Chapter 183 M7 Self-Propelled Howitzer

The sound of artillery fire started the moment the flares lit up.

The German tank guns, anti-tank guns, howitzers, mortars, etc., fired a barrage of shells at the British self-propelled howitzer positions.

As a howitzer, the M7 self-propelled howitzer has excellent protection capabilities. Its front armor is 51MM thick, which even exceeds the front armor of the German "Type III" tank.

This is also one of the reasons why General Stryker wants to encircle and annihilate the 5th Artillery Regiment...

The M7 self-propelled howitzer has the advantages of long range, thick armor and good mobility, which determines that it will pose a considerable threat to the tank battle group.

If a tank battle group hits the M7 howitzer group head-on, the tank group must approach to about one kilometer to pose a threat to the M7 howitzer group, and the M7 can, in principle, use artillery fire to attack the enemy tank group from eleven kilometers away.

In addition, its maximum speed is 42 kilometers per hour, so as long as the M7 is willing, it can always keep a distance from the German "Type 3" tank to form an advantage of "I can hit you but you can't hit me".

In the end, even if they face each other and enter each other's range, the M7 is not without a fight due to the thickness of the front armor.

Of course, no equipment can be perfect.

The disadvantage of the M7 is that the armor is open, that is, there is no armor on the top, and its side armor is not only thin but also full of shells... This is actually a last resort. The most important standard of artillery is shells, and self-propelled artillery must load shells in the gun body in order to achieve the purpose of firing and moving.

This problem existed during the trial production of the M7... It could only hold 24 shells, and it had to replenish ammunition after stopping to fire a round, which made it not much better than the trailer artillery.

So, the Americans forcibly transformed the M7 into a machine that can carry 69 shells...

caliber shells, so that the sides of the gun body and even the gunner's feet were covered with shells, and the crew could be said to be sitting on an ammunition stockpile.

This is undoubtedly very dangerous in actual combat, just like now, a German high-explosive armor-piercing shell penetrated the self-propelled howitzer and immediately caused the shell to explode. With a "boom", a majestic steel monster instantly disappeared from everyone's sight and turned into a ball of fire.

Because the self-propelled howitzer is open, the exploded shrapnel flew around on the battlefield and caused heavy casualties to the gunners of several nearby self-propelled howitzers.

The German mortars and howitzers were not to be outdone. They rained down shells at the British at the fastest speed, and instantly blew up the howitzer position into a pot of porridge.

The British army had no power to fight back... Large-caliber artillery is always suitable for long-range shooting, and the M7 is no exception. Its artillery firing angle is 35 degrees, which makes its closest range 800 meters, and the German army is at the edge of this closest range at this time. This makes the British army only have the self-defense weapon in the upper right corner... 12.7MM anti-aircraft machine gun.

But even so, it was useless, because the huge body of the car would make them a good target for the German army, and once they were hit by the shells, they would disappear from this world in an instant.

But this seemed to be a kind of luck, because at least they could die without pain... the violent explosion would tear their bodies and consciousness into pieces before they realized the pain.

Qin Chuan and other infantrymen had nothing to do with this battle, because the rifles in their hands and the bullets they fired were really insignificant to those violent explosions and the flames that shot into the sky.

The bombing lasted for fifteen minutes, and the British finally had the opportunity to raise the white flag and let the German army see it, so the sound of the artillery slowly stopped.

The German army actually planned to seize this American equipment from the beginning... They have always been very interested in equipment with high mobility. It's just that they must destroy the enemy's will to resist as soon as possible, otherwise things may get out of control.

In the end, the German army seized 52 self-propelled howitzers and 20 cars full of shells.

General Strike was very happy with the seized equipment.

The reason is that the self-propelled howitzer is easy to operate. Although it uses the chassis of a medium tank, it is still operated as a gun rather than a tank.

The difference between the two is that tanks require the coordination of the commander, gunner, etc., which is difficult to achieve without a few weeks of training. Even if they are barely put into the battlefield, they will often become targets of enemy tanks due to poor coordination.

But the self-propelled howitzer is not like this. It only needs a driver, and the others are actually gunners, which is not much different from operating a 105MM howitzer. The German army even only needs to organize the car driver and the gunner together.

So General Stryker immediately handed over the captured self-propelled artillery to the artillery regiment and ordered them to adjust the gun crew members by themselves and learn to operate them in the shortest time.

Facts have proved that General Stryker's approach is very correct. These self-propelled howitzers provided strong artillery cover for the 21st Armored Division in subsequent battles with their excellent mobility. They cooperated with other German artillery and even suppressed more than 300 British artillery pieces.

Then General Strike did not dare to delay any longer, and he commanded the 21st Armored Division to attack Alexandria.

On the other side, General Auchinleck was as pale as death when he heard the news.

In fact, he didn't get the exact news until half an hour later... The 4th Indian Infantry Division and its headquarters were buried, and the 5th Artillery Regiment headquarters was blown up immediately. They had no time or opportunity to report the situation to Auchinleck.

It was not until the British scouts encountered the fleeing Indian soldiers and asked about the situation that they found that the situation was much more serious than they had imagined.

This is the charm of speed, and it is also one of the reasons why the German "blitzkrieg" can repeatedly achieve miraculous results on the battlefield... Rapid strikes often prevent the enemy from reacting in time, because the enemy will always encounter various problems in communication and coordination, especially for troops with complex composition, and even worse, at night when communication is inconvenient and fighter planes cannot take off.

"General, what should we do now?" Major General Ritchie asked anxiously.

General Auchinleck shook his head slightly, and he didn't know what to do.

Because he didn't even know the location of the Germans, which meant that he couldn't determine the direction of the German attack... So the Alamein Line was full of loopholes and had to be defended everywhere.

After thinking for a while, General Auchinleck fixed his eyes on Alexander.

"Alexander!" said General Auchinleck. "They're going to attack Alexander!"