armyinform Third Reich Episode 316
Third Reich Episode 316
Seeing that the Italian troops were about to be completely wiped out by the British army, the Italians suddenly realized that all the British tanks on the opposite side were silent as if they had misfired.
It turned out that the British tanks had entered a long downhill due to unfamiliar terrain, and the downhill range was large enough to make the Crusader tanks fall into a shooting blind spot. If the British army opened fire at this time, it would be like a suicide attack.
The commander of the Italian army, who found that he had hit the big luck, almost jumped up happily. He ordered the remaining three Italian tanks to fire desperately at the British tanks.
Finally, after almost all the shells were fired, the British tanks were all wiped out.
The British infantry did not choose to fight to the death or not to surrender. They could only choose to surrender without the protection of tanks.
It was also one of the few battles in which the Italian army won more with less.Although both sides suffered heavy losses in this battle, it gave the Italian army great confidence and proved that Italy can also rely on its own strength to defeat the British army.
Since then, Italy has been advancing all the way, and finally won the final victory in the Battle of Mogadishu.
The Italians quickly completed their conquest of British Somalia after this campaign and incorporated it into Italian East Africa.
In this battle for Somalia, 38 British and Commonwealth troops were killed, 102 were injured, and 120 were captured; while the colonial forces in British Somalia suffered more than 1000 casualties.
The Italians suffered 465 killed and 1530 wounded; the Italian Somali forces suffered nearly 2000 casualties.
Although the British adopted a retreat policy and non-resistance combat methods, the Italians still suffered heavy casualties. It can be seen that the combat capabilities of the Italian army are indeed not very good.
Due to the fall of British Somalia, the major general in charge was severely criticized by Churchill, who believed that he should be fully responsible for the loss of the colony.
Contrary to Admiral Wavell, who advocated the preservation of strength, Churchill believed that the loss of the regular British army was very small, and the British army easily abandoned the colony without sufficient fighting, which was an absolutely unacceptable act of cowardice.
But in response to this accusation, Wavell believes that this retreat is a good teaching material.He believed that when facing an enemy with superiority, all you can do is to save your strength and retreat.
He also said that "a list of soldiers who were massacred would not be a good teaching material." As a result, Wavell's rebuttal aroused Churchill's greater anger.Churchill even almost said that all his anger was directed at Wavell.
Even for this, Churchill withheld Admiral Wavell's proposal to be promoted to Marshal, who captured the Tobruk Fortress, but only agreed to let Wavell change from the rank of temporary admiral to full-fledged admiral.
Text Chapter 487 Sultan
East Africa, on the border between Eritrea and Sudan.The Italian army advancing rashly is facing a dangerous situation.
Churchill directly intervened in the British military operations in Sudan this time. He sent the 5th Indian Infantry Division transferred from India to Sudan in early September 1940. At the same time, the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade was transferred to the Red Sea coast to protect Sudan. port.
In addition, there is the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade located in the southwest of Kassala, and the 10th Indian Infantry Brigade was transferred to Godrej to defend the general headquarters.
At the same time, the British Army in Africa, in conjunction with the Royal Air Force, is preparing to launch a counterattack against the Italian-occupied area.
On November 11, the long-planned British army launched a surprise attack, the purpose of which was to recapture the Karaba.
The offensive force consisted of General William Beale's 10th Indian Infantry Brigade.
In addition, his supporting forces were: a reserve force of twelve squadrons; a light tank regiment and artillery regiment.
At the same time he also received support from the Royal Air Force.
The raid began at 5:30am and ended at 8:[-]am when William Beale succeeded in retaking the Karaba.
After that, the British army formulated a pursuit plan: to attack Maitema.
The British command, General William Beale, said: "We should pursue the victory and pursue the enemy-occupied area with all our strength, so that the Italians will never dare to invade the Sudanese area."
"However, General, we have 19 tanks in our tank regiment that need to be repaired. I am afraid that without the cover of these 9 tanks, our infantry will find it difficult to use their superiority, and will be exposed to Italian artillery fire and suffer heavy losses. ’” An adjutant expressed his concerns to General William Beale.
Indeed, since 19 tanks of the British army suffered varying degrees of damage in the offensive just now and needed repairs, the British would not have enough tanks to use in the next round of attack, and the plan had to be postponed.
General William Bill beat his chest and said, "It's such a good opportunity, but we can't attack immediately because of the tank problem. If the Italian army has laid out the barbed wire and anti-tank trench defenses, we will not be able to break into their position."
I have to say that General William Bill's prediction is really very accurate.
The commander of the Italian army, the acting governor of Eritrea Lieutenant General Frysk, did not intend to give up the Italian occupied areas in Sudan.
He said passionately to the soldiers: "We have finally won a small amount of Sudanese land from the British. How can we give this land to the British at this time? We will defend this land to the death. Not easy land, win glory for the leader!"
The Italian soldiers were also full of passion after hearing his speech, and they were all full of fighting spirit.
Let's not talk about the combat quality of the soldiers of the Italian army. Even if they have such rare bravery, it is difficult for the British army to take them down.
After all, it was the first time to win the British Empire, and morale was high.
The Italian army was terrified under this morale.Moreover, the Italian army has also made full preparations for the defense of the rear positions.
They lined the front lines of their positions with barbed wire that only tanks could break through.And all this happened while the British Army was repairing tanks.
So when the tank was repaired, General William Bill had to stop his troops.
General William Bill sighed: "If I had given me even one more tank regiment, I would have already recovered the lost ground and entered the colonial area of Italy."
Since then, General William Bill has never found a chance to break into the Italian position.
In fact, he tried to rely on tanks to break through the Italian barbed wire, but all failed, because the barbed wire and anti-tank trenches laid by the Italian army were too dense, and often the tanks would be stuck there after breaking through several barbed wire defenses. Move, and the Italian anti-tank guns came in handy, and the British army lost 3 tanks for this.
The British army made no progress on the frontal battlefield, which led to the Italian army planning a counterattack against the British army.
First of all, the Italian Air Force served as the first sharp knife in the counterattack.
General Martini, the Italian commander in Gordon, commanding the entire Italian air force in his hands, launched a powerful counterattack against the British.
In this battle, the Italian Air Force suddenly appeared in this area. They took advantage of their familiarity with the environment and the number of air confrontations to shoot down 7 British "Gladiator" biplane fighters, and they also lost 6 CR- 42.
Although this does not seem to be a big advantage, you must know that the Italian army has a much larger numerical advantage than the British army in this area, and even if the Italian army and the British army have a one-to-one shooting down consumption ratio for combat consumption, in the end It will also be Italy that wins instead of Britain, not to mention that Italy will lose one less than Britain this time.
In the following 48 hours, the Italian Air Force violently bombed the British Essex Regiment and the 18th Royal Rifle Regiment.
When he saw that his troops were bombed wantonly by the Italian Air Force, but his troops were powerless and inactive, General William Beale said painfully: "We have no chance to counterattack! All this is because I missed the opportunity. Take responsibility for my actions."
In fact, this cannot be completely blamed on General William Bill. He thought about pursuing the Italian army immediately after the first phased victory. The repair work failed to follow up in time so that the British army missed the opportunity.
In his report to Churchill, General William Beale strongly criticized his mistakes and negligence and asked Churchill to punish him.Churchill naturally knew other reasons for this. Instead of punishing General William Bill, he praised his achievements in the previous stage and sent additional weapons and equipment to his army, and entrusted him with the task of counterattacking in the next stage. important task.
At this time, with the counterattack of the Italian army, the British army was forced to withdraw from the position they had just occupied.
The unwilling General William Beale sent the 10th Indian Infantry Brigade to counterattack and reoccupied some hills in the western part of Galaba three days later, but due to the heavy defense and large number of Italian troops, they could not continue to advance.Finally, the plan to attack Montemar had to be cancelled.
In the repeated battles between Italy and the United Kingdom around the Sudanese border, it finally came to an end with Italy's victory.
But Churchill would not stop there, and neither would Mussolini. Their struggles around East and North Africa had in fact just begun.
In the end, whether Churchill's defense is successful or Mussolini's "Great Roman Empire" plan is successful will definitely determine the situation in the next 10 years!
Text Chapter 488 Success
Rome, Italy.
In the past two days, Mussolini's little assistant always had nothing to do.