The Rise of the Third Reich

"Retreat quickly, Frenchmen, retreat quickly!"

Mitterrand heard someone shouting at him in French, but he still did not get up, and was still firing randomly with the M1 rifle in his hand - he knew that the Germans were "defeated" and now was the opportunity to surrender to freedom.

But the opportunity passed him by again. He was picked up by someone and dragged behind him. As he ran, the person said in stiff French: "Now is not the time to fight, we have to leave quickly." here……"

Mitterrand turned his head and glanced at the man. It turned out to be platoon leader Fram (namely Brandt) who had just been promoted to second lieutenant. Just when he was about to pretend to fall and throw away this annoying Nazi, a loud "boom" came from behind.

Mitterrand quickly looked back and saw that on the battlefield illuminated by flares, the smoke of the explosion had not yet dissipated. In the smoke, a huge T-26 (M-26) tank seemed to be lying on its face. The armor plate on the right side was scorched black. Obviously, this unlucky tank hit the German "Taylor magnetic anti-tank mine". The "Taylor Magnetic Anti-Tank Mine" is a very powerful magnetic mine with a charge of up to 5 kilograms, which is enough to blast through the chassis of an M-26 tank.

However, this 41.9-ton machine has not completely lost its combat effectiveness. The M2 Browning heavy machine gun on the top of the turret is still firing fiercely. The other M-26 and M4A3 tanks on the battlefield stopped advancing and started shooting wildly with machine guns and artillery.

Fired alongside these tanks were U.S. self-propelled artillery and possibly some towed artillery. The shelling came quickly and violently, in sharp contrast to the "sluggishness" of Soviet artillery on the Soviet-German battlefield. Brandt, who had fought hard on the Soviet-German battlefield, even believed that the level of artillery and tank coordination of the US military was almost as good as that of the German army!

Faced with such firepower, Brandt did not dare to continue running. He jumped into a crater that had just been blown up by the artillery shells with him. Veterans on the battlefield knew that craters were a place to avoid shelling. A good place, because it is unlikely that two shells will fall on the same point (this will not happen if the density of shelling firepower is not high enough).

While Brandt and Mitterrand jumped into the crater to avoid the shelling, Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzenegger had already commanded the armored group to retreat to a small lake. Narrow lakes and swamps are very common on the island of Newfoundland, but it is still relatively cold in April. Most of the swamps have not yet thawed, but the ice on the lakes has melted and is now filled with ice floes. A difficult and dangerous place to pass.

A public road passes beside the small lake, which is the main access to Grays Harbor to the south. Although the terrain of Newfoundland is mainly platform, which is far from dangerous (attacking from the beach is dangerous, and moving on the platform is not difficult), there are many places for tanks to pass, but roads are still the fastest, and the US military There are also a large number of wheeled vehicles in the armored divisions and infantry divisions, which are not suitable for cross-country.

In addition, Grays Harbor is now under fierce attack by the German army, and most of the U.S. troops providing rescue will not choose to pass through the wilderness.

Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzenegger decided to set up an ambush on the side of the road in a lake full of ice floes to delay the Yankees again.

While Lieutenant Colonel Schwarzenegger was busy deploying his tanks and tank destroyers in place, the American shelling stopped again. Brandt and Mitterrand were lucky enough to climb out of the crater unscathed and continue to retreat. During the retreat, the two also saw two burning German armored vehicles and mutilated human corpses scattered around that were emitting a burning smell, as well as other damaged weapons and unknown debris.

Seeing this scene, Mitterrand thought: In the round of shelling just now, the German paratroopers still suffered some losses.

"French people," Brandt suddenly said to him at this time, "don't worry, these losses are nothing. The Americans still move too slowly, they fight too carefully, and they don't have the ruthlessness of the Russians. Otherwise we will be in trouble."

His analysis was not bad at all. The US 16th Armored Division, which was currently attacking, actually had enough power to crush the German troops blocking them - as long as they lost more than a hundred tanks and added two to three thousand casualties.

Let alone the Soviet Red Army, even if they were replaced by elite U.S. troops who had fought bloody battles in the Hawaiian Islands, the German blocking force would have been defeated. However, most of the elites transferred from the Pacific battlefield went to the Caribbean battlefield. The troops sent to Newfoundland had never been on the battlefield. Even Major General Ross, who commanded the battle, had never been on the battlefield during this world war.

Although he is a division commander of the armored force, his way of thinking is still positional warfare. Tonight, the combat method he adopted was also very World War I-style "combined advance with infantry, artillery and tanks." He fought cautiously. When encountering the "tenacious resistance" of the Germans, he immediately bombarded him with overwhelming artillery fire for a while, and then used Tanks and infantry crushed them. With such steady progress, we advanced nearly 5 kilometers in just three or four hours. Such results were good during World War I, but they seem very conservative now. After all, the 16th Armored Division is an armored force with sufficient mechanized forces.

"General, our advance can be accelerated." Colonel Kabaev, Major General Ross's Soviet adviser, was more timid than Major General Ross a few hours ago, but now he is more timid.

"Can we speed up?" Major General Ross stood on a high ground, folding his arms and looking at the tanks and infantry who were organizing an offensive formation on the flat ground below, and asked with a smile, "Isn't it fast enough now? At this speed, we will be there before dawn. We can advance to Grays Harbor.”

Kabaev shook his head and said: "Major General, the Germans don't have many tanks and tank destroyers, only about thirty. As long as we are not afraid of losses, we can definitely defeat them quickly, and then we can rush to Grays in another hour." Hong Kong.”

"Aren't you afraid of losses?" Major General Ross frowned. He had heard of some of the Red Army's tactics of fighting regardless of casualties on the Soviet-German battlefield.

"Yes! We still have 55 operational M210s and more than 150 M36s. If we gather together for a single attack, we will lose up to 100 vehicles and 100 to 1500 soldiers, and we can completely defeat the enemy in front of us. . And most of the vehicles can be repaired. The Germans do not have 88mm and 105mm guns, and their ability to damage vehicles is limited. "

Although this Soviet Red Army tank colonel was very young and was a cadre promoted after the Great Purge, he had gone through the baptism of the Soviet-German war, and his understanding of the German army and the application of armored tactics had reached a very advanced level. However, his Orientalized baby face (he is a Kazakh) and his identity as a communist fighter still make his words lack some credibility.

"Vehicles are not a problem," Major General Ross shook his head, "but losing 1,500 people just to save two or three hours is still too much..."

His armored division is not large in number, less than 14,000, and it has already suffered three to four hundred casualties. If it adds 1,500 more, the casualty rate in one night will be as high as 14%, which is really too much.

"Major General..." Colonel Kabaev frowned. He really couldn't imagine that a major general and division commander would care about the loss of between 1,000 and 2,000 lives. "Time is running out. If we don't hurry up, Port Grays and Port Carbonear are likely to be occupied by the Germans."

While the two were talking, a division staff officer arrived in a jeep and loudly reported: "General, I just received a notification from the military headquarters that the Germans have occupied Port Carboni."

"What?" Major General Ross was stunned, "So fast?"

"Where is Grays Harbor?" Colonel Kabaev asked hurriedly. "What's the situation like there?"

"It's very critical," the staff officer replied. "The Germans are attacking fiercely regardless of casualties!"

"Major General!" Kabaev immediately persuaded, "If the Germans occupy Grays Harbor, they will have two available ports... Once the ships carrying reinforcements are allowed to sail into Concepcion Bay, our troubles will be Big!”

Major General Ross seemed a little hesitant. After thinking for a while, he shook his head and said, "Port Carbonier is bigger than Port Gray, and there is also a nearby fishing port called 'Expect Bristol', which will probably be here soon." Falling into the hands of the Germans. This way the Germans have two ports they can use on Newfoundland... It doesn’t matter whether there is Grays Harbor or not, so it’s better for us to play it slow.”

Kabaev sighed in his heart. He knew that the American major general in front of him had made the mistake of conservatism. This is a common mistake of "old people" who are inexperienced but occupy high positions... Now the Americans may have to go to Newfoundland. Got into a tough fight!

Almost at the same time, Vice Admiral Fraser, the top British commander on Newfoundland, arrived at Grays Harbor in the midst of a fierce battle on a Fairmile B-class gunboat.

The battle in the port area has come to an end. Unlike the caution of Major General Ross's 16th Armored Division, the Germans' fierce attack on Grays Harbor can be said to be regardless of casualties! Tank No. 4 went directly into the street fighting, risking being destroyed by anti-tank fire as it approached the buildings guarded by the US military and blasted every house with its 75mm artillery! Their paratroopers, like man-eating beasts in the night, withstood all the bullets and artillery shells fired at them, rushed towards the ruined buildings destroyed by tank guns, and occupied them. Then no one could take them back from there. Drive away.

In just a few hours of fighting, most of the small Grays Harbor had fallen into the hands of the Germans. The U.S. military was compressed into a narrow area near the dock. It was only with the support of the 240mm artillery on Bell Island 20 kilometers away that they could Not driven overboard.