In the early hours of May 4, 1942, William, who knew that his strength was not enough to hold Dublin. Feng. Lieutenant General Sussman made the rather risky decision to fight a counterattack north of Dublin. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

From a military point of view, this adventure is not nonsense, because the situation on the battlefield is not transparent. Unbeknownst to the British on May 4, Lieutenant General Sussman's armored forces consisted of only eight tank companies (four of which belonged to the 1st Marine Division) plus 10 assault gun companies.

14 companies of tanks and assault guns are actually not too few, and if these 14 companies belong to the army armored forces, they are not weak. The 25-ton H tank No. 4 is now the standard for the Wehrmacht's armoured units, with 22 tanks per company. The tank had 80mm frontal armor and a 48-caliber 75mm anti-tank gun, and was also equipped with enough tungsten alloy armor-piercing shells. With eight companies of Type 4H tanks, Lieutenant General Sussman would have been able to defeat Montgomery's 11th Panzer Division outside Dublin.

Unfortunately, Sussman's eight tank companies had only Type 3M amphibious tanks and Type 38TS airborne tanks. Moreover, of the 10 assault gun companies in his hands, only 3 assault gun companies belonging to the 1st Marine Division are equipped with relatively strong No. 3 assault guns, and the other 7 companies belonging to the 7th Division of the Airborne Forces are equipped with Weasel 2 tank destroyers.

The Weasel 2 is based on the chassis of the obsolete No. 2 tank and is equipped with a 75MMPAK40/2L/46 gun, with a total combat weight of only 10.8 tons, which can be carried by the ME323 transport aircraft, so it has become an anti-tank weapon used by the Airborne Forces. However, although the firepower of this Weasel 2 tank destroyer is strong, its armor is very thin and it is open-topped.

Therefore, in the Battle of Dublin, which began on the afternoon of May 4, Lieutenant General Sussman's available armor forces were mainly 88 Amphibious Tank No. 3, 88 38T Tanks, 18 No. 3 assault guns and 60 Weasel Type 2 tank destroyers, a total of 254 tanks/self-propelled guns. The number of tanks/self-propelled guns in the possession of an armored division is about the same, and in addition, 48 double-wing HS-123 attack aircraft of the Marine Corps have been transferred from the amphibious landing ship to Dublin, where they can provide air support along with the Fokker Zeros flying from Brest. However, the British would certainly have used Mustang and Spitfire, so air support could not be expected to be of much use - at least until a large number of combat aircraft were deployed to Ireland, the Germans had little air superiority on the island of Ireland.

and Walter. The armoured group (known as the Winck cluster) commanded by Colonel Wink was opposed to the British 11th Panzer Division, which was commanded by Michael Brown, who had fought Rommel in North Africa. Omer. Major General Clegg.

Although he was a defeated subordinate of the German armored forces, he had the experience of losing battles. Therefore, after being transferred back to his homeland, he was not demoted, but became the commander of the powerful 11th Armored Division.

The 11th Armored Division is one of the strongest master-level units of the British Army at present, with three brigades, including the 22nd Armored Brigade, the 29th Armored Brigade, and the 131st "Queen" Brigade, which is one more brigade than the standard British divisional troops.

And the two armored brigades are also very well established, each of which consists of two tank regiments and one motorized infantry regiment, as well as an artillery regiment. According to the data on the compilation table, each tank regiment has 3 tank squadrons, each with 52 tanks, 10 armored vehicles and 575 officers and men. That is, each regiment has 156 tanks, and 1 armored brigade has 312 tanks.

The 22nd Panzer Division, with the 29th Panzer Brigade and the 11th Panzer Brigade, should have 624 tanks at full strength! Although the division is not fully equipped with tanks, there are still as many as 466 tanks that can be operated before the battle begins on the morning of May 4, including 155 Churchill 2 infantry tanks, 143 Crusader 2 cruiser tanks, and 168 American-produced M3 Grant/Lee medium tanks. In addition, the 11th Panzer Division had 36 M7 "Priest" self-propelled guns, so the total number of tanks/self-propelled guns that Major General Clegg had before the start of the battle on the morning of May 4 was as high as 502, far exceeding the opponent's 254.

In addition, the British infantry who participated in the Battle of Dublin, which began on 4 May, far outnumbered their opponents.

Montgomery's 12th Army alone consisted of seven infantry divisions, including the 3rd Infantry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, the 49th "West Redding" Infantry Division, the 51st Highland Division, the 52nd Lowland Division, the Downshire Division, and the Armaghshire Division, plus the infantry belonging to the 11th Panzer Division, and the total strength of the British infantry that began to be engaged in the Battle of Dublin from May 4 was as high as 120,000, which was far more than the less than 30,000 infantry possessed by the Germans' one naval division and one airborne division.

However, Montgomery, who was cautious in his military efforts, did not know that he actually had an overwhelming superiority in troops. The brigade-level tactical group (the main force of which is the 29th Armored Brigade) composed of the 11th Armored Division and the 3rd Infantry Division of the British Army, which was somewhat Germanophobic, was blocked by German armored forces outside Dublin.

And the command of the armored cluster trailed Walter to the town of Sworth. Colonel Winck, on the other hand, seized the opportunity and decided to continue the offensive while the main British forces were not ready. Before the offensive began, Colonel Wink called the commanders of 8 tank companies and 10 assault gun companies to his headquarters.

He told the 18 company commanders: "Now the main force of the British is moving south from Northern Ireland, and they want to defeat us and take back Dublin before our large force lands on the island of Ireland." But we don't want to give Dublin to the British, and we don't want to be surrounded by the British in a city that is very difficult to defend. So I decided, after consulting with Lieutenant General Sussman, to attack first and strike hard at the vanguard of the British, so that they would misjudge that we were stronger than them. ”

Dublin is not enough to defend on the ground, because Dublin is surrounded by plains and has good transportation facilities, which is very conducive to the roundabout advance of mechanized troops. If Sussman and Wink wanted to hold out, then their army would be surrounded and beaten by the British.

However, Sussman and Wink did not want to hand Dublin to the British. Because now Ireland has declared its independence and has applied for membership in the European Community. Irish Prime Minister Valera even went to Berlin to worship the pier and hug his thick legs.

At such a time, the loss of the capital of the Republic of Ireland must be a great disgrace for Germany - there is no precedent for the capital of a European Community country to be captured by the enemy until the end of the world war!

Therefore, Sussman and Winck thought of beating the vanguard of the British, so that the opponent would overestimate their own strength and adopt a defensive approach.

Walter. Colonel Winck then told his men about his disposition: "To the east of the town of Sworth is the beach and the Irish Sea, and the armoured forces cannot pass through, so the direction of attack is a large potato field to the west of the town, and from the right flank of the British, it is in a posture to encircle the town of Swarth. In this way, there is a high probability that the British will retreat, and then we will pursue under the cover of HS-123. ”

……

"Carl, is the oil ready?"

Rudolph. Feng. When Lieutenant Ribbentrop returned to the company, he saw his platoon commander, Karl Brown. Ensign Wiesel was eating next to the tracks of a tank No. 3. They were fed marching rations, which the troops had received from the field cooking company before they departed from Ducock Bay, and they were cooked and no longer needed to be cooked.

A daily ration usually consists of 700 grams of rye bread, 200 grams of cooked meat (mostly sausages), 60 grams of butter, 9 grams of coffee, 10 grams of granulated sugar, and 6 cigarettes. Sometimes biscuits, boxes of chocolate (8 triangular pieces of dark chocolate in a flat round box) and egg packets are also given.

Before Lieutenant Ribbentrop's company set out from Cork Bay, each officer and soldier received seven days' rations, which would have kept them from needing to be replenished for the coming week.

"It's all up," said Second Lieutenant Wiesel, who shoved a large piece of black bread with sausage and butter into his mouth, chewed vigorously a few times, and swallowed it with bitter coffee. "The 21 tanks (one was destroyed on the way from Dublin to Sworthtown) were filled with fuel, enough to drive us to Belfast."

"Okay, get in the car!" Lieutenant Ribbentrop waved his hand, "Let's go!" Karl, your platoon takes the lead, passing through the potato fields in battle formation, and making a detour back to the side of Sworth Town. ”

Now there are not enough officers in the German ground forces, and there is usually only one platoon commander under a company who is an officer, and the other two are sergeants. The platoon (usually a platoon) with an officer as the platoon commander must be the most combat-effective platoon in the whole company, and it must rush to the front when fighting.

However, Ensign Wiesel's platoon did not go far before it came under attack in the field west of Sworthtown.

Several strings of tracer shells were fired from the direction of Sworthtown, one of which hit the side armor of a tank in a platoon commanded by Second Lieutenant Wiesel, and then a 40mm shell came at it, setting the hapless tank on fire.

"Alert! Attention all! There are Crusader tanks! "Carl. Ensign Wiesel, half outside the turret, saw very clearly and saw that the 40mm shells were fired from several "haystacks", which were apparently camouflaged tanks.

"Behind the haystack, fight back! Kill those tanks, quick! "Second Lieutenant Wiesel gave a loud order, and the five No. 3 tanks stopped their advance, turned their turrets and aimed them at the haystacks, first firing from coaxial machine guns, and then at 50mm tank guns...... (To be continued.) )