The sergeant in command of the air guard post decided to let the machine gunner fire a few bursts to test the situation, he didn't believe that he could achieve anything with the two machine guns, but at least he could deal with the reproach of his superiors procedurally.

It's not that he has lost the courage of a soldier in the face of a powerful enemy, but the contrast between the two sides is too great, as an old non-commissioned officer who has participated in World War I and has rich combat experience, he prefers to think rationally. In the last war, he saw even more ridiculous things, the officers did not know anything about the situation at the front, only relied on their personal imagination to give orders indiscriminately, did not sympathize with the feelings of the soldiers, and just blindly ordered the soldiers to do things brutally, except for sacrificing their own lives and the lives of their subordinates in vain, which did not help the development of the war.

The sergeant had already made the decision to retreat with his men as soon as he realized that the situation was wrong, and no one could blame him for it, because they had done their best.

The machine gunner put down the gun carriage of the heavy machine gun and returned to the flat-firing position from the anti-aircraft state, the machine gunner turned the fine-tuning handwheel of the gun carriage, adjusted the firing position slightly, and then pressed the firing plate between the gun handles, and the Vickers water-cooled machine gun began to fire intermittently at the German formation.

The performance of this imitation of the Maxim machine gun has long been outdated, but the British military top brass is still reluctant to give up this weapon, because there are a lot of entanglements of interests involved, and no one wants to get involved in this kind of trouble that hides a bunch of power and money. In order to make the scene look better, this bulky machine gun has been constantly improving, and each time it is a little more important to get a new model number, and on paper it has become the latest style of advanced weapons, relying on this kind of trick to rely on the equipment list of the British armed forces and refuse to leave.

Having said that, this weapon did a great job in the First World War and made a name for itself, with the English slang phrase "whole nine yards" set against the backdrop of this machine gun. Because it has a nine-yard canvas belt, "full nine yards" means that the ammunition is fully prepared, and then derived from this meaning such as "all out" and "everything ready". However, 20 years have passed since the First World War, and the mode of war has long begun to change, with new tactics such as blitzkrieg, movement warfare, guerrilla warfare, and airborne assault emerging one after another, and infantry weapons have begun to develop in the direction of generalization and lightweight, and the cumbersome weapon of the Vickers water-cooled machine gun is no longer suitable for the needs of modern warfare, and it is being eliminated by the times, just like the empire in which it serves.

The two machine guns stumbled in short bursts, and the heavy had no idea which target to shoot. The field of vision is full of armored vehicles with tongues of fire. The Heavy knew very well that this was not at all a target that he could deal with with his own weapons. He's been looking for a long time, but he hasn't found a single target on foot, all he sees are armored vehicles, oh...... All were armored vehicles that his machine guns couldn't penetrate. The Heavy pressed the trigger in fear, praying that God would not draw the attention of the enemy to him.

However, the reality always backfires, the original mission of these two machine guns was anti-aircraft operations, and the tracer bullets inserted in the cartridge belt are all tracer bullets, and the cyan tracer bullets unique to the British machine guns are very conspicuous on the battlefield. It immediately attracted the attention of two German tanks. On the right flank of the Pinzi assault formation was a No. 3 tank company, and the outermost No. 3 tank was hit by machine gun bullets, and the commander felt that the clanging sound was very annoying, so he slowly turned the turret. A 50-mm shell was fired at the noisy British machine-gun bunker.

By this time, concealment had lost its meaning, and both Britain and Germany began to play with flares and signal flares of various colors to illuminate the field and camp as bright as day. Tank No. 3 did little deliberate aiming. The technology of the armored training battalion fully withstood the test of real combat. The shot was so accurate that the 50mm high-explosive grenade pierced through the earthen bunker as if it were a piece of brown paper, and the warhead exploded in the crowd behind the bunker. After a flash of blinding fire. Flesh and blood splattered in the bunker, and the anti-aircraft guard post fell silent.

At this time, the heavy tank company of the armored training battalion had fired three consecutive salvos, and because of the fear that the smoke would obscure the battlefield and affect the operation, the battalion commander Boulder ordered the assault company to stop using grenades, and he ordered the first-line tanks to use machine gun fire as much as possible to open a passage for the follow-up troops.

At the same time, he ordered the No. 3 Tank Company to prepare to form out, paying special attention to protecting the flanks of the grenadier company, since the Panzergrenadiers would be thrown into close combat immediately after breaking into the local camp, leaving the Panzer Personnel Carrier, and this group of infantry would be a very vulnerable target. Lieutenant Colonel Boulder also took care of the grenadiers to capture as many prisoners as possible, and he needed more information about the British army in order for the plan to go smoothly.

At this time, he also found that the British troops on the opposite side were completely powerless, and his vision was full of bare-handed British soldiers, who had lost their way in the explosions, flames and gunsmoke, and were scurrying around the camp like headless flies, and then they were knocked to the ground by German vehicle-mounted machine guns in rows, and the scene was like a massacre.

The No. 4 Tank Company directly crushed the barbed wire fence outside the camp and rushed unstoppably into the British camp. These ordinary barbed wire fences could not stop the German tanks at all, and Lieutenant Colonel Boulder had always been worried about encountering snake-bellied barbed wire, a nasty obstacle they had encountered outside Dunkirk, and several overconfident tankmen in his battalion had been taught a hard lesson in this matter. The track and the driving wheel of the No. 3 tank were wrapped with this elastic steel wire gillnet, and as a result, the track was stuck, and the driver could not change gears, causing the engine to stall, and the British infantry lying in ambush around him swarmed with Molotov cocktails.

However, after landing on British soil, he has not seen similar equipment so far, but there are some barbed wire barricades wrapped around the triangular wooden fence, but after testing, it was found that this is not the same thing as encountered in France, the barbed wire here may be a trouble for the infantry, but it is a little fragile for the tank, basically it breaks when it is pulled, and it cannot be entangled in the tank track at all.

According to the people in the intelligence department, it seems that this kind of barbed wire has high requirements for the material, to be precise, it should be called steel wire mesh, and after processing, it must undergo special heat treatment to maintain sufficient elasticity and toughness. Due to the current shortage of raw materials in the UK, they can no longer afford to produce such cheap and effective anti-tank barriers.

The German tankmen who stormed the camp were so excited by the bloody battle scenes that many of the loaders of the No. 4 crew even opened the side doors of the turret, threw grenades outward, and opened fire on the British soldiers outside the car with MP40 submachine guns for self-defense.

The British infantry in this area was to be a formed infantry regiment, and these soldiers were to be arranged in the open space outside the tents, with their weapons crossed and arranged in accordance with the rules of the British camp. As a result, when they woke up from their sleep, they only had a set of military uniforms on their bodies, and many of them did not even have time to put on leather shoes. Barefoot with ammunition and ammunition equipment rushed out of the tent, and was then strafed by German tank machine gun fire on the head and face.

The British infantry faced the oncoming steel beast empty-handed, and the other party was still frantically pouring deadly bullets at them, this terrifying picture was deeply engraved into the memory of everyone present, and accompanied many of them for life, they will never forget the desperate powerlessness at that time, and they were completely powerless in the face of a strong enemy, and could only watch death approach them.

Survivors recall that many people were so frightened that they urinated**, which made the German grenadiers who followed the capture mock for a long time at the cowardice of the British soldiers. In fact, the cowardice of the British soldiers cannot be blamed. The German soldiers were not much better than they had been shown to be.

The deterrent power of the tank cannot be understood by those who have not seen the real thing, and only when you actually stand in front of the steel monster and touch the heavy armor plate on the front of the hull with your own hands, you will feel how vulnerable human beings are in front of this sophisticated killing machine. Even more terrifying is the tank's superior firepower that completely surpasses the infantry. Each tank is an armored machine-gun fort, which is a completely unfair confrontation for an infantry platoon with only two machine guns, not to mention that the tanks are equipped with main guns of various calibers. This is the ferocious direct fire that infantry companies do not necessarily have.

The British infantry were now confronted by the 48 vehicle-mounted machine guns of the No. 4 Tank Company, which were well supplied with ammunition and supplies, which was more powerful than their entire infantry battalion. Rows of bullets swept across the battlefield like flaming brooms, mercilessly taking the lives of British soldiers.

Some of the British infantrymen were lucky enough to pick up a rifle, and they immediately began to shoot in vain at the oncoming tanks, which was entirely a reflex action, a simple instinctive reaction, and some of the captured soldiers remembered this scene afterwards and realized how stupid their actions were, and they were glad that they had survived that kind of battle.

But not everyone was so lucky, most of the infantry who fired at the German tanks became a number on the list of the dead, and the Germans did not have time to identify the corpses one by one, they just removed the identification cards of the soldiers, and buried all the dead in a grave pit, and then planted a cross tombstone on it, engraved the total number of personnel and the number of the troops.

Immediately following the heavy tank company, the next two No. 3 tank companies also rushed into the camp, and with the addition of this group of tanks with 50mm rapid-fire guns, the battle or one-sided killing began to heat up.

Some British soldiers used Mills grenades to launch melee attacks on German tanks, not to mention that such things could not damage the tanks at all, unless you happened to be lucky enough to throw them into the hull of the tank, and just commenting on this kind of behavior would be completely suicidal in the combat conditions of the time.

The German tanks were in very tight formations, with a wide field of view and few obstacles between vehicles, and all tanks were able to get two or more friendly vehicles to defend each other, and anyone who approached the tanks would be fired at by three or four machine guns. The brave soldiers didn't have time to throw their weapons, and the moment they swooped out of their hiding places, they turned into a corpse full of holes, and some of the British soldiers who were too impatient opened the safety of the grenades early, so when they were knocked down by the Germans, they were blown up by their own weapons.

At this stage of the battle, the German panzers were no longer limited to driving the oppressive infantry in front of them, and under the command of the company commanders, the troops began to slowly spread out in formation, and the No. 3 tank company on the right flank increased its speed and advanced along the edge of the camp to the depth of the British camp.

The infantry in the rear camp of the Fifth Infantry Division finally gathered in a hurry in the chaos, and the soldiers were equipped with their own weapons, relying on sandbag bunkers and air raid trenches, ready to defend and counterattack on the spot.

But when they found out that the Germans were beginning to outflank them, the soldiers' will to fight was instantly shaken. At this time, there was no one to stop the Germans' detour, and the two surviving anti-tank platoons of the infantry division had already pushed to the front of the defensive line and had already exchanged fire with the German tank No. 4, and it was simply impossible to transfer positions.

Infantry artillery and mortars simply did not have time to deploy, and these heavy equipment were concentrated in the center of the camp, which was already under the control of German tanks, and no one was able to break through the German blockade and recapture it.

The division headquarters finally reacted quickly and immediately withdrew to the rear after the first shelling, and the division headquarters retreated with all their bodies and men unscathed, which is gratifying. However, the command of the infantry brigade in front was not so lucky, because the brigade commander was enthusiastic and delayed the time to retreat, and as a result, he did not have time to run out of there, and the brave lieutenant colonel was beaten into a honeycomb with his two battalion commanders and the whole staff team, and the Germans attacked very decisively and quickly, and did not even leave them a chance to surrender.

At the moment, the purpose of the German operation was obvious to even the ordinary soldiers, and they were opening an encirclement, and when they closed their pockets, the infantry in the encirclement, lacking anti-tank weapons, faced a new massacre. At this time, the British 2-pounder anti-tank guns were a lifesaver for everyone, and the soldiers could not help but pray to their respective masters, hoping that these gunners would be able to block the frontal attack of the Germans, so that they would still have hope of holding out until reinforcements arrived.

The camp of the 6th Infantry Division was not far from the rear, less than five hundred meters apart, and unless those guys were blind and deaf, they must have discovered the battle here. Therefore, as long as it can stabilize its position and hold on for a while, the 6th Infantry Division will definitely come to support. Although the 6th Division also lacked anti-tank weapons, there was at least one brigade of light infantry that always had a way to hold back the German attack. Thinking of this, many people had a tempting idea in their minds, maybe they could turn defeat into victory and kill the German army.

Speaking of which, at this time, they finally found that it was the Germans who rushed towards them, and the conspicuous white-edged black cross was particularly dazzling in the light of the fire.

However, expectations can only be expectations after all, and cannot change reality, and the 2-pounder anti-tank gun has already proved to be a waste in France, and it will not increase its penetration depth by a few centimeters in the United Kingdom. Four thickly armored Type 4G became anti-tank killers, using the long-barreled 75 gun and high-speed semi-armor-piercing grenades in front of all the British troops, knocking out the poor little guns one by one, and then using machine guns to kill the surviving gunners one by one on their positions. For the Germans, the crew was a perfect demonstration of their high level of professionalism, while for the British, the cold-bloodedness and cruelty of the Germans was outrageous.

The destruction of the anti-tank gun platoon was the last straw that broke the camel's back, and it is not known when it began, and it is not known who led it, but the soldiers of the 5th Infantry Division suddenly abandoned their positions and bunkers, and the entire platoon of soldiers turned around and began to flee. They pushed, trampled, screamed, wailed, cursed meaninglessly, like frightened herds in the wilderness, swarming toward the wilderness around them.

The British officers were powerless to prevent the collapse of the troops, they were actually on the verge of collapse, and their reserve of being officers allowed them to hold out for a while longer than the soldiers, but as the German tanks approached, they all hurriedly abandoned their self-esteem and did not hesitate to join the wave of flight.

The commander of the Fifth Infantry Division took the lead, throwing away his cane and his beloved tea set very dashingly, this middle-aged gentleman who had attached great importance to military appearance in the past, at this time did not hesitate to stain his shiny officer's leather shoes with mud, and he ran on tiptoe over the wilderness in the dark night, looking like a light antelope. (To be continued......)