Chapter 288: A Bright Star

In the car heading to Paris, Yannick still had no time to rest and was arranging the strategic layout for the future. "General Guderian, you will leave for the Eastern Front after the armistice agreement in France is signed. I will assign you the 39th Armored Corps (comprising the 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions and the 29th Motorized Rifle Division) and The 41st Armored Corps (under the jurisdiction of the 6th and 8th Armored Divisions and the 20th Motorized Infantry Division) and some units directly under the corps allow you to form an armored regiment. "

As mentioned earlier, in order to defend against the enemy's deep operations, we need elastic defense and mobile counterattack. The "elastic defense" has been put in charge of Günther von Kluge who was sent there before, but Yanik feels that it is still not safe enough; after all, the battle against the British can be said to be a fateful battle, and the British may promise all kinds of things when they are cornered. He wanted to ask the Soviet Union to send troops, but he didn't want to be stabbed in the back by these furry bears at a critical moment. "If the Russians dare to come, break their bones!"

"As you command, Your Highness." Guderian hesitated and asked. "What about England?"

The top German officials all know that Yannick is determined to land in the UK.

Yannick smiled. "Don't be too greedy. If you fight all the wars, what will others do?" Although he doesn't need to look at other people's colors, after all, they are all soldiers serving the country, so he can't be too chilling. Since we are going to appoint Manstein, Guderian, and Rommel as commanders, we have to give others a chance.

"By the way, the Soviet Union recently produced a new heavy tank, code-named KV-1, equipped with a 5 times diameter 2 mm tank gun and an armor thickness of 75 mm. And subsequent upgraded models will soon be put into production. Upgrades The model is codenamed KV-2 and is equipped with a 20-fold caliber 152mm howitzer, which can fire powerful high-explosive shells and concrete-destroying shells.”

"152mm?!" The two of them opened their mouths in surprise, with disbelief on their faces. "Your Highness, are you sure it's a tank, not a self-propelled artillery?" The 152mm shells felt like their own tanks could be flattened.

Yannick smiled. "It is indeed 152mm, but this kind of tank is just used as cannon fodder. Its ammunition is separate and requires two loaders to operate the loading. It takes more than 40 seconds at the fastest to load one round." Such loading speed makes If it fails to enter the soul immediately, it will be in trouble. "Furthermore, the steering gear of this kind of artillery rotates very slowly, and it takes about one minute to rotate once." In addition, the heavy weight of the vehicle body causes low maneuverability, the chassis is prone to failure, and the heavy turret also makes it impossible to rotate when the vehicle body is tilted. , and many shortcomings, resulting in the production of a small number of KV-2 tanks, with a total of 333 units produced.

After hearing this, Guderian and Rommel couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief. A tank had so many fatal flaws. No matter how large its gun caliber was and how thick its armor was, there were still ways to deal with them.

"As for General Rommel, you go to Africa and cooperate with the Italian army." At this point, Yannick waved his hand and denied what he just said. "Anyway, there are no outsiders here, so let me tell you the truth. Soon you will have full command of the Italian army."

Rommel couldn't help but be surprised. "But Your Highness, the Italian army is not in an alliance with our country. How can they listen to my command?" Before the war started, some people suggested finding allies. Many people suggested finding Italy. His Highness was the most dismissive of such remarks and said Instead of looking for Italy, it would be better to look for Romania and Hungary. Now let him command the Italian army?

Yannick showed an unfathomable smile. "Anyway, there will always be a way. You will be responsible for cleaning up the mess that Mussolini made and dominate North Africa. Are you confident?"

Rommel hesitated and said. "Your Highness, it is far away from the mainland, so the supply situation may not be too optimistic, right?"

Yannick nodded. He also knew that supply would be the most troublesome priority when fighting far from home.

As for Montgomery, that's only a third or fourth-ranked problem at best.

In Yannick's view, Montgomery was trash, just one of the mediocre British officers with higher tactical literacy.

Before the Battle of El Alamein, the British strengthened the supplies and air support of the Eighth African Army, and sank an oil tanker delivering fuel to Rommel. After a long and hard battle, Rommel suffered from insufficient supplies and fuel shortages, and was unable to fully utilize the mobility and combat effectiveness of his troops.

Rommel had only 70,000 combat troops, while Montgomery had 230,000. Rommel had 550 tanks, 300 of which were Italian "thin-skinned" tanks, which were vulnerable. Montgomery had 1,450 tanks, and more than 500 of them were new American-made "Sherman" and "Grant" tanks.

In this way, they defeated Rommel with more victories and fewer losses, and actually let Rommel run away. In Sicily, when France was liberated, he constantly competed with the United States for the limelight in order to save face. He was highly visible and often posed, mainly because he was proficient in business, but his ability was actually mediocre.

Rommel was not a match for Montgomery. If the German logistics supplies in North Africa were sufficient, Rommel would win, not Montgomery, and it would be a sure win.

"I will give you everything you want. When you conquer Egypt, I will hand over the marshal's scepter to you and make you one of the greatest soldiers in the empire." Speaking of Egypt, he couldn't wait to dig it up. There is gold under the pyramid (mentioned in Chapter 79).

"Your Highness, as long as the logistics and supplies can keep up, I can sweep across the entire Africa." Rommel thought for about ten seconds and responded with great solemnity.

After arranging all these, Yannick exhaled and said with emotion. "This is really an era of famous generals and brilliant generals, isn't it?"

This is an era of great change and a great era of burning blood; famous generals from various countries emerge in large numbers; such as Manstein, Rommel, and Guderian in Germany; Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Patton in the United States; Zhukov and Vasilevsky in the Soviet Union; Montgomery, Dowding, and Mountbatten in the United Kingdom, etc.; for most military enthusiasts, they are familiar and well-known.

Once this era is gone, there are few generals who are remembered by people for decades.

Although there is aerial reconnaissance on the battlefield today, the effect is very limited and it is easy to be deceived by various camouflage methods of the enemy; the command level of the leading generals determines the situation on the battlefield; even a brilliant art of command can be seen.

Decades later, with the development of technology, satellites in the sky can clearly grasp the enemy's movements, the electromagnetic interference formed by superior electronic warfare weapons can block the enemy's eyes and ears, and the powerful strike firepower can suppress the enemy outside the enemy's firepower range - if this still cannot win, then the commander can commit suicide.

For example, in the Gulf War, maybe one or two years after the war, some people will remember the general who won the war, but as time goes by, what people remember is the Tomahawk cruise missile and the F117 stealth bomber, and the name of the general has become a passing mention.