The East African Defence Forces (EPDF) built bunkers on the banks of the Turkana River, some of which were built directly near the river beaches, with machine gun muzzles to intercept the river surface, especially at the bends of the river.

In April, South Africa has not yet entered the rainy season, so the Tugela River is not abundant, but it is not dry, because the western part is affected by the Drakens, the terrain is more rainy, and the dry season is not as pronounced as in other parts of East Africa, which makes the Tugela River very watery.

This is also an important reason why Lesotho became the "water tower" of South Africa in the previous life, and the water diversion project of the Republic of South Africa in the previous life was to buy water from Lesotho and then supplement the water demand of the northern industrial belt.

In general, the British army chose a good time to cross the river, which was the dry period of the Tuguera River, but it was also difficult, but for East Africa, the defense of the Tuguera River was not easy to do.

The Tuguela River is very tortuous, and there are many large bays, which elongates the river channel, and the defense line must be designed to be very long.

The total number of the Ninth Brigade in East Africa is more than 5,700 people, which is more than some divisions in East Africa in the past, and this is the result of the expansion of the East African army.

However, the 9th Brigade's defense area is directly more than 200 kilometers, and the strength of less than 6,000 people has to defend such a long border, so the 9th Brigade in East Africa will inevitably not be able to hold on for a long time against the British troops in the Natal colony.

As long as the British continued to attack, they could always find a suitable place to cross the river, and the main problem of the British army now was the limited number of boats to cross the river.

After all, the development of the entire East African region is very weak, so far East Africa, as the only infrastructure power in Africa, is still building various infrastructure projects in the country, but roads, canals, bridges, etc., are far from the Eurasian continent countries There is a significant gap, and the overall strength is stronger than that of South America.

However, large-scale projects in South America are not strong, and regional small-scale infrastructure should be built on top of East Africa, especially Argentina and Brazil, where the population is concentrated, and the conditions are good.

Especially in Argentina, the growth rate of railways is not slower than that of East Africa, and with the blessing of British capital, Argentina has developed rapidly.

If the level of infrastructure in East Africa can still rank first in Africa, then the level of other colonies or African countries can be imagined.

In the case of the Tuguera River Basin, the Zulu people lived here before, and the Zulus were "de facto" barbarians, and there was basically zero exploitation of the Tuguera River basin.

The Tuguera River basin has not changed much since East Africa and the British took over, mainly because East Africa has built a large number of military facilities in the region.

Britain has no such demands, as the world's largest power, Britain is often on the offensive side and does not need to work too defense.

After all, no country has the courage to take the initiative to enter into a conflict with Britain, and as for Germany, its current national strength has not yet reached the capital that can compete with Britain, and the United States is excluded from the center of the world by Europe and can only show off its might in the Americas.

The Tuguera River is the border between Britain and East Africa, and there are zero commercial exchanges, and neither side has developed the Tuguera River basin, so the shipping industry naturally cannot develop, and the number of ships is insufficient.

Of course, the Tugela River itself has no potential for a shipping industry, and the Tugaila waterfalls alone are enough to cut off local shipping conditions.

The current situation in East Africa is that the coalition forces are attacking on three major fronts at the same time, and countless small directions, and at the same time they must be wary of the Egyptian British army in the north.

Therefore, the East African armies in each battlefield are relatively evenly distributed, so that the strength of the troops is somewhat stretched, and the only one with superior strength is the Eastern Military District, which is actually divided into two components, that is, the Guards Division and the Eastern Military District, although the Guards Division belongs to the Eastern Military Region sequence, it is actually an independent unit.

All in all, the Ninth Brigade was under tremendous pressure that it should not have been able to bear, and to be able to block the three crossings of the river by the British was already beyond its capabilities.

In this regard, the 9th Brigade owes the command of the British commander, who was in a hurry to create the current situation.

This has a major relationship with the British commander's light on the enemy, after all, the main force of the British army this time comes from the British Royal Indian Army, and there are many battles with the wind, which means that Africa is still the same configuration as South Asia, but the current military strength of East Africa has surpassed the small and medium-sized countries in Europe, and it can be ranked even in Europe.

Front Command of the 9th Brigade.

"Brigade commander, we have observed that the enemy is about to launch a new offensive again, and their river-crossing troops have been regrouped again!"

Brigadier Arridotus did not give instructions immediately, but asked, "What time is it?" ”

"It's 5:23 p.m., and we're still more than an hour before it gets dark."

Aristotle analyzed: "Now the British commanders now only know brute force, during the day they have organized and launched three large-scale landing operations, all of which were repelled by our army with superior firepower, but our ammunition consumption is extremely large, especially machine guns, which are very effective against such small river-crossing boats, and even directly destroy the hull, so that the British army's entire river-crossing assault force is directly scrapped." ”

"Alas, it's a pity, although the Maxim machine gun is easy to use, our production capacity in East Africa is very limited, and it consumes one-fifth of the stock in less than a day."

"The Maxim machine gun is very useful for the enemy's small landing ships, and the British troops on the river have become live targets, and it only takes one round of strafing to directly exhaust the opponent's patience in the war and deal a serious blow to the enemy's morale."

The feedback on the experience of the machine guns by the front-line units of the 9th Brigade is very good, but the consumption of ammunition by the machine guns is also amazing.

This made Brigadier Arriduous think about the mode of use of machine guns, which are so powerful that if they are brought together, what effect will they have when they are dealt with a large-scale attack by the enemy!

The main thing is that the efficiency of the use of machine guns did not meet Arridot's expectations, and this need for mass destruction should be applied to large-scale land frontal battlefields.

The use of it to intercept the British army crossing the river is a bit too wasteful, and many soldiers are happy to fight, but it is easy to ignore the use of ammunition.

So Arridot said: "If the machine gun is used as the fire output point, it can effectively intercept the British army crossing the river, but if we organize the machine gun and arrange it as a firing belt, what will be the result of the lethality of the enemy?" ”

After all, the combat mode of the British army is mainly based on the tactics of queuing and killing, and if East Africa can organize machine guns at the same time and strafe the enemy, then the picture may be very efficient when you think about it.

At present, the Ninth Brigade uses machine guns as defensive weapons and cannot give full play to the effect of machine guns in landing operations against the enemy, because after all, the British troops in landing operations are scattered.

Aristotle's idea aroused the thinking of everyone in the brigade headquarters, and such an approach seemed to be very feasible, but everyone was not completely sure of its feasibility until they saw the actual combat effect.

Seeing that no one had come up with a meaningful proposal, Arridotus had no choice but to take the idea to heart first, and now the main thing was to repel the enemy's fourth river crossing and buy more time for the entire city of New Hamburg.

So Arridot ordered: "Before dark, repel the enemy's fourth attack, and when it gets dark, it will be much more difficult for the British to cross the river, and now the volunteers of the city of New Hamburg, which are supported by the front, will be evacuated, and we will hold off the British army for at least two days, and then evacuate to the city of New Hamburg, during which time we must save bullets, especially machine gun ammunition, at least more than half of them are pre-stocked." ”

(End of chapter)

.