Reborn as a police officer in South Africa

The 2nd Los Angeles Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Brigade of the 11th Division was also among the attacking troops. Half an hour after the combat order was issued, Sergeant Ruiz and Corporal Wilson were already ready for battle.

"Don't bring a backpack, it will affect your movements. Throw away all the extra stuff. Bring your pistol and engineer shovel. When fighting hand-to-hand, pistols and engineer shovels are more useful than bayonets. You should prepare more magazines.

, if it's not enough, go to the quartermaster and turn off the safety. If the operation fails due to a fire, just commit suicide. Hang the grenade on your chest. Remember to throw it when I tell you to. When charging, follow

Stay close to Corporal Wilson and I, remember what the instructor taught you on the training ground, save your life, and you will be a veteran by the time the battle is over——" Ruiz carefully warned Private Tommy before setting off, Tommy was obviously

A little nervous, he was holding a rifle with a bayonet attached in one hand, a sapper shovel in the other, and the pistol in the holster on his chest.

Like everyone else, Tommy is also wearing a white sheet, which will make it harder to be spotted in the thick fog. The 11th Division will set off at 5:30 in the morning, arrive at the combat position before 6 o'clock, and launch on time at 6 o'clock

attack.

"Drink this. Before you drink it, you belong to Southern Africa. After you drink it, Southern Africa belongs to you -" Corporal Wilson handed the vodka in his hand to Tommy, who drank it down without saying a word.

Unlike Ruiz and Tommy's Lee Enfield, Wilson is equipped with a bar jointly designed by Nyasaland Military Industrial Group and Browning.

The full name of the bar is "Browning Automatic Rifle". This is the first individual automatic weapon identified by the Ministry of Defense of Southern Africa. Compared with the general-purpose machine gun, the bar uses a 30-round magazine. Although the firepower is insufficient, it weighs only

6.5 kilograms, although it is much heavier than the Lee Enfield, which weighs less than 4 kilograms, it has more intense firepower and its reliability is quite good. It rarely malfunctions regardless of the weather, so the southern African army is equipped with a large number of them.

The bar can be used as squad firepower in extreme circumstances.

At half past five, there were no military sentries and no military drums. The officers and soldiers filed away from the battlefield and headed towards the German position on the opposite side.

Tommy's combat group was the vanguard of the 2nd Los Angeles Infantry Regiment. Wilson slowly moved forward in small steps and was at the front of the entire team. Ruiz and Tommy followed Wilson on both sides to form protection.

Although the rifle's safety was not turned on, the bayonet was already mounted.

The fog became thicker and thicker. The line of sight was only two or three meters at most. Nothing could be seen clearly beyond two or three meters. Not long after Wilson left the position, he suddenly heard movement in the thick fog on the opposite side. It might have been someone stepping on the ground.

Dead branches make the sound of broken branches.

Then Wilson heard a deliberately suppressed scolding.

German!

When Wilson heard this sentence in German, his hair stood up instantly, and a feeling similar to an electric current ran from his spine to the back of his head.

After all, he was a veteran. Wilson didn't say anything. He leaned back against Ruiz, then half-knelt on the ground and leveled the automatic rifle in his hand. He placed his fingers on the safety pin and could open it with just a flick of the finger.

Ruiz immediately put down the rifle in his hand, took out the pistol and at the same time pulled out the engineer shovel with his backhand.

Tommy silently pulled out a grenade.

Almost suddenly, a German soldier wearing a pointed helmet and his eyebrows and beard stained with frost appeared in front of Wilson.

The distance was only two or three meters, and the German soldiers probably didn't expect to bump into Wilson. For a moment, their pupils dilated, and their mouths grew so large that they didn't even have time to howl. They straightened their bayonets and thrust forward.

Boom!

Ruiz fired first, and Wilson turned on the safety and shouted "enemy attack" before pulling the trigger.

At the same time as Wilson fired, Ruiz also fired one after another. The target was not the soldiers opposite Wilson, but the thick fog in front of him.

Tommy finally threw the grenade in his hand. Don't worry about whether it could hit anyone, just throw it towards the other side.

Almost instantly, the originally silent winter night suddenly erupted with gunshots, explosions, screams, and howls, making it sound like hell.

Wilson emptied the magazine of his automatic rifle and first took out his gas mask and put it on.

Although smokeless gunpowder is smokeless in name, there is still smoke when it is fired. In a foggy environment, the smoke cannot disperse in time, and the smell can choke people. Wilson could clearly hear the thick fog in front of him.

Someone was coughing violently.

"Charge, charge, charge with all your strength -" the officers made a prompt decision. Unlike the African Division, where officers rarely participated in the attack, the 11th Division was composed entirely of young soldiers. During the battle, the officers had to advance with the troops.

Wilson didn't say anything. After replacing the new magazine, he didn't charge in a hurry. He emptied three magazines in a row before walking forward in small steps. Whenever he saw a German corpse along the way, he would not forget to replenish it regardless of whether he was dead or alive.

gun.

This job was soon taken over by Tommy and Ruiz. It was more convenient to use a bayonet to replenish the gun, and the bullets had to be reserved for dealing with the living Germans.

The position between the two armies is actually only two to three hundred meters away. If you sprint with all your strength, you can rush across it in one minute.

There will definitely not be an all-out sprint on the battlefield. The advancing ground is covered with the corpses of German soldiers. Many German soldiers are not dead yet and are moaning in pain. The tenacious German soldiers will pull off the grenades on their bodies and explode when someone passes by.

The sound continued one after another, and the attacking troops also suffered heavy casualties.

Fifty meters after arriving at the German position, we could already vaguely see the burning bonfire in front of the German position.

At this time, there was no need for the officer to remind them. All the soldiers took out their grenades, shouted one, two, three and moved forward at the same time. After two rounds, the real sprint began.

The German troops who also wanted to sneak attack on the expeditionary force positions were also well prepared for defense. The Maxim heavy machine gun was still very powerful in frontal defense. The first batch of expeditionary force soldiers who broke out of the thick fog were knocked down one after another, but the subsequent

The soldiers of the expeditionary force were desperate, and the heavy machine guns were immediately bombarded by grenades. Countless soldiers carrying engineer shovels and pistols jumped into the German trenches, and the battle fell into brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Wilson's automatic rifle also lost its function at this time. After emptying the last magazine, Wilson slammed the automatic rifle in his hand at a bearded German soldier——

The bearded German soldier did not evade, and while letting the automatic rifle hit him, he straightened his Mauser rifle and stabbed Wilson who was drawing his pistol——

Boom!

Ruiz knocked down the bearded soldier with one shot, and Tommy screamed and stabbed the bearded soldier's chest with his bayonet.

Only then did Tommy understand why the instructor used the sound "Ouch" when describing the stabbing of the bayonet into the body.

The human body, especially the important chest, is protected by the sternum on the periphery.

When the bayonet is inserted into the human body, the blade will scrape across the sternum. At this time, a sound like "whoop, whoosh" will be made, instead of the "pop, pop, pop" sound of chopping pork.

The bearded soldier was tenacious and clutched Tommy's rifle tightly when he was about to die.

Tommy pulled it, but it couldn't move at all.

"Throw away the rifle, take out your pistol and sapper shovel -" Ruiz kicked down the corpse of the bearded German soldier and did not forget to remind Tommy.

Only then did Tommy notice that the bearded soldier had an edelweiss on his collar.

At this time, the edelweiss was not a symbol of the mountain infantry, but it was already a symbol of bravery. Only the bravest warriors were qualified to wear an edelweiss on their collars after crossing the Alps.

Under normal circumstances, the battle loss ratio in hand-to-hand combat is basically around 1:1. The Southern African Expeditionary Force took a big advantage in equipment, so the battle loss ratio with the German army was around 1:3.

But even so, the casualties suffered by the 2nd Cavalry Division and the 11th Cavalry Division were still unacceptable to Roque.

"The encounter was so sudden. I didn't expect that the German army would take advantage of the heavy fog to make a surprise attack. Among the attacking German troops was the 1st Prussian Guard Regiment, the most elite German army. The commander should be Prince Eitel of Prussia, who performed well in the Battle of the Marne.

"Friedrich, from now on there will no longer be the designation of the 1st Prussian Guard Regiment -" Paul Coker's expression was ugly, but his voice remained firm.

Although the heavy losses of the troops were unexpected, if Rock had not ordered the attack and the troops guarding the position were unprepared and attacked by the most elite German troops, the casualties would have been even more severe, and the entire front might have collapsed.

The German army invested two armies in this attack. Except for the most elite Prussian 1st Guard Regiment, the other troops had just completed training in Germany and would not reinforce the Western Front until the New Year.

"How many casualties do we have?" Rock didn't care about the 1st Prussian Guard Regiment, he only cared about the casualties of the troops.

"We dispatched a total of six divisions and suffered 28,000 casualties. Among them, the 2nd Cavalry Division suffered 2,800 casualties and 1,900 killed. The 11th Division suffered 3,600 casualties and 2,700 killed -" Paul

·Coker knew what Rock was concerned about. It was acceptable for the troops to have casualties. Both Paul Coker and Rock were mentally prepared. But with such a large casualty ratio, Paul Coker truly understood the meaning of a world war.

cruelty.

"How is the progress of the troops?" At this time, Roque understood the feeling of Xiafei and Frenzi reading the battle reports. When he first arrived in France, Roque would be heartbroken when he read the battle reports. Now it is much better, maybe for the generals

It is said that the casualties of the troops are just cold numbers on the battle report.

Just like the weather outside.

"We completely defeated the enemy and annihilated at least three German divisions, including the most elite Prussian Guard Regiment. The German casualties were more than 70,000, and we also captured nearly 20,000 prisoners. The specific data are still

According to statistics, the 2nd Cavalry Division and the 11th Cavalry Division are still attacking, the 11th Division has already reached Ghent, the German army in the north of Ypres is retreating, and the Belgian army and Marshal French's troops are also attacking - "Paul

A smile finally appeared on Coker's face. Although the troops suffered heavy casualties, the results were equally brilliant.

Ghent is nearly 60 kilometers from Ypres.

The New Year's Offensive organized by Joffre and Frenzi cost the British and French forces 170,000 casualties before they could advance the front 500 yards.