"Sir, the second lieutenant of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion of the 8th Air Service Regiment directly under the 8th Army, Tobias, led his troops to report to duty, and from now on we will be under your command!"

After the salute, Longiris looked curiously at the young airborne officer in front of him, although his military uniform was also army gray, but the style was very different from ordinary army clothing. The uniforms of these airborne troops look loose and baggy, far less straight than ordinary military uniforms, and the front of the uniforms does not have the kind of large and shiny metal buttons, but instead some inconspicuous small buttons; They had no leggings in their trousers, and officers and soldiers wore the same leather boots, which seemed to be designed to absorb shock when touching the ground, and their soles looked thicker than regular shoes.

The equipment of those airborne troops is not much different from that of ordinary army soldiers, from the M16 steel helmets on their heads to the Mauser rifles on their backs, as well as the bayonets and water bottles on their waists, they are all army standard equipment. The difference was that each of them was equipped with a Luger pistol, and the machine gunners carried "Firebird" light machine guns, after all, no one wanted to parachute with a heavy Makqin on their shoulders.

"It was a great honor to fight alongside those who fell from the sky! On behalf of all the officers and men of the 1st Armored Reconnaissance Squad, I would like to welcome you! Lontilis took the initiative to extend his right hand.

Second Lieutenant Tobias held his hand tightly with a serious expression, "It's a great honor to come down from the sky to fight side by side with you!" ”

Except for two of the German airships that had just been on the airdrop mission to monitor and observe the battlefield, the others had already begun to return home. At this time, the soldiers of Longiris had already chatted curiously with the airborne troops brought by Tobias, and this harmonious atmosphere made people forget the cruelty and bloodshed of the battlefield for a while.

"Lieutenant, I brought 105 soldiers and 10 light machine guns this time, and I guarantee that my soldiers will definitely not lose to the average army unit. The airship also dropped 5 light machine guns, 5 boxes of grenades, 15 boxes of ammunition and some medicines, which I guess is not good news for the French! ”

"Very well, we will let the French know that we are awesome! Your soldiers will join us in defending the positions here, so let them get cover for themselves as soon as possible, just like my soldiers! It's a pity you didn't bring some tank shells, otherwise the show would have been perfect! Lontilis said with some regret.

Tobias quickly conveyed orders to his soldiers, and the paratroopers borrowed sapper shovels from the soldiers of Lontilis and began to dig up individual bunkers in style, while their machine guns were used to strengthen the defense of the flanks.

It was not only the German positions on the east bank of the river that were dusty, but also the French troops on the west bank of the river, near the woods, digging trenches, tens of thousands of French troops confronted hundreds of German troops, and the French sent a clear signal: We are waiting for your main force, let's have a good fight!

"Second Lieutenant, your soldiers' ability to dig trenches does not look worse than that of infantry!" Lontilis didn't have his own individual trenches, he was in the tank turret during the battle, and he seemed to see the airborne troops as pilots, and it sounded funny to have the pilots dig the trenches.

"Lieutenant, in fact, apart from being able to parachute, we are no different from the infantry. Or you can call us flying infantry! "Tobias climbed onto the tank of Lontilis and looked across the river with him, in addition to the French soldiers who had set up their positions, the French who were preparing to attack began to regroup after the bombing of the German planes, and the French troops who crossed the river from both sides were doing the same thing, and it seems that the French offensive did not stop with the arrival of the German airborne troops.

The woods behind the French were still burning, and the fire was intensifying.

"Then the flying infantrymen, I'm afraid we will have to hold on here alone for a while, and to be honest, the Frenchman on the opposite side can drown us with a single spit! When you can't hold on any longer, I'll give you permission to fly away! ”

"I'm sorry, we're infantry now, and we can't fly if we want to!"

After Tobias finished speaking, the two looked at each other and smiled.

"Looks like you've gained a lot before!" Tobias was talking about the bodies of the French soldiers on the other side of the river, and the French did not drag them away, perhaps they wanted to clean them up once after the battle.

The French seemed to be crazy, and rushed up without any hindrance. As long as we dodge the shelling before they charge, we're basically left with only shooting! "Lontieris still doesn't understand what the French are trying to do.

"They're probably sick to their brains by eating bad things! By the way, have you seen those Africans and Asians, I think it must be interesting for three different skin tones to charge together! Tobias held up his binoculars to find them on the other side.

"Yes, there must have been quite a few North African and Algerian soldiers in the French army, and we encountered some of them in the Battle of the Seine. To be honest, their combat effectiveness is even greater than that of ordinary French soldiers, but we don't seem to see them here today. Ensign, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you! ”

"I heard before I came here that it was the main force of the French army, and it seems that their main force is still the same, all French nation! Those barbarians still haven't been put into their main lineup, it's a pity! ”

"The main force of the French army? Maybe! However, I did not report to my superiors that there was a main force of the French army here, but that there were a large number of French troops here! So far we have only seen about 30,000 or 40,000 French soldiers, and there are still quite a few in the woods, but the exact number is not very clear! Maybe the blacks and yellows are watching us from the woods! ”

"The French army is numerous, and it takes the initiative to attack, of course, it is the main force of the French army! It seems that the French are really not good, even a few hundred of us can confront them, we are afraid that we will become famous overnight! ”

Inadvertently, the two missed something very important, although the French colonial legionnaires had a very low cultural quality and could even be said to be barbarians, they were the bravest fighters in the French army. For the French commanders, these men rarely retreated, and their lives were worthless, so they could be used as cannon fodder for the charge. There are no places for them here, just because the French put them in a place that is more suitable for them to play.

At this time, Chentian's command and the main forces of the group army had already arrived at a distance of 40 kilometers from the Boer River. The large army could not cross the river as easily as the reconnaissance team, so they had to build bridges and pave roads along the way, and the entire marching queue was kept and stopped.

"Your Royal Highness, Colonel Guderian's vanguard is only 1 hour away from the reconnaissance team! The French on the west bank of the Boer River had not yet launched an attack on our reconnaissance squads, and according to the reports of our aviation units, the French had already lost at least 2,000 men in the bombardment, but they had no intention of retreating into the woods. The incendiary bombs we dropped earlier have already started a fire, and the retreat of those French will soon be sealed! ”

"Still no other French troops have been found near the Boer River?"

"Yes!"

Chen Tian nodded, "As we get closer and closer to the Boer River, whether the French are ready to face us head-on or set a trap, this mystery will soon be revealed." If it's a head-to-head duel, then I have to reassess the chivalry of the French; The possibility of a trap is very high, but our entire army group has been steadily advancing, and I am curious to know exactly what the French are going to do against us. The flat terrain here is not conducive to an infantry attack, so the army can launch a surprise attack from a certain wood, and our armored forces are enough to react quickly. Not to mention anti-tank guns, even if the French have dozens of anti-tank guns, I am afraid there is no way to stop the attack of a large number of tanks and armored vehicles. Unless ......"

Hoffman looked at Chentian blankly, waiting for him to say the next thing.

"Unless the French soldiers each carry a zha medicine bag and attack our armored units with human bombs, in that case, Xia Fei can be on a par with Ben ****!"

"Ben.****?"

"An oriental mythological figure who likes to let his men die with the enemy!" There's nothing wrong with Chen Tian saying this, it's just that the tools used by Uncle **** are much more advanced than the technology of this era.

"But we have machine guns, how can they get close to our tanks? Besides, did every French soldier have no regard for his own life? ”

Hoffman was only half right, since the Germans knew that the French army was likely to set a trap and still pushed there, then why couldn't the French rush up with zha medicine bags knowing that the chances of survival were very small, especially those "barbarians" of the French colonial legion.

"Chief of Staff, the latest report from the reconnaissance squad!" An officer sitting in front of the transmitter turned around and handed over a piece of report paper with a few lines written on it.

"After about five minutes of shelling, the French on the opposite bank launched a second wave of attacks on our positions, with four French infantry regiments charging from the front, and thousands of French troops who had already crossed the river attacking from both sides of our troops. The reconnaissance squad and the Airborne Forces put up a stubborn resistance under the cover of aviation, but the French resolutely threw a large number of infantry into the charge, and our troops were ready to retreat at any moment! ”

Chen Tian wondered, "Crowd tactics? The French are crazy! For a German armored reconnaissance squad, did the French need to spend so much effort? It's not so much a combat operation as a French show, a very hard show! ”

"Looks like that's the French bait!" Hoffman sighed, "I know that the French army is cheating, but I don't know where the fraud is, what is the real purpose of the French?" ”

"In short, the aim of the French army is to defeat us!" Chen Tian once again set his sights on the map. Left flank? Right wing? Bag clips? The rear route of its own army group was protected by the 7th Army of Herringen, and the 5th Army of Hindenburg was dozens of kilometers behind after the turn and was now almost parallel to Heringen's army group. The three group armies used to invert the word "product," but now it has become a somewhat crooked positive word for "product."

"Our planes and General Hindenburg's airship carried out extremely detailed reconnaissance of the woods on both sides of the Boer River and dropped aerial bombs and incendiary bombs on suspicious areas, but still nothing was found!" Hoffman made countless speculations about the tactics that the French might have employed, but overturned them one by one.

"Time will tell, but hopefully it won't turn out too badly!" Chen Tian was a little gloomy, he was not a god after all, and there was no way to penetrate the enemy's mind.

In the area of the Boer River, the fighting between the two sides is still raging. The most active on the battlefield were not the German soldiers who resisted stubbornly, nor the French soldiers who attacked frantically, but the German planes that circled over the battlefield with bombing and strafing. For the French soldiers standing on the battlefield, those German planes buzzed loudly like a bumblebee, dropping bombs and machine-gun bullets on themselves from a low altitude of more than a dozen meters or even several meters. They roared again and again, forcing the French soldiers to fall to the ground, and their influence and deterrence were far greater than the bullets and shells of the German infantry on the opposite side.

Lontilis and his soldiers were glad to see that the French charge was slowed or halted again and again under the attack of their own aircraft, and they were proud to have such a strong aviation force, and if it were not for the support of the aircraft, or if it was the French who owned the aircraft, this poor temporary position would have been lost many times.

There were more and more blue-gray on the battlefield, and some were even French soldiers lying on the ground who did not want to get up, and in the end, the French army had to reluctantly withdraw their troops again. In Petain's eyes, it was not the German positions of armored vehicles and infantry that stood in his way, but the invisible line of defense of hundreds of German aircraft. Seeing the loss of more and more soldiers, Petain felt a little heartache, most of the French officers and soldiers here did not know their role in Xia Fei's plan, so after two successive unsuccessful attacks on hundreds of German troops, their morale plummeted, and the fire in the woods cut off their hope of retreating. These Frenchmen understood that the main German forces were soon coming, and their minds began to wander between collapse and Jedi counterattacks.

The German airships higher above the battlefield finally saw another German unit in view, and although the steel torrent of countless armored vehicles was on the west bank of the Boer River, only one army in this era had this unstoppable momentum. The crew above couldn't help but feel relieved for the reconnaissance team below, they finally managed to make it to the arrival of reinforcements, which has to be said to be a huge miracle.

Guderian sat in the turret of a tank in high spirits, and the time had finally come to sweep the French army on the west bank of the Boer River, and his troops would march forward bravely, regardless of the mountain of knives or the sea of fire ahead.

At this time, Chentian's army headquarters was still 20 kilometers away from the Boer River, and in Chentian's armored command vehicle, the communications officer handed Hoffman a piece of paper again.

"Chief of Staff, coded telegram from the 5th Army!"

"The 5th Army?" Hoffman took the telegram, looked at it only once, and his face changed dramatically. He didn't speak, just handed over the piece of paper to Chentian.

Chen Tian couldn't tell whether Hoffman was happy or sad at once, and he couldn't wait to read it:

"Please quickly send the main force to detour to the right flank of our department and encircle and annihilate the main force of the French army together with our group army! Hindenburg"

"The main force of the French army? Encirclement? Chen Tian's face did not change, but he was surprised in his heart.