In East Africa, after occupying Bebein, the Italian army continued to advance towards the coastal areas. They advanced all the way south.
The British army opposite them could be said to have thrown away their armor and fled. The British commander Wavell not only did not blame the East African troops, but instead acquiesced in their actions, which for a time made the Italians attack faster.
It becomes faster and more terrifying.
But the victory of the Italians only relied on their numerical superiority, not how strong their combat capabilities were or how good their equipment was.
But Oster, the Italian army's East African commander, once felt that their advance had caused the British army in East Africa to completely lose the initiative. He said with emotion: "The British's combat capabilities are really not as good as before. It seems that they have left behind
Our days in Africa are numbered.”
Since then, the Italian army under Auster has indeed relied on its military superiority to advance steadily in Somalia.
Fifty miles south of Beledweyne, a small armored unit of Oster performed routine patrol and security missions. At the same time, Italian Air Force reconnaissance aircraft also performed reconnaissance missions with them in the sky.
This small armored force of the Italian army actually only has 4 M13/40 tanks and 100 Italian Army soldiers.
The M13/40 tank is a medium tank just launched by the Italian army in 1940. It has a frontal armor conversion of 45 mm and is equipped with a 47 mm L32 meter tank gun. It is also equipped with 4 machine guns. It has powerful firepower and can travel at a maximum speed of 33 kilometers per hour on sand.
per hour.
This medium tank has previously participated in the Battle of Sidi Burani in North Africa and the Battle of Benghazi. Its overall performance on the battlefield was good, and its armor and firepower advantages could even reach the same level as the German Panzer III tank.
Unfortunately, their numbers were scarce, so Italian officers could only decide to use them in small numbers like this.
Facing the British Crusader tanks, this Italian tank has basically the same firepower and stronger armor defense than the British Crusader tanks, except for being slightly less maneuverable. It can compete with them.
This was the Italian East African battlefield, and it was the first time that such tanks were used against the British army. They also wanted to use this to test the reliability of such tanks and their advantages and disadvantages against British tanks.
Suddenly, an Italian patrol plane discovered a British tank unit 2 miles in front of the Italian tank unit. The opponent had 5 Crusader tanks and more than 100 soldiers.
So the Italian patrol plane urgently called the ground troops to prepare for combat, and the patrol plane also began to dive. Since the British army had no ground anti-aircraft guns, it used its onboard machine guns to kill about ten of their soldiers at once.
At the same time, the soldiers of the Italian ground forces also spread out, advancing alternately under the cover of armored vehicles, and drove towards the British tank troops.
This is a small-scale encounter without support, so this battle is destined to be difficult. Both sides can only withdraw from the battle after completely wiping out the other side.
A few minutes later, the Italian and British troops finally entered each other's range.
The Italian M13/40 tank fired its first shot, but the shot missed by a full 10 meters and exploded 10 meters in front of the Crusader tank, but this did not have any impact on the British tanks and soldiers.
Influence.
After that, the British army also opened fire. Their five Crusader tanks opened fire at the same time, and the shells were unbiased, and most of them exploded around the Italian tanks and soldiers.
Some Italian soldiers were even blown away more than ten meters. If it were not for the thick armor of the Italian M13/40 tanks, all of them might have basically lost their combat effectiveness.
It has to be said that the Italian tank troops have to learn from the British army in their aiming techniques.
After taking advantage of the situation, the British tanks quickly used their superior maneuverability to circle the side of the Italian tanks and deliberately kept a certain distance from them.
Because the British officers and soldiers knew that no matter how crooked the Italian's target was, if you walked too close to someone else, they would still miss.
Seeing the British tanks approaching their rear, the Italian tanks fired a few shots in panic, but it was obvious that these shots missed, because hitting moving targets does require some skills, which are lacking for the lack of skills.
For the trained Italian army, they naturally failed to master these techniques.
After a while, the British tanks used their mobility to get around the rear of the Italian tanks and began to attack their weak rear armor.
Seeing that something was going wrong, the Italian armored forces anxiously changed the direction of the tanks.
However, the mobility of Italian tanks was so poor that they were hit several times before they could completely turn around. The rear armor of an Italian M19/40 tank was penetrated and its combat effectiveness was lost.
Seeing that the Italian troops were about to be wiped out by the British army, at this time, the Italians suddenly realized that all the British tanks on the opposite side seemed to have misfired and made no sound.
It turned out that the British tanks entered a long downhill slope due to unfamiliarity with the terrain, and the downhill slope was large enough to put the Crusader tanks into a shooting blind spot. If the British tanks opened fire at this time, it would be like a suicide attack.
The commander of the Italian army almost jumped up for joy when he realized that his side had been lucky. He ordered the remaining three Italian tanks to fire at the British tanks desperately.
Finally, after almost all the artillery shells were fired, all the British tanks were wiped out.
The British infantry did not choose to fight to the death. They had no choice but to surrender without the protection of tanks.
This was also one of the few battles in which the Italian army defeated a large number with a small number. Although both sides suffered heavy losses in this battle, it greatly gave the Italian army confidence and proved that Italy could also defeat the British army by relying on its own strength.
Since then, Italy has been advancing vigorously and finally won the final victory in the Battle of Mogadishu.
After this battle, the Italians quickly completed the conquest of British Somalia and incorporated it into Italian East Africa.
In this battle for Somalia, 38 British and Commonwealth troops were killed, 102 wounded, and 120 captured; while the colonial troops in British Somalia suffered more than 1,000 casualties.
The Italians suffered 465 killed and 1,530 wounded; the Italian Somali troops suffered nearly 2,000 casualties.
Although the British adopted a retreat policy and a non-resistance combat method, the Italians still suffered heavy casualties. It can be seen that the Italian army's combat capabilities are indeed not very good.
Due to the fall of British Somalia, the major general in charge was severely criticized by Churchill, who believed that he should bear full responsibility for the loss of the colony.
Contrary to Admiral Wavell, who advocated the preservation of strength, Churchill believed that the British regular troops suffered very few losses and that the British army easily abandoned the colony without sufficient fighting. This was an absolutely unacceptable and cowardly act.
But in response to this accusation, Wavell believed that this retreat was a good teaching material. He believed that when facing a superior enemy force, all you can do is to preserve your strength and retreat.
He also said that "a list of slaughtered soldiers would not be a good teaching material." As a result, Wavell's rebuttal aroused Churchill's anger even more. Churchill even almost said that all his anger was directed at Wavell.
For this reason, Churchill withheld the proposal of General Wavell, who captured Tobruk Fortress, to be promoted to marshal, but only agreed to let Wavell be converted from the rank of temporary general to a full general.
