The decisive battle against the Third Reich

After the battle, General Stryker commanded the troops to make a feint... He asked the troops to turn around and move towards Cairo again.

General Stryker's approach was of course correct, because this feint did not take much time and did not consume much fuel (the German army seized the fuel of the 7th Armored Division in the battle, so it could afford it), which means that the German army did not need much cost, but it could confuse the British army.

As for how the news would be passed to the British command, the German army was not worried... The British 7th Armored Division had slipped through the net, and they would definitely report the relevant situation to their superiors.

Sure enough, after Major General Bolton ran wildly with the remnants of the defeated army for a while, he found that the German army did not follow, so he slowed down.

After asking the scouts to go back and scout, Major General Bolton sent a telegram to General Auchinleck in frustration.

"General!" Major General Bolton said, "The 7th Armored Division is finished!"

"What?" General Auchinleck, who was busy dispatching troops to Cairo, was stunned when he saw the telegram, and then asked, "What does finished mean?"

"The Germans turned around and suddenly attacked us..." Major General Bolton replied, "We suffered heavy losses!"

"How heavy are the losses?" General Auchinleck asked.

"We only have 35 tanks left, and we lost more than 5,000 people and most of the artillery..."

The artillery was originally towed behind the car and traveled with the car, but the British soldiers hurriedly untied the artillery to prepare for defense, and they didn't have time to hang them back when they fled, so they all fell into the hands of the Germans.

"How did you do it?" General Auchinleck could no longer maintain his gentlemanly demeanor. He wrote in the telegram bluntly: "I allocated the best equipment of the entire army to the 7th Armored Division, but you couldn't resist a German charge! God, before this, I still hoped that you could annihilate the Germans. I was so ridiculous!" Major General Bolton was speechless. Although Major General Bolton knew that the failure of this battle was not his fault alone... In fact, he was executing General Auchinleck's orders, and in General Auchinleck's eyes, combat effectiveness seemed to be only the performance of tanks, but not the training and coordination of soldiers. But Major General Bolton could not explain anything, because any explanation now would be pale and would be regarded as an excuse... Defeat is defeat, this is the reality that soldiers must face. After a while, General Auchinleck asked again: "How many German casualties did they have?" Bolton answered truthfully: "They had almost no casualties, we were caught off guard!" Auchinleck did not seem surprised by this answer. "Where are they now?" Auchinleck asked again.

"They should be heading towards Cairo again!" Major General Burton answered.

After this battle, Major General Burton felt that the 7th Armored Division was the real target of the Germans, but he was not sure.

"Okay!" General Auchinleck ordered: "You stay where you are, and the 6th Australian Infantry Division will arrive to join you in seven hours, and then advance towards Cairo together!"

"Yes!" Although Major General Burton was very reluctant to do so, because this would make the officers and soldiers of the 7th Armored Division always bear the disdainful eyes and ridicule of the 6th Australian Infantry Division, he still had to obey General Auchinleck's order.

What Major General Burton didn't know was that his worries were unnecessary, because the Australian Infantry Division was attacked by the Germans before joining Burton.

Of course, the 21st Armored Division attacked them. When Major General Burton's remnants were building defenses on the spot, the 21st Armored Division had bypassed Major General Burton's position from both wings and headed straight for the Australian Infantry Division.

It is not easy to find the Australian Infantry Division. Due to the influence of wind and sand, the visibility is only a few hundred meters. The two troops may have crossed each other not far away without knowing each other.

But the problem was solved after the German scouts found the position of the remnants of the 7th Armored Division... General Strike guessed that the remnants of the 7th Armored Division were waiting for the Australian Infantry Division, so he sent a large number of scouts to the opposite direction with the remnants as the starting point and left reconnaissance points along the way.

This is the strength of the German army. The most important foundation of "blitzkrieg" is reconnaissance. Reconnaissance by aircraft and infantry, and after obtaining accurate intelligence from the enemy, tanks are used to quickly attack the enemy's weaknesses.

In this respect, the 21st Armored Division is actually a "blitzkrieg" this time.

Then, the scouts quickly guided the 21st Armored Division to the correct ambush position. When the Australian 6th Infantry Division marched forward with difficulty in the wind and sand and heat waves, suddenly there was a roar of engines in front of them, and then rows of tanks appeared in front of them like heavenly soldiers and generals.

Needless to say, although the Australian 6th Infantry Division was stronger than the British Army, they were still an infantry division after all, and were caught off guard by the Germans, so they quickly retreated under the German offensive.

But it should be said that the Australian Infantry Division performed much better than the 7th Armored Division. When they realized that they were ambushed, they immediately deployed their forces to form a large defense line, and then retreated while laying mines, and counterattacked with anti-tank guns.

This cost the German army 20 tanks, but the results were far worse than the battle with the 7th Armored Division.

This is the importance of quality and morale.

Qin Chuan believed that if the same equipment was given to the Australian Infantry Division instead of being handed over to the British veterans, the combat effectiveness of the British Eighth Army would be much improved.

But the British obviously won't do this, even if they know this...

Because doing so is detrimental to the dignity of the British. The British are superior people. How could they be equipped worse than the colonial army? On the other hand, there is the issue of trust. If the equipment of the colonial army is better than that of the British army and its combat effectiveness is stronger than the British army, how can the British army control the colonial army? What if the colonial army rebels?

It can also be seen from this that although the British Eighth Army has many soldiers and generals, its combat effectiveness cannot be fully exerted due to internal conflicts and other problems.

The German army also had this problem. It was difficult for the German and Italian armies to coordinate. However, Rommel was very smart and asked the German army to attack the Italian army to defend the city... This almost solved the problem of coordination.

Of course, this is only a partial solution, and there are still many differences between Germany and Italy.

It was only then that General Auchinleck suddenly woke up.

"God!" General Auchinleck said: "We were fooled. The Germans' goal was not Cairo at all!"