Battle of the Third Reich Chapter 28: Bulldog
It was sunny on May 27, 1940 at 1:20 pm. It is 70 kilometers west of Kortrijk, an important traffic town in Belgium.
Müller stood by his armored command vehicle with a telescope and carefully observed the defensive position of the Belgian army in front of him.
Which line of defense is this? Muller no longer wants to calculate. From last night to now, his troops have continuously broken through dozens of Belgian defensive positions. Fortunately, this is finally the last piece.
Those Belgians are really amazing. I don’t know what they think. They have set up at least 20 lines of defense in an area only 50 kilometers deep. As a result, when I saw the air force reconnaissance photos of this line of defense, I almost thought it was a profile photo from the last war. Do they think it is 1916? Do they think that these outdated trenches and barbed wire can stop the German army today? This fragile line of defense simply cannot withstand the assaults and fierce artillery bombardment of its powerful armored forces, and is basically useless except to delay its own time a little.
What I did not expect is that the Belgians would not even be able to set up an anti-tank barrier. Those Belgians only set up barriers at the intersection of the road. Do they think that their tanks can’t move off the road? They have the energy to dig tens of kilometers of infantry trenches, but they don’t dig a slightly standard anti-tank trench. When they first saw the Belgian-style anti-tank trench, they thought it was just a shallow irrigation ditch. . Had it not been for the Belgian army to repair a dozen machine gun bunkers and set up two layers of barbed wire behind that "canal", I really couldn't see what it was for.
What made me even more puzzled was that they dug so long trenches but didn't send enough troops to guard them. Only one platoon was used to defend the trenches of about 100 meters in some places on the lines of defense that I had broken through. It seems that the Belgians really trust their military capabilities to the extreme. They must think that a Belgian soldier squatting in a trench can easily clean up a dozen German soldiers.
However, their firepower is not bad. Those Belgian troops have quite a lot of machine guns and artillery, which caused some trouble for the infantry. But their long-lasting ability with heavy firepower is not good. They don't have much ammunition. As a result, their heavy firepower can only last for about ten minutes at a time. When time passes, their heavy weapons will stop firing one by one. At first, I thought that the opponent was trying to save ammunition, but when I broke through their defenses and prepared to occupy those heavy weapons positions, I realized that all the Belgian artillerymen were resisting with rifles, and the artillery had already hit the shells. It's over.
Now I let the 7th Armored Division rush to the forefront, while the 1st Infantry Division is protecting its left wing, and the right wing is the 3rd Infantry Division, and the entire army is in a product-shaped formation. What is interesting is that the 3rd Infantry Division has now become a prisoner containment team. In addition to the captured artillery and supplies, they are also holding more than 3,000 Belgian soldiers who have surrendered.
And now it seems that the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division are still willing to do this job. They are still so happy when they report to themselves over the radio. Although sometimes they complained that the 7th Armored Division was fighting too hard and did not leave them any chance to engage the enemy, but this was limited to the reaction of the infantry regiment.
Their artillery felt very enjoyable, because they gathered the light and medium artillery units of the three divisions into the assault group of the 7th Armored Division. In this half of the day, those artillery fired shells than they had been a month ago. Hit a lot.
Müller is thankful that the Belgians have not found a weapon that can deal with their own No. 3 tank at least until now. Their old-fashioned anti-tank guns cannot penetrate the main armor of their tanks. Although their anti-tank mines are enough to break the tracks of the tank, they still cannot penetrate the bottom of the tank, and the number is very small. What threat does the tank pose?
The Belgian infantrymen are fighting their steel beasts in any crude way they can think of. He even saw some Belgian soldiers finally jumped out of the trenches this morning, rushing towards his tank group with grenades and Molotov cocktails, and then torn to pieces by tank machine guns.
Although the tactics used by the Belgians made people shake their heads, their courage to resist until the end left a deep impression on them. If they still have a glimmer of hope, they will insist on fighting, and they will resist until their tanks reach the edge of their infantry trenches.
"This line of defense seems to be the same as the previous ones. Is it still the old way? Commander?" a staff officer asked from the side.
"No, it's not as simple as you think. This line of defense is the last line of defense in their area, and they don't have any systematic line of defense further down, which means it will be the strongest one. I always think they have some hidden power. Look at the Belgian soldiers in the trenches, they are not panicked at all about our arrival."
Mueller paused, then laughed.
"I know why they are so calm, you look behind their position, by the woods."
The staff officer picked up the telescope.
"There is nothing."
"Look carefully."
"Ah. There seems to be something. What is it? Cannon? I seem to see a barrel."
"It's a tank," Mueller said affirmatively.
"The Belgian tanks. It seems that the only armored division they have left us met. Oh, no, judging from the number of infantry in their positions, maybe it was just an armored battalion. It seems these Belgiums The people took apart their armored divisions, and they evenly distributed the tanks over their long line of defense.
No wonder the intelligence of the Sixth Army said that the armored division suddenly disappeared. Now we have to move forward no matter what, the time that General Reinhardt gives us is running out. If we do not maintain our speed to break through this line of defense, our flanks are in danger. I think we should use the simplest method. We conduct a "Cyprus" style assault. "
Muller turned around, jumped into his command car, and brought the headset and intercom. Started to give offensive orders to the microphone.
On the other side of the position, Colonel Letos, the commander of the Belgian defensive position, is also looking over here with a pair of binoculars.
Letos participated in the First World War and had already fought against the Germans. He was also one of the few senior officers in the Belgian Army who could accept new things. As early as World War I, Letos noticed the threat of tanks to infantry. As a stubborn infantry officer, he began to study early on how to make infantry resist the attack of enemy tanks.
Before the war started, he had already noticed the strong combat effectiveness of the German armored forces. As a result, he immediately issued a warning to the War Department and demanded that the anti-tank equipment and facilities along the border between Belgium and Germany be strengthened immediately. But when the War Department agreed to his plan and began to prepare for implementation, the Germans had already rushed over from the Ardennes Forest and the border. In just an hour, the border defense line had completely lost its function.
While the Germans were advancing rapidly, the Belgian troops were beaten back and forth. Finally, with the support of the British, the battle line was stabilized here. Now that I think about it, I'm really scared. If the Germans had invested enough tanks in Belgium at that time, then even the British would be of no avail.
But now it seems that the Germans may have realized their mistakes. There are more German tanks parked across from his position today than the total number of German tanks he has seen since the start of the war.
"It seems that it is very difficult to passively withstand the attacks of those tanks. Only oneself will preemptively, causing losses to the opponent first, destroying the opponent’s morale, and creating chaos for the opponent. At least you can delay for a while and wait for the arrival of reinforcement .
I must close this line of defense. If the Germans break through here, the entire line of defense will collapse, and now it’s too late to organize the next line of defense. Unless the British can build their defenses in time, no one will be able to stop these German tanks from galloping on the last piece of Belgium.
But will my own tactics be useful? It took only half a day for these Germans to break through thirty-two defensive positions in a row, which shows how strong the opposing force is. How much damage can they bring to them by relying on this little power? "
Letos was thinking over there. He complained a little bit about the commander of the dozens of lines of defense in front of him, how he was defeated so quickly, and he didn't even have time to prepare.
"Forget it, it doesn’t matter whether it is useful or not, defense alone cannot withstand such a powerful force, or a surprise attack may disrupt the opponent’s plan and delay their attack. The Germans would never think of themselves. Will attack such a powerful them, it should be able to bring them unexpected damage. Okay, let's do it." Letos also made up his mind, he ran into his forward command post, picked up the phone to release The order comes.
"咻.... Boom."
The sudden shelling shocked Mueller. He did not expect the Belgian to shoot himself first. Because of his negligence, his armored forward has been drowned in this fierce gunfire. Muller had already got into the turret when the first shell had just landed and closed the hatch tightly.
"All tanks, retreat, withdraw to a safe location. Grenades, interfere with shooting." Mueller roared and issued an order.
The entire tank forward force began to put up reverse gear, and while firing the cannon randomly toward the opponent's position, it slowly reversed and began to retreat. In this case, although it may be faster to turn around and run, no one wants to put their fragile engine at the enemy's position.
"Report the loss!" Mueller asked when the tanks retreated to their positions.
"Is anyone injured?"
He was really afraid of losing his troops due to his mistakes. How could he forget that those Belgians still have large-caliber artillery. Mueller reflected deeply.
"Report to the commander that, except for a No. 3 tank in the second row, which was pierced by shrapnel to the engine's water tank, the rest were small shell injuries. We still maintained the combat effectiveness intact." A tank company commander reported. .
"Attention, the enemy's tank is dispatched." A sharp-eyed tanker shouted.
"Oh?" Mueller quickly looked at the enemy's position from the periscope.
Sure enough, with the continuous explosion of those artillery shells, through the smoke, Muller saw the Belgian tanks rushing out of the woods quickly, and the blue smoke of the engines rushing toward the front of his position.
"AMC35? Why is this model?"
The voice of Lieutenant Colonel Halong, commander of the 25th Armored Regiment, came from the earphones.
"Halon, how about these tanks?" Mueller didn't know much about French tanks.
"It's rubbish, leave it to us." Halong answered confidently.
"Really, anyway, we are ready to attack, so we just rush over in one go, or the same way. "Cyprus" assault, give them a good look." Muller was caught by those. The shelling was so depressed, he was determined to retaliate.
"Yes, Colonel Muller. Just waiting for your order."
Muller yelled into the microphone: "Okay~ IndoMTL.com~ The whole army has heard it. The last line of defense for those Belgians is right in front of us. We once vowed to serve our Rhineland General Hart shreds any enemies that stand in the way. Now we have a good opportunity to express our loyalty. Guys, let those Belgians taste the power of our "Cyprus" army again. "Cyprus" Legion, start the assault!"
The moment Mueller’s assault order was issued, all the German artillery began to madly pouring shells toward the Belgian position at the same time. As the shells rained down, the Belgian positions fell into flames in an instant.
And the French-made AMC35 tanks of the Belgian army are not the opponents of the Czech 38T tanks used by Germany because of their only 25mm armor. They have all become the battlefield before they rush to the center line. One burning torch.
Then the German striker's assault tank group suddenly divided into two teams to the left and right. Regardless of the Belgian's fierce interception and running fire, they plunged diagonally toward the two wings of the enemy's position. When the Belgian artillery was attracted to the two wings by the assault tanks, the German support artillery immediately began to extend slowly toward the Belgian position. The second batch of tanks increased their horsepower and followed the artillery fire towards the enemy position. Slammed in the center. Following those tanks was a large number of German infantrymen, who roared at the enemy's position.
If someone could look down from the air at that time, he would find that the entire German assault formation was like a fierce three-headed dog. It quickly tore through the Belgian's solid defense line and moved toward the depths of the position. Pounced viciously.