Mount Halefa is a east-west mountain located in the middle of the British defense line.

As long as there are mountains or ridges in the desert, it must be a strategic point. This is because the desert is empty. As long as you occupy a high ground, you can observe and block the wilderness more than ten kilometers away with long-range artillery. (Note: The range of long-range artillery at this time is more than ten kilometers)

At the same time, the mountain will also become a good hiding place for armored troops... Tanks and cars filled with supplies only need to be hidden on the other side of the mountain to avoid the enemy's artillery coverage.

The problem is that this Halefa Mountain is east-west, and it is still difficult to build fortifications at the foot of the mountain, and the stones that lay mines... The sand waterfalls are severely weathered, and usually the mountains are hard rocks.

This is obviously not conducive to the defense of the British army, especially if the German army fired a piece of shells at Khalfar Mountain, the blew up gravel would cause heavy casualties and injuries to the British army stationed on it.

Once the German army took down Mount Halefa, it was another matter... It was east-west. German cannons even needed to transport the mortars up, and they could use artillery fire to blast the British troops on both sides, thus opening a long hole in the British defense line to allow the German armored division to penetrate deep into the hinterland.

This is also one of the reasons why Montgomery believed that if the German army wanted to attack, it would definitely choose Halefa Mountain. That's why he carefully deployed a pocket array here: the front line was stationed by the newly reinforced British 44th Infantry Division, and then the 1st Armored Division was ambushed. The other two armored divisions were placed on the two wings of Halefa Mountain to prepare for encirclement. At least three hundred artillery guns aimed at the gap in Halefa Mountain... This can't be said to be a gap, but a trap.

Captain Afulry was very confident in this line of defense, not only because the British army had absolute military strength and equipment advantages on this line of defense, but also because Montgomery pioneered the use of "box defense" on this line of defense.

The so-called "box defense" refers to the defensive position of each unit that is like a rectangular or square box...

Ordinary defensive positions are pulled apart by lines of defense, such as the defense of the two brigades of the British 44th Infantry Division, one in front and one behind, either the 131st Brigade is in front or the 133rd Brigade is in front.

But "box defense" puts two brigades side by side, and the trenches are connected together like two stacked boxes.

The benefits of doing this are very obvious.

The first thing is to make the coordination of the troops easier.

Ordinary defense lines will inevitably have "junction points" at the junction of each unit, and this "junction points" are often the focus of the enemy's attack because they belong to different troops... Just like the German attack on the Ruwaizat Ridge before.

This problem is particularly serious for the British army, because the components of the British army are very complex, such as the Indian Division, South African Division, New Zealand Division, etc. They even cannot even understand the language, which will bring a lot of misunderstandings and coordination problems to the army.

"Box Defense" solves this problem very well. It actually uses its own troops to form a circle on the defense line, so there is no "junction" with other troops. To a certain extent, they only need to cooperate with the members of their own troops to manage their positions.

Secondly, this "box defense" will form a natural encirclement of enemies trying to break through.

It is easy to understand that the defense line is composed of defense lines like boxes. If the German army breaks through the first line of defense, which is the surface of the box, and then step into the middle of the box, this will not only cause the German army to be divided into pieces that cannot be connected to each other, but will be completely locked in the box and never be able to get out.

"I don't understand why they failed before this!" Lieutenant John handed a cigarette to Afuli and said, "Don't they know how to set up a line of defense like this?"

Afuli understood what Lieutenant John meant. With such a defense line, tanks, cannons and planes... it was hard to imagine that the Germans could break through, so how did the previous defeats come about?

Because the British 44th Infantry Division had just arrived, it was not very familiar with the previous situation.

"Maybe they were eager to attack!" Captain Afuli replied: "I heard that in several battles we wanted to drive the Germans back, but the Germans took advantage of the defense and then started a counterattack!"

Ensign John nodded.

"I think so!" Lieutenant John spat out a mouthful of smoke and said, "The components of our troops are too complicated. The attack will cause trouble, and the Germans will have the opportunity to take advantage of it. Now, it is the time for the Germans to be unlucky..."

Before he could finish speaking, a bullet hit Lieutenant John in the chest and then a "bang" gunshot.

This is a feature of long-distance sniper... The initial velocity of the K98K rifle bullet is 755 meters/sec, and the sound speed is 340 meters/sec.

In other words, if the gunman fires 500 meters away, the loud voice will lag about 0.8 seconds.

Lieutenant John covered his chest in disbelief, and the cigarette between his fingers was still smoking. The blood oozing out between his fingers quickly turned it into a dazzling red. Lieutenant John looked at Captain Afulry with a look of help, and then slowly fell down and lost his anger.

"Sniper!" Captain Afuli yelled as he retracted his head and said, "Cover!"

This surprised Afuli because the gunshots were obviously coming from the front of the position, and the minefields and deserts in front of the position. He didn't understand why anyone would lurk there... This meant that they had to bear the scorching sun in the desert all day long.

"It should be the guerrillas!" Captain Afuli said to his subordinates.

He thought that only locals who were used to the desert climate and were too stupid to live could do this, but he soon found out that he was wrong.

Soon there were two more "bangs" sounds, and two British soldiers who poked their heads out were shot and fell to the ground.

"I don't think they are guerrillas, captain!" A British sniper shouted to Captain Afuli across more than ten meters: "The guerrillas do not have such accurate shooting skills, and it can be heard from the gunfire that they are using K98K. The Germans will not hand over this standard rifle to the guerrillas for use!"

British snipers are right. Most of the rifles in the guerrillas were "Enfield" seized by the Germans from the British, which is ironic.

"Did you find them?" Captain Afuli asked.

"No!" replied the sniper: "They are pretending very well, and they are at least four hundred meters away when they hear the gunshots, which is very troublesome!"

Captain Afuli knew what the sniper said. Although the "Enfield" rifle has a large capacity and a fast firing rate, its accuracy is far less than that of K98K, so it does not have an advantage in sniping.
Chapter completed!