Chapter 154: Lure the Snake Out of Its Hole

Historically, there was a reason why the British army blocked the German troops at the Alamein Line.

First of all, its 55 kilometers in length seems to be tailor-made for the British army.

Most of the British-made and American-made howitzers owned by the British army have a range of fifteen kilometers.

In this way, Auchinleck only needs to divide all the artillery units in his hand into two parts and move them towards the defense line, which can provide fire cover for the entire defense line at almost the longest range.

Among them, especially the hundreds of M7 self-propelled artillery pieces that the United States has just provided to the United Kingdom. The British call this artillery "Priest"... American equipment often only has code names when it is produced, such as the M3 medium tank and the M7 self-propelled artillery. After these equipment came to the aid of Britain, British soldiers gave them nicknames to facilitate identification and memory, such as "'General Grant'", "'Pastor' self-propelled artillery", etc.

This is an irony. The British, the majestic "Empire on which the sun never sets" and is known as the world's most powerful country, uses equipment that is not its own. The only thing they are proud of is giving them a lot of nicknames.

The reason why the "Priest" self-propelled artillery is called "Priest" is because in order to give this self-propelled artillery a certain air defense capability, the United States added a circular machine gun bunker in the upper right corner. This machine gun bunker was added later. It was somewhat incompatible with the overall layout of the self-propelled artillery, and its shape resembled a priest's pulpit, so the British gave it the nickname "Pastor".

The characteristic of the "Priest" is not its range. Its range is only 11 kilometers, which is far less than the 15 kilometers of ordinary howitzers.

But it is much easier to use on the battlefield than ordinary howitzers because its top speed reaches 42 kilometers per hour...

With a speed of 42 kilometers per hour, that is, as long as the "Priest" is placed in the middle of the Alamein line of defense, it can arrive where it is needed within half an hour and go into battle. This is very important to the British army because they face The German army is famous for its speed.

Secondly, with a line of defense in place, the Royal Air Force no longer had to look for the Luftwaffe and risk being suddenly attacked. Their target was clear, which was the German armored units within dozens of kilometers in front of the line of defense. This is also beneficial to the air force, because the quality of British pilots is not as good as that of the Germans, and they are often beaten with heavy losses in local areas.

In this way, the Alamein Line of Defense could easily turn into the trench warfare of World War I, and the historical Battle of Alamein did indeed turn into trench warfare.

This can be called "remaining constant in response to all changes" in Chinese military art... The German army's tactics are ever-changing, and the British army is completely unable to adapt. However, if an unchanging trench is blocked in front of the German army, all the German army's Changes can do nothing about it.

Qinchuan couldn't let this happen, because it almost meant the failure of the African Legion.

"So!" General Strike said: "We have only one choice, and that is to bypass Matruh and attack Alamein before the British are ready!"

"But General..." Colonel Slain said: "This also means that we may be attacked from two sides by the British!"

Colonel Slaine was right. Matruh's British 15th Armored Division was dead but not dead. If the 21st Armored Division attacked the Alamein line of defense, the British 15th Armored Division and the New Zealand 2nd Division would break out of the encirclement. The German troops came to cover up the enemy from behind... Then the situation of the 21st Armored Division was not good.

"We can fool the British into thinking we're still here!" said Colonel Olbridge. "Just like the sergeant deceived the enemy at West Dioma with fake tanks!"

"No!" General Strike frowned and shook his head: "I'm afraid the British won't be easily fooled again. What's more, they have only one way to break through, and most of them will break out in our direction!"

General Strike was right. The same strategy would not work the second time. And even if the British army believed that the 21st Armored Division was still here, so what? They were surrounded in Matruh, and if they wanted to survive, they had to fight desperately to break through, and the best direction to break out was precisely where the 21st Armored Division was stationed.

The officers couldn't help but fall silent.

Suddenly they discovered that the 21st Armored Division was in an embarrassing situation:

If you fight, you will fall into a situation where you will be attacked from two sides or even surrounded by enemies.

If you don't fight, you can only watch the British army consolidate the Alamein line of defense and then keep the German army out of the defense line. This is also not a good thing for the German army.

After thinking about it, Qin Chuan said: "This may indeed be a solution!"

"What?" Hearing this, the officers couldn't help but be stunned.

"Sergeant!" General Strike asked: "You mean, we still use fake tanks to deceive the British?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan nodded.

"But..." General Strike spread his hands, wondering what kind of medicine Qin Chuan was selling in this gourd.

"Our goal is to attack the Alamein defense line as soon as possible!" Qin Chuan said: "In addition to bypassing Matruh, there is another option to achieve this, which is to capture Matrouh in the shortest possible time!"

"It would be great if we could capture Matruh in a short time!" General Strike said: "This will not only allow us to attack Alamein as soon as possible, but also solve our worries, but this is not realistic... Matruh's terrain is complex , suitable for defense but not for our offense!”

Qin Chuan understood what General Strike meant. There were wheat fields and olive groves everywhere near Matruh because there were many springs with abundant fresh water. Such terrain was not suitable for armored forces to fight... Tanks would get stuck in the wheat fields, and the woods were a good hiding place for anti-tank guns. If tanks broke in, they would undoubtedly suffer multiple blows. This was one of the reasons why the New Zealand 2nd Infantry Division was able to block the German frontal attack.

"Maybe we don't need to rush into Matruh!" Qin Chuan said.

"How can we capture it without rushing into Matruh?" Colonel Slaine was a little surprised.

"We Chinese..." Qin Chuan knew he was wrong as soon as he said this, so he quickly changed his words and said, "I heard that the Chinese have a saying called 'luring the snake out of the hole'."

"Luring the snake out of the hole?" General Strike and others looked at Qin Chuan with confusion on their faces.

Although German soldiers emphasize quality and learning, this does not mean Chinese military tactics.

"Let me put it this way!" Qin Chuan explained, "If we put some fake tanks in the direction of Matruh... and then some real tanks appear on the way to the Alamein line, what will the British think?"

"Of course they will know that we are deceiving them!" Colonel Olbrich said, "So it's useless to do this!"

General Strike understood what Qin Chuan meant. He nodded with his mouth half open and said, "No, Colonel, this is very useful!"