Chapter 423 Molotov cocktail
The battle became one-sided as soon as it started.
The German soldiers were holding shovels instead of weapons, and their rifles were piled up under the torches with their muzzles facing upwards.
When the gunshots rang out, the German soldiers immediately dropped their shovels and ran towards the guns, but bullets whizzed in and knocked them down in a pool of blood.
The German army couldn't even extinguish the torches because grenades were being thrown into the trenches one by one. At the same time, the French 75 guns also fired, and the shells hit the trenches accurately, instantly creating a strip of smoke.
The nearby torches were also blown away by the fierce artillery fire. Only a few of them remained, flickering fiercely in the night wind, illuminating the panicked and fleeing German troops.
The French army did not give them a chance to escape. Soon the artillery fire began to extend, throwing groups of German soldiers into the air and then dropping them heavily.
At this time, the tanks came up from the darkness with a "clattering" sound. Behind each tank was a group of French soldiers. They advanced and fired their guns, killing the surviving German soldiers one by one.
Compared with the daytime battle, the night battle was more brutal because Charles gave the order to take no prisoners.
Tijani was a little surprised by this. He hesitated and said, "I thought you wouldn't do this."
In Tijani's eyes, Charles has always been a positive and kind person, even childish. Words like "take no prisoners" don't seem to be something Charles could say.
But Charles' tone was surprisingly firm:
"We are an infiltration force, General."
"More importantly, the situation of night fighting is unclear. Once it gets into a melee, our mechanized forces may suffer heavy losses."
"This determines our survival, we have no choice but to do this!"
Tijani was silent for a while.
He understood what Charles meant. Visibility was poor at night and all the soldiers could see clearly was a silhouette. They couldn't tell whether the other party was raising his gun to shoot or raising his hands to surrender.
Any hesitation would have been fatal if the enemy had infiltrated the French army.
"I agree." Tijani answered with difficulty.
Compared with the German army's use of poison gas on the battlefield, what does not taking prisoners matter?
Tijani used this reason to convince himself.
…
The tank tracks rolled over the corpses of the German soldiers as they moved forward, and the air was filled with the smell of blood and gunpowder.
In the flickering red light of the torch, the rags hanging on the tracks were vaguely visible. They seemed to be still dripping with blood, and there were clumps of things falling down, and it was impossible to tell whether they were minced meat or mud.
Since the German army did not have time to widen the trenches, the "Charger A1" easily crossed the trenches and continued to advance.
The torches were extinguished one by one by the French soldiers, which would undoubtedly illuminate the tanks and make them targets for enemy artillery.
The world fell into darkness again, with only the artillery fire blasting out bright lights ahead, like lightning before a storm.
The German fortress never opened fire.
They were unable to open fire. Before, they could vaguely see French tanks under the torches, but in front of the tanks were fleeing German troops, running in extremely dense groups, and the tanks almost crushed them forward.
If you open fire at this time, even if you hit the target accurately, you will accidentally injure many friendly forces.
After just a moment's hesitation, the few remaining torches were extinguished one by one, and the fortress gunners could only stare blankly at the endless darkness outside the observation hole.
…
After Major General Marcus fell on the front line, Staff Officer Rolf immediately took over command of the defense line.
The moment the battle started, he knew that the first line of defense could not be held, so he decisively abandoned it and retreated to the second line of defense with his men.
This line of defense is the last barrier of the outer fortress. 100 meters behind it is the fortress defense circle. If it is breached, the outer fortress will be completely useless.
"Hold on!" Rolf shouted amid the gunfire. "The enemy tanks can't see us, they don't know where to shoot, we can stop them!"
Rolf believed that the enemy pushed tanks onto the battlefield at night, in addition to blocking bullets for the charging soldiers, another purpose was to try to scare their opponents and make them collapse and flee.
We must not be fooled, Rolf told himself, they have no ability to fight at night, they are just paper tigers!
However……
A faint flame arced through the darkness and fell into the trench. After a crisp sound of breaking glass, a huge fire suddenly broke out.
Two German soldiers were set on fire. They waved their arms, shouted, rolled and jumped. The surrounding soldiers rushed forward to try to put out the fire, but unfortunately they were also affected. Another person was hugged tightly by the "fire man" and was also trapped in the flames, screaming and unable to break free.
Rolf exclaimed: "What is that?"
But this was just the beginning. Before the German army could react, another series of flames rolled in, and the trenches were instantly on fire.
The German army was screaming in agony as the fire burned. The trenches were like a crack from hell, filled with death, pain and despair.
At this time, the sound of machine guns and artillery fire from the tanks rang out. They accurately fired bullets and artillery shells at the parapets and sandbags of the German trenches. The German soldiers lying behind them were killed one row after another with screams.
Only then did Rolf realize that he had thought too simply. Charles had a way to give the tanks night combat capabilities. Even if this night combat capability had limitations, it was enough to deal with a pure trench defense system.
…
This was the "magic weapon" that Charles used to convince Colonel Estiny.
Colonel Estiny, who had a full understanding of "Charle A1", continued to persuade Charles in the headquarters:
"General, I still hope you will carefully consider fighting at night."
"The 'Charter A1' is a light tank, it is only 5 meters long including the tail support."
"The enemy's trench is about 2 meters wide, so we must determine the direction of the enemy's trench."
"Otherwise, let alone fighting, the tanks would risk their lives just to move on that kind of terrain. There's no need for the enemy to blow it up!"
Charles understood what Colonel Estiny meant.
"Char A1" must cross the trench at an accurate 90-degree angle to pass through.
If the tank is off even just a little, it could fall into the trench and become unable to move, killing or injuring the tank crew.
(Note: The Renault tank is 1.75 meters wide and can easily fall into a 2-meter-wide trench)
This seems easy to do during the day, but it is an impossible task to avoid it in the dark night, especially since the trench is not a straight line, but an irregular "Z" shape, and there are densely packed traffic trenches.
"We can circumvent this by using infantry coordination," Charles replied.
"No, General." Estiny shook his head: "The tank soldiers can't hear the infantry's shouts in the roaring engine..."
"I didn't say we should use shouting to coordinate." Charles interrupted Estiny: "We can use Molotov cocktails."
"Molotov cocktail?" Estiny was stunned: "What is a Molotov cocktail?"
(End of this chapter)
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