The decisive battle against the Third Reich

"Oh, really?" Rommel smiled and spread his hands: "Second Lieutenant, you mean it's just based on our newly established supply line?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan replied.

"How to do it?" Rommel asked: "Crete can indeed improve our supply situation, but the point is that Germany does not have excess troops and supplies!"

"The British will get less than us!" Qin Chuan said.

"No, the British will get much more than us!" Rommel said: "I said, they have help from the Americans!"

"You are right, General!" Qin Chuan said: "But first of all, the equipment they obtained is not very good. As we can see, the 'Stuart' tank and the 'General Grant' tank are not difficult to deal with. , the 'General Grant' tank even has fatal flaws. I believe that with our current supply capabilities and the addition of the 90th Light Division, we can stop the British attack!"

Rommel did not deny this, because the facts are before his eyes: when the 90th Light Division was trapped in Italy, the German army blocked the British attack, let alone now.

"I agree, Second Lieutenant!" Rommel said: "But being able to block it now does not mean that it can be blocked in the future. This is exactly what I am worried about and why I want to attack!"

"We can also block it in the future, General!" Qin Chuan said: "Because our new 'Iron Fist' is under development. If the development is successful... we will have a single-soldier anti-tank weapon with a range of 100 meters, 200 or even longer, then It’s hard for British tanks to pose a threat to us!”

"Oh, really?" Rommel said sarcastically: "So, we have to pin our hopes on this anti-tank weapon that is being developed?"

"This is just one of them, General!" Qin Chuan pointed to the map and said: "We know that our equipment and supplies must be transported from France and Germany across Italy and then to Africa. Of course, it will now be changed to From Greece to Crete and on to Africa.”

Most of this was shipped from France... The German army occupied northern France and set up factories in France to use the cheap labor force in the occupied areas.

"No matter which route it is!" Qin Chuan continued: "It will consume a lot of time and manpower during transportation. Why don't we transport the machine to Crete?"

"You mean..." Rommel couldn't help but be startled after hearing this: "Build an arsenal on Crete?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan replied: "We have a large number of prisoners in our hands. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Greek people on Crete. At the same time, it also has an area of ​​8,236 square kilometers, which is enough for us to build an arsenal on it. !”

"But this is the front line, and the arsenal is easily bombed!" General Strike said.

"No!" Rommel said: "Just as we cannot bomb Port Said from Crete, British fighters and bombers cannot bomb Crete!"

General Strike couldn't help but say "Oh". It wasn't that he didn't know this, but subconsciously he felt that the arsenal should not be built so close to the front line.

But after thinking about it, I felt that Crete is a very special place... It happens to be in the center of the Mediterranean. Greece to the north has surrendered, and Matruh to the south is in the hands of the Germans, so it is in the middle of the battle of British fighter planes. Outside the radius, there is basically no need to worry about being bombed.

"The British may have aircraft carriers!" Colonel Slain interjected.

"We don't need to worry too much about the aircraft carrier!" Qin Chuan replied: "Because the number of aircraft carrier-based aircraft is very limited and its performance is poor, we only need to deploy some fighter jets and radars on Crete, and we can easily take them out. Stay out of the defensive circle!"

General Strike and Colonel Slaine couldn't help but nodded. This had actually been verified in the Battle of Crete.

"We can even build a steel plant on Crete!" Qinchuan said.

"Second Lieutenant!" said Rommel, "I have to remind you that Crete has nothing but grapes!"

Crete is an island with extremely poor resources, and Rommel meant that it seemed inappropriate to build a steel plant.

"Yes!" Qin Chuan said, "But that doesn't mean there are no iron mines in Africa. Why don't we find someone to explore it?"

Qinchuan knew that Africa was very rich in mineral resources, and many of the mineral reserves ranked first in the world. Among them, iron, aluminum, coal and other resources, which were important war resources, were very rich, especially there was a lot of oil. However, the Germans at this time did not Knowing this, otherwise Hitler would not have considered Africa a secondary battlefield.

General Strike added at this time: "General, we found iron ore left by the British more than ten kilometers south of Matruh, which shows that there are resources here!"

Rommel nodded, he knew what this meant... If this plan is realized, then Crete will be built into an industrial island. By then, all the equipment needed by the African Corps will even include tanks and aircraft. You can produce them yourself.

More importantly, the African Corps has no shortage of labor force... They captured 30,000 British and Greek troops in the Crete battle alone. In addition, there are also a large number of British troops captured in previous battles. If not, they can also capture Paid labor was recruited from among the Greek people.

In this way, the German army will obviously get equipment much faster than the British can transport it through shipping routes from the United States or India.

"I'm not sure whether the head of state will agree to this plan!" Rommel said with some worry: "As you know, Germany is fighting the Soviets, and our machines are running at full capacity and producing non-stop, but we ask them to Send the machines in batches to the North African battlefield..."

"I don't think this is a problem, General!" Qin Chuan was very confident about this: "Because no matter how difficult our supplies are on the Eastern Front, Germany still has to ensure our supplies. In other words, some of the machines are for We are running it. What we are doing now is just moving this part of the machine to Crete!”

Rommel nodded in agreement. Of course he knew this truth. Doing so could even solve part of the pressure of Germany's labor shortage, so it would only have benefits and no harm to the Eastern Front.

After thinking about it, Rommel said: "Okay, Lieutenant, you have convinced me! Yes, we need to strengthen the defense of Crete, not only because it is an important link in our supply line, but also because it It may become our supply factory... If everything goes well, our supply line in the future will be only 300 kilometers, and it can be transported to any point by transport ship. I feel that victory is getting closer to us. "

As he spoke, Rommel raised his glass and said: "To our Crete, to our future industrial island... cheers!"