Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

General Wavell knew that the German armored forces were simply seeking death, and planned to use street fighting to eliminate the German troops or severely damage Cairo.

After all, street fighting is beneficial to the defensive side. The defender is familiar with the terrain, uses cover to attack the light, and is in a proactive position to defend while attacking. However, the attacker's tanks and armored vehicles cannot deploy on the narrow road, and are easily approached and destroyed by the defender's anti-tank weapons. In the space where the offensive and defensive sides are in close contact, heavy artillery and air support can no longer support the operations of our own troops. At the same time, the ruins, buildings, and numerous pipelines in the city created quite good defensive conditions for the defenders.

Under the command of General Wavell, the defenders actively engaged in preparations for street fighting, placing barricades, stacking sandbags on roofs, and establishing defensive positions everywhere.

In order to deal with the German armored forces, General Wavell also ordered people to make incendiary bombs. To put it mildly, it is a Molotov cocktail, but it is just a homemade Molotov cocktail. Fill the bottle with gasoline or high-concentration spirits and stuff it with a piece of cloth to make a simple Molotov cocktail.

This thing first appeared in the Spanish Civil War. During the Soviet-Finnish War in the original time and space, Finnish soldiers carried it forward and gave it the name "Molotov Cocktail", which severely hit the Soviet army. At this time, because Germany provided various anti-tank weapons to Finland, Finnish soldiers did not use such incendiary bottles. After all, only when there are no other anti-tank weapons, Molotov cocktails become a helpless close anti-tank weapon.

Its use is also very simple, just throw it to the hood area of ​​the tank. For most tanks that still used gasoline engines during World War II, once the burning liquid flows into the engine room and the oil pipe leaks, the engine will definitely catch fire and be unable to run. Most tanks lack automatic fire-extinguishing devices in the engine room. Once the engine catches fire, the crew will undoubtedly have to lean out among the bullets and hold a fire extinguisher to put out the fire. (In World War II, a few tanks were equipped with fire extinguishing systems. For example, the Tiger tank was equipped with an automatic fire extinguishing system in the engine compartment. The bimetal thermostat device started detecting at 120 degrees Celsius and triggered carbon dioxide fire extinguishing.)

Secondly, because the combustion temperature of the liquid fuel in the combustion bottle is not high (magnesium powder or thermite can be added to increase the combustion temperature), it is easy to produce a large amount of black smoke from incomplete combustion. Most engines that draw air in the hood will be affected by this. Smoke or oil enters the combustion chamber, or the filtration system is clogged, resulting in lack of oxygen and shutdown.

These tanks that have lost their mobility, as long as they are not on the set of "Fury", mean that they are not far from being destroyed.

After working day and night, the number of Molotov cocktails stockpiled in Cairo reached one for every soldier guarding the city.

In addition, they also have a powerful secret weapon: No. 74 anti-tank grenade, commonly known as "sticky bomb".

Since tanks tend to move at high speeds during combat, it is difficult to throw grenades onto tanks. The impact fuse was too dangerous, so the designers of the British army had a sudden idea: if the grenade was covered with strong glue, wouldn't it be possible to stick the grenade to the tank and detonate it?

The No. 74 anti-tank grenade was developed under this peculiar idea. It is a handle grenade with a spherical warhead and a glass ball inside, which contains about 25 pounds (about 57 kilograms) of nitroglycerin. The glass ball is wrapped in a layer of elastic fabric, and the outer layer of the elastic fabric is also coated with some birdlime. It was nicknamed the "sticky bomb" because of the use of birdlime.

Its shell is made of two hollow metal hemispheres. The glass ball is then placed into the shell. There is a wooden handle on the outside to fix its position. There is also a 5-second fuse inside. There are also two pins and a lever on the wooden handle. When the first pin is pulled out, the casing falls off, while the second pin activates its detonation mechanism.

The grenade's design was flawed, and users were advised to move closer to the tank and stick it to its armor rather than throwing it onto the tank's hull from a distance. Because during the throwing process, the adhesive can easily stick to the user's uniform.

This kind of birdlime is quite strong. Many recruits often have the grenade stuck to their clothes and pants before they start using it, making it impossible for them to escape. A member of the Home Guard recorded in his diary: "During practice, a bombardier stuck a grenade to his pants so tightly that he had to take off his pants to get rid of it."

In addition, the grenade must be stuck to a smooth tank surface before it can be used, but in actual combat it is impossible to have a clean and tidy tank shell. This allows soldiers to choose a smooth surface to blast as quickly as possible at an extremely close range, which is extremely difficult. In addition, the fuse time of this grenade is only 5 seconds. If a soldier throws it at close range, it cannot be fired within 5 seconds. If you evacuate in time, you will basically end up dead or injured.

In order to ensure the safety of soldiers, the British army finally came up with a strange tactic: during combat, soldiers held a towel in one hand and a grenade in the previously hidden crater. When an enemy tank passed by, they quickly wiped the tank's surface with the towel. A shell, then stick the grenade here and quickly evacuate. This operation is a great test of the soldiers' dexterity and reaction ability. If they are not careful, the soldiers will die.

The quartermasters of many units have made it clear that they would rather use the most primitive anti-tank methods to deal with enemy tanks than let their soldiers die in vain. (The original British production of such an unreliable gadget was 2.5 million. They also distributed these deceptive gadgets to other participating countries; the Australian army, French guerrillas, etc. all used this gadget.)

Admiral Wavell also knew that this thing was unreliable, so he rushed to make the Molotov cocktail.

In addition, there is the BOYS Mk I anti-tank gun that the British themselves despise. This anti-tank rifle uses a manual bolt action, with a five-round magazine on the top of the fuselage, and fires 9x99mm armor-piercing bullets with a built-in steel core. Its power can only penetrate 21 mm thick steel plates at a distance of 100 meters, and the recoil is extremely large. This feature has been criticized by shooters.

As for anti-tank guns, the one with the most equipment is the famous QF2-pound anti-tank gun. It's just that when this thing was designed, the consideration was not the anti-tank performance of this product at all, but the direct consideration of saving money. (Because there were many 2-pounder shells in stock, the anti-tank gun was designed to consume these shells.)

Judging from paper data, the QF 2-pound anti-tank gun was the best anti-tank artillery in the early days of World War II. Although its performance in the French campaign was unsatisfactory, it shined in the North African campaign.

In many defensive battles in the North African battlefield, the QF 2-pound anti-tank gun became Rommel's nightmare. These QF2-pound anti-tank guns set up in preset positions are very low and difficult to detect when placed in the position. Their 360° rotation also makes them very easy to target Germans racing in the desert. tanks, thereby destroying them one by one.

Especially in the early days of the war, when most of the tanks of the Afrika Korps commanded by Rommel were Panzer II and Panzer III tanks, attacking the British defensive positions filled with QF2-pound anti-tank guns became a death-defying act. Faced with such high battle losses, Rommel also had to lament that the war turned into a murderous war during positional warfare, rather than a war mode that focused on destroying the opponent's technical weapons during mobile warfare. The few troops he had at hand In this harsh environment, they had to be defeated and gave up the unrealistic idea of ​​charging into the British defensive positions.