Chapter 122 South African 1st Division
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day to my brothers!
You can enjoy the holidays and eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, but I can only stay at home and write... So, it's very hard, right?
This book will be available on the sixth of next month. I hope you can give more support. It's not easy to write in front of the computer, especially in such a difficult environment now. You will encounter the beasts at any time, so that the soldiers can't make up their minds to resign several times... If they resign, the book will be attacked by the beasts again, and they will not even have porridge to drink. So the soldiers can only work and write at the same time, and the hardship is not something that outsiders can understand.
Brothers, please support the genuine version! Only a few cents for one chapter, but it is a great support to the author. After reading the whole book of three million words, it is only a few mooncakes, but it can allow the author to continue writing the book, and there are more and better works in front of you, why not?
Qin Chuan once again realized that the German army had a lightning-like fighting style. They almost launched an attack on the enemy's defense line as soon as they arrived at the battlefield.
This approach is certainly correct, because the German army always has an advantage in quality compared to its opponents.
For troops with good quality, they can exert strong combat effectiveness even without sufficient preparation time, because the soldiers know what they should do.
For example, now, the artillery set up artillery to bombard the enemy's defense line, the tanks advance under the instructions of the infantry and the artillery fire that continues to extend forward, the infantry follows the tanks to cover and coordinate, and the anti-tank guns are set up in the rear to deal with the enemy's sudden tanks...
On the other hand, the South African 1st Division, although they have a defensive advantage by waiting for the enemy to attack, they are at a loss in the face of the sudden attack of the German army. This can be seen from the bullets and shells they fired randomly in the direction of the German army without a target. Some shells even deviated from the position of the German army several kilometers away... This made the German officers and soldiers a little dumbfounded.
In fact, it should be said that this is the first time that the German officers and soldiers have fought against the South African colonial army.
The 1st Division of South Africa is a unit that can almost be said to be in a primitive state. The difference between them and the primitive tribes is that they are equipped with rifles and cannons instead of spears and bows and arrows.
However, their equipment is better than that of the primitive tribes, but their tactical thinking is still the same as that of the primitive tribes... They believe that whether a gun or a cannon can hit the target does not depend on the calculation of "three points and one line" or "parabolic trajectory". Compared with these things, they believe in gods more.
Simply put, if there is a blessing from the gods, then they only need to point the muzzle of the gun towards the enemy and pull the trigger to hit the target, otherwise it will be useless no matter how hard they aim.
Therefore, the 1st Division of South Africa often does some rituals before the battle, such as asking a wizard to dance around the fire, or tying a cloth dyed red with chicken blood to the barrel of the gun, etc.
In line with this, they also thought that there was no need to learn any tactical moves such as concealment and leaping, because the decisive factor was certainly not the shooting skills, but whether the gods had the ability to bless them... The enemy could shoot accurately because of the "white man's magic", and they were hit because the "white man's magic" was stronger than the African gods.
So everything can be explained by gods and magic.
What's more interesting is that these soldiers of the South African 1st Division belong to different tribes... Africa is the region with the most complex ethnic composition. In this land that is not large and most of the area is still a desert that is not suitable for human survival, there are thousands of ethnic groups and tribes scattered, and even more than 800 languages.
These different tribes believe in different gods, and different gods have different ways of "blessing", so they will argue and even conflict with each other over whose "god" will be more effective in combat.
This is also one of the reasons why Major General Alger, the commander of the South African 1st Division, felt incredible when he received Lieutenant General Cunningham's request for him to defend the Gabusali Line.
"God!" Major General Alger said, "I should be thankful if I could stop the fighting among the troops. Why do we have to stop the German attack?!"
"Two hours, General!" The staff officer was just transferred from Britain, and he seemed very confident: "The lieutenant general only asked us to stop the enemy for two hours, and then reinforcements will come!"
"Oh, really?" Major General Alger said angrily, "Let's make a bet. If you can command the troops to stop the enemy for half an hour, you will be the division commander. How about it?"
The staff officer was speechless for a while.
Facts also proved that Major General Alger was not angry. The German army easily tore through the defense line of the South African 1st Division with a charge, and then the tanks led the German soldiers through the gap like a flood. Into the Gabshali defense line.
The soldiers of the South African 1st Division obviously believed that the white magic had defeated their gods again, so they abandoned their positions and fled. No matter how the British officers shouted in frustration, it was useless.
Among them, the 80 "Valentine" tanks left by the British Army on the Gabshari Line can play a role... Because of their slow speed, this type of tank was arranged by Lieutenant General Cunningham to defend the Gabshari Line, and the remaining 50 tanks are on their way to the Gabshari Line.
But these "Valentine" tanks are equipped with British two-pound guns, that is, 40MM artillery.
If in the past, they might be able to block the impact of the "Type 3" tank, but now the "Type 3" is equipped with a 50MM artillery...
The advantage of artillery and the coordination of telephones made the "Panzer III" tank as invincible as the "Stuart" tank of the British Armored 9th Regiment.
What's worse is...
If the "Stuart" tank can't win, it can at least run away, but if the "Valentine" tank can't win, it can only wait to die on the spot... Its maximum speed is only 24 kilometers per hour, and it can't run faster than the "Panzer III" with a maximum speed of 40 kilometers per hour.
So after a period of random resistance, the British could only use their last trick, blow up the tank and surrender.
This is still considered to be the British army's advanced wisdom. They did not let the "Valentine" tank fall into the hands of the Germans and become the enemy's weapon.
However, the Germans did not seem to take this tank, which was completely matched with the "Panzer III" in their eyes. For example, the "Matilda" captured before was mostly thrown into the Tobruk or Halfa Pass defense line for defense or used as a mobile artillery position... This infantry tank whose speed was completely incompatible with the mobility speed was a kind of chicken rib for the German army: if they took it, it would undoubtedly seriously affect the logistics and marching speed of the German army; if they did not take it, tanks were a scarce resource in the desert anyway, and the "Matilda" was a tank anyway.
The loss of the South African 1st Division was huge. They almost lost all their artillery units and anti-tank guns.
However, most of these artillery were artillery that the British army had eliminated and did not use. For example, the anti-tank gun was still a two-pound gun, and it was rusty... From this, we can see that the British army was actually very far-sighted. They knew that it would be a waste to give good equipment to the South African 1st Division.
The South African 1st Division dropped so many guns that the roadside was full of artillery parts that had fallen to one side or been blown up. The defense line was like a cannon cemetery.
In addition, 224 soldiers of the South African 1st Division were killed, 379 were injured, and 2,791 were captured. The rest of them fled to the desert, and the German soldiers were not even interested in chasing them.
Werner had a good explanation for this: "Their skin is a good protective color. We can't find them at all if they flee into the dark!"