Iron Cross

Ps: I wish all readers a happy Lantern Festival! Happy family!

In terms of luck, the 8th Armored Brigade is not necessarily better than the 24th Armored Brigade, at least that's what Brigadier General Todd, the brigade commander, thinks.

The brigade had been deployed in an offensive posture. When the Germans blocked the enemy layer by layer before, it seemed that they were struggling to hold on. As long as they put in more effort, they could get in. After obtaining the consent of the division commander, Major General Gatehouse, he deployed all the offensive forces and gave the task of covering the flank to the Indian 4th Division - they had just been beaten hard by Guderian two days ago, and the shadow in their hearts had not yet dissipated. Todd thought it was difficult for them to undertake the mission of attack.

Who knew that the Germans, who did not play by the rules, suddenly turned to counterattack. Not only was the speed of turning from defense to offense extremely fast, but the power of the counterattack made him dumbfounded - nearly 200 tanks were dispatched at once, divided into three groups on the left, middle and right, and crushed over in a herringbone posture, and the 35th Armored Regiment led by Collingwood was still responsible for the main attack of the armored war.

The reaction of the 8th Armored Brigade to the T-34 was not much better than that of the 24th Armored Brigade. As soon as they met, the British, who did not know the power of the T-34, tried to use the strategy of dealing with the Type 3 or Type 4 tanks to attack. As a result, they were beaten by the 35th Armored Regiment. After only one round of fighting, the exchange ratio was 27:3. Todd was so panicked that he quickly ordered his troops to retreat and wanted to rely on the anti-tank forces on the position to deal with the German army. But Collingwood, who was unyielding, did not move slowly like he did to Brown. Instead, he rushed and attacked fiercely, compressing the fighting distance to about 700 meters. Anyway, whether it was Sherman, the Crusader or General Grant, they could not bite the front of the T-34 at this distance. As a result, the 8th Armored Brigade was beaten to a pulp, and the battlefield was full of the wreckage of the destroyed British tanks and the tank soldiers who were running away with their heads in their hands.

When the 8th Armored Brigade could no longer hold on and begged the division headquarters to retreat, less than a quarter of the nearly 90 tanks in Todd's hands were left. When the Indian divisions on both wings witnessed the results of the tank battle in the middle, they immediately thought of the painful experience a few days ago when they found the German armored forces approaching and the armored grenadiers following behind. Before the German artillery fire extended to the depth, the flank positions collapsed all of a sudden. The soldiers scrambled to flee backwards, and the artillerymen hastily abandoned their artillery and joined the retreat.

Faced with such an invincible enemy, the main forces of the three armored divisions immediately rushed forward at full speed, constantly tearing holes in the defense lines of the 10th Armored Division and the 4th Indian Division, and sweeping all visible enemies with artillery fire. After destroying several enemy positions that were resisting stubbornly, the remaining British soldiers trembled and prepared to surrender. This time the Germans did not fool them. The armored grenadiers who followed them quickly confiscated the enemy's weapons and detained them. Other troops followed the armored forces and continued to advance. Only the 88 guns that had just made great contributions had nothing to do, so they simply put on the gun hooks and prepared to move.

It was the 10th Armored Division and the 4th Indian Division who were unlucky. They were determined to break the German blockade in front of them and thought that the Germans would not be able to launch a counterattack before they eliminated the 24th Armored Brigade in the Tell Akakir encirclement. They did not make any defensive preparations at all. But this impossible thing happened all of a sudden. No one expected that the Germans would be so determined to counterattack and invest so much troops. The entire defense line and the entire unit collapsed in an instant.

"Oh, poor Brown. Yesterday evening I saw him preparing for an attack with great ambition. I didn't expect that today..." When Ramsden received a telegram from the front line saying that the Germans had turned to counterattack, he immediately realized that the 24th Armored Brigade was finished. Because he had not received a telegram from Brown about his final whereabouts, he thought that the other party had died heroically. He didn't know that poor Brigadier General Brown had been captured in the encirclement an hour ago and didn't even have time to send a farewell telegram.

Based on this judgment, he thought that the goal of reinforcing Brown could not be achieved anyway. The next task was to find a way to entangle Guderian and surround him. Unexpectedly, ten minutes later, the adjutant handed him an urgent telegram with worry. The task was no longer to rescue the 24th Armored Brigade in the encirclement, but to find a way to rescue the 10th Armored Division and the 4th Indian Division that were fleeing.

"Really..." Ramsden was stunned when he received the telegram from the front line. He had thought the battle situation was bad enough before he came, and thought that the 10th Armored Division would definitely have a hard battle to fight. Who knew that the battle situation would develop worse than he thought. He panted and asked repeatedly, "Tell me, what is the situation on the front line now?"

"The 10th Armored Division and the 4th Indian Division have lost unified command. They are fleeing and retreating everywhere." The adjutant said embarrassedly, "They can't judge the strength of the Germans. They only said that the Germans have at least dispatched 200 tanks. Oh, Brigadier General Todd of the 8th Armored Brigade A telegram was sent saying that the Germans' new tanks are very powerful and we can't defeat them at all."

"Damn, new tanks again! Where did the Germans get so many new tanks?" Ramsden pondered for a moment, "Send a telegram to the commander immediately to inform him of what happened on the front line, and at the same time order the troops on the north and south wings to launch an attack at all costs to pin down the Germans' flanks so that they can't pursue our army so smoothly."

"In addition..." he gritted his teeth and explained, "Order the 10th Armored Division and the 4th Indian Division to organize defense on the spot, and do not retreat without orders."

In the previous round of attacks, the German army only lost more than 20 tanks and armored vehicles of various types. Two armored division commanders and one armored regiment commander seemed to see the results of the victory flying before their eyes, and they were all delighted. The tank unit that served as the spearhead did not even bother to use artillery shells in the end. Facing the panicked and unwilling to surrender British soldiers, they simply crushed them.

Fortunately for the British, after chasing for an afternoon and experiencing high-intensity fighting, the German tank troops finally ran out of fuel and ammunition and needed emergency supplies on the battlefield, which gave them a chance to breathe. . When supplying supplies on the battlefield, the entire African Army headquarters moved forward, and Heinz and Dessau, who had recently been responsible for the mopping up task, were called in by Guderian.

"Sir, do you want to greet us two?"

"That's it. I'm not going to lead the main force in pursuit."

"Why?" Heinz was anxious, "The enemy has obviously been defeated after being hit hard by our army. This is a good time for us to annihilate them in one fell swoop. We can even fight all the way back and attack the British army in El Alamein. Eighth Army Headquarters."

"We finally jumped out of that encirclement at the cost of 40,000 Italians. I am not going to go back anymore. The further we go, the greater the resistance we will face. And there is news from behind that the British troops on both wings no longer have any concerns. Our minefield is advancing like crazy, and one 90th light division cannot withstand it. Our next route is..." Guderian flicked the map and drew a big arrow to the left. , "Attack to the left and then retreat along the coastal road, and your task is to bluff as much as possible with the main force, pursue behind these two divisions, and give Montgomery the illusion that we will launch a counterattack toward El Alamein, but it must be before dawn Return to the team."

"Or our two battalions?"

"Yes, is it difficult?"

Heinz and Dessau looked at each other and said, "We have enough tanks. Can we add some No. 3 assault guns? There are a lot of infantry in the troops we are chasing this time."

"Okay, I'll add an armored grenadier company and 6 assault guns to you." Guderian smiled apologetically at the two of them, "No way, our troops are tight and we can't allocate too many troops to you, but at dawn I will arrange for troops to pick you up."

"We will do our best to complete the mission." After the two saluted, they immediately went to dispatch the troops to prepare for departure.

Guderian turned his head and said to Walster, Bismarck, Collingwood and others who were hesitant to speak next to them: "I know you are doubting my decision and thinking that I have given up on expanding the results of the battle and going straight to the enemy's headquarters. Opportunities, but you cannot ignore the chance of today’s victory..."

Guderian raised three fingers: "First, the British Air Force did not come to cause trouble with us today. All their attention was drawn to the Italians retreating on the coastal road, and they were tightly entangled by our fighter jets. Tomorrow They will not do this again; secondly, our results today are related to the enemy's negligence - we concentrated all the tanks, first used a trap to eat the 24th Armored Brigade, and then attacked the 8th Armored Brigade We were caught off guard. Suppose today we are facing a complete armored division with a continuous defense system. Even if we have partial advantages in armored forces, we cannot fight so perfectly. If we continue to attack tomorrow, we will face a situation where the fight becomes more and more difficult, let alone It is said that Montgomery still has more tanks than we do; thirdly, the British troops on both wings are attacking desperately, and the 90th Light Division alone cannot withstand them, not to mention that there are still a large number of British prisoners and supplies to be detained and transferred. If we get flanked we can fall back into the trap - and that's what I'm trying to avoid."

"Sir." Bayerlein was the first to stand up, "I support your decision!"

Several others were also persuaded by Guderian and expressed their obedience.

"Then we are going to attack to the left and let Montgomery continue to wait for us at Alamein Station..."

"Hahahaha!" Everyone laughed.