After the sonorous steel tracks of the tank ran over, the loose snow on the ground turned into ice clinging to the ground, and there were still obvious track tooth marks on it. Climbing mountains is not the strong point of these steel chariots, but they still climb the not-so-steep hill step by step.

The four "Stone II" were parked behind the German position on the top of the hill, and the exhaust ports at the back of them were still spraying white hot gas, which was designed to effectively avoid being clogged by splashed muddy water during the journey, and also increased the maximum wading depth. During the entire landing process, only a few tanks stalled because the sea water overflowed the exhaust port.

Although the off-road speed of the "Stone II" was only 12 kilometers per hour, this was already the limit of what the infantry could reach on their feet, so the infantry who followed closely behind the tank were all out of breath after the long march, and many of them were soaked in sweat. It is a pity that this 11-ton light tank is not able to carry a large number of infantry combat (compared to the 7-ton Renault FT-17, they are only slightly larger, the crew has increased to 3 people, and the armor and engine have been strengthened accordingly, but they still belong to the category of light tanks), otherwise Guderian's armored assault group will be more powerful in tactics, in order to make up for the mobility of the assault group, a special assault group arranged 6 armored personnel carriers for the infantry to rotate and ride.

The armoured assault group temporarily halted its advance, both to allow the infantry to take a short break and to take a closer look at the situation ahead.

The commander of the assault group was a lieutenant with brown hair, and the black military uniform he wore was also winter clothing, but it didn't look as thick as the winter clothes of the infantrymen, and he wore a black boat-shaped military cap on his head, and there were no extra pendants on his body except for the binoculars on his chest and the gun on his waist.

As soon as the tank came to a standstill, the lieutenant leaned out of the turret and sat on the edge of the hatch above the turret, holding a telescope in his hand to observe the movement at the foot of the mountain. The starting position of the British attack was deadly silent, hundreds of corpses were scattered in various postures in a small area, and the British machine gun positions were still on several heavy machine guns that had not had time to be taken away.

In the absence of heavy artillery, Luftwaffe attack aircraft and bombers were well placed to play the role of close fire support, and this air support would be more timely when airfields were established on British soil.

The small and devastated village at the foot of the hill had now regained some life, and groups of British soldiers with rifles had returned to the village, a few civilians were looking for their relatives and belongings in the ruined houses, some soldiers were carrying the wounded on stretchers to the small field hospital east of the village, and the tents marked with red crosses were one of the few places where they had not been bombed, not entirely because of the mercy of the German pilots, who simply did not want to drop limited bombs on such a small target.

The British in the village were completely unaware of the German tank units that were spying on them. The British army, which had been on the offensive before, did not build trenches or other fortifications there, and there were only a few guard posts made of sandbags at the entrance of the village.

After observing for a while, the lieutenant jumped down from the tank and walked up to the infantry ensign who was in charge of the defense, and the second lieutenant and his infantry had been drawn to the iron bumps since the tanks appeared. The tank lieutenant in a black hat, black clothes, black leather boots, and black gloves also looked so handsome, which made the infantry's yearning for joining the tank unit a little more.

"Ensign, what heavy weapons do the Britons below have?"

"No artillery, no cavalry, about a thousand infantry!" The lieutenant's answer was simple, he walked over to the tank and struck the steel plate on it with his fist, and a very faint and muffled sound indicated that its armor was very thick.

Seeing that the British troops in the village were not attacking, most of the infantry lying on the ground sat up, and one of the sharp-eyed fellows pointed to the distance and said:

"Look, there are some tanks over there, too!"

Following the direction of his finger, they found that about two miles to their right, several tanks had advanced over the trench between the two hills, followed closely by two or three hundred infantry, apparently also an armored assault group, and the German line on the flat ground was the same place where the British cavalry had attacked not long ago. In the bombardment from the German air, the Scottish cavalry regiment had withdrawn from sight.

"That's it! It's time for us to act, too! Ensign, keep holding your ground here, and good luck! The lieutenant saluted politely again, and then quickly jumped onto the tank's riveted turret.

"Good luck to you too!" After the salute, the infantry lieutenant asked his soldiers to make way for the armored assault group.

The lieutenant's right arm was raised in the air, and then he pointed firmly flat ahead.

"Forward!"

The blue smoke from the tail of the tank mixed with the hot air formed a cloud of mist in the air, and the four tanks drove forward in two rows, and at the moment when they crossed the top of the hill and began to descend, the barrels on their turrets that were originally pointed diagonally to the sky became almost parallel to the horizon, and the infantry who followed the tanks trotted their Mauser rifles diagonally to their chests all the way downhill.

Soon, the tanks and infantry were over the corpses of the British on the hillside, over the craters and limbs, and one or two of the tanks unceremoniously ran over the original British machine-gun positions, crushing the few remaining machine-guns there. When the small village at the foot of the hill came into range of its 37mm guns, the tanks of the assault group opened fire without stopping. The small-caliber tank guns were not very powerful, but when the shells landed in the village and exploded, the British officers and soldiers there panicked again after the Luftwaffe bombardment.

The British infantry deployed at the entrance of the village began to look for a suitable position to block the attack when the German unit came into sight, and there were many British infantry armed with rifles crouching or lying on their stomachs in the craters next to the bare trees, behind the mounds, and next to the houses, and some people hurriedly carried sandbags to build new machine gun positions. Before the German tanks were in effective range, a British Vickers machine gun was eager to fire, followed by sporadic rifle sounds, even though their bullets couldn't reach that far.

When it was still about 1,800 meters away from the entrance of the village, a "Stone II" walking in the middle slowly stopped. Inside its cramped turret, the bearded commander pressed his eyes firmly on the scope, and what appeared in his line of sight were flickering fiery spots and occasionally flickering figures. After several seconds of aiming, he finally settled on a very lively target into his crosshairs.

"Fire!"

The moment the gunner pulled the cannon rope, the snow on several dead grasses nearby was shaken down, and the sound of cannon bang rang far away in the open field, and echoed among the nearby hills for a long time. After flying for more than 2 seconds, the 37-mm ordinary shell exploded a brilliant spark next to a British machine gun battle position, and the machine gun instantly muted fire, and the smoke of gunpowder had not yet dissipated, and several Scottish infantrymen with bloody faces had fallen on their sandbags.

When the tanks stopped one after another for precise shelling, the German infantry behind was not in a hurry to shoot or rush directly at the British, they bent down and used the steel body of the tank as cover, plus the protection of the M16 steel helmet, until they entered the distance of 1000 meters, the British fire did not cause any damage to the German assault group at all.

Once within the effective range of the machine guns, four Stone II vehicles advanced in parallel in a horizontal line, each with a distance of 2 to 3 meters, followed by about 50 infantrymen. The commanders of the tanks were now completely hidden in the turret, and they began to fire at the British troops at the entrance of the village with the Maxim machine gun on the right side of the 37mm tank gun, while the gunner operated the machine gun on the front of the tank under the turret. The tankers agreed with the power and continuous firing ability of the two water-cooled Maxim machine guns on the tank, but the disadvantage of this weapon is that it is too large, which makes the interior of the tank, which is not sufficient, even more cramped, but the current "Firebird" machine gun relies too much on replacing the barrel when firing continuously, which is also a reason why German fighter pilots who use "Firebird" are more inclined to shoot short shots in air combat.

The British firepower had weakened by the German tank fire, but the occasional rattling of bullets made the German infantry doubly cautious, and they mostly used a crouching or lying position to avoid exposing their tall bodies to the other side. Especially the British Army's Lee. The Enfield rifle is so accurate at up to 800 meters that many British snipers use this rifle with a 5x sight.

Although the number of standing troops of the British Army is small, in recent years they have frequently participated in colonial wars, such as the Afghan War, the Anglo-Boer War, the Mahdi War, the Burma War, and the Battle of Tillah. They and their opponents had used a variety of tactics in all colonial wars, and sniping and ambushing were no strangers to them. In fact, in the simple army battle between Britain and Germany, the German army did not have such a huge advantage as people imagined.

"Give me a cannonball!"

When the commanders need to use the tank gun to shoot at the target, they will use the sound and shape to have their gunner add shells to the barrel, and then the gunner will communicate the order to stop to the driver, and the only way to communicate with the tank is through this simple way when the radio communication technology is not yet perfect.

After receiving the commander's order, the gunner took out a normal shell from the shell bay of the bulkhead of the tank, and the "Stone II" was capable of carrying a total of 200 rounds of shells for a 37 mm tank gun and 4,500 rounds of 7.92 mm Maxim machine gun rounds. After the reload is completed, the gunner is also a quick and easy to inform the commander of the aiming process.

At a distance of less than 800 meters, the accuracy of the tank guns increased greatly, and the outward-facing wall of a house near the entrance of the village collapsed after a 37-mm shell, and several British soldiers who had just been shooting through the windows were instantly led by the black angels to report to heaven.

As the German armoured assault group approached by tanks, the exchange of fire between the two sides intensified, and the casualties of the British soldiers who had been hastily defending under German guns rose rapidly, while other soldiers from the village continued to fill the gaps left by the dead and wounded. The four tanks were far from covering all the infantry in the assault group, and from time to time a man with a Mauser rifle was shot and fell, and the medics at the back of the line suddenly became the busiest. When the distance is close enough, Lee. Enfield's 7.62mm bullets were able to penetrate even the M16 helmets of German infantry, but thankfully many British soldiers had made the largest German tanks their first target, and their bullets were only shallow craters in the rough surface of the Stone II.

"Gun grenade ready!"

The officer who had the other soldiers ready to shoot Hale's grenades was leaning sideways against a broken wall, and the flat-topped cloth military cap on his head could not effectively protect his head, so he did not even dare to lift his head under the heavy German fire. At this time, the officers and men of the British Army were not yet equipped with any kind of steel helmet, and the famous straw hat steel helmet had not yet come to the world. However, the Hale grenade is a weapon with a very simple structure and technology, and its requirements for materials are not high. The British military hoped that they could kill and injure a large number of exposed German infantry in battle, but they were limited by their power and throwing methods, and they were not at all the opponents of the German wooden-handled grenades in trench warfare and street fighting, and only in the field could they use the unique gun shooting method to occupy a certain range advantage.

In fact, the Hale grenade was the most primitive grenade, and the British soldier could shoot these half-arm-thick objects into the muzzle of the gun, as long as he raised the muzzle slightly and fired the bullet as usual, he could shoot it to a distance of 200 meters. The first wave of Hale grenades flew towards the German tanks, and most of them exploded dozens of meters in front of the tanks. The four Stone IIs stopped their advance, and they immediately fired back at the British at the entrance of Jingcun with continuous and rapid shelling, and the rifles and machine guns of the German infantry also joined the ranks of suppressing the British fire, while the British hid behind the obstacles and fired the grenades at the Germans in a high parabola. (The Hale grenade was detonated by a firing pin detonator when the projectile hit the ground, and there was no problem with the time spent in the air, while the German wooden-handled grenade used a pull-fire delay tube.) ）

After firing for nearly 3 minutes, the commander of the assault group, the previous lieutenant of the tank corps, was anxious, and the British were still firing back in some places where the tank guns could not shoot directly, and the delay in time was very unfavorable to the tactics of the armored assault group to quickly break through the opponent's defense line and cause confusion on the other side.

"Forward, keep going!"

The lieutenant opened the upper hatch of the turret and shouted to the other tanks and the infantry behind him, that the lives of soldiers were worth cherishing, but that stagnation was the opposite of what the battle was intended to be. The tanks on the German side were not interested in Hale grenades, and these things containing only more than 100 grams of ZHA medicine could not threaten the tank's armor or tracks at all, but their fragments still caused some damage to the infantry. Tanks that break into the village alone without the infantry are easily approached by opposing soldiers, and bundles of grenades, zha kits, and ****** are very deadly for tanks.

The leading tanks were the first to start pushing again, and because the stable firing technology on the march was still a very distant technology, the artillery bombardment on the way could not achieve accurate shooting, but the commanders still tried to strengthen the momentum of the attack with continuous artillery fire. The German infantry also got up from the ground and continued to advance, and in the face of the British grenades, the blood of the German infantry gradually stained the snow.

The armored assault group finally approached the entrance of the village, and the smoke produced by the continuous firing of the machine guns was no less than that of the tank guns, and the small tank space was always filled with white gunsmoke, which made the tankmen have to wear gas masks, in which case their heavy breathing could be heard clearly. The tank's Maxim heavy machine guns frantically fired at the British soldiers who were in their positions or had just left their positions to retreat towards the village, and although the tankmen could only see what was going on in front of them through the observation holes, let alone aim their machine guns, they were able to sweep down the nearby British with a series of bullets at such a close distance.

At the cost of more than thirty soldiers, the German infantry also rushed into the village with tanks. Powerful and long-range wooden-handled grenades became their best tool to vent their anger, and explosions in the village were heard one after another. Faced with the brick and timber British houses, the "Stone II" was able to show its steel nature, swaggering into the door, and then opening a back door to these small houses that had not yet been blown up. When the turrets and vehicles of tanks are covered in dust and masonry, their faces are even more hideous.

The British officers and soldiers, who had intended to resist and retreat in an orderly manner, soon found that their weapons could not stop the German tanks advancing between the roads and houses, and when the black holes in their turrets were aimed at them, the British who were hiding around the corners and houses to resist were immediately frightened.

After the resistance was ineffective and they found that their legs could not outrun the opposing tanks (the Stone II road traveled at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour, unless the British soldiers were good runners who only ran a thousand meters in 3 minutes), most of the British soldiers in the village, who had been hit by the Luftwaffe and the army, chose to lay down their arms, and the few officers who tried to escape on horseback had just run to the entrance of the village, and the German infantry shot them off their horses one by one with Mauser.

After a rough count of the prisoners, even the commander of the assault group was taken aback, and together with the wounded soldiers in the British field hospital, they captured more than 500 British soldiers in just half an hour. This is a non-surprise attack (the hill is 3 miles away, the British should have discovered them when the German tanks went downhill, this kind of battle is considered a rush, and the attack of the airborne regiment on the British defenders' reserves is launched from a place of 100 meters or even tens of meters) The Germans captured the most British troops at one time, and the number of prisoners exceeded twice that of the attacking side, and the obscure armored assault group tactics attracted the attention of many German generals for a time.

By noon on the 27th, Guderian's armored assault groups launched tactical attacks on many sections of the entire front, and the counterattack plans of the British defenders were completely aborted. By noon, the landing force's armoured vehicles, trucks and light artillery had arrived at the front line, and the mixed armoured division had launched a full-scale attack, while the planned assault on the two landing sites near Bonemouth Beach, Sector B and Sector C, was in full swing.