Rommel was talking about Qin Chuan's plan.

When the British army attacked the Alexandria Line, Qin Chuan had been thinking about a problem: it would not work like this, and the supply conditions of the German army must be improved, otherwise if they were lucky enough to withstand one attack, there would be another attack, and in the end, the Afrika Korps would completely collapse because of the huge gap in equipment and troops as in history.

But what can Qin Chuan do?

To change the terms of supply, it was necessary to seize the island of Malta, which straddled Italy with the North African continent.

However, at this time, the German and Italian armies had lost the best opportunity to seize the island of Malta.

While staring at the map and falling into deep thought, Qin Chuan suddenly realized that it was not necessary to start with Italy as a starting point to transport materials to North Africa, and the terrain of Greece and Italy had one thing in common...... Both are long probes into the Mediterranean.

At this time, Greece had already surrendered, that is, under the control of the German and Italian armies, and only Crete was spared because it was an island and was garrisoned by the British 14th Infantry Division...... The reason why this island was garrisoned by the British army was because the British army hoped that the Greek army would have more troops to deal with the German and Italian attacks, so they sent an infantry division to defend Crete for Greece, which allowed Greece to transfer the three divisions originally stationed on the island back to Greece to fight the German and Italian forces, but this still did not change the result.

This discovery couldn't help but make Qin Chuan ecstatic, because, as Rommel said, once Crete was captured, then the British air power on Malta Island would be completely useless.

"We can first transport the material located in Sicily to Greece through the Strait of Messina!" Qin Chuan pointed to the map and said: "We can even open a transportation line to Greece, transfer all the materials originally shipped to Italy and Sicily to Greece, and then transfer them to the Greek port to sea and directly to Matru or Alexandria!" ”

"The island of Malta is more than 800 kilometers from Crete!" Rommel added: "Or it could be said that it is almost eight hundred kilometers from our route, so there is nothing they can do!" ”

This was determined by the range of the British fighters...... The British army's more advanced "Spitfire" fighters have a range of only 1,000 kilometers, which means that their combat radius is only 500 kilometers, and they are simply unable to threaten Crete from Malta to Crete, which is 800 kilometers away.

"It's the same with Port Said!" Qin Chuan said: "Port Said is 610 kilometers from Crete, and it is also outside the combat radius of British fighters, that is...... If we can take Crete, we basically don't have to worry about the British blocking our supply lines with warplanes! ”

Crete is located halfway between Port Said and Malta, and is about the longest distance a British fighter can fly...... If British fighters were to be transferred from Port Said to Malta, they usually had Crete as a relay station, that is, refueling in Crete before flying to Malta.

But if the Germans captured the relay station in the middle, it would not only be a matter of establishing a supply line, but also make it difficult for British fighters to move between Port Said and Malta.

The reason for the use of the word "difficult" is that there are other ways for the British army to move, such as using aircraft carriers as relay stations, but that would obviously be more dangerous and complicated than using Crete as a relay station.

This is also one of the reasons why Qin Chuan wants to transfer British fighters to Malta Island...... The British certainly could not have imagined that the fighters would not be able to return after arriving on the island of Malta.

"So...... What troops will we use to attack Crete? General Stryker asked.

"The same troops we are talking about!" Qin Chuan said: "It's just that the target of their attack is not Malta, but Crete!" ”

General Stryk couldn't help but nodded, this was actually a sound from east to west.

"That's a great idea!" After a pause, General Stryk said, "But I still have a question, how do we prevent the British fighters from returning to Crete?" ”

This question is to the point.

As mentioned before, the most important thing in the naval battle for the island is air supremacy, and although Crete is outside the combat radius of the fighters of Malta and Port Said, Crete is different under the control of the British army...... British fighters could fly to the Cretan airfield and land and fight from Crete.

"Airborne Forces!" Rommel said.

"Yes, Airborne Forces!" Qin Chuan nodded and said, "They are the key, they must control all three airports located on the island of Crete at the first time, otherwise they will ......"

Otherwise, as long as there is an airfield under the control of the British army, then British fighters can rush from Malta and Port Said to Crete in two hours, and then land, refuel, take off, and then quickly seize air supremacy.

There is no doubt about that.

This is not to say that the German fighters could not beat the British fighters, in fact, the German fighters always had the upper hand in air battles and even won more with less.

The problem was that the German BF109 fighter was notoriously short legs, with a maximum range of only 700 km.

Crete is 300 kilometers from the African continent, and it is 600 kilometers back and forth...... In this way, BF109 will only have a few minutes to fly over Crete, otherwise it will not have enough fuel to fly back.

This caused a lot of psychological stress on the pilots, and even if the German pilots were all very skilled, a trip to Crete would only last a few minutes.

On the other hand, if the Germans had full control of the airfield, it would be the British who would have to face the problem.

To be precise, if the Germans could control the airfield, British fighters would not have been able to fight over Crete...... Port Said of the British army was six hundred kilometers from Crete instead of three hundred.

After thinking for a while, Rommel said: "I agree with this battle plan, because it will enable us to change from complete passivity to complete initiative, and above all, it will change the balance of air power to a considerable extent." However, we cannot pin our hopes on the Italians! ”

Qin Chuan knew what Rommel meant by this.

The focus of the capture of Crete was on the control of three airfields on the island, and the main force that controlled these three airfields was the Italian 185 Parachute Division...... Although this division has the nickname of the "Lightning" division, the Italian 132nd Panzer Division also has a very powerful nickname "Ram".

"But what can we do?" Qin Chuan asked: "We don't have airborne troops!" ”

The Germans actually had airborne troops, but they were all used by Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.

"We don't!" Rommel said: "But we can train!" ”