"It's starting to rain, General, the weather forecast is accurate." Guderian picked up the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee for Rundsted.

"Two pieces of sugar, thank you." Rundstead tilted his head and looked at the document in his hand.

"The High Command has long had a plan for this, but the problem is that the current situation is a little different from what we thought. We don't yet know how much of an impact this rain will have on our follow-up operations, but the question is already in front of us, and Keitel's idea seems a little hasty. What do you think, Bock. Rundstead handed the document back to Bock, then took the coffee from Guderian, and nodded slightly in thanks.

"The weather office told me with certainty that it would last for forty-eight hours, maybe longer, but definitely not more than seventy-two hours." Bock took the file and placed it in the file box on the table, and his lieutenant handed him another document.

"That's three days." Rundstead carefully held the coffee cup, took a sip, and then nodded his head, he felt that it tasted good.

"None of this is a problem, we were well prepared for this before landing, and now my biggest concern is that our intelligence gathering efforts are hindered by the weather. We can only use light reconnaissance aircraft for low-altitude reconnaissance, which is a big risk. Guderian put another cup of coffee in front of Bock, and he walked to the bed in his office with his own cup of coffee, and stretched out his hand to push open the blind.

"It's four o'clock in the afternoon, and according to the report of the meteorological office, the rain will increase in the evening, the wind will increase accordingly, and the wave height in the strait may reach more than two meters, which will be a severe test for our landing and transshipment work."

"So the High Command decided to close the Dill landing zone for these two days. All the landing forces were to go ashore from Dover and Folkestone. Bock read the document, then picked up a pen and signed his name on it.

"The vehicles that the paratroopers asked for were immediately deployed to them, and they also told him that the command had agreed to his request and that the 38th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion would cooperate with their actions." With that, Bock handed the document to the adjutant.

"Understood, sir."

"You can go down and deal with these things."

"Yes. Sir, in the resignation, General Guderian, General Rundstead. The young adjutant picked up the file box on the table, put the file in his hand into the box, and after nodding to the other two generals, turned around and exited the commander's office.

"The thirty-eighth armored reconnaissance battalion? Cyprus? Guderian raised an eyebrow on one side, he was interested in the sortie of the Führer's immediate legion.

Guderian was a little surprised that the High Command had put this elite force into battle so early, and he had thought that it would only send the Führer's descendants across the Strait after the war had become more stable. Quite a few people already saw this as an opportunity to please the Führer.

"Their desire to fight was so strong that Manstein could hardly hold the three-headed dog's chain, and I met with Müller once, and he said that the Führer had personally received him and Manstein, and said that he was looking forward to seeing the performance of his direct legion in the British battle." Rundstead put down the coffee cup, and he rubbed his fingers against the white rim.

As the Germans had predicted, the weather in the area around Dover began to deteriorate on the 22nd, and the morning was still sunny and clear. In the afternoon, it began to be cloudy and rained.

The impact of bad weather on the landing of troops was not very significant, at least for now, everything is still going according to plan. It is different from ordinary passenger transportation. Armies have a military-specific style, and unless they encounter catastrophic weather, ordinary bad weather does not hinder their operations. The soldiers still descended the ramps of the passenger ship in a neat line, each wearing the rubber ponchos that had been prepared long ago, and the rifles and equipment were properly protected.

The loading and unloading of vehicles and tanks also did not show much difficulty, although the wind and waves in the strait began to grow. However, Dover and Port Folkestone have very good breakwaters. These breakwaters were originally designed to protect against the wind and waves in the strait, and the solid embankments surround the wide berths, so that even when the waves are strong outside, the water in the harbor is still gentle.

The most difficult problem for the German Army now is the placement of personnel in the city. The barracks and fortifications of the fortress of Dover were badly damaged. Only a handful of these camps are still garrisoned. The problem was that Dover was not only the Germans, but also some of the citizens who remained in the city, as well as more than 20,000 British prisoners.

The capture of British troops was a very head-scratching problem, and the German High Command made a mistake in formulating its plans in this regard. The High Command anticipated a large number of prisoners and, as was customary in France, prepared a large number of barbed wire and prefabricated rebar bars for the landing force to build a fence and a makeshift prisoner of war camp.

But now the problem has arisen, still related to the weather, now more than 20,000 British prisoners are concentrated in a few original British barracks, because most of the barracks buildings were damaged in the shelling, so only barely ensure that some of the wounded can have a tile to cover the roof, most of them can only curl up and squat in the rain mud.

These soldiers had just gone through a fierce battle, and the Germans were so busy clearing the battlefield and receiving the landing force that they had no time to manage them, and a battalion of gendarmerie units took on the duty of guarding, and these temporary units were only responsible for preventing the prisoners of war from escaping, and ignored all the demands of the prisoners.

The German logistics units were already overloaded, they had to give priority to the needs of the German troops, the number of field kitchens simply did not cope with the current situation, and many German companies were allowed to eat emergency dry rations, not to mention the prisoners of war and citizens.

The exhausted British soldiers could only snuggle up to each other in their soaked uniforms and shiver in the rain. The German medical department reported to the Landing Force Command that if the situation did not improve in time, it would be difficult for the British soldiers to make it to the completion of the prisoner of war camp, and some of the wounded would probably not even survive the night.

The easiest way to do this is to let them into the houses in the city to take shelter from the rain, but this is easier said than done, because there are still a lot of weapons scattered around the city. Until the Germans had cleared these things, it was absolutely impossible to give the prisoners of war another chance to acquire weapons.

Eventually, Guderian came up with a solution by drawing six empty passenger and cargo vessels from the transport ships moored in the port of Dover, which were the backbone of the Dill landing fleet and had been specially modified to carry German infantry units. These ships are all coastal passenger liners of about 1,500 to 2,000 tons, with small tonnage but relatively complete facilities.

The British prisoners of war were driven aboard the ships by the Germans, and the British prisoners were quite cooperative in the transfer process, thinking that the Germans were going to transport them to France, and that they were already in ruins, and that no matter where the Germans transported them, as long as they were not allowed to continue in the rain.

What they did not expect was that the German sailors soon brought hot water and food, and some of the soldiers who were already showing signs of illness were also treated by the ship's doctors. Things are starting to get better. The British soldiers finally settled down, and Guderian was no longer condemned by his conscience.

Bock felt that Guderian was very clever in his handling of things, and he had a new understanding of the commander's resilience. He then sent a telegram to the high command, believing that the British prisoners of war should be transported back to France for detention, and that prisoner of war camps had been established in mainland France, and that these soldiers could be well managed, and that the fact that they were separated by a strait could be regarded as an effective way to prevent prisoners of war from escaping. After all, this is the territory of the British, and the British soldiers who are familiar with it only need to escape if they want to. They can always figure out a way, and instead of searching everywhere at that time, it is better to throw them directly across the sea and cut off their retreat.

Now the British in France are almost to the point where everyone shouts and beats them, and the British prisoners of war will not be able to run a few miles before they will be captured by the local French and handed over to the German army, and of course the contributors can get a considerable bounty for this, and the German army is unusually generous in this kind of thing. The French had come to see the hunt for the British as a legitimate opportunity to make extra money.

British civilians were a little more troublesome to resettle, and for the same reason they were forced to centralize by the Germans, who gave the citizens the reason for their personal safety, and now the wreckage of war was everywhere in and around the city. Many of them had not yet been activated, and they could only operate under German management until the Germans had cleared them of these dangerous things.

Guderian and Bock have different opinions about the civilians, Guderian thinks that it doesn't matter if these people are released, they don't even have basic food supplies, they can't leave the city at all, and Bock's opinion is to at least detain them until the new German offensive begins, these people have seen too many things before, and at the same time they have been deeply hurt by the German army, many of them have lost their property, careers, relatives, friends and families in the war, and many of them are full of resistance and hatred for the German army, There is no guarantee that they will act irrationally after their release, at least not to let these people out of the sight of the Germans until the Germans have taken full control of the area.

After all, the Germans opened an anti-aircraft tunnel in the fortress of Dover, and after clearing it, the Germans confirmed that there were no weapons or ammunition in the tunnel, and immediately gathered the surviving citizens in the tunnel, and the Germans provided fresh water and a batch of food and vegetables, and let the citizens choose their own personnel to manage their lives and food. The Germans were only responsible for monitoring the perimeter, and until the war changed, they could only operate within the limits permitted by the Germans, and the Germans said that during the period of centralized management, the Germans would supply the necessary food and medicine, and the Germans would not interfere in their lives, but any behavior that endangered the safety of the Germans would be punished.

The German High Command made very thorough preparations for the bad weather in these two days, and in addition to specially dispatching large ships that were not afraid of wind and waves, it also accelerated the laying of submarine pipelines. Fuel is now the most vital item, and with the increase in armored vehicles, the daily consumption will increase exponentially, and Deere's fuel will be supplied to the air force, and the current delivery capacity is no longer enough to meet the needs of all units.

The Dill landing area has now become a material reserve and logistics base, after a large amount of logistics supplies and weapons and ammunition were sent ashore, but for various reasons, when the Battle of Dover ended, it was found that the troops had consumed far less supplies than expected, and at least two-thirds of the reserves were stored in that place.

Now these materials have become the most critical guarantee in the follow-up operation. Reichenau was stationed in Dir with his troops, and he had now amassed an infantry division and an armored regiment, which were sufficient to defend the logistics base.

Because of its geographical advantages, Deere is still an excellent base for advancement, from it to the Thames estuary, along the way there are dense towns, most of which are prosperous trade and production bases, and the essence of the capital area of the British Empire is concentrated in this area.

The High Command has decided that when the weather improves, the Deere landing will be reactivated, and some troops will still land from here, which can relieve the pressure on Dover and Folkestone. But now that Deere has stopped all shipping work, and the landing fleet that has been wandering the open sea has turned to the port of Dover, those small cement landing craft are not very resistant to wind and waves, and it is necessary to find a safe harbor to shelter from the wind and rain.

The most affected by the climate were the air units of the German army, and the Luftwaffe stopped most of its combat flights over the Strait. The rain screen can cause some navigation problems, but the impact on flight safety is not very large, as long as you climb to the upper part of the clouds, where the wind and sun are still shining.

However, the clouds also obscured the view from the air, and the pilot could only observe the scene on the ground when he descended below the clouds. Not to mention that the work of piercing the clouds originally has a certain degree of danger, because it is summer, these heavy rain clouds often carry a large amount of charge, one is not careful will be hit by a terrible lightning strike, which is still more fatal to the aircraft at that time, although the metal fuselage is like a Tesla coil, the pilot himself will not be injured by lightning strikes, but lightning will burn the circuitry of the engine, causing the engine to stall, if it is some models without a self-sealing fuel tank, Lightning sparks are more likely to ignite gasoline vapors in the plane's fuel tanks, and the former may have a chance to make a forced landing, while the latter will directly explode in the air and destroy the plane.

In this environment, the Luftwaffe could only dispatch some light auxiliary aircraft to carry out basic reconnaissance missions, but because this climate also had an impact on the RAF, there was no need to worry about the landing area being attacked by the RAF.

At this time, the German radar unit had already built an air-early warning defense line in the Dover area, and from the seaside to the sky over London, no wind or grass could escape the eyes of the Luftwaffe radar crew. (To be continued......)