Chapter 567: Springboard to America (Part 2)

Berlin, Wilhelmstrasse 73, Reich Defense Ministry Building.

A Maybach "Leader" luxury bulletproof sedan produced in 1942 stopped steadily at the main entrance of the building. A very handsome and elegant lieutenant colonel in his thirties got out of the passenger seat and opened the door of the back seat of the car. Then he saw Imperial Marshal Hersman getting out of the car and adjusting his military uniform. , stretched out his left hand again, and whispered: "Klaus, my scepter."

The lieutenant colonel who opened the door for Hessman immediately handed a beautifully carved marshal's scepter to Hessman, and then wanted to take Hessman's handbag, but Hessman stopped him. It wasn't that there was anything shady in the bag, but Hessman always felt uncomfortable when he saw his new adjutant holding the bag.

Because the full name of this lieutenant colonel is Chris von Stauffenberg... He was the man who put a bomb in a bag to kill Hitler. Of course, this was in the original history!

As a royalist militarist from a high-ranking aristocracy, Stauffenberg was of course loyal to royalist leaders like Hersmann.

In fact, he and Herschmann are still related. The Stauffenberg family and the Heinsberg family are both famous Catholic families in western Germany, and they are also well-matched count families. Of course there is a marriage relationship between the two families. This is because Chris von Stauffenberg is a distant cousin of Chloe. Not long after he married Chloe, Hersman met him when he was still a young man. Children's Chris von Stauffenberg. Since then, the relationship between Hersmann and the Stauffenberg family has been very good, which is why Chris von Stauffenberg will now become Hersmann's adjutant.

In terms of his ability to control the Junkers officer group, Hersmann was much better than Hitler. Because he himself is the "most perfect" Junker, impeccable in both his background and experience. Moreover, he and Schleicher also promoted the restoration of the German Emperor. They also pursued the Soviet line pioneered by Emperor Wilhelm that was recognized by the "old guys" of the Junkers Officer Corps. Now they have achieved a series of great achievements. success.

Therefore, among the German Junker aristocracy and officer class, there is no so-called "opposition" now. At least the Reich Central Security Service led by General Stockhausen and the Military Intelligence Service led by Major General Reinhard Galen did not discover the existence of such a faction.

Even General Ludwig Beck, a historical "anti-war", is now following the militarist leader Schleicher (Beck was originally promoted by Schleicher and Hammerstein) ) went to be the commander of the English Army Group (this was a bluff force) preparing to invade Britain.

…

"Ludwig, how was your talk with the Dutch?"

In a rectangular conference room in the Ministry of Defense building, Hersman heard Marshal Kesselring's voice as soon as he entered the door.

Kesselring has now succeeded Hessmann as the Chief of General Staff. He was transferred from the Army to the Air Force, and has also commanded the Air Force and the Navy. He is an "all-round" general and is most suitable to take over as the Chief of the General Staff of the Defense Forces. Therefore, Hessmann selected Kesselring as his successor among three candidates: Kesselring, Halder and Guderian. Halder served as First Munitions Director, Kesselring's deputy. Guderian became the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, and together with Rundstedt, Reichenau, List, Model, Manstein and other army group or army commanders, he went to prepare for Stalin's thunderstorm.

Today, Kesselring came from Zossen to the Ministry of Defense building in Berlin early in the morning to prepare for a very important headquarters meeting.

"The Dutch agreed to the independence of Dutch Guiana." Hessmann sat on a chair opposite Marshal Kesselring, put the heavy leather bag in his lap on his lap, opened it and took out a handwritten secret. Agreement - This is an agreement signed by Hirschmann and Dutch Prime Minister Dirk Geer, in which the Dutch government agreed to recognize Dutch Guiana in the event of an independent revolution.

"Independence?" Marshal Kesselring smiled and shook his head, "These Dutch people can really think of it."

"Leave this to the Central Security Bureau. With the cooperation of the Dutch colonial authorities, there will be no problem." Hersman took the coffee cup from a female secretary of the Ministry of Defense. After taking a sip of coffee, he continued to talk to Kai Serling said, "However, our people must enter immediately to secure control of Dutch Guiana before the Americans do it. It is best to control both British and French Guiana at the same time."

"Okay," Kesselin nodded, "The General Staff will make a plan immediately... When will we enter South America?"

"Of course, the sooner the better!" Hessman said, "Because the period of opportunity left to us by history will not be too long. Once the Americans develop a wire-controlled gliding bomb, we will have no chance to get one in South America. Springboard. By the way, the codename of this plan is 'Springboard'."

"Then how about it be implemented before May 1942?" Kesselring thought for a moment and said, "Before we invade Ireland, and before the end of April we will have at least one Ju.288 equipped with the Hs239 glide bomb. The group can go into battle, and this group will pose a great threat to the U.S. Navy."

Ju.288 was a project that Kesselring was very optimistic about when he was the commander-in-chief of the Air Force. This aircraft was designed by Junkers and is considered a successor to the Ju.88.

This aircraft is equipped with a 24-cylinder Jumo222 turbocharged engine with a maximum output of 2,500 horsepower (Jumo222 also has a non-turbocharged version, so Ju.288 is also divided into high-altitude and medium-low altitude versions). The maximum level flight speed can reach 670 kilometers per hour, the ceiling can reach 12,500 meters, the bomb load is 3.6 tons, and the maximum range is 5,985 kilometers!

The anti-ship capability of Ju.288 is unprecedentedly strong. Not only can it dive and drop bombs like Ju.88, but it is also equipped with two epoch-making controllable glide bombs, Hs293 and Fritz X. In addition, the maximum range of 5,958 kilometers and the combat radius of more than 2,200 kilometers also make this aircraft Germany's killer in the Atlantic!

And the aircraft used to take over the Ju.88 class is not only high-end goods such as Ju.288. The more economical and practical Do.217 bomber developed by Dornier has now begun to be equipped in large quantities.

Although the maximum range of Do.217 is much smaller than that of Ju.288, only 2148 kilometers, and the maximum speed is only 557 kilometers per hour, which is not as good as Ju.288's 670 kilometers per hour. However, the bomb load of Do.217 can reach 4 tons, which is the largest among all known twin-engine bombers (excluding pseudo twin-engine He.177). And it also has relatively good dive performance, and can also carry Hs293 and Fritz X remote-controlled glide bombs.

In the plan of the German Air Force, the future twin-engine tactical bombers of the Air Force will form a high-low combination of Ju.288 and D0.217.

As for Germany's new generation of heavy bomber projects, it has also made significant progress. The Me.264 project jointly developed by Messerschmitt and Fokker and the Ju.390 project of Junkers are in the final competition.

At the same time, Fokker also took out the Fokker 108 (that is, P.108) as an emergency model for the German Air Force to replace the old Ju89 and Do.19 aircraft.

"By the way, has the eighth draft of the Sea Lion plan been drawn up?" After discussing the "springboard", Hessman turned the topic to the "Sea Lion".

The "Sea Lion Plan" is a combat plan to resolve the British mainland, but the main battlefield was chosen in Ireland. It was Hessman himself who proposed this plan, and it was implemented by Hessman's elder brother Marshal Schleicher.

However, the "Sea Lion Plan" is an extremely complex plan, including a deception plan before the launch of the campaign, a decisive battle plan at sea before the landing, a plan to land and airborne in Ireland, a plan to fight a decisive battle with the British army in Ireland, a plan to blockade the British mainland with Ireland as a base, and finally a plan to deal with the United States and the Soviet Union joining the war.

Of course, the plan to fight against the United States and the Soviet Union will not be included in the "Sea Lion Plan". As early as after the end of the Mediterranean Campaign in 1941, the General Staff of the Wehrmacht began to secretly formulate plans for operations against the United States and the Soviet Union. The former was code-named "Barrier Plan" and the latter was named "Blue Plan".

The core idea of ​​the "barrier plan" is to use the Atlantic Ocean as a barrier and Guyana as a bridgehead to block the influence of the United States outside Europe, while placing the battlefield of the confrontation between the United States and Germany in the Caribbean.

The core of the "blue plan" is to seize the Soviet Union's heavy industrial base Ukraine and the resource-producing area of ​​the Caucasus - the premise is of course that the Soviet Union will go to war with Germany first. Hersman's position of not wanting to go to war with the Soviet Union has not changed, because once the Soviet Union and Germany go to war, the United States may benefit, and Germany will be trapped in the dilemma of fighting on two fronts. However, from the current analysis of the US-Soviet and Soviet-German relations, the risk of a war between the Soviet Union and Germany is becoming greater and greater. Therefore, it is necessary to consider solving the "Soviet problem".

However, solving the American and Soviet problems must be placed after defeating Britain. The pace of aggression and expansion under Hersman's control is still steady and looks reassuring. This is also the reason why he can get the unanimous support of the Junker militarists.

"It's all done," Kesselring smiled. "It wasn't easy. We're already on the eighth draft... The whole plan is almost one million words long. We've made 18 landing plans alone, taking all kinds of possibilities into consideration. In fact, the difficulty of the entire Sea Lion plan lies in the landing. After all, we have never fought a major landing battle. If Paulus hadn't returned from Japan, we wouldn't have been able to make these 18 plans."