"Oh! My God! "Major Philip had just risen from the bottom of the turret, his hand on the back of his head, where his scalp had been scraped and his leather gloves were covered in blood.

At this time, he didn't care about any pain, and there was a violent explosion in his ears, and at the same time, there was the exclamation of the driver of his car.

"What's going on?" Philip managed to gain his footing, climbed into the captain's seat, and asked the gunner.

"Captain Blanche's tank just exploded." The gunner replied with a sad face and turned to the company commander.

"Did any of you see what's going on?"

"Hell, it's German!"

"Where did the attack come from?"

"I didn't see anything."

"It's an anti-tank gun! Watch out! ”

"What happened? Who's in trouble? ”

"It's the deputy company commander."

"Oh my God, is it a mine?"

"Shelling! It's from the opposite hill! ”

At this time, there was a chaotic shouting on the car radio, because of the suddenness of the incident, most of the tanks in the rear team did not know that the pilot car had been destroyed, they only knew that there was an explosion in front, and most of them began to ask each other on the radio regardless of the radio communication rules.

"Shut up and keep the radio channel open." Philip endured the pain in the back of his head and loudly stopped his subordinates from talking.

"The whole company turned, the first and second platoons followed me, and the third and fourth platoons went to the highway, paying attention to searching for the enemy, and each platoon could shoot freely after discovering the target." Philip gave the order to fight.

Major Philippe reacted quickly and made decisions that were in line with the conditions of the time, and up to this point he had not made any obvious mistakes, which was confirmed in the post-war German report.

At that time, the British army was still marching in two columns, and the company commander and deputy company commander were at the head of the two columns. So when attacked. The company commander's car became the first target, and because of this, the deputy company commander was able to find the attacker's location at the first time and shoot back. At this point, it can be seen that the training level of this British tank unit is still good, at least in terms of reaction speed and combat ability, it can be said to be qualified.

At the same time, because the counterattack of the deputy company commander's car was too fast, the German tank transferred the target of attack from the company commander's car to him, which can be regarded as providence.

At this time the British army was attacked. A tank had already been destroyed, but no one could tell the exact location of the enemy, not even what had attacked him. The enemy's situation was unknown, the enemy's position was unknown, and the British tank company was exposed to bright fire because of the burning company passenger car, and the situation was extremely unfavorable to the British tank company. The destroyed tank blocked the path of the follow-up vehicles, while the company commander continued to move forward with another column, and the marching formation had been disrupted.

In this case, it is obviously foolish to continue the original route of march, and the enemy in the shadows can knock out the tanks in the column one by one as easily as shooting targets. Philip judged that the attacking side should be German artillery. I just don't know which one, from the fact that it can easily penetrate the frontal armor of the cockpit up to 75 cm thick, the caliber of this gun must not be too small.

It was a big scandal when the Germans set up artillery positions on Mount Akham, and the nearby position on Mount Cox did not react to this, and it was a big scandal that they indirectly killed their own deputy company commander, and Major Philip was ready to mention it in the post-war combat report. You must seek justice for your deputy company commander.

The British tank company began to change formations on the orders of the company commander, and Philip knew that he could not continue to stay in the bright spot as a target at this time. So one column led by him turned to the left, and the other column bypassed the wreckage of the first car and burst directly onto the road, keeping parallel to the ranks of the first column.

The two teams of tanks marched parallel to the road, sheltering themselves from the dense street trees along the roadside while searching for the enemy and waiting for an opportunity to launch a counterattack. It is not in the style of the British Army to be beaten and not fight back, and at least the same weight of blood must be shed by the enemy to restore the honor of Viscount Philip's family.

Major Philip's judgment was not accurate. However, with the information he had at the time, it was very remarkable to be able to think of so much in a short period of time, and this is the background of the British military aristocracy, these people have been militarized since childhood, and their military knowledge and literacy are not much worse than those of the Junker aristocracy in Germany. In fact, this model originally originated in Germany. That is, the English version of the Germanic barbarian cultivation program, although the soup is different, but the medicine is still the original taste.

However, due to the suddenness of the incident and the inertial thinking of human beings, Major Philip still missed some details, which may not be important in ordinary training and exercises, but they are fatal in real combat. By the time Major Philip reacted, the irreparable damage had already been done.

The British tanks made a ninety-degree turn in front of Mount Akham and began to slowly advance along the Akham Highway towards the west, Major Philip's tactics were based on the enemy's large artillery, which was generally difficult to turn and difficult to accurately aim at sideways moving targets, and if the opponent fired, it would inevitably reveal its position. On the contrary, their own tanks do not have this defect, they can attack enemy targets in all directions at 360 degrees. Once the German artillery was exposed, the tanks could quickly suppress the opponent with rapid-fire guns and machine guns, and then the tank company chose to turn to an assault or flank outflanks, depending on the mood of the company commander at the time.

The turrets of the British troops were all pointing to the hill to the right, and the machine gunners and commanders were keeping their eyes glued to their periscopes, not daring to miss a single sign. At this time, only the bushes that had been lit before were burning on the black mountains, but the light could not illuminate much of the area, not far from the flames as if swallowed by the darkness around them, the nearby bushes and jungles were completely shrouded in a pitch-black night, and the flares in the distant sky could not make them show their original appearance, and the unburned ashes were scattered in the air like dotted fireflies with the evening breeze, which was originally a beautiful and wonderful scene, but in the eyes of the British army at this time, it seemed murderous, and the mountains were full of ghosts.

Suddenly, a whole row of fires flickered on the mountainside, accompanied by a series of shining meteors. In Philip's angry eyes, he quickly crossed the sky and smashed into the neat array of British tanks.

"God, that's a German tank!" Although it was far away, Philip could still see his opponent's appearance clearly, in the flash of fire from the muzzle of the enemy's guns. The boxy hull and turret characteristic of German tanks are clearly recognizable.

"Damn! Turn off the lights! Turn off the damn lights. It was only then that Philip realized what a low-level mistake he had made, and that was what made them different from the old units, who had the same training, but all of them lacked actual combat experience. The veteran would never drive on the front line, which is tantamount to marking his position to the enemy, and it is better to draw a bullseye of a white cross directly on the body, as the Germans did at the beginning of the war.

However, Philip Lian has been training in China all year round, and the first thing to pay attention to is driving safety, although there are some night-light driving training. However, it is mainly used as a part of air defense operations, and it is not recommended to engage in such tricks in peacetime combat confrontation exercises, because it is easy to cause accidents.

What's more, the British Army's tank night combat regulations also have an entry on the use of spotlights to search for enemy troops, so a small searchlight is installed next to the commander's control tower of each Matilda tank to search for enemy targets at night, but the regulations also indicate that it can only be used when fighting enemy infantry, otherwise Major Philip will go further on the road to death.

Since the company was driving with the lights on all the time, the brain had become accustomed to the presence of these lights. Philip was well aware that the light of the fire would reveal his position, but he automatically ignored that the two bright lights in front of his car were revealing his position. In fact, it was not only these two bright light sources, but also the two width indicator lights on the fenders, these two small orange lights were actually more conspicuous, but they were also unconsciously ignored by the British tankers.

Due to the lateral movement of the target, the German artillery bombardment was not particularly accurate, but it still achieved a good result. The three Matilda tanks in the middle of the line were completely destroyed, and one of them was hit by two armor-piercing shells at the same time.

One of the armor-piercing rounds went into the hull, and the other into Matilda's engine compartment. The former detonated the ammunition in the turret, albeit only a few forty-millimeter grenades. The latter knocked the six-cylinder engine through, the fuel pump was torn to pieces, a fireball rose, the entire cooling system and the shell cover flew into the air, and the violent explosion threw the other six-cylinder engine out of the engine compartment, and the engine wrapped in flames rolled down the road and fell into the bushes on the side of the road, causing another fire.

To make matters worse, the firelight illuminated several British tanks in the marching column on the road, and these green camouflage behemoths were completely exposed to the sight of the German tanks.

"Spread out the formation, turn, each platoon changed the assault formation, and struck towards Mount Akham." Philip was really anxious at this time, and he fell into a deep remorse, but at this time there was no time to care about right and wrong, and the first goal at the moment was how to escape from the German attack.

Yes, Philip's first thought at this time was to escape, and he no longer considered whether he would be able to defeat his opponent, because the answer was obvious, his tank company had been completely overwhelmed by the opponent, and the Germans had a clear advantage in both terrain and equipment.

At this time, it was obvious that fleeing with one's back to the enemy was a dead end, and the accuracy of the Germans' shooting and the ferocity of their firepower were already on display. Philip firmly believes that the right thing to do at this time is to hedge the attack and survive the death. First of all, the vehicle must face the enemy and resist the enemy's shelling with the heaviest frontal armor, which of course shows that this layer of armor does not block the enemy's armor-piercing shells, but it is better than the weaker side and tail armor.

The key to Philip's tactics is to try to close the distance between the two sides as much as possible, and use the high rate of fire of the two-pounder gun to suppress the enemy's firepower, although the enemy's appearance is exposed for a short time, but Philip is sure that it is a medium tank, it should not be something that the two-pounder gun can penetrate within the usual combat distance, not to mention that the accuracy of the two-pounder gun is also very problematic in the case of poor vision at night, so only by closing the distance can the enemy be effectively damaged. Maybe you can get some results, anyway, you have to disrupt the enemy's battle rhythm, and then see if there will be a turnaround, once you fall into a melee, for Philip is the ideal situation, then it depends on the various car groups to play on the spot, if you are lucky, maybe some people can survive.

By this time, Philip had not lost his keen judgment, and when he realized his mistake, he immediately adjusted his existing tactics and made a new assessment of the German army's combat effectiveness. The reality was cruel to Major Philip. The German tank that appeared in front of him was obviously the latest model, and he didn't know that the Germans had made such a thing due to the intelligence lag, and the reason why he thought that the Germans were large-caliber artillery was also the reason, because in Philip's concept, Germany did not have a tank that could destroy the Matilda II at this distance, not even the latest German tank No. 4.

The reality really slapped Philip in the face, he secretly cursed the British incompetent intelligence agencies, even knowing nothing about this important equipment intelligence, looking at the number of enemies in front of him will definitely not be less than a company, obviously this new type of tank has begun to be mass-produced and reequipped.

I've long heard that the group of dry food fools in the Military Intelligence Bureau will only take the British Empire's people's fat and people's ointment to the Casino Royale to spend all their days drinking, and I heard that there is a very famous guy among them, who likes to drive German cars and German guns all over the world to steal incense...... Wait a minute, so where is that stuff? (To be continued......)