Chapter 182 The Fifth Artillery Regiment

The Germans broke through the two lines of defense of the Indian 4th Infantry Division in succession. To be more precise, this was not a breakthrough but a pursuit... The Germans encountered only sporadic resistance. They fought and killed like hungry wolves breaking into a flock of sheep. Indian soldiers were busy fleeing everywhere in sight.

The Indians ran so fast that when the German tanks advanced to the third line of defense, there was no one there... All the Indian soldiers joined the escape. In order to escape the fire range of the German tanks as soon as possible, several cars ran at full speed in the group of deserters, regardless of the fact that there were their own people everywhere in front.

But in the end, they still failed to escape the pursuit of the Germans... The car was a very obvious target under the flares. After a few shells, the cars were instantly blown up to the sky. One of them was hit by a machine gun and the fuel tank caught fire. As the fuel tank burst into a ball of fire, a group of firemen with shrill and strange screams suddenly appeared around.

Behind the third line of defense is the village of Dilsin.

Similar to the houses in Libya, most of the houses in Egypt are made of earth and wood. Such houses are easily knocked down by tanks. In addition, there may be enemies hiding in the houses, so the German tanks knocked down and rolled over them one by one without hesitation.

The super strong combat power of the tanks was fully verified at this time... If it was a pure infantry attack at this time, it would take a lot of casualties and time to occupy this village of several kilometers.

But because of the tanks, the German soldiers seemed to have to move forward, move forward, and move forward again.

Of course, Qin Chuan and the German soldiers did not know that among the houses that were knocked down and crushed under the tracks, one was the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division of India... The 31-year-old Major General David and his staff did not expect their troops to collapse so quickly. The previous second they hoped that the troops could hold on for a while, and then the 5th Artillery Regiment would be able to provide them with enough firepower to beat the Germans back, and the next second they saw the Indian army in chaos and scrambling to escape.

In a hurry, Major General David asked a staff officer to control the situation, and he contacted the 5th Artillery Regiment in the headquarters and ordered them to fire at the target immediately... At this moment, a rumbling sound of tank engines sounded in the rear, and when Major General David looked in the direction of the sound, the whole wall collapsed instantly.

The only survivor was the staff officer assigned by Major General David to control the situation. He was captured and confessed the location of the headquarters to the Germans. The Germans dug up the broken bricks and tiles to confirm this, and also found a map of the Alamein Line and the Nile Line, as well as some other useful information for the Germans... These information were destroyed in time because of the instant collapse of the house.

Qin Chuan certainly didn't care about these.

On the one hand, generals, commanders, etc. were meaningless to him, especially since the Indian Fourth Division had been defeated, and only about one-third of them could escape in the dark. So even if Major General David and his headquarters members were still alive, what would happen? Could they organize these remnants to continue fighting?

Forget it, the Indian soldiers were already scared.

On the other hand, the captured data and intelligence... Qin Chuan knew much more than that.

Of course, this is also good, at least Qin Chuan doesn't have to find any excuses to reveal any intelligence.

Not long after, the German tanks razed the entire village to the ground... If there were any houses that survived, they were machine-gunned or bombed with grenades and explosive packs.

According to the plan, the 21st Armored Division should have gone straight to Alexandria to cut off the logistics supply line of the Alamein Line, but a shell on the way changed General Strike's mind.

"We were bombarded by enemy artillery fire, General!" Colonel Theo, commander of the artillery regiment, reported: "From the position of the artillery fire, they are about six kilometers away from us!"

"Hold them!" General Strike ordered immediately.

"Yes, General!"

The so-called "hold them" is actually to use artillery fire to attract the attention of the other party, or it can be said to be a small-scale artillery battle with the other party.

And this is what the British 5th Artillery Regiment is best at... Because they are equipped with "Priest" self-propelled artillery, the advantage of self-propelled artillery is the fast transfer speed: ordinary trailer artillery must be retracted and hung behind the car to transfer after firing, which not only has a large target but also a much slower speed, while self-propelled artillery can be fired and moved at any time, which can take a great advantage in artillery battles.

The problem is that the 5th Artillery Regiment does not know that the opponent is just a bait, and the Indian 4th Infantry Division they are covering has collapsed... This is the weakness of long-range artillery. The targets they want to attack are often more than ten kilometers away, so they usually can't see the enemy. To some extent, they are blind and deaf, and must rely on the coordinates provided by the front line to fight.

At this time, Colonel Charles, the commander of the 5th Artillery Regiment, was urgently calling the Indian 4th Infantry Division Command... Not long ago, Colonel Charles had a conversation with Major General David. He carried out the bombing according to the coordinates provided by Major General David, but now there is no news from Major David.

"Fuck you!" Colonel Charles cursed, "Can't they get a few more communication equipment?"

Colonel Charles thought that the communication was lost because of radio failure or the rush to move. He never thought that Major General David and his radio were buried in the rubble.

"Colonel, what should we do now?" asked the staff officer.

Colonel Charles understood what the staff meant. If no one provided coordinates or observations at the front line, the artillery regiment would probably just fire blindly.

"Has the observer entered the position?" Colonel Charles asked.

As mentioned before, artillery operations always require artillery observers to be sent to the front line, and sometimes observation stations are set up at high altitudes with high-powered telescopes to observe distant targets.

"It may take a few minutes!" the staff replied.

At this time, a signalman hurriedly ran up and reported: "Colonel, the observer reported that the Indian 4th Infantry Division has been defeated, and there are fleeing Indian soldiers everywhere!"

"What?" Colonel Charles was shocked when he heard this, which meant that the Germans had broken through the defense line.

What's worse is that... the 5th Artillery Regiment fired a batch of shells in the direction of the enemy not long ago, which was tantamount to telling the enemy its position.

Thinking of this, Colonel Charles hurriedly ordered: "Retreat, retreat immediately!"

But it was too late to retreat at this time. Flares rose into the air from several directions, clearly illuminating the hundreds of self-propelled howitzers and dozens of vehicles loaded with shells in the middle.