Chapter 63: Dawn Attack

  The commander of the British 7th Armoured Division, 'Brian', supported the 10th Armoured Division with 50 tanks, which appeared in front of the commander of the 10th Division, Alexander, within a few hours.

  Seeing 'Brian' go all out to help himself get out of trouble, Alexander couldn't help but leave tears.

  Alexander's relationship with 'Brian' was not particularly good before Monty arrived in North Africa. Alexander had also bullied 'Brian', of course only with verbal provocation and hierarchical pressure, once because 'Brian's troops did not cover the flank of Alexander's tank corps in time.

  Alexander took advantage of his rank to severely reprimand Colonel 'Bryan', who was then commanding an infantry brigade, which naturally could not keep up with Alexander's armored forces.

  If it were some other officer with connections, this wouldn't even be an issue. Alexander is bullying Brian precisely because he's a nobleman without any backing.

  Alexander was a leader among the commoner officers, and he saw a noble officer being trained like a grandson. Alexander's heart was extremely comfortable. In front of 'Bryan's' subordinates, Alexander directly punished 'Bryan' to stand at attention for 1 hour on the training ground. It was considered to have lost all face for 'Bryan'.

  But when he saw that 'Brian' didn't hold grudges and helped him out of trouble without hesitation, Alexander was truly grateful to 'Brian', and also felt extremely ashamed of his own past behavior.

  Alexander secretly decided in his heart that after this battle, he must apologize to 'Brian', sincerely apologize, extremely sincere apology. However, what he didn't think of was that the person he had decided to apologize to was actually pushing him to the end of the road of despair, the abyss of death.

  The supporting tanks soon arrived in front of the 10th Armored Division. Alexander gazed at the improved Sherman M4's gun barrel, which was nearly 4 meters long, and sighed. If his own tanks were all improved Sherman M4s, would the tragic and ridiculous battle that had just occurred still have happened? The question marks and endless sighs in Alexander's heart finally turned into periods.

  This time, Alexander's guts have grown again. He immediately ordered 50 'Sherman M4' and a few carefully protected 'Matilda 2' tanks, as well as the 35 French old 'Char 1' tanks to be mixed together. The infantry got off the armored vehicles and followed behind the tanks. Behind each tank was a platoon of infantry, advancing forward together.

  Those empty armored vehicles had a lot of ropes tied to the back of the car, and some even hung steel towing chains, which directly brought up clouds of dust when running.

  Looking far away, it was indeed a large-scale tank cluster attack. Alexander was delighted to see this result and praised 'Brian' for his cleverness.

  But now the sky is about to darken, and the weather in North Africa has been bad for several days. The cloud layer is very thick, and at night in the desert, you can't even see the stars in the sky, with very low visibility, which is not suitable for armored warfare. So Alexander contacted 'Brian' through radio and agreed to launch another attack in the morning.

  'Bryan' also knew that the 10th Armored Division's Alexander couldn't be too forced. Moreover, at night, the German army couldn't see the dust raised by the camouflage of the armored forces in the rear. If the Germans didn't fall for it, 'Bryan's use of a feint would have been wasted effort and would have lost 40 'Sherman M4' tanks. So 'Bryan' gladly agreed to Alexander's plan for the 10th Armored Division.

  But this night also became Rommel's sleepless night. Rommel couldn't figure out why the 15th and 21st Divisions had clearly reported that the British armored forces were only 2 hours away from their defensive lines, but it was already midnight, and nearly 6 hours had passed since the report, yet not a single British soldier had been seen.

  Have the British retreated, no way. The British should understand that as long as they break through their last thin defensive line, they will have no reserve troops to use. Whether it is to annihilate their own infantry or cut off their transportation lines, they are already powerless.

  The British won't run out of oil, only when the British tanks run out of oil will they stop on the spot and wait for logistical replenishment.

  The more Rommel thought about it, the more he felt that the problem lay with the British fuel supplies. If only he had a panzer division in hand, Rommel would have liked to test his judgment. But now the problem was that Rommel's armored mobile forces were almost zero. All the armored troops had been sent to rescue that young master Andri.

  The Italian tanks in hand are not as good as tin cans. Sending those Italian tanks out has little effect, even if the British tanks just stand still and let the Italian tanks shoot, I estimate that they won't be able to damage a few vehicles by dawn. But Italy's tanks will be shot one by one like torches by the British tanks.

  There were also those 40 'Tiger' tanks, Rommel only knew that these tanks were heavy tanks and had taken a look at the photos from his staff. He was not interested in this type of tank at all. In Rommel's mind, mobility was always the first priority for tanks, and most of the tactics he devised also involved rapid movement of tanks. Just hearing the word 'heavy' made Rommel feel disgusted, as in his thinking, anything associated with heavy meant something that was huge in size, slow in movement, and low in combat efficiency.

  Rommel was always known for being agile, swift, mobile and free-spirited. Rommel's warfare emphasized 'leaving no trace'. He really wasn't very interested in this kind of heavy tank.

  According to Rommel's understanding, heavy tanks should follow infantry and serve as mobile turrets for them. If such tanks are sent out to probe, it is estimated that by the time they arrive, the day will be over and the tank will still be on its way.

  These 'Tiger' tanks were then assigned by Rommel to the northernmost part of the front line, serving as anti-tank guns. However, Rommel was wrong about these 'Tigers'. Although the Tiger tank sacrificed mobility in its design, somehow after completion, the speed of the tank did not decrease at all and could even rival that of the Panzer III and IV. This left designers and testers baffled as to why the increased weight had not resulted in a decrease in speed.

  However, the 'Tiger' tank did not meet the highest design parameters, which made it the main subject of research. Some people suggested that it might be because many parts of the prototype were not installed and the weight was not reached. So a few more prototypes were urgently made. But the speed still didn't come down. So they continued to make and test, making 40 vehicles before stopping. The reason was still not found, but at this time, the German MAN military company's funds encountered a small problem, and the budget for these testing maniacs was also cut. The cost of building the 'Tiger' test vehicle was really unbearable for the directors of MAN Company. It couldn't be mass-produced, and just doing the tests was unbearable for anyone.

  However, including Hitler's armaments minister Speer, the German leaders consistently disagreed with the military acceptance of the 'Tiger'. The reason was simple: the 'Tiger' was too expensive. 56 tons of steel could build two No. 4 tanks, and if it were used to build a No. 3 assault gun, it would be enough for five vehicles. This is only the cost in terms of resources.

  The "Tiger"'s regular armor was also very outdated, still using the old-style armor. Now the sloping armor has a much higher protective power than the regular armor. It can be said that in Germany, where technology flows are dominant, these old things are not valued at all.

  There were also the frightening nearly 50,000 man-hours of labor costs for a 'Tiger'. Just converting these into wages would have been enough to build a new Panzer IV. All this made it impossible for Germany to bear the cost of producing Tigers on a large scale.

  The German MAN company has put in a lot of effort for the 'Tiger', but it has come to this. It's hard not to feel a little sad, so let's take a step back and say something first. The first thing to be changed is the armor problem, but as a mature heavy tank designed before the war, the 'Tiger' is not that easy to change.

  The designers refused to make any changes to the appearance of the 'Tiger'. The designers' argument was quite valid, as no anti-tank gun in the world could penetrate the armor of the 'Tiger'. There was simply no need for a change. As a result, MAN's board members got into an argument with the laboratory managers.

  At this time, Andre's mother happened to go to the MAN company to find weapons for her son. She took a fancy to this silly 'tiger' at once. In the woman's concept, 'big' is always better than 'small'. 'Long' is more powerful than 'short'. So Andre's mother directly loaded these 'tigers' onto trucks and sent them to North Africa without even firing a shot.

  Although Rommel was not enthusiastic about these 'Tigers', having is better than nothing, they could at least be used as heavy guns. However, it was precisely these 'Tigers' that looked down on Rommel that saved his life in the subsequent battles. Of course, this is a later story and will not be mentioned for now.

  At night, Rommel was in the command post without a hint of sleepiness. Although he wanted to lie down, as soon as he thought that the British on the opposite side were plotting something, he didn't have any intention of sleeping. The small reconnaissance teams sent out by Rommel also had no news coming back. And the German armored division troops sent ahead also had no special news.

  The entire front was quiet, except for the occasional flare that burst in the sky. Rommel was not accustomed to this silence, especially as he felt the British lurking in it, accumulating great strength and waiting for the moment to strike at his weak points.

  By 4 am, Rommel was unable to hold on and fell asleep with his head on the table. However, before Rommel had time to have a dream, a burst of gunfire came from outside. Rommel instantly woke up from his drowsiness.

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  Two more servings coming up.