The decisive battle against the Third Reich - #963 - Chapter 960 Battle

With a loud “Boom!”, the “Sherman” tank fired a shell.

The shell hit the German machine gun position… German machine guns are always the primary target of US tanks. The reason is that the German MG42 machine gun has a terrifying rate of fire. The theoretical rate of fire reaches 1,200 rounds per minute, which is 20 rounds per second, which makes it a The fastest-shooting machine gun in World War II, with extremely high reliability and suppression capabilities.

Allied soldiers called it “Hitler’s chainsaw”. According to them, as long as there is an MG42 machine gun in front of them, any charge launched by the infantry without cover is meaningless.

Things are different now.

After an explosion, the German machine gun position was blown into a crater. Several German machine gunners fell next to the crater in various postures. Nearby there was a machine gun that had been blown into parts and bullets scattered everywhere.

The US tanks “rumbled” up, and the tank crew always thought that the area was safe under such circumstances.

But unexpectedly, as soon as the tank tracks rolled over the machine gun position, there was only a “boom” sound. The anti-tank mine exploded from top to bottom and exploded the tank into a ball of flame… The Germans actually buried the anti-tank mine. Under your own feet.

They seemed to know that the machine gun positions would be the focus of enemy tanks’ attacks.

Although there is nothing wrong with doing this, anti-tank mines do not have enough weight to detonate, but it is not very comfortable to fight against the enemy on the mines.

The American soldiers thought they would not do this, but the Germans did it.

“Click, click, click.” A “Sherman” tank used its directional machine gun to suppress the enemy’s fire and cover the advance of the infantry.

Any experienced tank crew knows that machine guns are more useful than tank guns at close range.

This is mainly because the reaction speed of tank guns is very slow and cannot respond in time to the charge of enemy infantry against tanks.

The machine gun does not have this problem. It can be flexible and continue to put pressure on the enemy.

Just like now, several German soldiers were knocked to the ground by machine gun bullets as soon as they leaned out of the trench.

However, just as the machine gunner turned his attention elsewhere, a corpse on the ground suddenly jumped up and rushed towards the tank. Then the American soldier behind the tank threw an anti-tank grenade before knocking it down with a gun. …Although the German soldier fell in a pool of blood, the anti-tank grenade opened the small umbrella at its tail in the air and slowly drew a famous arc straight towards the tank.

The American soldiers exclaimed:

“careful!”

“Grenade!”

…

They all saw this scene, but they were unable to prevent the grenade from hitting the tank’s side armor and paralyzing the tank, unable to move.

A “Sherman” tank had just crossed over from the river, and water was still flowing down from the folded tent around the tank.

But it couldn’t wait to replace another destroyed tank and consciously took on the task of covering… This is the fate of tanks. Even if they drive ahead and become the enemy’s primary target, they will be destroyed one after another. But they still have to wait and rush to the front.

“Pay attention to the corpses on the ground!” The American soldier following the tank warned him using the phone behind the tank: “Some of them are fake and will throw anti-tank grenades at the tank…”

These words obviously misled the tank crew, causing them to focus on the dead bodies on the ground and shoot several rounds at the suspected targets with their machine guns.

At this moment, a rocket came straight towards the tank with a roar.

“Be careful…” the American infantryman behind the tank warned loudly on the phone.

But the tank crew didn’t know what to be careful about at all, and then there was a “boom”, and several hot metal jets shot into the tank cabin. The temperature in the cabin rose sharply in an instant, and the narrow and depressing space was filled with the fear of the tank crew. The screams and burning smell, and what’s even worse is that there is a little firelight in the smoke, and the firelight is getting bigger and bigger…

In the aperture of Qin Chuan and others’ telescopes, what they saw were groups of tanks and amphibious landing ships piled forward. There were also U.S. fighter jets and bombers in the air constantly rushing down, pouring bombs and bullets onto the German positions, but the Germans However, the soldiers miraculously blocked the US charges again and again. More and more tank wreckage were piled up until the US tanks that followed had to take a detour.

“They are great!” Colonel Slain said: “This is the kind of troops we need. If they can have time to get more training, they will become a very good force!”

What Colonel Sline means is… many of them have no chance of getting “more training.”

This may be a pity, but war is sometimes so ironic: they are excellent because they dare to make such sacrifices, otherwise they would not get the praise of Colonel Sline at all.

General Patton was obviously unwilling to give up this last opportunity to attack, so even though the 17th Armored Regiment suffered heavy losses and Colonel Nathan repeatedly requested to postpone the attack, Patton gritted his teeth and refused to let go, ordering Colonel Nathan to command the troops wave after wave. rushed forward.

But in the end, Patton still failed to capture Chambord Island… The US military even captured the first two lines of defense on Chambord Island, leaving only the last line of defense to drive the German troops stationed on the island down the river.

However, just then the sun slowly set from the west, and soon the whole world fell into darkness.

“Lieutenant Colonel!” came the hoarse voice of the baker on the other end of the phone: “We will stay until dark!”

“Very good, Lieutenant!” Qin Chuan replied: “You fought very well. But… defending until dark does not mean you succeeded, do you understand?”

“Got it!” the baker replied, “What should we do?”

“No need to do anything!” Qin Chuan said: “Hold the position and don’t let anyone pass, except the prisoners!”

“Prisoner?” The baker didn’t understand what Qin Chuan meant.

But the baker soon understood, because in the ensuing battle, many American troops even surrendered to the Germans.

In fact, Colonel Nathan and Colonel Torres also felt this.

The reason is none other than what Colonel Torres said before…if they spend their small reserves of ammunition on offense, then they will not have enough ammunition for defense.

The battlefield became quiet the moment it got dark.

Fighters and bombers disappeared from the sky because they could not find their targets.

The sound of artillery gradually subsided, and the tanks were busy building bunkers to hide themselves as much as possible.

“What should we do?” Colonel Nathan asked Torres.

Torres replied: “We can only hope that the Germans don’t know that we are low on ammunition!”