On 14 February, the Naval Resistance Army, which had been preparing for more than half a month, started. The Naval Resistance Army, which had been wandering off the coast of Berbera for several days, immediately began to land.

This roundabout force of the Naval Resistance Army is composed of Bao Gang's first field battalion, an amphibious company, and two armored companies led by Qin Zhan, totaling more than 2,000 people.

Although the number of people is not large, if you look at the equipment, it is extremely amazing, there are 200 cars alone.

This is the only fully mechanized force in East Africa, if not in the whole of Africa. It is the fist of the naval resistance army in the siege field.

February 15, four o'clock in the morning.

The first amphibious landing in the history of the Naval Resistance Force kicked off a three-dimensional battle on land, sea and air.

Berbera, located at the root of the Gulf of Aden. Here, it is about 300 kilometers away in a straight line from the core city of Erigabo on the Somali peninsula. And the main force of the Naval Resistance Army, where it is now located, is in Bossaso, three hundred kilometers east of Erigabo. That is to say, the distance between the two fists of the Maritime Resistance Army is 600 kilometers, and if it is a distance, it is around 1,200 kilometers. In this battle, the coordination of the two armies of the Naval Resistance Army was the top priority of the work of the General Staff.

The Berbera Sea is a turbulent area with a treacherous terrain that is difficult to defend and difficult to attack, and the Italian army has a heavy presence here. The entire defensive system was based on shore artillery, with 280 mm guns and 15O mm guns cross-arranged to form a fire network, and on the hillside on the west side of the port, the Italian army also deployed a 6-tube torpedo firing position. If Li Guang knew the origin of these torpedoes, he would be more depressed, and it turned out that they were sold to Italy by Mr. Rameau of Spain.

The reason why you chose to land here is related to the topography of Berbera. As mentioned earlier, the Somali Peninsula is a mountain range along the Gulf of Aden, with several gaps in the middle forming several seaport cities. And Berbera is located on such a gap. Moreover, the gap in Berbera is quite special, surrounded by a large area of plains and deserts, and there are well-established roads, which are most suitable for the deployment of mechanized troops.

As long as it is occupied here, that is, the bottom edge of the triangular Somali Peninsula, it can cut off the retreat of the Italian army on the entire Somali Peninsula, which can be described as strategic. Therefore, the Italian fortifications here were quite strong.

However, the strength of the Italian defense was only on paper. THE 280MM AND 150MM SHORE GUN BATTERIES WERE BLOWN UP BY THE BATTLESHIP PACIFIC TWO MONTHS AGO. Due to the recent period, Li Guang did not want to startle the snake, so he did not bomb this place again. BUT EVEN IF THE ITALIAN ARMY REPAIRED SOME OF THE BATTERIES, ONCE A BIG GUY LIKE THE 280MM SHORE GUN WAS DESTROYED, IT WOULD DEFINITELY NOT BE REPAIRED IN TWO MONTHS, SO THE BATTLESHIP ATLANTIC, WHICH WAS THE MAIN SUPPORT FORCE AT SEA, WAS NOT IN MUCH DANGER.

The landing site chosen by the Maritime Resistance Forces was not a nearby beachhead, but a port.

The reason lies in the topography of the Gulf of Aden. The coast of the Gulf of Aden was full of coral reefs, and the battleship Atlantic had to find a relatively open body of water if it wanted to give full play to its firepower advantage. It's just too unsafe to sail in the reef area.

Even so, the port of Berbera, which seems to be wide in the sea, is very dangerous at the entrance. On the right side is a treacherous reef, which is like a time bomb at high tide, and if you are not familiar with the terrain and venture into it, the consequences will be unimaginable. At low tide, the reef is exposed to the surface of the sea, and the roar of the waves is daunting. The fleet did not dare to break into this passage of death.

On the left side near the mountains is the only access to the inner harbor.

It is not easy for the Maritime Resistance Army to forcibly break through. However, the battleship Atlantic is outside the port, and there is an area where it can hover, which is already the best choice for the naval resistance forces, and the battleship is against the shore guns, and this hovering space is very important.

There was another important reason for choosing the port, and not the weakly defended beachhead of the Italian army-the naval resistance army did not have armored vehicles capable of wading through the water, only tanks for land battles. Without a dock, these heavy equipment would not have been able to go ashore at all.

As soon as the east showed the whiteness of the fish's belly, the silent sea was awakened by the rumbling sound of warship engines.

The battleship Atlantic led a joint landing flotilla consisting of two pickup air defense destroyers into the sea near the port of Berbera. Further afield, there are two seaplane carriers - PJP and PC.

With the first cannon sound of the battleship Atlantic. Twenty-four water reconnaissance planes took off one after another. The amphibious company, which had been prepared for a long time, and the sixteen landing craft rowed white waves on the sea surface one after another, and pounced on Berbera in unison.

In all these actions, the Naval Resistance Force has conducted many exercises on the sand table, and even conducted an actual combat exercise. At the beginning of the battle, all the actions of the Naval Resistance Army appeared to be in order.

Although it was the first time for Zheng Xuechang to serve as the commander-in-chief of the landing battle, Zheng Xuechang, who had experienced the artillery fire of the Arabian Sea War, already had the quality of a battlefield commander, and he seemed very calm. According to the battle plan, after the successful landing, the command will be transferred to the hands of Bao Gang, the commander of the first battalion.

The Italian army in Berbera had only one battalion of more than 700 men, except for a company of shore defense artillery, but this battalion was the elite of the Italian army, compared to Colonel Bianchi in the Carlin Valley. This is the most elite "black shirt army" of the Italian army.

This so-called black shirt army is very similar to Hitler's SS. It undertakes both internal and combat missions. It was a military instrument organized by Mussolini to serve his political activities. The main founding members of the Blackshirts were a number of nationalist intellectuals, veteran officers, and some members of the Arditi (an elite Italian unit during World War I). As Mussolini's power grew, the Black Shirts became more brutal and used violence and threats against Mussolini's opponents. On the battlefield, these Black Shirts were more fanatical and sacrificial than the average Italian army. Italy was able to have a colony of Ethiopia in Africa, thanks to the Black Shirts.

The commander of the Italian army was Colonel Bellini and battalion commander. Strange, right? A small battalion commander turned out to be a colonel, but it was not surprising to understand that they were all cronies of Mussolini. Otherwise, you will not understand that the commander of Berbera's nearly six thousand black troops, Major General Flaso's division commander Zirac, was also under the command of Colonel Bellini.

At the first sound of the Atlantic's cannon, Colonel Bellini got up from the bed and kicked the woman off the bed. Colonel Bellini has a good taste, and is not very interested in Italian women, but he has recently found a French woman and has been hot. However, when war came, Colonel Bellini showed the agility of a soldier. He put on his military uniform and began to run in the direction of the barracks.

Berbera had been silent for two months, and the Italian soldiers and Somali civilians had just been quiet for a while. I didn't expect to hear the roar of the cannon again today. Colonel Bellini was still organizing his troops, and he did not know that the defenders of the Italian batteries on the shore had been scattered from the first cannon shot, and had already fled. The Italian soldiers knew how to value life, and the damage inflicted on the defenders of the battery by the battleship Pacific was still fresh in their memories. Anyway, the Naval Resistance Army always evacuated after a few rounds of artillery, and they were used to it, so as soon as the battle began, these Italian soldiers evacuated the battery, and they didn't feel any guilt about Shangguan, as if evacuating the battery was a natural act. He didn't even notify his superiors of a phone call.

The Black Shirts are the elite of Italy, but this elite is still the Italian army. The commander stayed in the city at night and enjoyed himself with his mistress, and the officers and soldiers did the same, and most of them fooled around in the city.

By the time Colonel Bellini had gathered most of his men, an hour had passed.

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