New World War II Eagle Strikes the Sky

It was already April when this boat was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces, and it took another month for modification and testing.It was already early May when it was handed over to the 4st Attack Aircraft Wing.During the transformation, the Americans almost moved the entire air combat command center to the ship.From a distance, the entire ship is full of various antennas, like islands and reefs covered with various shrubs.In order to prevent these electronic devices from interfering with each other, the distance between various devices must be as large as possible.As a result, the original cabin structure was also changed into a mess. The original one was taken by Ron, and half of the conference room that could be used as a war room was occupied.Fortunately, the occupied half is only the upper half—the inner height of the living room is nearly 21 meters, and the upper half is separated to accommodate various equipment.The lower half became the war room.Just in terms of size, the combat command room is not small.But as far as the height of the inner space is concerned, it is an out-and-out tragedy.

The interior height of this combat command room is only two meters. Although this height does not make everyone have to bow their heads and plead guilty inside, it also makes those staff officers who are responsible for holding push rods and indicator sticks extremely uncomfortable.When they habitually lift up the indicator stick in their hands, the indicator stick will stick to the ceiling, and then under the influence of the reaction force, it will hit the sand table or map at once, sweeping away the various marks on it. It's a mess.

But this is not the most frightening thing. The most frightening thing is that such a low inner space will cause a sense of oppression to the people in it, which will directly affect their efficiency.The solution is also very creative. The Yankee used the law of perspective on the ceiling to draw a section of inner space that does not exist.This makes the sense of oppression greatly reduced, but this approach also greatly increases the chances of the staff officer hitting the ceiling with the pointer stick in his hand.

Overall, though, aside from this weakness, the boat is quite satisfactory.Especially the large open-air deck has been loved by many officers.Of course, what is more important is the improvement of command efficiency. Here, commanders can directly command battles at a closer distance, and they can even directly issue instructions to each fighter jet equipped with special fuel air bombs.

This greatly improves the efficiency of command.Of course, the necessary adaptive training is still essential.

……

Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, only the last few days of May are left, and the landing is imminent.You must know that if June is missed, the weather will get worse and worse in the next few months, so that landing operations will be almost impossible.Landing operations have strict requirements on the weather: in order to ensure the safe landing of the landing craft, the sea wind speed should not exceed 6-13 miles per hour; in order to increase the accuracy of the firepower of the attacking warship, the visibility should not be lower than 18 miles: The descent was too spread out, with land winds of less than 3 miles per hour; there could be no ground fog in the English Channel during the first few days of the attack.

The Allies, however, had the worst weather in nearly 40 or 50 years.RAF Colonel Stagg (1900-1975), chief meteorologist (6-7), noted that "a series of three low pressure bands was slowly moving from Scotland across the Atlantic towards Newfoundland".He predicts this will lead to strong winds over the English Channel until June 100, with 500% cloud cover and lows of 1000 to [-] feet.Under such weather conditions, neither sea bombardment nor air attack could be carried out.

This weather condition made the commanders in the Allied Command almost grimaced.As for the German army, this is really good news that couldn't be better.The German army had carried out countless anti-landing simulations on the map before, but no matter whether Long Bubai or Long was not there, they tried everything they could to prevent the Allied forces from landing on the European continent.In the face of absolute strength, any well-conceived battle plan will not be able to turn things around.The effect they can play is at best to increase the enemy's casualties or reduce their own losses.Even for these two tactical goals, the German army could not achieve them at the same time.

But the bad weather at this time greatly helped the German army. No matter how strong the Allied forces were, they could not fight against the power of nature.As long as this dangerous period of time has passed, judging from the weather records over the years, the weather suitable for landing after June will become less and less.And considering the time required for a large-scale landing operation, this year is basically safe.Because once the battle came and dragged on to September, any landing operations would be impossible.Therefore, in the eyes of the Germans, the Allied forces were about to miss the landing window.After a while, the Germans can even mobilize most of the troops deployed on the Western Front to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians.

Commander-in-Chief West Rundsteder reported to Hitler on 5 May that there was no indication that an attack was "imminent" due to unfavorable weather. On June 30, the German air force weather station in Paris believed that the weather was bad, and the Allied forces would not take action within half a month.After getting this weather forecast, Marshal Rommel slept soundly for the first time in many days.He rushed back to Germany the next day to celebrate his wife's birthday.

However, the weather forecast cannot be guaranteed to be 21% correct until the 100st century, let alone in the 40s?At that time, making weather forecasts largely relied on meteorological data accumulated over the years.But this thing is a big weakness in Germany.The Germans simply had no accumulation of weather data for the English Channel.After defeating France, the Germans got some material from the French, but it was not complete.The Germans themselves have since amassed some record data.But comparing the information in their hands with that of the British, the gap is even bigger than the gap between the German Navy and the British Royal Navy.Marshal Rommel's return to China this time finally confirmed his reputation of "Long's absence".

On the evening of June 6, the day before the Germans made a forecast of severe weather for the next two consecutive weeks, it was the time when dark clouds shrouded the Strait and the wind turned fierce.The meteorologists of the Allied Forces made such a forecast: There is a new cyclone behind the cold front cyclone approaching the English Channel, and it will not be able to land on June 3. On the 6th, the first cold front has passed, and the new cold front has not yet arrived. In the gap, there may be a new cold front suitable for landing on the strait. In the gap before the arrival of the new cold front, there may be weather suitable for landing on the strait.

Just when the Germans relaxed their vigilance, D-Day came quietly. On the night of June 6th, Allied Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower received a weather forecast from the United States from Rosby (Swede), the most famous meteorologist in Europe and America at that time: There will be a storm passing through the strait on June 4th, and there will be suitable weather for landing on June 6th. .Eisenhower also received a weather forecast for June 5 from the Meteorological Joint Team: sunny in the morning and cloudy at night.Although this kind of weather is not ideal, it is beneficial to the landing of airlift troops, air force bombing and naval observation, and it also greatly reduces the possibility of the Allied forces being bombed by enemy planes on the beach on the first night after landing.After obtaining such a reliable weather forecast that met the minimum meteorological requirements for landing, Eisenhower made up his mind to set D-Day as June 6 after the morning weather seminar on June 6 without changing it.The order was formally issued at three quarters past four.

From 6:5 on June 23th to 6:6 on June 1th, the first batch of troops started to set off.This group of troops included the British 82st Airborne Division, and the US 101nd and [-]st Airborne Divisions.The moon rose very late this night, and the moon had just risen at midnight.Countless transport planes began to cross the strait in the reddish light of the rising moon.At this time, Ron had been on standby in his command ship for a long time.

Just as the transport fleet flew over Ron's head and flew towards the opposite side of the strait, the fleet also received an order to attack.One by one, the warships began to fire the boilers, then pulled up the anchor chains and untied the cables.Then they left Portsmouth Harbor one by one, heading towards Normandy against the reddish moon.The reddish moonlight cast by the rising moon jumped on the waves of the English Channel, painting the sea with a dull red.

"There is blood in the moonlight, which indicates that there will be a bloody dawn." Standing on the front deck, Ron said leisurely, "Scott, what do you think of my prophecy? Does it smell like a wizard?"

"Not at all, General. We are heading out for a battle of such magnitude that even a fool would know that there will be bloodshed tomorrow. General, you are more like a wizard than you were just now when you make some other judgments." It's gone." His adjutant refused to join in the fun, but refuted him instead.

"Scott, you're really boring." Ron smiled and shook his head.

……

June 6 at 6 o'clock, Portsmouth, Crow's Nest Airport.

48 pa-38 attack aircraft have been pulled out of the hangar.The ground crews are busy reloading them, refueling them, and doing routine checks before takeoff.A 38-ton fuel-air bomb is hung under the belly of each pa-1.5. They will be the nutcrackers that break open the hard nuts of the enemy's coastal fortresses.

At 4 o'clock, all the pilots got up and started to eat breakfast in the restaurant.At this time, the fleet had been sailing in the strait for several hours.

At 4:40, the pilots began boarding the plane for takeoff.

At 4:50, the moon has risen to the mid-heaven, and the eastern sky is also slightly pale.At this time, the pilots received the order to attack.Boyington released the brakes on the P-81 fighter jet and was the first to taxi to the runway.Behind him, the propellers of one plane after another began to spin.

……

At 5:30, the attack aircraft group caught up with the landing ship formation that was sailing. A few minutes later, they caught up with the artillery formation that was in charge of providing artillery support. The clear sky was covered with dark clouds again, and it even started to rain.But standing on the bridge of the command ship, Ron could still vaguely see the coastline of Normandy.