The decisive battle against the Third Reich

Of course, Qin Chuan, who was still guarding the oil field, didn't know about the changes in the outside world. He just felt a little strange... The bombing of the oil field by the British and American troops gradually decreased.

It used to be once or even several times a day, but now I only see the shadow of B14 every few days.

There was even one incident that caused losses to the exploration team...a bomb accurately hit the derrick and blew it up completely. Another derrick's drilling rig was hit by shrapnel, and the circulation system was damaged and unable to operate normally.

The so-called circulation system is a system that carries the rock fragments broken by the drill bit to the surface in a timely manner. If there is a problem with this system, the drill bit will soon be filled with rock fragments at the bottom of the well and become unable to move.

As a result, only three of the five derricks were still functioning normally.

Although the members of the exploration team were still full of confidence because of the encouragement of the oil seedlings, Backhouse frowned all day long.

Looking at his appearance, Qin Chuan asked, "What's the problem, Professor?"

"Tell me, Captain!" Professor Backhouse looked at no one around and asked Qin Chuan: "Are we just doing useless work because of a lie to deceive the enemy?"

"Is there any difference?" Qin Chuan asked back: "We did make a plan to deceive the enemy and the exploration team, but your data is true, and the locations where you drilled wells were all made by Calculated with correct data, isn’t it?”

"certainly!"

"So..." Qin Chuan asked again: "Whether these drilling wells can produce oil has anything to do with the lies we formulated?"

Professor Backhouse was stunned upon hearing this. Qin Chuan was right...the oil seepage was indeed a lie, but the drilling did not prevent oil from being produced or oil was produced because of this lie.

If anything, the members of the exploration team became more motivated because of this lie.

At this time, Colonel Slaine's jeep stopped in front of the two people with a bunch of dust. He jumped out of the car and asked loudly: "Hey, Professor. Is everything going well?"

"All goes well, Colonel!" Professor Backhouse replied: "We have reached eleven hundred meters!"

"Very good!" Colonel Slaine said jokingly, "I'm just waiting for your good news!"

"I hope so!" replied Professor Backhouse, and walked away knowingly.

"They have a large number of American reinforcements!" Colonel Slain walked to Qin Chuan and said.

"Warship?" Qin Chuan asked.

"No, according to our intelligence, they are infantry!" Colonel Slaine replied.

"Infantry?" Qin Chuan couldn't help but be startled when he heard this.

Sending more infantry to North Africa should be said to be useless, because even the British knew at this time that the tunnel fortifications of the Gabes Defense Line could not be solved by more infantry.

"We estimate... they may land in Sicily!"

"Why?" Qin Chuan asked.

"Because they conduct frequent reconnaissance in Sicily, both by air and by sea!"

"Maybe they are just preparing for another naval battle!" Qin Chuan said: "You know, if they want to break through the Tunisian Strait, they also need to understand the situation in Sicily!"

The reason why Qinchuan thought so was because the Allied forces attacked Sicily in history after their victory in the North African Campaign.

"Maybe!" Colonel Slain said: "But if they just want to break through the Tunisian Strait, they should not increase the infantry, but should increase the navy. Now, their navy has indeed increased, but the increase is overwhelming. Most of them are transport ships used for landing!”

"Uh-huh!" Qin Chuan couldn't help but frowned upon hearing this. It seemed that the British were really thinking about Sicily.

As he continued to think about it, Qin Chuan felt more and more that it was possible.

Now the war situation has developed in a direction that is beneficial to Algeria's defense. For example, there are more and more tunnel fortifications on the Gabe defense line. The German air power has also become stronger because the 24th Air Wing has been transferred back to Sicily. Hitler's support increased exponentially, plus there was oil being dug...

It was really possible that the British could not break through the Gabes defense line and could not break through the Tunisian Strait, so they chose to attack Sicily. This may be one of the reasons why they reduced the number and intensity of bombing the Timrag Basin.

In other words, the Allies were no longer as eager to attack Sicily as they had been in history, waiting for the victory in the North African Campaign.

Perhaps it was because Qinchuan "discovered" oil in the Timrag Basin that the British were forced to attack Sicily in the hope of continuing to cut off the African Corps' transportation lines.

At this time, a motorcycle "suddenly" drove in front of the two people. After a signal soldier propped up the motorcycle, he hurried to Colonel Slaine and saluted, and then reported: "Colonel, a telegram from the headquarters. , let you and the captain go to the headquarters for a meeting immediately!"

Colonel Slain took the telegram, looked at it, and said to Qin Chuan: "It seems there is something urgent. The command headquarters will pick up our plane and it will arrive in half an hour. You go and get ready!"

"Yes, Colonel!"

In fact, there was nothing to prepare. He just handed over the security tasks of the prospectors to Kuhn and then hurried to the camp in Colonel Sline's jeep.

The two of them had no time to smoke a cigarette when a transport plane roared down from the sky, then jumped on the ground a few times and stopped more than a hundred meters away from the two of them.

This is a Junkers Type 52 transport aircraft. It has three engines...one on each wing and one on the nose.

Although it looks very weird, it makes the aircraft very safe, because even if two of the engines are damaged or fail, it can still fly back to the camp with the only remaining engine.

Another thing is that its landing gear cannot be retracted... This seems to be a disadvantage, but it is also an advantage.

The disadvantage is that having the landing gear outside will affect the speed of the aircraft and consume more fuel.

The advantage is that the landing gear is simple and sturdy, allowing for rough landings on uneven field terrain.

Rommel often used this transport plane to inspect his troops in the desert. If he saw any troops who were slacking off, he would order the plane to land anywhere, reprimand the officers and soldiers, and then fly back to the air to continue patrolling.

Once, during an inspection, Rommel mistook the British soldiers for lazy Germans because it was dark. He was about to land before he recognized the enemy from his helmet, and hurriedly flew back into the air.

At this time, Qin Chuan and Colonel Slain flew directly to Gafsa on this aircraft... As usual, Rommel always liked to stay with the soldiers on the front line.