Iron Cross

The rumors about the American Sherman tanks being difficult to deal with turned out to be true. Heinz saw with his own eyes that several Type 4 tanks were aiming at a lone Sherman tank. The frontal armor and turret of this tank were hit by at least 5 rounds of long-barreled 75mm armor-piercing shells and still managed to fight back. Fortunately, the British artillery was not accurate enough to pose a threat to the attackers. The distance of the two sides' exchange of fire was from 1,500 meters to 700 meters, and the Type 4 tank finally penetrated the frontal armor of the Sherman. Heinz thus had a clear understanding of the combat effectiveness of the Sherman. When he met it again, he no longer engaged in a head-on exchange of fire. Instead, he commanded 1-2 tanks to attract the enemy from the front and sent other vehicles to shoot from the side. Fortunately, the British did not have many Sherman tanks, so they did not cause too much trouble to the Germans.

As time went by, although the command of the British troops was still scattered, the resistance formed by the small troops became more and more tight. Except for the initial Indian positions, which were relatively fragile and collapsed soon after the exchange of fire with the tanks, the resistance of the rest of the troops was very tenacious. In particular, the counterattack of the 6th Infantry Brigade of New Zealand made Heinz even more distressed. They used the only three anti-tank guns in their hands to write off their three Type 3 and one Type 4 short-barreled tanks, forcing the armored battalion that was originally prepared to break through to retreat and give up this hard nut.

At this time, he remembered Guderian's earnest teachings before he left: Never fight to the death, and never get involved in positional warfare, otherwise you will be beaten to death by the British who reacted. He made a feint and led his men to circle around far away to avoid this enemy force. The New Zealanders on the position also burst into a strong shout when they saw the German tanks leaving, feeling more excited than winning a battle.

Now he began to hate that his troops were too few. If the raid was not just 67 tanks, but 167 tanks plus a more reliable armored grenadier division, he would be confident that he could "pack up" all 7 or 8 British divisions and brigades here, instead of wandering around and attacking like now, without any spoils or prisoners. Of course, if there were such abundant troops, the commander might not retreat.

"Attention, there is a British field oil depot ahead, which is full of hundreds of barrels of gasoline. The enemy has fled and there is no defense." Suddenly a tank commander reported to the command vehicle.

Heinz was overjoyed and shouted to his subordinates into the throat transmitter: "Refuel in batches at the oil depot ahead, pay attention to alert, the total time should not exceed 10 minutes."

The remaining 61 tanks were back on the road after refueling. Several tank soldiers who had escaped because their tanks were destroyed grabbed a few British armored vehicles and followed the rear of the team. At Heinz's order, the 12.7mm machine gun on the armored vehicle fired a long burst of bullets at the oil barrels, and the battlefield oil depot was blown into ashes. The rolling smoke could be seen thousands of meters away.

The time was 5:45 pm. After 45 minutes of fierce fighting, the German armored battalion finally tore a big hole in the British defense system and detoured to the southern wing of the Delmhafid Ridge. If they crossed this mountain, they could enter the northern line of El Alamein, but this was something Heinz and others did not dare to think about. They just wanted to sweep it and then withdraw.

"Cannon fire! Where does the cannon fire come from?" Montgomery, who was thinking in the command center, suddenly shouted alertly and jumped up from his chair.

De Lagan hurriedly walked in to report: "Sir, I received a report from the 7th Armored Division. The cannon fire came from the southernmost position. It seems that they are exchanging fire with the Germans."

"The Germans came from that piece of soft sand?" Montgomery suddenly became excited, "How many troops have come, and where is the enemy's main force at present?"

"It's not clear yet. The phone is very noisy, and the contact with the front line is intermittent. I haven't received a single reliable telegram." De Lagan said very embarrassedly, "From the sound of the artillery fire, the movement is not too big. Could it be another feint attack by Guderian?"

"Go and find out the situation immediately. Maybe we can teach Guderian a lesson he will never forget..." Montgomery's voice had just fallen, and suddenly the unique shrill scream of the German Ju-87 Stuka bomber was heard not far away, followed by a violent explosion.

"It's bad, the Germans are attacking the airport. This is not a feint, this is real..." Montgomery's headquarters was located not far from the airport. He heard clearly that at least 8 dive bombers had dropped bombs just now. How could the airport's air defense be so lax? He didn't know that this was completely wronging the airport. Long before he heard the explosion, the airport lookout reported the news of a large group of German planes approaching. When the shrill alarm sounded, the British pilots who were originally in a relaxed state and preparing to take a shower or eat in groups of three or two were stunned. No one expected that there would be a large group of German planes at this time. They screamed, threw down their toiletries or lunch boxes, and rushed to the apron like crazy. There were already many planes on the runway taking off. These were planes on duty to support their own forces still in the air.

But just as these planes took off and had not yet assembled completely, the Germans suddenly rushed out a formation of nearly 200 fighters. They swooped down from the sky at a very fast speed and caught the British planes that took off hastily and fired fiercely. Judging from the model, these planes were almost all Fw-190. Colonel Christopher, the airport commander, dared to swear that they had been exchanging fire with the Germans for several months. Except for knowing that the African Star was equipped with Fw-190, they had never seen so many Fw-190s, which shocked everyone.

This formation was none other than the JG3 Udet Fighter Wing that General Galland had recently transferred to. On the second day after arriving in Africa, they couldn't wait to join the battle, but Guderian stopped them. He wanted to use this new force when it was most needed, so he deliberately suppressed their desire to fight and let them drive the Bf-109 of the original African Army to familiarize themselves with the battlefield situation. The careless British only knew that the Germans had been fighting fiercely in the past few days, but they didn't know that although the enemy was the same group of planes, they were not the same group of people engaging in fire with them, and they didn't expect that the enemy actually had a hidden backhand.

The Fw-190 swooped down from the sky and maximized its own advantages. The British Hurricanes, Spitfires, and P-40 fighters, which were at a disadvantage in speed, formation, and altitude, had no power to resist and fell down like dumplings. In the chaos, the most eye-catching one was still the yellow No. 14 - this was Marseille's plane. He was accustomed to using high-altitude deflection angle shooting instead of ordinary rear-end attack. As soon as he met, he killed two Spitfires before the opponent could react. Then he set his sights on the "Tomahawk" fighter (British version of P-40) of Major Duke of the 112th Squadron, the top ace of the British North African theater. Major Duke's personal cumulative victory was only 26, but because he was good at judging the situation and running away as soon as the situation was not good, he had avoided confrontations with Marseille several times on the battlefield. The pilots of the German Eighth Air Force had always been unable to do anything to him, but this time he finally couldn't hide. Marseille bit him tightly. After several rounds of chasing and diving, Marseille killed this old opponent with a neat and tidy method - the enemy plane exploded in the air, and there was no chance to parachute.

After the German fleet effectively controlled the air supremacy around the airport, the Bf-109s of the original African Army escorted the bomber formation and arrived late, and then there was the explosion heard by Montgomery. The anti-aircraft guns around the airport also opened fire, but the hastily deployed artillery obviously had no accuracy, and were instead cleared by the bombers and fighters that swept the ground resistance forces. Many of them were killed, and the resistance became weaker and weaker.

Montgomery saw the black mass of planes passing overhead through the window. His heart suddenly sank. He pushed the door open and went outside to see what was going on. Who knew that just before he walked out of the door and less than 20 meters away, a low-flying German fighter plane swept down with a burst of bullets. If it weren't for the adjutant's quick eyes and hands pushing Montgomery, the British Army Lieutenant General would have been hit. When he got up and saw a row of neat machine gun bullet holes 5 meters in front of where he had just stood, Montgomery was first afraid and then felt fortunate. In fact, the BF-109 pilot should be more regretful. He was heading for the airport, but was late because of some problems on the way. The strafing just now was completely his subconscious act, and he thought it was normal that he didn't hit the target. If he knew that the unremarkable man wearing an Australian-style beret was a big shot like Montgomery, he would probably try every means to kill the other party even if he had to sacrifice his plane.