As Churchill ordered reinforcements to Plymouth, swarms of German bombers took off from various airfields in Amsterdam, Holland, like a plague of locusts descending on Norwich, raking through the coastal defenses repeatedly.
The first wave of bombers dropped thermobaric bombs. For this landing operation, the Germans emptied their stockpiles of thermobaric bombs. These bombs rained down on the British positions without restraint, creating mushroom-shaped clouds of explosions one after another, a spectacular sight.
By the time the second wave of bombers dropped their bombs, the sky was beginning to lighten, and countless German surface vessels appeared on the horizon. More accurately, they were part of the "European Joint Fleet," with Italy and Vichy France also participating in this landing.
After the third wave of bombers finished dropping conventional aerial bombs and returned, the beach obstacles were mostly gone, replaced by numerous craters of all sizes, which served as natural foxholes.
Countless landing crafts approached the beach, leading the charge were dozens of uniquely shaped, fully enclosed landing crafts. As these crafts neared the shore, countless tracer rounds formed a web of fire from the undestroyed pillboxes, with many bullets clanging off the crafts' hulls.
However, these British defenders couldn't have guessed that the "Fishing" landing crafts, as named by Wilhelm, were just bait. Their armor was a solid 150mm thick, with excellent sloped armor design, impervious not just to heavy machine guns and 20mm or 30mm autocannons but even to the German's own 88mm guns.
Each of these crafts only carried a few men tasked with reconnaissance of enemy fire positions.
Seeing the colorful tracer fire weaving across the ground, the leader of the Stuka squadron circling above gave a mocking smile. "Hunter Squadron, attention, the fox has shown its tail; the hunt begins!"
Accompanied by the piercing siren sounds, Stukas one by one dove down, accurately dropping their heavy bombs on the exposed pillboxes.
After destroying dozens of pillboxes until there was no more movement from the British lines, the "Fishing" landing crafts slowly withdrew into the sea, leisurely turning back towards their own fleet.
They were replaced by the second wave of landing crafts.
These crafts were more conventional, open-topped, with helmets visible inside from a distance.
Thud!
The flat hull of the landing craft hit the soft sand, and the iron ramp dropped, revealing the battle-ready German soldiers inside.
The British line again lit up with tracer fire, though less than before. Many machine gun bullets found their way into the open doors of the landing crafts, wreaking havoc among the German soldiers.
Yet, these German soldiers did not move, neither rushing out nor ducking for cover from the bullets.
They weren't even bleeding??
"Ha ha ha!"
A burst of hearty laughter came from the battleship's command tower on the distant sea. The commander of the Joint Fleet, using high-powered binoculars to observe the British positions, couldn't help but laugh. "These foolish Brits must be furious, right?" He hadn't expected so many intact pillboxes and firepower points to survive such intense bombing. If they had attempted a direct landing, who knows how many soldiers would have fallen to these defenses.
Now, thanks to the Crown Prince's little ploy, not a single German soldier was harmed, while the Brits lost dozens of pillboxes for nothing.
Indeed, the British were nearing boiling point. When they realized the German soldiers standing in the second wave of landing crafts were dummies, the carefully positioned defenses meant to devastate the German landing force were largely destroyed by the battleship's heavy guns.
As the British garrison commander cursed the Germans' cunning, the real German landing forces finally set foot on the beach.
They secured a foothold with only a hundred or so casualties and easily broke through the already devastated first line of British defense under the cover of various caliber naval guns, advancing towards the scarcely fortified second line.
Meanwhile, engineers, under sporadic enemy artillery fire, began constructing floating docks.
For beach landings, the usual strategy was to land near enemy ports to ensure timely reinforcement of troops and supplies, preventing the vanguard from being wiped out or driven back into the sea. However, the enemy would heavily guard these strategic points, making successful landings extremely costly even if achieved, with ports potentially sabotaged beforehand, rendering them useless. This was one reason Churchill sent troops to Plymouth. It was also why German high command in the original timeline couldn't believe the Allies would land in Normandy, thinking that even if the Allies' attack was strong, once their supplies ran out, they'd be pushed back into the sea by German reserve forces.
They feared diverting troops from other areas, leaving them vulnerable to a "second landing" aimed at capturing ports. For the German high command at the time, losing ordinary coastlines could be recovered, but vital coastal cities like ports could not be lost.
War is indeed a catalyst for technological development. Churchill would never have imagined that in the original WWII timeline, the Allies, in their desperate need to assault Normandy with its lack of significant ports, came up with the ingenious yet not technically challenging concept of "floating docks." Using a kind of makeshift pontoon bridge, they managed to establish a functional dock in Normandy, where there was no large port, to handle cargo!
The "floating docks" essentially solved the problem of choosing a landing site, providing substantial support for the landing forces' logistics. By the time the German high command in the original timeline realized that the Allied forces in Normandy weren't short of supplies, it was too late. Now, Churchill was experiencing the same technological disadvantage the Germans had faced, severely underestimating the resupply capabilities of the German landing forces!
In just a few hours, a simple floating dock could be constructed. By tonight, the Germans could land at least one armored regiment, and by tomorrow morning, even if the British mobilized all their armored units, it would be in vain.
Moreover, this time the Germans were landing in three places simultaneously, enough to keep the British stretched thin.