Patton was hurrying as his forces stretched from Egypt to Egypt. The road winds for several kilometers and is dusty, full of American M3 half-track armored vehicles and trucks, as well as American and British soldiers walking densely along the road.

Since the United States declared war on Japan, domestic wartime control has suddenly raised the production capacity of the United States to a higher level, and in just one month, the United States has launched a number of destroyers and cruisers, and including the aircraft carriers that are in dock, almost another new Pacific Fleet has been produced by the United States. Only this time the core is no longer a battleship with a complex production process, but an open-freeboard aircraft carrier that is simple and easy to produce.

Of course, the army has so much equipment that it makes people's scalps tingle. The United States has sent a large number of half-track armored vehicles and tanks to the Middle East to protect the increasingly fragile Middle East oil producing areas. At the same time, it is stepping up oil extraction in Mexico and the country to meet the needs of expanded production capacity.

In just one month, the United States entered service with 200 new fighters, 30 bombers, and produced more than 200 M4 Sherman tanks, half of which were deployed to the Middle East. Patton was reinforced with at least 30 M4 tanks and 300 M3 tanks in stock, and the number of tanks in his hands was not much less than that of Rommel, which was his capital in a hurry to fight, and it was also his greatest reliance.

Now the entire 8th Army had 890 tanks, about 90 M4 Sherman tanks, more than 400 M3LEE tanks with 75 mm guns, and most of the rest were M3 and a small number of Matilda. These tank units were already the largest tank units concentrated by the Allies, and even the American units that fought hard against the Japanese army in the Philippines did not have such a large number of tanks.

However, compared to the number of tanks in Rommel's hands now, the armor in Patton's hands is slightly shabby. Rommel now has more than 70 Tiger tanks in his hands, as well as nearly 700 Leopards, and nearly 250 No. 3 tanks and other ragged tanks.

Unlike the last tank battle between Rommel and Patton, because the chassis of Tank No. 3 was occupied by the No. 3 assault gun, the German General Armament Department ordered the production of the No. 3 tank to be discontinued, and instead of producing the better Leopard tank and No. 3 assault gun. So the No. 3 tank in Rommel's hands was not replenished, but the number dropped a lot. But the Leopard tanks in his hand, as the backbone of the German tanks, are absolutely staggeringly numerous.

So this time Rommel was confident that he would fight a larger-scale tank battle and completely encircle Patton's armored forces outside Tobruk. Once this armored battle is won, not only Tobruk will easily become the pocket of the German-Italian army, but even Egypt is just around the corner.

On the one hand, the Germans waited for Patton to appear, and on the other hand, Patton was exhausted from thousands of miles of reinforcements. Rommel accurately calculated the wear and tear of Patton's armored forces, and he used the mature maintenance level of the German army to estimate the tanks in Patton's hands, and easily calculated that Patton could use no more than 500 tanks in the battle outside Tobruk, which was much less than the strength that the Germans could counterattack.

Because of the ease of maintenance and repair, and the lack of long-distance raids, Rommel's armored forces were in very good condition, and at the beginning of the battle Rommel was able to call on more than 800 tanks, which allowed the Germans to overtake Patton in terms of quality and quantity.

The reason why Patton was in such a hurry to come, and was in a hurry to fight Rommel's superior army with inferior forces, was nothing more than two dependencies, one was that the United States' production capacity was steadily increasing, and he was confident that he would use two tanks or even more tanks to fight one of Rommel's tanks, and then he would definitely get more supplies than Rommel; the other relied on the British defenders in Tobruk, once the battle began, the British troops in Tobruk would definitely take the opportunity to kill, and Rommel would inevitably suffer losses when the time came.

He had come to give Rommel the food to the troops, just like a hot KFC lunch. It's just that this meal is a little hard, and if you want to eat it, you won't have to break a few teeth.

In fact, on the road covered with yellow sand, Patton, who was sitting in the command car, was also repeatedly calculating Rommel's troops, and the news he received made him feel very bad, at least he felt more and more that rushing forward was not a good way.

Rommel's armoured forces did not appear on a large scale in the attack on Tobruk, on the contrary, the main force of the attack there was the traditional infantry combined with the naval artillery. This made Patton dare not rush over to start a decisive battle, apparently Rommel was waiting for him to crash headlong, crashing into the front armor plate of the Tiger and Leopard tanks, and breaking his head to the ground.

Moreover, the loss of air and sea supremacy made Patton, a brave and warlike general, also have a dilemma that he could not support alone, and the loss of sea supremacy made Patton's supplies have to be transported through a detour in southern Africa, and in order to ensure the absolute safety of this transportation route, Britain and the United States acquiesced in the entry of Charles de Gaulle's troops into Somalia.

After all, it's a big circle, because of this big circle, almost a third of Barton's fuel is always on the road, and almost a third of Barton's equipment is always on the road. Circumambulating the Cape of Good Hope, going around all of Africa, passing through Somalia, and passing through Suez in fear, it was only in Patton's hands.

Air supremacy can make people miserable, they dare not assemble or attack in good weather, they have to wait for rain, they have to wait for sandstorms, they have to wait for bad weather that is not conducive to combat. Although the Luftwaffe in North Africa was nowhere near as ferocious as it had been in Europe, it was still a formidable force.

Barton was tempted to optimistically estimate how many troops he had left after he had made it to Tobruk, but the report he was holding now clearly did not allow him to be optimistic. The failure rate of the American M3 tank itself is higher than that of the German Leopard tank, and after a rough estimate, he found that after a thousand miles of leap, he could find 400 tanks to attack, which is considered a great luck.

If you count the interference of the Luftwaffe, it is already very good that the US tank force can have 300 left. Of course, this is an estimate, and it is likely that the United States will travel all the way and end up with only 200 or less pieces of equipment left.

Use less than 300 backward M3LEE tanks and M4 tanks to attack German Leopard tanks, which are at least twice their own strength? What are you kidding? If this order is transmitted to the US military grassroots on the front line, then there will be no need to fight this battle at all, and the 8th Army will mutiny tomorrow.

"Send a telegram to General Montgomery and tell him that our plans are about to change, and that if we bump into them in such a daze, we will be eaten by Rommel. Barton pinched an unlit cigar and said to the staff officer with a frown.

His staff officer was obviously less optimistic about this battle than he was, so he simply told the truth: "General, if we drive all the way like this, half of the equipment will have to be thrown halfway on, and once the Germans gain an advantage on the battlefield and pursue us all the way, all the equipment lost on the way will be lost to the Germans......"

Patton didn't speak, so the staff officer went to send a telegram, Montgomery's callback action was not slow, obviously the other side had also taken into account the situation on the battlefield, after all, the decisive battle in North Africa was a matter of importance, and once there was a problem, the consequences would be equally unimaginable.

"I understand, but if we don't go, the impact of losing Tobruk will be enough to outweigh the entire 8th Army. If Britain loses India, and Australia is threatened by the Japanese again, then it is likely to withdraw from the war......" Patton was silent again, holding the telegram.

He doesn't understand politics, so it's better to talk to him about politics than to talk to him about military affairs. In his eyes, it is very unreasonable to give an army group to the opponent to eat. If you need to set up a decoy, you must also take out more enemies to win.

But now the allies are dragging their feet in his military operations, which makes him a little annoyed, but because of the pressure from his superiors, he can't express himself for a while. Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French government-in-exile, moved the Somali colony of Vichy France under the pretext of protecting the shipping routes, and as a result, the French battleships off the coast of Tobruk completely put the North African theater in a passive situation. In order to protect their Egyptian colonies and the Suez Canal, the British also tried in every possible way to make the United States and Germany fight to the death.

Patton was a little disorganized, and he couldn't understand why the Vichy French army in Somalia had never intervened in any Allied transport operations, but De Gaulle had to move the place where birds didn't at this time. He also did not understand why Montgomery would rather lose Tobruck and destroy the 8th Army, and he would like him to lead his troops to his death. Isn't war about victory?

The plan to rush to the aid was indeed proposed by Patton himself, but at that time he did not know that Rommel would press his armored troops for 6 days, waiting for him to come to fight. At least in Patton's script, it's time to stop and gather the troops and find another way to rescue Tobruk.

The 50,000 American soldiers and the 40,000 British troops could not be buried in his own hands, this is what Patton is now full of thoughts. He finally looked up and looked out the window at the tank that was following a dusty one, and made up his mind.

"Order the troops to halt their advance, gather the stragglers, repair tanks and vehicles, and wait for instructions on their next move. Patton said to the staff officer, "Call Montgomery back and tell him that we don't want to die, let him find another way." At the same time, send our current situation back home by telegram, and let the big guys go brains. ”――

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