Reborn South Africa as a police officer

Chapter 2206
After the outbreak of the European War, the existing weapons and equipment systems in southern Africa were upgraded again. The latest production of the "Leopard" tank has a combat weight of 41 tons.

With an invincible and violent attitude, what appeared in front of the German paratroopers was a "Leopard" tank that had not been upgraded before the outbreak of the European War.

Even that was scary enough.

35 tons of combat weight, 90mm thick frontal armor, already equipped with the latest 75mm tank gun with armor-piercing shells——

Speaking of armor-piercing shells.

The Germans probably rivaled the Southern African tanks in tank tonnage.

But on armor-piercing projectiles, German tanks will never be able to reach the power of armor-piercing projectiles in southern Africa, because the core of armor-piercing projectiles uses metal tungsten.

Germany has no tungsten.

So as long as the Royal Navy does not touch the blockade of Germany, Germany will never be able to produce high-performance armor-piercing bombs.

Of course, armor-piercing bullets are not used in Crete.

The German paratroopers did not prepare tanks at all, and the only result of fighting the steel monster with flesh and blood was to be slaughtered.

The tank hand of the "Leopard" tank is also too much.

This tank had been hiding in the stable in the previous battles and never appeared, because the camouflage was better, and the German paratroopers didn't notice it, and they didn't have the slightest psychological preparation.

So the moment the "Leopard" tank appeared, the scene was very visually impactful.

Even the early "Leopard" tanks were equipped with a 540 horsepower high-efficiency engine.

The thick column of the stable is not enough to look at in front of the 540-horsepower "Leopard" tank. The "Leopard" tank directly knocked down the column, rushed out of the stable like a monster out of the cage, and even dragged the entire stable. Go out nearly 40 meters away.

It's not a road either.

The "Leopard" tank does not use tires either.

Otherwise, the German paratroopers may hear the sound of burning tires.

After rushing out of the barn, the tanker of the "Leopard" tank didn't even shoot, and just rushed directly to the German paratroopers who were only equipped with Mauser rifles, with blood all the way behind them.

No matter how elite the German paratroopers were, the offensive front collapsed completely in an instant.

In the face of the fleeing German paratroopers, the machine gun of the "Leopard" tank finally opened fire. The 12.7mm machine gun was extremely efficient in killing infantry. A company participating in the attack was completely lost in just one minute.

Colonel Miller was helpless and led his troops back to the airport.

Before paratroopers had anti-tank weapons, they simply could not fight the tank-equipped southern African troops.

At this time, the southern African artillery fire on the airport has not stopped.

After sweeping the airport with large-caliber shells, the airport terminal was finally not spared.

Two 155mm artillery shells hit the airport terminal at the same time, and most of the terminal was completely destroyed and devastated.

Fortunately, Schmitz and Hoffmann had already left the terminal before then.

Otherwise the paratroopers and airborne troops have lost the chain of command by now.

Things didn't get any better, though.

If there is no support, the paratroopers and paratroopers who have already airborne may not be able to see the sun of tomorrow.

The Germans did try their best. When the airborne troops landed at Heraklion Airport, the German ground troops began to launch a ground attack on Crete in sailboats.

It was really a sailing ship, and other ships could not be found, and they had all been sunk by the Mediterranean Fleet and the Cyprus Squadron.

Even the sailboats were escorted by gunboats. The Italian destroyers were blocked in La Spezia by the Mediterranean Fleet and the Cyprus Squadron. The Germans even moved the artillery to the sailboats, so as to gain some psychological security. sense.

But how could Cunningham and Mike Tolan allow the Germans to cross the sea easily? The First Destroyer Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet, led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, joined hands with the fleet sent by the Cyprus Squadron to attack the German army who was trying to cross the sea. Strike, the German Army, which was invincible in the continent of Europe, finally tasted the taste of failure.

The [-]st Destroyer Squadron led by Lord Louis Mountbatten consisted of four destroyers.

The fleet led by Colonel Gao Jie of the Cyprus Squadron is composed of two light cruisers and six destroyers.

"It is too much for the southern Africans to use light cruisers to deal with sailing ships—" Lord Mountbatten was very depressed when he saw the fleet led by Colonel Gao Jie.

God knows where there are so many destroyers and cruisers in southern Africa.

In the previous "islands for destroyers" program, Southern Africa has handed over nearly a hundred light cruisers and destroyers to the Royal Navy.

Information obtained by the Royal Navy indicated that light cruisers and destroyers were being built in southern Africa faster than they could be handed over to the Royal Navy.

Not long ago, Walvis Bay Shipyard built a 150-ton merchant ship in only [-] hours. This speed made everyone dumbfounded.

After the outbreak of the European War, German submarines used wolf pack tactics to attack allied merchant ships. In the second half of last year alone, the total tonnage of British merchant ships sunk by German submarines reached 150 million tons, which had a huge impact on British supplies.

Now for Britain, there are still countless resources available in the colonies, but there are not enough merchant ships to continuously transport the colonial resources to the British mainland.

So at the same time as "islands for destroyers", the British government hoped to lease merchant ships from southern Africa to help the UK transfer supplies.

For such a request, the Federal Government of Southern Africa will certainly not refuse.

The British have requirements for ships. In order to facilitate production, the structure of the ships is very simple and easy to build on a large scale.

At the same time, the requirements for the cargo capacity of ships are relatively high, and the British hope that the cargo capacity can be more than [-] tons.

In addition, considering that there are no oil fields in the UK, the British government hopes that the ships will be powered by coal.

Southern Africa has no shortage of oil.

To sell more oil --

Bah, bah, no, in order to better improve efficiency, the southern African shipyard revised the design drawings provided by the British government and determined the final plan.

This kind of ship named "Free Wheel" by Rock has a displacement of only 7000 tons, but its cargo capacity is as high as 9140 tons. Due to the use of internal combustion engines, the speed of the ship can reach more than 11 knots, and it is equipped with anti-aircraft weapons. air defense capability.

Since the beginning of this year, "Freewheel" has been mass-produced.

In the first quarter of this year, the Allied merchant ships sunk by Germany totaled 110 million tons.

During the same period, the total tonnage of free ships produced in southern Africa reached 150 million tons, and the speed is still accelerating.

This makes the British very depressed.

Due to the simple structure of the free wheel, the service life is only five years.

However, considering the current situation, this is still an excellent merchant ship, and the British government is constantly adding orders.

Along with the mass production of merchant ships, Southern Africa is also mass-producing warships, including light cruisers and destroyers.

The results of the Taranto attack and the Matapan Cape naval battle showed that aircraft carriers have become a key force in future naval warfare, and traditional warships represented by battleships have completely declined.

For a long time, southern African warships have been built with aircraft carriers as the core, supplemented by a large number of small-tonnage warships.

Light cruisers and destroyers have always been the top priority in the development of southern African navies.

After the outbreak of the European War, the German High Seas Fleet hid in the military port, and the submarine force was rampant. The status of anti-submarine light cruisers and destroyers has rapidly increased, and Southern Africa will naturally not ignore it.

After the implementation of the "islands for destroyers" plan, the newly equipped light cruisers and destroyers of the Southern African Navy were all the latest warships, which made it really difficult for Lord Louis Mountbatten to accept.

Lord Louis Mountbatten's ship is a destroyer obtained from southern Africa through the "islands for destroyers" program.

In other words, Lord Mountbatten's ship is a warship that has been eliminated by the Southern African Navy.

"So, we have cultivated an extremely powerful opponent for ourselves, and all this could have been avoided." Colonel Steve Norton, chief of staff of the First Destroyer Squadron, lamented that since the outbreak of the European War, the decline of the Royal Navy has simply Visible to the naked eye.

"We'll talk about it later, let's deal with the Germans in front of us first—" Lord Mountbatten wanted to vent his anger on the German troops crossing the sea.

The German army, who was crossing the sea, hadn't realized that disaster was imminent.

The carrying capacity of sailboats is very low, and because of the prominent masts and sails, they will be found far away, which is extremely dangerous.

Neither can the Germans.

Before the launch of the Battle of Crete, the Mediterranean Fleet and the Cyprus Squadron had swept up the coastal cities of Greece several times, and all slightly larger ships were destroyed. The only thing the Germans could use was sailboats.

The mainland of Greece is approximately 100 kilometers from the island of Crete.

These 100 kilometers became an insurmountable moat for the German Army.

From the evening of the 22nd, some sailboats left the port and headed for Crete.

All these ships were destroyed without exception. The Mediterranean Fleet and the Cyprus Squadron have issued a joint statement that any Greek ships that dare to go to sea during the outbreak of the Battle of Crete will be regarded as hostile acts.

The Germans will certainly not easily give up the paratroopers and airborne troops who have already airborne in Crete.

After nightfall, the German crossing reached its climax.

bang——

The flares fired by the naval gun illuminated the sea area near the destroyer "Victory" as bright as day.

Almost at the center of the flare, a Greek sailing ship full of German soldiers was cleaving through the waves.

"Catch up and sink it!" Lieutenant Colonel Qiaofu, the captain of the "Victory", was already red-eyed. After the battle broke out, the "Victory" had sunk four Greek sailing ships.

"We don't have many shells for the main gun—" Gunnery Officer Carey regretted it now, knowing that he should have carried more shells when he set off.

"Then use anti-aircraft machine guns, grenade launchers, and torpedoes—in short, we can't let any Greek ship slip under our noses!" Qiaofu was crazy, and it was thanks to him to use torpedoes to sail the boat. Figured it out.

But this is normal.

When it was really necessary, even if it was a collision, Joffe would have to sink the Greek sailboat.

Anyway, a wooden sailboat will definitely not be able to hit a warship with a ram.

The newly produced destroyers in southern Africa have anti-aircraft machine guns with a caliber of 20 mm, which can already be classified as anti-aircraft guns.

A 20mm anti-aircraft machine gun hitting a wooden sailboat is as easy as cutting butter with a knife.

The anti-aircraft gun of the destroyer, in order to increase the lethality, the ammunition belt is mixed with incendiary bombs.

In order to be waterproof, sailboats, whether it is the sails or the boards, have to undergo special treatment. After encountering a fire, they burn very quickly.

The sailboat that was targeted by the "Victory" was running away with full power.

But the speed of the sailboat is as slow as a snail in front of a destroyer with a maximum speed of 35 knots.

In the desperate eyes of the German soldiers on the sailboat, the "Victory" quickly caught up.

The German soldiers were not reconciled to being caught without a fight, and used all the weapons on the ship to shoot at the "Victory", hoping to cause even the slightest damage to the "Victory".

dong dong dong-

The high-level dual-purpose machine gun on the "Victory" sprayed out muzzle flames of about one and a half meters.

Incendiary bombs, high-explosive bombs, armor-piercing bombs, mixed with tracer bombs formed a chain of fire and flew towards the sailboat.

All of a sudden sawdust flew, blood and flesh splashed everywhere, and the German army on the sailboat was like minced meat in a meat grinder——

"Continue, don't stop, sink it completely!" Qiaofu is still not satisfied, how many sailboats can the Greeks have.

This night, about 4000 German troops were killed or missing, and none of the sailboats successfully reached Crete.

For the German paratroopers and paratroopers in Heraklion, the despair they felt was not much better than the German army soldiers who were buried in the belly of fish.

The shelling of the southern African artillery did not stop all night, and the shells slammed endlessly, without stopping for a moment.

The paratroopers and airborne troops suffered heavy casualties. Schmitz and Hoffman counted the casualties in the early morning. The nearly 6000 paratroopers and paratroopers airborne in Heraklion had more than half of the casualties.

This is still the case when the southern African army did not take the initiative to launch a ground offensive.

If the southern African army took the initiative to launch a ground attack, then the battle would probably have ended long ago, and it would not have lasted until the early hours of the morning.

But it was precisely because of this that made Schmitz and Hoffman even more aggrieved.

From the very beginning of the battle, the South African army shelled the airfield with artillery.

In other words, from the beginning of the battle to the present, the paratroopers and airborne troops have not had the opportunity to fight with the southern African army with live ammunition.

Before the official fight, more than half of the casualties have already been lost. Let alone the paratroopers and airborne troops, this kind of thing has never happened in the history of the German army.

"We've run out of ammunition and food, and we have no choice." Schmitz didn't want to see the paratroopers who worked so hard to die worthless.

"Wait a little longer, we still have a chance after dawn—" Hoffman didn't want to just surrender. Since the outbreak of the European War, no German army has surrendered in an organized way.

Those who surrendered in North Africa were all Italians.

"What chance? Can the Führer parachute the [-]th Armored Division to Heraklion after dawn?" Schmitz was filled with despair.

Even if the [-]th Armored Division parachuted to Heraklion, it probably wouldn't be able to gain much advantage in front of the Southern African troops waiting in full force.

(End of this chapter)