Reborn South Africa as a police officer

Chapter 2215
The unspoken rules within the navy are that they are merciless when fighting, and they still have to help recruit people after the battle.

The British naturally have to abide by this rule, but "George V" and a group of battleships, aircraft carriers, and cruisers pretended not to see the German sailors struggling in the sea, and each sent a destroyer as a routine.

However, the efficiency of the British was really slow. They wanted to wait an hour to release a lifeboat. After one person was caught, no matter how many vacancies there were on the ship, no matter how pleading the German sailors in the water, they turned around and left immediately.

The southern African navy is still conscientious, at least it will wait for the lifeboat to be filled with people before returning, which is much more efficient than the British.

However, when the two destroyers were hunting people, the fleet suddenly sounded the battle alarm, and a southern African destroyer discovered suspected German submarine activities nearby.

Although the submarine was not verified, all southern African warships and British warships were evacuated at the fastest speed, which fully shows that German submarines still pose a great threat to Allied warships.

The German sailors in the water were dumbfounded.

It cannot be said that the Allied Forces did not save lives, but the efficiency was not very high.

But this is also a tradition of the British Empire. The efficiency of the Royal Navy is not high, and everyone knows it.

As for the Southern African Navy.

Also, only one destroyer was dispatched. The destroyer of the Southern African Navy picked up 98 German sailors who fell into the water, and the British destroyer only rescued 13 people.

This is the difference.

The news was sent back to southern Africa, and Roque had a little regret for not being able to force the Spaniards to stand in line.

Of course, it doesn't matter. The Barbarossa plan is about to start, and Franco will make a choice sooner or later. Rock has been waiting for decades and doesn't care about these dozens of days.

Rock is not in a hurry, for the German army in Crete, life is like a year.

On the surface, the German army is getting closer and closer to completing the task of occupying the entire island of Crete.

On June 6, after a week of fierce fighting, the German army finally broke through the position of the 8rd Division and took a big step towards victory.

However, the battle process made William List quite embarrassed.

In order to break through the defense line of the 143rd Division, William Liszt sent three units successively, until the 17th Armored Division participated in the final success. During this process, the German army lost a total of more than 4600 people, nearly 70 tanks were destroyed, and the Air Force lost various types of fighters Nearly 200.

To this day William List does not know how much the 143rd Southern African Division has lost.

Referring to the experience of the German and Allied forces in combat, William List's staff staff estimated that the loss of the 143rd Division in Southern Africa was at least 25000 people.

This is pure nonsense.

The 143rd Division is the Southern African Union Army, fully loaded with a total of 15000 people, where did the [-] come from?

If you refer to the loss of the position, William List estimates that the loss of the 143rd Division in Southern Africa will not exceed 1500 people.

This also made William List unacceptable.

Although under normal circumstances, the loss of the attacking force will be more than that of the defending force, but there is no way to explain so much more.

After all, the attacking German army had armored forces.

The 143rd Division was pure infantry.

Fortunately, after a week of fighting, when William Lister was already desperate to break through the 143rd Division's position, the 143rd Division took the initiative to retreat.

It cannot be said to be an active retreat.

William Liszt is still very capable. While sending troops to attack the 143rd Division's position head-on, William Liszt sent troops to detour to the 143rd Division's flanks, preparing to completely encircle the 143rd Division.

As mentioned many times in the previous article, the terrain of Crete is complex, and the southern African army implemented a scorched-earth policy when retreating, destroying all roads and bridges in the mountainous area, and the roundabout German army also suffered.

The effect is definitely still there.

Only the southern African army was left in Crete to fight alone, and all other Allied forces had retreated. The commander of the 143rd Division was very smart and took the initiative to retreat when the detour troops were about to reach the predetermined position, giving up the position to the Germans.

On the face of it, the Germans were victorious.

But William List did not feel the slightest joy of victory.

Before William List tasted the "bitterness" of victory, the German army was attacked by southern African troops.

This time it was the 176th Division from the Kingdom of Congo.

What made William List very helpless was that the position of the 176th Division was stronger than that of the 143rd Division.

After all, during the week when the 143rd Division fought fiercely with the Germans, the 176th Division has been repairing fortifications.

Moreover, unlike the 143rd Division, which did not have enough time to build a complete defense system, the defense system of the 176th Division also included the flanking mountainous areas. In this special terrain, the German army would have to pay a huge price for detours.

It is impossible to deploy armored units in mountainous areas.

It is very difficult for the army on the plain to defend, and a complete defense system is needed to cause sufficient damage to the attacking army.

In some special positions in the mountainous area, only one machine gun needs to be deployed.

At this time, the best way is actually confrontation, which is how the trench warfare of World War I came about.

But William List didn't have much time to spend with the southern Africans. The Barbarossa plan was about to launch, and Mustache's dissatisfaction with William List was accumulating.

So the Germans could only attack desperately.

It has to be said that it is still difficult to deal with the desperate Germans.

There is one thing to say, the army of this era, the Germans are indeed among the best in Europe in terms of their mastery of tactics.

Armed with previous experience, William List went all out in the ensuing battle.

Compared with the beginning of the outbreak of the European War, the combat effectiveness of the German army has reached a new level. At least in terms of infantry coordination and infantry coordination, the German army has reached the peak.

To be exact, after the tanks joined, the German army attacked the 176th Division's position completely by stepping on the bombing point, which caused the tunnel dug by the 176th Division to be completely useless. , This side is entering the position, so I am afraid that the Germans' crawlers have already rolled to the top of the trench before the troops enter the position.

What else can I say, aside from weapons and equipment, the southern African army is also not inferior to the Germans in terms of courage.

On the first day of the battle, the German army successfully broke into the position of the 176th Regiment of the 199th Division during the first attack by virtue of their near-perfect infantry-gun coordination and infantry-tank coordination.

The southern African officers who were caught off guard did not flinch. They led the troops to engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the Germans, and finally drove the Germans out of the position after paying a heavy price. The Germans lost more than a thousand people in this battle.

The 199th regiment also suffered nearly 800 casualties.

The standard way to kill one thousand enemies is to lose eight hundred.

The 199th regiment was crippled on the first day of fighting.

At this time, the southern African army woke up like a dream. When the German army organized the second offensive, it was bombed indiscriminately by the southern African air force and southern African artillery.

In terms of artillery, the strength of the southern African army was stronger than that of the Germans.

There are mortars on both sides, but in terms of large-caliber artillery, the southern African army is absolutely superior.

What's more, southern Africa is also equipped with rocket launchers. This kind of weapon, which is not a new weapon, caused the Germans to suffer a lot.

After the end of the last world war, a variety of new weapons appeared in southern Africa, and rocket launchers were one of them.

The early rocket launchers were not very accurate and powerful, and they were not taken seriously in the southern African army.

After Robert Goddard came to southern Africa, the rocket artillery in southern Africa has made great progress.

With Robert Goddard's technology, the only task for Southern African engineers was to make the rocket bigger, charge more, and fly farther—

After Nikola Tesla joined, southern Africa has even begun to study guided rockets in recent years, but the technology is not yet mature enough, so it has not been applied to war.

Even so, enough for a German to drink a pot.

Compared with artillery, the biggest advantage of rocket launchers is mobility.

This is very important for all heavy firepower.

Not only rockets, but also the machine guns of the southern African army, which can be shot to change places. They cannot stay in one shooting position for too long, otherwise they will be hit by various mortars.

The same goes for artillery positions.

The proficiency of the Germans in the use of artillery is not lower than that of the southern African army. After the artillery positions in southern Africa opened fire, the "scientists" in the German artillery can quickly calculate the location of the artillery positions of the southern African army, and then organize artillery Counter fire.

Of course, the same is true for the southern African army. After more and more optical instruments are put into use, the southern African army also has strong firepower countermeasures. The German artillery positions also have to change places frequently, otherwise they will be destroyed.

Rockets don't have this problem.

The rocket launcher installed on the chassis of the car can really hit and run. When the mortar is in use, it needs to be installed with a rangefinder. The rocket launcher is launched in just a few minutes. German scientists have not yet calculated the position of the rocket launcher. , the rocket launcher has already escaped.

As for the Air Force.

Not only the Battle of Crete, since the southern African army entered the war, the combat capability of the southern African air force has been a mystery to the German air force, sometimes strong and sometimes weak.

When it is strong, the Southern African Air Force can organize a large-scale bombing of Berlin, which can make the German Air Force take the initiative to stop the British air battle, and arrange almost all advanced aircraft on the German-Russian border to reduce losses.

When it is weak, the German Air Force can easily break through the blockade of the Southern African Air Force, otherwise the German Army would not be able to parachute into Heraklion.

After suffering heavy losses in the battle on the first day, the Southern African Air Force easily took away the air supremacy above the 176th Division's position like chicken blood. William Lister, who finally regained his confidence, suffered another blow to his already fragile heart. to a major blow.

William Lister had known about the air trenches in southern Africa for a long time, but he didn't expect the "trenches" to be of this magnitude.

In order to stop the German attack and give the 176th Division time to reorganize their defenses, the Southern African Air Force sent heavy bombers to form a fire field with a width of two kilometers in front of the 176th Division's position, dropping nearly 10 incendiary bombs in one day and one night.

Yes, it's not a high-explosive bomb or an incendiary bomb, but a simple and crude incendiary bomb with many special ingredients added.

It can only be said that there is really a lot of rubber in southern Africa.

Speaking of rubber, rubber is the top priority in the trade between Spain and Germany.

So Mustache is actually not that eager to let Spain join the Axis powers.

Once Spain joins the Axis powers, the Allied forces will impose a blockade on Spain, and Germany will lose Spain, an important trade channel.

Also for this reason, the United States actually did not want Spain to join the Axis powers.

The bombers in southern Africa were very powerful. Just one day later, when the Germans launched an offensive again, the position of the 176th Division had been restored to its original state and was impregnable.

This time the Germans started shelling again, and the southern African army no longer entered the tunnels, but stood firm.

The battle finally entered a situation that both sides least wanted to see.

Just fight hard.

The officers and soldiers of the 176th Division stood firm against the overwhelming German artillery fire and refused to budge.

Although the 176th Division has no armored units, anti-tank weapons are not lacking, so the attack of the German armored units also suffered heavy losses. After losing 19 tanks on the first day, the loss on the third day was 27 tanks, and on the fourth day. The loss was 31, the fifth day—

The Germans halted their offensive on the fifth day.

It can't stop, the three German armored divisions that were originally sent to the Eastern Front and then returned to Greece are almost exhausted.

When the European War broke out, a German armored division had 336 tanks.

With the expansion of the German army, the speed of German tank production cannot keep up with the speed of German military expansion, so the size of the armored force is shrinking. At present, a German tank division only has 150-200 tanks.

There is no way around this. In 1939, Germany's steel output was only a pitiful 790 million tons.

Steel production in Southern Africa in the same year was 6100 million tons.

By 1940, after Germany annexed Poland and France, steel production had ballooned to 2600 million tons.

In 1940, the steel output of Southern Africa was 8300 million tons. Germany grabbed all over Europe, and the added value of steel output was still not as much as that of Southern Africa.

2600 million doesn't seem like a lot.

However, while Germany produces tanks, it also produces aircraft, warships, individual weapons that are indispensable for infantry, and various other industrial products needed for the national economy and the people's livelihood.

In this way, there is really not much steel left for the Germans to build tanks every year.

So from last year to this year, a whole year has passed, and the German armored forces have only increased from 10 divisions to 21 divisions.

Just this mustache also asked the German ordnance industry to produce tanks with a heavier tonnage.

The heavier the tonnage, the more steel is required.

The Southern African "Tiger" tank weighs more than 50 tons, while Germany's most advanced Panzer IV weighs only 30 tons.

30 tons vs. 50 tons, among other things, if the caliber of the artillery is not enough, it can't even penetrate the armor, so it's still a problem.

It is said that southern Africa is also developing tanks with thicker armor and more powerful firepower.

So William Lister is very worried now, if he buried all three tank divisions in Crete, how would he explain to Mustache?

I'm afraid that death will be hard to thank the world by then.

Fortunately, the 176th Division did not entangle William List for too long. When the time came to June 6, after holding on for a week, the 15th Division voluntarily withdrew, giving William List a reason to save face .

(End of this chapter)