Back to 1939 Sea Wolf

  Rommel led his 7th Panzer Division and the SS Division 'Totenkopf', temporarily attached to him, towards Dunkirk. The two divisions had been ordered to halt after the Battle of Arras and were replenished with ammunition and some new weapons.

  Originally, the Waffen-SS was an independent armed force within the German army, under the command of the SS High Command. The Army had no authority to command them, but in the Battle of Arras, the Waffen-SS did not perform well, so the SS High Command required them to gain more combat experience. The fastest way to do this was to put them with veteran troops. Additionally, Rommel had previously been a commander of Hitler's bodyguard unit and performed well in the Battle of Arras, so the SS High Command temporarily assigned the "Totenkopf" Division to Rommel's command, hoping he could bring out the best in these inexperienced soldiers. The current commander of the Waffen-SS "Totenkopf" Division was Theodor Eicke.

  Theodor Eicke, commander of the SS 'Totenkopf' division, was discussing the performance of the SS 'Totenkopf' division in Aras with Rommel. Theodor Eicke frowned and said: "These soldiers are not strong in their usual training intensity. They also rarely experience the real simulated combat training of the army, and most of the time they are more like a performing team. Walking on the street is quite majestic, but many of their usual trainings are formations, marches, and there are really not many about combat. But what I admire is that this unit has a very strong fighting spirit. This time they did not collapse in front of the British tank impact, and it has a lot to do with their tenacious fighting spirit. (This is natural, in general, the SS troops on the Eastern Front do not talk about tactics, but rely solely on the tenacity of combat spirit. Therefore, their achievements are more brilliant than those of the army, but at the same time, the loss of the unit is quite astonishing.)

  Two divisions marched in mixed formations. The soldiers of the SS "Skull" division and the 7th Armored Division were to get to know each other, so that they could learn from each other's experiences. The two divisions formed three columns for the march. They had already phased out their own anti-tank gun battalions' 37mm anti-tank guns for use by infantry units. The anti-tank gun battalions themselves used new 50mm anti-tank guns, but in small numbers. In the air defense groups, the 88mm high-altitude guns were equipped with newly produced anti-tank shells using the explosive forming technology first used by Zhou Tianlei, but due to production process problems, the production volume was very small. The army mainly wanted to test the technical advancement of this new type of ammunition through the trial use of the 7th Armored Division and the SS "Skull" division. (Zhou Tianlei had inspected the damage effects on the British warships "Warrior" and "Furious" captured during the Norwegian campaign, when they saw a large crack in the thick armor belt of the "Warrior", which was strangely bent inward, and then measured the thickness of the armor with a ruler. The German inspection team turned pale, thinking: "If our tanks and armored vehicles were attacked by such shells, the tank's armor would not be as thick as that of the warship...". But then they felt happy, after all, this ammunition had appeared in Germany. If the 37mm anti-tank guns were equipped with this type of ammunition, they would not have to worry about the possible appearance of heavy tanks from enemy countries. However, they did not know why this ammunition technology was only successfully developed on the 88mm gun, while smaller caliber guns could not achieve the best results. As a result, they had to give up using this ammunition on small-caliber guns and instead produce it on the 88mm gun. But the qualified rate was also relatively low. Although the effect in the shooting range experiment was very good, the Germans, based on their usual technical stability, only produced a small batch of shells. They did not mass-produce them for equipping troops, because according to intelligence, the number of tanks that could resist German shells was still small and had been quickly eliminated. Moreover, this explosive forming ammunition technology, although supported by Zhou Tianlei's technology, had a relatively low yield rate based on the production conditions and processes at that time. It was not until later that Germany mastered the hollow charge technology in late 1941, which developed into the famous "Iron Fist" 60 anti-tank rocket. At this time, it was difficult to produce the explosive forming ammunition technology, which was more advanced than the hollow charge.)

  Rommel said: "There is not much time to train your soldiers now, only mix your troops into my troops. Learn combat experience in the war. In addition, the command center has given us an order to reach the outer defense line of the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group south of Dunkirk, attack their defensive positions and put pressure on them. Squeeze their position. What does this mean? Why not let the armored forces play their high speed, cut through the enemy's defense line, and surround them?"

  The commander of the 'Skull' division of the SS Panzer Army, Theodor Eicke, said: "Look at the deployment of the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group. They are densely deployed in the marshy areas, with forests scattered all over. Can your armored forces move quickly in such terrain? Moreover, here, due to the shortened defense lines of the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group, they can deploy heavy troops on the defensive line to intercept our rapid units' pincer movements. Therefore, it is impossible for your armored forces to advance at high speed like before. Once you are trapped by the terrain, the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group will cut off the connections between your various units, divide them into pieces, and annihilate them one by one. As for infantry, due to their slow movement speed, they cannot keep up with your pace. Moreover, when the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group encircle us, they will definitely organize troops to block our infantry's approach. You know that in this terrain, the defender always has many advantages. Therefore, the task of our armored forces is to closely coordinate with infantry, step-tank coordination, squeeze the outer positions of the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army Group. If there are pincer movements, they can only be small-scale, shallow, and limited to cutting off their front-line positions. And if nothing big changes later on, such shallow and close-range pincer movements will become less and less likely. Because their defense can be deployed more tightly, we fear it will be difficult to find opportunities. Let's go to your command center, where we will carefully study our deployment after arriving at the destination."

  At the same time, German air force fighter and dive bomber units were also taking off from airports in Germany near the French border. They were ordered to relocate to airports in Belgium and northern France that had been occupied by the German army for frontline deployment. On the ground, a large number of German ground support troops were also advancing along the roads opened up by the German army's advance towards those airports. Before this, a considerable number of ground personnel had already gone ahead to carry out preparatory work at those airports in preparation for the arrival of the main force.

  The flying units were the main force of the Second Air Fleet led by Kesselring. (Among them were later famous German air aces Werner M?lders, Adolf Galland, Hermann Graf, and Helmut Lent.) Their mission was to gain air superiority over the Dunkirk area in addition to bombing Allied ground forces. Therefore, the main force of the Second Air Fleet called up was basically composed of fighter units. In order to maintain secrecy during the transfer, they adopted radio silence and low-altitude formation flight. To avoid the naval air search radar mentioned in the plan (so it seemed to the air force). However, this detail had already been arranged in the plan. So although they were very casual about it, the strict discipline of the Germans still required them to follow the plan.

  After the flight squadron landed at the airport, the ground crew who had arrived early drove a tractor to respond to the flight squadron one by one and inspected the aircraft. They checked their hydraulic system, flight control system, weapon system, and landing gear. And the pilots, despite the fatigue of long-distance flying, came to the pilot's waiting room according to the team's formation, listening to their squadron leader arrange combat tasks for them.

  Ritter von Leeb and Kesselring walked together. They looked at the British aircraft intelligence sent by the Air Force Command in the command center of the airport, Ritter von Leeb said to Kesselring: "This plane looks like a hurricane, but the intelligence says it's a challenger." Kesselring replied: "The intelligence describes this British plane as such, it really looks like a hurricane from the tail, but not from the side, and most importantly, this plane has four 12.7mm machine guns mounted on its back, with the muzzle fixed to fire backwards. Those damned British designers, this plane doesn't have any forward-firing weapons. You know our fighter tactics are to find ways to attack the enemy plane's rear hemisphere, but these British people have come up with a design that when we bite its tail, it will aim at us with machine guns, and this plane is hard to distinguish from a hurricane from the tail. When we take it for a hurricane, we will be shot down by it. I suspect this is a plane designed by the British for the upcoming air battle. Those damned British people, fortunately, we now know that the British have such a despicable plane, after the air battle begins, our brave boys will make those damned British pilots regret being born."

  Riedel said: "I'm not surprised at the aircraft, I am surprised that our intelligence services didn't know about these British planes. The Navy should be more familiar with British ships."

  Kaiser shook his head and smiled bitterly: "I asked the naval officers, they just said that they wanted to equip aircraft carriers, so they studied fighter planes and bombers of various hypothetical countries. But as far as I know, their Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier doesn't even have funding now, what makes them think they can establish an independent naval air force? Besides, isn't the sky already ours? What do they need an independent air force for?"

  Rid said: "This naval independent air force should still be necessary, their ships if deep into the ocean, and our air force aircraft range is limited, definitely can not provide air support for them, if they have aircraft carriers and their own independent air force, it's like moving the airport to the ocean, can follow their fleet movement, so I think what they said is still reasonable."

  "Never mind his naval problems for the moment, time is getting short and we must hurry with our preparations. The British Air Force will certainly do its utmost to save their comrades at Dunkirk. Let's go give a pep talk to our boys!"