Chapter 179 Strategic Deception

The counterweight was quickly welded on.

It's actually very simple to do this. If you can't find that many iron balls, just cut the solid steel bar into small sections and weld them on.

Then the tank was on the road again, this time very smoothly. The iron chain with the counterweight was smashed forward, and there was only a "boom" sound before the anti-tank mine exploded with a loud noise.

The problem is that the explosion of anti-tank mines is so powerful that several iron chains were broken into pieces and flew far away.

"It seems we need to prepare more chains!" Colonel Olbridge said.

Rommel stepped forward, looked at only a few broken chains, nodded with satisfaction and said: "This is at least better than the tank being blown up, isn't it?"

"Of course, General!"

"And the enemy doesn't have that many anti-tank mines!" Rommel said: "Even if there are so many anti-tank mines, they may not all be in our way!"

Of course, the characteristic of desert warfare is that it is impossible to know where the enemy will attack from, because you can walk anywhere in the open space, so the anti-tank mines you encounter are also very limited.

After a pause, Rommel asked Colonel Albury: "Twelve minesweeping tanks, how long will it take to prepare ten sets of chains for each tank?"

Rommel estimated that each tank would encounter ten anti-tank mines.

Colonel Olbridge turned his attention to a major next to him, who was obviously responsible for tank maintenance.

"General, general..." the major replied excitedly: "Due to limited tools... we may need two days!"

"No, we don't have that much time!" Rommel looked at his watch and then ordered: "You are limited to twelve hours to complete the transformation task, no matter how difficult it is!"

"Yes, General!" The major looked anxious and scared, but he did not dare to disobey Rommel's order.

Rommel walked towards his jeep, walked a few steps and then turned back to Qin Chuan and said, "Sergeant, you successfully won ten hours of rest for your unit. Congratulations!"

"Well done, Sergeant!" General Strike whispered as he passed by Qin Chuan: "I have never seen him compromise, but you succeeded!"

The "he" General Strike refers to is, of course, Rommel.

"Hey, Sergeant!" After Rommel and his party left, Colonel Slain called to Qin Chuan: "Come back with me. We should enjoy this rare vacation, right?"

So Qinchuan once again took Colonel Slaine's jeep back to the camp, which made the soldiers envious. Especially when Qinchuan got off the bus, Colonel Slaine waved to Qinchuan: "Goodbye, Sergeant, I believe we are very happy." See you again soon!”

This was already normal for Qin Chuan, but the German soldiers looked at Qin Chuan with envy one by one... Thinking about it, this was indeed a bit abnormal. A colonel would actually talk to a sergeant like old friends. goodbye.

If they knew that General Strike or even Rommel might do this, they would be scared to death.

But of course Qin Chuan wouldn't say anything because these are all secrets.

The order for the 21st Armored Division to rest came quickly.

In the eyes of ordinary people, rest should be sitting comfortably on the sofa with a cup of coffee after get off work, watching TV and chatting with family members.

But rest on the battlefield is completely different, especially here in the desert... The soldiers still have to deal with the scorching sun and British fighter planes that may appear in the sky at any time.

The only difference is that they don't need to be alert to the enemy's counterattack like frontline soldiers, although this is unlikely.

This made Qin Chuan feel that the vacation he had worked so hard to get was not worth it, because they still couldn't sleep and had to face death.

Then Qin Chuan knew that this was not the case.

Because the "rumble" of artillery bombardment could be heard in the distance, and at the same time, German fighters and bombers also appeared in the sight of the soldiers and continued to dive towards the enemy's defense lines.

"They actually started attacking during the day?" The baker couldn't believe it.

"There is nothing surprising!" Jakop said: "Because it is Rommel who commands us, and he will attack whenever possible!"

"But what's the use of their attack?" Alfredo couldn't help but ask: "Isn't this a meaningless sacrifice? The enemy has much more artillery than we do, as well as planes and mines..."

Qin Chuan understood what the soldiers meant.

The 21st Armored Division is the main force of the African Army. As the main force, they launched raids at night and failed to break through the defense line. How could the non-main force 15th Armored Division break through during the day.

Kuhn said with a hint of sarcasm: "Let's do our own thing, maybe they don't think it's meaningless!"

In fact, this does make sense. Qin Chuan knew why Rommel did this.

This was a kind of strategic deception, which made the British army think that the focus of the German attack was still the Ruoisat Ridge and move as many troops as possible to the direction of the Ruoisat Ridge.

General Auchinleck was indeed fooled.

"The Germans don't want us to re-lay mines on the Rooisat Ridge!" General Auchinleck said to Major General Rich: "That way they can launch a surprise attack on it again at night!"

"Yes, General!" Major General Rich agreed: "Although they also bombed Dilcyin, it was just a cover to confuse us!"

It was normal for General Auchinleck and Major General Ritchie to think so, because the minefield of Rowaisat Ridge had been cleared by the Germans last night, which meant that the German armored division could quickly break through here.

As the minefields in other places were still intact, it was basically impossible for the Germans to quickly break through... At least, the Germans would be discovered by British soldiers when clearing mines and prepare in advance.

Therefore, General Auchinleck thought that he only needed to worry about Rowaisat Ridge.

"Immediately strengthen the defense of Rowaisat Ridge!" General Auchinleck didn't think much: "Transfer the 2nd Armored Regiment and the 5th Artillery Regiment there, and artillery shells... Without enough artillery shells, those artillery are just garbage!"

"Yes, General!" Major General Ritchie immediately passed the order down.

Auchinleck even transferred an Indian infantry regiment from Dilsin, and this infantry regiment established another line of defense five kilometers behind the defense line of Rowaisat Ridge... As mentioned before, Rowaisat Ridge cannot deploy too many troops, which makes Auchinleck worried.

At the same time, more than 500 artillery pieces, including more than 100 "Priest" self-propelled howitzers, were gathered near Royaissat Ridge and completed test firing, ready to launch a devastating attack on the German army after it launched an attack.

General Auchinleck did not expect that everything he did was exactly what Rommel wanted.