The decisive battle against the Third Reich - #965 - Chapter 962 Hope

Only one update today, sorry!

In the end, the 17th Armored Regiment failed to organize an attack on the third line of defense on Chambier Island.

Objectively speaking, Colonel Torres’s plan was correct.

It is a fact that the 17th Armored Regiment is exhausted, but the Chambord Island garrison led by the baker is not much better. Especially in the daytime battle, the German soldiers stationed on Chambord Island sacrificed a lot in order to withstand the impact of US tanks. It was barely done at the cost of more than 800 casualties.

This number of casualties plus the number of casualties in the first battle means that more than half of the troops stationed on Chambord Island have suffered casualties and only over a thousand people are left… Even if a unit is a regular army, more than half of the casualties means it has collapsed, not to mention the baker. The army he leads is also a logistics force.

Therefore, if the 17th Armored Regiment and the 15th Infantry Regiment can work together to launch an all-out attack on the third line of defense, even at night, even if the German troops have arrived from all directions for reinforcements, and even if the US military is seriously short of ammunition, it is almost certain that The only thing is…the German third line of defense will still collapse.

Then, the U.S. military can use the German supplies to deploy defenses along the moat of Chambier Island, as Colonel Torres said.

This defense was almost fatal to the German army without amphibious landing craft.

It’s a pity that American soldiers simply don’t have the courage… They are used to fighting the enemy with sufficient supplies. Insufficient supplies first prevent them from having the confidence to compete with the enemy.

They simply don’t know that in this battle, they only need to follow the tank and charge forward with bayonets to win.

In addition, they thought they were surrounded by enemies from all sides, so they finally collapsed and desperately fled toward the rear, west of the Moselle River.

“We can’t escape back!” Colonel Nathan shouted at the crumbling soldiers: “The Moselle River has been blocked by the enemy! We have no other choice…”

“No, Colonel!” Someone in the guard replied: “The German bombs only blocked the middle part!”

“What do you mean?” Colonel Nathan asked.

“As long as we go downstream or upstream!” the guard replied, “that is, avoiding the middle part. Even if we encounter those logs with bombs tied to them, they will not explode!”

“Yes, Colonel!” Another guard replied: “Those bombs are equipped with delayed fuses. They will only explode in the middle section of the river! And the Germans can’t see our movements in the dark…”

Then Colonel Nathan understood why the soldiers swarmed toward the Moselle River.

Colonel Nathan turned his attention to Colonel Torres.

Colonel Torres looked at the defeated troops around him and said helplessly: “Retreat, sir! We won’t have any troops left in a few minutes!”

“But our tanks can’t go back!” Colonel Nathan said.

As mentioned before, even if a tank becomes an amphibious tank and crosses the river, the landing point must be determined through reconnaissance in advance, otherwise the amphibious tank with a deep draft will not be able to land ashore.

In this case, it is almost impossible to take away the tank.

“Forget them, sir!” Torres said, “We can only leave them here!”

“No!” Colonel Nathan said: “At least we should blow them up and not leave them to the Germans!”

But Colonel Nathan took a closer look and found that it was difficult to find the tank in the dark night. He named the tank crew and blew up the tank… Many tank crews had long abandoned their vehicles and fled.

At this moment, another violent gunfire rang out from the front.

The German army discovered that the American troops were disintegrating, and immediately launched a counterattack with great morale, even though they only had more than a thousand people.

In the end, Colonel Nathan failed to realize his wish. He could only abandon the tank and retreat under the cover of guards.

Even so, the U.S. military did not withdraw smoothly, because the German army had already set up several machine guns there, and “Hitler’s chainsaws” fired bullets crazily, knocking down the fleeing U.S. troops on the river bank in batches.

There are even many US troops who can’t figure out the direction and have lost their way… Falling into the Metz Fortress will indeed encounter such a problem, especially in the dark night. There is a river on the left and a river on the right, and there are rivers in front and behind, so the sense of direction is slightly poor. I couldn’t tell which one was which. After swimming hard, I found that I had bumped into the enemy’s gun and had fallen into a trap.

“General!” The staff officer hurriedly walked into the headquarters and reported to Patton: “The 17th Armored Regiment and the 15th Infantry Regiment have collapsed!”

Barton raised his head suddenly, and after a while he let out a long sigh.

The staff officer understood what General Patton meant… The sigh meant that there was nothing he could do.

There was really nothing Patton could do. It was pitch dark across the river, and even if he wanted to provide fire reinforcements to the opposite side, he couldn’t.

All Patton could do was wait where he was, waiting for the two regiments of American troops to escape and treat the wounded among them.

In the end, the two regiments of the U.S. Army that stormed the Metz Fortress had a total strength of more than 5,000 people. Only more than 1,200 people were able to escape. The rest either died in the chaos or became prisoners of the German army.

But for the German army, these are not important… The prisoners have no meaning to the German army. To some extent, they still increase the difficulty of supply.

What’s important is that they captured 63 “Sherman” tanks and 30 amphibious landing craft on the battlefield.

From the current perspective, the amphibious landing ship will be more important than the “Sherman” tank. The reason is that the “Sherman” tank basically has no shells and cannot participate in the battle, and in the foreseeable future, it will be difficult to capture tank guns and shells. This batch of tanks was put into use.

But from the perspective of the cadet soldiers, this was the first time that so many tanks had been seized. Everyone was as happy as if they had found a treasure, and evacuated and hid these tanks overnight.

When Qin Chuan saw the baker, he almost didn’t recognize him… He had a head injury and was bandaged, and his right hand was still hanging around his neck.

Seeing Qin Chuan coming up, the baker stood up with a happy face and said, “Sir, I know you can rescue us! They also believe this!”

Qin Chuan nodded and said: “No, Lieutenant. It was you who saved yourself. It can even be said…you saved Metz and everyone!”

The baker didn’t understand what Qin Chuan said.

But Qin Chuan did not exaggerate… From a tactical point of view, it was indeed Qin Chuan’s idea to save Shambil Island. But from a strategic perspective, could it be that the baker led a group of logistics personnel to withstand the US attack and saved the Metz Fortress?

Qin Chuan cast his gaze behind the baker and saw German soldiers who looked like the bakers, all wounded and bleeding.

With such soldiers, Germany has hope.