Northeast of Warsaw, the Modlin Fortress, one of the two gates guarding the Polish capital, is located at the confluence of the Dengburg and Vistula rivers, and has always been a strategic point for the Polish army's defense, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

After the Germans repeatedly protested against the Polish government's refusal to return Danzig, the Poles did not think about war with Germany and about intensifying their defenses in the direction of Germany, but this was largely only in the words of the generals.

After all, the Germans are just protesting verbally, so what are they afraid of?

Today, Poland has finally tasted the bitter fruits of its own sowing. The German Führer of that dog-day day not only shouted loudly in his mouth, but also moved his hands without any ambiguity.

First, Poland was described by Reinhardt as an aggressor, and then the Germans counterattacked Poland like lightning.

Now, the German vanguard had arrived at the city, cutting off the fortress of Modlin from Warsaw.

However, fortunately, the status of the fortress is very important, the weapons and ammunition, food, medicine and drinking water in it are abundant, and the morale of the soldiers is also good.

After successfully repelling a tentative German attack, some people were even optimistic that they could use the fortress of Modlin to contain the Germans and consume their strength.

Then, if France and Britain stab Germany in the back again, Poland can organize a counteroffensive to regain lost territory, and then enter Germany itself and reach the peak of history.

If he had won this time, it would not have been as simple as letting Germany cede Danzig.

But the beautiful imagination was not long interrupted, not because of the delay of the British and French, but because of the beginning of a serious German attack on the fortress of Modlin.

After the failure of a reckless tentative attack by the vanguard, the commander of the German Army Group North, Colonel General Bock, continued to besiege the fortress of Modlin.

Although the Poles also wanted to organize a counteroffensive, because the Germans had already built various fortifications around the fortress of Modlin, and the people of the fortress were already enough to defend inside, it would be a bit worse if they went out to attack.

So, the offensive plan came to naught.

After learning the news of the German siege of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the defenders of the fortress were also in a hurry, but there was nothing they could do.

As soon as the troops left the fortified area, the German artillery deployed in the firing corners of the artillery in the fortified area would immediately take good care of them. In addition, the German snipers have not been idle.

After several unsuccessful attempts to support Warsaw, the Supreme Commander of the Modlin Fortress also abandoned this impractical operation. After all, there is no problem with their attitude, and the problem is ability.

But today, things have changed!

The defenders inside the fortress could faintly see through the binoculars that there was clearly a reinforcement from the German side, and it was suspected that there was a lot of large equipment.

But the distance was so far that the Polish troops inside the fortress could not tell what it was.

The supreme commander of the Polish fortress was very worried, in case it was a German siege artillery, his own colors were not enough for others to stuff their teeth.

In World War I, the German Krupp 420 mm Belsa was famous, and the whole of Europe was not clear.

And Skoda's 15-inch siege gun is the same, which can be called a fortress nemesis!

Now the Skoda factory is in the hands of Germany, and Krupp is Germany's chief artillery supplier, who knows what crazy things these factories have made?!

However, the Poles can be said to have guessed correctly, or they can be said not to have guessed correctly. Germany did come up with an experimental siege weapon, but it was not a large-caliber mortar of a frenzied state, but an assault gun!

The German engineers lengthened the chassis of the No. 3 assault gun to nine load-bearing wheels on one side, and then deducted a fighting compartment with 100 mm frontal armor and a 45-degree inclination, and installed a 150 mm cannon in the middle.

Thus, the Grizzly assault gun, which is more formidable than in history, was born.

Now, the guys were parked on German positions, and next to the four Grizzly assault guns, there was an even bigger guy who stood out from the crowd.

The big guy snapped a heavy aft fighting compartment on an experimental heavy chassis and mounted a 170mm cannon with a truncated barrel.

The whole layout is very crude, it is completely simple stacking, especially the 170mm barrel, although it has been truncated because of the weight reduction, it still looks hideous.

And this 170mm gun, which is now only 32 times larger, still shows unparalleled destructive power when it was tested at the shooting range.

When firing concrete-destroying projectiles against common reinforced concrete fortifications, it is often able to destroy bunkers that are immune to ordinary 150mm howitzers with just one shot.

As the German engineers say, when this cannon fires a grenade, a single cannon can even destroy a building!

All this, the Poles did not know. Of course, even if they knew, there was nothing they could do.

But when these five tanks, which were part of the experimental units equipped with the equipment, attacked, the Poles immediately understood a little. Any weapon in his hand is helpless against them with thick skin.

When it was discovered that the shells of the Polish 75 rapid-fire guns were completely useless to themselves, the German assault guns immediately became even more unscrupulous.

Moreover, the area they chose to attack was precisely because of the terrain restrictions of the fortress, and the area of the dead angle of the firepower of the Polish large-caliber artillery was set aside.

Originally, the Poles wanted to blockade this place with 75 rapid-fire guns and British 5-pounder howitzers, but when they saw Grizzly Bear eat a 25-pound grenade with 100mm armor, they just paused and continued to move on, the Poles despaired!

The five German tanks came to a halt near the fortress, then adjusted their hulls, aimed at their assigned targets, and began to rain shells on the Polish fortress.

Concrete bombs are flying into the air with shrapnel and the limbs of soldiers in the fortress, and these steel behemoths are tearing down the fortified areas that Poland has worked so hard to build!

"God, who will save us!" A young Polish soldier wailed.

"Warsaw is besieged, who can save us? Wait for death......." Beside the young soldier, the pessimistic veteran was spreading his desperate rhetoric.

Ten meters away, their Polish platoon commander also heard the complaints of the veterans. However, the platoon commander did not step forward to stop the veteran's behavior of influencing the morale of the army, because he himself had already been affected........

Every time the grizzlies fired their guns, they hammered into the hearts of all the Poles. The sudden muffled sound of 170-mm guns was a sign that another fortress had been destroyed by the German "demolition team".

The sound of the artillery was intermittent for an hour and a half, after all, while the assault guns had heavy armor and huge guns, they inevitably had to pay a price.

The price of this is the slow speed and bomb load.

The Grizzly has a bomb load of only 30 rounds, but the gun barrel installed is longer than it is in history. In addition, despite the lengthened chassis, the ammunition load of the Grizzly assault gun was reduced by 8 rounds.

The 170mm heavy assault gun has a smaller load, only a measly 18 rounds!

However, the reason why the approaching shelling stopped this time was not because the shells were exhausted, but because the crew of the assault guns was exhausted and had to choose to retreat.

The members of the Grizzly Assault Gun are better, but this 170-mm heavy assault gun weighs 70 kg of projectiles alone! Even with two loaders in the large aft fighting compartment, it is not light after a round of shelling. Therefore, their drivers could only put on reverse gear and withdraw first.

But the Germans were not limited to these means of attack!

As soon as the assault guns retreated to the German positions, a group of small black dots appeared on the horizon. As the little black dots grew larger, their identities were gradually exposed to the defenders of the Polish fortress - it was a group of Stuka!

With the piercing "laugh" produced by the friction with the air during the dive, the Stuka bombers, who dived down almost vertically, threw special armor-piercing shells on the roof of the Polish fortress with great precision.

With the speed of the dive, the 500-kilogram armor-piercing projectile easily penetrated the reinforced concrete roof and then detonated inside the fortress.

After the formation of Stuka bombers dropped their bombs, they flew over the fortress without fear, as if silently mocking the "shrunken turtles" in the fortress.

What they left behind was the Polish fortress, which had been reduced to a large ruin.

In the distance, Colonel Erhard, the supreme commander of the German experimental unit, who was watching all this through the magnification telescope, smiled contemptuously and said lightly to the adjutant:

"It is recorded that the two experimental assault guns are very ideal for attacking fortified areas, especially the 170 mm concrete destruction shells, in fact, the combat damage capacity has exceeded the domestic range experiment, and the preliminary estimate is that the cement mark of the Polish bunker is low."

"For the record, assault guns are weak in maneuverability and are not adapted to large-scale maneuvers. Correspondingly, its defensive capabilities were very prominent, and it was basically immune to the attacks of the Polish army. ”

"Also, the 500mm armor-piercing projectiles thrown by Stuka dive are particularly effective at attacking the top of the fort. However, the results were achieved in the case of Poland's loss of air supremacy and the lack of anti-aircraft artillery protection of the target, and the combat effectiveness in the case of interference from other factors has yet to be determined. ”

"—above, the Waffen-SS Weapons Experimental Regiment."