In this air battle, which lasted for a whole day, the air forces of both sides fought for almost the whole day, and the magnitude of the war also shocked the commanders of both sides, and the Germans lost at least 150 or so aircraft of all kinds in one day of engagement, and countless supplies and equipment of all kinds. Similarly, Naples, which was under the control of the Allies, suffered heavy losses, and many officers and soldiers who were waiting to be returned home by ship did not return to their hometowns. Because of the continuous high-intensity sorties, the 12 aircraft carriers and 6 aviation cruisers in the five-nation combined fleet could only use less than 800 aircraft on the battlefield that day, and most of the aircraft needed to be overhauled and maintained. The combat power is less than half of what it was at the beginning! The two sides fought back and forth in this battle, and from the point of view of command, there were bright spots, but from the perspective of battle damage, the Germans still suffered greater, not only the loss of aircraft, but also the loss of personnel, which made the Luftwaffe feel more painful.

As soon as the battle was over, Kesselring, the general director of the Luftwaffe theater, received a telegram from Berlin, asking him to hand over command to his deputy, General Erhardmichil, while he himself was to take the relevant personnel to Berlin for questioning. The German top brass could not accept that the other side could launch such a powerful attack on an important target when it had the upper hand, and Richthofen also wanted to know why the air alert force equipped with radar was useless in this operation.

"From a tactical point of view, I don't think there's a problem with my command. My radar anti-aircraft cordon was effective before today, and on several occasions guided fighters to attack sporadic attack aircraft units of the Entente, and achieved good results, but. Just today, our radar alert network was completely out of order overnight. The other side used an electronic jamming device and this white note to jam our radar. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? A simple chaff can disable the radar we have worked so hard to develop. But this is the case, and the other side's attainments in electronic warfare make me feel terrible! Our radar was put into the war for the first time. But within a week, the other party found a way to counteract. I really didn't know what to do in the face of this situation, and I thought that the technical problems were bigger than the problems of my command. In his opening remarks, Kesselring highlighted the failure of the radar warning network as the first problem in the campaign.

"Secondly, I would like to make it clear that nearly a hundred British bombers departed from Corsica, and they had the ability to sail at night, and by daybreak they had already flown over our heads. And before that, the fighters cruising in the air had already been used to block the enemy attack groups in the south, the new wave of planes had not yet taken off, and they could not stop the bombing of the other side at all, and the British bombers were as strong as ours and had similar firepower for self-defense, the battle of Florence proved a truth, it was too difficult for ordinary fighters without firepower and defense reinforcement to take down heavy bombers. I'm not trying to shirk my responsibilities anymore, and I'm sure that all of you here wouldn't have done better if you had been in a different position from me. Our defenses were already saturated at that time. There's no way around it. Kesselring added.

"But after all, the Luftwaffe had the upper hand on the Italian peninsula, and you could have organized a massive attack by constantly attritioning your opponent, but you didn't. You tend to be conservative in your actions, but you keep limiting your opponents with small safaris. And no large-scale campaign was launched. Does this mislead you in your reliction of duty? A lieutenant general asked after whispering to the man next to him. In addition, according to combat records, during this time. The Imperial Air Forces, located in North Africa and Tunisia, launched an attack on Sicily, with certain successes. Then I wonder if that's true. So where did the twin-engine bombers involved in this bombing get supplies and airfields? ”…

"Without adequate preparations, we will not be able to knock on the air defense of Naples, the biggest feature of air combat is that it is very mobile, and the simple numerical superiority is very likely to be offset by the intelligence superiority of the other side, if a large-scale aircraft group is used, it will be detected by the opponent's radar at a distance of tens of kilometers or even nearly 100 kilometers, and the opponent can completely avoid or retreat to the defense area of the antiaircraft artillery. Our fighters refused to brave anti-aircraft artillery fire to pursue their opponents. Moreover, the main air forces of the opposing side are taken off from aircraft carriers, and we simply do not have the ability to launch an offensive against such a large fleet. And aircraft carriers are mobile, here today, maybe tomorrow the opposing side will release aircraft from hundreds of kilometers away, and the opposing side has an advantage in maneuverability. Kesselring paused and continued.

"I have always had reservations about the effectiveness of the North African air forces attacking Sicily, which is the base camp of the Italian Navy's land-based aviation, and although the aircraft are depleted in the continuous air battles, some hidden airfields and material reserves are enough for the British. And I need to make it clear that if the RAF strategic bomber force from Corsica were sent out in this attack, the number of land-based bombers on the other side would not be large. Such a large island can always support the operation of this bomber force.

After some inquiry, the German General Staff also concluded that Kesselring should not bear the main responsibility for the losses in this battle, especially because of his quick decision, the bomber force from the Balkans successfully raided Naples and the surrounding ports. inflicted a lot of damage on the other side, which can be regarded as a victory. So in the end, Kesselring was not punished. However, Kesselring did not return to the Balkan front, but remained in Berlin, because Richthofen believed that it would be more useful for his right-hand man, who had been fighting the Allied air forces until now, to stay in Berlin than to remain on the front.

"The war is coming to an end. If nothing else, the Kaiser would accept the advice of the General Staff and reach some tacit agreement with the Entente to settle the Italian question in a peaceful way. In Richthofen's office, Kesselring heard the shocking news.

"The Kaiser is afraid!" After hearing the news, such a thought popped into Kesselring's mind. "Does His Majesty the Emperor think that the cost of this war is a little too great? What's our bottom line? It can't be half Italy, right? Kesselring asked.

"Sometimes it is a very difficult thing to face up to the gap, but it must be admitted that the gap between us and the British in some key areas is still very huge, and we have invested far more troops in this war than our opponents, although there is a disadvantage of fighting away, but the war is really a little unreasonable, not only the air force, but also the navy and the army can not run. Not to mention the Navy, Marshal Hippel bluntly refused to attack, and the Army? In that armored assault in northern Italy, the Army was no less shocked than we had just been defeated. Richthofen said after taking a sip of his coffee. I said that this battle, we lost, you will not have an opinion, right? "I didn't make any mistakes tactically, but there was a big gap between me and the other side in terms of technology." Kesselring replied stubbornly.

"Well, whatever you want, now there is a consensus between the General Staff and the top that if the gap between us and the Entente is maintained, then we will be the ones who will lose the next war! Even without Huaxia, it would be difficult for us to win. You know? We are now at an inflection point in technology, where the familiar set has gradually lost its dominance, and something new will eventually dominate the battlefield. Compared with the other side, our army still has an advantage. But we can't win our opponents by relying on the army alone! The British have already taught us in this battle that the Royal Air Force has the same striking capabilities as the Imperial Air Force, and that in the event of a war, RAF bombs will definitely fall on Germany, and even on our heads. We've learned a lot from this war, and there's no need to dwell on it anymore. Richthofen said. …

"One thing you can rest assured of is that we will get all of Italy, and the Allies have no intention of helping Tycho hold some of italian. On the whole we won, although we inherited a dilapidated Italy, and the Mediterranean was ours. Then there is the Middle East, and finally India. Richthofen smiled. A smile appeared on his tired face.

"And France, France can't stay! Even if you pay the price of fighting again, you have to solve it. Richthofen was surprised by the sudden words of Kesselring, not that Germany did not want to fight France, but that the cost was too great and the possibility of defeat was also great. Germany failed to defeat Paris during World War I, and this time, the situation in Germany is still not optimistic. Not to mention the fact that the planned breakthrough direction is the Middle East, and not Europe. Although France was the weakest of the Entente, it was really difficult for Germany to eat it from land with the help of Britain and the United States!

"This is not a problem that we need to discuss now, there is time after the war, you don't need to say more about the importance of France, the key is the question of how to fight, if you are interested, then you can talk about your views at the meeting of the General Staff at that time." Richthofen put an end to the entanglement between the two sides on this issue.

In the days that followed, the battle between the two sides could be described as a grinding machine, the Germans were powerless to attack, and the Allies did not take any decent military action. The only ones that could be called efficient were the retreats in Naples and Sicily. Transport ships loaded with supplies and veterans from the aftermath of the war returned to their homeland, and the German Army halted its offensive. The two sides reached a kind of tacit understanding.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 for the reward~~~, and the book friend Dongguan bald king's monthly ticket support ~~~~. (To be continued......)