Bismarck

This is quite surprising. Well... while he has nothing to do now, curious Bismarck thinks he can tease Zeppelin.

It can be said that Zeppelin has participated in all operations without missing a single one, and has always been the lead aircraft. This time is really very rare.

"Zeppelin, why didn't you lead the team to attack today? This is so unusual... Is there something wrong?"

“…Because Tinolt and Bal are both about to be transferred, let them lead the team this time and get familiar with the team.” There was a hint of emotion in Zeppelin’s words.

She looked at the fleet of planes gradually moving away and smiled, saying that it felt like she was watching her students take off.

They were indeed her students.

From a pure air force that knew nothing, it has become the current naval aviation force, the elite among the elite.

It is indeed a bit hard to see these two people leaving.

"Transfer?!" Bismarck was a little stunned. She didn't know this.

"Yes... The battlefield is too big now. His Excellency the Imperial Marshal has said that he intends to let Barr and Tinolt be the captains of the corps to form a new combat unit... It can be regarded as the old people leading the new ones."

Bismarck could hear the slightly regretful tone in Zeppelin's voice.

But Bismarck thought about it and didn't know what to say about it...

After all, they have been comrades for more than a year, and it is impossible for them not to have some feelings for each other. Moreover, these two are capable commanders under Zeppelin. One is the commander of the fighter unit, and the other is the commander of the bomber unit...

Although their brilliance is usually overshadowed by Zeppelin's dazzling performance, the abilities of these two should never be underestimated.

Besides, it didn't sound like Zeppelin was reluctant to let them go.

After all, it is not only the need of the country, but also the future they have worked hard for.

Then...

"You let them lead the attack this time. Is it a graduation exam? My instructor Zeppelin."

"Graduation exam..." Qi Bolin was stunned for a moment, then he couldn't help laughing after he reacted.

"Indeed, I have always said so. The GR186th Squadron is the seed force of the Air Force's carrier-based aviation force, and the war is still a long way to go, so we must train more talents for the Empire..."

"Not bad, not bad. Instructor Zeppelin saw that the three-good students he trained had graduated and had grown stronger, so he was actually a little reluctant to let them go?"

"Three Good Students... Haha, is there such a title in school?" Although Qi Bolin didn't know what Three Good Students were, he knew that it was a compliment.

"Anyway, you just need to know that this is a compliment," said Bismarck.

Although, watching these "three good students" take off from their flight deck and fly to the wider sky, I still feel a little reluctant...

-----

However… there are always many things to do in troubled times! Especially on the battlefield, there is no time to be sad. Soon, new situations emerged.

"Report! U-331 submarine sent an urgent report! Their radar signal receiver has detected the signal of the airborne radar! Now they have begun to dive and disengage secretly!"

The communications soldier rushed into the command room of the Bismarck, and his loud report brought Bismarck back to his senses as he was chatting with Zeppelin on the WIFI!

"what?!"

Not only Bismarck, but also the staff officers in the headquarters were shocked! Even Lütjens's eyes, which were dozing off, suddenly opened!

U-331's position is far from the land in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is only dawn now! If the signal of an airborne radar is found there, it is most likely a carrier-based aircraft!

The British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet now has an aircraft carrier, the Indefatigable, and a light carrier, the Hermes - and the Hermes aircraft carrier carries exactly eighteen Swordfishes!

That is to say...

"Have they discovered our plan?" Lütjens asked with a gloomy face.

"But...how did our plan get exposed?" Bismarck was also a little stunned. The plan for this operation was strictly confidential. Although there were some telegram exchanges, the real key operation plan was communicated by her, Zeppelin and the captain to Rommel face to face on the plane...Even the cipher machine was replaced. It was basically impossible for the British to find intelligence from the radio decryption this time.

Even the contact between Haye and the Italian Navy and the orders to the submarines were either notified at the last minute or issued in person. In addition, Greece is not very safe, so the port sentries are very strict, and everyone will not leave the port area as much as possible. In other words, the possibility of personnel leaking secrets is also very small...

In addition, this operation was only to support the African Corps, and the captain was at least nominally the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and had command authority authorized by Raeder and Little Mustache, so there was no need to report detailed plans to Raeder and wait for a set of bureaucratic procedures for approval - and no one trusted Raeder's integrity, not to mention the possibility of leaks from "the higher-ups."

So, no matter what, there should be no place where the information could be leaked.

But the combat intention was discovered.

So... how did it leak this time? Bismarck was going crazy!

"Don't worry about how they were exposed!" Lütjens' face became even colder, and he quickly thought of another layer.

"If we leak the secret, the situation on Rommel's side will probably not be too optimistic..."

"Report! The African Legion sent an urgent notice that their attack plan has been exposed! Now inform us that the second plan is being implemented and prepare for a strong attack!"

Knew it…

A strong attack is naturally the last resort, and it is only chosen when there is no other choice. However, there is no other way now.

Are Africans already beginning to attack Europeans?

"Don't think too much, solve the problem first! Bismarck, go and notify Zeppelin, tell her to get ready, and immediately prepare to take off a wave of planes to reinforce Rommel!" Lütjens looked directly at his own secretary ship: "The British must have been prepared! I have a hunch that something might happen to the Afrika Korps! In addition, notify Zeppelin and Tirpitz, now accelerate to full speed of 36 knots, and hurry to Galazza! Let our aircraft have a shorter range! Finally, tell Zeppelin that if the British aircraft carrier attacks us, let the pilots land at Galazza Airport!"

"Yes!" Bismarck took the order and left.

"But... General, in this case, we will have no way to defend against the attack of the British aircraft carriers... If they and U331 discover us now, they will be less than kilometers away from us. Then when it gets light at five o'clock, we will definitely be within the attack range of their carrier-based aircraft..." Seeing Bismarck about to leave, an officer looked at Lütjens and weakly expressed his opinion.

"We have to do this! If the Afrika Korps fails to attack, the entire war in the Mediterranean will fail!" Lütjens said calmly. However, seeing the look in his subordinates' eyes, he explained a little more: "Even if the British know we are coming, they may not know our exact location. In addition to anti-submarine warfare, they sent radar reconnaissance planes to search for our location! But in this case, we will not be attacked by them at dawn. At most, we will be detected by them. Then we still have time to launch intercepting fighters."

"I understand!" The subordinate felt a little relieved.

"We can hold on. Now it depends on whether Rommel can hold on..." Seeing his subordinates' slightly relieved expressions, Lütjens' heart was filled with anxiety...

If Rommel's side was defeated, what would be the use of winning on our side? We still had to rely on the opposing army to achieve our combat objectives.

Outside the porthole, three large warships, including a hamster that had just been woken up from its sleep to receive an order and had an unhappy look on its face, and an airport transport ship that was hurriedly preparing to take off a plane, had begun to accelerate to full speed regardless of fuel consumption and were heading towards the war-torn African continent in the south!

"Full speed ahead!"

Chapter 444: The mooncake pot, really

At dawn on the African continent, a fierce battle was going on around Tobruk.

Four Italian divisions, an Italian heavy artillery regiment, and two German divisions were besieging Tobruk from three directions - although only one direction was the main attack, and that was the west!

But... the first condition is to break through the two layers on the "red line", which is an extremely insanely hidden permanent bunker buried eight feet underground!

Now, the engineers who were clearing mines and obstacles were destroying roadblocks and clearing minefields under the British firepower, while also risking their lives to lure the British bunkers into opening fire and exposing themselves.

The smoke bombs used by the mortars to indicate the target location are ready, just wait for the airstrike to arrive...

You British guys will be in trouble!

The east of the Morning Star was already half bright, and a faint but long-awaited buzzing sound came from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea. It was the JU87B and BF109E taking off from Galaza Airport. On the ground where the sun had not yet risen above the horizon, people could even see dozens of moving light spots in the sky, which were the reflections of the dawn light shining on the fighter planes.

but......

“Whoosh!! — Dada Dada…!!!”

The shocked people discovered in panic that in the direction of dawn, under the cover of the bright rising sun, large groups of Spitfires and Hurricanes flew from the east, sweeping over the German aircraft like a hurricane - under the iron wings, there were billowing black smoke falling to the ground! !

The subsequent German aircraft groups deployed in panic, but it was too late! The second and third echelons of the British aircraft groups also roared in under the cover of the rising sun! !

Thirty-six Spitfire Vs! And forty-eight Hurricanes! ! The performance of the German fleet's BF109E is much worse than that of the Spitfire V (the performance of the Spitfire V is equivalent to that of the 109F)! Not to mention, the distance to the British fighter airport is much farther. Although the air time is limited, the British aircraft, which consumes a lot of fuel, is much lighter than normal!

Although the air time is limited, the performance that can be exerted is actually more terrifying...

What's even more terrible is that even an army general like Rommel could see that at the moment of the battle, the planes that turned their noses to try to fight - you know without even thinking about it that they were all BF109s - were only a handful of twenty or so!

"Who can tell me how many fighter planes we have?!" Rommel asked to his left and right with a gloomy face.

"Well... it seems there are only 24 planes...?" The men looked at each other, and a man who seemed to be the communications squad leader hurriedly called the air force base to inquire. After a long while, the communications squad leader finally answered hesitantly after finishing the call.

At this moment, the winner had already been decided in the sky!

The numerical advantage of 36 to 24, plus the performance gap and the backlit surprise attack, caused heavy losses to the German fighters in an instant. The remaining planes were struggling to protect themselves under the siege of the British...

Without the cover of the 109E, fifty-six JU87s may seem like a lot, but how could they possibly be a match for the Hurricane?!

Dive bomber after dive bomber swooped down, only to "dive" toward the ground headfirst, trailing smoke and fire!

At the same time, some other Hurricanes inherited the Stukas' approach - dive bombing! However, the targets of these Hurricanes' dive bombing were German positions on the ground...

The German anti-aircraft guns opened fire and intercepted several planes, but more Hurricanes still rushed to the German positions! After the Hurricanes dropped the sparks of destruction and death from their belly, they were followed by another round of machine gun fire as dense as a storm! ... And in the farther east, some terrifying figures that were obviously larger than these British fighters and seemed to have two engines had also rushed over! Even a fool would know what would happen if these twin-engine bombers flew over the German starting position and laid a carpet...

As the sun rose between heaven and earth, there was a sudden billowing of black smoke and a bloody storm.

"What's going on? Why do we have so few fighter planes?!" Seeing the German planes in the sky being shot down one after another by the British aircraft fleet that had an absolute numerical advantage like hunting turkeys, the furious Rommel roared on the spot.

"This... seems to be because a guy named Mondkuchen (German: Mooncake) sent the wrong file, so..." The communications squad leader who was yelled at lowered his head in embarrassment and reported tremblingly...

"Drag this guy out and kill him!" Rommel yelled angrily.

The Braised Fox forced himself to calm down, but was still angry with his face flushed and steam coming out of his head, and was thinking about something in a depressed manner.

Fortunately, after discovering the failure of the sneak attack at 2 a.m., he had anticipated this situation and ordered the positions to be prepared for air defense and deployed anti-aircraft artillery positions. Looking at the positions behind, although there were heavy casualties, there was no sign of chaos.

But...it's not a solution to go on like this for long!

The British had an absolute advantage in terms of manpower, and their own troops were deployed in field positions, so their bomb resistance was not very high. Although there was no chaos for the time being, if they continued to be exposed like this, it would only be a matter of time before they were injured by bombs...

Looking at the JU87 dive bombers that suffered heavy losses in the sky and the BF109 fighters that were surrounded by absolutely superior enemy fighters and were struggling hard, and then looking at the starting positions that were bombed with smoke and flames... Rommel felt like his heart was bleeding!

The idea of ​​using a large number of dive bombers to attack the front-line bunkers turned out to be a mediocre situation because of a wrong file sent by the signalman...

According to the intelligence he knew, whether it was the Sidi Barani base 250 kilometers away from Tobruk on the Egyptian-Syrian border, or the large number of airports in the Alexandria-Cairo area in the core area of ​​Egypt, which were more than 600 kilometers away from here but had good conditions and could take off twin-engine or even quad-engine bombers, the British had at least three or four hundred planes available for combat!

According to the intelligence Rommel had, the British could deploy at least 40 to Spitfires, to Hurricanes, to Stalwarts, and a group of about big-chinned fighters sold to Britain by the United States, which seemed to be called Tomahawk or P... In addition, there were at least to twin-engine bombers of various types...

This does not include the seventy or eighty carrier-based aircraft on the two British aircraft carriers!

In Rommel's hands was Galaza Airport, less than 109 kilometers away from Tobruk! There were 110 BF-87E and BF-G assigned to the African Corps, as well as JUB dive bombers.

Due to the distance, the more than 140 aircraft stationed at Galaza Airport had a faster reaction speed, a higher dispatch rate, and could stay in the air longer. In addition, the German-occupied area to the east of Galaza was more than 200 kilometers away. Relying on the huge depth, they could get a long warning time during combat, as well as close cover from ground anti-aircraft artillery fire. Therefore, although the troops were obviously inferior, their actual combat efficiency was much higher than that of the British army.

Under normal circumstances, as long as there are no problems with scheduling and command, even if the absolute number is seriously insufficient, even if the attack turns into a strong assault, Galaza Airport can rely on the extremely high combat efficiency of home operations and can fight on par with the British's superior forces. Even when comparing the results of the battle, there is still an advantage of almost two to one.

So even though the British had discovered his plan and turned the sneak attack into a full-force attack, Rommel was not afraid at all.

However, this is based on the premise that "there are no problems with dispatching and command", and now...

Even though the British were farther away and the exchange ratio of being intercepted was not as good as Galaza Airport, as long as casualties were ignored and the number of troops dispatched exceeded the upper limit of a single interception capability, they could still cause huge losses to the German positions!

Although the British themselves would suffer extremely heavy losses, the British regarded North Africa as their main battlefield, and Churchill could fully afford these losses!

And what about me…?

Because of someone's mistake, the first wave of troops did not follow the assault mode specified in the backup plan...

Rommel's original intention was to send a large number of fighters to fight the British Air Force from afar for air superiority while dive bombers attacked the fortress area in the assault mode. This was also written in the plan.

Forty-eight BF109s can hold back these British planes anyway! As long as they can hold back the British fighters, the dive bombers can directly blow up the firepower points on the "red line" that are now almost exposed! At that time, their own troops can rush in, rely on the second wave of aircraft to suppress the British artillery in depth, and rely on the strengthened combat engineers to clear the minefield, and then drive the British fleeing soldiers to completely break through the entire Tobruk defense system with relatively empty British rear defense and fatal defense flaws, and occupy Tobruk! (PS: This is Rommel's historical tactics in 42. Basically, the Sidi Mahmoud three-way intersection was occupied in one morning, and Tobruk was completely occupied within one day!)

But…because of the mistake made by Mond Kutcher, whose name sounds like a special food for a certain oriental festival, there are only 109 BFs now…while the British on the other side have a full fighters!!

With a troop advantage of more than three to one, no combat efficiency can withstand the absolute power gap!

Especially now that the British have obviously sent out all their forces, and the main attacking force, two German divisions and an Italian Blackshirt Armored Division, are stuck in a temporary position in the desert and can't move! Moreover, in broad daylight, these troops can't even retreat!

He was about to give the order to call for Galaza's reinforcements, but even if the fleet came at full speed, it would take at least ten minutes to travel eighty kilometers!

And the duration of air combat is usually measured in minutes or even seconds!!!

Although the "Moon + Cake" that caused the big event has been dragged out to continue, the entire battle situation is now in a passive situation and cannot be reversed...

Rommel was so angry that he gritted his teeth!

After calming down for a while, Fox gave his orders to his men: "It's five o'clock now... The second wave of aircraft should take off early! Send out all the aircraft that can be sent out to participate in the battle! In addition, ask the air base to prepare for the third wave of aircraft - we also have a squadron of 110 BF110s, load them with bombs, and I want to see the BFs drop bombs on the British at seven o'clock! ! ... Also, inform the Mediterranean Fleet of the news that the British suffered heavy losses in the first wave of air strikes and we plan to carry out the third bombing at seven o'clock! !"

"Whoever is in charge of the communications squad, you go send the telegram yourself! Don't make any mistakes this time - otherwise, you know the consequences of delaying important military matters!!"

At the end, Rommel, who was full of anger, yelled at the communications squad leader in a stern voice.

"Yes!" The communications squad leader didn't dare to say a word and quickly agreed. While wiping the spit on his face, he turned around and grabbed the transmitter...

(To be continued)

Chapter 435: Hell Dungeon

The battle plan was leaked for some reason, and because someone sent the wrong thing, the difficulty of the Tobruk siege dropped directly from the intermediate level to the hell level...

The British Royal Air Force's Western Desert Corps dispatched an overwhelming force of nearly two hundred large aircraft in one go, and it seemed that they would not stop until they had destroyed the African Corps!

Another wave of bombers flew in a neat V-shaped formation from the east, facing the rising sun, over the bombardment-filled Tobruk. Bombs fell from the opened belly magazines and hit the ground. The black wings reflected the cold light of death under the golden morning sun!