The decisive battle against the Third Reich

Rommel was talking about Qinchuan's plan.

When the British army attacked the Alexander Line of Defense, Qin Chuan kept thinking about a question: This is not going to work. The supply conditions of the German army must be improved. Otherwise, if you are lucky enough to withstand one attack, there will be another attack. In the end, the African Army will still be like history. It completely collapsed due to the huge gap in equipment and troops.

But what can Qin Chuan do?

To change the supply conditions, the island of Malta must be captured, because it lies between Italy and the North African continent.

However, at this time, the German and Italian troops had lost the best opportunity to seize Malta Island.

While staring at the map and lost in thought, Qin Chuan suddenly realized that transporting materials to North Africa did not necessarily have to start in Italy. The topography of Greece and Italy had one thing in common... both were long stretches of land. Mediterranean.

At this time, Greece had surrendered, that is, it was under the control of the German and Italian troops. Only Crete was spared because it was an island and was garrisoned by the British 14th Infantry Division... The reason why this island was controlled by the British army The reason for the garrison was that the British army hoped that the Greek army would have more troops to deal with the German and Italian attacks, so it sent an infantry division to defend Crete for Greece. This allowed Greece to use the three troops originally stationed on the island. The division was transferred back to Greece to fight against the German and Italian troops, but this still failed to change the outcome.

This discovery made Qinchuan ecstatic, because as Rommel said, once Crete is occupied, the British air power on Malta will be completely useless.

"We can first transport the materials in Sicily to Greece through the Strait of Messina!" Qin Chuan pointed to the map and said: "We can even open a transportation line to Greece to transport materials originally destined for Italy and Sicily. All are transshipped to Greece, and then transferred to sea freight at the Greek port and shipped directly to Matruh or Alexandria!”

"Malta is more than 800 kilometers away from Crete!" Rommel added: "Or it can be said that it is nearly 800 kilometers away from our route, so there is nothing they can do!"

This is determined by the range of the British fighter jets... The British military's more advanced "Spitfire" fighter jets have a range of only one thousand kilometers, which means that their combat radius is only five hundred kilometers, and they cannot threaten the Eighth Route Army from Malta Island. Crete, a hundred kilometers away.

"In addition, Port Said is in the same situation!" Qin Chuan said: "Port Said is 610 kilometers away from Crete and is also outside the combat radius of British fighter planes. In other words... if we can capture Crete Island, we basically don’t have to worry about the British using fighter planes to block our supply lines!”

The geographical location of Crete is very special. It is roughly halfway between Port Said and the island of Malta, and it is almost the furthest distance of the British fighter planes... If the British fighter planes are to be transferred from Port Said to Malta For other islands, Crete is usually used as the relay station, that is, refueling in Crete and then flying to Malta.

But if the German army occupied the middle relay station, it is conceivable that it would not only be a matter of establishing a supply line, but it would also make it difficult for British fighter planes to mobilize between Port Said and the island of Malta.

The word "difficult" is used because there are other ways to mobilize the British army, such as using aircraft carriers as relay stations, but that will obviously be more dangerous and complicated than using Crete as a relay station.

This is one of the reasons why Qin Chuan wants to transfer British fighter planes to Malta Island... The British must have never imagined that the fighter planes would not be able to come back after arriving at Malta Island.

"So... what troops will we use to attack Crete?" General Strike asked.

"These are the same troops we are talking about!" Qin Chuan said: "It's just that the target of their attack is not Malta, but Crete!"

General Strike couldn't help but nodded. This was actually an attack in the east and in the west.

"This is indeed a good idea!" General Strike said after a pause: "But I still have a question, how can we prevent British fighter planes from returning to Crete?"

This question is to the point.

As mentioned before, the most important thing in the naval battle to seize the island is air superiority. Although Crete is outside the combat radius of Malta Island and Port Said, Crete is different under the control of the British army. ... British fighter planes can fly to the Crete airport to land and fight from Crete.

"Airborne!" Rommel said.

"Yes, airborne troops!" Qin Chuan nodded: "They are the key. They must control all three airports on Crete immediately, otherwise..."

Otherwise, it goes without saying that as long as there is an airport under the control of the British army, British fighter planes can swarm from Malta Island and Port Said to Crete within two hours, and then Land, refuel, take off, then quickly seize air superiority.

There is no doubt about this.

This is not to say that German fighter planes cannot defeat British fighter planes. In fact, German fighter planes can always have the upper hand in air combat and even defeat more with less.

The problem is that the German BF109 fighter plane is famous for its short legs, and its longest range is only 700 kilometers.

Crete is 300 kilometers away from the African continent, and the round trip is 600 kilometers... Based on this calculation, the BF109 will only have a few minutes to stay in the air when it flies over Crete, otherwise it will not have enough fuel to fly back. .

This would cause great psychological pressure on the pilots, and even if all German pilots were extremely skilled, a flight to Crete would only be useful for a few minutes.

On the contrary, if the German army takes full control of the airport, it will be the British army that will face this problem.

To be precise, if the German army could control the airport, British fighter planes would not be able to fight over Crete... The British army's Port Said is 600 kilometers away from Crete, not 300 kilometers.

After thinking for a while, Rommel said: "I agree with this combat plan, because it will allow us to change from complete passivity to complete initiative, especially it will change the balance of air power to a considerable extent. However, we cannot put our hope in Count on the Italians!”

Qin Chuan knew what Rommel meant.

The focus of seizing Crete is to control the three airports on the island, and the main force controlling these three airports is the Italian 185th Parachute Division... Although this division has the nickname "Lightning" Division, the Italian 132nd Armored Division also has A very powerful nickname "ram".

"But what can we do?" Qin Chuan asked: "We don't have airborne troops!"

The German army actually had airborne troops, but they were used by Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.

"It's true we don't!" Rommel said: "But we can train!"