Chapter 364 Tunnel Defense (IV)

Colonel Bader reported the offensive situation and the process of various failed attempts to Montgomery one by one.

Although the report was detailed, Montgomery was still confused and could not understand what was going on.

"The flamethrower can't cause any harm to the enemy? Are you sure you can burn for a long enough time?"

"You are already standing in front of the tunnel entrance, and you are still helpless?"

...

Colonel Bader was speechless about Montgomery's words, but he didn't know how to refute them.

This is also one of Montgomery's shortcomings of not being on the battlefield in person. If he was on the front line and saw how the British army fought and was defeated, he would not say these ignorant words.

But precisely because Montgomery didn't see it, he suspected that the British army didn't try their best, and Colonel Bader and other soldiers who fought desperately on the front line would have a lot of grievances and nowhere to say.

It's no wonder that Montgomery didn't believe it. He couldn't imagine that the British army had already captured the high ground, and had such obvious advantages in manpower and equipment, but was beaten down again and again.

What Montgomery didn't know was that tunnel warfare was precisely a tactic aimed at the enemy's superiority in manpower and equipment... Once the troops hid in the tunnels, almost all modern equipment such as aircraft, artillery, and tanks could not play a role.

Even if the aircraft and artillery bombarded and collapsed part of the tunnel, the point was that the British army outside could not see the results of the battle at all, so from beginning to end, they thought that they were bombing blindly, doing useless work, and wasting ammunition. This was a very powerless feeling.

In fact, let alone the British nowadays are helpless against this tactic, = even in modern times, when the United States dealt with Vietnam, it was helpless against this tactic. (Note: During the Vietnam War, Vietnam learned a lot from China's tunnel tactics during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea)

The only one who really defeated this tactic was China, which invented this tactic in the end... In the subsequent self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, Vietnam attempted to use this tactic to drag the Chinese army into the quagmire, but China was the ancestor of this tactic, and of course it would not be stumped by the apprentice.

The method to deal with it is a bit stupid, which is the so-called "net-pulling and clearing": no matter what, set a big fire for a few days and nights, burn all the plants and trees into charcoal, and then pull a "net" on the map, that is, divide each high ground into small grids, and send a troop to each grid to be responsible for careful clearing... Find all the caves, tunnels, and invisible tunnel entrances, either blow them up, burn them, or bury them (seal the tunnel entrances with steel bars and cement), and then block them with firepower, and block all the enemies hiding in the tunnels so tightly that none of them can show up.

Once one or two high grounds are cleared, these high grounds will not be able to provide firepower cover for other high grounds, so a breakthrough will be found and the same method can be used to deal with other high grounds.

With the British army's current strength, it is completely possible to implement "net-pulling and clearing", but the British and American armies basically would not think of this method.

On the one hand, this is because of the character of Europeans and Americans. They always like to use more modern and more "high-end" methods. This may be related to their industrialization process, or the way of thinking of commercial countries... They will not consider too much the simple method of clearing one by one that requires a lot of labor.

On the other hand, it should be said that European and American armies are always accustomed to regular combat rather than good at guerrilla warfare... The essence of tunnel warfare is a guerrilla warfare, but tunnels are used to implement strategic policies such as "enemy advances, we retreat, enemy retreats, we advance", "enemy stays, we harass, enemy fatigue, we attack".

So the British and American troops are not afraid of the "Alamein Line" and "Matra Line"... These regular defense lines that can be seen on the ground, at most they just pile up ammunition.

But facing this kind of tunnel defense line where they don't know where to pile the ammunition, they have no choice.

The most important thing is: Qin Chuan will not tell the British how to deal with tunnel warfare, so let them toss around outside.

After thinking for a while, Montgomery said to Colonel Bader: "Colonel, we seem to have deviated from the focus of this battle!"

"What?" Colonel Bader asked: "I don't understand what you said, General!"

"What is the purpose of our attack on these heights?" Montgomery asked back.

"Open up the supply line!" Colonel Bader replied: "Or you can say open up the retreat!"

"Yes!" Montgomery said: "So since you can attack the enemy's heights and even stand in front of their tunnels and use flamethrowers to spray fire into them, why can't our supplies be transported in? Why can't our troops withdraw?"

Colonel Bader said "Oh", and then replied: "I know what to do, General!"

Colonel Bader did know what to do, that is, ignore other places, focus on ensuring the safety of the road and smooth transportation.

It should be said that there is nothing wrong with this idea itself. As long as the road is unobstructed, all the problems of the British army will be solved. As for how many Germans are hiding in the tunnels... let them continue to hide!

Therefore, Colonel Budd focused on the tunnels facing the road... Actually, he had no other way to deal with them, except to blow up the tunnels, pile up stones and even bury mines at the tunnels. After that, he would set up a few sentries or a machine gun outside to prevent anyone from coming out.

Then, Colonel Budd asked the soldiers to build a defense line on the top of the mountain based on the positive slope... There were fewer tunnels on the positive slope, and a regiment of the 6th Australian Infantry Division was stationed there.

Colonel Bader hoped to use this line of defense to block the tunnel entrance on the reverse slope with firepower.

He ordered the soldiers: "Kill everything that comes out of the ground, not even a rat!"

However, this is just a good wish. Not to mention that the tunnel entrances are set in relatively secret locations, not to mention that a large number of plants on the high ground can serve as cover, and even some invisible tunnel entrances are right next to the British army and they can't detect them.

The usefulness in this regard is another matter...

After doing all this, the road that Montgomery and Colonel Bader hoped for did not appear.

Just when a team of cars rushed to pass the road at the foot of Hill Zero before nightfall, a shell whistled and hit these cars fiercely from different directions...More than a dozen cars were in a mess in an instant, and soon, they were either blown into flames or turned over to the side of the road.

"We are wrong again!" Colonel Bader said: "If we want to keep the road open, at least all the enemy heights within a few kilometers around must be blocked!"