afterglow

Chapter 697 Chapter Strategic Bankruptcy; Sunrise at Plymouth
Operation Vegetarian was a secret test launched in 500. The British Army produced approximately 1 million 500-inch cattle and sheep feed cakes containing anthrax spores, and obtained permission to conduct tests on the private island of Grunard Island in exchange for £.

A group of sheep participating in the experiment were all killed, and a terrible infection was caused - wild dogs died after eating the sheep carcasses, which then led to the deaths of dozens of cats, horses, and cows.

Due to the extremely strong long-term survival ability of anthrax spores, the island remained a dead place until the 1980s, and the authorities received anonymous letters threatening that if they were not properly handled, the British Isles would be attacked in the same way.

Only then did the British officials spend a lot of money to start the post-cleaning work that had been dragging on for decades. They sprayed more than 200 tons of formaldehyde on Gruynard Island and forcibly shoveled away the island's topsoil. Only then was the cleaning completed.

Today, most of the British upper class are fearless, believing that the German social order lacks the ability to retaliate and that the war situation is indeed unfavorable, so it is necessary to try more extreme methods to win.

Britain had been making extensive preparations for chemical protection since the outbreak of the war, with gas masks being distributed to adults and children, and even horses. It is no exaggeration to say that Britain was the most well-prepared power in this regard.

In addition, the tight radar warning network and air force are sufficient to intercept any aircraft attacking the British Isles, and even if some individual aircraft slip through the net, they will not cause much damage.

After comprehensive consideration, the British top leaders made up their minds to implement the vegetarian action to carry out biological and chemical attacks.

At first, a small number of people expressed concern, fearing that the Germans might retaliate with atomic bombs in the future. However, more people chose to believe that the Germans could not produce one, at least not in the next few years.

Last winter, the Special Air Service launched two raids on the Vemork heavy water chemical plant located in the Baren Mountains of Norway, both of which ended in failure. It was not until the third raid that they chose to ambush the heavy water transport convoy midway that they succeeded, eliminating 728 kg of heavy water in one fell swoop. After that, the Royal Air Force sent four specially trained Mosquito IX bombers to fly at ultra-low altitude and dropped 4000 pounds of heavy bombs to severely damage the Vemork plant.

The British were full of confidence and felt that they had successfully strangled the German nuclear program in the cradle.

Little did people know that although the German Socialist Party initially took the heavy water reactor route, it also launched the graphite reactor project in 1941, and the two routes were carried out in parallel.

Benefiting from the information provided by the ideological empathizers, the German Social Nuclear Plan was also adjusted with reference to the results of the Golden Crow Plan, at least clarifying some key data and greatly accelerating the research and development progress.

The following year, 1944, was the fifth year since the war broke out.

Because the Ming army special forces' raid on the Oak Ridge factory seriously affected the separation of U-235, the simple gun-type solution could not accumulate enough nuclear materials. The Manhattan Project could only rely on the reactor to manufacture Pu-239 to realize the implosion solution.

On February 2, Washington time, the United States conducted Operation Trinity in the New Mexico desert and successfully tested a 10-kiloton implosion atomic bomb.

In order to boost the morale of the military and civilians, the president approved the further declassification of the Manhattan Project. Major newspapers across the United States reported the incident extensively in an attempt to stabilize people's hearts.

The hawks were overjoyed and immediately threatened to use atomic bombs to launch devastating attacks on industrial cities such as Hamburg, Cologne, Essen, Frankfurt, Lyon, Toulouse, and Brest to completely destroy the enemy's industrial capabilities.

But this is just unrealistic boasting. According to the current reactor production capacity, the second atomic bomb will still have to wait for about two months, and the production capacity expansion plan will not be completed until the second half of the year.

On the other hand, the strategic bombing that Britain and the United States had placed high hopes on was on the verge of bankruptcy - millions of tons of aerial bombs did not significantly damage the military industry, and the best effect was to block transportation.

The German heavy troop groups in the Iberian Peninsula and the Apennine Peninsula were indeed in an awkward situation - a large number of brand-new weapons and equipment were piled up in the rear and difficult to replenish to the front-line troops, and many infantry divisions and armored divisions were unable to maintain full equipment and staffing.

But even so, the several offensives of varying sizes attempted by the Allies still had little effect.

The most optimistic staff officer estimated that it would take another two to three years of strategic bombing to deplete the front-line German troops to the point where their combat effectiveness was drastically reduced. However, this was obviously unacceptable as the losses of bombers and fighters of the British and American air forces were increasing.

For example, a landmark battle took place in the local salient of the Battle of Pepoli in the Apennine Mountains. A reinforced battalion of more than 433 people from the German 219th Infantry Division defending Hill 600 held out for a week in the face of Allied forces that outnumbered them by several times, during which they only received two rare reinforcements. The Brazilian and Canadian troops participating in the battle had a total of six battalions of more than 4000 people, and received direct support from multiple artillery battalions. However, they paid a huge price but still could not move forward. In the end, the German army voluntarily abandoned the salient.

而从大战爆发迄今，美军陆航的战斗机和轰炸机在西欧、南欧、东欧、北非一共被高射炮击落8200余架、被战斗机击落6900余架；皇家空军亦损失了1.72万架。他们的成果是投弹261万吨，击落或炸毁德法两军飞机3.5万架。

It is obvious that the losses caused by British and American strategic bombing have reached a point where they are no longer sustainable.

More importantly, the Germans and the French are not just here to do the work.

After exhausting the spare parts in stock, the last batch of Bf-109G9s rolled off the production line, and factories in Hungary and Slovakia also began to switch to producing Do-55C fighters. The C type abandoned the DB603E and replaced it with the Jumo2100C with a water jet and an output power of 213 horsepower, greatly improving performance.

The Germans found that the actual performance of the Do-55C was even better than the "Long-Nose Dora" Fw-190D, so they planned to stop production of the Fw-190D after only a few months of production. The Bremen factory of the state-owned Fokker Company was the first to switch to production of the latest interceptor - the Fw-163 "Comet" rocket interceptor.

Focke-Wulf made drastic improvements to Messerschmitt's design, using the powerful MK103 30mm cannon, lengthening the fuselage, adding a horizontal tail, and increasing the propellant capacity, which not only significantly improved maneuverability but also increased the hovering time from 8 minutes to 10 minutes.

In addition to the replacement of combat aircraft, more disruptive weapons - air defense missiles - have also begun actual combat testing.

The Hs-117 "Butterfly" air defense missile developed by Henschel and Siemens performed poorly on the shooting range. This missile uses radio command guidance and active radar guidance. The Germans hope to seize the time to manufacture 2000 missiles first to eliminate the threat of the Allied Air Force.

In fact, the role of the French cannot be ignored. They shared the air defense pressure to a large extent.

Because the French witnessed the threat of strategic bombing before entering the war, they vigorously promoted the development and manufacture of the Asna VB-10 heavy fighter, so more than 300 of them have been installed to date.

The French were very creative - this twin-engine heavy fighter with an empty weight of 6320 kg adopted a unique tandem layout, with two Hispano-Suiza 12B engines in front and behind, each with a power of 2300 horsepower, eight 20mm machine guns, a horizontal maximum speed of 766 km/h, and was extremely violent. It rampaged across Western Europe as if it was in an empty space.

【Picture】

The American top brass had lost hope in the original war goals, and maximizing the interests of the United States and withdrawing calmly became the top priority.

Compared with Western Europe and Southern Europe, where the front lines can still be stabilized, the battlefield in Eastern Europe is in a precarious situation.

The Allied forces were losing ground, and the Russian National Republican regime was in danger. The disappointed American upper echelons stopped military aid, and in early April, the first and last fleet of the year passed through the Bering Strait, which had just ended its freezing, and delivered the last batch of weapons and equipment via the Arctic Ocean.

The embassies and consulates also received instructions from Washington - to encourage, persuade, and lure local high-quality population to immigrate. For scientific researchers, low-key compulsory measures can be taken to transfer them, and Allied forces must cooperate unconditionally.

In mid-May, a powerful offensive that came like a storm completely disintegrated Allied forces in Eastern Europe.

The German Army Group R and Russian troops assembled 6 armored divisions and 51 infantry divisions, totaling 113 million people, to launch the Karelia-Arkhangelsk Offensive.

In mid-June, after suffering 21 casualties, the Germans pushed the front to a region just a few dozen kilometers south of Murmansk. A total of four US and three British divisions were destroyed, while three tank brigades and 4 infantry divisions of the National Republican Army were annihilated. The total casualties of the Allied forces reached 3.

The Allies hastily implemented Operation icebreaker, mobilizing as many ships as possible to rush to Murmansk to evacuate their remaining troops.

By early July, the German and Russian armies had advanced to the outskirts of Murmansk, but they were already at the end of their strength. All three attacks were repelled, and they could not move forward.

A Russian second lieutenant said: "After climbing to the top of the mountain, I saw the masts and flags of the enemy battleships on the sea."

During the icebreaking operation that lasted for a week and a half, the remnants of the British and American Expeditionary Force abandoned most of their heavy weapons, and all but a few of the rear-guard covering troops escaped. The remaining nearly one million Nationalist Republican troops surrendered one after another, but a few chose to flee eastward to Siberia.

During this period, the Royal Navy's Revenge-class battleship HMS Sovereign was sunk by a wired remote-controlled glide bomb launched by the German army.

George Marshall said solemnly: "After the collapse of the war in Russia, we have to continue this painful war with little hope."

Almost at the same time, the German army successfully tested its own atomic bomb on the Kerch Peninsula. The local climate is dry and the coastal areas are mostly semi-desert, which can barely be regarded as a relatively suitable temporary test site.

At this time, the German army still had one missile left, but many people were worried that this would break the current delicate tacit understanding and might lead to a nuclear attack by the US military.

After several days of debate, the top leaders of the German Socialist Party decided to drop an atomic bomb on Plymouth and launch a large-scale air raid that had not been seen in many years.

In addition to its basic military significance, this measure also has the intention of retaliating against the despicable actions of the British Empire last year.

Plymouth is the main base of the Royal Navy, located in the southwest of the island of Great Britain - across the English Channel.

It is a very suitable target, which can not only reduce the risk of being intercepted and shot down by the Royal Air Force, but also effectively strike the British fleet force.

Theoretically, the most suitable targets for nuclear attacks are industrial cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool. However, the British Isles are full of anti-aircraft guns, radars, and airports. No one dares to bet that their bombers can be lucky enough to get through the net. After all, atomic bombs are not wholesale eggs.

After intensive preparations, 13 precious He-177 twin-engine heavy bombers were deployed together to participate in the crucial nuclear attack operation. The German army assembled an escort force consisting of 133 Fw-190 and Do-55 fighters.

In addition, because the Battle of the Gulf of Alaska proved that it was difficult for an atomic bomb air explosion to directly sink a warship, the German army also carefully prepared 50 mistletoe guided bombs. This is a remote-controlled guided bomb composed of an old Fw-190 fighter and a Ju-88 bomber, one above and one below. The bomb itself is the bomber below, which is filled with several tons of explosives!

【Picture】

On July 7, a typical cloudy day, the German army first spread a large amount of chaff in the three directions of Exeter, Southampton and Brighton. Under cover, the nuclear attack formation headed straight for Plymouth. Dozens of Spitfire XVIs took off to intercept, and the German escort fighters engaged in a fierce battle with them.

At 6:10 a.m. London time that day, a He-177 bomber carrying an atomic bomb unleashed its deadly force in the Plymouth harbor area.

There was a sudden flash of light, strong enough to blind a person, and Plymouth seemed to have welcomed the rising sun.

In the hope of maximizing the overpressure power of the shock wave, the German army set the detonation altitude to a lower 370m. The violent explosion with an equivalent of approximately 2 tons of TNT dealt a devastating blow to this historic naval base!
The crane directly below the explosion center was immediately vaporized by the nuclear fireball. The superstructure of the light cruiser HMS Glasgow, which was a little further away, was torn to pieces in the blink of an eye. The destroyer HMS Nubian even capsized on the spot.

In fact, the German bombers were aiming at the battleship Rodney, but high-altitude bombing was destined to fail to hit the target accurately, with the actual deviation being as high as hundreds of meters. Her bridge was seriously damaged, and both the chimney and main mast were broken by the shock wave and thrown into the sea!

The terrifying nuclear explosion shock wave swept across an area of ​​more than ten square kilometers. Although it decayed rapidly, the overpressure that could not be underestimated still destroyed most of the buildings in the port area. Only a few sturdy reinforced concrete buildings were left standing in ruins.

A large number of British officers and soldiers were burned by the blazing light and thermal radiation. In fact, among the several killing methods of nuclear explosions, light and thermal radiation is the most effective against soft targets.

Exposed people within a two-kilometer radius suffered severe third-degree burns instantly, but it did not hurt at all because the pain nerves under the skin were also killed; exposed people between a radius of two and three kilometers suffered second-degree burns, with large areas of surface skin ulcerated, red with black, and extremely painful.

Even in later times, the mortality rate from severe burns is very high, not to mention today when antibiotics are not widely available.

The gray-black mushroom cloud rose unhindered into the sky, like a towering tombstone, indicating that a brilliant and magnificent uncontrollable fission chain reaction had occurred here.

Soon, the second wave of air strike formations followed.

A few Spitfires broke through the obstruction of the escort fighters and desperately attacked the mistletoe planes, which were a combination of a large and a small one, while dozens of mistletoe planes flew towards the mushroom cloud that was rising higher and higher under the dense firepower.

The bombers disconnected one after another and, under remote control, swooped down on the devastated and flame-filled Plymouth port area, attacking the severely damaged warships.

On the hills in the far suburbs, air defense observation posts could witness this tragic scene.

The cloudy sky became even darker because of the sudden nuclear attack, and a tall mushroom cloud stood between the sky and the earth. German bombers swooped down like hawks, madly crashing into the target, with violent explosions one after another, and dazzling flames emerging...

(End of this chapter)