Chapter 120 Encounter

The German army ran head-on into the 9th Armored Regiment of the 4th Armored Brigade of the British Army.

The 9th Armored Regiment was the unit responsible for attacking the rear of the Halfagu Pass defense line.

You should know that both the enemy and our army were marching in the desert at night. The desert was very wide, and it was a windy desert. The sky was full of dust and visibility was very low. The probability of colliding with each other was very small, and sometimes it was even difficult to find the whereabouts of a unit.

But it was so coincidental that the 21st Armored Division, which was rushing to reinforce the right wing, accidentally ran into the British army that was interspersed with the Halfagu Pass defense line as if it had picked up a treasure.

An armored division collided with an armored regiment, and the German armored division had 150 new "Phase III" tanks, while the British armored regiment had only 50 "Stuart" tanks...

Although the "Stuart" tank is an American product, it is only a light tank with a combat weight of only 12.5 tons, which is 7.5 tons lighter than the German "Phase III" tank (Note: The weight of the "Phase III" equipped with 50MM caliber tank artillery is slightly heavier than the original, reaching about 20 tons)

Although the two are similar in defense, the former is 44MM and the latter is 47MM.

The problem is that the artillery equipped on the "Stuart" tank is a small 37MM caliber cannon...This batch of American equipment was originally used to equip the Chinese Expeditionary Force to deal with the Japanese army. The armor of the Japanese tanks is notoriously thin, so the "Stuart" tank can fully meet the combat needs of the Asian battlefield, but now it has been transferred to Africa by Churchill to face the German army, which is another matter.

The caliber of the Stuart's gun was the same as that of the No. 3 tank before the replacement, so if the No. 3 tank had not been replaced, it might have a slight advantage, but not much.

However, at this time, the No. 3 tank was equipped with a 50MM anti-tank gun, which could penetrate the 78MM armor of the Matilda tank within a distance of 400 meters, and it was even easier to deal with the 44MM armor of the Stuart.

So the British 9th Armored Regiment was defeated in a burst of attack, and the victory and defeat were decided as soon as the two sides came into contact. The tanks of the British 9th Armored Regiment were either destroyed or surrendered... Some British armored soldiers did not even have time to surrender, because before they ran out of the tank and raised the white flag, the shells penetrated the armor of their tanks.

This also shows the mistake of General Auchinleck: when the performance of the tanks of the side is not superior but the number is superior, it is best not to divide the troops and be defeated by the enemy one by one.

Some historians speculate that this is because General Auchinleck did not know that the German "Phase III" had been replaced with a 50MM tank gun from a 37MM.

Because he did not know, he thought that the "Stuart" tank had the same performance as the "Phase III", and even that the "Stuart" was better than the "Phase III" in some aspects, such as mobility and fire suppression against infantry.

This idea is correct, because the "Stuart" has a maximum speed of 58 kilometers per hour, which is faster than the "Phase III" tank.

The auxiliary weapons of the "Stuart" tank are so numerous that it makes people feel abnormal: one parallel machine gun, one heading machine gun, two machine guns on the side of the vehicle, and one mounted on the top of the turret... that is, a total of five machine guns.

Each tank has five machine guns. If the five machine guns fire at the same time, it is almost a mobile firepower fortress. It can be imagined that any infantry will collapse like a dead tree or rotten wood under the firepower of the "Stuart" machine gun.

So if the "Stuart" is used properly, its performance is indeed not inferior to the "Phase 3", because the "Stuart" can use its high mobility and powerful machine gun firepower to force the German infantry and tanks to separate. After the separation of the infantry and tanks... due to the poor external perception of the tanks, the "Phase 3" tank will only be surrounded and annihilated by the enemy.

But the speculation of some historians is untenable, because General Auchinleck has too many ways to obtain German intelligence, such as "top secrets", and spies and underground organizations deployed in Tobruk. Even people who have no military knowledge can see the difference between 37MM artillery and 50MM artillery, not to mention spies and underground organizations with military qualities.

So there is only one explanation for General Auchinleck's behavior, he made the mistake of dividing his troops and advancing rashly in tactics.

In fact, there is another thing that played a big role in this battle, that is, the telephone installed on the back of the tank invented by Qin Chuan.

At this time, tanks can be said to have basically no night combat capabilities, such as British tanks, German tanks, and American tanks.

Because in the dark, the gunner can only see a vague shadow in front of him, and he can't judge its distance at all, or even see nothing in the dark.

With the telephone, this problem was well solved. The combat mode of the German "Type III" tank was usually like this:

The infantry shouted through the phone: "Three o'clock position, 50 meters, enemy tank!"

After receiving the information, the commander shouted: "Armor-piercing shells, three o'clock position, 50 meters!"

Then the loader loaded the armor-piercing shells, and the artillery adjusted the tank gun to aim at the target...

If the gunner still couldn't see the target, he would shout: "I can't see it!"

The commander shouted to the infantry through the phone: "Give me some light!"

"Give me some light!"

...

It is actually very simple for infantry to provide light, such as using tracer bullets, or using flares, and in real emergencies, they can also use car lights.

Of course, car lights are more dangerous, because turning on the lights will also expose yourself and make yourself a target of the enemy, so this is not often used.

It turns out that whether there is timely coordination with infantry makes a big difference, especially in such a poor visibility situation, because it almost means whether the tank crew can find the target tank in time and effectively destroy it.

So the British 9th Armored Regiment was almost devastated. 23 of the 50 "Stuart" tanks were destroyed on the spot, 18 were captured, and only 9 tanks that were originally at the rear of the troops turned around and fled when they saw the situation was not good... The advantage of the "Stuart" tank is that the body is light and fast, which is very suitable for escaping. The German "No. 3" tank can't catch up at all.

Then the battle ended quickly, so fast that Qin Chuan and others didn't even have time to participate in the battle. When they caught up, they saw a destroyed "Stuart" tank and a British soldier with his hands raised in horror.

Werner pointed his submachine gun at a burning Stuart and said, "Is this an American tank? It looks even less durable than the Matilda!"

"That's because the British can't use it!" Qin Chuan said, "And... the Americans have more powerful tanks!"