The Rise of the Third Reich

In the early morning of May 4, 1942, Lieutenant General William von Sussmann, who knew that he was not strong enough to hold Dublin, made a rather risky decision - to fight a counterattack in the north of Dublin.

From a military point of view, this adventure is not a fool's errand, because the situation on the battlefield is not transparent. The British army did not know on May 4 that the armor force in the hands of Lieutenant General Sussman was only 8 tank companies (of which 4 belonged to the 1st Marine Division) plus 10 assault gun companies.

14 companies of tanks and assault guns are actually not too few. If these 14 companies belong to the army's armored forces, they will not be weak. Now the 25-ton Type 4 Tank H is the standard equipment of the Wehrmacht Army Armored Forces, with 22 tanks in each tank company. This tank has 80mm frontal armor and a 48-caliber 75mm anti-tank gun, and is also equipped with sufficient tungsten alloy armor-piercing projectiles. With eight companies of Panzer IV H tanks, Lieutenant General Sussman could have defeated Montgomery's 11th Armored Division outside Dublin.

But it is a pity that Sussman's eight tank companies only have the No. 3 M amphibious tank and the 38tS airborne tank. Moreover, among the 10 assault gun companies in his hands, only 3 assault gun companies belonging to the 1st Marine Division were equipped with the stronger No. 3 assault gun, and the other 7 companies belonging to the 7th Airborne Division were equipped with Weasels. Type 2 tank destroyer.

The Weasel 2 is based on the chassis of the obsolete No. 2 tank and is equipped with a 75mm Pak40/2L/46 gun. The total combat weight is only 10.8 tons. It can be carried by the Me323 transport aircraft, so it has become a counterattack used by the airborne troops. Tank weapon. However, although this Weasel 2 tank destroyer has powerful firepower, its armor is very thin and it is open-top.

Therefore, in the Battle of Dublin that began on the afternoon of May 4, the armor forces available to Lieutenant General Sussman were mainly 88 Type 3 amphibious tanks, 88 38t tanks, 18 Type 3 assault guns and 60 Weasel 2 types. Tank destroyers, a total of 254 tanks/self-propelled guns. It is almost the same as the number of tanks/self-propelled artillery owned by an armored division. In addition, the Marine Corps' 48 bi-wing Hs-123 attack aircraft have been transferred from the amphibious landing ship to Dublin and can be combined with those flying from Brest. Fokker Zeros provide air support. However, the British will definitely dispatch Mustangs and Spitfires, so air support cannot be expected to play a big role - at least until a large number of combat aircraft are deployed to Ireland, Germany will have no air superiority on the island of Ireland.

Facing the armored group commanded by Colonel Walter Wink (called the Wink Group) was the British 11th Armored Division. The division was commanded by Major General Michael Omer Clegg, who had fought against Rommel in North Africa. .

Although he was defeated by the German armored forces, he had the experience of losing battles. Therefore, he was not demoted after being transferred back to the mainland, but became the commander of the powerful 11th Armored Division.

The 11th Armored Division is currently one of the most powerful division-level units of the British Army. It has 3 brigades, including the 22nd Armored Brigade, the 29th Armored Brigade, and the 131st "Queen's" Brigade, which is more than the standard British division-level units. A brigade.

Moreover, the establishment of two of the armored brigades is also very sufficient. Each brigade consists of two tank regiments, a motorized infantry regiment, and an artillery regiment. According to the data on the organization table, each tank regiment has three tank squadrons, each squadron has 52 tanks, 10 armored vehicles and 575 officers and soldiers. That is, each regiment has 156 tanks, and 1 armored brigade has 312 tanks.

The 11th Armored Division, which has the 22nd Armored Brigade and the 29th Armored Brigade, should have 624 tanks at full strength! Although the division is not fully equipped with tanks, there are still 466 tanks that can be driven before the battle begins on the morning of May 4, including 155 Churchill Type 2 infantry tanks and 143 Crusader Type 2 cruise tanks. , the United States produced 168 M3 Grant/Lee medium tanks. In addition, the 11th Armored Division also has 36 M7 "Priest" self-propelled artillery. Therefore, Major General Clegg had a total of 502 tanks/self-propelled artillery before the start of the war on the morning of May 4, which far exceeded the opponent's. 254 vehicles.

In addition, the number of British infantry participating in the Battle of Dublin that began on May 4 far exceeded that of their opponents.

Montgomery's 12th Army alone has 7 infantry divisions including the 3rd Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Division, 49th "West Reading" Infantry Division, 51st Highland Division, 52nd Lowland Division, County Down Division and County Armagh Division. Division, plus the infantry belonging to the 11th Armored Division, the total number of British infantry that has been involved in the Battle of Dublin since May 4 is as high as 120,000, which is far more than the Germans' 1 naval division and 1 The airborne division has less than 30,000 infantry.

However, Montgomery, who was cautious in using his troops, did not know that he actually had an overwhelming military advantage. The brigade-level tactical group composed of one unit each of the 11th Armored Division and the 3rd Infantry Division of the British Army, which was somewhat German-phobic (the main force was the 29th Armored Brigade), was also used to it after being blocked by German armored forces outside Dublin. Cheng naturally chose to retreat and retreated to the town of Swarth, 10 kilometers north of Dublin, to set up defenses and prepare to be beaten.

Colonel Walter Wink, who commanded the armored group that followed them to Swarth Town, seized the opportunity and decided to continue the attack before the main force of the British army arrived. Before the attack began, Colonel Wenke called the commanders of eight tank companies and ten assault gun companies to his headquarters.

He told the 18 company commanders: "Now the main force of the British is moving south from Northern Ireland. They want to defeat us before our large force lands on the island of Ireland and recapture Dublin. But we don't want to hand over Dublin to the British. people, and I didn’t want to be surrounded by the British in a city that was difficult to defend, so I decided after discussing with Lieutenant General Sussman to launch an attack first and severely hit the British vanguard to make them make wrong judgments. Thinking we are stronger than them.”

Simply defending Dublin is not enough, because Dublin is surrounded by plains and has good transportation facilities, which is very conducive to the roundabout advancement of mechanized troops. If Sussman and Wink had tried to hold on, their army would have been surrounded and beaten by the British.

However, Sussman and Wink also did not want to hand Dublin over to the British. Because now Ireland has declared independence and has also applied to join the European Community. Irish Prime Minister Valera even went to Berlin to pay homage to the pier and hug his thick legs.

At this time, losing the capital of the Republic of Ireland would definitely be a huge embarrassment to Germany - until now since the World War, there has been no precedent for the capital of an EC country to be captured by the enemy!

Therefore, Sussman and Wink thought of beating the British vanguard so that their opponents would overestimate their own strength and take a defensive approach.

Colonel Walter Wink then told his subordinates about his deployment: "To the east of the town of Swarth is the beach and the Irish Sea, and the armored forces cannot pass through it. Therefore, the attack direction is the large potato fields to the west of the town, starting from the right wing of the British." Make a roundabout move and assume a posture of encircling Swath Town. This way the British will most likely retreat, and then we will pursue them under the cover of Hs-123."

…

"Carl, is the oil filled?"

When Lieutenant Rudolf von Ribbentrop returned to the company, he saw his platoon leader, Second Lieutenant Carl Weiser, sitting next to the track of a No. 3 tank eating. They ate marching rations - which the troops received from the field cooking company before setting off from Ducock Bay. They were all cooked food and no further cooking was required.

A day's ration usually includes 700 grams of rye bread, 200 grams of cooked meat (mostly various sausages), 60 grams of butter, 9 grams of coffee, 10 grams of sugar, and 6 cigarettes. Sometimes they will also give some biscuits, boxed chocolates (a flat round box containing 8 triangular pieces of dark chocolate) and egg bags.

Before Lieutenant Ribbentrop's company set off from Cork Bay, every officer and soldier received a seven-day ration, so that they would no longer need to supplement food in the next week.

"It's all added," Lieutenant Wiesel stuffed a large piece of brown bread with sausage and butter into his mouth, chewed it hard a few times, and then swallowed it with the bitter coffee. "Twenty-one tanks (one tank was knocked out on the way from Dublin to Swarthtown) were fully fueled, enough for us to drive to Belfast."

"Okay, get in the car!" Lieutenant Ribbentrop waved his hand, "Let's go! Karl, your platoon will take the lead, pass through the potato fields in combat formation, and circle back to the side of Svos Town."

Nowadays, there are not enough officers in the German ground forces. There is usually only one platoon leader under a company who is an officer, and the other two are sergeants. The platoon (usually a platoon) with an officer as the platoon leader must be the platoon with the strongest combat effectiveness in the entire company, and must rush to the front during a battle.

However, Second Lieutenant Wiesel's platoon did not rush far and was attacked in the farmland to the west of Sworth Town.

Several strings of tracer shells were fired from the direction of Sworth Town. One of them hit the side armor of a tank in the platoon commanded by Second Lieutenant Weiser, and then a 40mm shell was fired over. Set the unfortunate tank on fire.

"Alert! Attention everyone! There are Crusader tanks!" Second Lieutenant Carl Weiser was half-body outside the turret. He could see very clearly that the 40mm shells were fired from several "haystacks". Those haystacks were obviously It's a camouflaged tank.

"Behind the haystacks, counterattack! Kill those tanks, quickly!" Second Lieutenant Wieser ordered loudly. The five No. 3 tanks stopped advancing, turned the turret and aimed at the haystacks. First, the coaxial machine gun fired, and then It's the 50mm tank gun shooting...