Chapter 624

There is a long defense line built by the British in Egypt, which starts from the northern coast of Africa in the north and extends to the vast desert in the south. The whole defense line has been carefully built, which can be called a relatively solid defense system.

Although the British Indian region is unable to produce heavy weapons and equipment urgently needed by the British army and the US Army, there is no problem in producing some low-tech items, such as cement for building fortifications, ammunition and guns. More recently, in the Middle East, there are also many industrial facilities in Britain and the United States, which can provide oil and some maintenance parts nearby. Because of the Ganges plain as the backing, there is no shortage of food and other materials, which is why the British and American forces have not collapsed up to now.

Because of its proximity to the Suez Canal and the port of Alexandria as an outpost, the courage of the Italian and French navies in Tobruk has gone to naught. They only promised Rommel that they could prevent the British fleet from shelling on the coastline, but they could not afford to go to the coastal waters of Egypt.

At least in the waters off Egypt, the German army has not fully controlled the air supremacy, and Rommel is not willing to waste his valuable air force on the sea. After all, he has more than 100 Stuka dive bombers and more than 100 do-217 medium range bombers to be covered.

Montgomery is looking at his own defense map in the dim light. He knows that the German Italian coalition forces opposite him are more and more powerful, so he seldom takes a rest now. When he has nothing to do, he stares at the map and thinks about how to reverse the current situation.

However, he is not Rommel after all. He really does not have the courage to start the counterattack at a disadvantage. He is not good at fighting at a disadvantage. When the troops are insufficient, he will only choose defense to consume the opponent's time. Compared with Rommel, he has less talent, which can only be made up by calmness and tact.

While Rommel was waiting for schelner, he checked his defensive positions over and over again, personally inspected the layout of each position, referred to the German Eastern Line's crenel defense line, and built the depth of support behind the side of the position, hoping to use this defense line to consume Rommel's superior forces.

Montgomery has a detailed information provided by the British intelligence agency in Italy, which shows that sherner himself and his most elite SS 12th armored division have reached the front line in Africa, and some infantry of the K group army have become a force Rommel can use in the foreseeable future, The attack of the African Legion is inevitable.

He anxiously dropped his pencil on the table, leaned back on the back of the chair, and sighed. The powerful British Empire has become history. Now India's colonial government is discussing matters related to independence. If it were not for the presence of general Mountbatten, things would have developed to an unexpected stage.

Most of the time, Americans help themselves to fight the war in Africa to protect their own oil interests in the Middle East. Once things can't be done, only they and Americans can know whether they want to get out or continue to stand with the British. Now, only the British can rely on them.

What do the British have for themselves? Some tank troops from India and the Middle East are the only ones that can win. These troops, together with Montgomery's own tanks, only have 680 at full cost. Moreover, these tanks are not the opponents of German tanks. They can only be regarded as armored forces.

Recently, the Americans have sent a batch of powerful weapons. First, about 240 M4 medium-sized tanks were sent to the Middle East to supply Barton. At the same time, in order to deal with German Leopard tanks, the United States also sent 70 newly produced "tank destroyers" to Egypt. And this kind of M10 tank destroyer is one of the few "high-grade goods" in the world that can deal with German Leopard tanks.

If you want to say that the Americans are really wonderful countries. They were not much more advanced than other countries in World War II. They are also wonderful in weapons development, which makes it difficult to connect with the world hegemony. For example, the so-called "tank destroyer" specially designed to deal with enemy tanks is a very strange non mainstream design.

Akkado is equipped with a lot of assault guns and upgraded tank destroyers in the German infantry. These equipment are classified as "self-propelled artillery" and are used by Armored Artillery in the infantry. There is only one characteristic of these weapons, that is, compared with the tanks of the same period, they all save materials.

German classic No.3 assault gun and No.4 assault gun (that is, assault gun with leopard chassis) have no turret design. Although these self-propelled guns have a little defect in turning firepower, they save a lot of production time and resources. It fully reflects the production requirements of akkado for assault guns!

The US is as like as two peas. They are designing a special tank destroyer against German Panther tanks. They even make a monster that is almost identical to that of a tank. It is reasonable to say that the chassis of the M4 tank has already been used, so it would be over to change a turret and add a powerful gun to become a new tank. However, the Americans are just clinging to it and make it a nondescript thing.

This new type of M10 tank destroyer uses the chassis of M4 tank, but inexplicably reduces the armor protection on the chassis. Then it used a turret, but it didn't install 4 tanks to get a better view. Then the open M4 tank had thinner armor and was equipped with a 75mm cannon with an extended barrel. This kind of cannon did not appear in another time and space familiar to akado, because in another time and space, the British 76mm long barrel cannon, which was used to strengthen the firepower of the M4 tank, was not mass-produced. This kind of gun can pierce German Leopard tanks at a distance of about 300 meters, but the soldiers of the US armored forces are not interested in this data. They do not believe that their M10 tank destroyer can close to this distance to fire. The M10 tank destroyer emphasizes speed, but it blindly reduces weight because of speed. In the end, the speed improvement brought by weight reduction is not much. This kind of M10 is only a little faster than its brother M4, but its protection is not as good as the crisp M4 tank called by soldiers. Moreover, the open top design of kengdai makes everyone not know what to say. What's more, American designers didn't install machine guns on this tank fighter! Yes, you're right. There's no machine gun! Not a single machine gun! Without the heading machine gun in front of the car body and the coaxial machine gun in front of the turret, this M10 tank destroyer has only one function to kill the opponent's tank. Unfortunately, a weapon may not be able to meet the enemy that it is best at dealing with on the battlefield. For example, a tank that is more advanced than all enemy tanks is likely to face the attack of a group of infantry, or the strongest tank will be destroyed by an attacker. The actual battlefield performance of the M10 tank, which can't deal with infantry and lacks defensive power, can only be described in two words. Fortunately, the United States is rich and powerful, and will not be on the verge of bankruptcy just because it adds turrets to cheap tank destroyers. This is one of the few good news. At least the U.S. tank destroyer has a turret, which is better than the shock gun drivers in akado's hands... Of course, if you are not afraid of being hit more easily because of the height. Therefore, every country and every nation has gone through detours and wrong paths. The difference is just how much this nation has paid for detours and wrong paths. China went the wrong way and spent 100 years being bullied. The Germans made mistakes in another time and space. As a result, East and West Germany split for decades. Americans have made mistakes, but they are covered up by their powerful face, that's all. From the M10 tank back to the current Egyptian border, Rommel is in his command car to invite general sherner who has just arrived in North Africa to dinner. The general, who had just arrived in North Africa, wore a pair of glasses and looked gentle. However, people who knew him knew him well that this gentle German general actually started his career by relying on the concentration camp on the eastern front and the division and management of Soviet prisoners of war. The general obviously didn't like the bad weather in North Africa, because it made his uniform covered with sand. And his car is getting old at the speed visible to the naked eye, catching up with the poor open top car Rommel has been fighting in the desert for more than half a year. In the desert environment, on the contrary, the bucket cars driven by the soldiers are more pleasing to the eye, because these cars are as dirty as ever, no matter in the east line or in the desert“ The weather here is really bad. There's too much sand. " Although sherner is a general in charge of the concentration camp, he really has the ability to organize a group army. After all, under his command, one million prisoners of war are arranged properly, and hundreds of thousands of German troops are a piece of cake. As he dug the meat out of the tin and stuffed it into his mouth, he gazed at the battle map and said to Rommel and general Garibaldi, who was sitting beside him: "but if the Fuehrer asked me to come here, there's nothing to complain about. When does the attack start? I need to have logistics supplies ready, and enough shells. "“ Well, let's use an attack as a ceremony to welcome general sherner. In the early morning of tomorrow, the front of the first Italian army will take the lead in launching an attack. " Rommel said to sherner with a smile: "your army will launch a left-wing attack in two days, involving the defense forces of the other side."