At the sound of the French rooster's crowing, the cloak of darkness that covers the earth is gradually lifted, and the world begins the monotonous process of alternating between darkness, haze, and brightness day after day.

When Lieutenant Rontireis raised his binoculars, the distant scene was still a little blurry due to the light, but the black wreckage of the airship in the wilderness was still very conspicuous.

After a while, the officer in charge of surveying the river ran up from under the riverbank.

"Lieutenant, the river here is more than 60 meters wide, the water flow is relatively slow, the water depth is about 0.5-1.2 meters, the bottom of the river is a gravel structure, tanks can pass directly, but armored vehicles and trucks need to lay planks on the bottom of the river."

"Very well, let's cross the river here!" As he spoke, Rontilis was still looking into the distance, and to the west of the wilderness was a large thick oak forest, and the ignorant black shadow looked somewhat eerie.

"Labor, labor!"

Lontilis put down his binoculars and shouted twice, and Private Law's head suddenly poked out of the turret.

"Sir, what's the matter?"

"Send a report to the command, we have found the wreckage of the airship, but for the time being, we have not found the members or pilots of the airship, nor have we found the French army, ask for instructions on the next step!"

"Yes!"

Law quickly went back in.

While the sappers were busy laying pads in the water, the infantry on armored vehicles deployed a temporary defensive line around the convoy on the orders of the officers. When the sappers reached the middle of the river, Longiris couldn't help but worry that armored vehicles and trucks were likely to stall when crossing waist-deep water, and as for tanks, the driver's ass would probably be soaked in the water for a while when crossing the river.

It wasn't long before a convoy of planes with white iron crosses painted under their wings came from the northeast and began to circle around the convoy, and Law poked his head out of the turret again, his round head like a little mole poking his head out of a hole.

"Lieutenant, there's a telegram from command asking us to continue our search in the neighborhood and find as many airship members and pilots as we can. Plus, they sent a team of planes to assist us in our search! ”

Hearing a buzz in the sky, Law looked up, "It looks like they've arrived!" I'll try to get in touch with them! ”

"Ask them to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the woods to the southwest!" Rontilis added.

When the German planes flew overhead again and again, Dirk and the others felt helpless. As soon as they heard the sound of the plane, all the French officers and soldiers here stopped talking or moving, and even the mouths of the war horses were trapped. Unless someone took the initiative to expose the target, those German planes could only wander around in vain, looking at the French soldiers with bayonets and rifles around them, looking vigilant, Dirk was also powerless.

The French soldiers remained in place like big mushrooms, and it was not until a few minutes later that the hum of the plane faded away, and the French began to move as if they had been disenchanted. Dirk found that nearly a thousand French soldiers were gathering not far away, the French officer shouted the password in a low voice, they prepared three or four 75mm rapid-fire guns and a few heavy machine guns, many soldiers carried very strange rifles on their shoulders, the body of the rifle was much longer than that of ordinary rifles, the barrel was almost one and a half meters long, and there were two tripods at the muzzle, Dirk was puzzled by this strange thing.

On the other side, Lieutenant Rontilis's tanks and armored vehicles had already begun to cross the river. Dozens of infantry stood in the water, marking the way for advancing vehicles to lay the underwater's pads, without which the tires of the vehicles would be more likely to sink into the sand and gravel of the river bottom. While passing through the middle of the river, several armored vehicles broke down, and the soldiers had to tow them ashore in vehicles that had already crossed the river.

It took a full half hour for all 22 tanks and armored vehicles of the armored reconnaissance squad to cross the Boer River. After a short rest, the sappers retracted the pads for the next river crossing, and the armored vehicles that had broken down in the water were finally activated, and the reconnaissance team soon came to the wreckage of the airship.

"No bodies or anything resembling corpses have been found, and it looks like the crew is still alive!"

Lontilis and the soldiers scrutinized the nearby ground, but found no parachutes or anything else left behind by the crew. By this time, the sun had already seen most of its face on the eastern horizon, and the reddish sunlight was shining on the dirt, and the fields with the only vehicles and airship wrecks seemed even more empty to the eyes of the people.

The only thing that seems to be able to hide is the dense woods to the southwest. Perhaps, the poor crew was struggling behind a bush.

"Lieutenant, the reconnaissance plane didn't find anything unusual in that wood!" Law's voice came from the tank compartment.

Halfway out of the turret, Rontilis quickly gave the order to the other vehicles: "Search for that wood!" ”

The vehicles that were originally lined up in a column quickly dispersed into a horizontal formation, with tanks and armored vehicles mixed in the front, and four supply vehicles in the rear, and the entire armored squad drove towards the mysterious and deep oak forest in a cloud of dust and smoke, and the heads wearing M16 steel helmets poked out of the armored vehicles to observe the surrounding situation. The early morning here seems to be extraordinarily quiet, and even the sound of birdsong is very rare, so one can't help but wonder if those little birds watched a movie last night and are still sleeping at dawn.

In the somewhat deserted silence, several shells burst out of the woods without warning, and then plunged headlong into the field near the vehicle. Red flames mixed with yellow dirt rose high, countless shrapnel scattered in all directions in high-speed rotation, and the armor on the outside of tanks and armored vehicles was smashed into the ground.

At this time, the Lontilis reconnaissance team was less than 200 meters away from the woods.

Before the German soldiers in the reconnaissance squad could react, a crisp and loud burst of gunfire came from the woods under the cover of the explosion of shells.

"Ahh

In the compartment of an armored combat vehicle, the soldiers were surprised to find a machine gunner lying to the ground clutching his chest in pain, the floor under him was quickly stained red with blood, and a round bullet hole appeared in the wall of the carriage. Just as the German soldiers were wondering that the 8mm thick armor was penetrated by bullets, more bullets pierced through the wall one after another, and the carriage suddenly burst into a painful wail. In the end, even the driver of the armored car was not spared, and the whole armored car suddenly lost control, staggering away from the convoy like a drunken beetle, until it barely came to a crooked stop after hitting a small mound. The remaining German infantry in the carriage quickly jumped out, but they were immediately killed by the merciless fire of the French army, and for these German soldiers, the air seemed to boil in the whistling bullets, and the ground trembled with their rapid movement.

In the muffled sound of high-speed metal penetrating the human body and the screams of the bulleted, clumps of blood burst from the poor German infantrymen from time to time, and the survivors, wounded or uninjured, had to hide behind the armored vehicles or under the turf to avoid the French attacks, and the bullets that could penetrate the steel plates made a particularly crisp sound on the walls of the armored vehicles.

Lontilis did not know what was happening on the armored vehicle at this time, and he slid into the turret of the tank the moment the French shells flew, and was looking at the unusual woods through the observation hole in the turret. Although he did not see the French, French artillery, machine guns, and countless rifles were attacking his reconnaissance team from there.

Although Rontilis was unable to give orders in this battlefield environment, the other tanks came to a halt of their own accord, and the 37mm guns on their turrets quickly turned to the area where the bullets were being sprayed in the woods.

Boom......

Before the German tanks could fire, the second batch of French shells had already made a low trajectory, and one of the shells hit a German tank head-on. This ordinary shell, although it could not penetrate the frontal armor of German tanks at once, was not so invulnerable to rivet steel plates. I saw that the front armor of the tank was violently twisted in the explosion, and the upper turret was also seriously deformed, and the entire tank lost most of its combat effectiveness in an instant. Although the tankmen inside were not in danger of life, the violent explosions and concussions were enough for them to drink a pot.

Despite the heavy losses suffered by their companions, the remaining 5 German tanks opened fire. The edge of the woods suddenly became dusty, and the French firepower was temporarily weakened at this moment. Taking advantage of the gap between Hellishi's reloading shells, Lontilis observed his own situation, but even he was frightened by the scene. Tank AG-109, which had been hit by French shells, moved again, but its turret and the machine gun on the frontal body were no longer usable, and it seemed to have little to do other than attract fire and run over it with tracks. Three armoured vehicles were immobile, some of the infantry were firing into the woods under cover from their bodies, while several other armoured combat vehicles were moving and firing at the French with their machine guns on them; Large numbers of infantry had disembarked from the armoured personnel carriers, firing on the ground or under the cover of the personnel carriers, while fuel trucks had taken cover far behind the convoys.

As the French special rifle fired again and again, the German officers and soldiers on the armored car found themselves suffering more and more casualties, and the thin steel plates of the armored car could not withstand those demonic bullets at all; The rapid-fire guns of the French also fired at the German tanks again and again, but fortunately, the rapid-fire guns did not have a high hit rate for small targets such as tanks, so the Rontilis team did not suffer a heavier blow.

The first few minutes of the surprise attack seemed like an extremely long time for the German soldiers, and the initial confusion turned into unease under the onslaught of the French army, until the German planes hovering nearby came to provide fire support, and the soldiers' hearts calmed down a little. The German planes roared low and dropped bombs on the edge of the woods, and once again the French fire was temporarily suppressed. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Rontilis ventured out of the turret and gave the latest order to the reconnaissance team with a signal flag:

Tanks dragged back to cover, armored vehicles and infantry retreated first!

After this, the tanks and armoured vehicles finally had their way, the tanks moving parallel to the woods while firing at the French, and the infantry slowly retreated with the armoured vehicles.

"Law, send a report to the headquarters that we have been attacked by the French army southwest of the Boer River!"

Rontilis shouted back into the turret, but no one answered, and when he looked down, he found Law's pale face leaning against the bulkhead, his hands tightly clutched over his abdomen.

"Oh God!" Lontilis couldn't believe that someone inside the tank could be injured by bullets, although the rear armor of the tank where Law was located was the weakest, and the thinnest part of the steel plate was only 10mm thick, but it was impossible for an ordinary machine rifle bullet to penetrate it.

"Damn the French, they must have used some new weapon!"

Rontilis seemed to have come to his senses a little late, and after the tanks crossed over, the middle and rear parts of them were already exposed to the French, whose anti-tank guns were constantly watching the lives of the tankmen.

"Law, hold on!"

Lontilis hurriedly shoved the hemostatic bag into Law's bleeding abdomen, Law's pale lips still trembling slightly. In desperation, Lontilis remembered something, and he shouted at the driver, "Quick! Orient the tank head-on towards the woods! Reverse and retreat! ”

Seeing that the command vehicle began to retreat, the other tanks also began to retreat away from the woods, but they were all nosed backwards in the front turret, and several tankers were killed by French anti-tank guns.

It wasn't until all the German tanks were out of range that the French in the woods finally quieted down, and the German planes that dropped their bombs could only helplessly circle over the woods over and over again.

As he reached the edge of the Boer River, Rontilis climbed out of the tank turret in frustration. Poor Law has left this world of hatred and war, although the world has calmed down for the time being.

After a brief count, Lontilis found that his reconnaissance squad had lost about 1/3 of its vehicles and soldiers in the battle, and that the armored vehicles destroyed by the French were still smoking in front of the woods, and the corpses of dozens of German soldiers were scattered around them. On the surviving armored vehicles, the bullet holes were shocking, and the soldiers also found dented circular craters in the armor on the front of the tank, and the armor in the rear of the tank was pierced through small holes. In addition to Law, several other tanks were also killed or wounded.

I don't know if they were satisfied with the effect of the surprise attack, or because they were afraid of the German planes overhead, the French troops in the woods did not pursue the Lontilis team. The German armored reconnaissance squad quickly retreated across the Boer River to form a simple defensive position, waiting on the spot for the main German forces to continue to advance after dawn.