It's dawn now, and although the distance from the airport is not very long, it will not be easy to attack. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

What's more, the German paratroopers near the church were only a small number of less than 200 people, and the attack on the airfield was definitely a big decision.

However, neither Lyman nor Borol saw anything wrong with this order. They took it for granted that they should attack, and this was the German paratroopers.

The British army deployed a lot of troops near the airport, adding up to at least one battalion of more than 500 people, and if you count the ground staff of the airport, there are Greek officers and soldiers and American pilots temporarily stationed here, the total number is more than 1,000.

Faced with five times the number of troops, the German paratroopers did not flinch - or rather, the German paratroopers who attacked the airfield did not know how many people were in the airfield.

"There are machine gun bunkers around, and the firepower is very reasonable." Hunched back behind the mound, the scouting soldier brought back news of the British near the airport.

"We are in a lot where there are about three machine gun emplacements covering each other...... With rifle cover, the position is tricky. As he spoke, he simply sketched out the composition of the British position on a blank sheet of paper.

This is an important reason why the Wehrmacht was able to sweep through the armies of all countries in the world in the early stage of the war -- the quality of individual soldiers was generally very high.

Inherited from the 100,000 elites of the German Wehrmacht, after several expansions, the officer selection system is still efficient. The German army at this moment has reached the highest peak of the balance between the quality and quantity of the army.

In the future, with the expansion of the troops, the quality of individual soldiers will decline significantly...... Previously, although the quality of the army was very high, it was not numerically useless.

Don't underestimate the seemingly inconspicuous detail of the quality of soldiers, which is definitely an important reason why the mobilization capacity and war potential of modern countries are very terrible.

Any college student can become a soldier who can barely use it as long as he trains for two weeks to familiarize himself with the use of firearms and learn some drill skills.

Don't underestimate these trivial things, clean and disassemble weapons, distinguish the types of ammunition and words, discern the situation on the battlefield, judge the number of enemy troops, and use high-tech weapons...... In fact, in the process of learning in school, the principles have penetrated into a person's mind.

As long as the military stipulates that students under the modern education system can completely obey the command and simply judge the basic conditions such as distance and height.

If this is placed in the old society, the general illiteracy of the people, I want to teach the illiterate to distinguish the types of bullets, teach them to clean weapons, and observe discipline...... It's already a huge project.

So, the Third Reich, with a population of only 80 million, was able to mobilize 10 million troops in World War II, and at least 7 million of them were available.

However, in the face of Japan's invasion, China at that time was sitting on a population base of 400 million, but it could only barely mix up a lying victory with 30 million military and civilian casualties.

The gap between such a fight is really suffocating. Today, once a war breaks out, our country will be mobilized like an ocean of organizational personnel and workers, and the arms produced in one day will exceed Japan's output in a month -- how can there still be the shame of the Lugou Bridge in Beidaying?

Therefore, when the German soldiers easily sketched the flatness of the enemy's positional trenches on a blank piece of paper and added their own analysis, the commanders' decision-making was easy.

You must know that the backbone of this army is the 100,000 Wehrmacht personally selected by the old General Sickett one by one.

In the Wehrmacht at that time, every soldier was a treasure, and every soldier had to have his own specialty. Command and dispatch radio, ordnance industry, logistics and maintenance workers, everyone must choose one to learn to be proficient.

At that time, the Germans carried heavy Maxim machine guns for exercises, and when a platoon commander called for reinforcements, he shouted that a certain battalion was under attack by enemy troops......

Now, right now, the skeleton of this army is the elite of those elites back then. And the flesh and blood of this army are millions of well-educated and hot-blooded youths.

Speaking of which, we have to mention the Wehrmacht, plus the German SS units, which have a crumbling rank system that exudes German characteristics.

To understand how much the Germans like complicated things, just look at the complex rank system of the German army.

Just like the complex running mechanism of the criticized Tiger tank, Germany's military rank system can also be said to be the most complex professional soldier rating system in the world.

How complex is it? Soldiers alone are theoretically divided into 15 different classes under 5 different class classifications.

These five ranks are soldiers, superior soldiers, exempt soldiers, superior exempt soldiers, and staff exempt soldiers - listening to the name, is there a feeling of "I don't read much, don't lie to me"?

In fact, many countries have such complex settings, such as first-class privates, second-class privates, privates, and so on...... With such an alternative name, Germany is the only one, right?

But what is even more strange about the Germans is that the classification of superior soldiers is not a promotion option in the strict sense of the word "soldier". Superior soldiers and exempt soldiers are two different choices.

To put it bluntly, after one year in the army, if the ability is good, the German soldier will be promoted to the exempt soldier, and if the ability is not good, he can only be a superior soldier until he retires.

Therefore, here is an interesting result: in the German army, the so-called superior soldier is not necessarily higher in combat effectiveness than the rank of "soldier".

Therefore, it would be incorrect to distinguish the relationship between private and private in other countries simply by the two privates.

It is precisely because the two could not be distinguished from each other in essence before, and there was no subordinate relationship at the administrative level, so it is not accurate to distinguish between non-commissioned officer and sergeant major.

What is even more interesting is that when the Chinese translator applied the German army rank translation, he finally translated the exempt rank that was not an officer into a corporal officer with command.

This is a very interesting mistake, and it leads directly to a well-known misunderstanding - Hitler is actually translating into a corporal......

In other words, the great Führer Hitler, with the actual rank of an officer within the German army, was an exempt soldier and not a so-called "corporal".

It is no wonder that the Junker aristocracy and the army did not take the Führer seriously - in fact, Hitler was not a junior officer at all, but a "soldier" who had not yet survived.

Such a chaotic military rank system, coupled with the traditions of the aristocratic officer corps, led to the birth of a large number of military ranks that could not be found in foreign countries at all.

For example, non-commissioned officers without swords and cadets...... Listening to this one after another military rank that makes people suspect that they have gone to the wrong set definitely makes people feel an inexplicable despair.

Purely from the perspective of the German military rank system, it is not as easy to find a similar reference for comparison as the Japanese Daisajun Cao, and it is also easier for people to understand.

And the relevant rules and regulations are indeed confusing: the superior soldier is paid more than the soldier, but there is no hope of promotion; Staff officers are more akin to quartermasters than elite infantry.

With the German ranks still so confused, it's no wonder that these monsters who worship complexity make weapon models and logistical supplies so difficult to look at.

Looking at the German nation from such tiny details, this is definitely a "great nation" that uses rigorous classification and tireless refinement and differentiation to drive its own people to death.

"The machine gun position on the flank, I don't know if there will be machine gun cover on the flank......" The paratrooper company commander looked at the white paper with the enemy's position, frowned and muttered.

It is obviously impossible for the other side to surround the airfield with machine-gun positions. So such a machine-gun cover position should not have its own flanks.

On the other hand, the terrain on the flanks did not allow for other machine-gun positions, which were so empty that there were simply not so many British soldiers hidden.

Come to think of it, the small high ground next to this airport is the key defense area of the United Kingdom. As long as you penetrate here, it will be much easier to get into the machine gun from behind.

"Anyway, it's always good to take a detour of the wings. Go ahead and do what you planned! Wait for the troops on the left flank to attract the enemy's firepower, and we will attack here as the main one. "The company commander quickly made his own decision.

He now had only a pitiful 40 soldiers, about the same as the platoon commander under his platoon commander, before parachuting.

Just a hundred meters from the flank of the hillside where the commander of the German paratrooper company was, Lehmann lay on his stomach in the grass, feeling the unfriendly coldness of the land at the end of November.

Although the Mediterranean Sea is known to be like spring all year round, it is already November, how can it be as warm as the Mediterranean in July?

And it's still early in the morning, and there is still a little dew on the slightly dry grass...... This is lying on it, and that is called a comfort.

Because there was a bush that blocked the view, and there were some shelters, the British defenders did not notice it at all when the German paratroopers touched it.

However, after several hours of reaction time, it was clear that the perimeter of the airfield had been strengthened, and British soldiers had been deployed in the trenches.

Now attacking the airfield can only rely on a frontal attack. And seizing this airfield and allowing the subsequent German paratroopers to land on the island is one of the most important tasks of the paratroopers.

This morning, there will be a landing force of the German Army on the beach, and Italian battleships on the sea will provide artillery support—a truly massive attack that will begin in a few hours.

However, at this moment, the paratroopers can only rely on themselves, fight in the core area of the enemy, paralyze the enemy's command, occupy important facilities, and win the initiative in the war.