file in his hand.

"The headquarters has a plan for this. The problem is that the current situation is a bit different from what we thought. How much impact this rain will have on our follow-up operations, we don't know yet, but the problem has been placed on In front of us, Kettle’s thoughts seemed a bit sloppy. What do you think, Bock.” Rondestede returned the document to Bock, and then took the coffee that Guderian handed him. The other party nodded slightly to thank.

"The meteorological office told me with certainty that the weather will last forty-eight hours, perhaps longer, but it will never exceed seventy-two hours." Bock took the file and put it in the file box on the table, his adjutant put it Another document was handed to him.

"That means three days." Longstad took the coffee cup carefully, took a sip, and nodded his head. He felt it tasted good.

"These are not problems. We have made adequate preparations for this before landing. Now my biggest concern is that our intelligence collection work is hindered by the weather. We can only use light reconnaissance aircraft for low-altitude reconnaissance, This is a big risk." Guderian put another cup of coffee in front of Bock, and he walked to the office bed with his cup of coffee, and reached out his hand to push the blinds.

"It is four o'clock in the afternoon. According to the report of the Meteorological Office, the rain will increase in the evening and the wind will increase accordingly. The height of the waves in the strait may reach more than two meters. This will be our landing and transshipment work. A severe test."

"So the headquarters decided to close the Deere landing zone in these two days, and all the landing forces will go ashore from Dover and Folkestone." Bok read the document and then picked up his pen and signed his name on the document. .

"The vehicles requested by the paratroopers were immediately assigned to them. In addition, he was told that the command agreed to his request. The 38th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion would cooperate with their actions." After that, Bok handed the document to the adjutant.

"Understood, sir."

"You can go down and deal with these things."

"Follow the order, sir, and retreat. General Goodrian and General Ronstad." The young adjutant picked up the file box on the table, put the file in the box, and nodded to the other two generals. After that, holding the file box, he turned and exited the commander's office.

"Thirty-eighth armored reconnaissance battalion? Cyprus?" Guderian raised an eyebrow, and he was very interested in the dispatch of the army directly under the head of state.

Guderian was a little surprised that the headquarters had put this elite force into battle so early. He originally thought that after the development of the war situation became more stable, the headquarters would send the headline of this head of state across the strait. Many people already saw this as an opportunity to please the head of state.

"Their fighting spirit was very strong, and Manstein was almost unable to hold the chain of the three-headed dog. I met Mueller once and he said that the head of state personally received him and Manstein, and He said he was looking forward to seeing the performance of the directly affiliated legion in the British operations." Longstad put down the coffee cup and rubbed his white cup with his fingers.

As expected by the Germans, the weather around Dover on the 22nd began to become harsh, and the morning was still sunny with clear skies. In the afternoon it began to overcast with rain.

The bad weather did not have a great impact on the landing of the troops. At least for now, everything is still going according to plan. Unlike ordinary passenger traffic, the army has a unique style of the army. Unless a catastrophic climate is encountered, ordinary bad weather cannot hinder the movement of the army. The soldiers were still lined up neatly from the passenger ship's gangway, everyone was put on a rubber poncho that had been prepared for a long time, and the rifles and equipment were also properly protected.

The loading and unloading of vehicles and tanks did not cause much difficulty. Although the wind and waves in the strait began to increase, Dover and Folkestone Port have very complete breakwaters. These breakwaters were originally set up to protect the wind and waves in the strait, and the solid dams surrounded the wide berths. Even if there are huge waves outside, the water in the harbor is still calm.

The most difficult problem for the German Army now is the placement of personnel in the city. The barracks and fortifications of the Dover Fortress were severely damaged, and only a few of the camps were able to station troops. The problem is that Dover is not just the Germans. There are also some citizens who remain in the city and more than 20,000 British captives.

Captives in the British army are a problem that makes people scratch their heads. The German military headquarters made a few mistakes when making plans in this regard. The headquarters expected a large number of captives. According to the practice in France, they prepared a large number of barbed wire and prefabricated steel bars for the landing forces to build fences and build temporary prisoner of war camps.

But now the problem has arisen. It is still related to the weather. Now more than 20,000 British captives are concentrated in several original British barracks. Since most of the barracks were damaged during the bombardment, only some of the wounded can be covered by a tile. Most people Can only crouch in the mud in the rain.

These soldiers had just gone through a fierce battle. The Germans were busy clearing the battlefield and responding to landing troops. There was no time to manage them. The gendarme of a battalion was responsible for guarding. These temporary troops were only responsible for preventing the escape of prisoners of war. All the requirements of the prisoners of war were ignored.

The German logistics forces are already operating at an overload. They must give priority to meeting the needs of the German troops. The number of field kitchens simply cannot cope with the current situation. Many German companies are allowed to eat emergency dry food. This is the case with the German army, not to mention the prisoners and citizens.

The exhausted British soldiers can only huddle in the rain wearing a soaked military uniform and tremble in the rain. The German medical department reported to the Landing Army Command that if this situation could not be improved in time, it would be difficult for these British soldiers to persevere until the construction of the prisoner of war camp was completed, and some of the wounded might not have survived that night.

The easiest way is to let them enter the houses in the city to shelter from the rain, but it is easy to say, it is currently difficult to do so, because there are still a lot of weapons scattered around the city, and these things are cleaned up by the Germans. Before, it was absolutely impossible to give prisoners of war another chance to obtain weapons.

Eventually, Guderian came up with a way. He pulled out six empty passenger and cargo ships from the transport ships moored in the port of Dover. These ships were the backbone of Deere's landing fleet. After a special transformation to carry the German infantry troops, these ships are coastal passenger ships of about 1,500 to 2,000 tons. The tonnage is not large but the facilities are relatively complete.

The British prisoners of war were driven by the Germans and boarded these passenger ships. The British captives were quite cooperative during the transfer process. The captives thought that the Germans were ready to transport them to France. At this time, they had broken the tank. No matter where the Germans transported them, as long as they did not let them continue to rain.

What they did not expect was. The German sailors quickly brought hot water and food, and some soldiers who had signs of illness were also treated by the doctor on board, and the situation began to get better. The British soldiers finally settled down, and Guderian was no longer condemned by conscience.

Bock felt that Guderian's handling was very clever, and he had a new understanding of the commander's resilience. Immediately, he simply sent a message to the headquarters. He believed that the British prisoners of war were simply returned to France for detention. The French mainland has established a complete prisoner of war facility. These soldiers can also be well managed, and across a strait, It is also an effective way to prevent prisoners of war from escaping. After all, this is the territory of the British. As long as the British soldiers who are familiar with the road want to escape, they can always find a way. Instead of struggling to search everywhere, it is better to throw the sea directly and break their retreat.

Now the British are almost to the point where everyone shouts and fights in Britain. The British prisoners of war will not be able to run a few miles and will be captured by the local French and handed over to the Germans. Of course, those who contribute can get a considerable reward. The Germans are in This kind of thing is extremely generous, and the French have begun to regard the pursuit of the British as a legal opportunity to earn extra money.

The placement of British civilians is a bit more troublesome, for the same reason. They were also forced to be centrally managed by the Germans. The reason given by the Germans to the citizens was for their personal safety. Nowadays, inside and outside the city are all wreckage of war, and many of them have yet to start. Until the Germans cleaned up these dangerous things, they could only operate under the German management.

There are different opinions on the civilians Guderian and Bock. Guderian believes that even if these people are released, they do not even have basic food supplies and cannot leave the city at all. Bock’s opinion is to detain them at least A new German offensive was launched. These people had seen too many things before, and they were also deeply hurt by the German army. Many of them lost their property, family, friends and family in the war. Many of them were full of resistance and hatred against the German army. It is difficult to guarantee. What irrational actions they will make after their release, at least until the Germans completely control the area, these people cannot be allowed to leave the Germans' sight.

Finally, the number of these people was not large. Finally, the German army opened an air defense tunnel in the Dover Fortress. After the clearance, the German army confirmed that there was no weapons and ammunition in the tunnel, and then concentrated the surviving citizens into the tunnel. Fresh water and a batch of food and vegetables were provided for citizens to choose their own personnel to manage their lives and diet. The Germans are only responsible for the surveillance of the periphery. Before the battle is changed, they can only operate within the scope allowed by the Germans. At the same time, the Germans said that during the period of centralized management, the Germans will supply the necessary food and medicine, and the Germans will not interfere in their lives. But any actions that endanger the security of the German army will be punished.

The German Headquarters made very good preparations for the bad weather in the past two days. In addition to the large ships that were not afraid of the wind and waves, it also accelerated the laying of submarine pipelines. Fuel is now the most important material. With the increase of armored vehicles, daily consumption will increase exponentially. Deere’s fuel will also be supplied to the Air Force. The current delivery volume is not enough to meet the needs of all units. .

The Dir landing zone has now become a material reserve and logistics base. A large amount of logistics materials, weapons and ammunition have been sent ashore before, but for various reasons, until the end of the battle of Dover, it was found that the materials consumed by the troops were far away. It is much less than expected, and at least two-thirds of the reserves have been restored to hoard in that place.

Now these materials have become the most critical support in subsequent operations. Reichenau took his troops in Deere, and now he has accumulated the strength of an infantry division and an armored regiment, which are enough to defend this logistics base.

Due to its geographical advantage, Deere is still a very good base for advancement. From there until the Thames estuary, there are dense towns along the way, most of which are prosperous commerce and production bases. The essence of the British Empire’s capital circle is mostly concentrated in this area. .

The Headquarters has decided that when the weather improves, it will reactivate the Dill landing point, and some troops will still land from here, which can relieve the pressure of Dover and Folkestone. However, now that Deere has stopped all shipping work, the landing fleet that has been wandering in the open sea has turned to the Dover port area for docking. Those small cement landing crafts do not have much resistance to wind and waves. At this time, a safe port must be found. Avoid wind and rain.

The most affected by the climate is the German air force unit, the German Air Force stopped most of the combat flights over the strait. The rain curtain will cause some troubles in navigation, but the impact on flight safety is not too great, as long as it climbs to the top of the clouds, there is still wind and the sun is shining.

However, the clouds also obscure the line of sight in the air, and the pilot can only observe the scene on the ground until he drops below the clouds. Not to mention that the cloud-crossing work is inherently dangerous, because it is summer, these heavy rain clouds often carry a lot of electric charges, and one will accidentally get a terrible lightning strike, which is still relatively comparable to the aircraft at that time. Fatal, although the metal body is like a Tesla coil, the pilot itself will not be injured by lightning strikes, but lightning will burn the engine circuit and cause the engine to stall. If it is some models without self-sealing fuel tanks, the electricity caused by lightning Sparks are more likely to ignite the gasoline vapor in the fuel tank of the aircraft. The former may have a chance of forced landing, and the latter directly destroys the volleyball explosion disintegration machine.

In this environment, the Luftwaffe can only dispatch some light auxiliary aircraft for basic reconnaissance missions. However, since this climate also affects the Royal Air Force, there is no need to worry that the landing area will be attacked by the Royal Air Force.

At this time, the German radar unit had built the air warning line in the Dover area, from the seaside to the sky above London, and any wind and grass could not escape the eyes of the German Air Force radar soldiers. (To be continued.)