Battle of the Third Reich
v5 Chapter 137: Dover disaster (2)
After the start of the raid, the German offensive hardly stopped. ↗ Every time a position is captured, the assault troops do not stay at all, just take a short break, replenish the ammunition and leave the wounded, and immediately enter the next battle. The rest of the tail-cleaning work was handed over to the follow-up service and reserve forces. These troops were placed on the second line not because of the lack of combat power, but mainly because they had poor luck and were left behind by the headquarters.
The deployment of the service troops landing in the cluster can be regarded as extravagant in the German army. In order to keep up with the pace of the mechanized and armored forces, all logistics transport teams gave up mule vehicles, except for a batch of military trucks, such as Opel And Mercedes-Benz, also equipped with a large number of tracked transport vehicles. In the past, there was no such type of transport vehicle in the German army, and the Kung Fu Germans all built large tanks, so this model is all derived from the seized equipment. The most common equipment is the tracked transport vehicles seized from the French and British forces, such as the general transport vehicles of Carden Reid and Vickers, as well as the French Lorraine and Renault tracked transport vehicles. In the French campaign, the Germans seized thousands. These small crawlers.
According to the original history, most of these things were allocated to various infantry divisions or artillery units, and were used as tractors and transport vehicles. The German infantry and artillery actually liked these small but full-featured small armored vehicles, but due to the difficulty of fuel replenishment and maintenance and repair problems, these British and French vehicles in the German army were slowly exhausted as the spare parts were cut off.
Now, considering the actual needs of the landing forces and the traffic and road conditions in the British mainland, the headquarters believes that it is very necessary to equip the landing forces with these tracked transport vehicles. Especially those British tracked transport vehicles, they were originally designed for maneuvering in the British mainland, regardless of the size and weight of the car body, they are fully adapted to the bridges, streets and wild terrain of the British mainland. With the support of these vehicles, the German attack efficiency will be The exponential increase will greatly reduce the dependence on roads.
The most important concern in the British homeland defense strategy is the blockade of roads and bridges. Once the British army destroyed the roads and railroads, the wild off-road march was an inevitable choice. The German transport trucks generally lack off-road capabilities, and the number of semi-tracked transport vehicles is insufficient, making it difficult to carry heavy transport tasks. Before the corresponding new equipment was developed, these small tracked vehicles just filled the gaps in the equipment.
These logistics vehicles performed very well in the outer battles of Dover. Not only were they able to follow the infantry troops’ off-road maneuvers, they were able to replenish the ammunition consumed by the troops at any time, and they were able to quickly and safely remove the wounded. If the armor of these vehicles is really weak, and if they are engaged in front-line operations, it is easy to be confused with the enemy’s similar equipment and cause accidental injuries. The Germans even want to put them into offensive operations, because this car of 10,000 essential oils is so easy to use, what Everywhere can be inserted.
The logistics and reserve teams were tasked with clearing the battlefield. The British left little to the Germans. The German offensive was too fierce. In order to pursue the speed of attack, most of the ammunition and materials that could have been seized were blown up by the attacking troops. Only the wreckage and the corpse of flesh and blood remained.
The original base of the British defense force was not large. Scattered to more than a dozen defensive positions, their number is difficult to achieve even if the positions are connected together. Under the attack of the dominant German forces, these positions collapsed like sand castles under the impact of the ocean tide. Inside and outside the trenches were full of British soldiers fighting to death. German medical soldiers searched the corpse heap for surviving wounded people. As long as there are still breath, both the British and the Germans have been rescued.
On the first line of defense, the British army lost more than 800 officers and soldiers, and more than 500 were captured, but the wounded only occupied a very small part of the captives. The German assault troops started very black. Once the fire was connected, they barely kept alive, and the captives raised their hands in time to surrender to save their lives.
Similarly, more than two hundred German soldiers fell on the British position. Most of them were machine guns and tank artillery killed by the enemy. Not many German soldiers died in melee combat, but there were many wounded. The bayonet technique of British soldiers is a rare and proficient military skill. In the days when there is no bullets, they can only hold wooden gun training queues and fight spears every day. The problem is that these rookies have never experienced real melee combat, and some people will even habitually avoid the vital points of the human body during the assassination, so many German arms and thighs are recruited. But as long as it does not hurt the aorta, it is only a matter of months of cultivation.
Some British positions resisted fiercely, and not all British soldiers were rookies. There were indeed some veterans who fought in the battles of Norway and France. These were lucky to avoid the battle of Dunkirk for various reasons. The elite warriors did not escape the German attack this time, most of them died on the spot, and a small group led the rookies from the front to escape to the second line of defense.
After midnight, the first line of defense was broken through by the Germans, and at the same time the German attack on the British second line of defense began. Some German assault troops killed their red eyes. They almost followed the footsteps of the retreating British soldiers and rushed to the ground of the British second-line array.
At this time, the battle had already lost its suddenness, and the British troops on the second line of defense had already prepared for the battle, so the German offensive troops were stubbornly blocked by the attacking German soldiers and the British soldiers who fled. Mixed together, resulting in some defensive devices on the defensive side, did not have the heart to carry out indiscriminate blows, so when the German offensive frustration began to withdraw, the counted personnel loss is not very serious. However, this could not cover up the shame of being beaten back by the enemy. The German army, angrily angry, took a short break and immediately started the second round of attack.
In fact, the number of British troops on the second-line positions was not large at this time, and even five of the first-line positions were less than that, but the quality was far more than that of the first-line British forces, because these positions were already close to the Dover urban area, which was the city defense circle. In part, the construction of these positions was relatively early, and the materials used were also very real. Among them, a high-tech technology such as steel plate prefabricated machine gun fort appeared.
If the firepower possessed by the German infantry company cannot break through this type of position according to the original history, it is necessary to mobilize the infantry artillery or anti-tank gun support at the battalion or regiment level. But the current situation is different from history, the German infantry possessed very fierce anti-fortification weapons.
The German infantry first used machine guns and rifles to suppress the firepower of the opposing machine gun remotely according to the previous style of play. At the same time, it began to attack the enemy position diagonally from the flank. This kind of assault action almost crossing the enemy line looked very dangerous, but it was It is a very effective way of maneuvering against bullets. It is difficult for infantrymen to aim at such targets whose distance and azimuth are constantly changing. This requires professional training.
Although machine guns could threaten the German assault squad, they were also suppressed and disturbed by German firepower. The number of German machine guns was no less than that of the British troops on the defensive position, and it was more mobile and flexible. These amazing general-purpose machine guns only need to change the frame to switch functions at will, and the weight is light enough to transfer the shooting position at any time.
In addition, the Germans also have an absolute advantage in artillery. The shortcomings of the British army are exposed here. They lack any kind of heavy firearms. The artillery weapons that can be fully compiled in the army are only the mortars belonging to each company. However, the lack of matching ammunition, the German bombardment and bombing destroyed most of the garrison's ammunition depots, and now these defenders have only half of the base that was originally stored in the company's logistic ammunition reserves, and finally distributed to the teams There are only ten poor rounds, half of which are useless smoke bombs.
The German precision small-caliber mortar also performed very well at night. Although its power was not great, the amount of ammunition delivered in a short period of time was very large. The dense raindrops were exaggerated, but they were not far from the actual. This power and grenade Not many casualties were caused by similar small warheads. However, the psychological pressure on the defending army caused great pressure. The British army could only continue to transfer the exposed machine gun positions. The British machine gun groups carrying heavy water-cooled machine guns were exhausted on the positions.
The German assault squad often rushed to a distance of more than ten meters from the target in the gap that the British army was temporarily suppressed. At this time, in addition to the opponent's bullets, the British army threw grenades. British soldiers don't need to see the target clearly, they just have to throw the grenades out under the command of the officer. Although the throwing distance is different, it can cause a large intensive killing barrage, enough to stop the footsteps of most assault infantry. Even the elite Germans could only lie down to avoid this situation.
But this situation cannot last. As long as they gave the Germans a chance to breathe, they could immediately fight back. The so-called steel plate prefabricated machine gun fort is just a fixed target in front of the iron fist. The flares illuminate the entire battlefield, and there is no obstacle at all. Soldiers can operate this anti-armor weapon as they do during the day. However, in order to get a better hit rate, they tend to rush to within 50 meters, or even directly attack to within a dozen meters. Don't underestimate the individual qualities of the German infantry. They were not the ones who did not make a positive breakthrough in using French explosives to explode bunkers in the French campaign. For Iron Fist at this distance, it was almost a face-to-face attack, and the British machine gun fort and bunker were torn apart with a loud noise. German soldiers sometimes used grenades at enemy positions to make up another round. But in most cases, no one thinks that anyone can survive this attack.
The Germans also used a large number of portable flamethrowers. This single-use flamethrower's fear for the enemy far exceeded its lethality. Where this terrorist weapon that runs counter to humanitarianism appears, it will become a burning **** on earth. In the past, the British army could also specifically attack soldiers with flamethrowers to stop them, but now this portable weapon is not large, it is very suitable for concealment, and it does not affect the carrier to use the originally equipped weapon, so before the attack occurs, it is very It's hard to find out which German soldier was carrying such a murderous weapon, but by the time it was discovered that everything was too late, I could only watch the burning fire dragon rush into the face.
The second line of defense of the British Army did not last longer than the first line of defense, falling apart in a flame and explosion. The German assault group sang forward, also did not make any stop, directly directed to the third, and the last line of defense outside the British army launched a general attack.
The third line of defense also surpassed the second line of defense, with several permanent fortifications and forts appearing, but this line of defense performed worse than the previous two lines. The defeated British soldiers brought horrible news The new weapons of the Germans made people feel chilling.
The force on this line of defense was inadequate. Although it had heavy artillery that envied the first-line officers and men, when the battle broke out, it was found that reality and imagination were completely different. The core defensive point on the defense line is an ancient fort built in the 17th century. After several generations of transformation, it stands in the suburbs of Dover for hundreds of years. It has dozens of artillery of various calibers, plus a battalion of elite infantry Defending can be said to be inseparable. It survived several German bombings and survived, almost becoming an invincible symbol of Dover.
As a result, the fort was not able to persevere for 20 minutes after being attacked by German infantry. In addition to the interference from the German heavy infantry artillery, the German infantry’s iron fist and flamethrower played a key role in it. When the German infantry burst into the wall of the fort under the rain, the battle was actually over. The German infantry blasted the iron-clad wooden door beside the suspension bridge with an iron fist and sprayed a flame against the aisle of the inner wall. Someone started waving a white flag at the top.
When the first light dawned from the horizon, the three lines of defense outside the British army were all occupied by the Germans. At this time, Dover's urban area was fully displayed in front of the German landing cluster. (To be continued.)