"These shrubs are a nuisance!" "And those bush scissors that we were given up above are even more annoying, and they hardly ever work well." ”

In France, farmers used to plant shrubs in their fields as a fence separating them. These shrubs are very pliable, when the tank knocks them away and runs over them. The flexible branches of these shrubs can easily get caught in the tracks and get tangled around the load wheels. In order to move freely in such an environment, the U.S. military prepared a kind of bush scissors for its tanks. This thing is mounted on the front of the tank and can cut the bushes so that when the tank drives over, there will be no problem with the load wheels getting tangled in the bushes. Theoretically, in this way, the American tanks would gain battlefield maneuvers that surpassed those of the German tanks. In order to ensure that the load wheels do not get entangled, German tanks generally avoid those bushes, which makes German tanks almost only maneuver along the road, and American tanks that can pass through bush fences at will will also have many opportunities to go around the enemy's side and fire.

Yes, go around behind the enemy's flank and open fire. Most of the M4 tanks that the U.S. military put into use in Normandy were models with only 75mm guns. The power of this cannon is completely behind the times, and the reputation of the M4 is dragged down by this cannon. With this gun, the M4 tank would be at a disadvantage even when facing an old thing like Tank 4. As for the tigers and leopards, even at zero distance, this gun could not penetrate their frontal armor - neither the head nor the turret. The Tiger Leopard, on the other hand, can easily penetrate the front armor of the M4 from a distance of 1,500 meters. So, to deal with the leopard, the M4 with a 75-mm gun can only find a way to go around the side of the leopard, and only by firing from the side can it penetrate the leopard. If the opponent is a tiger, it is not only necessary to fire from the side, but also from a relatively close distance from the side to have a chance of penetrating the tiger's side armor - compared to the leopard, which has almost all the armor in the front, the tiger's side armor is much thicker.

If you're unlucky and you come across a 70-ton King Tiger, well, the best thing to do is to draw a circle and curse it: "Fault it!" Let's go out of order! Break down right away! "Because even at an extremely close distance, the 75-mm gun of the M4 tank could not penetrate its side armor.

Most of the time, this curse is not badly efficient, at least much more reliable than the 75mm short-barreled gun. On the Eastern Front, at one point, the Soviets captured an intact King Tiger, so they decided to get it back to the rear to study it. How do you ship it back? 40 kilometers away is the railway station, so the Soviets drove the Tiger King and prepared to drive directly to the railway station. And then, well, 40 kilometers of road, the Soviets walked for almost twenty hours, stopped halfway, repaired the car 5 times - an average of every 8 kilometers! This performance of the Tiger King in the hands of the Soviets may also be that the Soviets are used to driving goods like the T-34 and can mess around casually, and the actions are too rough when driving the Tiger King, but it can also be seen how reliable the Tiger King is.

Joyce stopped the M4 tank and jumped out of it. The bush scissors did make the load wheel get tangled away, but it led to another kind of trouble - the bush scissors themselves got tangled in the bush. And the probability of this happening is even higher than the chance of the load wheel getting tangled in a bush branch. And once this thing is entangled and can't move, there is only manual troubleshooting.

However, there are many faults in this thing, but the troubleshooting is also simple. In today's offensive, small group counterattacks by German armored forces are becoming more and more frequent. The chances of encountering enemy tank units have increased dramatically. In this case, it is much safer to march through a bush fence than along a road. So, it's worth taking the time to fix bush scissors.

It took about ten minutes for Joyce's crew to fix the bush scissors, and everyone got into the car and continued driving. In the previous operation, Joyce's tank had fallen behind the large force due to some mechanical problems, and now he had to speed up to catch up.

Activating the bush scissors, jumping over a bush fence, and then, then around a country house, Joyce's eyes widened - a King Tiger tank appeared less than a hundred meters away.

"Quick! Fire! Joyce shouted. The lone King Tiger tank was facing them from the side, and it was probably also left behind. But here they met Joyce and their M4 tanks.

Before King Tiger turned the turret, the M4 tank shè out of an armor-piercing shell. The armor-piercing projectile hit the turret of the King Tiger tank, but it shot off.

"Damn it!" Joyce was about to order the loader to continue reloading, when he saw the barrel of the King Tiger tank slowly turn around.

"It's too late!" Joyce immediately made a judgment that his armor-piercing shells could not penetrate this guy at all, and at this distance, someone could definitely penetrate the M4 tank with one shot. Now I can't even run away if I want to. With the shè and jīng degrees of the Tiger King's long-barreled 88 cannon, this guy can definitely easily kill himself a dozen times before he runs out of his shè cheng.

"Accelerate! Hit him! Joyce immediately gave the order. Relying on the 30-ton M4 to hit the 70-ton Tiger King, this is a bit of an egg hitting a stone, but at this time, this is the only choice. The Tiger King's barrel spins very slowly, and before it turns the barrel around, it will most likely hit it itself.

The M4 tank began to accelerate at maximum horsepower and crashed into the direction of the side behind the King Tiger.

"Hold on!" Joyce shouted. At this time, the turret of the Tiger King was about to turn around.

Joyce's M4 tank slammed into the side of the King Tiger tank, bending the barrel of the King Tiger that had just turned. The huge impact made Joyce's eyes go black, and he passed out at one o'clock. It took him a while before he came to his senses. "Why not? Are you all right? ”

"I'm okay!"

"I'm fine, too."

"My legs aren't a little too good."

"I'm fine."

A few voices came, and it seemed that everyone was fine.

Joyce grabbed his Thompson submachine gun, opened the hatch and got out. He had barely gotten out of his body when he saw King Tiger's hatch open, and a German leaned out of it, holding an MP-40 submachine gun in one of his hands.

Joyce pointed Thompson at the German, who saw that he had lost the lead, so he honestly threw away the MP-40 in his hand, raised his hands, and shouted something at Joyce, as if it was English, but Joyce didn't understand it at all. Joyce pointed a gun at him to prevent him from doing anything as she got out of the tank. Then three more Yankees came out. They climbed into the tanks of the Germans and surrounded the German.

The German guy said something again. This time he spoke slowly, and Joyce finally understood. It's really English, it's just not authentic. When the Germans say it, they actually mean the same thing - I surrender, don't shoot.

"Come out!" Joyce gestured to the guy. He didn't let up, and in the Pacific he had seen too many rì himself pretending to surrender and then playing tricks. This makes him extra jǐngti to anyone who declares that he wants to surrender.

But the Germans seem to be more honest than Rì himself, and the German guy honestly crawled out.

"Tell them, throw your weapons out and surrender! Don't play tricks, or I'll throw a grenade down! ”

The German did the same, and in a few moments several Germans came out.

……

Just when Joyce was proud that he had captured a Tiger King, the large army he was chasing was in a crisis.

The wreckage of eight M4 tanks, as well as the wreckage of several cars, was smoking, and five Leopard tanks had taken out these M4s in almost a few minutes during the ambush just now. However, SS Major Cameron knew that now was not the time to celebrate, and that they had to move immediately, because the enemy attack planes must already be coming this way.

"Move towards Area 2, where there's a hideout." Cameron ordered. Only 5 Leopards remained in his battalion, and in the tank battle, they lost only one Leopard, and the rest were lost to enemy attack aircraft.

"It would be nice if we had our fighters in the sky!" Cameron thought as he directed the remaining five Leopards towards Area 2. There is a wooded area there, where it is possible to hide from enemy attack aircraft.

Cameron also knew that it was actually dangerous to march towards Area 2 now. Just now, that side was also attacked by US armored forces. Cameron knew that there were only a few anti-tank guns over there, and that the Americans would probably have broken through. Staying in that place is actually equivalent to running into the US military-controlled area, and he may be discovered at any time. However, it is the only place there that has the nearest hidden place. If you don't rush there, you will probably not be able to escape the attack of enemy attack aircraft. Therefore, the future situation depends on whether we can hide until the night, and when it gets dark, we will slip back.

At the same time, a group of P/A-47 attack aircraft was rushing towards the area where the tank battle took place. At the same time, the officers of the 21st Attack Aircraft Wing were also analyzing the possible escape directions of the enemy on the map.

"I think it's here, Area 11. If the enemy runs back, then he will not be able to escape from our attack aircraft in any way. A staff officer pointed to the sand table and said to Boeington.

"They're heading here for a chance to escape our attack, but then they're under siege."

"That's better than being killed directly by an attack aircraft. At least there's a chance of sneaking back in the evening. ”

"Command the group, turn straight to Area 11. The Germans are not stupid enough to wait for us in the same place. "Boington gave the final order.

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