In the next few days, the SS "Thor's Hammer" Panzer Army and part of the Wehrmacht's 6th Army launched an actual combat exercise on the island of Madagascar, in order to successfully complete the South African campaign, Hoffmann prepared a total of more than 500,000 elite soldiers, not only the most capable troops of the SS (including Prince Eugen's division), but also the 6th Army was comprehensively reorganized, and a large number of 1944 infantry divisions, panzergrenadier divisions, and mountain divisions were supplemented according to the new requirements (the pure infantry army does not send armored divisions, but infantry divisions, the grenadier division was incorporated into the armored unit), and it was crushed with the attitude of "the lion fights the rabbit with all his strength". Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Thor's hammer has a total of more than 30 thousand, divided into two clusters on the left and right, led by Hausser and Dietrich; The 6th Army was nearly 200,000 troops, and on the surface the strength of the army was much lower than when Paulus was in charge, but its combat effectiveness was only strong but not weak. The new commander of the army group is General Winck, the youngest commander of the German army group at the age of 44, and Mandolfel, who is also not yet 50 years old, is regarded by Hoffmann as the most important rising star.

According to the preliminary assumptions, among the main officers of the Mesozoic Era, Sauken would henceforth remain in the American Republic to help Paulus command the ground forces; Mandolfer (47) returned to Western Europe to help Rommel take command of the allied German forces (Gauss had already booked the post of Chief of Staff of the Western European Command), while Wink would be trained in Africa or the Middle East. As for the core group of third-generation officers, that is something to consider in the future -- not only to consider the achievements but also to see whether they can conform to the trend of the new military revolution.

At present, the age structure of German generals is relatively reasonable and the new generation is constantly emerging (the new generation of the US army is not good, although there are more new generations in the Soviet army, but it is too fast), he needs to optimize a little. But in terms of political orientation, there is a lot to consider, and he has always been limited to the Juncker group.

The veteran Rundstead is the leader of the officer corps, he is very old, and he originally had the meaning of offering it on the Western Front, and it is not impossible to let him retire now, and in the future, the position of leader of the officer corps will be given to Manstein, and the Junkers themselves will recognize it, but Manstein's attitude towards the Führer does not dare to have the arrogance of Rundstedt; Qu Hillel was also a member of the officer corps, but his tenure as commander of Army Group North had always displeased Hoffman, and this time he was asked to retire and return to his home country for an honorary position, and everyone had nothing to say. And to an old qualified man like Blomburg, who was ostracized by the officer corps, Hoffman also left him with the role of Army General Counsel, which looked similar to Raeder's Navy General Counsel. But the former has an actual status, and the latter is really a false position.

In the crucial position of leading troops in the future, the Eastern Front put two defense masters, Modell and Reinhardt, which is a very reasonable match; The Western Front is ready to put Rommel, this is a figure of Pingfa Zhenying, no one dares to say anything; From now on, Schellner will be in charge, loyal and courageous. Paulus, who has always been a confidant, went to the Americas; Rouse, an Austrian compatriot of the Führer, went to Africa; Guderian is not Juncker, and he is arranged to be the commander of the rapid reaction force with the strongest mobility and actual combat ability...... It is equivalent to Hoffman who has quietly completed the preliminary adjustment and screening of high-level generals.

After the completion of the South African campaign, the size of the army will also be adjusted, and the overall proportion of the army will definitely decline, and the navy and air force will increase, but there will definitely be more reasons for explanation. Many of the troops participating in the South African campaign will remain in Africa as a military presence after the war, and the same will be true in the Americas...... According to Hoffmann's idea, in the future, Germany needs to retain at least about 3 million Wehrmacht, of which 1.5 million to 1.8 million will be included in the scope of the EU coalition forces, which will be supported by the European treasury (of course, Germany will also contribute part of the funds), 50-700,000 will be used to protect Germany's overseas interests, and the four major regions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will send troops to garrison; The remaining troops remained on home and served as an overall reserve.

In addition, Germany will retain about 300,000 SS troops, which is the party's army, and he thinks it is more reasonable to retain the standard equivalent to one-tenth of the Wehrmacht; Two-thirds were German soldiers, another third would recruit volunteers from all over Europe, and the SS would soon act as regulators of the strategic nuclear forces - all nuclear programs had so far been carried out under SS supervision.

At present, after a certain degree of demobilization, Germany still has a national defense force of nearly 8 million or so, and it is impossible to reduce it to 3 million at once, and the high command is ready to slowly complete this rhythm in 5-8 years; As for the future progress of science and technology and the entry into the stage of informationization and high-tech warfare, Hoffman believes that there is no need to keep even 3 million, and perhaps 2 million will be able to complete the task, but that will be at least 20 or even 30 years later, and there is no need to rush at all.

While the exercise was in full swing, the Tsukahara fleet was heading north along Central America, harassing all the way.

On the morning of the 21st, the fleet attacked the US military aviation base in Costa Rica;

In the afternoon of the same day, the fleet attacked Nicaragua;

On the 22nd, the fleet even sent some light and heavy cruisers to accompany the Nagato to shell Guatemala under the cover of fighters......

After the Pearl Harbor incident, all of these small Central American countries followed the United States in declaring war on Japan, and now they have all tasted the bitterness, and they have been harassed by the attack and have no place to complain.

On the evening of the 22nd, Horikichi received a message from the submarine force, informing him that a large fleet had left Pearl Harbor, and the number and model were unknown.

"Sir, it seems that the Americans finally can't hold back and chase the Tsunoda fleet......"

"If you don't come out, when Tsukahara comes back from Central America, the Americans won't have any chance." Horikichi looked at the charts and asked, "It will take about 3 days for our army to reach the designated position?" ”

"If there are no accidents, it will be 3 days."

"Where is Tsunoda now?"

"I haven't been in touch for 28 hours, and when I was last contacted, he reported that he was heading north."

"Then we have to hurry." Horikichi knew that Tsunoda must be planning something to adopt radio silence, and ordered to generate electricity again, "Tell Tsunoda to pay attention to safety, starting tomorrow, this fleet will also enter radio silence." ”

The Japanese submarine detected the TF50 fleet led by Halsey. In the early morning of the 21st, he boarded the Franklin and eagerly went out with all the capital ships (including the newly restored Wasp), and he and Ingram had two goals: on the one hand, to try to encircle the Tsunoda fleet, and on the other hand, to escort the West Coast convoy back to Hawaii as soon as possible.

However, when the Tsukahara fleet came to harass Central America and move north, Halsey was extremely depressed, believing that it was impossible to accomplish these two goals at the same time, for the simple reason that it was completely too late.

By the evening of the 22nd, the Tsukahara fleet was only about 4,000 kilometers away from the Pearl Harbor-West Coast route, and at best it would take six days, or even not six days, to enter the strike range of carrier-based aircraft from the fifth day, while the TF50 was nearly 3,000 kilometers away from the west coast, and it would take at least four days. Even if the deterrence of the Japanese fleet was not taken into account, the transport fleet was slightly risked to go 500 kilometers forward (within this distance, which could be effectively covered by land aviation), the time could only be compressed to 3 days.

These three days are only the time for TF50 to meet with the transport fleet, and if he turns back to Pearl Harbor immediately after receiving it, he will still need to travel more than 3,000 kilometers on the road to enter the Pearl Harbor air defense circle. Given the slow pace of the transport ship, it was at least another 5-day trip.

At full scale, it would have taken eight days for Halsey to go well, while it would have taken six days for the Japanese to arrive and sabotage the line. In order to take the fleet back to Hawaii unharmed, either the Japanese army slowed down, or the enemy did not find out at all, these two variables Ingram did not dare to gamble, so when he learned the news that the Japanese fleet had gone north, Ingram took a "turnaround" telegram, hoping that Halsey would return with the TF50, and this order immediately made Halsey depressed.

But Spruance's suggestion left Ingram's order unfulfilled, and the latter bluntly pointed out that the TF50 fleet must be released.

This was not Spruance's own impulse, but the conclusion reached by Washington's staff officers after a detailed exercise on the sand table: if the main Japanese fleet returned and blocked the route, considering that they had replenished enough fuel in Lima, even if they had three dozen Panama consumption, they could still support at sea for more than 45 days, which was enough time for the Tsunoda fleet to go to Lima to resupply and return.

In the course of the exercise, the staff officers came to a conclusion: The two fleets of the Japanese army could completely change the guard in turn and alternate supplies, so as to blockade the west coast to the death. TF50 doesn't go out now, and it won't even have a chance to go out in the future!

Based on the excellent style of the U.S. military in logistics and supply, they quickly made up for the Japanese army's alternate supply system: first the Tsukahara fleet blockaded, and Tsunoda went to replenish; After 45 days, the Tsukahara fleet did not have much fuel left, and at this time the Tsunoda fleet took over the blockade mission, and Tsukahara only had to inject the excess fuel into the Taiho and Shinano, and let these two warships temporarily join the Tsunoda force, so that the TF50 could be perfectly "suppressed" by the other troops, and then the other troops would go to Peru or the Galapagos Island to refuel.

Although the TF50 has 2 battleships, 2 fleet aircraft carriers and 12 escort aircraft carriers, if it does not rely on the cooperation of land aviation forces, it is still not the opponent of the Japanese army's "2+1" (2+1 battleships and 2+1 fleet aircraft carriers) from the perspective of wargames alone.

To make matters worse, Hawaii's strategic posture will become worse and worse, and the current consumption of fuel stocks has been greatly reduced after being tightly controlled, but even then the total number of stocks has been reduced to less than 450,000 tons. At this rate, all fuel will be exhausted by the end of March next year, and Hawaii will be finished first without a Japanese attack.

There is only one implicit subtext: TF50 is waiting for death if you don't go out to challenge, and going out to challenge the main force of the Japanese army is looking for death.

Waiting for death is not Halsey's style, so he goes out to find death......