Battle of the Third Reich

"Four hundred meters away, on the right...not the house, but on the right again. Did you see it?" Lieutenant Colonel Baker lay behind a dirt ridge and looked at the village in front of him with a telescope.

They are only one step away from Dover City. The infantry of the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Infantry Regiment can already look at the towering Victorian rock and the broken fortress wall with their naked eyes. They should have been able to see the magnificent castles and towers, but now those buildings have become a pile of construction waste. The German artillery used hundreds of tons of ammunition to wipe out those historical sites forever from the world.

"It's a tank, it should be Matilda II. This is not something we can deal with. We should call for support. Isn't there an assault gun battalion on our left? It's about sixty." Miguel The superior soldier lay beside the battalion commander, with a telescope in his hand.

"Shut up, I don't need your advice now. Listen, you just need to stare at the enemy here, put the machine gun here, block the area from here to that tree, any Just shoot me when it's moving. By the way, how about your company commander?"

Lieutenant Colonel Baker really lost his temper for this machine gunner with a lack of brain, but this guy had good luck and played the entire French battle. He was unscathed and accumulated a lot of combat experience. Now it is also the backbone of the company. If it weren't for some inexplicable situation from time to time, Baker actually liked this simple-minded guy.

"Captain Gaines is in the back house. Would you like me to call him in the past." The machine gunner was pulling the infantry **** down from the belt, preparing to dig a machine gun bunker with two deputy shooters.

"No, you will stay here, and I will go by myself." Baker saw through the machine gunner's thoughts of laziness. He glanced at the machine gun group, then bent down and turned down the ridge, taking his adjutant towards him A board room not far away walked.

"Our flanks are going smoothly, and we haven't encountered much resistance at all, why are we still here to stay still," Captain Gaines shouted loudly on the walkie-talkie.

"Last night we advanced two kilometers. Three British lines of defense have been breached. The morale of the soldiers is very strong...what? Let me ask the battalion commander personally? Is the battalion commander coming?"

"Captain Gaines, is there any problem? The order of the regiment is to temporarily stop the second battalion and consolidate the defense line in place." Lieutenant Colonel Baker stood at the door. Beating the mud on the military uniform.

"Sir!" The officers and sergeants in the room quickly stood up to salute.

"I understand your thoughts very well, but the order is the order. I just went to look ahead and the British are also strengthening their defenses. You will fight in the back battle." Baker walked into the temporary command post. The celebrity officer quickly brought over a chair. The serviceman brought freshly brewed coffee.

"You look good here, much better than Erlian. How was it last night."

"The fight was very smooth. Although the British resistance was very tenacious, their fortifications were too rudimentary to withstand the artillery attack. We broke through three lines of defense in succession, killing 30 enemy troops and capturing 140 people. , Destroyed three enemy light tanks and two armored vehicles alone. Three trucks were captured and some ammunition and weapons were seized. The exact number has not been counted yet." Gaines loudly reported the results of last night to the battalion commander.

The German night raid happened to hit the soft underbelly of the British. Due to the hasty handover of the command structure, there were contradictions in the order of the British command. Some troops were ordered to go out, while others were ordered to retreat. The army dispatch was in chaos for a time, so after nightfall, the British were still busy arranging their perimeter defenses.

St. Margaret's Beach is shrouded in a bright light curtain all night. The air battle over the beach eventually turned into a meat grinder-like massacre. It was a deadly charge of Balaklava light cavalry in the air. The last point of the Royal Air Force’s elite long-range strike force was almost consumed here. Exhausted.

The Luftwaffe fighter unit of the Luftwaffe participated in night operations for the first time, and it turned out that the results were even more brilliant than during the day. Under the reflection of the ground lights, the British bomber was like a silhouette on a white curtain board, clearly exposed to the eyes of a German fighter hovering at high altitude, and was shot down by the German aircraft generally one by one by the fly, and finally it could reach the target area completely There are no planes in the sky.

And because of the interference of ground smoke and searchlights, the bomber could not find even the ground targets. Not to mention the bombing effect, bombers often throw away bombs on the plane as soon as they enter the village, and then immediately turn around to escape. No one wants to stay in this anti-aircraft **** for a second. In the end, most of the bombs were thrown into the dwellings on the hillside, and some were thrown into the waves of the strait. The German targets on the ground were only slightly damaged. The German camouflage effect was so good, which made Reichenau proud of it. He claimed to have discovered another talent since then, which is a strong proof of the Aryan ethnological excellence theory.

This night, the Royal Air Force bomber forces almost drained their blood on this sad beach. Only 30% of the aircraft that flew back to their respective bases, and half of the planes returned were judged after landing. Because of the serious damage, the value of repair has been lost, and some have received various minor injuries. The intact aircraft accounted for less than 10% of the total, and it also included a part of the aircraft that returned to the destination area before reaching the target area.

In addition to participating in the massacre over the beach, the German night fighters also advanced into the British inland. They ambushed on several British bomber routes that have been detected by long-range radar, intercepted and shot down some British bombers, and many British bombing squadrons After being suddenly attacked, the bomb in the cabin was thrown away in panic. As a result, after protruding the German ambush circle, he had no ability to continue the attack. He could only turn around and return to the ship. He was still worried and fearful of encountering demons again. German night fighter.

In fact, the loss of the aircraft was not the most serious blow to the Royal Air Force. The most serious injury was actually in the spirit. This **** massacre night attack almost destroyed the remaining blood and courage of the British bomber crew. Some crew members started to talk about German color change. Many pilots of the squadron began to do everything possible to avoid performing their missions. In the future, even deserters who left the team unauthorizedly appeared. This was an unimaginable thing in the past, but it really happened at that time.

Dover’s British garrison watched the **** battle over the beach all the way. At first, they, like the Scottish army, thought that the German Air Force was bombing the British garrison. They also cheered for the artillery shooting down the enemy aircraft. Until a seriously wounded British bomber crashed into the streets of Dover, the British talent found that something was wrong, and they might have completely reversed the object of support.

The unlucky Wellington broke the wing on the roof of an apartment and rammed it into a blacksmith's shop. There was a serious fire. An infantry company witnessed the whole process of the accident, and they recognized the type of the crashed plane at a glance, only to find out that it was the Royal Air Force that was shot down.

In the following hour, ten dozens of British bombers were shot down, and some of them chose to make a forced landing on the sea. Some crashed directly around St Margaret’s Beach, lit dozens of high-value bonfires in the open field, while others crashed into residential areas in downtown Dover. The bombs that could be thrown in the future caused a series of disasters. The garrison and fire brigade were exhausted. The long-overloaded urban transportation system was completely paralyzed. Many blocks were isolated by the fire, and many materials that were rescued in the urban area were once again paid into the flames, and the casualties were countless.

At this moment of chaos, the German Army suddenly launched a night attack on Dover's outer defense line, and the consequences can be imagined. The British did not have the strength to fight back, the outer defense lines were broken one after another, and Dover's defense circle was in an emergency across the board. The heavy armored tanks that were originally expected to have little effect at night, because these British tanks have a common design problem, that is, the observation angle is very narrow, and they will fall into the dilemma of poor sight during the day, not to mention the dark ones. at night.

Although both the British and the Germans fired a lot of flares, for British tanks, the situation became worse than before the lighting, and the driver and the car group were dazzled by flashes of various colors. I can't tell what is happening in the distance.

These heavy tanks were placed behind the infantry trenches as infantry support firepower, but the infantry were too late to consolidate their fortifications and had no time to dig bunkers for tank vehicles. As a result, these tanks were completely uncovered, so they were exposed alone on the open plains.

Under the illumination of the flares, it seemed to be an unparalleled conspicuous target. The German tank hiding behind the bushes and the wall easily put these steel behemoths into the sight, and then used an armor-piercing projectile produced by Rhine Steel or Krupp or The semi-armor-piercing grenades crushed it into scrap iron.

The Matilda series tanks were thick and rough, leaving many bad memories for the German tank troops in the French campaign. These slow-moving turtles are extremely hard, and even German anti-tank gunners can't penetrate that layer of steel shell even if they put the muzzle on the opponent's front armor. Rommel was attacked by this tank and defeated Alas. Eventually he died on an unnamed mound in France, but he eventually fulfilled the apostle of God, where he became famous in one battle.

But now that the feng shui turns, the victory and defeat dominates the hands of the Germans. The German armored forces have weapons to defeat the enemy. The 48-fold long barrel 75 mm main gun can penetrate all existing tanks in the world. Even if some of them just exist on paper. The No. 4 tank and No. 3 assault gun installed with this main gun are almost unmanned on the battlefield, where people block explosives and tanks block explosive tanks.

These German tank drivers were almost insane, and they were like a broken road along the way. More than 30 Matilda tanks left by the first armored division on the outer defense line were slaughtered overnight. This British infantry tank battalion The army was destroyed, and no one survived.

All the descriptions of the operation of this unit that night came from the surviving British infantry and German battlefield records. Due to the many contradictions, it has caused a century of controversy among war history researchers.

The focus of the debate is whether the British tank battalion has had a tank battle with the German tanks. The German record is that there has never been a similar battle. The Germans said that they have been happily shooting all the way. The tankers and assault gunners chose to Aiming and launching at a distance of 500 meters, at this distance, any position can be guaranteed to penetrate completely into the soul.

The British said that it was impossible to achieve this in the combat environment that night. The British infantry tank was destroyed by each in close combat with the German tank, because everyone knows how tragic Matilda’s mobility is. These courageous tankers still resolutely fought bravely against the elite enemies. They are a model among the British warriors. They should be given a cross medal to comfort them, and encourage future generations to forget their predecessors’ bravery. Spiritual clouds.

In fact, both of these situations happened that night, because these British tanks are distributed, so some defense lines have only one tank row, and some defense lines have a tank company. Britain called the tank platoon a squadron and the tank company a squadron.

There was a real tank battle between a Matilda II squadron and a German No. 4 submersible tank company that night. It was also a night battle in a hilly tank that had not occurred since the outbreak of the war. (To be continued.)