Naqoura, located in the Palestinian area, is a key point connecting Palestine to Lebanon. It is a key point from the coastal plain of Lebanon to Palestine, so the 2nd Regiment of the 9th Highland Division of the British Army is stationed at this point.
Don't underestimate the 9th Division. The division's personnel come from the Scottish Highlands, and the quality of its soldiers is one of the best in the UK. In addition, the division was formed by some officers and soldiers from the 51st Highland Division, so it is absolutely among the British troops in the Middle East.
The existence of the main force.
Placing an elite force in Naqula shows the importance it attaches to this place. Since the regiment was stationed in Naqula, it has carried out extensive construction and construction of many fortifications. Although it is not impregnable, it wants to
Capturing this place will definitely cost the attacker a lot of money.
The subsequent changes in the situation made the garrison feel lucky. On the third day after the fortifications were completed, a Romanian army arrived here. They looked at the officers and soldiers of the Second Regiment who were stuck here, and wisely chose to evacuate. This caused the garrison officers and soldiers to evacuate for a while.
Cheers. Although they are soldiers and have a duty to fight the enemy, some of them are willing to be in a battlefield filled with bullets and bullets.
However, although the Romanians have temporarily retreated, their superior navy and air force will not retreat. Will there be a bomb flying from the sea, reminding them that war is always hanging over them.
Of course, the attacks from warships only count as greetings from time to time. Then the planes from Romania are like vultures in the sky and can be seen at any time.
Since some time ago, Romanian fighter planes have been flying over their heads every day, completely ignoring their existence. They also drop a few bombs from time to time and then fly away, which is really a headache.
From then on, they had another task in Naqula, which was to report the news of enemy planes flying over at any time, so that the troops in the rear could prepare for air defense.
Therefore, the regiment has another mission, which is to observe whether enemy planes appear in the sky at any time from a high place, and report to the superiors immediately if any are discovered.
Of course, it is more difficult for observers. It is very tiring for them to observe enemy aircraft under the sun, and they need to change observers basically every hour.
Of course, their hard work was worth it. After setting up observation posts, the loss rate caused by air strikes from Romania dropped a lot.
However, although the British army has made various responses, its fundamental air disadvantage cannot be changed. Among them, the suppression of fighter aircraft performance is an unsolvable problem for the British Air Force in the Middle East.
For this reason, General Longmore, the commander of the Middle East Air Force, sent several telegrams in succession, informing the Middle East Air Force of the current difficulties and requesting more new fighter aircraft for support, otherwise the fall of Suez would become a high probability event.
Yes, in this general's opinion, the current situation of Britain in Egypt is very unfavorable. Although the Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East, General Wavell, is doing his best to collect supplies and troops everywhere, he still cannot reach Romania in the face of the attack.
The reason is very simple, that is, the British army in the Middle East is at an absolute disadvantage in terms of sea and air forces. Except for the Spitfire, the air force under his own command has no other fighter that can compete with it. Can he not let this general?
Are you angry? The good guys under his command flew the fighter planes that lagged behind the enemy to fight. As a result, these good guys were almost replaced again and again.
That's why he asked the local government to give him the Spitfire. He didn't want the Gladiator, Hurricane, or P40. He just wanted the Spitfire.
It's just that his wish is destined to fail, because currently Britain needs Spitfires everywhere. On the French front, only Spitfires can compete with the BF109. As for France, they can only use models with backward performance to deal with the German BF109 fleet.
. On the Italian front line, however, its equipped fighter planes can still fight back and forth with Italian fighter planes.
Since it is needed everywhere, what is the production speed of Spitfire?
A very realistic figure is to produce about 150 aircraft per month. If this number were in peacetime, it would be very impressive. But now in wartime, fighter planes are shot down and consumed every day. So this number seems not enough. To
We know that Romania’s most urgently needed HF201 fighter jets are producing more than 200 fighter jets every month, and even the RF20 fighter jets have more than a hundred. Not to mention that the Spitfire has to deal with the German BF109 fighter jets.
At present, the British side has discovered this problem and is building and transforming factories to produce more Spitfires. However, transforming and building factories takes time, and neither Germany nor Romania is willing to give the UK this time.
This forced a small number of Spitfires to take on more missions and kept their pilots in fatigue, which in turn put the Spitfires at a disadvantage when fighting the enemy. Such a cyclical scenario has caused many knowledgeable people to
Seeing the current fatigue of the British Air Force, Admiral Longmore is one of them.
So is there any way to solve this problem? There is only one way, and that is to explode production capacity. Continue to let the current pilots die to cope with this situation. It will not be alleviated until the Spitfire production capacity explodes. These are the consequences of lagging behind in the production capacity of new equipment.
There is no other way to go.
As for purchasing fighter jets from other countries, it can only be regarded as a means of mitigation. Moreover, he does not have a high opinion of the P40 from the United States. Its performance in all aspects is mediocre, so it can only be regarded as a helpless second choice.
Of course, as the commander of the Air Force, Langmore did not just ask for Spitfires from the mainland. He actually did a lot of things to deal with it. For example, he spread out the fighter planes, and after learning the route of the incoming group of aircraft, he arranged for the fighter planes to constantly harass the opponent.
, the leading one among them is the Spitfire, which is responsible for drawing away the enemy escort fighters, and then the Hurricane, Gladiator, and P40 deal with the enemy bombers.
I have to say that the response was very effective and achieved several good results. However, the Romanian Air Force, its opponent, was not stupid. After several such tactics occurred in succession, it escorted more fighter planes.
Enemies that come to harass you can just be driven away, so that you don't have to tangle too much with them, and you have to make sure that there are fighter planes available to escort the bomber group at all times.
Therefore, this also caused the harassment of the British army to no longer go smoothly, and its losses also increased. After all, Romania has fighter jets with long range, and its number of aircraft also has an advantage over the British army.
At present, Romania has more than 600 fighter planes in Cyprus and Lebanon, including more than 300 fighter planes, while the British only have about 500 aircraft in the region. In addition, the quality of the fighter planes is not comparable. Romania’s fighter planes here are all
It is its main fighter. However, the UK has only nearly a hundred Spitfires that can compete with it. This was the result of the mainland gritting its teeth as Romania approached Suez.
Since they are inferior in quantity and quality, no matter how Longmore tries, it is impossible to deal with the Romanian Air Force. Therefore, Britain's air disadvantage in the region is unavoidable.
Now that it has advantages in the sea and air, Romania will not ignore it. Next, a battle relying on its sea and air superiority is about to begin.
