The decisive battle against the Third Reich - Chapter 913

c910 retreat

“That’s not what’s important, General!” Halker replied: “I will be responsible for our mistakes in intelligence. But what we should consider now is how to solve the problems before us!”

“Oh, really?” Eisenhower said. “Solve the problem? Can you?”

“Maybe I can’t!” said Halker, “but someone might be able to!”

“So, tell me who the ‘someone’ you are talking about is?” Eisenhower said: “I hope the person you told me is not the ‘legendary staff sergeant’!”

“General Patton!” Halker said: “General Patton implemented a deception plan in Dover. Now, since the Germans have seen through our plan, General Patton can return to the headquarters to command the troops!”

Eisenhower couldn’t help but be stunned, and then nodded.

So General Patton was transferred back to the headquarters that night to participate in the command.

“No, no, we can’t keep fighting like this!” Patton rejected Montgomery’s plan as soon as he arrived at the headquarters and saw Eisenhower.

Eisenhower knew that Patton and Montgomery didn’t get along, so this meeting was a private meeting with several American generals… Eisenhower actually wanted to talk to Patton in private. The problem was that he didn’t know much about military affairs, so he invited Bu Together with Radley.

“Is there any problem if we continue fighting like this?” Bradley asked.

“Of course!” Patton said: “We poured a large number of artillery shells and bombs on the enemy’s defense line. Although we will be able to blow it up one day, the question is when? How do we know whether the damage to the enemy’s fortifications and armored forces will be serious? The extent of the damage… We don’t know anything, we can only bomb it day after day, guessing that the enemy may have collapsed, but maybe the enemy is hiding on the second line or even further, just waiting for us to launch a counterattack when we land! ”

Eisenhower and Bradley fell silent upon hearing this.

“Is this Montgomery’s plan?” Patton laughed: “You should not seek to be ‘stable’ when commanding a battle, nor should you launch an attack based on clearly defined fronts. Only weird, rigid guys would make such a bullshit plan. !”

Eisenhower couldn’t help but rolled his eyes, becoming more convinced that not allowing Montgomery to participate in this meeting was the right thing to do.

“So what should we do?” General Bradley asked.

“Landing on the Brittany Peninsula!” Patton pointed to the map and said: “This rhinoceros horn will be something outside the German defense circle. We will take it as a landing port and save the strength of two armored divisions for bombing. and combat power to break through the enemy’s defense line!”

“You’re crazy!” Bradley shouted: “Our tanks are no match for them!”

Eisenhower also objected: “Joe, maybe you don’t know, the Germans are equipped with new tanks, and our Sherman is just a toy in front of them!”

“Of course I know this!” Patton replied: “But we have air superiority, and their new tanks will be turned into scrap metal one by one under the attack of our fighter planes, and then the ‘Sherman’ will crush their defense lines!”

Objectively speaking, Patton’s combat plan is correct… This is what it should be like when having air superiority.

However, the relatively conservative Eisenhower and Bradley still rejected this “adventurous” plan.

But this denial is not really a denial.

Bradley modified Patton’s plan, then gave it another name, “Project Cobra”, and then went into actual combat…

(Note: This behavior was once considered plagiarism, but it still occurred with Eisenhower’s knowledge. It was probably a means to prevent the plan from being vetoed by Montgomery)

The focus of this plan is to dig a foothold on the Brittany Peninsula along the coast of France, and then concentrate two armored divisions on this foothold to implement a breakthrough.

This is very similar to the German “Blitzkrieg”…but this is understandable. There is no copyright issue with the tactics on the battlefield, and “Blitzkrieg” has high requirements for air supremacy. Whoever has air supremacy can play well.

At this time, air supremacy was in the hands of the Allies, and it was not used in vain.

The impact of this plan is that…the Allies need to ensure smooth traffic so that their tanks can pass.

As a result, the Allied bombing suddenly changed 180 degrees: it was originally trying its best to destroy French roads, railways and bridges, but suddenly it no longer targeted these.

To be precise, the Allied bombing changed to using incendiary bombs to bomb road targets, while heavy aerial bombs only bombed places other than roads and bridges.

“Marshal, I think it’s time to retreat!” Qin Chuan reported to Rommel in the fortifications of the bunker.

“What?” Rommel didn’t understand.

“The enemy’s bombing is different from before!” Qin Chuan said: “They no longer aim to blow up bridges and highways!”

“You mean…they did this intentionally?” Rommel asked.

The bombs fell from the sky, and the Allies also used incendiary bombs to bomb the roads, so Rommel thought that the Allied bombing accuracy had simply declined.

“Yes!” Qin Chuan replied: “I think they did this intentionally to launch a counterattack with armored forces! We should plan to retreat in advance, because we cannot retreat during the day!”

This is where the German army is embarrassed… This is determined by the lack of air supremacy. If they fight with the US military during the day, they will have to fight hard and have no choice.

After thinking for a while, Rommel said: “That’s right, we will enter the retreat process tonight!”

So, that night, the main force of the 21st Armored Division withdrew to the defense line at Clecy, leaving only a few infantry companies and engineering companies in the bunkers in the “Utah Beach” area.

The infantry company was symbolically doing some defense in the fortifications to make the Allies mistakenly believe that there were still people in the defense line, and the engineering company was left to prepare to blow up bridges, break roads, or lay mines… The roles of the enemy and us changed dramatically, and the German army, which had been building roads before, became the one to break roads.

However, breaking roads in places like the plains in northern France is not very meaningful. With the state that the American “Sherman” tank can be converted into a bulldozer at any time, it is easy to build a new road from the side to bypass.

But this is not the point of the problem. The point is that the advance speed of the US armored division will slow down.

Therefore, whenever the US armored forces rushed to the German defense line and wanted to launch an attack, they found that it was already dark… Once it got dark, the US armored division did not dare to launch an attack.

Because at night, fighter planes could not cooperate with the US armored division, so the “Sherman” tank would become a target for the “Tiger” and “Panther”.