The performance of both German tank companies and French armoured forces before the official exchange of fire made everyone fall through their glasses, and German historians even used the word unimaginable stupidity to describe the reaction of both sides at this time in their comments on the beginning of this bloody battle.

The German tank group was trying to demonstrate what it meant to be overly careful, and Snyder commanded his company to retreat as fast as he could, and he didn't even order his tank to put a gun or two to test the French resolve to attack.

The French tank commander was cautious enough at this time, perhaps he did not understand the reason for the German retreat, or it was possible that the burning wreckage of the French tank had caused him to have a psychological effect, and for whatever reason, he made a puzzling decision. The French tank group suddenly slowed down its advance, and they did not fire, but only silently and slowly moved in the direction of the German tank group at a walking speed.

So the troops on both sides distanced themselves between pushing and advancing, one side retreating quietly, and the other side silently approaching, and the two sides were tense but neither side was willing to fire first, this scene would indeed feel a little strange.

Snyder made a foolish mistake by not taking the French tanks by surprise when they were not on the verge of gaining a foothold, and if he had done so, he would probably not have been caught in the bloody battle that followed, and might have been able to seize the initiative on the battlefield.

And now on the contrary, he actually gave the French time to stand still, not only so that the enemy could slowly figure out their strength, but also gave the other side the opportunity to grasp the initiative on the battlefield, and in order to make up for this mistake, Snyder paid a heavy price.

But then again, there was a reason for Snyder to give this order at the time, after all, Snyder had never met that kind of opponent, and he knew very little about the performance and strength of those French tanks, so it was indeed difficult for him to take the initiative to attack in such a situation.

After all, German tank commanders are professionally trained, rational and pragmatic professional soldiers, and they will not consider risking their troops unless they have to, and the stupid audacity of the Americans, full of western cowboy style, is almost impossible to find in the German ** team.

There are exceptions, of course, such as the fact that at the same time, the biggest fool in the German Army was leading a bunch of his kind to rush here. The topic is a bit far away, so let's continue to understand the situation at that time.

At the very time when the German ** team made the mistake first, if the French commander had been shrewd enough to take advantage of this, the destruction of the German tank group would not have become very difficult. Because at that time, the tank performance of the French armored forces was not much behind the German tanks, and in some places it was superior to the German tanks.

And the French already had an overwhelming superiority in both firepower and numbers, and if the French tank commander had enough fighting determination and fighting ** and skillful command skills, then he could launch a quick and powerful attack on the Germans with all his tanks, relying on his superiority in numbers and firepower to wipe them out in one fell swoop before the Germans realized their mistake.

But alas, the French commander obviously did not have the qualities above, and the French army colonel Jean. De Valyel had never had any military talent, let alone command skills, and the reason he was able to sit in this position was only because he had been in the armored forces and had a high enough rank. The Luftwaffe had worn out his fighting resolve and courage with its endless bombardment, and his courage had already drifted away with the smoke rising from the wreckage of the French tanks, and now the tragic annihilation of those forward units made him overestimate the strength of the German tanks.

As a result, the crappy armored commander made the same mistake as the Germans, and his excessive caution caused him to miss the best chance to deliver a fatal blow to the German tank forces, and he also gave the other side time to reconsider their tactics. The colonel, who commanded the main tank regiment with seventy tanks, received the final promotion for this mistake of his own.

When the distance between the two sides was stretched to a thousand meters, the German tank group finally stopped retreating. They had already rested their formation on the way to retreat, and the nineteen tanks were divided into three rows, each seventy meters apart, and formed a box attack formation centered on the two tanks of the company.

Five minutes after the two sides began that ridiculous standoff, the Germans first lost patience, and Snyder decided to end the stupid tango with their 75mm cannons, and the pitched battle began.

"One platoon attacked the French tank on the left flank, two platoons and three platoons attacked the center, and four platoons attacked the right flank, let's see what we can do. With a high-explosive grenade, prepare a salvo" Snyder calmly gave the order.

Now the tank commander was trying to recall in his head about the French tank in the headquarters briefing.

In the early stages of the French campaign, only Reinhardt's Panzer Corps had the good fortune to encounter this French tank, which caused a lot of suffering to the German Panzers, and although the tankmen eventually destroyed the B1s, they also suffered heavy losses from an entire platoon of No. 2 and three No. 3 tanks.

In later battles, the German ** team captured an entire regiment of this tank in one interspersed operation. At that time, the army attached great importance to this, and they hurriedly transported one of these tanks back to Germany for analysis and research by domestic research institutions.

After simple measurements and experiments, the experts of the German Armament Bureau concluded that it was a weapon comparable to the German No. 4 tank in some indices, and although it had many fatal flaws, this did not erase its brilliance. The experts asserted that the German Army would never have been able to capture them so easily without losses if the B1 tanks belonging to the French 1st Panzer Division had not consumed all the fuel on the road full of refugees and were waiting to be refilled.

However, Germany's bloated bureaucracy prevented this valuable research material from reaching the Army in a timely manner, and as a result, Snyder received only a brief briefing and a fine message from the headquarters.

Although the command clearly instructed him in the note not to fight the French B1 tank without the support of large-caliber artillery, it did not explain the reason. If it weren't for a simple sketch attached to the proclamation, Snyder and the others might not even know what the B1 tank looked like.

The crudeity of the information and the vagueness of the proclamation led to the current situation, and Snyder was misled by the intellect, and it was true that he did not underestimate the combat prowess of this Gallic chariot, but the key problem was that he miscalculated the thickness of his opponent's armor.

The French B1 tank weighed 31 tons, which at the time was between a medium and heavy tank, and more than nine tons heavier than the German No. 4 tank, which was also a medium tank. This tank has frontal armor 60 mm thick, and the weakest point is also 40 mm thick.

However, as a result of the French's pursuit of this protection, the B1 completely lost its maneuverability as a tank, and its top speed on the road was only 27 kilometers per hour, and the speed in off-road conditions was even more predictable.

In fact, this has something to do with the outdated combat thinking of the French, who have never regarded the tank as a weapon used alone, in their eyes the tank is only a tool to assist the infantry in combat. Because of this, in their opinion, the tank only needs to be able to keep up with the pace of the infantry attack, and does not need to be very mobile.

The tank was armed with two main guns, one mounted on the front of the hull, right next to the driver, a 75mm howitzer, which was mounted in such a way that its firing range was almost fixed, and the French tankers had to turn the hull to aim at the target, for which the tank was specially equipped with a sophisticated hydraulic differential device for accurate aiming. The other was a 47mm 35x gun mounted in a small turret on the roof, which was more powerful than the 37mm gun mounted on the No. 3 tank.

Although it was about the size of the German No. 4, it was taller than any German tank of the time, so the German infantrymen nicknamed it the "Giant". Judging by the data, it belongs to the same class as the No. 4 tank, which can be said to be on par. But in reality, it has some fatal weaknesses, which are not shown by the data, which can only be discovered in real battles, and the French tankers paid for them with their lives.

"High-explosive shells ready."

Karl, the loader, pushed a high-explosive armor-piercing round into the chamber, and the young loader leaned over the observation window on his side, looking curiously at the advancing French tanks in the distance.

"Nine hundred and thirty meters away." The artillery commander reported solemnly.

"Attention, fire!"

Snyder gave the order to open fire loudly, and a dull cannon sounded, and the tail of the 75mm gun slammed back, and the huge force made the heavy body of the tank shake, and a strong smell of fire filled the turret. When the shelling was over, Snyder poked his head out of the conning tower and held up his binoculars to observe the effects of the shelling.

There is a reason why Snyder chose a high-explosive grenade over an armor-piercing one. Although the trajectory of the cap-piercing projectile is relatively straight, the hit rate is higher than that of the high-explosive projectile, and it should be the preferred target when attacking tanks. But this was not the case, and the commanders of the IV tank were very fond of using high-explosive armor-piercing shells in the early battles.

The reason for this is that high-explosive armor-piercing grenades are more effective than armor-piercing shells when dealing with certain armored targets. The early model of the German Tank IV was equipped with a short-barreled 75 mm gun with a 24 times diameter, which was not an anti-tank gun in the first place, but more like an infantry gun in terms of performance.

The German Army's initial assignment of the position to Tank No. 4 was to be used as a fire support and command vehicle to support Tank No. 3 in combat, and it did not require him to engage in a head-on confrontation with the opposing armored targets. However, after the outbreak of the war, the use of this tank deviated from the expectations of the War Office, and the fourth tank was pushed to the forefront of the battle. Due to its greater firepower than the Three, it was used as a workhorse tank on many occasions.

However, although it has a 75 mm main gun, the barrel of that gun is too short, which directly leads to the fact that the muzzle velocity of the shells it fires is not very high. The muzzle velocity of the shell is the most critical indicator related to the armor-piercing ability of the shell, without sufficient speed, the armor-piercing projectile will not have enough kinetic energy to penetrate the opponent's armor. No matter how hard the warhead is, it needs to have a huge amount of kinetic energy to work, and this is precisely what the 75 gun of the fourth tank lacks.

The high-explosive armor-piercing grenade is different, speaking of which is related to its armor-piercing method, when the German ** team used a molded charge armor-piercing projectile, which relied on the high-temperature metal jet generated during the explosion to penetrate the armor plate. This means that it doesn't need a high muzzle velocity, as long as it can be detonated by a projectile hitting the opponent's hard armor plate. In addition, no matter if this shell is fired at any distance, its armor-piercing depth is the same, and there will be no situation where the armor-piercing ability will be reduced due to too long a distance.

What's even more surprising is that the armor-piercing power of the armor-piercing projectile fired from the short-barreled gun of the No. 4 tank is not as good as the high-explosive armor-piercing projectile, because the weight of the armor-piercing projectile is about two kilograms heavier than the high-explosive armor-piercing projectile, which makes its muzzle velocity worse than the high-explosive projectile, which can only reach a pitiful 385 meters per second, while the high-explosive armor-piercing projectile can reach 452 meters per second, and the armor-piercing projectile fired at that initial velocity can only penetrate armor with a thickness of 41 mm and a 60-degree inclination at a distance of 100 meters, if the distance is more than 1,000 meters, Its armor-piercing depth is only 35 mm. High-explosive armor-piercing grenades, on the other hand, can penetrate armor plates at an angle of 45 mm and 60 degrees at any distance.

The German commanders were very shrewd, and after comparisons, they learned which shells to use in which situations. In this situation, Snyder's choice of high-explosive armor-piercing rounds was a wise choice.

In less than two seconds, the first shells of German tanks hit the heads of the French armored forces. The high-explosive grenade exploded in the first row of French tanks, and Snyder was very satisfied with the attack, he saw that more than half of the shells hit the target, and even if they missed, they also exploded very close to the French tanks, and according to his previous experience, this kind of close misses can also bring great damage to the target.

But when the smoke cleared, Snyder was stunned by the sight in front of him. The French tanks that had been hit only paused for a moment, and then began to move slowly towards them, and the French tanks that had been hit by the near misses did not even pause for a moment. It seemed as if Snyder's first attack had caused no real damage to the opponent except for a few black spots on the front armor of several French tanks, and Snyder's cold sweat came down at that time.

"What a monster, its main armor seems thicker than we thought."

Snyder decided to change his tactics, since he could not destroy the opponent from a distance, then he could still fight the French in close combat, the tracks, engines and body sides were the usual weak points of French tanks, Snyder did not believe that the French could cast the side armor as strong as the front armor.

"The platoons are paying attention, moving at full speed, keeping in formation, and firing at the decoy of the platoon. Try to attack the opponent's tracks, and disable them first. ”

Snyder coldly gave the order, he found himself in an awkward situation, his tank could not destroy the opponent's tank at such a distance, he hoped that the French had better not have this ability, otherwise he would be really miserable.

The tank group reacted swiftly to the order, and all the tanks began to accelerate forward. German tank companies approached the French tank units in a neat box-attack formation.

"302, I'm 301, keep your distance."

Snyder shouted orders to his wingman, but before he could finish, a sudden and violent explosion drowned out his words.

The French finally launched the first wave of attacks on him, probably to vent their frustration with their commanders on their opponents, and the French artillery fire was rapid and intense.

At that moment, the driver Rawitt felt that the ground in front of him had disappeared, and the tanks of his comrades in front of him had also lost their traces, and in place of these was a dazzling firelight, and huge fireballs kept rising in front of his eyes, feeling as if the whole world was burning, and the scorching waves of air poured into the cab from the armored observation window, Rawitt quickly lowered the armor cover on the observation window, and then pulled down the eyepiece of the driving periscope.

Although the shelling of the French tanks lasted only three seconds, it seemed like a lifetime in the hearts of these German tankers.

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