Chapter 384 "Camel" Fighter
The German 1st Storm Assault Battalion launched a fierce attack on the French defense line in the trenches.
They always threw a few grenades towards the corner first, and after a burst of explosions, soldiers holding MG08/15 light machine guns flashed out and fired at the French soldiers who had not yet recovered or had just emerged from the tunnel. Then the riflemen rushed forward and fired accurately. If they encountered a tunnel on the way, the first thing they would do was to stuff a few grenades into it.
On the other side, the main force of the German army also launched a direct charge on the French defense line under the cover of tanks.
The French soldiers were caught off guard and had no power to fight back. They just fired a few shots and then retreated to the rear in large numbers. No matter how Christine tried to stop them, it was useless.
Amid the shouts of the German army, Gaston found Christine in the crowd and shouted, "Retreat, General! It will be too late if you don't leave now!"
Christine shouted back, "We have no way to retreat! No matter how fast we run, we can't outrun the enemy tanks!"
"No, we have a way out!" Gaston gritted his teeth and responded: "Just leave the Second Artillery Regiment behind!"
"What?" Christine looked at Gaston in shock. The Second Artillery Regiment was Gaston's unit.
"Yes, General." Gaston said firmly, "We have no other choice, otherwise no one will be able to return alive!"
"But, you..."
Gaston patted Kristen's shoulder and interrupted him: "Take good care of my family, your choice is right!"
Christine understood what this meant. Gaston was referring to joining the Charles.
Without waiting for Christine to give the order, Gaston grabbed his pistol and waved it at the signalman behind him, shouting, "Second Artillery Regiment, forward!"
The signalman waved a signal flag behind him, and the "Saint-Samond M21" vehicles, which were originally in the second line, drove out of the bunkers one by one and drove towards the rushing German troops against the retreating French troops.
"Get out of here!" Gaston shouted to Christine in an imperative tone, with some sarcasm in his tone: "Tell Joffre that I launched the attack according to his orders and hold on until the last moment!"
…
In this battle, the "Saint-Samond M21" was almost wiped out, and only a few tank soldiers survived, but they were either burned or knocked unconscious.
The deaths of the others were extremely tragic, and the body of the regiment commander Gaston was never found. People had no way of knowing which of the charred or blown-to-piece bodies were his.
However, they successfully covered the retreat of the main force of the 1st Special Artillery Division.
When the German army was chasing Christine closely, Charles' First Tank Brigade appeared in time to block the German army on the road of attack.
Since the accurate data and tactics of the German new tanks were known in advance, and the "Char A1" was equipped with additional armor, even if the German tanks were equipped with 57MM artillery, they could not penetrate it head-on. Therefore, the German army was defeated by the First Tank Brigade without any surprise.
But the artillery is not really important.
When Charles learned that the Germans relied on K bullets to fight, he ordered his troops to hang sandbags on both sides of the tanks and keep them at the height of the enemy's machine guns.
As before, the German army did not use tank guns but instead placed its hopes on machine guns equipped with K bullets.
In principle, this is not a problem. The accuracy of tank guns at this time was very low, and even if the target was only a few feet away, the high-density shooting of machine guns was much more reliable in comparison.
However, it was not until the moment they passed each other that the German machine gunners discovered with horror that they were facing not the enemy's side armor, but sandbags.
Bullets were fired one after another, but the only damage they could cause was to make holes in the sandbags, from which sand spilled out.
At the same time, the tank gun of "Charler A1" had rotated to an angle and waited quietly until the two sides passed each other and the side armor faced vertically to its 37 gun, then it opened fire with a "boom".
One after another, German tanks were paralyzed on the battlefield, emitting smoke and burning.
This tank was developed to target the "Charr A1", but unexpectedly it was targeted by the "Charr A1" on the battlefield.
…
After suffering a disastrous defeat on the ground, the German army finally could not hold back and dispatched new fighter jets. They hoped to make up for the disadvantage for the ground forces by fighting for air supremacy.
Major General Nicolas intended to use it to block the desperate "carpet bombing" of bombers.
Although the Fokker E1 fighter has a maximum speed of 133 kilometers per hour, it is still not as fast as the Caproni bomber's 137 kilometers per hour.
But there was almost no difference between the two, and the Fokker E1 had a small and flexible fuselage, so it could indeed shoot down the Caproni in actual combat.
It is even easier to deal with France's Avro fighter jet, which has a speed of only 100 kilometers per hour.
Once the German army has complete control of the air, it can use its air superiority and the 105MM howitzers to suppress Charles' tank forces.
But unfortunately, the French army did develop a new fighter just as Nicolas expected, and it was a new fighter that was much faster and more maneuverable than the "Fokker E1": the "Camel".
(The picture above shows the "Camel" fighter, with an engine of 150 horsepower and a maximum speed of 187 kilometers per hour. It pioneered the use of a smooth curved fairing on the nose, and the two machine guns also used fairings that looked like camel humps, so it was named "Camel". It was the first fighter to use aerodynamic shape to increase speed)
The air battle was one-sided, and German planes were shot down one after another like turkeys with their tails burned.
Finally, the German army still had planes, but they did not dare to fly into the air to fight.
Colonel Yinmelmann, who was in charge of commanding the fighter operations, stared blankly at the telegram from the front line, on which was written a cold and cruel number: 43 to 1.
43 planes were lost and only 1 enemy plane was shot down.
Moreover, it is estimated that the plane was shot down by the German army because its engine malfunctioned and it was unable to accelerate.
"This is not an air battle, this is a massacre." Colonel Yin Meiman gritted his teeth and ordered: "Order all troops to withdraw to the airport."
"Colonel," the staff officer replied, "but Major General Nicholas wants us to send all the fighter planes up. He said this is very important, otherwise the infantry will be devastated by the enemy's bombers."
Colonel Yin Meiman was silent for a while, but finally shook his head and said, "No, tell Major General Nicholas that we can't stop anything. Doing so will only increase the loss of fighter planes and the casualties of pilots, meaningless casualties."
The most important of these is the pilot.
Immelmann knew this. The skilled German pilots had suffered heavy casualties under the continuous bombing by the French. If they were pushed forward to die, even if Germany built faster fighter planes capable of competing with the enemy in the future, it would still be at a disadvantage because it did not have enough pilots.
(End of this chapter)
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