The river in this part of the river downstream is relatively narrower, and although it takes less time to cross, there are advantages and disadvantages, and the water flow rate is correspondingly faster, and the turbulent water makes it more difficult to cross.

A reconnaissance detachment of the 26th Italian Division quietly crossed the Tagus River in an attempt to carry out a follow-up reconnaissance mission.

As a reconnaissance detachment, it was massive—two infantry platoons, two ultralight mortars and a heavy machine gun, with a total of more than ninety men.

This was improvised by the Italians in reference to the feedback of the Nationalist Army, because the latter claimed that reconnaissance detachments at the squad and platoon level tended to be easily repelled after being discovered by the other side.

The Italians didn't think about how to hide themselves from detection, but they did the opposite, and created such a large reconnaissance unit, with the same fanfare as a combat patrol, for fear that people would not know about it.

The sun was setting in the west, the sunset dyed half of the sky red, and the floating clouds turned a shining reddish yellow.

According to Zhou Changfeng's requirements, patrolling on his own front and in the area under his control was a must, and he divided more than 20 large and small places according to factors such as geographical location and distance, corresponding to different warning standards.

Here, for example, according to the regulations, vigilant patrols are repeated at intervals of three hours, and the number of people in the group is half a shift.

"We pass by here every day, and I feel like I can walk around with my eyes closed."

"War is like that, most of the time is spent marching, camping, guarding, and fighting may only take up a tenth of the time......"

"Shhhh Encounter! Ten o'clock! ”

While the five Britons of Company A of the 71st Battalion were walking down this boring old road, they happened to see sneaky Italians crossing the river in rubber boats.

A few rubber boats obviously could not send nearly 100 people across the river at one time, so it needed to be repeated several times, so the crossing time was greatly delayed, and it was inevitably discovered early.

"What do these guys want to do?"

The men quickly ran to the woods on the side, and then carefully hid themselves under the cover of bushes.

The corporal who led the team picked up the binoculars and said as he observed: "Four small boats, about a hundred in total, can see at least one heavy machine gun and two mortars. ”

Because of the light, they couldn't tell if these guys were Italian or national by the color of their uniforms.

The corporal ordered the three to return immediately to report, while he and the other stayed behind to continue observing.

Later, several people rushed to a nearby stronghold and reported the emergency situation to the command by phone.

The third platoon of the 102nd Company of the tank, which happened to be training nearby, immediately loaded a part of the ammunition and rushed to support it with a platoon of infantry.

"How much oil is left?!"

"Half, that's enough!"

"Hey! The ammo hasn't been replenished yet! ”

The dozens of men and five tanks had only been halfway when they saw a yellow flare rising into the sky in the distance.

Immediately afterward, the sound of gunfire was clearly audible.

The two British, who had stayed behind to keep an eye on them, were discovered by the Italian soldiers, and seeing that there were only a few of them, in order to prevent them from going back to report the news, dozens of Italian soldiers quickly chased after them.

After firing the flare, the corporal hurriedly evacuated with another man, and behind him was a group of enemies.

A sudden encounter ensued, and the arrogant Italian soldiers did not realize the impending crisis when they heard the sound of the engine, and thought it was just a truck transporting troops.

So, they quickly found cover in the vicinity, deployed heavy machine guns and mortars, and prepared for an encounter.

Because the lieutenant who led the team felt that only by repelling the opponent who came to reinforce could he reconnoiter and search this area with peace of mind.

However, it backfired, and when the outline of the Type 26 tank appeared in sight, these dozens of Italian soldiers were immediately stunned.

"Bang-boom!"

An anti-explosive bomb flew to the side of the Italian army who had just found cover, and immediately after, a series of "da-da-da" sounds also sounded.

The dirt that was splashed by the explosion scattered one after another, and for a while the dust was flying. Several Italian soldiers were hit by the 7.36mm bullet and fell in convulsions on the field by the river.

As an old thing born ten years ago, the Type 26 light tank weighs only eight tons, armed with a short-barreled gun and two machine guns, and it is actually backward today, but it is not a group of light infantry can compete.

A 6.5mm bullet hit the 16mm-thick nickel-manganese alloy steel plate head-on, either being bounced off or directly shattered.

The panicked Italian troops fled to the woods a few dozen meters away, and then fired back desperately.

They skillfully placed the Fiat heavy machine gun in a small depression, the body of which was only twenty centimeters above the surface, and from a distance, the target was extremely small.

At this time, the straight trajectory of the ballistic becomes a disadvantage, and the elevation angle and depression angle of the tank gun are even slightly different, and the deviation of the anti-explosive bomb will be magnified many times when it is several hundred meters away.

More than a dozen explosions exploded around the small depression, but none of the shells could effectively hit, and the tanks had to use machine guns to keep suppressing it while slowly approaching.

A platoon of fighters also dispersed, following closely behind the tank.

To everyone's surprise, the ultra-light mortars equipped by the Italians actually added a lot of trouble to this encounter that should have been no suspense.

In contrast, infantry detachments in any country today rely on cluster grenades and blasters to engage tanks in hand-to-hand combat without carrying anti-tank weapons.

However, the Briscia M35 45mm ultralight mortar equipped by the Italian army is an out-and-out wonder, and today's popular mortar is fired by a bipod and a seat plate, relying on the free fall of the shell in the barrel.

However, the Italian ultralight mortar was a tripod like a heavy machine gun, with a magazine for ten empty rifle rounds on top, and the shells were loaded through the muzzle, and then pushed out of the muzzle by the gunpowder gas when the empty cartridge was fired.

So it has a fast rate of fire, and it also has a flat-fire capability that ordinary mortars can't do.

Therefore, when the five tanks approached about 300 meters, a series of high-explosive shells were ushered in.

Because the caliber is only 45mm, this high-explosive bomb weighs only 450g, and it is loaded with 70g of TNT explosives.

In just a dozen seconds, the Type 26 tank that started suffered five shots, the commander's sight glass was shattered, the turret seat was damaged and stuck, and it lost its combat effectiveness.

Two other high-explosive shells missed the target, brushed shoulders with the tank and fell behind, knocking out several people.

This rumbling series of explosions startled the tank crews, and they thought that the Italian army was carrying some anti-tank weapons, so they hurriedly stopped, regardless of the 3721 desperately firing in that general direction.

"Da Da-" The dense fire overwhelmed the other side in an instant, and the machine gun tracer bullets pulled out a conspicuous line of fire under the twilight, and the bullets fired by the two sides were so dense that they seemed to be able to touch each other.

Another tank next to it was also hit by a 45mm high-explosive shell and was injured by the explosion because the driver did not close the hatch tightly in order to facilitate getting on and off the vehicle.

But mortars are only mortars after all, and their ammunition is not a special armor-piercing shell, and it is still impossible to completely destroy a tank.

As two M35 mortars were taken out, several tanks slowly approached while maintaining their firepower.

The Italian army, which was already in poor morale, had now lost its support, so they hurriedly cast smoke bombs to obscure their vision, and then hurriedly retreated.

But... It's so hard to cross the river, so how easy is it to escape back now?

When the tank and its accompanying soldiers emerged from the smoke, nearly a dozen Italian soldiers were knocked down in the blink of an eye.

The tracks of the tank ran over the corpse like a man stepping on a rotten watermelon, and the blood and viscera exploded and splattered around like juice and melon pulp.

The defeated Italian soldiers no longer had the confidence and leisure they had set out from, and they were slaughtered and corpses were strewn all over the field along the riverbank, and corpses were everywhere as far as the eye could see.

I don't know who started it, and soon, one after another, they threw their weapons to the side, raised their hands and surrendered.

But there were also a few fast and clever Italians who escaped into the dinghy, fortunately dodging bullets from behind and successfully escaping.

Half an hour later.

"Is it all annihilation?"

"Yes, only about ten people crossed the river to escape."

"Interrogate the prisoners, count the seized documents, and bring them over as soon as they are assembled."

After interrogation, the crowd learned about the details of the enemy in front of them.

It was thought that the enemy troops who had crossed the river with great swagger were a combat patrol, that is, they had come to carry out a tentative attack and raid the outpost guard positions.

After a long time, this stupid detachment actually came to "reconnoitre"?

After learning that the reconnaissance detachment is always spotted and repulsed, normal people must be thinking about how to prevent detection, such as taking a long detour or strengthening camouflage.

As a result, these guys turned out to be Italians!

The key military information that had been summarized was listed on paper, and the officers in the command headquarters whispered as they looked at the new enemy numbers.

"Oh my God, on the thirty-kilometer-wide front, they have already assembled four divisions, and at least two more are being deployed." Blake, who had recovered from a minor injury, said in surprise.

"There are quite a few on our side." Roald pointed to the map and said, "But it is not yet possible to judge which side will be the first to attack." ”

With a laid-back look, Chrétien pressed his burn-out cigarette into the ashtray, "No matter which side starts first, they have to pick a place to make a breakthrough, and this is the best place for us in theory." ”

He glanced at Zhou Changfeng, who was pondering, "However, I have full confidence in our defense. ”

Blake and Chrétien often dismantle each other, on the one hand, because of the old enemies of Britain and France, and on the other hand, because their political positions are completely opposed, for example, on the topic of "who is better in the defensive positions of the British and French armies", they have been arguing for more than half a month.

But Zhou Changfeng doesn't care about this, how to build and strengthen the fortifications must follow his rules.

Forward warning positions responsible for warning and confirming enemy movements; The main position composed of three reinforced trenches is covered with snake-bellied barbed wire, minefields, and deer barricades; Diagonal positions used to hinder the enemy's breakthrough and divide his offensive formation; A circular position support point used to delay the enemy's development in depth and buy time for your own counterattack; It is used to delay and surprise the enemy......

All kinds of trenches, shelters, communication trenches, and firing points are criss-crossed and dotted, and all defensive areas are divided in strict accordance with the principle of "being able to fight independently and flexibly support each other."

The defensive positions built under the guidance of Zhou Changfeng from morning to night for more than ten days can be said to be breathtaking, and the 109 Heights are full of dazzling various tunnels from the halfway up the mountain to the top of the mountain.

This completely shocked the entire 50th Brigade, and Chrétien and Blake, who boasted of being "the largest positional battle in human history", were also shocked.

Blake even felt that the rich experience of the Europeans in the European war with millions of casualties had been plagiarized by the Chinese, otherwise it would not have been possible to make this arrangement behind closed doors.

While the officers of the 50th Brigade were discussing possible next moves, the Spaniards and Italians in the northern city of Talavera were doing the same.

The headquarters of the 26th Division was located at the Analia Bank, a private bank made of reinforced concrete and masonry with many granite masonry, which was considered the strongest structure by the local citizens in normal times.

Now, the same is true militarily, making it an ideal location for setting up headquarters.

The Spaniards regretted the fate of the "carefully prepared" reconnaissance detachment not long ago, but they kept mocking it in their hearts, while the Italians, who had been slapped in the face, pretended not to care.

Lieutenant Colonel Ricardo, the adjutant of Major General Antonio, said in surprise: "The number of armored vehicles of the Republican Army is not large, but there are a few tanks here, and they have assigned precious armored units to these volunteer units, which shows that they attach great importance to this place?" ”

Domingo, commander of the 96th Brigade of the National Army, muttered: "That's for sure, Talavera is the core of the campaign, and after these days of fighting, we can be sure that the volunteer troops on the other side of the river are experienced elites and difficult to deal with, I think you should agree as well." ”

There was a bit of a sarcasm in this, but the Italian officers, who had just been slapped in the face, were powerless to refute it.

Antonio, who was expressionless, kept staring at the map, and only then raised his head and said slowly: "There are many people in Rome and Florence who admire ancient Chinese books, and I have recently read them, and there are many remarks that I agree with very much, such as 'the first side to act is more advantageous, and the side that strikes later will be constrained by this', which is highly consistent with the ideas of Vegetius and Machiavelli, which is exactly what we should follow." ”

"Your Excellency, do you think you should attack in advance?" Ricardo asked.

"In order to break the balance of victory, we need to create a salient on the other side of the Tagus River to facilitate the deployment of follow-up troops, and the city of Tarawera cannot be held back by those guys on the other side, they must be dealt with."

"Yes!"

"With all due respect, General, this will disrupt the deployment of the campaign." Domingo was a little dissatisfied, he felt that the Italians were in a hurry to save face, completely disregarding reasonableness.

Antonio glanced at him and said lightly, "I'll apply to the General Staff, Colonel." ”

(End of chapter)