“…… The tanks of the Soviets appeared! Just after the British armored forces under the command of General Auchinleck broke through three lines of defense of the Indian Red Army in succession. These Soviet tanks were not really tanks in the strict sense of the word, because they did not have a turret, a 75mm cannon was mounted directly on the body, and the body of this armored combat vehicle was very low, perhaps less than 2 meters, and it was painted in camouflage to prevent desert environments, and the British tanks that rushed to the front did not even see the other side clearly and were shot and caught fire. It was really, really unforgettable, and even ten years later, I can vividly recall every scene I saw that day. The British launched a very large offensive, each time they would put in at least 500 tanks, armored vehicles and tens of thousands of infantry, the 20-kilometer-wide front was covered with tanks, armored vehicles and infantry, and the artillery fire from both sides came and went, and the battlefield was full of gunsmoke, fire, and burning tanks...... And burnt or blown up soldiers! As soon as I think of this, my ears will hear the sound of the cannon being ejected, the sound of the armor-piercing bullet hitting the metal, the loud sound of the shell exploding, and the screams of the dying officers and soldiers. - The above is an excerpt from Lieutenant General Stilwell's memoir "The Wrong War".

"Look, that's a tank, the Indians actually have tanks! It's incredible! ”

"Nope! That's the stalker! Damn, that's the Stalker! Its muzzle is facing me, and I'm done! My God! I'm going to die, I'm going to die, ah......"

"God, our 40mm guns can't deal with them at all, how can this be, we can't hit them......"

The radio on General Patton's armoured command vehicle was always on, and he was located far from the front line where the tank battle was taking place, and the terrain was not high, so he could not see the situation on the battlefield at all. I had to listen to it through the Guò radio.

"Stalker!" Hearing this incomparably familiar term, Barton's pupils tightened, and he subconsciously looked back at Lieutenant General Lin Zuo, who was sitting beside him.

"General Patton, the British should have encountered the Su-75 self-propelled gun, which was a powerful artillery developed by the Soviets with the help of the French on the basis of the French version of the Stalker tank destroyer. It looks a lot like the Stalker, but it's slightly larger and about the same power...... That 48x caliber 75mm tank gun was powerful. If you use tungsten steel armor-piercing bullets, you can penetrate 1500mm homogeneous steel plate at a distance of 120 meters! Lin Zuoda took a deep breath and introduced the general situation of the Soviet version of the Stalker to Patton in English, he paused and added: "I think what they are encountering now is the Soviet tank army!" ”

"Damn French!" Barton gritted his teeth and cursed, but quickly regained his composure. "No problem. The British were able to deal with it, and their Matilda 2 tank had a thick skin, with armor thickness of 75-78 mm in the main parts and 25-55 mm in the secondary parts. And their Crusader cruiser tanks were fast enough to go around the flanks of Soviet tank clusters to attack, and I remember that the Stalker tank destroyers had very thin wing armor and could not block 40mm guns. ”

That being said, However, Patton was extremely unoptimistic about the British Matilda and Crusader tanks, because after fighting side by side with the British for a while, he already knew the details of the six British armored divisions.

The British did not pay much attention to the development of armored forces before this world war, and although they also formed two armored divisions, they were equipped with extremely outdated tanks. So much so that in the first Middle East battle in 1932, he was full of foreign appearances. After that, the British Army learned from the pain and finally decided to increase the development of armored forces. However, the development path of British tanks was very strange, and both China and Germany were allies of Britain at that time. France and Britain also had a very close relationship, and it stands to reason that the British could imitate the Stalker tank destroyer or develop their own tank based on the French tank. However, the British did not use their ready-made experience, and had to find a way out of their own. Moreover, they did not have enough experience in tank warfare, and they were unwilling to humbly seek advice from China and Germany, so they "explored" two very strange ideas for tank development on their own.

One of them is the so-called "infantry tank", that is, the Matilda series of tanks, which the British touted as the "queen of the battlefield". Now fighting the Soviet Su-75 on the battlefield of Khurais is the Matilda 2 tank. As Patton said, the skin of this tank is relatively thick, and it does not focus on the frontal armor and neglect other parts of the Stalker series. Matilda 2 is covered in thick armor.

However, the Matilda 2 tank had thick armor. But I can't carry the SU-75's 48 times caliber 75mm gun! Moreover, the Matilda 2, with its strong armor, did not have a sharp gun, and the power of a 40mm caliber tank gun was simply too small. It was simply not enough to threaten the frontal armor of the Stalker series 60mm at a 60-degree angle. Therefore, the only way that Matilda 2 can threaten the pursuer is to use mobility to make a detour to the opponent's flank and attack. But...... The British tank designers did not know what medicine they had taken wrong, and actually adopted a twin-engine power system! This outlandish design not only increased the size and weight of the power plant, but also brought about synchronization and coordination problems when the two engines worked, resulting in a situation where one plus one is less than two, and the Matilda 2's total combat weight of up to tons made this 190 hp powered tank far less fast on the battlefield than the Soviet Su-75. There is no talk of using mobility to detour the opponent's flank to attack.

In addition, the design idea of another so-called "cruiser tank" is even more inexplicable. British tank designers believed that tanks used against enemy tanks should have three characteristics: thin armor, high speed, and strong firepower. However, the "Crusader" cruiser they designed was only fast and thinly armored, and a 40mm main gun could not be equated with firepower in any way. I really wonder how Lieutenant General Auchinleck is going to use these two tanks with big carts and small guns to deal with the Soviet version of the Stalker?

"We're going to use the Matilda 2 to attract enemy fire, and then use the speed of the Crusader tanks to attack from both flanks!"

Next to an armored command vehicle closer to the front-line battlefield, Stilwell, who had never commanded an armored unit, was teaching Auchinleck, who had just lost a battle, how to deal with Soviet tanks. He crouched on the ground, drew several lines representing tank units on the hot sand with his fingers, and then said to the commanders of several other British armored divisions in Auchinleck: "The Matilda tank is the heavy infantry, and it should be placed in front, like the line infantry of the Napoleonic era, and slowly press down on the opponent!" The Crusader tanks were hussars. It should be outflanked from both flanks of the enemy, this is how to deal with the Soviet 'Stalker' tanks! Well, this time we're going to send 600 tanks to give the Soviets a little bit of power! ”

On the opposite side of the Anglo-American armored front, the commander of the 39th Tank Corps of the Soviet Red Army, Chuikov, was also giving an opportunity to several of his subordinates: "Comrades, the battle just now has shown that their tanks are no match for the Su-75 at all, but the imperialists will not be so light and run away with their tails between their legs. They will definitely launch a new offensive. I guess next time they'll have to fight for numbers. It is possible to use that kind of heavy tank with very weak firepower as a meat shield to attract the fire of the Su-75, and then let the fast medium tank outflank from both wings. My solution was to use the Indians' anti-tank guns and infantry against the outflanked medium tanks, and I believed that the Indians would be able to cover our flanks. And we will concentrate the firepower of the Su-75 and destroy the enemy's heavy tanks first! ”

May 17, 1935, 2:15 p.m. The US-British coalition began shelling before the second round of armored assaults, the main targets of which were the flanks of the Soviet defense with the Su-75 at its core. Open a channel for the attack of the Crusader cruiser tanks. But in order to achieve the goal of surprise (to be honest, the US-British coalition forces are ruined this time in always thinking about surprises, their opponents have been fighting for so many years, what "strange" have not been seen?) So the shelling of the Anglo-American coalition was not long, only 15 minutes in total. This was followed by a 5-minute front-line fire, followed by a 5-minute shallow, close-and-depth fire, and finally a 5-minute second front-line fire. And since the former Khurais is far from the port of Jeddah. There had been a number of battles on the way to the Persian Gulf in the previous days, so that the Stilwell-Wavell cluster was now somewhat short of ammunition, so the shelling was not only short-lived, but also did not have enough fire intensity to inflict heavy damage on the Indian anti-tank gun positions deployed on the left and right flanks of the Soviet tank cluster.

Lin Zuoda, who had already arrived at the front line to watch the battle at that time, wrote in his battlefield diary: "The shelling of the British and American troops was obviously perfunctory, and it was impossible for such fire preparation to destroy the lurking Soviet anti-tank gun positions, and their planes did not know where they went?" From this morning until now, I have not seen a single plane appear over the battlefield. Didn't the Anglo-American Combined Fleet, which had already sailed into the Persian Gulf, have 4 aircraft carriers? Why didn't they send planes to Khurais to help in the war? I have a very ominous omen! ”

There is certainly a reason why the Anglo-American combined fleet did not send planes to aid in the war, because they are now a little too busy to take care of themselves! In fact, at the same time as the Battle of Hurace began, Blyukherr issued an order to Nagumo Tadaichi and Inoue Narumi to begin the "Persian Gulf Special Offensive Operation". 120 Il-18, 195 Il-2, 202 "special attack aircraft" modified with Il-16 launched a surprise attack on the British and American fleets that were approaching the Persian Gulf!

"Suicide plane!"

"Crash Proof, Ready!"

"Boom, boom......"

Two stubby, short Il-16 fighters suddenly emerged from the clouds and slammed into the burly body of Ernestkin's flagship, the battleship New York. A huge fireball roared up, and the hull with a full load displacement of 32,000 tons trembled violently twice. All the people in the command tower clung to the railing handle so that they were not knocked to the ground.

"Report Loss ......"

Before he could regain his footing, the captain of the New York grabbed the ship's phone and shouted and asked.

"Chimney No. 2 was knocked down ......"

"The seaplane catapult was smashed by a collapsed chimney, and both 2 seaplanes were destroyed."

"Two anti-aircraft guns on the starboard side were rammed. Dozens of shells were also detonated, causing fires......"

It's not bad, the loss is not too big. In the end, the battleship New York had heavy armor, and the impact of suicide planes was not small, but the armor-piercing ability was still not enough, and it could not hurt the battleship at all. However, Admiral Ernest Gold's face was still pale, and the elderly American admiral stood at the door of the platform of the command tower, his right hand clenched tightly on the doorrail, and his eyes were fixed on the USS Essex not far away.

This large aircraft carrier, which has just joined the US Navy not long ago, is on fire! The black plume of smoke is always hundreds of meters high. Just now. The giant ship with a full load displacement of 34,880 tons was simultaneously hit by a 500-kilogram armor-piercing projectile dropped by an Il-2 and a suicide plane that did not kill! Two large holes were broken in the flight deck, Hangar No. 1 was destroyed, and more than a dozen of the latest SBD Dreadnought dive bombers parked on the deck were destroyed - these planes were supposed to be sent to support the British and American armored forces on the battlefield of Khurais, but before they could take off, the fleet was attacked by the Soviet and Indian air forces, and to the shock of all the British and American naval generals present, the Soviet and Indian air forces were in this air attack. Suicide planes were actually used! Flying a plane full of bombs to die with a warship, these GC fighters are simply crazy!

At this time, in the sky, four more Il-16s broke through the entanglement of the US F2A Buffalo fighters, and launched a decisive attack on another US aircraft carrier, the USS Saratoga, in the face of the rain of bullets fired by British and American surface ships!

"Boom! Boom ......" two more booms, and two huge fireballs rose from the deck of the Saratoga!

Oops, the Saratoga got hit again......

Ernest Gold gritted his teeth. The commander of the Soviet Union or the Indian Air Force who commanded this suicide attack (he didn't expect the Japanese to be in command) was taken from their headquarters and eaten alive! Because the tactics they adopted of such planes hitting warships were not fighting a war at all, but murdering, murdering their own fighters! Such commanders do not deserve to be called military men at all, but murderers in the truest sense of the word.

"Admiral! The destroyer HMS Haman reported the discovery of enemy submarines near the Strait of Hormuz! The communications staff officer of the fleet suddenly shouted: "And there is more than one, they are most likely laying mines!" ”

Damn it! Ernest kin immediately understood the intentions of his opponents, who wanted to blockade the Strait of Hormuz with mines. Trapping the combined U.S.-British fleet and more than 100,000 landing troops in the Persian Gulf.

"How's the Essex and Saratoga doing?" Ernest Gold is most worried about his two baby aircraft carriers now, as long as the aircraft carrier can still cast planes, dozens or even hundreds of mines will not be able to stop his large fleet at all, and the landing operation in the Persian Gulf can continue to be carried out! But if the decks of both aircraft carriers were damaged, the fleet would be in serious trouble and would have to risk withdrawing from the Persian Gulf after dark.

"Admiral, the USS Essex reports that two large holes have been knocked out of their bow and amidships' flight deck! And the hangar caught fire. Thirty-eight more SBDs were destroyed and needed a major overhaul and refurbishment before they could fight again. The Saratoga reported that the deck of their bow aircraft had been smashed and that there had been a hit on the island, but it did not affect the take-off and landing of the aircraft. ”

"Admiral, Lieutenant General Phillips of the British Army called that their Ark Royal was being hit by 2 500-kilogram armor-piercing shells. The amidships and stern flight decks were penetrated and basically incapacitated, the Queen Elizabeth was hit by 2 suicide planes with little damage, and the Malaya was hit by a 500-kilogram armor-piercing projectile. Penetrated the Aturre...... Lieutenant General Phillips asked whether he should continue to carry out the plan for landing operations in the Persian Gulf. ”

Inside the bridge, all the American Navy officers turned pale, and it was clear that the British had been frightened by the madness of the Indian Ahsan, and they retreated! Could it be that the Persian Gulf operation failed like this? It is just that the amateur level of the US army was defeated by the Indian Asan, and now even the US Navy, which ranks first in the world, has actually become a defeated commander under the Indians, and this shame is a little too great.

But is it possible not to withdraw from the Persian Gulf? The first wave of enemy air strikes inflicted heavy damage on three aircraft carriers, two of which were horrific! If there were a few more waves of such attacks, would this combined Anglo-American fleet not be completely wiped out in the Persian Gulf?

"Lieutenant General, I'm afraid we will have to withdraw from the Persian Gulf for the time being!" Thinking of the possibility of leaving the fleet in the Persian Gulf, Admiral Ernest kin gasped and turned to Fredendor, who was in charge of commanding the landing force.

Fredendol was also shocked by the suicidal attack of India's Ah San, and when he heard Ernestkin's advice, he immediately nodded and said, "General, I think we can withdraw from the Persian Gulf first." Speaking of this, he remembered that in the great desert east of Riyadh, there seemed to be a British and American armored unit waiting to cooperate with him. He thought for a moment and said, "But we can't retreat too far, Admiral, I can put the main force of the landing force into the Gulf of Oman, occupy the port of Muscat, and then let the Stilwell-Wavell cluster cross the Rub al-Khali desert to Muscat to join us." ”

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