Word: ambushings
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...British, as Winston Churchill said (see p. 26) thought the battle was reaching a "wearing-down stage" and the British generals evidently were content to let it do so. But not Rommel. He lined up his 88-mm. guns in ambush. With a light tank force and possibly with false radio orders transmitted to British tanks (said Churchill: "I do not know what actually happened"), he lured the British to slaughter. At the end of the day 230 out of 300 British tanks had been destroyed. The Battle of Libya was lost that afternoon...
...British, as Winston Churchill said (see p. 26) thought the battle was reaching a "wearing-down stage" and the British generals evidently were content to let it do so. But not Rommel. He lined up his 88-mm. guns in ambush. With a light tank force and possibly with false radio orders transmitted to British tanks (said Churchill: "I do not know what actually happened"), he lured the British to slaughter. At the end of the day 230 out of 300 British tanks had been destroyed. The Battle of Libya was lost that afternoon...
...tricks and tactics were not essentially new. An old-fashioned ambush broke the back of Britain's armored forces in Libya. Tobruk and Matrûh fell to typical shock assaults by land and air. In the U.S. Civil War, Stonewall Jackson and William Tecumseh Sherman won battles and made great advances just as Rommel did-by forced marches and surprise attacks when, according to the rules, their armies should have been resting for the next round...
...this time the Germans fought back, spitting torpedoes. One torpedo punched the frail hull of the Vortigern, a 1,090-ton oldtimer, and she went down. The British patrol sloop Guillemot, a 580-tonner which can do little better than 20 knots, spotted an E-boat lying in ambush, crept up within 50 yards before the German crew woke up. The Guillemot sent a 4-in. shell into the E-boat's water line and hosed its deck with machine-gun bullets. "It is considered," said the Admiralty communiqué, "that this boat was sunk...
Methods of ambush are important. A wire cable strung across a road at an angle will slide a motorcycle off into the ditch, where the cyclist can be slugged and searched. "Messages may be glued to the soles of the feet. Comb the hair; look between the toes." All kinds of decoys may be used to stop cyclists and staff cars or to make them swerve and crash: a couple of baby carriages covered with sacking, a pair of old auto headlamps, operated on batteries, set in the middle of the road. "To attract the closest attention of enemy...