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In East Africa, the Italians, after capturing Bebein, continued their advance along the coast, advancing along the southern route.

The British troops opposite them could be said to have lost their armor and fled. Instead of blaming the East African troops, the British commander Wavell tacitly approved of their actions, which made the Italians attack faster and more terrifying.

But the victory of the Italians was only based on their numerical superiority, not on how strong their combat capabilities were, or how well they were equipped.

However, Oster, the East African commander of the Italian army, once felt that their advance had completely lost the initiative of the British army in East Africa. He said with emotion: "The combat capability of the British is really not as good as before, and it seems that their days in Africa are numbered." ”

Since then, the Italian army under Oster has indeed relied on its military superiority to advance in Somalia.

Fifty miles south of Blackedwyne, a small armored unit of Oster was routinely on patrol duty, while Italian air force reconnaissance planes were in the sky to carry out reconnaissance missions.

The Italian army is a small armored force with only 4 M13/40 tanks and 100 Italian army soldiers.

The M13/40 tank is a medium tank just launched by the Italian army in 1940, with a frontal armor of 45 mm, armed with a 47 mm L32 meter tank gun, and 4 machine guns on the vehicle, with powerful firepower, and a top speed of 33 kilometers per hour in the sand.

This medium tank had previously participated in the Battle of West Dubairani and the Battle of Benghazi in North Africa, and its overall performance on the battlefield was good, and its armor and firepower superiority could even reach the same height as the German No. 3 tank.

It is a pity that there are few of them, so the Italian officers can only decide to use them in a few like this.

In the face of the British Crusader tanks, this Italian tank has basically the same firepower except for a slightly inferior mobile type, and the armored defense is stronger than that of the British Crusader tanks, and it can fight.

This was the first time that this type of tank was used against the British army in the Italian East African theater, and they wanted to test the reliability of this type of tank and the advantages and disadvantages of the British tank.

Suddenly, the Italian patrol plane spotted a British tank unit 2 miles ahead of the Italian tank unit, with 5 Crusader tanks and more than 100 soldiers.

The Italian patrol planes urgently called the ground troops to get them ready for battle, and the patrol planes began to dive, killing about ten of their soldiers at once with their airborne machine guns when the British had no ground anti-aircraft guns.

At the same time, the soldiers of the Italian ground forces dispersed, alternately advancing under the cover of armored vehicles and headed for the British tank units.

It was a skirmish with no support, so it was destined to be a tough one, and both sides could only withdraw from the battle if they had wiped out the other.

A few minutes later, the Italian and British troops finally came within range of each other.

The Italian M13/40 tank fired the first shot, but this shot was missed, a full 10 meters away, and exploded 10 meters in front of the Crusader tank, but this had no effect on the British tanks and soldiers.

After that, the British troops also opened fire. All five of their Crusader tanks opened fire at the same time, and the shells were impartial, mostly exploding around the Italian tanks and soldiers.

Some Italian soldiers were even blown up more than a dozen meters away. If it weren't for the thicker armor of the Italian M13/40 tanks, they might have basically lost their combat effectiveness by now.

I have to say that the aiming technology of the Italian tank unit has to be learned from the British army.

After taking advantage of the advantage, the British tanks quickly took advantage of their superior mobility and circled the flanks of the Italian tanks, deliberately keeping a certain distance from them.

Because the British officers and soldiers knew that no matter how crooked the target of the Italians was, if you walked too close in front of someone, the other party would not be able to miss.

Seeing the British tanks circling their rear, the Italian tanks fired a few shots in a panic, but it was clear that they were all missing, because it was necessary to strike at moving targets, which they naturally failed to master for the untrained Italian army.

After a while, the British tanks, taking advantage of their mobility, went around the rear of the Italian tanks and began to attack their weak rear armor.

Seeing that something was wrong, the Italian armored forces anxiously changed the direction of the tank.

However, the mobility of the Italian tank was too poor, and before it could completely turn around, it had already suffered several shots, and the rear armor of an Italian M19/40 tank was penetrated and lost its combat effectiveness.

Seeing that the Italian troops were about to be wiped out by the British army, the Italians suddenly found that all the British tanks on the opposite side were silent as if they were dumb.

It turned out that the British tanks had entered a long downhill due to unfamiliar terrain, and the descent was large enough to put their Crusader tanks in a blind spot, and if the British opened fire at this time, it would be like a suicide attack.

The Italian commander, who found that he had hit the big luck, almost jumped for joy, and he ordered the three remaining Italian tanks to open fire on the British tanks.

Finally, after almost all the shells were gone, the British tanks were completely wiped out.

And the British infantry did not choose to fight to the death, and they could only choose to surrender without the protection of tanks.

It was also one of the few Italian armies to win more with less. Although both sides suffered heavy losses in this battle, it gave the Italian army great confidence and proved that Italy could also defeat the British army on its own.

Since then, Italy has been triumphant all the way, and finally won the final battle of Mogadishu.

The Italians quickly completed the conquest of British Somalia after this campaign and incorporated it into Italian East Africa.

In the battle for Somalia, 38 British and Commonwealth troops were killed, 102 wounded, and 120 captured; Colonial forces in British Somalia suffered more than 1,000 casualties.

The Italians had 465 killed and 1,530 wounded; Italian Somali troops suffered nearly 2,000 casualties.

Although the British adopted a policy of retreat and a method of non-resistance, the Italians still suffered heavy casualties, and it can be seen that the Italian army's combat ability is indeed not very good.

Due to the fall of British Somalia, the major general in command was severely criticized by Churchill, who believed that he was fully responsible for the loss of the colony.

Contrary to Admiral Wavell, who was keen to preserve his strength, Churchill believed that the losses of the British army's regular troops were very small, and that it was absolutely inadmissible for the British to abandon the colony without sufficient fighting.

But in response to this accusation, Wavell believes that the retreat is a good teaching material. He believes that when faced with an enemy army with an advantage, all you can do is preserve your strength and retreat.

He also said that "a list of soldiers who were slaughtered would not be a good teaching material." As a result, Wavell's rebuttal provoked even greater anger from Churchill. Churchill almost said that all his anger was poured out on Wavell.

Churchill even withheld the proposal of General Wavell, who captured the fortress of Tobruk, to be promoted to marshal, but agreed to let Wavell be transferred from the rank of temporary general to full general.