Battle of the Third Reich

The British soldiers pulled the bolt, and a golden bullet shell was pulled out of the barrel, hitting and falling on the chest wall in front of the trench.

"Pay attention to the shelling!" the platoon leader shouted loudly. The soldiers in the trenches quickly held their rifles and squatted their heads with both hands. At the next moment, a series of howling tears of air blew, and then the dense raindrops of cast iron shrapnel covered an entire open space 200 meters wide in front of the position.

"They are destroying the minefield, and all the stumbling barbed wire we set up is finished." The sergeant squad spit and lowered his head to shake off the dirt on the helmet.

"Everyone, the Germans are about to attack." The platoon chief continued to issue orders, and after the deputy platoon leader was killed, he became the highest-ranking man in the trench.

The Second Battalion of the Royal Flintlock Regiment of the British Army, this long-standing unit has always only undertaken local defense tasks, so that it was not included in the expeditionary force and escaped the disaster of Dunkirk, but now these soldiers and The officers knew in their hearts that this glorious old powerhouse was in a disaster this time. Although they are the elite of the local army and the soldiers are well-trained and well-equipped, they have a fatal flaw. This unit has no actual combat experience from top to bottom, and has only participated in some exercises and military parades and played with the tricks on the form.

However, when this infantry battalion was transferred to the front, the officers and men of the company were morale and confidence. The soldiers thought they were well-trained, not the incompetent parallels of Dover, and thought that if they were treated carefully, they would never Repeat the mistakes of that group of guys.

In fact, the Royal Flintlock Regiment is indeed not worthy of fame. At least it is ahead of most of the army’s ordinary troops in equipment. The battalion not only has exclusive artillery and engineer troops, but each company is also equipped with a rare anti-gun. The tank platoon, although only two two-pound guns and anti-tank rifles, is enough to make the brothers covet.

However, after these British Empire's arrogance and bravery were truly on the battlefield. Only then did I know what cruelty was war, and how ignorant and arrogant my previous performance was.

In the first battle, the Germans fully showed them what is the real elite troops and what is called the Hundred Battles. It took only half an hour for the German infantry to fully break through the first line of defense they built. In just thirty minutes, the Royal Flintlock Regiment lost all its anti-tank weapons and almost half of its soldiers. One of the infantry companies was unable to retreat and was surrounded by Germans on the position.

Immediately afterwards, the remaining British troops withdrew to the second line of defense, and the Germans temporarily stopped to consolidate the positions they had just occupied. Although the Germans achieved brilliant results, they were not unharmed. They were intercepted by the fierce firepower of this British army. Next, many brave German soldiers fell on the road to charge.

In the next half hour, the soldiers of both sides launched a messy crossfire across a 400-meter-square grass, the main purpose was not to kill the enemy. It is to increase the psychological pressure of the opponent. Although the British soldiers were exceptionally tenacious, they could not change the fact that the initiative fell into the hands of their opponents. They were stuck by the Germans, and their weapons and strength were severely lost. At present, they have nothing to do except passive defense. To make matters worse, the German shelling interrupted the telephone line, they lost contact with the superior command department, and the reinforcements promised by the superiors were still missing.

The German army on the opposite side could ignore this many, and when the offensive force was reorganized, it immediately attacked the British second-line position. Standards like textbooks. After an artillery preparation, the offensive was fully launched. Following the practice of daytime position combat, the German infantry began to release white smoke at the front of the British position. Cover the sight of the British machine gun fire, cover the impact of the infantry assault group.

The British army had suffered hardships before and knew the strength of the German army's move, but suffered from lack of artillery firepower and could not come up with corresponding countermeasures. British soldiers could only blindly shoot into the smoke zone, hoping to cause some hindrance to the German infantry, which proved afterwards that the effect of this method was really limited. When the smoke began to dissipate, the British soldiers were horrified to find that the gray figure of the German commando was close at hand.

These well-trained German light infantry. The cats moved silently and quickly in the smoke, they did not rush into the front. Instead, it cut across the open space in front of the position and hit the relatively weak flanking position of the British army. Found the smoke was about to dissipate. The German soldiers accelerated their assault speed. They ran quickly, and the machine guns and mortars on the German positions began to shoot continuously, suppressing the firepower of the British military machine guns that threatened the most infantry.

The German infantry offensive tactics were once again effective. The weakness of the flintlock regiment's lack of combat experience was exposed here, and this time they had no frontline artillery fire that could threaten the light infantry assault.

Although the British soldiers were desperately shooting, it was no longer helpful. Only two soldiers of the German commando fell in front of the position, and the remaining infantry roared into the British position. The German infantry showed their advantage in close-range firepower in the British trenches, and soon the British front collapsed with their morale. The soldiers threw away their weapons and scrambled out of the trenches toward The city lane not far behind escaped.

From this point until there was no third line of defense in the city of London, even if there were, these soldiers who had been frightened could not continue to fight. The German commander certainly did not waste the opportunity in front of him. He ordered the troops to pursue the entire line, capture the captives as much as possible, and seize the other party's weapons and materials. At the same time, the commander-in-chief of the 3rd Infantry Division reported to his superiors that the Cypriot Corps had broken through the outer perimeter defenses of the British Army and entered the city of London.

At this time, Guderian's tank troops also completed the outsourcing campaign on the flanks of London. The first unit of the 2nd Armored Division progressed smoothly in the early stage, and it can be said that the situation is like a stalemate. The intelligence proved to be accurate, and there was indeed a huge gap in London's west defense line. In order to catch the gap before the British army filled this loophole, Major Heisler’s armored battalion drove forward like a blaze. He ruthlessly crushed any object that dared to block his way. The community turned into a burning ruin under the tracks and muzzle of the German tank.

The manual for villages and towns issued by the British army misled a large number of people. They arranged traps strictly according to the methods written in the manual, but found that they encountered a completely unreasonable opponent. The British National Guards expressed their anger. These Germans Don't follow the rules, and don't follow the routines written in the books at all. The Germans' methods were simple and rude. As soon as they found a bullet in a room, they blasted the house and the entire block where it was located into the sky.

The various trap roadblocks carefully laid out by the British engineers basically did not play any role, because without the corresponding fire cover, the German army easily took these expensive obstacles one by one without any obstruction. One cleared.

Major Heisler’s tank battalion was not unscathed along the way. At least five No. 2 and two No. 3 tanks were damaged. There were more than 20 German armored soldiers killed and injured, and there was no loss of armored grenadiers. Small, a semi-tracked personnel carrier accidentally hit the British anti-tank position on the way to the reconnaissance mission. As a result, it was hit head-on by the British anti-tank gun, and none of the officers and soldiers of the vehicle survived. Although this position was later razed to the ground by angry German armored soldiers, the damage was already caused, and no amount of remedy could save these soldiers' lives.

The second armored battalion finally reached the target area within a predetermined time. Major Heisler led his men to carry out local defenses and repelled five large-scale assaults by the British army, including tanks, within three hours. . When the follow-up troops arrived, the armored battalion was already on the verge of running out of food, and the machine gun bullets were almost exhausted. On average, there were only two shells left per artillery. If the British continued to attack, these tanks could only be used as The bulldozer is here.

Guderian’s armor cluster quickly stabilized this breakthrough, and then he continued to use the second armored division as an arrow and advanced along the intercity highway from south to north toward the Thames. After the German armored forces inserted the west side of the British army, the west side of the London outer defense line had been rendered useless and completely defensive.

Because the western part of the city looks relatively safe compared to the eastern and southern lines that faced the German attack directly, it was only a group of Uighurs, mainly reserve and self-defense members, who were responsible for the defensive work on those positions.

When they discovered that the Germans were behind them and cut off their connection with the city of London, these troops immediately fell into panic. Because of the shortage of supplies, these units have no food reserves at all, and the daily supply depends on the supply in London. Now the critical supply roads are all cut off by the Germans, and these people will cut off the food that night.

The British officers followed the orders of their superiors to prepare to organize a counterattack, but these original people were not prepared to buy the bill. In their view, the battle had been defeated. Although they vowed to defend the British defending His Majesty the King, let them carry a rifle They used grenades to hit German tanks. They thought they weren’t crazy enough, but if the officers were willing to try them, they could shake their flags far away.

Soon the officers lost control of the army, and more than 100,000 people fell apart in the afternoon. These people did not dare to cross the German defense line and returned to London, so they ran to the surrounding villages and temporarily sheltered. In their view, this battle cannot be fought all the time. Many people are prepared to stay there until the end of the war, and then return to the city to reunite with their families.

Asking for a monthly ticket, it is now in the double monthly ticket period of the New Year. It is a rare opportunity to vote for the top two. I once again ask you to cast your monthly ticket after reading the chapter. Thank you for your support for this book. (To be continued.)