"Oh, is that?" Rommel smiled and spread his hands: "Lieutenant, are you talking about the new supply line we have established?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan replied.

"How?" Rommel asked: "Crete can indeed improve our supply conditions, but the point is that Germany does not have any extra troops and supplies!"

"The British will get less than us!" Qin Chuan said.

"No, the British will get much more than we do!" Rommel said: "I said that they have the help of Americans!"

"You are right, General!" Qin Chuan said: "But first of all, the equipment they obtained is not very good. As we have seen, the 'Stuart' tank and the 'General Grant' tank are not difficult to deal with, and the 'General Grant' tanks even have fatal flaws. I believe that with our current supply capacity and the addition of the 90th Lightweight Division, it is enough to block the British's attack!"

Rommel did not deny this because the facts were right in front of him: when the 90th Lightweight Division was trapped in Italy, the German army blocked the British attack, and it was even less difficult now.

"I agree, second lieutenant!" said Rommel: "But being able to block now does not mean that it can block in the future. This is exactly what I am worried about and why I want to attack!"

"We can also stop it in the future, General!" Qin Chuan said: "Because our new 'Iron Fist' is being developed. If the research and development is successful... we have a single anti-tank weapon with a range of 100 meters, 200 or even longer, it will be difficult for the British tanks to pose a threat to us!"

"Oh, is that?" Rommel said sarcastically: "So, we must pin our hopes on this anti-tank weapon under development?"

"This is just one of them, General!" Qin Chuan pointed to the map and said: "We know that our equipment and supplies must be transported from France and Germany across Italy and then transported to Africa. Of course, it will now be transported from Greece to Crete and then to Africa."

Among them, it was mainly transported from France... The German army occupied northern France and set up factories in France to use the cheap labor of the occupied land.

"No matter which route it is!" Qin Chuan continued: "It will consume a lot of time and manpower during the transportation process. Why don't we transport the machines to Crete?"

"You mean..." Rommel was stunned when he heard this: "Build an arsenal in Crete?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan replied: "We have a large number of prisoners in our hands. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Greek people on Crete. At the same time, it has an area of ​​8,236 square kilometers, which is enough for us to build an arsenal on it!"

"But this is the front line, and the arsenal is easily bombed!" said General Streck.

"No!" Rommel said: "Just as we cannot set out from Crete to bomb Port Said, British fighters and bombers cannot bomb Crete!"

General Streck couldn't help but say "Oh". He didn't know this, but he subconsciously felt that the arsenal should not be built so close to the front line.

But after thinking about it, I felt that Crete was very special... It happened to be in the center of the Mediterranean. Greece in the north had surrendered, and Matru in the south was in the hands of the Germans, so it was outside the combat radius of British fighter jets, so there was basically no need to worry about being bombed.

"The British may have aircraft carriers!" Colonel Slain interjected.

"We don't need to worry too much about aircraft carriers!" Qin Chuan replied: "Because the number of aircraft carriers is very limited and the performance is poor, we only need to arrange some fighter jets and radars on Crete to easily block them out of the defense circle!"

General Strek and Colonel Slain couldn't help but nodded, which had actually been verified in the Battle of Crete.

"We can even build a steel plant on Crete!" Qin Chuan said.

"Second Lieutenant!" said Rommel: "I have to remind you that Crete has nothing but grapes!"

Crete is an island with extremely poor resources, and Rommel means that building a steel plant seems inappropriate.

"Yes!" Qin Chuan said: "But this does not mean there is no iron ore in Africa. Why don't we find someone to explore?"

Qin Chuan knew that Africa had a lot of mineral reserves, and many of them were among the world's first. Among them, the reserves of iron, aluminum, coal, and other resources, as important war resources, were very rich, especially a lot of oil. However, the Germans did not know this at this time, otherwise Hitler would not have taken Africa as a secondary battlefield.

General Streck added: "General, we found the iron ore left by the British more than ten kilometers south of Martruck, which means there are resources here!"

Rommel nodded, he knew what this meant... If this plan was realized, then Crete would be built into an industrial island, and all the equipment needed by the African Legion, including tanks and aircraft, can be produced by itself.

More importantly, the African legions were not short of labor... They captured 30,000 British and Greek troops in just one battle on Crete, and there were also a large number of British troops captured during the previous battle. If not enough, they could still collect paid labor from the Greek people.

In this way, the German army would be significantly faster than the British transported by routes from the United States or India.

"I'm not sure if the head of state will agree to this plan!" Rommel said with some concern: "You know, Germany is fighting the Soviets, our machines are producing at full speed, but we ask them to divide the machines into the North African battlefield..."

"I don't think this is a problem, general!" Qin Chuan was very confident about this: "Because no matter how difficult it is to replenish our supplies on the Eastern Front, Germany still needs to ensure our supplies. In other words, some of the machines are operated for us. All we are doing now is to move these machines to Crete!"

Rommel nodded in agreement. Of course he knew this. Doing so could even solve the pressure of some German labor shortage, so it would only benefit but not harm the Eastern Front.

After thinking about it, Rommel said, "Well, Lieutenant, you convinced me! Yes, we need to strengthen the defense of Crete, not only because it is an important link in our supply line, but also because it may become our supply factory... If everything goes well, our supply line will be only 300 kilometers in the future, and it can also be transported to any point by transport ship. I think victory is getting closer and closer to us!"
Chapter completed!