The Rise of the Third Reich

"Marshal, Your Excellency, Marshal, the Germans are attacking!" Marshal Rez Himigwe's adjutant shouted loudly while banging on the door of the Marshal's dormitory, "This time it is true, they are really attacking!"

As nearly 2 million troops from both sides confront each other on the front line, cross-border reconnaissance and small-scale exchanges of fire occur almost all the time. But what happened in the early morning of September 1st was obviously different.

Including the Primorsky Army, Poznan Army, Lodz Army, Krakow Army, Carpathian Army, Modlin Army, Narew Group and Lithuanian Army (mainly composed of the defense forces of the Lithuanian Free State), All army headquarters deployed on the Polish-German border reported that they were being violently shelled by the German army!

"Oh, the whole line was bombarded?" Marshal Rez Himigwe, who had just gone to bed two hours ago, opened the door in his pajamas and listened to the adjutant's report without showing any panic. "Go and call the President, the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Navy, the Commander of the Air Force and the Chief of the General Staff to meet at the Belvedere Palace at seven o'clock."

Then, the top commander of the Polish army began to slowly put on his military uniform under the service of his servants and prepare to have breakfast. It was not that the Polish commander was too slow, but that this was what he knew about war.

This was 1 million heavily armed Germans attacking 1 million heavily armed Poles in fortifications. Normally, artillery preparations take several days and nights, followed by the infantry attack. So there is still time for breakfast.

And his subordinate, Commander of the Coastal Army Major General Emil Krukovisz-Przetemirski, had just crawled out of the warm bed at this time, and he and Chief of Staff Stanislaw Gro Together with Colonel Tsky, we sat at the dining table and waited for the chef to prepare breakfast - sliced ​​kielbasa, scrambled eggs, hash browns and coffee.

"The brothers below won't suffer much loss, right?" Major General Przedemirski took a sip of the coffee that was just served.

"No," Colonel Grodsky replied, "Most of our brothers on the front line are inside the artillery fortifications, and the German shelling will not cause many casualties."

It has been 20 years since the First World War. During these 20 years, all army officers in Europe have been studying how to let their soldiers survive under overwhelming artillery fire. Only by surviving first can you defeat the enemy in the next battle.

"And the German artillery fire is not intensive," Colonel Grodsky added, "Colonel Weilobey of the 9th Infantry Division, Major General Przyakovsky of the 15th Infantry Division, Major General de la Perla and Major General Poituze of the Eastern Tactical Group both called to report the situation. The total number of German artillery is quite large, and there may be 2,000 to 3,000 of them firing, but they are used relatively scatteredly. "

"General, colonel, your breakfast." This was the chef wearing a white overalls and a high hat who placed the carefully prepared breakfast in front of the two of them.

"Thank you," Major General Przedemirski nodded politely, and then continued to talk to his chief of staff, "The scattered use of artillery is to confuse us and prevent us from finding the main attack direction. But this is nothing..."

"Rumble..."

At this moment, a dull sound like thunder came from the distance.

"This is..." Major General Przedemirski and Colonel Grodsky looked at each other. Of course they recognized that the sound was a bomb explosion!

"Bombing!" an adjutant suddenly broke in and reported loudly, "The German planes are coming, they are bombing the airport!"

…

"Keep formation, be careful to cover each other, and may God bless us." Werner Moldes was a devout Catholic, so he shouted "God bless" when he spotted the enemy plane.

Forty Zero fighters of the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment of the German Navy covered more than one hundred He111s flying near Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Their mission was to bomb the airfield of the Warsaw destroyer brigade. Therefore, the 8 groups of bomb-carrying box racks in the bomb-carrying cabin of each He111E medium bomber are fully loaded with 50 kilograms of SC50 bombs - one group of bomb-carrying box racks can hold 4 SC50 or 1 SC250 (250 kg). Therefore, each He111E flying to Warsaw carried 32 SC50 bombs, totaling 1,600 kilograms of bombs. The entire fleet of 102 He111Es carried 3,264 SC50s, enough to blast several airports owned by the Warsaw Destroyer Brigade into a "lunar surface" with craters.

However, in order to accurately deliver these 3264 bombs to the Polish airfield, these He111E aircraft, which are not very strong and have poor self-defense firepower, must lower their altitude. In this way, they are easily attacked by the Polish PZL.11 and PZL.7, two Polish fighter jets with weird shapes but good maneuverability at medium and low altitudes.

Both PZL.7 and PZL.11 were produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. They did not have a closed cockpit or retractable landing gear, and the engine power was very weak. However, the "Haiou-shaped wings" and relatively light fuselage still This kind of aircraft can compete with Germany's most advanced BF-109 at low altitude, especially when the BF-109 is responsible for the escort mission - because it has to undertake the escort mission, the BF-109 cannot "leave away with one blow" and must Fight with your opponent.

In its original history, BF-109 suffered a lot because of this reason, and suffered certain losses in the early stages of the Polish campaign.

But now these PZL aircraft have encountered the Zero fighter, which is king for its flexibility and dogfighting performance! And it is the Fokker Zero with a more powerful German BMW300 series engine (with one-stage and two-speed supercharging).

The air battle over Warsaw soon began. Since Warsaw is located in the hinterland of Poland, when the German fleet arrived here, the frontline airport had already been hit by bombs. Therefore, the Warsaw destroyer brigade was already on alert, with 36 PZL series (including 20 P .11 and 4 P.7) have taken off to meet the enemy.

But Polish pilots soon discovered that they were encountering a nightmare - the aircraft they encountered was, to a certain extent, the ultimate version of the PZL series. It's faster, more flexible, better at fighting, has more firepower than PZL, and there are more of them!

The slow PZL cannot catch up, escape, or compete with its opponents in turning turns. All that is left is to be beaten and wait to die!

At this time, Werner Molders and another Fokker Zero formed a two-plane formation to cover each other, biting the butt of a PZL.11.

"He can't run away!" When Molders muttered in a low voice, his wingman had already opened fire, using the 7.92mm machine gun on the nose of the aircraft to fire two streaks of flames (there are also two 20mm machine guns on the Fokker Zero). cannon, but there is a problem that the trajectories of the cannon and the machine gun cannot overlap, so only one type of firepower can be used at a specific distance). Molders also opened fire at random. Four tongues of flames swept across the PZL.11's fuselage like lightning, and some unknown debris flew up. Then, as if drunk, the plane rolled a few times in the air and fell.

"The pilot didn't parachute, he must have been killed!" the wingman pilot's excited shout came from the earphones.

Mordes, however, freed up a hand and made the sign of the cross on his chest.

"God, what kind of plane is this? This is not a BF-109..."

When the air battle occurred, Marshal Rez Himigwe had just finished breakfast. He stood on the balcony of his home and watched the battle in the sky with a telescope.

The PZL aircraft that Poland was proud of was no match for the German "new fighter jets". The air battle only lasted a short time, and there was no trace of the PZL in the sky.

Then more than 100 He111s began to carry out horizontal bombing at medium and low altitudes, and the only thing that could pose a threat to them was the seemingly unintensive anti-aircraft firepower.

"Is this the end of the Warsaw Destroyer Aircraft Brigade?" Marshal Rez Himigwi was in disbelief and said to himself, "It seems that we need the help of our British and French friends. We need better aircraft..."

He turned around and said to the adjutant in a calm voice: "Get the car ready, let's go out."

…

"Push away the roadblock!" Armored Meyer shouted. Several soldiers carrying rifles got off the half-track vehicle, ran over, and pushed away the obstacles blocking the road.

"Forward! Brothers, let's go fight the Poles!" He picked up the intercom and gave the order to march. 17 heavy armored vehicles and 11 other half-track vehicles roared forward at the same time.

About 20 minutes after the first round of shelling ended, Kurt Meier's company was the first to set foot on Polish soil. This marked the official start of an unprecedented "blitzkrieg".

"Ta-ta-ta-ta..."

Polish resistance also broke out at the same time. As soon as the convoy rushed into Poland, a machine gun set up in a tree next to the road opened fire. The bullet hit the steel plate of an 8-wheel heavy armored vehicle and had no effect. But the Germans, who were suddenly hit, stopped advancing.

The 20mm machine guns of the 18 wheeled armored vehicles all slightly adjusted the muzzle pointing, and then there was a fierce blast, and the machine guns in the woods soon became silent.

"Now move on! Don't get entangled with the Poles in the woods, we have more important things..." Panzer Meyer realized that the other party did not have anti-tank guns that could threaten the armored vehicles - they should be the Polish border who survived the shelling just now The task of the garrison was simply to delay the enemy crossing the border with machine guns and mortars.

The convoy started again, rumbling across the Polish land, and rushed towards the hinterland of Poland at an unprecedented speed.