From meeting to collapse, it only took a few minutes.
Under the impact of the French armored group, the Indian and Australian regiments that broke into the defense line were overwhelmed before they had time to organize a defensive formation.
No one can use a mortal body to resist the tracks of the steel behemoth.
Those low-profile French tanks equipped with one 47mm and one 75mm cannon were no less inferior in quantity and quality than the fifty or so tanks sent by the British army.
Chaos occurred the moment the defense line was retaken by the French army.
Fortunately for the Australians, these Indian soldiers who were leading the battle generally panicked when they found that their opponents were suddenly replaced by white soldiers from black soldiers.
The battle quickly turned into a one-sided crushing. The Indian and Australian soldiers, who had been temporarily blended together and lacked experience in infantry-tank cooperative operations, quickly opened a gap with the support tanks sent by the British army. Due to the confusion and formation,
Divergent, they also had to face enemy forces several times larger than themselves.
In less than ten minutes, the Indian regiment that was the first to be defeated became the first victim. Their regiment headquarters was destroyed, the regiment was killed, and a large number of grassroots officers either raised their hands to surrender or were killed. And the will of the troops,
Along with their cut formation, Sui Feng disintegrated.
Immediately afterwards, the Australian regiment also collapsed. Under the influence of the wreckage and corpses on the ground and the Indian friendly troops raising their hands and kneeling in surrender, the leaders of these Australian regiments lost their original courage and took the lead in surrendering.
In the end, the British tanks, which lost their infantry cover, had to turn around and break out.
However, deep into the enemy's hinterland, the retreat was cut off, and faced with more local tanks than ourselves, as well as anti-tank guns placed on the French defense line, and without infantry cover, we fell into chaos... I want to
Breaking through is too difficult.
Twenty minutes later, Wavell's main attack on the black soldiers on the northern French defense line was easily defeated by Berante's sudden ambush.
The British army lost two infantry regiments and half an armored regiment. Correspondingly, the French army in northern Algeria captured a large number of guns and ammunition, destroyed 32 British Matilde tanks, and captured another 19.
Strengthened its own strength.
The mood of defeat, like miasma, started with the two and a half regiments of the British army's first attack and quickly spread to all subsequent units.
At the beginning, Wavell also tried to use the British troops as the spearhead, and with the allied troops from India and Australia, he launched several second-round offensives in an effort to establish contact with the vanguard force that had been cut off from its retreat. However, after many attacks, it failed.
After being blocked by the French army on the defensive line and making no progress in a short period of time, even Wavell, the commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth army, gave up the two and a half regiments that served as the vanguard.
The situation is no longer under his control.
"Shrink your troops and stop the pursuit."
Berante stood in his frontline headquarters and ordered the adjutant with high spirits.
The slope in the distance has changed from being bare before to being filled with smoke.
The sound of artillery is still ringing. But the cannons playing this ritual music have been changed from British cannons to French cannons.
From prediction, to ambush, to taking action, everything went smoothly almost exactly as expected.
At this moment, Berlant really wanted to laugh.
He had fought against the Soviets and had seen what human wave tactics were.
He fought against the Germans and experienced the German army's mission command style.
He also fought against the Italians and discovered how incompetent a group of troops without equipment and logistical support could be.
But today, it wasn't until he fought against the British that he discovered that a unit with good equipment and good logistics could be beaten so badly.
To put it bluntly, the British army did not have the force conditions to use the human sea tactics like the Soviets, but they fought according to the Soviets' pit-filling style of fighting.
After experiencing so much, Berante was able to conclude that the British army's rigid fighting style was fine against the Italians, but it was obviously too much trouble to deal with the French army.
The three divisions under Berante's command were brought to Africa from mainland France. They were the troops he single-handedly brought out when he was still a lieutenant general.
Although these three divisions were originally only second-rate troops in the French army, under his training under Bertrand, he believed that he had already built these troops into elites that were more powerful than the first-tier troops of the French army.
The British did defeat the Italians with less and more, but this was not a great skill. As early as in the French campaign, Berante used the current three French divisions to achieve better results.
This battle seems to be a battle between 200,000 French North African troops and 120,000 Commonwealth African troops.
But in fact, there is no need for both sides to press all their troops. The key to absolute victory is whether Wavell eats Berante's French army, or Berlant destroys Wavell's British army.
soldiers.
Whoever's core force collapses will lose!
Wavell would bribe French traitors and use traitors within the French army to find weak points in its defenses. This was something Berlant did not expect.
But it was precisely because of this that Wavell stepped into the trap deliberately set by Berante, and Berante, who was about to set the bait, successfully caught the big fish.
In fact, the French army is divided into three defense lines in the northern area where Algeria meets Libya.
The southern end of the defense line is garrisoned by a small number of French soldiers and has no armored troops. However, bunkers and anti-tank conical fortifications have been built, giving it certain defensive capabilities.
In the middle line of defense, the Moroccan regiment brought by General Alphonse is responsible for the garrison. Among them is a French infantry regiment and 30,000 black Moroccan soldiers. They are part of the reinforcement force that Berante found in Africa, and it is also the reinforcement that Vichy France can provide for him.
The main force raised.
The northern end of the defense line is this defense line that seems to be stationed entirely by black people.
The northern end of the defense line is the longest and most critical. Therefore, Berante used this place as a bait from the beginning, as the area he used to win the first battle.
Fortified with Algerian soldiers who were slightly inferior in combat effectiveness and equipment, Berante's original intention was to let the British army break through the defense line with "good luck" when fighting on their own, and then be eliminated by the French ambushing troops.
The 66 B1 heavy tanks in Berante's hands are not very mobile and cannot be used as a mobile firefighting team at a distance, so he must deploy these tanks in advance where they are most needed.
Since the northern defense line was the most important, Berlant placed the tanks here according to their importance.
As for the southern and middle ends, they have certain anti-tank capabilities. On the other hand, losing them is not unacceptable.
After all, Berante also left a French division as a reserve behind the middle line of defense, which could be transferred to support these two lines of defense at any time.
Wavell's method of bribing the traitor allowed him to jump into Berante's key defense section and fall into a trap. As for the other two defensive lines, although Wavell also sent troops to attack, the scale was not large.
Of course, after bribing some French traitors and blocking the supply of the southern defense line, Wavell still had certain expectations for the offensive in the southern section.
For example, now, although the British army suffered heavy losses on the northern front, Wavell received battle reports, showing that the fighting in the south was normal.
