Chapter 361 Tunnel Defense

A barrage of artillery fire hit the slope of Hill Zero, and as usual, the ground shook. However, because these shells were fired from the direction of Gafsa, most of them hit the reverse slope, that is, the top of the tunnel fortifications, so the vibration was much more intense than before.

However, perhaps because they had similar experiences before, or perhaps the morale of the French battalion was inspired, or perhaps they had just won a victory and gained confidence, the soldiers did not react to the more intense bombing. Many soldiers were drinking water and eating bread in the sand that was falling down... In the previous battles at the bus station and the airport, most of them were too nervous to eat, and now they felt hungry after relaxing.

Colonel Slaine guessed wrong about one thing. This bombing was not fierce and only lasted for a few minutes.

Qin Chuan thought that this was related to the destruction of a large number of British ammunition at the bus station and the airport... Of course, the Allies could also use transport planes to airdrop or urgently transport to Gafsa Airport.

But the transport capacity was limited after all. The Allies had to choose between fuel, ammunition, food, and even between ammunition, bullets and shells, so they no longer dared to pile tons of ammunition into the enemy's position as before.

After the sound of the artillery weakened, Qin Chuan ran to the entrance of the tunnel and carefully stuck his head out to look down... Dozens of "Sherman" tanks were majestically raising their guns to cover the teams of British infantry behind them. There were also several minesweepers in the front. Obviously, the British were worried that the Germans would lay mines in front of the position.

However, the British army was overthinking about this. The German army had just recaptured the position from the British army not long ago. There was no time or conditions to lay mines... Mine laying is not omnipotent. Although it is indeed very useful, mine laying needs to be laid over a large area to play a role in deterring and delaying the enemy. However, the tunnel is very narrow and the space is very precious, so laying mines is a very uneconomical tactic for tunnel defense.

The British army's offensive tactics have changed a bit this time... Their engineers first used cars to transport a bunch of steel triangular slopes and arranged them regularly at the foot of the mountain and reinforced them with sandbags. Then the tanks slowly drove up under the guidance of the engineers, so that the tank guns were raised high and aimed at the fortifications on the zero high ground.

This is a good idea. Seeing this, Qin Chuan couldn't help but secretly praise it. This can solve the problem of insufficient elevation angle of the tank.

But everything has its pros and cons. Doing so is also not conducive to the tank aiming at the target... But it's better to be able to hit it than not to hit it.

Perhaps to test their skills, these tanks fired a barrage of shells at the tunnel entrance on the high ground.

Tanks are much more accurate at close range than long-range artillery, and the area near the tunnel entrance was immediately filled with smoke and dust.

Then the British army began to fight for real. Following the commander's order, the soldiers of the First Airborne Regiment hiding behind the tanks rushed forward with their guns.

The commander of the First Airborne Regiment was Colonel Bader, who was also the frontline commander of the attack on Hill Zero.

Colonel Bader did not take the battle in front of him seriously, because in his mind, those Germans hiding in the tunnels were simply killing themselves... The military theory Bader had learned told him that the most important thing for the two armies to confront each other was to deploy their forces in the front.

This was obvious. The side that deployed its forces could exert greater firepower and combat effectiveness, while the side that failed to deploy its forces would only be restricted everywhere, even if the total force was greater than that of the other side.

Some even believed that at a certain time, the troops that failed to deploy and could not exert their firepower were almost equivalent to having no troops.

Now, the British army has fully deployed its troops and firepower on the front, and there are also tanks to cover, while the German army... is hiding in the tunnel.

"God!" Colonel Bader said to the staff: "They may have only one tunnel entrance in a platoon, which means that there are only two or three soldiers in a platoon who can exert their combat effectiveness. They actually want to stop us?!"

"Colonel!" The staff reminded: "The general means to be careful of the German ambush!"

Colonel Bader smiled disdainfully: "They are all hiding in the tunnel. I don't think they can have any ambush!"

Colonel Bader's point of view can be said to be right or wrong.

He is right because the German army in the tunnel did not ambush.

He is wrong because these tunnels are far from as simple as he imagined.

"Bang!" A gunshot sounded, and a bullet shot down a machine gunner standing on a tank.

Colonel Bader looked back and cursed loudly: "Fuck, who did it?"

Colonel Bader's first reaction was that the machine gunner was knocked down by himself... This is not uncommon on the battlefield, such as accidental discharge of the gun or accidental shooting.

But Colonel Bader soon found out that he was wrong, because the next second, bullets poured down like raindrops on the back of the British army, accompanied by a burst of artillery shells... Then there was a burst of "boom boom" noises, and more than a dozen mortar shells exploded in the British army.

Colonel Bader, who was lying on the ground, looked in the direction where the gunshots came from. It turned out to be the white 217 highland behind the 312 highland. Soon, another highland also fired several shells at the British army. The shells fell very accurately into the British army, and dozens of people were knocked down immediately.

This is the power of the tunnel tactics. The highlands are not independent of each other. Of course, they can cover each other. As long as the firepower can reach the adjacent tunnels, one or more tunnels will be dug.

Among them, the most useful is the mortar. Most mortars have a range of several kilometers. With the target highland as the center and a range of several kilometers as the radius, a circle is drawn. All the highlands and positions within this circle can provide fire cover for the target highland.

In particular, the mortar can also be fired from another slope over the highland, so only a few artillery observers are needed on the top of the mountain to fire shells at the enemy without the enemy even seeing where the shells are coming from.

"Hide! Hide!" Colonel Bader ordered loudly.

Of course, he would not order a withdrawal so easily. Even if he did, he thought that as long as he held on for a while, his troops and the Australian division would be able to take the highland.

But Colonel Bad soon discovered that this was not the case. Just as the British soldiers were rushing up the hill in groups, gunshots rang out one after another on the hill... As mentioned before, the tunnel entrances also covered each other. When the British soldiers ran towards a tunnel entrance, they would inevitably expose their backs or flanks to another tunnel entrance. There were even shooting holes that were camouflaged very secretly. Many British soldiers did not know where the bullets came from before they died.