In 1914, the "Firebird" light machine gun used by the German infantry was far inferior in rate of fire and power to the legendary G-42, but it still had terrible lethality against the enemy troops charging on flat ground. When the rattling of such machine guns sounded, there were always several, if not a dozen, of British soldiers who temporarily or completely bid farewell to the war.

Using all the shelter they could to defend themselves, the German paratroopers with only small arms in their hands were trying to make the most of the power of street fighting. In the kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms on the west side of many houses in Qiaoxi Township, paratroopers are basically shooting outward.

In front of a window stacked with cabinets and sofas, a 7.92 mm caliber "Firebird" fired a short shot every one or two seconds, and the floor was in shambles, with dust and small sand particles from British artillery fire, soldiers' footprints, and smashed glass, bullet casings thrown by machine guns constantly made a crisp clanging sound when they came into contact with the floor and bullet casings on the floor, and after a while there were hundreds of yellow and clear things on the ground, some of which were still rolling slowly, and the whole room was filled with a strong smell of fire. When the British looked out of these windows, they could only see the muzzles of machine guns that spewed flames from time to time, and the round steel helmets of the German paratroopers.

The machine gun is guarded by two riflemen who flash above the shoulder or half of their body to the window to aim and shoot, then quickly flash under or next to the window, and after pulling the bolt or reloading, they will aim and fire again. Although the rate of fire of this rifle is inferior to that of machine guns, the accuracy of this rifle is well guaranteed by the combined effect of the Mauser 1898 rifle with excellent performance and well-trained soldiers.

Street fighting is often a sniper's paradise, and elite German paratroopers have many professional and would-be snipers, such as Second Lieutenant Hildeland, who participated in the Turkish Civil War is very rare, and most snipers have been trained in Poland and France, and they can also threaten enemy officers, communications officers and soldiers in the field.

The British attack was fragmented by the frequent shooting of junior and middle-ranking officers, and the Canadian infantry company that first rushed into Fortintown was only a sergeant deputy platoon commander, and the hapless fellow had just taken over the command of the company and followed his commanders, with the result that the remaining dozens of infantrymen were confronted by the Germans in the streets under the leadership of two corporals. In this era, asphalt roads were only available in some large and medium-sized cities, and the roads in this town were basically gravel roads, the roads were not wide, and most of the houses with wood and stone structures on both sides were only one or two stories high, and most of them had pointed roofs with attics.

A British infantry company that then stormed into the town was hit by mortar shells on the road, and then German machine-gun fire, and when it entered the town, only a poor dozen men and a platoon commander were left, leaning against the wall of a house and looking back at the place they had just passed, and the soldiers' eyes were filled with deep fear. There were many corpses lying on the ground near the town, new dead every second, and some wounded soldiers were struggling in agony, and the few medics had no time to give first aid to the wounded.

"Fight with the German devils!"

An enraged English soldier rushed into the street, and he had just fired a shot at the window of a house in front of him, and before he could even pull the bolt, a bullet from another window hit him in the head (a qualified sniper with a 200-meter headshot, 400-meter to ensure that the target was hit).

"Oh God!"

The British soldiers leaning against the walls next to them could only make crosses over and over on their chests, and the muzzles of German guns were almost everywhere in the town, and perhaps only the outer walls of the outermost houses were a good place to take refuge.

There were more and more British corpses lying on the edge of the town, and the streets outside were also full of dead and wounded, and the British had to cross their dead companions before they could enter the town, but the town west of the bridge, which consisted of more than 200 houses and deployed two battalions of more than 1,000 German paratroopers, was like a huge black hole that continued to swallow the lives of British and Canadians.

More than 20 companies of the first wave of the attack entered the town one after another, and as more and more British soldiers hid behind some houses in the west of the town, the officers had to come up with effective ways to continue advancing into the town. A sergeant poked his head out slightly, and there was basically no one on the street, and there were at least 40 corpses lying on the street next to them, which was less than 3 meters wide and about 50 meters long, and he only observed for two or three seconds, when a bullet slammed into the wall next to him, and he was so frightened that he retracted his head as fast as he could.

"We have to clear these houses of the Germans one by one, follow me in a row, rush into the house on the left, and the others open fire for cover, and use grenades!"

As he spoke, the sergeant looked at the twenty or so soldiers hiding here, from various companies, Canadians, Englishmen, and even a Scotsman with bagpipes, all of whom looked at him with blank and frightened eyes.

"10 people in front, up to you, listen to my orders and rush out and fire in front, the others charge after me, understand?"

After carefully assigning tasks, the soldiers finally nodded. The first few soldiers took out Hale grenades and loaded them on top of their rifles, although this weapon looks useful, if it only explodes outside the wall, it will not cause any damage to the people in the wall and the house, but the accuracy of the gun grenade is not enough to shoot them into a small window from 30 meters away, and the sound and smoke from their explosion can play some cover.

"Prepare for ......" The sergeant took a deep breath, and the soldier next to him looked equally nervous. The sound of machine guns outside was intermittent, rifles from both sides were still firing actively, and there were less than a thousand men left in the first wave of the British attack, most of whom chose to defend themselves on the edge of the town and wait for the follow-up troops.

"Rush!"

Ten covering soldiers rushed out, and the somewhat silent streets were noisy, and the German machine guns, rifles, and snipers fired almost simultaneously, and the 10 soldiers barely fired two grenades before all of them were killed. At the same time, the sergeant and the other soldiers rushed out to rush over the corner to the house on the left, and the sergeant fired his revolver at one of the front windows as he ran.

Syllable......

Second Lieutenant Hildrand clearly saw that his target, the British sergeant with Wilbury's revolver, had a ball of blood on his head, and the guy fell to the ground without even a change of expression on his face, and he twitched a few times before falling completely silent. The German soldiers behind the windows shot the rushing British soldiers like turkey hunters, and the two "Firebirds" greeted them with long shots that lasted for several seconds, and the last British soldier fell in front of the door on the first floor of the house after several bullets, without even getting a chance to touch the doorknob.

The street, which was guarded by two light machine guns, 19 rifles and a super-ace sniper, was temporarily calm. After withdrawing from the 12th shell of this battle, Second Lieutenant Hildeland put away his rifle and hid next to the window window. This battle has just begun, and his advantage in the sniper rankings has expanded a little, it is dangerous to participate in the paratrooper unit, but this danger is exciting from another angle, it is much easier to hunt an enemy in street battles than in field battles, and you often need to disguise yourself in field battles (some snipers in World War I in history have funny disguises, like circus acrobatics, and there are actually people disguised as trees), sometimes crawling and lurking can only harvest one or two targets a day, And the likelihood of being found and hunted down is much greater than street fighting.

Due to the presence of the remnants of the British troops on the western side of the town, and the fact that much of the ammunition had been destroyed in the bombardment, the second wave of British attacking forces did not carry out artillery bombardment before departure. This time, the British troops still looked neatly lined up from a distance, but they were much larger than the previous ones. With two reminders in a quarter of an hour, the British commander had to send most of his soldiers, and time was of great value to both sides.

"General, our casualties are too great!"

The commander of the 3rd Canadian Division, Colonel Cole, personally appeared before General Reese, and with the previous attack, almost all of his 12,000 Canadian infantry were engaged in battle, and the reserve was four infantry regiments made up of pure British soldiers.

Reese did not answer directly, but asked rhetorically: "Colonel, have you ever experienced war?" ”

"No, this is my first time fighting, and most of my soldiers have never fought before!" Cole shook his head, the Canadian army had sent troops to support the British army in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, but the number of troops invested was not much, including more than 7,000 logistics medical personnel, and by the end of the war, the Canadian army had a total of more than 700 casualties, and the Canadian army that came to Britain to fight in this war now has more than 100,000 people, if it were not for the German Navy's blockade of the British Isles, this number would be even more (there were 620,000 Canadians who participated in World War I in history, More than one million people participated in World War II).

"During the Second Boer War, I was still a lieutenant company commander, and the guerrilla tactics of the Boers made us suffer! I lost two good friends in that war, and one was disabled and retired from the military forever! I was sad at the time, but this is war! Reeser looked at the advancing infantry with a stern expression, "This is a terrible war!" In the past five months, at least 1 million soldiers and officers have been killed on the battlefield, including British, Russians, French, Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, Serbs, Italians, and even Japanese. There is nothing to be afraid of death, the dead are heroes, and the living can only comfort these souls with victory! ”

Colonel Cole was silent, his mind mixed as he watched the soldiers go away.

Standing on the bridge and looking at the battlefield, Lieutenant Colonel Garris silently calculated in his heart that the number of British troops in the second wave of attack exceeded 10,000, and it seemed that they planned to solve the problem in a war. The remnants of the first wave of the attack were small in number, but they firmly occupied a small area in the westernmost part of the town.

"Lieutenant Colonel, let me bring two battalions over for reinforcements! After thwarting this British attack, we can wait for an opportunity to launch a counterattack and drive all the British out of the town! Major Shields, the big man, looked eager, and if he succeeded in repelling the British attack, it would not be a problem for the bridge to hold out until noon.

"But ......"

Garris felt that it was too early to put in the reserves in the morning, there were 5,000 paratroopers defending here, and more and more British troops would arrive here in the next few hours. Garris didn't know exactly how many British troops he would face, but the pre-landing deception tactics could do nothing more than delay the British counterattack, and the British would certainly pounce on Bonemouth with all their might before the Hindenburg 5th Army landed two days later. However, it was a bit reluctant to conduct a defensive battle in a small town like Fortin, and it was not easy for two battalions of paratroopers to resist the attack of more than 10,000 British troops in front of them.

"Or 1 battalion?"

The thought of the fierce hand-to-hand combat made Shields' hands tickle a little. Regimental commanders like Garris and Shields have different personalities, and even high-ranking generals can be belligerent and calm, and it is neither realistic nor necessary to require everyone to be as cunning and tactical as Rommel, and a brave command style like Shields can sometimes work well.

"Oh well! Major, you take the 4th Battalion of the 2nd Regiment to reinforce the town area of Qiaoxi, and remember to expel the British troops from the town! ”

Just two minutes later, Shields crossed the bridge with more than 700 high-spirited soldiers into the Qiaoxi Township District, looking at this army full of fighting spirit like a tiger, Garris could only sigh what kind of commander brought out what kind of soldiers. He looked up at the sky south of the bridge, where only a few white clouds floated, and it would have been nice to have a group of German bombers to come to support at this time, but unfortunately the land-based planes had already returned, and it was probably difficult to come back to support before evening, as for the carrier-based aircraft of the German aircraft carrier formation off the coast of Bonemouth, they were assisting Guderian's mixed panzer division in the battle against the British, and the battle there was much more fierce than here.

"Target distance, 1500 meters!"

The rangefinder in front of the mortar position reported a familiar number, but the situation was not exactly the same as it had been during the previous British attack. The British had suffered a loss of firepower after entering the town, and this time there were many soldiers with heavy machine guns behind the infantry ranks, and the British and Canadian soldiers stranded near the entrance of the town were also ready to move at this time.

The officer commanding these mortars looked helplessly and worriedly at the ammunition boxes loaded with mortar shells, in the previous British attack, the German mortars bombarded from 1200 meters to a distance of 150 meters, and the results were self-evident, but the original small number of shells also consumed a lot, according to the last firing rate, if you hit again, most of the ammunition boxes here should be empty. Every German soldier knew that they would face only more and more British troops behind them, and if they ran out of ammunition, they would have to blow up the bridge and retreat.

"The landing point of the shells is set at 1,000 meters, and each cannon should pay attention to controlling the speed of the cannons, and try to control it within 4 rounds per minute!" Despite the order to save shells, the ammunition situation of these mortars is not optimistic, after all, in such a battle, mortar fire lasts at least 10 minutes.

After replacing the new barrel, the paratroopers operating the machine guns also calculated their ammunition a little, and in the actual course of the battle, a 200-round cartridge belt can generally be fired for two to three minutes when the short shot is the majority, and it can only be fired for less than two minutes when the continuous strafing is carried out, and the barrel must be replaced after the shot. With five of these cartridges in one ammunition box and two or three boxes of ammunition next to each machine gun, it is normal to finish one box of bullets in one battle.

Probably the most worrying about ammunition are riflemen and snipers, a well-trained soldier with a Mauser 1898 rifle when the maximum rate of fire is only 15 rounds per minute, in the street fight with the addition of aiming and dodge reload time, a rifle rate of fire can reach 10 rounds per minute, 1 box of ammunition can almost make a platoon of soldiers fight such a battle. As for snipers, they are more ambulable, and ace snipers like Hildeland generally do not have to carry more than 50 rifle rounds and 20 pistol bullets.

There were always a number of bagpipers in the British marching procession, so the melodious sound of bagpipes gradually spread into the town of Fortin, as the British infantry advanced. More than 14,000 British and Canadian infantry slung their rifles over their shoulders before reaching the range of German mortars, the bayonets at the front of their rifles bobbing up and down with their steps, creating a dazzling forest of bayonets at the top of the line. Under this impassioned momentum, everyone, whether English or Canadian, has confident fortitude written on their faces.

After a few minutes of this oppressive atmosphere, the explosion of German mortar shells finally rang out, and in the smoke and shrenchnel, as the British officers in the column gave the order, the British soldiers all changed their posture of holding their guns diagonally to their chests, and their steady forward pace turned into a trot. In this situation, the British column did not completely disperse as the previous time, and every mortar shell that landed near the queue could sweep down several or even a dozen soldiers.

With the German machine guns in the town firing, the British attack suddenly became fierce, and the infantry hidden at the entrance of the town began to advance into the town regardless of the German fire, which made it necessary for the Germans to disperse considerable firepower against this group.

"Oh......"

At a distance of about 500 meters, there was an earth-shattering cry in the British column, and all the infantry began to run and charge, some of the British machine guns stopped to fire at the buildings in the town, and some machine gunners carried machine guns to advance with the synchronizers. This is a battle without heavy artillery and aircraft, and the rhythm of the battlefield rises from a flat to a climax in just half a minute, and the blood in everyone's veins begins to boil, whether it is the attacking side or the defending side.