Early on the morning of the third day of his arrival in Rafah, he received reports of clashes between Turkish troops and Indian forces in the Sinai Peninsula.

About a brigade of the Turkish army encountered a brigade of the Indian army in the process of mobilization, for some reason.

The Turkish army did not have the same level of telecommunications as the German army, and the report sent back was naturally a mess, and the initial quick report on the battle situation did not even explain where they encountered the enemy, and Lin Youde's staff officers studied the transfer plan and were almost half dead: if this brigade was transferred normally according to the plan, it would now be in the flank and rear of the boundary line between the two armed forces on the Sinai Peninsula, which meant that this Indian brigade had appeared in the position behind the flank of the Turkish army, and could outflank the troops on the frontal defense line of the Turkish army at any time.

So a group of reconnaissance planes was sent out, and all the bombers were sent into the sky.

As a result, for an hour, the reconnaissance plane did not find the large British army that was rumored to be making a detour to the flank of the Turkish army.

Later, the Turks reported that the captured British officer said: "How are we in this bird place? ”

Later, the Turks continued to report that the British officer was carrying opium, and that he seemed to be an old smoking gun, and that the Englishman was probably stupid and tainted with bad things in India.

Later, the remnants of the Indian army began to retreat, and the Turks began to chase the Indians like a drug, despite Lin Youde's order to stay in place and wait for reinforcements to prevent fraud.

Lin Youde had no choice, so he ordered the air force to go all out to support the Turkish troops and bomb the retreating Indian troops indiscriminately.

**

The two sides of the Sinai Peninsula actually controlled the southern section of the line, and the headquarters of the 1st New Zealand Brigade of the Anzac Corps in Hasana City, sent Colonel Xi to hurry into his headquarters.

"What's going on?" He asked his chief of staff with a frown.

"The Allied Air Force made a massive sortie, and at the same time we received a distress signal from the Indian 9th Brigade."

"The Ninth Brigade?" Colonel Paisi came to the map, first habitually checked the update time of the notes in the corner of the map, and then began to look for where the Ninth Brigade should be, and after a few seconds he gasped, "The Ninth Brigade should enter our southern region today...... The Confederates have already arrived here? This is to copy our back road. Gather your troops at once and report the situation. ”

"Do you want reinforcements, Colonel?"

"Of course, the reserve is prepared for such a time, notify Garnett's third battalion, give him twenty minutes to prepare, and twenty minutes later the whole battalion will get on the bus and leave."

The herald immediately took the order to leave, and in the telegraph room set up next to the command room, there was also a regular sound of announcements.

Colonel Paisi continued to stare at the map, looking thoughtfully, and as he looked at it, he suddenly whispered to himself, "All our previous reconnaissance operations have not found that the Allied forces have a tendency to attack." ”

In fact, I didn't find that the trend of attacking was right, because Lin Youde saw that the ****** defense line was stable, so he planned to store a little more supplies before attacking, after all, the most terrible enemy of the North African Combat Allied Army was the "length of the supply line" and "the road conditions of the supply line".

Even if supplies are delivered to Tel Aviv now, it is more than 300 kilometers into the Suez Canal, and all the way is full of very bad gravel roads.

The car is nothing but a vehicle, and driving on such a road is a torture of the tires, the suspension system, and the gearbox.

Of course, correspondingly, the transportation situation of the British will not be very optimistic, but the problem is that the people have been waiting for supplies for so long, and it doesn't matter if the transportation efficiency is low, as long as more transportation capacity is sent to make use of those roads that are in worse condition. And the Allied side has a total of so many supplies, and even if you want to increase the transportation capacity after the transportation efficiency deteriorates, there will be no supplies to send.

Therefore, Lin Youde had no intention of rushing to attack in May, and in fact the Allied troops were indeed moving behind their actual control line.

But Colonel Paisi did not know this, he only knew that he had met the enemy in his southern Indian Ninth Brigade, which meant that the Confederate forces had penetrated into the vast desert between the cities of Hasana and Aqaba, and had already crossed the line of British patrols, which were also plagued by poor road conditions, and had not been able to extend their defensive area far enough to the southeast to connect with the city of Aqaba at the top of the Aqaba Bend.

So now the British Commonwealth forces are actually divided into two parts, one part is fortified around Aqaba, and the main Eighth Army is deployed on the Mediterranean side of the Sinai Peninsula, and the defense line extends as far south as possible, but after reaching the southeastern mountains of the Sinai Peninsula dominated by the Sinai Mountains, the British transportation has also begun to become difficult, so there are only scattered British strongholds in the mountains, and then the British army patrols between these strongholds with cavalry to prevent surprise attacks by Allied troops.

Theoretically, it would have been impossible for the Allies to attack from the Sinai side, as the mountain roads were too rugged to make the already difficult supply work even more difficult.

Once the roundabout Allied forces were thwarted in their attack, they would find themselves in a very awkward position: they would not be able to keep up with the supplies if they continued to attack, and they would be unable to retreat because of the difficult mountain roads.

The command of the Eighth Army believed that the most likely direction of breakthrough for the Allies would be maneuvering along the open field at the foot of Mount Sinai.

To the southeast of the city of Hasana was the foothills of Mount Sinai, and to the northwest there was another smaller mountainous area, between which was a long and narrow plain twenty kilometers wide.

In fact, in the Second Middle East War in another time and space, the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade broke through the Egyptian defense line from this place, and the 202nd paratrooper led by Sharon led the airborne Mithra Pass was not far from the city of Hasana.

Therefore, this judgment of the Eighth Army Command is quite in line with the truth. And Colonel Paisi also supported the judgment of the Eighth Army. But now the Confederates have appeared in unexpected places, and what is even more amazing is that Colonel Paisi had never learned of any unusual movements of the Confederates in the exchange of information with the headquarters and nearby brother forces.

It stands to reason that the air supremacy over the Sinai Peninsula is now split between the coalition forces and the allied forces, and neither side can completely seize air supremacy, so the reconnaissance planes of both sides have enough space to spy on each other's intelligence, and in a place like the Sinai Peninsula, it is impossible for a large-scale mobilized army to evade aerial reconnaissance, and even if the vehicles and personnel take sufficient concealment measures, the large amount of dust raised during the operation will reveal their position.

Colonel Paisi stared at the map in deep thought, and suddenly, an idea came to his mind.

"They're not trying to take Aqaba first, are they?"

But that would make sense, it must be the covering force of the main force of the Allied forces that was attacking the Ninth Brigade, and just now the Indians said that it was the Turks who attacked them.

None of the Allied officers thought that Lin Youde would regard the Turks as the main force, and certainly Colonel Paisi would not think so, so these Turks should be the covering force on the flank of the Allied army, and the main force of the Allied army, that is, the German troops, may be advancing towards Aqaba at this time, preparing to crush the defenders of Aqaba in one fell swoop.

But the problem is, Colonel Paisi couldn't think about why Lin Youde wanted to attack Aqaba, did he want to go there to see the sea view for a vacation?

Although Colonel Paisi was the commander of the Anzac, he had travelled as an explorer in Africa before joining the army, and he had left his mark on the Red Sea coast, and he had traveled deep into the Jordan Valley and later to Aqaba in order to see the ancient city of Petra. He knew that there was an unusually beautiful seascape and a rather backward economy - there were so many coral reefs in the Gulf of Aqaba that shipping was affected.

"Could it be that the staff officer, who had been listening to Colonel Paisi's muttering, suddenly spoke, "Lin Youde wants to set up the kind of cannon they used to push back Sir Cunningham in Aqaba?" ”

Colonel Paisi turned to look at the staff officer.

"Why are you there?"

"There's just the range to block the Gulf of Suez, and for other reasons...... Maybe that kind of weapon needs seawater to fire? ”

Colonel Paisi turned his head to stare at the map again.

Finally, he said: "Report your opinion to the military command as well, well, yes, it's your opinion." Then let's see how the military command decides. ”

(The author caught the tenth bumblebee in the IOS service, and it will break out tomorrow to celebrate.) ）