Chapter 140 Blitzkrieg (Five Updates, Please Subscribe)

After the battle, General Strike commanded the troops to make a fake move... He asked the troops to turn around and move toward Cairo again.

General Strike's approach is of course right, because this feint does not take much time and does not consume much fuel (the Germans captured the fuel of the 7th Armored Division during the battle, so they can afford it), that is to say The German army does not need much cost, but it can confuse the British army.

As for how the news would reach the British command headquarters, the Germans were not worried... The British 7th Armored Division had slipped through the net, and they would definitely report the relevant situation to their superiors.

Sure enough, after Major General Burton ran wildly for a while with the remaining defeated soldiers, he found that the German army was not following, so he slowed down.

After asking the scouts to look back, Major General Burton sent a frustrated telegram to General Auchinleck.

"General!" Major General Burton said: "The 7th Armored Division is finished!"

"What?" General Auchinleck, who was busy dispatching troops to Cairo, couldn't help but be stunned when he saw the telegram, and then asked: "What does it mean it's over?"

"The Germans turned around and launched a sudden attack on us..." Major General Bolton replied: "We suffered heavy losses!"

"How heavy is the loss?" General Auchinleck asked.

"We only have thirty-five tanks left and have lost more than five thousand people and most of our artillery..."

The artillery was originally towed behind the car and driven with the car, but the British soldiers hurriedly unhooked the artillery to prepare for defense, and had no time to hang them back when they escaped, so they all fell into the hands of the Germans.

"How did you do it?" General Auchinleck could no longer maintain his gentlemanly demeanor. He wrote unceremoniously in the telegram: "I assigned the best equipment in the entire army to the 7th Armored Corps. Master, but you can't resist a German charge! God, before this I still hoped that you could annihilate the Germans. How ridiculous of me!"

Major General Bolton was speechless.

Although Major General Bolton knew in his heart that the failure of this battle was not his fault alone...in fact, he was executing the orders of General Auchinleck, and in the eyes of General Auchinleck, the combat effectiveness seemed to be only the performance of tanks. , but without the training and coordination of soldiers.

But Major General Bolton can't explain anything, because any explanation now is pale and will be regarded as an excuse... If you lose, you lose. This is the reality that soldiers must face.

After a while, General Auchinleck asked again: "How many casualties did the Germans have?"

Burton answered truthfully: "They had almost no casualties. We were caught off guard!"

Auchinleck didn't seem surprised by this answer.

"Where are they now?" Auchinleck asked again.

"They should be heading towards Cairo again!" Major General Bolton replied.

After this battle, Major General Burton vaguely felt that the 7th Armored Division was the real target of the Germans, but he was not sure.

"Okay!" General Auchinleck ordered: "You stay where you are, and the Australian 6th Infantry Division will arrive to join you in seven hours, and then we will advance towards Cairo together!"

"Yes!" Although Major General Burton was very reluctant to do this, because it would make the officers and soldiers of the 7th Armored Division always bear the disdainful looks and ridicule of the Australian 6th Infantry Division, he still had to obey General Auchinleck. Order.

What Major General Burton didn't know was that his worries were simply unnecessary, because the Australian Infantry Division was attacked by the Germans before it could join forces with Burton.

The one who attacked them was of course the 21st Armored Division. While Major General Burton's remaining troops were building defenses, the 21st Armored Division had already bypassed Major General Burton's position from both sides and headed straight for the Australian Infantry Division.

It is not easy to find the Australian Infantry Division. Due to the wind and sand, the visibility is only a few hundred meters. The two troops may pass each other not far away without knowing it.

But this problem was solved after the German scouts discovered the location of the remnants of the 7th Armored Division... General Strike guessed that the remnants of the 7th Armored Division were waiting for the Australian Infantry Division, so he sent a large number of remnants in the opposite direction starting from the remnants of the 7th Armored Division. Scouts scout and leave scouting points along the way.

This is the strength of the German army. The most important basis of the "Blitzkrieg" is reconnaissance, using aircraft reconnaissance and infantry reconnaissance. After obtaining accurate information about the enemy, tanks are used to quickly attack the enemy's weaknesses.

From this aspect, what the 21st Armored Division fought this time was actually a "blitzkrieg".

Then, the scouts quickly guided the 21st Armored Division into the correct ambush position. When the Australian 6th Infantry Division was marching forward with difficulty against the wind, sand and heat wave, suddenly there was a roar of engines in front, and then Rows of tanks appeared in front of them like soldiers and generals from heaven.

Needless to say what happened next, although the Australian 6th Infantry Division was more powerful than the British army, they were still an infantry division, and they were caught off guard by the German army, so they quickly retreated under the German offensive.

But it should be said that the Australian Infantry Division performed much better than the 7th Armored Division. When they realized that they were being ambushed, they immediately deployed their troops to form a large defense line, and then retreated while laying mines. Counterattack with anti-tank guns.

This cost the Germans twenty tanks, but the results were far inferior to the battle with the 7th Armored Division.

This is the importance of quality and morale.

Qin Chuan believed that if the same equipment was given to the Australian Infantry Division instead of the British old soldiers, the combat effectiveness of the British Eighth Army would be greatly improved.

But the British obviously would not do this, even if they knew this...

Because doing so would damage the dignity of the British. The British are superior people, how could their equipment be worse than that of the colonial army. On the other hand, it is a trust issue. If the colonial army is better equipped than the British army and has stronger combat effectiveness than the British army, how can the British army control the colonial army? What if the colonial army rebels?

From this, it can also be seen that... Although the British Eighth Army has many soldiers and generals, its combat effectiveness cannot be fully exerted due to internal contradictions and other problems.

The German army also had this problem. It was difficult for the German and Italian armies to coordinate, but Rommel was very smart to let the German army attack the Italian army and be responsible for defending the city... This almost solved the coordination problem.

Of course, it was only a partial solution, and there were still many differences between Germany and Italy.

It was not until then that General Auchinleck came to his senses.

"God!" said General Auchinleck. "We have been fooled. The Germans' target is not Cairo at all!"