81_81266 It turns out that it was not only Patton and Montgomery who were thinking of attacking, but Rommel in Germany was also planning an offensive operation. However, before he could put it into practice, he was banned by the German High Command.

General Frederick was now in the conference room to report to Rommel on his preparations for the campaign in recent days, and near this supply depot, he had arranged the 7th Infantry Corps in three echelons, placing the 27th Division and some Italian units in the first line, the elite 7th Infantry Division and the 17th Infantry Division on the second line of defense, and some fragmentary assault guns and Italian tank units on the third line of defense, ready to reinforce the sites attacked by the enemy.

Although this arrangement is very safe, in the long defensive line, the German Afrika Korps only placed the strength of one corps, which is obviously not enough. So, a question arises, excavator technology...... I'm used to it, I'm sorry. So the question arises, where did Rommel's 7th Panzer Army, which was replenished and strengthened, go?

This is not the small army that only had the 7th Panzer Division half a month ago, but a huge armored force with 3 Panzer Divisions, if you count some tank destroyers and the No. 3 tank, Rommel probably has more than 700 tanks in his hand, which is not a small number.

Troubleshooting and maintenance problems, Rommel can send at least 500 tanks into the battlefield at a time, which is quite a considerable number for such a battlefield in North Africa.

You must know that Patton, who was preparing to attack in a hurry, and the armored troops in Montgomery's hands on the opposite side added up to only 910 tanks. Of course, these tanks could not be put into battle together, and the maximum number of Patton that Patton could use to attack the battle was no more than 500.

Therefore, the closest battle between the two sides since the start of the war is about to begin. What Rommel is confirming at this moment is exactly the amount of material reserves he can use in this campaign.

"The number of fighters we can use is about 75, and there is no problem at all in fighting for air supremacy nearby, the British have lost 7 aircraft in the past few days, and they rarely send patrol formations to provoke them. The head of the Air Force helped Frederick report on the situation in the sky, and once again assured Rommel that they could take air supremacy on the battlefield.

Rommel still felt that this was credible, because the Luftwaffe had rarely lost air supremacy since the beginning of the war, and even if it was desperately interfered with by the British Air Force in the battle to land in Britain, it did not lose its superiority over the theater of operations. The skies of North Africa have been dominated by the German and Italian air forces, with the Italian Air Force's ME-109C fighters responsible for peacetime patrol missions, and the Luftwaffe's FW-190D responsible for taking out the invading British Air Force.

However, to be honest, except for a few brigades of Stuka bombers, the German and Italian air forces did not suppress the ground battlefield very strongly, and the Italian bombers only dared to drop bombs at high altitudes even under the cover of the Luftwaffe, and the word accuracy could only be a good wish. So Rommel did not expect the air force in North Africa to defeat the Anglo-American forces directly from the air, as their European counterparts did.

The real showdown still depends on the ground battlefield. Thinking of this, Rommel threw aside the telegram in his hand forbidding him to take the initiative to attack the Anglo-American forces, and sneered as the officers of the Italian allies explained the coordination of artillery support. In fact, there is nothing to arrange, and the attitude of the senior German generals towards the Italian troops has always been basically very simple and rude, that is: you fight yours, I will fight mine.

"General Rommel, you have mobilized the entire 7th Panzer Corps, and you really plan to forcibly organize an attack in disregard of the orders of your country's high command?" General Garibaldi of Italy, sitting beside Rommel, asked at this time, "Are you ready to disobey the Führer's orders again?"

"General Garibaldi, just a day ago, the High Command changed the communication cipher and sent a telegram with the latest cipher. General Frederick handed a copy of the document to the Italian allies.

General Garibaldi took the text, read it carefully, and returned it to Frederick with a wry smile. The above is a message sent by Accardo in his own tone, and it is not very content: Rommel, I know that it is a very dangerous thing to interfere with the command of a front-line general, and that order that you must not attack until your logistical supply is not completed may have been deciphered by the enemy, and it is up to you to decide how to deal with it. Accardo Rudolph.

This telegram can be said to have withdrawn the instructions of the Supreme Command that ordered Rommel not to attack, but in fact this was not Führer Accardo's "change of day," but on the contrary, he "knew that he could change his mistakes."

There are two reasons for the establishment of the Supreme Command, the first is the need for the various branches of the armed forces to fight together, and the second is that it is reasonable and legal to grasp the control of the army in the palm of his own hand -- there is indeed no such thing as commanding the troops in these two items. Because Accardo set a bottom line for himself from the beginning, that is, try not to interfere with the command of the troops.

He deeply knew what kind of disasters Hitler's indiscriminate command brought to the German army without knowing how to pretend to understand, and it was precisely because of his stubbornness and arbitrariness that the German army was defeated in 1943.

Later, because the orders issued by the Supreme High Command became more and more inexplicable, and because Hitler's mistakes became more and more intolerable, the senior German generals began to deceive Hitler and revise Hitler's combat deployment, which led to even more disastrous consequences -- his subordinates deceived their superiors, and the superiors miscalculated and made wrong judgments, and as a result, their subordinates could only stubbornly carry out wars with no hope of victory. In such a vicious circle, how can there be any reason to be invincible?

For example, this was the case in the latter part of the war. Hitler ordered the expansion of the German army, but there was no longer any weapons and equipment, so the generals had to deceive Hitler that these troops that did not exist at all had indeed been formed and had entered the war, and Hitler would naturally have no result in counterattacking these troops without support, and the troops on the front line would collapse faster if they did not get support. The collapsed troops did not dare to report to Hitler, so these troops remained and were used by Hitler to support the rest of the German army next time.

Accardo didn't want to commit suicide in the basement like Churchill and destroy his body with a grenade, and he didn't want to be like Hitler and have gasoline poured on him and set it on fire...... He still has three beautiful flowers waiting to be lucky, and he still has a lot of money to spend.

And Rommel, who had Accardo's instructions, naturally decided to fight an offensive battle that he was best at according to his wishes. He didn't want to wait in the trenches for his opponent to knock on his door, it wasn't the way he dreamed of fighting, and it didn't fit his personal art of war.

Attack! Only offense is the best defense! Only by defeating the enemy for thousands of miles can we make our defense line as stable as Mount Tai! This is Rommel's creed, and this is Germany's most offensive general. As long as he has a liter of gasoline, he has to use it on the offensive road. This is in line with his style, and this is in line with the classic sentence in his book "Infantry Attack", "Attack, attack, attack again!"

"Rest assured that you will fight a battle that you are familiar with, here General Garibaldi and I will hold out until the last moment. Frederick smiled and said: "I remember that the general mentioned in your book 'Infantry Attack': 'The stronger the fire, the deeper the fortifications, the fewer casualties.' So we've been preparing for a long time this time. ”

General Garibaldi of the Italian defenders also said: "I know that the Italian army is really not very good in combat ability in front of the German * team, but this time our front line is arranged with the most elite Italian troops, and the attack is not certain, but I am still very confident in defense." ”

While boasting about his troops, he pointed to the map and described the defensive configuration of the Italian troops, with artillery on many defensive points, mines laid between positions, and even forts made of steel plates welded into lids in some of the more important areas.

And this time Mussolini reinforced the Black Shirts of Garibal's first division, which was somewhat similar to the German SS, a volunteer army of young people with strong faith and loyalty, and its combat effectiveness could be regarded as the strongest force in Italy. Rommel also knew that what Garibaldi said was indeed true, and now the Italian 1st Army in North Africa, which was accompanying the German attack, was very combative, and at least there should be no major problems in defense.

However, there is still a problem that plagues Rommel, who is preparing for the attack, that is, his logistical supply problems are indeed problems. An Italian tanker carrying fuel was sunk by a British submarine in the Mediterranean, which caused 2,000 tons of gasoline and 1,000 tons of aviation fuel that should have been delivered to Rommel to sink into the sea, which was the most important reason why the High Command forbade Rommel to launch offensive operations.

The lack of fuel was the biggest problem facing the Germans, and if it weren't for the capture of a British fuel depot that kept Rommel up for so long, he would have been chased all the way back to the vicinity of Tunis. However, after a few days of fighting and a reserve of spare fuel, Rommel found that the resources in his hands could only be used for a short offensive operation. Although there is a lot of fuel, he also has more equipment to drink oil, after all, tanks, planes, assault guns, armored vehicles, and armored vehicles are all oil tigers.

However, Rommel was still full of confidence, and he was confident that his troops could approach Tobruk in this counterattack and take this important defensive node