The decisive battle against the Third Reich

Major Daniel reported the results of the battle one after another. In just half an hour, dozens of British tanks were destroyed, and only one German tank was accidentally damaged... This accidental damage was because it was really difficult to identify in the dark, and the tank was mixed with enemy tanks, so it was paralyzed by one shot.

Fortunately, it was just an armor-piercing shell, and the tank crew inside was only slightly injured and successfully returned to the troops.

Of course, these are not important.

The important thing is that the British "Stuart" tanks can no longer harass the Germans as before, which allows the Germans to advance to Alexandria at full speed again.

General Auchinleck soon received relevant intelligence.

"General!" The staff reported: "German tanks mixed in with our tanks to fight, and our army suffered heavy losses!"

"How could German tanks mix in with our tanks?" General Auchinleck was a little confused.

"They drive "Stuart" tanks!" The staff explained.

"Oh!" Auchinleck suddenly realized, and then frowned.

"Damn it! Those must be tanks captured by them, these cunning Germans!"

"Colonel Yarlin requested instructions!"

"Tell him!" General Auchinleck ordered without thinking: "Find out and destroy those tanks that sneaked in!"

"Yes, General!" So the order was quickly passed down.

But General Auchinleck's order was obviously inappropriate... What should be done at this time is to temporarily stop and gather the tanks that are confirmed to be ours together, so that the tanks belonging to the enemy will naturally have nowhere to hide.

And General Auchinleck's order further aggravated the chaos of the situation, which made it easier for the German tanks that sneaked in to fish in the water.

Of course, this cannot be blamed on General Auchinleck, because he had basically never dealt with this situation before... The trench warfare during World War I was basically clear-cut, with one line of defense for the enemy and one line of defense for our side, separated by mines and barbed wire in the middle, bombarding each other with artillery fire, and occasionally launching one or two almost suicidal charges.

This kind of battle in which the enemy infiltrates the opponent's camp only began to show signs during World War II.

Because he had no relevant experience, General Auchinleck gave a wrong order.

This made the battlefield lively.

As soon as the order was issued, all the British soldiers knew that the "Stuart" might be an enemy tank... so everyone was afraid of enemies.

At first, it was just a small chaos.

Two teams of British tanks fought together because of a misjudgment. But the two teams of tanks belonged to tank groups of different units, so both groups reported to their superiors: "Enemy tanks were found, we are fighting against them, request reinforcements! Request reinforcements!"

Reinforcements soon came in a steady stream, and there were more and more of them, and the fighting became more and more chaotic, and in the end, it was even impossible to tell who was who.

Some of this was due to the German tanks messing around... They caught a team of tanks and fired a few shots and ran away, and the British tanks would naturally not let them go easily, and chased them hard.

As a result, another team of British tanks came from the opposite side, and saw a group of tanks in front of them firing while moving towards them... They naturally thought that it was the enemy, so they got entangled with each other.

This is an unresolved account. The British tanks lost at least 80 tanks in this melee.

I say "at least" because in the dark they could not tell which tanks were "missing" and which were destroyed, or which were enemy tanks and which were their own tanks... It is not certain that they included the enemy tanks in the statistics.

The 21st Armored Division of the German Army took advantage of this time and rushed to the city of Alexandria.

Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt after Cairo, but its importance is far greater than Cairo... because it is the most important port for the British Army to connect with the outside world (there is also a Port Said, but the throughput of Port Said is not as good as that of Alexandria, and once Alexandria falls into the hands of the enemy, Port Said will also be blocked by the Air Force).

As mentioned before, Alexandria was not prepared for defense.

When the German tanks "rumbled" towards Alexandria, the African Army was even building fortifications on the defense line...

The 3rd African Division, a unit formed in Egypt, defended the periphery of Alexandria.

However, this unit is more like a police force than an army, because they are usually trained to maintain public order, and they don't even get the support of the Egyptian people... The reason is that the Egyptians regard them as tools for the British to rule and enslave Egypt.

"People's support" seems to be an insignificant option on the battlefield, but it actually determines whether this army has a military spirit or the courage to sacrifice itself when facing the enemy...

The reason is simple. The soldiers of the army come from the people and can even be said to be part of the people.

If there is support from the people, there will be no shortage of passionate young people in the army who hold the belief of defending their country, and these talents are the backbone of the army.

Otherwise, the army is full of soldiers who pick up guns just to make a living. These people who are just making a living will certainly not be willing to sacrifice their lives for the British.

The African Army belongs to the latter, so when the German tanks appeared in front of them, they threw down their engineer shovels and fled, leaving the German army with an unfinished trench and barbed wire, as well as neatly arranged machine guns, artillery and boxes of unopened ammunition in the trench.

"They are simply sending us ammunition!" Yacop said: "I was worried just now that we didn't have enough ammunition to fight the enemy, but now it seems that these worries are unnecessary!"

"Don't take it lightly!" Kuhn reminded: "The next step is the most difficult!"

Kuhn was right, because what stood in front of him was the city of Alexandria.

Of course, the German tanks did not have the ability to run Egypt's second largest city under its tracks like they did against Dilcyin, so what the German army had to face was the most difficult thing for armored forces...street fighting.

The remnants of the New Zealand 2nd Infantry Division also knew this, so they did not garrison outside the city with the African Division.

It is true that the New Zealand 2nd Infantry Division lost most of its heavy equipment and anti-tank weapons due to the failure at Matruh.

But that's not a problem for them.

Because Alexandria is a port, there are resources and supplies shipped by the British army from all over the world. All the New Zealand soldiers had to do was drag the equipment out of the warehouse and set it up in the building.

These weapons and equipment can be said to be all-inclusive, the most important and threatening of which is the PIAT infantry anti-tank projectile known as the "English Crossbow".