Expedition to Europe

Businessmen and soldiers have different understandings of failure.

For businessmen, failure can be restarted, it is nothing more than fighting again.

For soldiers, failure often means no chance to come back, and more often, failure means death.

For example, Tom Spiker and Derek Chaplin, they lost the war, which means the end of their military career. Even if they live in a miserable way, they will not gain people's trust in the future.

For a soldier, this may be more painful than death.

It is understandable that Tom Spiker and Derek Chaplin lost control when they witnessed the failure of the war, but this cannot change the fact that the Pers Expeditionary Force has fallen into a desperate situation.

Faced with this situation, Tom Spiker and Derek Chaplin did not try to save themselves, but broke out infighting because of shirking responsibility. It can be seen that there are reasons for their retirement.

Chen Zhaoqiang was not aware of the farce happening in the bridge of the "Perth". At the same time when the submarine force attacked the "King George V" and the "Black Swan", Chen Zhaoqiang commanded the troops to launch a counterattack against the Perth Expeditionary Force that had already landed.

In fact, beach landing was still a big problem until the 21st century. The key problem was how to get heavy weapons ashore. Without the support of artillery and armored vehicles, the infantry would eventually be driven off the beach even if they could land.

The Port Hedland Defense Force was not equipped with too many heavy weapons. There were no tanks at all, and there were very few armored vehicles. The artillery was only the French-made Miss 75. The paper strength was not very strong.

This "weakness" was relative. Compared with Lan Fang's regular field troops, the weapons of the Port Hedland Defense Force were indeed not strong, but compared with the Perth Expeditionary Force that had already landed, the weapons and equipment of the Port Hedland Defense Force could already form a crushing advantage.

The ground of the dock where the Perth Expeditionary Force landed has been hardened. This is actually urban warfare. The armored vehicles shined and became the nightmare of the Perth Expeditionary Force.

The armored vehicles equipped in Port Hedland were also produced by Lan Fang. This armored vehicle, which is 2.2 meters high, 4.6 meters long, 2.4 meters wide, and weighs 2.5 tons, is equipped with a 12.7 mm air-cooled heavy machine gun. It can run at a speed of 45 kilometers per hour on the road. The thickness of the armor can withstand the shooting of a 7.7 mm caliber Lewis light machine gun. This armored vehicle has a name that Qin Zhiyuan can't forget-Hummer.

For light infantry, every Hummer armored vehicle is a butcher. They recklessly harvest the lives of the Perth Expeditionary Force at the Port Hedland dock. The Perth Expeditionary Force has no way to deal with the Hummer armored vehicles.

Because of the addition of the Humvee armored vehicles, the battle on the dock ended quickly, and the defense forces won a brilliant victory. About 300 of the approximately 2,000 expeditionary soldiers who had landed on the dock were killed, and the rest lost their will to resist and surrendered.

At this point, the Pers Expeditionary Force was finally at the end of its rope and could no longer make any waves. The expeditionary force's warships were threatened by submarines in the outer port, and they could not even pass through the narrow waterway of the port, so they could only surrender in the inner port. The army was even worse. After two landing operations, the army had lost 80% of its soldiers. The remaining soldiers were unable to launch another attack, and the soldiers refused to attack. They had been frightened by the tragic conditions of the soldiers who landed in the first two times, and no one was willing to die.

At this time, Chen Zhaoqiang made a mistake. Chen Zhaoqiang ordered the radio operator to use a radio transmitter to send a surrender telegram to the warships of the Perth Expeditionary Force in plain text, and set the final time for surrender. If the Perth Expeditionary Force did not surrender by 4 pm, the Port Hedland Defense Force would sink all the expeditionary warships, including these transport ships.

At 3:30 pm, the Perth Expeditionary Force fleet still had no response, and Chen Zhaoqiang had to order the troops to prepare and launch an attack at any time.

Perhaps Derek Chaplin finally felt the crisis. At the last moment when the clock was about to turn to four o'clock, the "Perth" finally raised the white flag.

Later, Chen Zhaoqiang learned that there was no radio transceiver on the "Perth", so the "Perth" did not receive the surrender telegram from Port Hedland. The reason why the "Perth" surrendered was completely autonomous.

The British were also ruthless. They sold warships including the "Perth" to the city of Perth, but did not modernize them. The communication between the warships of the Perth Expeditionary Force still relied on flags and lights. Isn't it said that the customer is God?

This is really a pitfall!

The battle in Port Hedland was soon transmitted to the Black Swan Castle in Paris in the form of a telegram, which caused a certain range of uneasiness, especially Pierre.

Pierre, who knew the relationship between Port Hedland and Lan Fang, immediately found Qin Zhiyuan to understand the situation.

"Are you going to go to war with the British?" Pierre, who had returned to the army, was given the rank of lieutenant general, which made Pierre's temperament more stable, and now he has a little momentum.

"Of course not, it's not a chance now." Qin Zhiyuan was frank and did not deny that there would be a war between him and the British in the future.

"I really can't understand. Since you don't want to go to war with the British now, what's going on in Port Hedland? A group of militias defeated the regular army with warships, and wiped them out cleanly. What do you think the British will think? If the British intervene, what will you do?" Pierre had many questions, and he threw them out like a string of cannonballs.

"Pierre, your right-wing tendency is obvious now." Foch sounded the alarm for Pierre.

Foch, who answered in Paris, seemed to have returned to the war period. Not only did he put on the marshal's uniform again, but he was also full of passion. He kept talking about war. Whether it was the ongoing war between the Kolchak coalition government and the Lanfang Northern Region against Red Russia in the north, or the Australian civil war, Foch would drag Qin Zhiyuan to repeatedly do tactical deductions on the sand table, and he enjoyed defeating Qin Zhiyuan. He really enjoyed it and was almost obsessed.

There are also left and right wings in France. Although the military has no stance, Foch has always been a standard radical in his heart, and he is still a relatively radical one. Therefore, Foch has never been happy with Pierre, who is afraid of wolves in front and tigers behind.

"It's not right wing, but more off-field factors should be considered." The promotion of military rank has given Pierre a certain confidence. At least now facing Foch's accusations, Pierre dares to defend himself.

"Thinking too much will make you worry a lot and ultimately accomplish nothing." Foch is indeed radical. Qin Zhiyuan and Foch are more similar in this respect. No wonder the two have such a good relationship.

"The British may not intervene--" Qin Zhiyuan interrupted before Pierre, stopping Pierre and Foch's meaningless bickering: "For the British, whether it is Perth or Port Hedland, they are both part of the UK. It's like the two children of parents. The palms and backs of the hands are all flesh. The British should not be too biased towards Perth, which will make the British and Port Hedland go further and further apart."

The original text is available at Liu # 9 @Shu/Bar!

Qin Zhiyuan has always believed that the British will not intervene too much in the Australian Civil War. The British are still in the recovery period. If another war starts, it will definitely be a bigger burden for Britain, and the British will not necessarily take risks for it.

"The news I got is completely opposite to yours. The British are indeed in a difficult situation now, but this difficulty has prompted Lloyd George to need a scapegoat to divert the British's attention and shift their pessimism about reality to Australia thousands of miles away. Therefore, the British are very likely to intervene. The British House of Commons has begun to discuss this matter, and there may be news in a few days." Pierre sent the latest intelligence.

Just like Germany's massive infiltration of France, France has also massively infiltrated Britain, so the British government's actions cannot be hidden from the French, just as the French government's movements cannot be hidden from the Germans.

"Even if the British intervene, it's okay. Lan Fang lost Port Hedland as a source of iron ore, and it can still get it from Annan, but if the British intervene in the war in Port Hedland, then Britain will definitely fall into a quagmire in Port Hedland, which will make the British even more painful." Qin Zhiyuan is confident and confident.

As for the war methods, the current war methods are more of a frontal battlefield, and terms such as guerrilla warfare and unrestricted warfare have not yet appeared.

Qin Zhiyuan is of course familiar with guerrilla warfare and unrestricted warfare. Even if the British intervene in the war in Port Hedland, perhaps with the British strong ships and powerful guns, the British can occupy Port Hedland, but that's all. Once they reach the inland area where the fleet cannot provide support to the land, the British will fall into the encirclement set up by Qin Zhiyuan in advance, and then the British will be unable to move forward.

These tactics all belong to the category of "unrestricted warfare", and Qin Zhiyuan will not explain it to Pierre yet, so Pierre is not optimistic about Port Hedland.

"Quardle? Please forgive me for being blunt, but I don't think that Port Hedland will cause much trouble to the British with those submarines. Facing merchant ships or those mobs that were temporarily gathered in Perth, the submarine force may be a weapon of war, but if it is facing the most powerful British naval force in the world, the role that the submarine force can play is very limited. The Germans have proved this during the World War." Pierre was also very earnest, using the example of the Germans to convince Qin Zhiyuan.

In terms of submarines, the Germans did use tactics well, but it was far from the extreme.

What's more, Qin Zhiyuan didn't intend to compete with the British on the sea, so even if the British had the most powerful fleet in the universe, Qin Zhiyuan would not worry.

"So what? Can't their warships fly?" Qin Zhiyuan was really not afraid, and his words were still relaxed.

Pierre must not understand what Qin Zhiyuan meant. Qin Zhiyuan's subtext was: Why don't you go to the sky?