Take Taobao to fight against Japan

The new organization is fully equipped with m1 semi-automatic rifles as the standard weapon of the infantry, and each infantry division is also equipped with 557 rocket launchers.

In terms of anti-tank weapons, the 57mm anti-tank gun replaced the 37mm anti-tank gun, and the howitzer also completely eliminated the 75mm howitzer and replaced it with a 105mm howitzer with a larger caliber.

After 1943, some improvements were made. The division has a total of more than 1.5 people. The main weapons and equipment include 70 howitzers, 154 mortars, 93 anti-tank guns, 663 rocket launchers, 950 machine guns, and 76 tanks. vehicles, 49 armored vehicles and 1560 other vehicles.

This configuration can be said to have all kinds of light and heavy weapons, and whether it is an m1 rifle or a large-caliber artillery, its performance is very good.

Therefore, although the three-three system tactics are very classic and powerful, for the US military that believes in the supremacy of firepower, they really cannot adapt to this peak light infantry tactics.

Chapter 1538 The Desert Fox's Final Counterattack

One month later, on June 1943, 6, it lasted for more than two months and finally came to an end.

In February 1943, Rommel's troops were forced to retreat into the Maret line of defense in Tunisia. The German army in Tunisia was strategically caught in a situation of being attacked by the Allied forces from the east and the west.

The various corps of the German and Italian army suffered heavy losses in personnel and technical equipment in previous battles.

Due to the complete control of the British and American air forces and the complete control of the British and American navies in the Mediterranean, the German and Italian armies had great difficulties in supplying and replenishing personnel.

The army group was supported by only a small number of aircraft, 16 destroyers and 21 submarines of the Italian Navy, and 22 German submarines.

After being unable to gain a foothold in Libya, the German and Italian troops could only continue to retreat to occupy the existing positions of the "Maret" fortification line and stick to the last landing field in Africa.

But in the eyes of Rommel, this is the only chance for the African Army to make a comeback.

On the one hand, after retreating into Tunisia, the German army was at the advantage of the inside line, and Rommel's supply line was greatly shortened, while the supply line of the Allied forces chasing from the east was greatly lengthened.

On the other hand, the two most powerful military groups of the German army in Africa-Rommel's African Armored Army and Arnim's 5th Armored Army finally joined forces in Tunisia.

If the two armies could cooperate effectively, they could work together to defeat the 1st Allied Army to the west before the follow-up Allied forces arrived.

Later facts also proved once again that Rommel, who has the reputation of "Desert Fox", was not in vain. The German army fought extremely beautifully in the last counterattack and won a very successful victory.

In this German counterattack, the U.S. Second Army alone lost 2 people. This is not counting the more than 6300 American and British soldiers captured by the Germans, and the Germans only paid more than 4000 casualties.

Afterwards, it was estimated that this counterattack caused losses in supplies to the Allied forces, even exceeding the sum of those stored in Algeria and Morocco.

But is such a record good or bad for the future of the African Army?

Obviously, the answer is no!

It was precisely because the initial victory in the Tunisian campaign dazzled the minds of the German generals and gave them a shot in the arm.

Since then, Kesselring and the head of state made a wrong assessment of the war situation in Tunisia, and became blindly optimistic. Not only did they fail to find ways to withdraw troops from Africa, but instead exhausted their energy to continuously transport various supplies to Africa.

However, in the case that the German army does not possess the command of the sea and air in the Mediterranean Sea, the consequence of doing so can only be that such a heavy army group will be buried in the African battlefield, and the German army's strategic materials will be greatly consumed. ?

Due to the huge gap in technical equipment between the two sides, the German army had an advantage in this battle but eventually lost. The German army's attempt to repeat the second "Tannenberg" in Tunisia eventually came to naught.

整个突尼斯战役中，盟军下辖陆军兵力达到103万之多，盟军空军作战飞机6241架，盟国地中海海军拥有战列舰3艘、航空母舰15艘、巡洋舰8艘、驱逐舰40艘、扫雷舰23艘、14个小型战斗舰艇区舰队。

Compared with the German army, the Allied forces have an absolute advantage: 1.5 times infantry, 3 times artillery, 4 times tanks, and more than 10 times aircraft. Only German submarines pose a slight threat to the Allies.

Until June 1943, 6, after a series of arduous and bloody battles, the Allied forces launched another general attack after artillery preparations. The German and Italian forces were forced to retreat to Cape Bon, attempting to withdraw from North Africa by sea.

But it is a pity that before the battle officially started, the Allied forces had completely blocked the sea and air routes, and would not give the German and Italian troops a chance to withdraw to Italy.

On June 1943, 6, Arnim led the rest of the German and Italian troops to surrender, and the war in North Africa ended.

After the Battle of Tunisia, the German-Italian African Army Group was completely annihilated.

The army group lost more than 70 people in Tunisia, of which about 54 were captured, including 42.5 German troops.

The Allies captured the entire North African coast of the Mediterranean Sea, thereby ensuring the safety of the Mediterranean communication line and creating favorable conditions for attacking Sicily and the Apennine Peninsula.

The Allied forces in Tunisia gained valuable experience in carrying out large-scale offensive campaigns to break through the enemy's prepared defenses and using heavy air forces to support the army's offensive, and paved the way for future counterattacks in Europe.

Once the news of the complete victory in the Tunisian campaign came out, it caused a great shock all over the world. The camp of the Allied Powers burst into cheers, and the morale of the army and the people rose again!

On the other side of the Axis Alliance, there was wailing, and once again they could clearly feel the footsteps of failure approaching.

More than ten days later, the African Allied Forces began to pursue the victory and launched the Sicily landing battle, one of the largest landing operations in World War II.

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and a territory of Italy. The entire island is triangular in shape, with an area of ​​25700 square kilometers and a population of about 400 million.

The whole island is 300 kilometers long from east to west and 200 kilometers wide from north to south. The terrain is dominated by mountains and hills, with Mount Etna at its height.

The northwest corner of the island is the Port of Palermo, the northeast corner is the Port of Messina, and there is only a narrow Strait of Messina from the Italian city of Calabria, and the southeast corner is the Port of Syracuse. The entire island is easy to defend Difficult to attack.

In order to obtain an advance base for attacking Sicily, the Allied forces first carried out landing operations on Banterella Island between Sicily and North Africa.

The landing operation was very smooth. The Allied forces broke through Banterella Island in one go and captured more than 1.1 Italian troops, thus opening the prelude to the Battle of Sicily.

Immediately afterwards, the Allies carried out large-scale strategic bombing of Sicily and Calabria before landing.

The Allied forces dispatched more than 5000 planes to bomb the airports and facilities on Sicily for several consecutive days and nights before landing.

On July 7, after a long period of large-scale air strikes, the Allied forces gained absolute air supremacy over Sicily and southern Italy. More than 12 combat aircraft of the German-Italian Air Force were forced to withdraw to southern central Italy and Sardinia.

On July 7, the Allied attack fleet set off from six ports in North Africa, including Oran and Algiers, and carried troops to the island of Malta to meet up.

At the same time, the British Navy dispatched 7 aircraft carriers, 6 battleships and other large warships to cover the attack fleet.

In the middle of the night of July 7, the Allied fleet assembled on the east and west sides of the island of Malta. When they were about to land, the weather changed suddenly.

However, the Allied forces did not change their plan because of this. At 2:40 in the morning, the airborne troops first launched an attack.

7200 officers and soldiers of the Allied Airborne Division took 466 transport planes and gliders from Tunisia and flew to Sicily, which was the beginning of the Sicily campaign.

Chapter 1539 The pinnacle of work

At 7 o'clock in the morning on July 20, the 16 American and British landing forces commanded by Patton and Montgomery were divided into 3200 warships and transport ships, and under the cover of 1000 aircraft, they landed in the southwest and southeast of Sicily.

Because the Fuhrer made a serious mistake in judging the landing site of the Allied forces, the counterattack of the German armored division was crushed by the Allied forces, and the demoralized Italian army retreated hastily with almost no resistance, and the coast defense line was quickly destroyed.

By noon, Patton's and Montgomery's troops had successfully boarded their respective target beaches and maintained an attacking posture.

Allied forces entered Messina to occupy the entire island. All resistance on the island ceased that day, and the Sicily landing campaign came to an end.

The Battle of Sicily was an important battle carried out by the Allies on enemy territory since the outbreak of World War II.

In the Sicily landing campaign, the Allied forces suffered a total of 29811 casualties, of which 5532 were killed, 14410 were wounded, and 2869 were missing.

Among them, 162 members of the Huben Airborne Division participated in the airborne operations were killed, 507 were injured, and 42 were missing.

The German and Italian troops suffered 2.1 casualties and 13.2 prisoners, mainly Italian soldiers, and many of them fled the front line voluntarily rather than being forced to surrender.

In addition, the German and Italian troops also lost 260 tanks, 500 cannons, and 1700 aircraft.

It is also worth mentioning that despite the huge naval and air superiority of the Allies, the Axis powers finally managed to withdraw more than 10 and tens of thousands of vehicles from Sicily, which is undoubtedly a very amazing success.

Through this battle, the Allied forces not only gained a springboard to directly attack Italy militarily, but also strongly shocked the already shaken Italian government politically, leading to the downfall of Mussolini and the surrender of Italy.

The Allied forces occupied Sicily, and since then they have been able to travel freely in the Mediterranean Sea, opening the door to landing in Europe from the south.

Although this battle failed to wipe out a large number of vital forces of the German army, it achieved the political purpose of forcing Italy to withdraw from the war.

On July 7, Mussolini stepped down, and his successor, Badoglio, came to power and made secret contacts with the allies to test the possibility of surrender.

On the surface, he continued to resist the Allies because he was worried that the Germans would capture Italy, but the Fuehrer took Italy unceremoniously.

Almost at the same time, the Allied forces in the Pacific also made breakthroughs.

After half a year of attrition and tug-of-war, the Allied forces finally gained complete control of the sea and air in the Hawaiian Islands, and began large-scale landing operations on the Hawaiian Islands on July 7.

For the U.S. military, this Hawaii landing battle can be called a battle of revenge. For this battle, the United States used all available forces on the Pacific battlefield.

总共调集了42艘航空母舰3艘战列舰、8艘重巡洋舰、9艘轻巡洋舰、125艘驱逐舰、46艘潜艇、以及300余艘各型运输船、登陆艇、补给舰。

As the saying goes, "If you don't go to Shanghai, you don't know the height of the building, if you don't go to the capital, you don't know the official building, and if you don't go to Guangzhou, you don't know how little money is."

When this huge group of naval fleets appeared in the sight of the Japanese defenders and on the radar monitoring screen, showing ferocious fangs, the Japanese army was shocked from top to bottom.

Only at this time did the Japanese army truly see the background of the world's largest industrial power, and truly understand that they are still "a small country"!

However, the Japanese devils are still Japanese devils. Even if the Allied forces have absolute command of the air and sea, and have a suffocating attack force, the isolated Japanese defenders did not collapse and surrender because of this. Instead, they fought even more frantically to the end.

After 24 days of fierce fighting with the Japanese defenders on various islands, the Allied forces finally successfully recovered the Hawaiian Islands on August 8, annihilating all the stubborn Japanese troops.

In this campaign, the Allied forces suffered more than 4.2 casualties and killed more than 5.3 Japanese soldiers. Only a few hundred wounded Japanese soldiers became prisoners of the Allied forces.

Since the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet had withdrawn ahead of schedule, the Japanese Navy lost only 4 cruisers, 5 destroyers, and dozens of supply ships and transport ships in this battle.

So far, the Allied forces have gained the most solid fulcrum for advancing in the Pacific battlefield, sounding the clarion call for a comprehensive counteroffensive in the Pacific battlefield, and the situation is very good.

When the time came to August 1943, an unprecedented life-and-death battle took place on the European Eastern Front, which had been silent for a long time. This was the famous Battle of Kursk in history.

After the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army pushed the front line to the west by more than 600 kilometers. The situation on the battlefield changed in favor of the Soviet army, and the morale within the Axis group was greatly affected.

In order to regain the strategic initiative and change the increasingly unfavorable situation, the head of state decided to launch a large-scale offensive in the Kursk region to defeat the Soviet army's offensive spirit.

Three months ago, Manstein fought an extremely beautiful Jedi counterattack-the third Battle of Kharkov.

In this battle, the German Southern Army Group used unexpected mobile tactics to counterattack the Soviet Red Army in the Kharkov area, annihilating more than 2 Soviet troops at the cost of 10 casualties, and recaptured Kharkov and other areas. Kyrgyzstan.

Under such adversity, the German army defeated and severely damaged the three armies of the Soviet army, and regained Kharkov and Belgorod, achieving very shocking results.

This battle was the pinnacle of Marshal Manstein, who was the commander of the Southern Army Group at the time, and was also placed by the head of state with high hopes for turning the tide of the war.

If the battlefield is a stage, then the Battle of Kharkov is the report performance of Manstein's lifelong knowledge and personal talent, and it is his pinnacle work. ?

The Battle of Kharkov delayed Germany's defeat by two years.It is nothing to advance in victory, but to seize victory in failure is the real us.

After the battle ended, Manstein proposed a plan to immediately pursue the victory and launch an attack on the Kursk salient.

The terrain is relatively favorable for the German army. The roots of the protrusion are Belgorod and Orel, both of which are under German control, and it is easy to station troops and pinch the Soviet army.

Unfortunately, Marshal Kruger of the Central Army Group stated that the strength was not enough to immediately attack the Red Army's Central Front Army, so the No. [-] operational plan was shelved.

After three months of silence, under the obvious situation that whoever attacks will die first, the head of state came up with the "fortress plan" in a fever.

Manstein firmly opposed the "fortress" project.Manstein believes that it is time to take a defensive position and wait for an opportunity to counterattack.

In order to protect the left wing of Army Group South, Manstein also suggested temporarily abandoning part of the right wing and reoccupying it after the counterattack is completed.

However, after repeated hesitation, the head of state who "cherished the land as his life" did not listen to his opinions in the end, and stubbornly decided that July 7 would be the launch day of the "fortress".

Chapter 1540 The strategic decisive battle that should not be carried out

1943年7月5日，德军集中两个集团军群，共有78万人、7417门火炮、2928辆坦克和2000架飞机，从南北两个方向向苏军发起进攻。

At the end of March, Manstein proposed to use the aftermath of the Battle of Kharkov to wipe out the Kursk salient, but the head of state did not actually implement the plan until July 3, and faced the opposition of almost the entire general army. .

However, during the three-month calm period, there were no fighters left.

Because during these three months, the Soviet intelligence department not only accurately ascertained the news that the German army would attack in Kursk, but also the Soviet army made sufficient defensive preparations based on this.

After the Soviet Supreme Command was informed, it decided to take advantage of the situation and temporarily switch to strategic defense, concentrate superior forces, eliminate the vital forces of the German army, and create conditions for further counterattacks.

The Soviet Army Command sent Zhukov and Vasilevsky as representatives of the base camp to command the Central Front, Voronezh Front, and Steppe Front, with about 191 million people, 31415 artillery pieces, 5128 tanks, and 2792 aircraft to resist the Germans.

Due to the unequal strength of troops and the advance acquisition of intelligence, the war has been unbalanced from the very beginning. Manstein and Model, who were facing the Soviet army, were crushed both in terms of strength and the number of technical weapons.

Some people may say that, except that the German army was able to maintain a numerical advantage over the Soviet army at the beginning of the Soviet-German War, many other victories were achieved at a numerical disadvantage.

But this is the result of the Soviet army's preparations and tactical thinking being crushed by the German army in the early days of World War II.

During the Barbarossa period, the Soviet Union was bruised and swollen by the blitzkrieg. The main reason was that the level of preparation for war was too low, and there were no tactics to deal with the German tank group. If it were not for the terrible strategic depth, it might have surrendered.

But when the war broke out in 1943, the Soviet Union's tank production had surpassed that of Germany, and it also had its own T-34 sea, and its anti-lightning assault tactics were repeatedly tempered.

Coupled with this critical three-month preparation, the depth and density of the Battle of Kursk became one of the strongest defensive battles of the Soviet army on the Soviet-German battlefield.

The Central Front and the Voronezh Front each built three main lines of defense, followed by three lines of defense for possible retreats.

In addition to the army, the Soviet army conscripted 30 civilians to build these lines of defense intertwined with infantry trenches, minefields, and anti-tank fortifications. The depth of the six lines of defense reached 130-150 kilometers.

If the Germans are lucky enough to break through these 6 lines of defense, they will encounter more lines of defense built by the Steppe Front Army in the rear, with a total defense depth of 300 kilometers.

It will take 45 hours for a Tiger tank with a speed of 7 kilometers per hour to drive through this position at full speed without any defense.

On the first line of defense alone, the Red Army planted 94 mines, 50 of which were anti-tank mines.

The frontal defense density of Kursk's mine array reached 3200 mines per kilometer, roughly four times that of the Moscow battle.

In addition, the strategy of the Soviet army to defend tanks has also been greatly strengthened.

The tactics of the German army defending tanks were stolen by the Soviet army. The Soviet army learned the tactics of concentrating anti-tank firepower. Generally, an anti-tank position has 6-7 machine guns and 10-15 anti-tank guns. Command the tank.

In order to overcome the soldiers' fear of the tank group's charge, the Soviet command ordered the soldiers to squat in the trenches, and then ordered their own tank troops to run over them repeatedly until the soldiers had no fear response.

The infantry's strategy is to let go of the tanks passing in front of them in the trenches, and then go out of the trenches to attack the infantry and self-propelled anti-tank artillery behind them.