Iron Cross

Listening to Brooke talking about the army's armaments, everyone suddenly thought of this issue, and couldn't help but feel a stab of pain in their hearts: Except for the last Egyptian army, all the other units of the Eighth Army are expected to be destroyed. It's only 10,000 more people who can escape. Fortunately - this was worse than Dunkirk, but we managed to save people that time.

"What do you think?" Churchill asked immediately.

"The Eighth Army needs to be rebuilt, especially the four armored divisions among them, without delay."

When it comes to rebuilding armored divisions, everyone has a toothache like a convulsion. It is true that battleships are gold-eating beasts, and armored divisions are also made with money - the cost of building a battleship can only be built into two new armored divisions. Brooke He said that 4 armored divisions are equivalent to 2 battleships, and judging from his posture, it seems that the 4 armored divisions are just supplementary, and they may be added in subsequent operations.

Sure enough, Brooke said in a sad tone: "I remember General Montgomery said before the Battle of Tobruk that he needed to add 5 more armored divisions to be confident. At first, we laughed at this and said it was fanciful, but now it seems that he didn't mean anything at all. Wrong - although the Germans are smaller in number than us, their armored divisions, especially their tanks, are much more powerful than ours. If they had been given five more armored divisions, they might have won the battle now."

Churchill felt very depressed after hearing this. Brooke also thought that the troops were enough at first, but now he opened his mouth and kept silent about five armored divisions, which was a complete shirk of responsibility. To be honest, he hated the Montgomery Lion for speaking so loudly at first, but now he feels extremely regretful - if he had known that he would be sending iron to the Eighth Army after being beaten like this, he understands the mood of Brooke and everyone else, but he can no longer let Brooke have his say. Go down, otherwise it will damage his prestige too much. He frowned and suppressed his displeasure to listen to all the words, and spoke first before everyone could express their opinions:

"I agree with the suggestion of adding four armored divisions, but now we cannot just look at quantity, quality is also important. The armaments department must work hard to develop new tanks - the front line has reflected that the Germans have used new tanks, and all our tanks and anti-tank guns They are no match for them. If we continue to build at a low level, we will still inevitably suffer defeat in the future.”

Eden stood up and came to the rescue of the Prime Minister: "Through diplomatic channels, the Russian side has firmly denied any relationship with the new German tank, and said that they also encountered this tank on the front line. Their situation is basically the same as ours, and they have no active tanks. They are opponents and the losses are huge...As for the T-34, the Russians have expressed their regrets, but this is a fact and cannot be reversed.”

Churchill quickly said: "Therefore, don't take out those obviously backward tanks anymore, throw them all to the Russians, and then let the United States give us the Shermans that supported Stalin. In the future, considering our own needs , aid to the Russians must be reduced - I don't think they deserve more! Apart from an inexplicable defeat on the Don River in November, what other achievements did they have? However, it only affected more than 100,000 people and hundreds of tanks and aircraft. It cannot be compared with the intensity of the war in North Africa - we are the mainstay of the fight against fascist Germany and Italy. We use a small area and a small amount of power to resist! The German Army and the entire Italian Navy and Air Force, which are sweeping Europe, ask Foreign Minister Eden to explain this to President Roosevelt and relevant members of Congress. I think the American people will understand us."

"Brilliant!" This is the only feeling that comes to everyone's mind. Although the war in North Africa and the Middle East has not yet settled, the Prime Minister has packaged this world-famous defeat into a spirit of resistance that was exhausted but persisted to the end, and returned to himself Labeled as a "mainstay" - this is really a good politician, and he cannot be justified in not being the prime minister.

Before everyone could react, Churchill changed the topic and brought up the technical issues of tanks: "What suggestions does the military industry department have for subsequent tank development? It is terrible to not have new and good enough tanks. This will have a negative impact on the soldiers." It’s like a battleship versus a cruiser. No matter how brave and clever the cruiser is, it may not be enough of a threat to the battleship. We must make changes.”

"Experts believe that the 17-pounder gun is a good anti-tank gun and plan to install them on tanks. At present, it seems that the Sherman is a good platform."

Churchill quickly asked: "What do you mean by good? A new tank that can deal with the enemy?"

"This..." Brooke said hesitantly, "I'm afraid it's a bit difficult, but at least it can deal with the T-34."

Speaking of the T-34, Churchill became angry again and couldn't help but curse: "The damn Russians allowed the Germans to capture so many, and then the Germans turned around and used them in North Africa. It's really a disgrace to Stalin." ”

Brooke ignored Churchill's complaints and continued: "The first is to install the 17-pounder gun on the Sherman as planned and accelerate the transformation and upgrade of this tank; the second is to increase research efforts and design a new tank ——It must be able to compete with the enemy's new tanks. If we can't do it, we will jointly develop it with the Americans; the third is to improve the existing tanks. We have already designed and completed the new tank of the 'Cromwell' model. It is planned to be produced next month, but from the current reality, the firepower is too weak (57mm caliber), the armor is not thick, and the speed is no longer necessary, so I think it is necessary to thicken the armor, replace it with a 75mm gun, and slow down the speed appropriately. Some - at least should be comparable to the T-34 or Germany's new Panzer IV tank."

The Cromwell is the successor of the Crusader tank. It weighs 28 tons and has a crew of 5. It is considered a new cruise tank. However, I did not expect that the relevant design indicators were outdated before it was built. Historically, the British After winning the North African campaign, Cromwell's problems were not obvious. Now that North Africa was defeated, the lack of armor was suddenly exposed.

Churchill nodded: "Please ask the Army Ordnance Authority to evaluate whether it is necessary to continue the production of Matilda, Valentine, Crusader and other tanks. Can it be transformed into the production of American Sherman? Sherman equipped with a 17-pound gun Can Mann be put into production as soon as possible? Can Cromwell's improvements be completed as soon as possible? As Germany and Italy reach closer cooperation in command system, equipment production and development, joint operations, etc., Italy's poor industrial capabilities are also beginning to come into play. When it comes out, we should also realize this change - if the Sherman is indeed a good car, why can't we produce it? It's too passive to just expect the Americans to give it to us. "

Finally, a consensus was reached, and the priority construction levels of the new Sherman tanks and the three Navy battleships were all raised to A1.

Seeing that both the Army and the Navy had benefited, General Charles Porter, Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force, could not sit still. He was about to stand up and seek some benefits for the Air Force, but Churchill silenced him first: "I know that the Air Force needs new personnel. Aircraft, the Spitfire 9 is very good, so let’s produce 2,000 more of them.”

"But..." He was about to say a few more words, at least trying to get some more bombers, but Attlee frowned, "How much does it cost to produce so much equipment?"

"I don't know..." Churchill shrugged and said in a helpless tone, "Be prepared to issue another 500 million pounds of national debt."

Everyone's heart is bleeding, 500 million pounds - military expenditure is expected to reach 4.8 billion pounds in the 1943 fiscal year, and the national income is only 8 billion pounds. If an additional 500 million pounds is added, the British Empire does not know whether it can afford it. (Note: 1 pound is roughly equivalent to 5 U.S. dollars, and 1 U.S. dollar is approximately equal to 2.5 Reichsmarks.) However, as soon as these words were spoken, Porter had no choice but to hold back whether he was willing or not.

General Alexander, the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Theater, was extremely angry at London's indiscriminate intervention. He even hated Major General Lumsden for his meddling. He didn't know that this was specially instructed by Montgomery when he was leaving. The latter was well aware of Alexander's tendency to escape. , fearing that the Egyptian army would eventually become cannon fodder covering the retreat of other troops, he told Ramsden to send the telegram directly to London before sending it to the Middle East theater command, so that the Prime Minister could pressure Alexander. Admiral Alexander would have definitely reacted to Churchill's orders in normal times, but now that Egypt's defeat has begun, he can no longer confront the Prime Minister on these matters, otherwise the future will be unpredictable, so he was as reluctant as swallowing a fly. The ground dispatched another brigade to the port, hoping to take the opportunity to withstand the German army for 4-5 days.

However, the practical actions of the Canal Group military told him that he no longer had to work in vain. When Alexander's reinforcements were still halfway, Rommel instructed General Stuart to personally lead three paratrooper battalions to land behind the port of Alexandria in the early morning of the 14th. , the panicked defense forces did not expect that the Germans would appear behind them. Coupled with the darkness around them, they immediately fell into a large-scale melee. The paratrooper battalion in the street fighting was equipped with STG43, Iron Fist 1 and other equipment, which exerted great power and beat the British army back continuously. At dawn, the Suez Rapid Strike Group departing from Fort Arabia cleared all resistance on the way, rushed to the outskirts of the port, and directly attacked the defenders' defense lines.

Although the defenders and the port marines tried to set fire to destroy all kinds of supplies, there were so many supplies and the fighting situation between the two sides was so complicated that the defenders only had time to destroy a small part before fleeing in a hurry. Seeing that the situation was not good, Andrew led the fleet and led all transport ships and The well-moving destroyer rushed towards the open sea, preparing to slip into the canal and escape as soon as possible. The Suez Rapid Strike Group on the shore took a little effort to deal with the coastal defenses and marines. When they arrived at the dock, all the ships had already set sail. They could only look at the sea and sigh. They were anxious to call the Luftwaffe to sink them, but Rommel looked at them. He sneered at the slow speed: "There are plenty of people to take care of them, so that the air force can save some energy."

So the Air Force let the fleet go, and only dropped bombs on the British 128th Brigade, which came to support, delaying their attack and creating convenient conditions for the rapid strike group to fully control the port and clear it out.