"Anti-tank guns! Hum! ”

Seeing the report sent back by the armored reconnaissance team, Chen Tian snorted with a little disdain. The French have managed to come up with this most primitive anti-tank weapon, but this is also the inevitable law of the battlefield, and no weapon will be invincible forever. Now, at last, the French had a weapon that the Germans did not have. Although the anti-tank gun has the advantages of cheap construction, easy to carry, and high popularity, Chen Tian decided to skip it and directly develop other anti-armor weapons, such as anti-tank grenades and anti-tank guns.

"Your Royal Highness, what are the anti-tank guns you are talking about?" Guderian asked, puzzled.

"It is a special rifle with a relatively long barrel, a relatively large caliber, and a high muzzle velocity containing a hard core bullet, which can penetrate a certain thickness of steel plate at close range, causing hard damage to the members inside the armored vehicle or tank!" Chen Tian quickly explained, "We don't have to worry too much about this kind of weapon of the French army, because they must be within 2 or 300 meters to be effective. On the battlefield of the surface, they have little to do with the frontal armor of the tank, and can only play some role in the event of such a surprise attack. As for armored vehicles, unless the quality of the steel plates is greatly improved, it will be difficult for them to withstand a direct attack by any kind of light anti-tank weapons, and their role is to follow the tanks to provide fire and infantry support. ”

These things are naturally very clear to Chen Tian, but Guderian and the others need a lot of time to understand, and seeing everyone's meditative thoughts, he simply came to something more practical:

"Inform our soldiers that when encountering French weapons that can penetrate armor, the tanks should try to keep their frontal facing the French, and the armored vehicles should follow the tanks, and it is best to keep a distance of 500 meters from them until clearing the French fire points!"

"Yes, Your Highness! As for the French troops that appeared there...... "Guderian prompted on the side.

"Hmmm! This is a much more serious problem than anti-tank guns! It seems that our airship crew and pilots have been caught by the French hiding in that woods, so let's stop the rescue operation with the armored reconnaissance team! Chen Tian said and walked back to the map, originally the middle road group was going to continue to advance southwest, and the Boer River was a little south of the route.

General François suddenly paused, "If the main French army is hiding there, then they can attack from the flank while we advance to the southwest, and perhaps the French will have the same deployment on the flank of General Hindenburg's 5th Army's advance route." I suggest that our army group turn around and advance from the front towards the Boer River, and at the same time send reconnaissance planes, cavalry squads, and armored reconnaissance squads to reconnoiter and search the woods through which the main forces will pass, and then ask General Hindenburg to send airship troops to cooperate! If we were prepared to attack from the front, the French would not be able to take advantage of anything! ”

"Nice idea!" Olge, Hoffmann and others also agreed, and the French should have planned to play this kind of surprise trick after hiding the main force.

Chen Tian stared at the green areas southwest of the Boer River on the map, and if he could know how many French troops were hidden there, all the problems would be solved. Unfortunately, the planes could not effectively reconnoiter there, and the armored reconnaissance team could no longer venture close to the woods, and once it was night, the problem became troublesome.

"Order the aviation to carry out a tentative bombing of the woods there, and if necessary, you can use incendiary bombs!"

In terms of the use of incendiary bombs, Chen Tian still hesitated, once the forest fire spread out of control, it was likely to block his way forward, and the lives of those airship members and pilots could also be threatened, but the war itself was a huge adventure.

"Also, immediately report our situation here to the Chief of the General Staff, and I suggest that the three armies in our center temporarily cease to advance to the southwest, and advance to the Boer River with our 8th Army as the main attack, while General Hindenburg's 5th Army and General Herringen's 7th Army should try to get as close to us as possible, and at the same time guard against possible surprise attacks by the French in other directions!"

"Yes, Your Highness!" After Hoffman finished speaking, he contacted the general headquarters.

On the west bank of the Boer River, a German truck with a white flag stopped in front of the woods that had been attacked earlier, and there was no movement in the woods, but the German soldiers who got out of the car knew that countless pairs of eyes were watching them. The German soldiers carried the corpses on the ground onto the trucks, occasionally sneaking a few glances in the direction of the woods, but they could only faintly see the muzzles of the guns.

Soon, the German soldiers cleaned up, and all that remained on the ground were craters, vehicle wreckage, and bloodstains. The soldiers counted seventy-nine bodies, many of which had wounds larger than ordinary bullet holes, and it seems that the French anti-tank guns played a very important role in this battle.

Deep in the woods, Dirk still had a few leaves on his body that had been shaken off by the sound of gunfire, but he, like the other captured German officers and soldiers, was extremely heavy. Judging by the expressions of the Frenchmen, the French unit had won the battle outside the woods.

Soon after the gunfire stopped, the German planes began to drop bombs deep into the woods, but their bombardment was very blind, and many of the bombs were only in vain to blow up fallen leaves and dirt, or to break some small trees, and of course some unfortunate French soldiers were hit. As some of the bloodied French wounded were taken to the field hospital, Dirk and the others clearly felt that the French soldiers guarding them had become stern.

The French general before seemed to have drunk too much tea in the morning, and he casually walked to the side of the "prisoner of war camp" of this group of German prisoners, and looked at Dirk and the others with a smile. The so-called prisoner of war camp was nothing more than a fence under a large tree, and the Germans even sat on the somewhat damp ground, and there seemed to be nothing to hook up with the camp except for the numerous French sentinels outside the fence.

"What do you want to do, French pig?" Marcus said and spat on the ground.

The French general only looked at them with a mocking smile, and after the interpreter told him what Marcus had said, he remained unchanged.

"The people who came to your rescue have been severely injured by us!"

When the translator conveyed the original text to Dirk and others, these Germans were disappointed, after all, there were too many French troops here.

"And it's a small armored force!"

When the translator said this, Dirk and the others were all in disbelief.

"It's a pity that there is no transmitter on those armored vehicles we destroyed, and naturally there is no codebook!"

"Don't want anything from us! Our codebook has been burned and nothing is left with ashes! Stupid Frenchman, admit it! You've lost the war! ”

Marcus suddenly ran to the fence in anger and roared loudly at the French general, and the French sentries next to him drove him away from the fence with bayonets.

The French general's face finally darkened, "We will turn defeat into victory, and France will never sink here!" And you arrogant Germans, huh! Your main force will soon come to die! ”

"French, do you know whose troops you are up against?" Marcus suddenly calmed down and asked in a contemptuous tone.

The French general replied with a look of contempt, "Of course, Prince. . . William's 5th Army, Gigi. William's 8th Army and Herringen's 7th Army. Rest assured, our great French army will break them one by one, followed by the other two German armies, and the Germans had better go home and raise pigs! ”

Dirk was not angry at the insults of the French, and the only thing the weak could do was to play tricks like this. However, he became curious about the identity of the French general, "General, don't mind telling us your name!" ”

"Well, as a good French officer, there is absolutely no need for me to hide my name. Listen, my name is Petain, Henry. Philip. Petain! ”

The French general looked at his watch, and the look of satisfaction on his face seemed to have reached the point he had expected.

"Alright, poor worms, I won't talk to you! Now I have more important things to do, and you will know that the French are not easy to bully! ”

Under the surprised gazes of Dirk and the others, Petain turned and left.

At this time, the command of the German 8th Army was still a busy scene.

"Your Royal Highness, the Chief of the General Staff has agreed to your suggestion that the main forces of our 8th Army advance towards the Boer River, while the 5th and 7th armies move closer to our army. The Chief of the General Staff also said that once our army encounters a large French army, we must spare no effort to launch an attack and must annihilate them all! ”

Hoffman's eyes seemed to be full of anticipation when he reported, and François and others did the same.

"If those are the remaining main forces of Xia Fei and we win this battle, it is very likely that the war in France will be over before the left flank of our army approaches Lyon!" Some people are even beginning to hope for the final victory.

Chen Tian did not express his position, but asked: "Has the plane bombing had an effect?" ”

Hoffman shook his head, "We've had three exploratory bombardments, and there's still no movement in those woods, could it be that there's only a small group of French troops attacking our reconnaissance team?" ”

This sentence is like the cold water of the cold winter wax moon, and it suddenly extinguishes everyone's enthusiasm. The closer one gets to victory, the more likely one is to make mistakes, and everyone finds themselves somewhat preconceived in this matter.

"Unlikely! A small group of French troops also dared to move our armored reconnaissance units? Let's get incendiary bombs! Olg still seems to be lamenting the loss of armored units.

"Haven't the other reconnaissance units we sent out have found out yet?" Chen Tian looked at Hoffman, hoping to get a satisfactory answer, but Hoffman shook his head.

"Not yet, Your Highness!"

"General Hindenburg didn't find it either?"

"Yes! Their army group has already carried out careful reconnaissance and search of the nearby area, but has not encountered a similar situation! ”

"Then let's take the Gudry Armor Division and the 1st Infantry Corps as the vanguard to advance towards the Boer River, and the main force of the corps will follow slowly behind! If there are fewer French troops there, we will eat them directly from the front; If it's a large French army, we'll have to think about flanking the flanks! Chen Tian gave the order a little cautiously, "Also, get on the incendiary bomb!" ”

Bang Bang ......

On the east bank of the Bourg, there was a sparse sound of gunfire, and Lontilis and his soldiers held a simple memorial service for those who died in battle, and Rau and the other soldiers lay quietly in the French soil, their dreams and futures forever.

Staying on the east bank of the Boer River, the Lontilis squad had already deployed improvised defensive positions, all six tanks, including the incapacitated tank, were all deployed facing the other side of the river, the other vehicles were arranged in a large square, the infantry dug some single bunkers, and they also moved most of the machine guns to the ground bunkers. At this time, those once strong armor steel plates suddenly turned into thin pieces of paper in their minds.

A group of German planes flew low above them, this was the fourth wave of planes to bomb, but the bombs could not blow them out despite the fact that there were French troops in the woods, as depressing as an ominous number of rats hidden somewhere in the house.

The black bombs fell from the belly of the plane one by one, but this bombing seemed to be very different from the previous three times, after the bombs fell, there was no loud explosion as usual, and tall fires rose from the woods almost silently.

"Oh! Burn those Frenchmen! Burn them! ”

The German soldiers cheered, and after the fires disappeared, the woods began to burn with a large amount of smoke. The birds in the woods had largely flown away from the previous bombardment, and this time even the last few unresponsive foolish birds had left the woods, and the German soldiers were all looking forward to the French escaping from the woods in disarray.

However, the next scene stunned Rontilis and his soldiers, and a large number of French soldiers appeared at the edge of the woods in an orderly manner, in addition to countless infantry, some horses and artillery.

"Oh God!"

Rontilis felt that the planes had just dropped incendiary bombs into a huge hornet's nest, and now, all the hornets inside had been dispatched.

"Quickly send a report to the command, there are a large number of French troops in the woods in front of us, the number is ominous, from the current point of view, at least tens of thousands, maybe more, they also have cavalry and artillery!"