At a British position off the coast of Sandwich, Royal Marine Corps Corporal Lober Smith and his two Marines gritted their teeth and held on to a QF-1 Maxim machine gun, an automatic weapon with a theoretical rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute, using the same principle of short barrel recoil as the Maxim machine gun. The Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info uses the classic Hatch Kaith 37mm shell, which weighs 1 pound, hence the name "QuickFire1pound", which means 1-pound gun.

On the Western Front, the Allied soldiers found that this machine gun was the most effective weapon against German tanks, and the solid shells could penetrate the frontal armor of German light tanks at a distance of about 100 meters, and the hit rate was much higher than that of field guns. This kind of machine gun, which was mainly equipped with ships in the early stage, weighed about 200 kilograms without ammunition, and was lightweight, easy to carry, and flexible after being equipped with a wheel mount for the gun, and was used to deal with the enemy's infantry as a "bloody meat grinder" regardless of whether it used solid bullets or flowering bullets. After the fall of Paris, the French army put a large number of machine guns dismantled from naval ships into the defensive front, which barely resisted the powerful offensive of the German army and stabilized the situation with difficulty.

Although the Maxim machine gun commanded by Corporal Smith occupied a very ideal firing position, which could not be observed by the German warships cruising on the sea, and at the same time was able to hold the fan-shaped area leading to the inland on the beach on the north side of Sandwich, the battle had so far been fought with hundreds of rounds of ammunition consumed, and the shells of bullets all over the ground began to pile up, but there was no sight of corpses and rivers of blood flowing everywhere, and the German soldiers killed may have only twenty or thirty men, and a slightly more wounded soldier. As time passed, the Germans continued to advance their positions without haste, and when they approached the range of grenades, Smith knew that this position would definitely not be able to hold

"The German tank is coming!"

A sergeant in the front platoon was crawling in the ruins in the front left position to observe the enemy's situation, and it had only been about two hours since dawn, and the British troops stationed at Sandwich had already paid an extremely staggering number of casualties. Smith's Marine Platoon, which originally had 49 men, has no more than 10 people still holding on to their positions, and the same is true for the platoon in friendly positions. The British officers and soldiers in the predicament naturally omitted the distinction between companies and platoons, and everyone in the blue uniform around them, no matter tall, short, fat or thin, high or low rank, was a companion to each other.

Hearing the words of the German chariot, Smith's heart felt like someone had carried it, and he immediately hung in the air, and it was very uncomfortable to get up or down. The problem is that German tanks do not exist independently on the battlefield, and the heroic German infantry knows the importance of tanks, and no matter how powerful the opponent's blocking firepower is, they will do their best to coordinate and use bullets and grenades to clear obstacles for their own vehicles

In a moment, the croaking of metal tracks began to set off the oppressive atmosphere, and the figure of the German light tank appeared in Smith's sight, followed by nearly a dozen soldiers. If there are too many, it is difficult to rely on the steel body of the chariot to dodge the enemy's bullets, and if there is less, it will not help, and a dozen or so men are just right - this is the experience that the Germans have groped on the battlefield, for which they paid a great price. Following the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of Paris, the German army was heavily engaged in the Battle of Rouen, and in the fierce fighting that lasted for more than a month, the naval combat vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles destroyed by the Allied troops reached more than 140, which was more than the total number of combat vehicles lost in the previous months, but the size of the German tank troops did not decrease but increased, and the more setbacks became stronger, in the fourth offensive in mid-to-late November, the German army put in nearly 200 naval combat vehicles in one go, He led more than 300,000 German officers and soldiers to run over the Entente defense line inexorably, and conquered Le Havre two days after breaking through the main position of the defenders, picking up another pearl on the northern coast of France.

The position where the German tank appeared was three or four hundred meters away from Smith's Maxim machine gun, and there was a certain chance that firing at this time would interrupt the chariot's tracks and make it temporarily incapacitated, but Smith used the telescope he picked up to observe that this German tank was equipped with a small-caliber tank gun, although this tank gun was likely to be a 37 mm caliber, but the principle of action and range power were very different from the Maxim machine gun, and the two were directly opposed, and Smith's group basically had no chance of winning.

"Hold on, guys, there's another one in the back."

The sergeant crawling in the ruins carried a simple and crude homemade periscope, and schemingly tied some dead grass to the periscope, so his field of view was much larger than Smith's.

With irrepressible apprehension, Corporal Smith moved lightly to the side, leaned up slightly, and craned his neck to glance in the direction of the sea. There were thirty or forty German ships in this harbor embraced by a U-shaped coast, most of which were carrying landing troops to the northern shore, and a few fierce large torpedo boats rushed to the shore and directly suppressed the British defenders on the shore with their guns and machine guns.

In such a situation, even if all the British Royal Marines were Spartan warriors at Thermopyla, Sandwich's defense would not last long.

Smith cautiously moved back to his firing position, and in front of his gaze, the outline of the first German tank became clearer. Its turret rotated back and forth, the guns on the turret occasionally firing at the trenches where British soldiers were still active, and the machine guns on the front of the vehicle seemed to be alerting this relatively quiet direction. Smith saw the German soldiers who had been repulsed crawl out of their hideouts and join the attack. They must have known the approximate location of the Maxim machine gun, but during the battle, they did not seem to be able to inform the crew of the tank, but something unexpected happened to Smith: a German who looked like a non-commissioned officer found a flare gun out of nowhere, and he opened fire in a very awkward position, and the red flare flew in an unstable trajectory in this direction, and finally landed on the ground five or six meters away from Smith and the machine gun, and it did not go out immediately, but continued to emit a dazzling red light.

Damn it...... Corporal Smith said in his heart, as soon as he called out "concealment", the machine gun on the first German chariot spewed out a tongue of fire like a poisonous snake spitting out a letter, and a series of bullets came in an instant, faster than the lightning attack of the viper, but fortunately, Smith's machine gun was not only fully camouflaged, but also built a parapet wall with sand, and all the bullets fired directly into the sand, Smith and his two soldiers were lucky to escape, and they were busy dodging aside.

The three of them were shocked, and the non-commissioned officer who helped them reconnoiter the enemy situation waved his hand and shouted in a suppressed voice: "Retreat!" Evacuate! ”

The red flare that fell on the ground had been extinguished, but the German gunners on the chariot must have seen the direction of the target indicated by the infantry, and the attack from the chariot guns must have followed. Thinking of this, although Smith was unwilling, he could only retreat with two soldiers in a prostrate manner, but they still underestimated the "toxicity" of their opponents. As soon as the three of them moved back a few meters, two shells flew from the direction of the sea with a rapid scream, they failed to directly hit the machine gun position, but the power of the explosion instantly collapsed the sand and soil breast wall around the machine gun, if they were still in the previous position, I am afraid that they would have fallen in a pool of blood one by one.

In order to avoid the scattered shrapnel, Smith clung to the ground like a pan, and within seconds, the cannonballs fired from the front whizzed over the back of his head and landed in the rubble not far away. The power of the chariot cannon was certainly not comparable to that of the naval gun, but the sound of breaking the air by the slightest was a shock to every hair on his body. Before that, Smith was thinking of holding off as many Germans as possible here, waiting until all the ammunition was exhausted, and then following the remnants to retreat towards Kvalbard. The winter nights in the north were unusually long, and when the German planes were blind, the German fleet's artillery fire was no longer magical, and the British Royal Marines had enough time for the German soldiers who landed to understand their awesomeness. But now, Smith suddenly realized that the comprehensive strength of the two sides in this battle was not at the same level at all, the German army's three-dimensional attack on land, sea and air had the same lethal efficiency as Maxim, and the British army's passive defense was at best an Enfield rifle, in this battlefield where there was not much room for maneuver, Maxim had an overwhelming advantage over Enfield, waiting for the British army or a defeat without suspense.

The artillery fire from the sea hit again, and the impact point was not far from the position just now, but it almost killed Smith. The violent explosion shook his ears and buzzed, and he crawled backwards with his head buried in the gap between the German shelling, and he didn't have to think about how embarrassing this posture was. After a few moments, the British corporal felt as if he had been experiencing auditory hallucinations due to temporary deafness, and the screams of the mountains and mountains were constantly stimulating his brain. But when he casually glanced at his men and turned their heads to the south in astonishment, he immediately realized that the damned sound was not his own hallucination, but the terrible heavy artillery fire of the German fleet. The opening of today's battle began with the fierce shelling of the German fleet, and the efforts of the British troops to dig trenches day and night have also achieved relatively obvious results, only a few soldiers were killed in the first round of artillery bombardment of the German army, how can the troops be insufficient, the lack of equipment, the entire defense system in Sandwich is still far from the ideal level, coupled with the failure of tactical deployment, so that the first wave of the German attack on the north coast has gained a firm foothold, the landing force is like a rainbow, and it is a foregone conclusion to take Sandwich, At this time, with the capital ship firing fiercely, could it be that Kvalbard on the other side of the mountain beam was also turned into a sea of fire?

Smith turned his head, and the fiery red flames of the entire mountain beam were reflected in his suddenly dilated pupils......

(End of chapter)