81_81266Africa is a magical place, especially in the hot, dry North African region. There is scorching daylight and ridiculously high surface temperatures during the day, but the nights are as cold as the Nordic winters.

Whoever comes to this land must try their best to adapt to the one qiē of this land. Rommel sat in the car, letting the wind and sand hit him in the face, and he saw several soldiers of the reconnaissance unit on the side of the road pouring sand from their boots, talking and laughing as their commander's car drove past them.

They set out a few hours early, along the improvised road and half-buried signs in the sand, and made their way through the desert according to the map and the compass, but God knows why, their army of hundreds of tanks got lost in the desert, and they did not reach the place where the attack was launched on time, so the whole army became anxious.

"Chief of Staff, do you think General Frederick will stop the attack?" Rommel asked, squinting at the yellow sand in the sky. He was in a very bad mood right now, because the plan he had made with his own hands had not been carried out on time because of his own reasons.

The staff officer looked at the map and the road signs and said to Rommel: "Judging from the road signs, we have deviated more than ten kilometers from the original battle location, and this place is almost out of the front line of the two sides, and it should be near this area on the map." ”

Now Rommel knew why his troops had deviated from the original route, because the road signs had been replaced by the British, and the roads indicated had also deviated from the original direction, and the reconnaissance units of the 7th Panzer Division in the first desert operation did not pay attention to these details and were confused for more than an hour to find the right direction.

It's not like the bustling interior of Europe, where any small intersection will be marked in detail in all directions and the city is still far away, and the street signs here only have a simple description of the location, as for the detailed information, don't even think about it. And once you miss a sign, it's not easy to see the same sign.

The temperature is very hot, and in order to prevent sunburn or dehydration caused by water evaporation, people must also wear thick clothing and even stuff their collars with towels to avoid dying in the untouched sand dunes. After several hours of arduous trekking, 41 tanks broke down, leaving Rommel with another precious hour to repair the expensive weaponry.

"Problem 1 is that the engines have stalled, and now that the oil has been cleaned and replenished, the tanks are ready to run again. The two tanks of the 2nd Battalion and 1st Company of the 2nd Regiment had a serious problem, one of them was still being investigated, and the other tank had a problem with its gearbox, and the support battalion said that it had to return to ****** to repair it. "The officer in charge of logistics caught up with Rommel and reported to him about the repair of the broken tank.

"The reconnaissance team has not yet made contact with the British * team?" Rommel unfolded the map in his car, and the wind and sand were a little strong, and the map rattled.

"No, we've found the right bearing, but it's true that there are no British alerts in the area where we are expected to be in contact with the British. Here and here we find abandoned camps, and judging by the time, there were still British soldiers active here about three hours ago. The staff officer pointed to the map and introduced to Rommel: "Or, general, we now break the radio silence?"

"Wait...... Wait a minute......" Rommel pursed his lips, and finally gave a loud order as if he had made up his mind: "Let the troops speed up, all the broken down vehicles, concentrate here, leave an armored battalion and division headquarters as cover, and the rest of the troops, rush here as fast as possible!"

"General, you mean...... The British are retreating?" The chief of staff asked suspiciously, and then nodded his head: "Indeed, it seems that they are indeed retreating, but the general...... Do we need to take the risk?"

Of course, it is necessary, once the British are allowed to retreat, the position of the next decisive battle will be in the Tobruk region on the other side of the desert, where the supply line will be at least dozens of times farther than it is now. Moreover, for the British to retreat to Tobruk completely, with the complete fortifications there, if you want to annihilate the British army, you will have to pay at least several times the price of fighting now, which Rommel does not want to see.

Rommel's strategic goal was to invade Egypt and gain a springboard for Germany to enter the Middle East, and if too much force was wasted on the road, then the further back he went, the less chips he could use, and he did not want to have an embarrassing situation in the future without troops to attack. So according to Rommel's current thinking, the adventure of being able to save troops and wipe out the living forces of Britain was definitely worth it.

Thinking of this, Rommel nodded and said to the chief of staff: "It is necessary, it is very necessary, if General Frederick sees that the British are going to run, then he will be desperate to get close to the barrier here and along the northeast line of the barrier." ”

He pointed to the map and said, "Once he attacks like this, it will be a dream for the British to get out, and they will inevitably be stuck in place and unable to retreat." So at this time, all they can choose is to counterattack or abandon the front-line troops. ”

Giving up the four British divisions on the front line? This is not the courage that everyone has. Even Montgomery had to consider whether the abandonment was worth it, let alone a veteran general with a reputation for steadiness.

So the most likely response of the British was to counterattack, to use an effective but powerful counterattack to drive away the entanglement of the Germans in the front. In this way, the British front-line guards who could not escape, and then they all swaggered back to the Tobruk area. Such a counter-attack tactic was not risky, it could even be described as a modest limited counter-attack tactic before retreating - Rommel was convinced that the British would do it.

"Why don't you leave the 2nd Regiment and let the 1st Regiment go up first?" The commander of the 7th Division, who was Rommel's old subordinate, stood aside and said, "If the strength of a regiment really seizes the vacancy of the British, it will be enough." ”

Without thinking about it, Rommel waved his hand: "The whole army is attacking! We are the 7th Panzer Division! Can the 7th Panzer Division if it does not attack still be called the 7th Panzer Division? It is not our style to be timid, and if we want to fight, we will achieve the greatest result!"

"Attack!" Rommel shouted, and the sound quickly dissipated into the yellow sandy sky.

The order to attack was echoed by the sound of one tank after another starting their engines and moving on. They were the 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, known as the Devil, the Devil's 7th Division that fought all the way from Sedan in France to Dunkirk, and their division's motto was General Rommel's famous phrase "Attack, attack, attack." ”

Therefore, when the order to attack was given, all the commanders finally recovered from their melancholy state of search, and began to arrange their men to complete the final preparations for the attack in an orderly manner. The ammunition was sorted, the fuel was confirmed, the shells were loaded into the chamber of the tank, and the magazine was inserted into the body of the assault rifle.

As the wheels of tanks and cars turned, the entire 7th Panzer Division rolled forward, and the reconnaissance troops shuttled back and forth between the various units, and from time to time there were communications troops on motorcycles returning from the front, confirming all kinds of important news.

"British troops were spotted, British troops were spotted in the area 6 miles ahead. They were firing and we didn't get too close. A soldier on a motorcycle pointed to a map and reported the results of the reconnaissance to the commander of an armored battalion, who nodded and climbed into his command vehicle.

Soon this exciting news was transmitted to Rommel, who was in the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment, who took the information and only glanced at it slightly, and then ordered: "Break the radio silence, this time the British will not be able to escape!"

Following his order, the command vehicle of the military headquarters stopped its advance, and the huge radio antenna and telegraph receiving antenna were erected by the engineers. The cables of the generators were connected to the various command vehicles, and dozens of soldiers and two tanks began to set up a cordon around them.

When I opened the telegram, I received a distress telegram from General Frederick: "General Rommel, our army is fighting hard, please be sure to attack on the flank." The second telegram was even more sad: "General, please do your best to attack." ”

"Call back General Frederick. Rommel smiled and said: "I'm in the designated position, I've started to attack." ”

After speaking, he was obviously relieved that he had won this bet, looked at his chief of staff and his subordinates, and joked: "This Frederick will exaggerate, and shout loudest when he asks for help, but if you really ignore him for a few hours, you will find that he can actually hold on......"

"General Frederick has always been known for his steadiness and sophistication, and his old unit, the 7th Infantry Division, is known as the little devil. The chief of staff smiled and said, "General Bock once joked with General Liszt, saying that you should bet on who will win if you attack Frederick's defense." ”

"And what's the matter?" Rommel was stunned for a moment, and then asked with great interest: "After this battle, we can rest for a few days, and I will try to play the war game with Frederick." ”

Frederick, the commander of the 7th Army, who was struggling with the British tank forces and artillery counterattacks, finally waited for the news he wanted to wait for, and a telegram from Rommel was handed to him by the telegraph operator, he opened it and looked at it, and then he got up and walked back to his headquarters with his hands behind his back.

Walking up to his staff officer, he handed the telegram to his men: "Win! General Rommel's attack on the flank has begun. ”。