On December 1, 1942, Patton's winter offensive was still underway.

The U.S. Army, with the Third Army as the main force, attacked Tiburbai, while the main force of the French North African Corps led by Marshal Andrew of France was deployed in the hilly areas around Teburbai.

As a North African country, it has a decent vegetation cover, as the mountains block the warm and humid air currents from the Mediterranean, and it receives more rain than the two real desert countries on its left and right.

The city of Tabourbai is a direct manifestation of this "geographical advantage" of Luenis, the hills around it are all shrubs, and the green vegetation coverage makes it hard to believe that this place is actually on the edge of the Sahara Desert, separated by a mountain range that is not too wide.

**

"The French did not deploy their positions in accordance with our principles of resilient defense." Lin Youde's chief of staff pointed to the sand table, "They still use the same old style, but they have been operating in Lunis for a long time, so there are a large number of permanent fortifications." ”

"Andrew is also a person who has experienced modern warfare," Lin Youde waved his hand lightly, "He will not completely copy the experience of World War I, the previous defensive operations show that he still has two brushes." ”

"But it wasn't enough to stop Barton."

"Yes, a fierce general like Patton, of course, will not be blocked lightly." Lin Youde said as he drew a pencil on the map, "How many support points do we have left in this line?" ”

"We are also in contact with seven villages, and they are attacking Patton's follow-up forces."

"Very good," Lin Youde nodded, "Patton's tactics are not wrong, because this is the first time he has fought with the German army, and he doesn't know that the German army is good at fighting in such an independent small battle group, he thinks that the German front will lose its combat effectiveness if the troops are cut off." This guy isn't used to modern warfare yet. ”

Modern warfare is basically this kind of small cluster warfare, and the battlefield is completely fragmented -- the two sides have no clear concept of a "demarcation line," and the entire battlefield is one of you, me, and me. The reason why this has become the case, on the one hand, is due to the unprecedented expansion of the battlefield, and on the other hand, because the firepower of modern armies is getting stronger and stronger.

Taking air power as an example, the most bullish near-air support fighter in Lin Youde's hands is the lightning G4 -- G is a major improvement model, with a series of ABCDEF models in front, and the 4 in the back is a minor modification serial number after the overhaul, so this is also called the lightning type and then the chopping hand type. This Lightning G4 only carries two thousand-pound bombs. The F4 Phantom fighter jet, which was designed in 56 years, can carry a full seven tons of ammunition, and the napalm carried by four planes of an F4 squadron can burn an entire forest.

Under such powerful firepower, a large group of troops can easily become a huge piece of fat, on the contrary, a small but capable combat group can have enough survivability under such ferocious firepower.

The battlefield, which is composed of various small combat clusters, is naturally fragmented, and the modern army can no longer form a stable front like the Western Front of World War I.

Therefore, digitalization is so emphasized in modern military construction, and only digital and information-based troops can cope with the fragmented battlefield.

Of course, Lin Youde's German army could not do digital informatization, but the German army's communication ability, as well as the training they received and the actual combat before, made the German army very accustomed to this kind of small cluster combat separated from other troops, and Patton obviously did not notice this, he just won a large key support point, and continued to move forward.

"Order these support points to use firepower to kill and injure as many American and British troops as possible, and send a small detachment to attack and harass when night falls," Lin Youde calmly ordered, "How is the deployment of our reserves?" ”

The U.S. forces did not just invest in the Third Army, they launched attacks on the entire front, and it seemed that they wanted to contain the troops on the first line of the Allied Army, so Lin Youde could only deploy reserves to deal with the breakthrough of the Third Army.

"We have deployed five divisions on the right flank of the French army, and the first 15th Division has launched a tentative attack, but it has encountered a division of the second armored division of the US army, and the two sides disengaged after three hours of fighting, and the 15th division reported destroying about 50 enemy tanks and losing more than 30 of its own."

"It's an exchange that doesn't make people laugh." Lin Youde shook his head, with a wry smile on his face, the American chariot in this time and space was copied from him Lin Youde's chariot, and its performance was much better than that of the Sherman lighter, but it became difficult to fight.

The German armored corps is much stronger than the American armored corps in terms of combat experience, but obviously, the Americans have also trained some relatively powerful armored units after training with the French, and although Lin Youde's 15 th Armored Division has only been formed for less than a year, it has been trained by those veteran noncommissioned officers who have come down from the eastern line, and has also accumulated a lot of experience in previous operations. can play like this with the fifteenth division, Lin Youde began to wonder if there is such a thing as a "general's halo" in this world.

"Where is my heavy battalion now?"

"The 510th Heavy Battalion has arrived at the starting position, and the 512th Battalion has just left the city of Vis. The staff officer immediately reported.

"Very good, the 510 battalion will be launched tomorrow with our troops who have already launched a counterattack. No, they are not the first offensive echelon, let the other units attack first, see where the resistance is weaker, and then immediately throw in the 510 battalion and the second attack echelon. ”

"Are we going to outflank the U.S. Third Army?"

"Of course not," Lin Youde shook his head, "To outflank the entire group army, we definitely don't have enough troops in our hands, and this battlefield is too small to have room for large-scale maneuvering." And if we are to carry out our signature rolling offensive, we must now tear apart the enemy's forces and disrupt their deployment. ”

"Understood, I'll convey this to the commanders of the front-line troops."

Lin Youde nodded, and then waved his hand to the chief of staff, so the chief of staff immediately understood, closed the above, and left.

After the sound of the door closing, Lin Youde was left alone in the entire office.

Lin Youde let out a long sigh of relief.

To be honest, judging from the information obtained now, Patton deployed his troops quite in an orderly manner, and Lin Youde studied for a night, but he couldn't find a gap that could be used, so just now he could only give an order like "use the offensive to find the enemy's defensive weaknesses". This was the favorite method of the Russians, the Great War of Another Time and Space, and it was in this way that Brusinov used to complete his successful offensive - one of the few offensive battles won by the Russian army in the First World War.

Later, this method of Brusinov was carried forward by the Soviet Red Army and was continuously improved in the Great Patriotic War.

To be honest, Lin Youde didn't want to use this method of warfare, he hoped that he could fight a mobile and flexible battle like Sidu Chishui, instead of using human life to test the reality of the enemy's defensive line. It is a pity that Lin Youde is not a grandfather after all, and the current convexity does not have the same conditions as the four crossings of Chishui -- a major prerequisite for the success of the four crossings of Chishui is the intelligence support provided by the local masses, who concealed the movements of the Red Army from the encircled and suppressed Guo army, and fed back the movements of the Guo army to the Red Army, making the battlefield present a translucent situation, and this is still a one-way translucent.

The locals on the side of Lunis do have support for France, but the overall number of residents is really a bit small, and the number of civilians in the combat area may not be as large as the soldiers of the American and French armies combined, so naturally there is no intelligence support.

Therefore, Lin Youde's reconnaissance basically relied on reconnaissance planes and ground infiltration reconnaissance squads, but reconnaissance planes were the key interception targets of the British and US coalition air forces, and although the information transmitted by the ground infiltration reconnaissance squads was reliable and accurate, the places that a reconnaissance squad could explore were too small, and it often took a whole day or even longer for them to infiltrate from one place to another.

While thinking about this, Lin Youde gently tapped the table with his hand.

Just then, the door to the room opened, and Lydia entered the room with food.

"I've heard you only had a few sandwiches for lunch, and you didn't have a good breakfast."

"I have eaten, I ate bread and drank milk in the morning."

As soon as Lin Youde finished speaking, Lydia pursed her lips and said dissatisfiedly: "The kitchen has complained to me, saying that you eat very little!" So it's useless to lie to me! ”

"Okay, okay," Lin Youde decisively raised his hand in surrender, "I don't have much appetite today." ”

"Is the battlefield shape bad?" Lydia asked as she came to Lin Youde with the plate, put the plate on the table along with the contents of it, and then stood behind Lin Youde and began to gently massage Lin Youde's shoulder.

Lin Youde moved his shoulder joint, and then shook his head from side to side to stretch the muscles in his neck, and then he found that his muscles were indeed a little stiff. He then enjoyed Lydia's massage as he picked up the cheesecake on his plate and took a big bite.

"Frontline ......"

"Tell me after eating, I'm not in a hurry, because I don't understand what you said."

Lin Youde smiled, swallowed the whole cake in two bites, and then licked the cream on his fingers, and said to Lydia: "The situation on the front line is still within the expected range, we have long expected such a fierce attack, and we also expected that the first defensive line will be pierced at once. ”

"So there's nothing wrong with the front?"

"No, actually, I haven't been able to find a suitable gap for a counterattack until now, my counterattack force has been launched, but I can't find a gap, if I don't fight back tomorrow, then the soldiers' will will definitely be frustrated, and the longer it drags on, the more time Barton will have to figure out how many troops we have deployed, and then respond."

"Can't you induce the United States to go deeper and artificially create a gap, as you did in the Sinai Peninsula?"

Lin Youde shook his head and smiled bitterly a few times, and replied: "If I can do it, I would have done it a long time ago, but the ghost place of Lunes is too small, where can I lure Barton to?" I lured him east, and in a few clicks he was in Libya, and to the south was directly the Sahara Desert, so there was no need for people to go south to ......."

In fact, there is one thing that Lin Youde did not tell Lydia, that is, the strength of the US army is too sufficient, even if the main force of the Third Army is lured away, the Americans still have enough troops to defend their positions.

"It seems that we can only change our tactics this time," Lin Youde lowered his head and stared at the map again, "We are going to eat the American troops in small bites, eat cleanly, and eat from one regiment to another until Patton's flesh hurts." Therefore, we must continue to carry out organized short assaults, short intersperses, to pull Patton's troops off the main body piece by piece......"

"Huh...... Well, I don't know anything about military affairs, so it's useless for you to tell me. ”

"I'm just talking to myself," Lin Youde smiled, "Lydia, you just need to continue to rub my shoulders for me." ”

"Okay, I'm good at rubbing my shoulders."

"Also, tomorrow's god battle is also please."

"No problem!"