"Marshal, Your Excellency, the Germans have attacked!" Marshal Rez-Shimigvi's adjutant shouted as he smashed the door of the marshal's quarters, "This time it's true, they're really attacking!" ”

With nearly 2 million troops on both sides facing off on the front lines, cross-border reconnaissance and skirmishes are happening almost all the time. But what happened in the early hours of September 1 was markedly different.

All Army Command Group deployed on the German border in Poland (Polish Federation), including Primorsky Army, Army Group Poznan, Army Group Lodz, Army Group Krakow, Army Group Carpathian, Army Group Modlin, Narev Group and Army Group Lithuania (consisting mainly of the defense forces of the Free State of Lithuania), reported that they were under heavy German shelling!

"Oh, the whole line was shelled?" Marshal Rez-Himigvi, who had just slept two hours earlier, opened the door in his pyjamas and listened to the adjutant's report, showing no signs of panic. "Go and call the President, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of the Navy, the Commander of the Air Force and the Chief of the General Staff to meet at 7 o'clock at the Belvedel Palace."

Then the Supreme Commander of the Polish army began to slowly put on his uniform and prepare for breakfast under the service of his servants—not that the Polish commander was too slow, but that this was what he knew about war.

It was 1 million heavily armed Germans attacking 1 million heavily armed Poles in fortifications. Normally, artillery preparation takes days and nights before the infantry attacks. So there is still time for breakfast.

And his subordinate, the commander of the Primorsky Army, Emir. Major General Krukovish-Przetemirsky, who had just crawled out of the warm bed, and the Chief of Staff Staniław. Colonel Grocsky, together with them, sat at the table and waited for the chef to prepare breakfast - Polish smoked sausage, sliced scrambled eggs, potato pancakes and coffee.

"The brothers below won't have much to lose, right?" Major General Přezemilsky took a sip of the coffee that had just been served.

"No," replied Colonel Grotsky, "most of the brothers at the front were in the fortifications, and the German shelling would not cause many casualties. ”

Twenty years have passed since the First World War, and in those 20 years, all the army officers in Europe have been figuring out how to keep their soldiers alive under overwhelming fire. Only by surviving first can you repel the enemy in the ensuing battle.

"And the Germans did not fire intensively," said Colonel Grotsky, "Colonel Velobay of the 9th Infantry Division, Major General Pzhyakovsky of the 15th Infantry Division, Major General Drapera of the 27th Infantry Division, and Major General Povatuze of the Eastern Tactical Group all called to report the situation, and the total number of German artillery was quite large, and there may be 2,000 to 3,000 of them being fired, but the use was relatively scattered. ”

"General, Colonel, your breakfast." This is a chef in white overalls and a tall hat who puts a carefully prepared breakfast in front of the two of them.

"Thank you," Major General Przetemirsky nodded politely, and then continued to speak to his chief of staff, "the scattered use of artillery is to confuse us and prevent us from the direction of the main attack. But there's nothing ...... about that."

"Boom ......"

At that moment, a dull sound like thunder came from afar.

"This is ......" Major General Przetemirsky and Colonel Grotsky looked at each other, and of course they heard the sound of a bomb explosion!

"Bombing!" An adjutant burst in and shouted "The Germans are coming, they're bombing the airfield!" ”

……

"Stay in formation, take care to cover each other, and may God bless us." Werner. Moldes was a devout Catholic, so he shouted "God forbid" when he spotted enemy aircraft.

Forty Zero fighters of the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment of the German Navy, covering more than a hundred He111s, flew near the Polish capital Warsaw. Their mission was to bomb the airfield of the Warsaw destroyer brigade. Thus, each He111E medium bomber had eight sets of bomb-carrying boxes in the bomb-carrying engine room filled with 50 kg of SC50 bombs - one set of bomb-carrying boxes could hold four SC50s or one SC250 (250 kg). Thus, each He111E that flew to Warsaw carried 32 SC50s with a total of 1600 kg of bombs. The entire fleet of 102 He111Es carried 3,264 SC50s, enough to blow several airfields owned by the Warsaw Destroyer Brigade into a cratered "lunar surface".

However, in order to accurately drop these 3,264 bombs on the Polish airfields, these He111E aircraft, which are not very strong and do not have much firepower for self-defense, must reduce their altitude. In this way, they were vulnerable to the Polish PZL.11 and PZL.7, two Polish fighters with odd shapes, but with good maneuverability at medium and low altitudes.

Both the PZL.7 and the PZL.11 were created in the late 20s and early 30s, without a closed cockpit and retractable landing gear, and the horsepower of the engines was also very weak, but the "sea-European wings" and relatively light fuselage still allowed this aircraft to fight with Germany's most advanced BF-109 at low altitudes, especially when the BF-109 was shouldering the escort mission - because to undertake the escort mission, the BF-109 could not "leave with one blow" and had to fight with the opponent.

In its original history, the BF-109 suffered a lot of losses for this reason, and suffered certain losses in the early stages of the Polish campaign.

But now these PZL aircraft have met the Zero fighter, which is the king of agility and grappling performance! And it's also a Fokker Zero with a more powerful German BMW 300 series engine (with one-stage two-speed supercharging).

The air battle over Warsaw soon began, and since Warsaw was located in the heart of Poland, the airfields on the front line had already been bombed by the time the German aircraft group arrived here, so the Warsaw destroyer brigade was already on alert, and 36 PZL series (20 P.11 and 4 P.7) had risen to meet the enemy.

But the Polish pilots soon discovered that they were in the midst of a nightmare – the plane they encountered was, in a way, the ultimate version of the PZL series. Faster, more agile, better at grappling, more firepower, and more numerous!

The slow PZL can't catch up, can't escape, and can't compete with the opponent to rotate the corner, and the only thing left is to be beaten and die!

Werner. At this time, Molders and another Fokker Zero formed a two-plane formation covering each other and bit the ass of one PZL.11.

"He can't run away!" By the time Molders muttered under his breath, his wingman had already opened fire, firing two strings of tongues of fire from the 7.92mm machine gun in the bow (there were also two 20mm cannons on the Fokker Zero, but the trajectory of the cannon and the machine gun could not overlap, so only one type of fire could be fired from a certain distance). Molders also fired randomly. Four tongues of fire swept through the fuselage of the PZL.11 like lightning, and some unknown debris flew up, and then the plane, as if drunk, rolled in the air a few times before falling headlong.

"The pilot didn't parachute, he must have been killed!" The wingman pilot's excited shouts came from the headset.

Moldes, however, freed up one hand and made a cross on his chest.

"God, what kind of plane is this? This is not the BF-109 ......"

At the time of the air battle, Field Marshal Reiz-Shimigvi, who had just finished breakfast, was standing on his balcony watching the fight in the sky with a telescope.

The PZL aircraft, which Poland was proud of, were not at all a match for the "new fighters" of the Germans, and the air battle lasted only a short time, and there was no longer a shadow of PZL in the sky.

Then more than 100 He111s began to carry out horizontal bombardment at medium and low altitudes, and the only thing that could pose a threat to them was anti-aircraft fire, which seemed to be not dense.

"That's the end of the Warsaw Destroyer Brigade?" Marshal Rez-Himigvi was incredulous and said to himself, "It seems that we need the help of our British and French friends, we need better planes......"

He turned around, still in an unhurried voice, and said to the adjutant, "Get the car ready, let's go out." ”

……

"Push away the barricades!" Panzer Meyer gave a loud order, and several soldiers with rifles on their backs got out of the half-track, ran over, and pushed away the obstacles blocking the road.

"Onward! Brethren, let's go fight the Poles! He picked up the intercom and gave the order to march. 17 heavy armored vehicles and another 11 half-tracks roared forward at the same time.

About 20 minutes after the end of the first round of shelling, Kurt. Meyer's company was among the first to set foot on Polish soil. This marked the official beginning of an unprecedented "blitzkrieg".

"Click......"

Resistance from the Poles also took place at the same time, and as soon as the convoy rushed into Poland, a machine gun set up on the side of the road opened fire. The bullet hit the steel plate of an 8-wheeled heavy armored vehicle and had no effect. But the Germans, who had been struck suddenly, stopped their advance.

The 20mm guns of the 18 wheeled armored vehicles all adjusted the direction of the muzzles slightly, and then there was a heavy bombardment, and the machine guns in the woods quickly fell silent.

"Now move on! Don't get entangled with the Poles in the woods, we have more important things......" Panzer Meyer realized that the enemy did not have anti-tank guns that could threaten the armored vehicles - they were supposed to be the Polish border garrisons that had survived the shelling just now, and their task was only to delay the enemy crossing the border with machine guns and mortars.

The convoy started again, rumbling over Polish soil and rushing towards the heart of Poland at an unprecedented rate of advance. (To be continued.) )