Faced with General Collins' question, Ron replied: "General, in our attack, the cooperation between ground and air power is the most important. Especially close direct fire support like this. If you are not careful,

, accidental damage may occur. The different weapons used by our attack aircraft have different safe distances. The ground troops must understand the safe distances of these weapons. Moreover, due to the smoke on the ground and the enemy's camouflage

interference, we have a hard time in the air

See the target clearly. Therefore, we need ground troops to use obvious methods, such as brightly colored lights or smoke, to indicate the target for us. Our wing will send ground liaison commanders to your front-line assault troops. They will be responsible for communicating with the attack

direct contact with the aircraft and indicate the target for the attack aircraft. In order to avoid accidental damage, the attack aircraft will only attack after receiving instructions from the ground contact commander. We hope that this method can more effectively improve the attack probability.

efficiency."

"That's a good idea," General Collins said. "We'll protect these liaison personnel. But their actions must also be subject to the command of the ground troops. You know, you ask them to go to the front line, and the Germans there can

Not vegetarian. Also, how many trained ground liaison officers do you have now?"

"We now have 24 trained liaison personnel. Two of them form a team, one is responsible for indicating the target, and the other is responsible for air contact." Ron replied.

"When will they be able to come to us, Ron, you should bring them here directly. This way we will have more time to get used to them."

"General, I have brought them here, including their equipment. It was in a truck just now."

"Very well, Pasha, go and make arrangements and assign them by group to the company that will be responsible for the attack tomorrow."

…

All night long, the navy's artillery fired at the fortifications outside Cherbourg. However, their firepower was not intensive, and it seemed that they were just interfering with the opponent. It was not until about 4 o'clock in the morning that the navy stopped such low-intensity, long-term attacks.

The duration of the shelling. With the duration of the shelling

Stop, the world immediately became quiet. It was as if everything had fallen asleep at this moment. No matter it was the birds or the grass insects, they were silent. Only on the beach in the distance, the gentle caress of the waves continued to be heard.

The gentle swishing sound from the black basalt cliffs.

However, everyone knows that this is only the temporary tranquility before the war. As the sun rises, the artillery fire from both sides of the United States and Germany will once again tear this tranquility into pieces.

The sun rises early in June. At a little after 4:30, the sun rises from the east, spreading its reddish light all over the earth. At this time, there is still a thick layer of blue-white sea fog on the ground.

If you stand on a nearby hill, you will see the bluish-white mist under your feet. As the sun rises higher and higher, the color begins to change, from bluish-white to crimson, and then to a sheet of mist again.

It's red, like clouds falling on the ground.

At half past eight, the fog began to gradually dissipate, and the blue sky was revealed. At this time, the heavy engine sound of the heavy bomber came from the blue sky.

Those were exactly 500 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the Eighth Air Force. They lined up in a strict formation and flew towards Cherbourg. In previous battles, many of Cherbourg's large-caliber anti-aircraft guns were destroyed.

The air strike destroyed it. So now, Cherbourg's anti-air firepower has become very sparse, and the threat to the bomber group is also smaller, so these bombers now dare to drop bombs in dense formations at an altitude of about 2,500 meters.

Countless bombs were dropped from the bombers in clusters. Immediately, the ground shook. Even in the trenches about three or four kilometers away from the bombing area, Ron could feel the shaking of the ground.

General Collins, who had his eyes close to the high-powered binoculars mounted on a tripod, also moved his eyes away from the telescope. He smiled and said: "The vibration was too great, and I couldn't see anything in the telescope."

When the magnification of the telescope is high, any slight vibration will cause the scene in the field of view to jump violently, making observation difficult. Generally speaking, any telescope with a magnification exceeding 10 times will be difficult to hold by hand.

And the magnification is more than 15 times

A telescope must be equipped with a tripod. Therefore, the magnification of the telescopes generally carried by officers is only 7-8 times. For example, a friend once gave Ron a Zeiss military captured from the Germans.

The telescope has a magnification of only 8 times.

After dropping their bombs, the bombers began to climb slowly and go away. When the bombers gradually disappeared, the navy's naval guns, which had been silent for several hours, roared again. This time, the navy's bombardment was the same as last night's bombardment.

That kind of harassing shelling is completely different. Last night, the navy only used two destroyers, using their 127mm guns to attack Cherbourg Port at a low rate of fire.

Only some shells were fired intermittently in the fortification area outside. At this time, the entire fleet, 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, and 11 destroyers were all mobilized. They formed a formation outside the port of Cherbourg.

Preparations were made for the artillery attack. The fleet's own calibration aircraft had already completed takeoff and was now hovering over the target area, outside the killing range of the German anti-aircraft firepower.

Each warship fired one or two shells at its target. This was a test firing to determine the impact point of the projectile. The calibration aircraft would observe their impact point and then report the news to the fleet. Three minutes later, the fleet based on

The information given by the school-firing plane fired another round of shells. Then they stopped again and waited for news about the school-firing plane.

Perhaps their shooting was quite accurate this time, so after two minutes, these large and small naval guns began to fire effectively.

The firing of naval guns is really a shocking thing, especially those tall battleships. Every time their 16-inch cannons fire, they can hit the Germans with a one-ton shell.

On the position, almost every artillery shell landed would cause the ground to shake violently.

However, the shooting frequency of battleships is not high. The barrel life of battleship guns is very short. Even if high-explosive shells with lower chamber pressure and less ablation of barrels are used compared to armor-piercing projectiles, its lifespan is

It only costs a few hundred rounds. And the cost of this barrel is very expensive. Therefore, when using it, you must consider the issue of saving.

In addition, this is not a duel between battleships. They need to use the maximum speed to launch more shells to overwhelm the opponent. Of course, they can slow down the shooting speed and wait quietly for each round of shells fired.

The shooting aircraft sends back new data and then corrects the shooting. Moreover, such a low rate of fire can also reduce the loss of the gun barrel.

However, the 152 mm caliber secondary guns on the battleships and the 203 mm caliber or 152 mm caliber main guns on the cruisers do not have this concern. So they are all spitting flames at the maximum rate of fire. Especially those 152 mm caliber

mm, they even gained the reputation of 6-inch machine guns because of their extremely high rate of fire.

Of course, the power of the 127mm guns on the destroyers cannot be compared with the 16-inch, 8-inch or 6-inch guns on the battleships and cruisers, but the 127mm guns have a higher rate of fire, and when fired with full firepower, the effect is also

Very good.

After 10 minutes of rapid fire, the fleet's artillery slowed down its firing rate. The burst rate of fire of the naval gun was much faster than that of the army's artillery of the same caliber. However, affected by the same barrel conditions, their final sustained rate of fire

It's not much faster than the artillery of the Army.

However, the decrease in the rate of fire of naval guns does not mean the decrease in the density of U.S. artillery fire. Because the artillery of the Seventh Army also joined this organ concert. The 203 mm, 155 mm, 105 mm, and even

The 76mm cannons were spitting flames towards the enemy's positions.

"Under such a bombardment, are there any living people on the other side?" Ron couldn't help but say this as he looked at the other side.

"Definitely! And there are quite a few!" General Collins said. "When I was in the Pacific, I would think the same thing as you when I saw naval guns firing fiercely at enemy positions. But once you start landing, those

The damn guys will come out of the hole and shoot at you like a bunch of unkillable rats."

"Well," Ron nodded and said, "Actually, I also know this, because I was shelled by Japanese battleships on Guadalcanal. Shelling alone cannot solve the problem. But even though I know this

, but seeing such firepower, I can’t help but wonder if there are any living people over there.”

"We'll see it soon. Look, the naval bombardment is over. Now it's our turn to attack!"

At this time, the naval bombardment had indeed gradually stopped. Except for the battleship's 406mm cannon, which was still firing at the German core position one after another, the other artillery had stopped firing.

When the navy is shooting on the other side, due to communication problems, it is difficult to keep the impact point of the shells in front of the charging soldiers like the army's own artillery. 10

About 0 meters, so when the army is preparing to launch an attack, the navy's artillery fire must stop to avoid accidentally injuring the army's comrades. As for the battleship's 406mm cannon, because the target they are currently hitting is far away from the army's current

The location to be impacted is still far away, so you can continue to fire. Once the Army soldiers approach this area, they will stop immediately.

"Look! Our attack has begun." General Collins stretched out his right hand and pointed forward.

Led by nearly a hundred M-4 tanks, soldiers of the US Army's Seventh Army were attacking Cherbourg from several directions. Through the captured German Zeiss 8x telescope, Ron saw

Behind an M-4 tank, a soldier holding a Springfield rifle loaded with grenades and another soldier carrying a heavy radio and holding an M1 carbine were following the tank.
Chapter completed!