Battle of the Third Reich

Vol 5 Chapter 125: Defeat like a wave (continued)

The commanding sergeant at the air security whistle decided to let the machine gunner shoot a few bursts of temptations. He didn't believe that he would get any results from these two machine guns, but at least he could deal with the boss's censure procedurally. :.

It is not that he lost the courage of a soldier in front of a powerful enemy, but the contrast between the two sides is too great. As an old sergeant who has participated in World War I and has experienced combat operations, he prefers to think rationally. In the last war, he saw even more absurd things. The officers did not understand the situation on the front line. They gave orders based on their own imagination. They did not understand the soldier’s feelings. They just blindly ordered the soldiers to do it, except to sacrifice themselves. There is no help for the development of the war with the lives of the subordinates.

The sergeant has already made a decision. Once he finds that the situation is wrong, he immediately retreats with his men. No one can blame it, because they have done their best.

The guard post is equipped with an anti-aircraft machine gun. The machine gunner put the heavy machine gun's frame down and returned to the flat shooting position from the anti-aircraft state. The machine gunner turned the fine-tuned handwheel of the gun frame, slightly adjusted the shooting direction, and then pressed With the firing board between the barrels, the Vickers water-cooled machine gun started firing intermittently against the German formation.

The imitation performance of this Markham machine gun has long been outdated, but the senior British military is still reluctant to give up this weapon, because it involves a bunch of interest disputes, and no one is willing to be involved in this hidden behind a pile of power money In trouble. In order to look good on the scene, this cumbersome machine gun has been constantly improved. Every time I add a part to get a new model number, it becomes the latest advanced weapon on paper. This kind of tricks will not leave on the equipment list of the British armed forces.

Having said that, this weapon performed well in the First World War, creating a distinguished reputation. The slang in English is "full nine yards". The background is this machine gun, because it has a nine-yard-long canvas belt, "Full nine yards" means that the ammunition is fully prepared. Subsequently, on this basis, the meanings of "go all out" and "have everything" were derived. However, two decades have passed since World War I. The war mode has long changed. Various new tactics such as blitz, sports, guerrilla, and airborne assaults are emerging, and infantry weapons have begun to develop in the direction of generalization and light weight. The bulky weapon of the Vickers water-cooled machine gun is no longer suitable for the needs of modern warfare. Like the empire it serves, it is being eliminated by the times.

The two machine guns slammed for short shots, and the machine gunner didn't even know which target he should shoot at. Armored vehicles with flaming tongues are everywhere in the field of vision, and the machine gunner is very clear. This is simply not a target that the weapon in his hand can deal with. He has been searching for a long time, but he did not find a walking target. All he saw were armored vehicles, oh...all of them were armored vehicles that his machine gun could not wear. The machine gunner pressed the firing trigger in fear, praying to God for blessing not to draw the enemy's attention to himself.

However, reality is always counterproductive. The original mission of the two machine guns was air defense operations. Trapezoid bullets were inserted in the cartridge belts. The cyan tracer peculiar to British machine guns was very conspicuous on the battlefield, and immediately attracted two German tanks. note. Ranked on the right wing of the assault formation is a No. 3 tank company. A No. 3 tank on the outer periphery was hit by fire with machine gun bullets. The captain thought the clanging sound was very annoying, so he slowly turned the turret and fired a 50mm shell at the noisy British machine gun bunker.

By this time, the concealment had lost its meaning. Both Britain and Germany began to play with flares and signal flares of various colors in the sky, lighting up the field and the camp as bright as day. The No. 3 tank hardly made any deliberate aiming. The technology of the armored training camp completely withstood the test of actual combat. The shooting was very accurate. The 50mm high-explosive grenade penetrated the bunker made of earth like a piece of kraft paper. The warhead exploded in the crowd behind the bunker. After a dazzling fire flashed, the flesh and blood in the bunker spattered messily. The air defense warning post fell silent.

At this time, the heavy tank company of the armored teaching battalion had already fired three rounds of volley, and because of the fear of smog covering the battlefield, the commander Boulder ordered the assault company to stop using grenades, and he ordered the first-line tanks to use machine guns to shoot as much as possible. Open a channel for the follow-up troops to kill.

At the same time, he ordered the No. 3 tank company to prepare to form a formation, paying special attention to protecting the wings of the grenadier company, because the armored grenadier would immediately engage in close combat after entering the local camp, leaving the armored personnel carrier, this group of infantry would be very Fragile target. Lieutenant Colonel Boulder also took care of the Grenadiers to capture as many prisoners as possible, in order for the subsequent plan to proceed smoothly. He also needs more intelligence from the British army.

At this time, he also found that the British army opposite had no power to fight back. British soldiers with bare hands were everywhere in the field of vision. They lost their directions in explosions, fires and smoke, and scrambled in the camp like headless flies. Rows of rows were overturned on the ground by German car machine guns, and the scene was like a massacre.

The tank company No. 4 directly crushed the barbed wire fence outside the camp and rushed into the British camp unstoppable. These ordinary barbed wire fences couldn't stop the German tanks from moving. Lieutenant Colonel Boulder was always worried about encountering snake belly wire fences. They had encountered such annoying obstacles outside Dunkirk. At that time, he was in the camp Several overconfident tankers have taken painful lessons in this matter. The track of the No. 3 tank and the driving wheel were filled with this flexible steel barbed wire. The result was that the track was stuck and the driver failed to change the gear, causing the engine to shut down. The British infantry ambushing around swarmed with a combustion bottle On the other hand, if the fire protection of the brothers' car group was timely, they almost ordered the lives of these brash boys.

However, he hasn’t seen any similar equipment since he landed on the British soil, but there are some wire barricades wrapped around a triangular wooden fence, but after testing, he found that this is not the same thing as what he encountered in France. The barbed wire here may be a trouble for the infantry, but it is slightly weaker for the tank, and basically breaks as soon as it is pulled, and it can't get caught in the tank track.

The people in the intelligence department said that it seems that this kind of wire mesh has high requirements for materials. It should be called steel wire mesh. After processing, it needs to undergo special heat treatment to maintain sufficient elasticity and toughness. In short supply, they have been unable to reproduce this cheap and effective anti-tank obstacle.

The German tank driver who rushed into the camp was almost stimulated by the **** battle scene. Many of the loader of the No. 4 car group even opened the side door of the turret, throwing grenades outward, and at the same time carrying the mp40 submachine gun for self-defense and firing at the British soldiers outside the car.

The British infantry in this area should be a formed infantry regiment, these soldiers are in accordance with the rules of the British camp. Cross the arms and arrange them on the open space outside the tent. As a result, when they woke up from their sleep, there was only one military uniform all over their bodies. Many people were too late to wear leather shoes, and ran out of the tent with bare feet carrying ammunition. Then he was shot by a German tank machine gun with his head covered.

The British infantry faced the steel giants with their hands empty-handed, and the other party was still frantically throwing deadly bullets at them. This horrible picture was deeply engraved into the memories of everyone present, and accompanied it Many people will never forget the desperate feeling of powerlessness at the time. They are completely powerless to resist strong enemies and can only watch death approaching themselves.

The survivors recalled that many people were scared to urinate at the time, which made the German grenadiers who followed up to capture the prisoners mock the timid performance of the British soldiers for a long time. In fact, the cowardice of the British soldiers cannot be blamed, and the German soldiers in this situation will not be much better than their performance.

The deterrent power of the tank is incomprehensible to people who have not seen the real thing, only standing in front of the giant steel monster. Touching the heavy armor plate on the front of the car body with your own hands, you will feel how vulnerable humans are to this sophisticated killing machine. What is even more terrible is the super firepower of the tank that completely overpowers the infantry. Each tank is an armored machine gun fort. For an infantry with only two machine guns in a platoon, this is completely unfair confrontation. Not to mention that the tank is also equipped with main guns of various calibers, which is the fierce direct firepower that the infantry does not even have.

The British infantry are now confronted with 48 vehicle-mounted machine guns of the No. 4 tank company. The ammunition is adequately supplied. This kind of firepower is stronger than their entire infantry battalion. Rows of bullets flew across the battlefield like a flame broom. Take away the lives of British soldiers mercilessly.

Some British infantry picked up a rifle fortunately, and they immediately started to shoot in vain toward the oncoming tank in vain. This was completely an action triggered by conditioned reflex, a pure instinct. Some captured soldiers remembered this scene afterwards and found out how stupid they were at the time, and they were glad that they survived that kind of battle.

But not everyone was so lucky. Most of the infantry who opened fire on the German tanks became a number on the list of the dead. The Germans did not have time to identify the identity of the corpses one by one. They just removed the soldier's identity card. All of the dead were buried in a grave pit with a brain, and then a cross tombstone was inserted on it, engraved with the total number of personnel and the number of troops.

Following the emphasis on the tank company, the following two No. 3 tank companies also rushed into the camp. With the addition of this group of tanks with 50mm rapid-fire guns, fighting or unilateral killing began to become more heated.

Some British soldiers used Mills grenades to launch a close-up attack on the German tanks, let’s not say that this kind of thing can’t cause damage to the tank at all, unless you are lucky enough to throw it into the tank body, only comment on this behavior, at the time In the combat environment is simply committing suicide.

The assault formation of the German tank is very strict. There are almost no obstacles between the vehicles with wide fields of vision. All tanks can get more than two friendly vehicles to defend each other. Any figure close to the tank will be shot by three or four machine guns. The brave soldiers had no time to throw out their weapons, and they turned into a body full of holes at the moment they threw out of the concealment. Some British soldiers who were too eager to pull off the grenades early, so When they were knocked down by the Germans, they were then blurred by the weapons in their hands.

At this stage of the battle, the German armored forces were no longer limited to driving down the oppressive infantry. Under the command of the company commanders, the troops began to slowly expand their formations. The right-wing tank company No. 3 accelerated and moved along the edge of the camp. The deep advance of the British camp.

The infantry in the rear camp of the Fifth Infantry Division finally gathered in a chaos. The soldiers were equipped with their own weapons, relying on sandbag bunkers and air defense trenches, and prepared to launch defense and counterattacks on the spot.

But when they found out that the Germans began to outflank themselves, the soldiers' will to fight was instantly shaken. At this time, no one could stop the German detour. The two anti-tank platoons surviving the infantry division had reached the front of the defensive line, and had already caught fire with the German tank No. 4, it was impossible to shift positions.

Infantry artillery and mortars were too late to deploy. These heavy equipment were concentrated in the center of the camp, which was already under the control of the German tanks. No one could break through the German blockade and recapture these equipment.

The headquarters of the division finally responded quickly, and immediately withdrew to the rear after the first bombardment. The division retreated from top to bottom, and the officers and soldiers were unscathed, which was gratifying. However, the headquarters of the infantry brigade in front was not so lucky. Because the brigadier's blood came up and delayed the retreat time, he did not have time to run out from there. The brave lieutenant colonel and his two battalions and the whole set of staff The team was beaten into a honeycomb together. The Germans attacked very decisively and swiftly, leaving them no chance to surrender.

Right now, the purpose of the German operations can be seen even by ordinary soldiers. They are opening the encirclement. When they gather their bags, the infantry lacking anti-tank weapons in the encirclement are facing a new slaughter. At this time, the British army’s 2 pound anti-tank guns became the life-saving straw for everyone. The soldiers couldn’t help praying to their respective masters, hoping that these gunners could block the positive impact of the Germans, so that they still had the hope to continue the reinforcements. .

The camp of the Sixth Infantry Division is not far behind, and the sides are less than 500 meters apart. Unless those guys are blind and deaf, the battle here must have been discovered. So as long as they can hold their ground and hold on for a while, the Sixth Infantry Division will definitely come to support. Although the sixth division also lacked anti-tank weapons, there was at least one brigade of light infantry, which always had a way to block the German offensive. Thinking of the tempting idea in the minds of many people here, perhaps they can turn into a victory and kill the Germans.

Speaking of which, at this time they finally found out that the Germans were rushing over, and the conspicuous white-edged black cross looked particularly dazzling under the fire.

However, after all, expectations can only be expectations, and cannot change reality. The 2 pound anti-tank gun has proved to be a waste in France, and it will not increase its penetration by a few centimeters if it is changed to the British mainland. Four thickened armored Type 4 gs became anti-tank gun killers. They used the long tube 75 gun and high-speed semi-armor-piercing grenades in front of all British troops, and knocked out one door after another. The poor little guns then killed the surviving gunners one by one with their machine guns on their positions. For the Germans, the crew members displayed their highly professional qualities perfectly, and for the British, the cold blood and cruelty displayed by these Germans was outrageous.

The destruction of the anti-tank gun platoon became the last straw that broke the camel’s spine. I don’t know when it started or who led it. The soldiers of the 5th Infantry Division suddenly abandoned their positions and bunkers. , The entire row of soldiers turned around and started running away. They shoved, trampled, screamed, and cried with each other, meaninglessly cursed, like frightened herds in the wilderness, rushing towards the wilderness around them.

The British officials were unable to stop the collapse of the troops. They were actually on the verge of collapse. The restraint of the officer status made them stick with the soldiers for a while, but as the German tanks approached, they were all in a hurry. He abandoned his self-esteem and joined the wave of escape without hesitation.

The commander of the Fifth Infantry Division took the lead, and very slyly dropped his cane and his beloved tea set. This middle-aged gentleman who attached great importance to military capacity in the past, at this time, he did not care about the shiny officers’ shoes being stained with mud. He tiptoed and flew across the wilderness in the night, looking like a light antelope. (To be continued.)

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