The decisive battle against the Third Reich

As a result, a large number of tanks, vehicles and supplies were transported to Auchinleck via the Red Sea.

When the German army received more than 200 tanks and thought it had greatly increased its strength, the British army received several times more supplies and equipment than the German army.

The supplies received by the British army included 300 "Valentine" and "Matilda" tanks collected from the colonies and transported by US military transport ships (170 of them were "Matilda" tanks), and 300 tanks shipped from India. 300 American-made "Stuart" light tanks, 3,400 trucks, 600 field guns, 240 anti-aircraft guns, 200 anti-tank guns and 900 mortars... these are important to the American Victory Wheel and Liberty Wheel. It's all trivial. One of these giant ships can carry 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks and 230 million rounds of ammunition alone.

And these supplies are only a small part of them.

In addition, the engineers of New Zealand, one of the British colonies, have also built a railway from Alexandria to the village of Mishefa, 30 miles south of the village of Sidi Barani. This allows the British army's supply line to extend from Alexandria to On the front line, material supplies can be continuously transported to every soldier on the front line via railways.

This brought the British soldiers on the front line to consume 3 quarts of water per person per day (note: an imperial quart is approximately equal to 1137 milliliters), which was almost twice that of the German soldiers.

After General Auchinleck obtained these supplies, he organized the North African troops into the Eighth Army. The commander of the Army was Lieutenant General Allen Cunningham. The Army consisted of the 13th Army and the 30th Army... This The backbone of the two armies are the two armored divisions of the British army, namely the 15th and 7th Armored Divisions. Most of the remaining troops are the South African Division, the British Indian Division or the New Zealand Division.

With more things in his hands, General Auchinleck gained confidence. Coupled with Churchill's urging...the "Operation Crusade" planned by General Auchinleck was released.

In fact, General Auchinleck wanted to make more preparations before starting the fight, because he knew very well that although the British army had a large number of tanks, they were composed of "infantry tanks" and "reconnaissance tanks" (M3 Stuart) Their troops did not know how to use these tanks to coordinate, and they were not sure whether these tanks had an advantage over German tanks.

Therefore, the Eighth Army needs time to train and its equipment also needs time to verify.

Helplessly, Churchill urged again and again, and even issued an ultimatum to General Auchinleck: "Orders must be obeyed, otherwise you will be dismissed from office on the spot!"

It is understandable that Churchill would be so impatient. The reason was the German army's indiscriminate bombing of the island of Malta...Churchill hoped that Auchinleck's land attack would attract the power of the Luftwaffe to share some of the pressure on the island of Malta. , otherwise, once the island of Malta falls into the hands of the Germans, the British army will no longer be able to control Italy's supply lines to North Africa.

While the British army was busy reorganizing its army and learning to use the new American-made "Stuart" tank, Qin Chuan's attention was focused on a chicken.

This is the third week of training after the 5th Light Division was reorganized into the 21st Armored Division... The newly reorganized unit has added many new soldiers and new units, such as reorganizing the original artillery battalion into an artillery regiment, and also added A motorized mobile battalion and a field training camp (also called a supplementary battalion, the aforementioned establishment for recruits to adapt to the combat environment) were established.

In order for these new units to better coordinate with other combat units, a large amount of training and even exercises are required.

Training in the desert is of course tough, especially away from Tobruk... If they are in Tobruk, the soldiers can bathe in the sea, swim in their free time, and taste pasta made by Italians, and occasionally canned food When the supplies go to the common people in exchange for some bread or chicken, duck and other food, the most pleasant thing is to whistle at the girls who are fooling around with the Italian soldiers...

At this point, German soldiers are really inferior to Italian soldiers.

The Italian soldiers could casually take the girls to the beach to bask in the sun. At night, they would have a dance party around the bonfire, playing music and singing, or even kissing me in the dark not far away. No one Go and stop them... According to Alfredo, that is the private life of the Italian soldiers, and the officers never interfere, even the officers do so.

The German soldiers could only watch the Italian soldiers having fun with "envy, jealousy and hatred" in their eyes.

Want to do something with them?

Think about that 100 ml of green liquid!

In fact, this is the main reason why the officers want to pull the troops out of Tobruk... The German officers are worried that the German soldiers will inevitably be affected if they stay with these undisciplined Italian soldiers, and their combat effectiveness will increase. decline in numbers.

The result was the training of the 21st Armored Division in the desert. Each person was limited to two bottles of water per day, which is 2,000 milliliters, and ate bread that was so dry that it made the throat itchy and baked potatoes that were as dry as a mummy.

That night, the soldiers really couldn't stand it anymore... This may be called "going from simplicity to luxury, and from luxury to simplicity." Before, there were difficulties in supplying the same food, and no one could bear it. But in the mission, Brooke enjoyed it for a while, and returning to such a grueling state felt like torture.

"Hey!" Werner thought first: "We should get some food, we haven't smelled meat for a week!"

"What are you thinking, Werner?" said the baker. "We were eating canned corned beef yesterday!"

"I don't think that's meat!" Werner argued: "That's minced meat!"

"That stuff is really hard to swallow!" Alfredo continued: "I really don't understand why the British use it as military rations!"

In fact, no matter how many times you eat something, you will get tired of it, especially military food whose main function is to wrap your belly.

"The British certainly haven't considered the feelings of the new recruits!" Jakop said: "My class can't finish a can of corned beef. In fact...seeing them, my men will spit out everything they ate yesterday." !”

Jacop's men were all new recruits. When the recruits saw the ground corned beef, they would naturally think of the corpses crushed into pulp by tank tracks... With that said, Qin Chuan felt that they were really similar.

"But what can we do?" said the baker: "This is a desert, and Tobruk is thirty miles away from us!"

Werner "shushed", looked around slyly, and then lowered his voice and said, "Remember that chicken raised by General Strike?"