Passing through a small residential area, a straight double-track railway line appeared before Hans-Feerrich's eyes. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoFrom the map of France, this railway line extends to the Franco-Belgian border at one end and leads to Paris, the capital of France, and is an important railway trunk line in the northeast of France.

It was already in the city of Amiens, where the defenders could be ambushed everywhere, and Feerrich and his companions walked cautiously at every step. By this time, the soldiers of the friendly forces had already stepped out of the woods, and they marched in a straggler formation along the railway line in the direction of Paris, but before they could go to Paris, they needed to conquer Amiens, and from here they could clearly see the landmark of Amiens, the beige Cathedral of Amiens. It was located on the other side of the Somme, less than a kilometre from the Verne bridge, and by the time the Germans touched the cathedral, the capture of Amiens was more than half complete.

Looking at the quaint, holy religious building from afar, Fellrich made a cross on his forehead and chest, and prayed silently in his heart. Since the first battle in the early morning, his infantry squad has lost a total of four men, one dead and three wounded, a rate of more than one-third. Although the soldiers' mental state was not greatly affected by this, and their confidence in victory was still very strong, the battle was far from over, and no one could guarantee that they would live to enjoy the glory of victory.

Amid the rumbling roar, four Hubert-13s advanced along the railway line in front, followed by more than 300 infantry from the German 1st Marine Brigade. The combat mission of their assault forces was to seize the Verne bridge across the Somme. Up to this point, the German Marines had followed the original battle plan, as if the masterminds of the attack had anticipated everything, which was so incredible to Ferrich that he admired the royal genius who had served on the same ship.

During the battle march, the houses and bushes along the road could hide dangers, and except for a moment of prayer, Feerrich kept his two Mauser pistols tightly in his hands, but the French officers and men who had retreated from the front seemed to run to the other side of the river. After walking along the railway line for half an hour, Fellrich saw neither the French fortifications nor the French officers and soldiers, and the river glittering in the sun was getting closer and closer, and the majestic railway bridge was finally fully revealed.

Fellrich saw several officers walk to the houses on the side of the road, climb to the roofs and check the enemy with binoculars. At this moment, a cold gun suddenly came from a distance, and a tall soldier walking in front collapsed. Realizing that this was an enemy attack, the German officers and soldiers did not immediately lie down and hide, but subconsciously searched for the location of the enemy gunners.

The staggeringly high rate of battlefield casualties in what is considered a human catastrophe is a consequence of the development of artillery and machine gun technology, but it is also very much related to the fearlessness of the soldiers in the face of the threat of death. In the following hundred years, no war could be compared.

A few seconds later, a second bullet was fired, and another German naval infantryman was shot and fell. The man was not killed on the spot, and his companion next to him urgently called the military doctor and took out a hemostatic cotton to help him compress the wound.

At this time, except for two groups of light machine gunners who were prostrate and ready to shoot, and some riflemen who were on one knee with their guns on guard, including the officers, the attacked German assault troops still maintained a combat marching posture.

With the use of smokeless gunpowder, the smoke from a single rifle shot became so faint that it was difficult to observe at a distance, benefiting snipers and sniper records to staggering numbers in this war.

The third gunshot rang out, and a German soldier finally spotted the gunman's location, and he pointed to the south-southeast direction to warn his companions: "There! The brown one with the windows on the second floor! ”

Following his lead, two groups of light machine gunners and several riflemen opened fire. In the blink of an eye, the windows of the brown house were all shattered.

The sudden burst of gunfire immediately attracted the attention of the chariot crew, who were concerned to know what was going on here, and saw no sign of the enemy through the narrow viewing hole. In the absence of radio communication equipment, they had to open the turret hatch and poke their heads out of it to ask loudly.

"Keep going!" An infantry officer replied to the chariot crew at the top of his voice, "It's just a lone French rifleman, we'll solve the problem!" Keep moving! ”

The four Hubert-13s continued to move slowly at a speed of about 5 kilometers per hour, which gave the naval infantry plenty of time to deal with the enemy gunners. After a single shot, the cold gun never appeared again, but no one could be sure whether the French soldier, who had excellent marksmanship, was killed or left the battle on his own.

Closer and closer to the bridgehead, the German assault force still did not take the initiative to slow down the pace of advance, but the strange silence in front of it was confusing: the cannon roared in the city, and the downstream direction was also filled with the gunfire and explosions of the two armies, but this was like a forgotten corner, could it be that the French did not deploy defenders here at all, and even the guy who fired the cold gun earlier was a restless civilian?

The conjecture in Fairrich's head was quickly shattered by the whistling and falling cannonballs.

After all, artillery is the king of the battlefield that has been rampant for hundreds of years, and the German naval infantrymen who are not afraid of cold guns also lie on the ground, and the four chariots in front of them have also slowed down - they are not afraid of shrapnel, but they are easy to be attacked by enemy soldiers in close quarters when fighting alone without infantry cover.

Waiting for the other side to fire a few more shots, the German officers and soldiers also estimated the enemy's strength. Judging by the smoke of artillery fire and the frequency of shelling, the enemy should have only two or three guns, but they were deployed at a great distance from the opposite bank of the river, and with the range of the Hobert-13's guns, it was impossible to suppress this position.

"Onward! Take advantage of the gap between the enemy's reloading shells...... Advance! ”

Under the clear orders of the officers, the naval infantry soon engaged in a special competition that tested their hearing and reflexes. Whenever the whistle of a shell broke through the air, they had to fall to the ground as fast as they could, and after the shell exploded, they got up and moved forward as fast as they could—this kind of leaping forward was not an idea of an officer, but a routine training subject for the Marine Corps. Because when the soldiers land on the enemy's beach, they are likely to be suppressed by the opponent's firepower, and in addition to relying on the artillery fire of their own ships, they must also flexibly use various breakthrough tactics to seize the enemy's position.

The interval between the firing of the French artillery was very short, and the German naval infantry had to run forward with their lives, and in three or two strokes they caught up with their own tanks. An infantry officer pulled out a flare gun, lowered the muzzle of the gun and fired a green flare forward. Seeing this signal, the chariot driver immediately shifted gears and accelerated, and to the ears of the German naval infantry, this loud engine roar was so inspiring!

When the German attacking troops were still four or five hundred meters away from the bridgehead, many dark blue French military hats suddenly appeared behind the river bank, and the French soldiers who were ambushed here immediately let the opponent see the power of the gun array, and the first two rounds of the gun platoon killed forty or fifty German infantry, and immediately killed the surging German assault troops. Had it not been for the presence of four naval chariots leading the formation, the German marines might have been stopped by the French along the way.

The officers and men who were first incorporated into the Navy's Combat Vehicle Test Brigade have received more than two years of training, and their experience and skills in all aspects are relatively good, and they have proved their abilities with outstanding performance on the Western Front, but none of the four Hubert-13s are completely standard tank crews, and the gunners serving on surface ships have never even seen the appearance of a tracked tank commander before, and only the cadets drawn from the tank school are considered semi-professionals. But on the battlefield where death is at a moment's notice, the instinct to survive drives people to learn from their experiences. Seeing a large group of French riflemen on the banks of the river, the chariot crews knew that their infantry would be suppressed, and if they advanced without infantry support, the chariots would be threatened by all kinds of enemy explosives. So the four Hubert-13s quickly stopped, and the crew of the tanks mercilessly bombarded the French infantry with tank guns, and fired continuously with light MG08 machine guns.

The French infantry, who were covering on the bank of the river, were suddenly overwhelmed by the fierce guns.

The French infantry on the bank of the river was slightly weaker, and the German naval infantry in the front line rose up decisively, and they quickly passed through the gap where the corpses of their comrades were lying, some crawled down beside the chariots, and some squatted or stood under the cover of the chariots, their firing greatly strengthened the suppressive fire of the German attacking forces, and the naval infantry behind were able to alternately advance, and the heavy machine gunners were also looking for firing positions above the level nearby.

With suppressive fire gaining the upper hand, the German naval infantry signaled the advance of their own vehicles. A dozen minutes later, they approached the riverbank, and the German soldiers began to attack the French soldiers behind the river bank with grenades. The hopeless French officers and soldiers had no choice but to retreat, the Somme behind them was about fifty or sixty meters wide and only twenty or thirty meters narrow, but it could not be crossed on foot, and it was necessary to swim across the river. The French soldiers, who could not swim, had to cross the river through the maintenance channel below the bridge deck, and most of them became live targets for the German gunners, and few made it back to the other side of the river alive.

The bridgehead was cleared to block the enemy, and two Hubert-13s were the first to drive onto the bridge, and the other two remained at the bridgehead to respond. Although the accompanying naval infantry had been reduced in battle, the combat units of the 2nd Marine Brigade had already followed, and the combat personnel of the assault force on this route had increased to more than 600 men, equivalent to three complete infantry companies, and the only drawback was that they could not get direct support from field artillery, so that they were still under the threat of French artillery on the opposite shore from time to time.

A company of soldiers belonging to the 1st Marine Brigade was the first to take the bridge, and Fellrich was among them. Following the orders of the company commander, he led his infantry squad along the maintenance corridor on the right side of the bridge, guarding against French guns on the opposite bank and checking the bottom of the bridge and piers for explosives.

(End of chapter)