The Marine Corps specializes in amphibious warfare, and they are not good at positional defensive warfare. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info or rather, not professional. This can be seen from the fact that there were two of them left behind in the demolition of the bridge.

If it were the regular army of the army to defend it, then there would never be such an oolong thing. They only sent out patrols at night and did not take the placed explosives seriously at all. Not only are they inexperienced and untrained, but more importantly, the officers and men of these Marines take it for granted.

The reason why the Marines held Rostov-on-Don was actually because the Navy saw that a super-brilliant campaign was about to be completed. So they hurried over to get a little profit.

The encirclement and annihilation of about 2 million troops at one time is a scale that is unique in the history of warfare. As long as a soldier wants to leave his name in it, even in the Navy.

Originally, there was nothing to do with the navy in this campaign, they were just responsible for blocking the Black Sea. However, when Zhang Cheng ordered them to send marines to capture the mouth of the Don River, the navy bigwigs thought their opportunity had come.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see that this battle of unprecedented scale must have ended in a complete victory for the Ming army, and the navy could not wait to transport the marines from Alexandria as soon as they got the opportunity.

Seeing that the naval blockade of the Black Sea had contributed to the campaign, the General Staff of the Ming Army agreed to have the Marines defend Rostov-on-Don, which was crucial. In fact, the reason was that the navy refused to hand over Rostov-on-Don to the army after landing from the sea and occupying it, vowing that the powerful marines would be able to defend it.

In addition, the General Staff believed that the Allied forces in the encirclement were no longer able to continue fighting after being cut off from supplies, and they even believed that the Allied forces in the encirclement could not approach the city of Rostov-on-Don through the vast snowfields. And the siege relief corps on the outside line was also not taken into account by the Ming army. Otherwise, there would not have been a situation where only one 12th Panzer Army would have blocked the attack, while the other troops were waiting to make dumplings.

To put it simply, the Ming army was careless and underestimated the enemy. After all, since Zhang Cheng came to the Russian battlefield to personally command the battle, the Ming army has been overwhelming all the way from the beginning of the summer offensive, and the siege of the city and the fortress are invincible. From Kazan all the way to Moscow, from Tsaritsyn to the Black Sea, and successfully encircled the largest army in history. In this case, it will be strange to be who it is. Even Zhang Cheng relaxed his vigilance a little.

When the General Staff handed over the battle plan to Zhang Cheng, although he saw that there was only one 12th Panzer Army to block it head-on, Zhang Cheng subconsciously thought that this was enough. Even the Navy's proposal for the Marine Corps to garrison Rostov-on-Don, which was crucial, was approved by Zhang Cheng.

This is the case with the Army, and it is not surprising that the unprofessional Marines failed to destroy important bridges in time during defensive operations. Fortunately, the Ming army's reaction was fast, and their strength was strong enough. Mistakes have been made, but there is still time and opportunity to correct them.

The Marines stationed on the railroad bridge reacted quickly. They drove up the railway bridge in various armored vehicles and lowered groups of German officers and soldiers to the ground with intensive artillery fire and machine-gun bullets.

The last of the Germans' armored units also attacked, but they did not take the railway bridge. This is because the railway bridge is not suitable for large armored vehicles, and the bridge deck is relatively narrow. The German armoured units went to another mixed road-rail bridge, and many Germans attacked from the frozen surface of the Don River beneath the bridge.

The Germans on this railway bridge lacked the support of heavy weapons. Although they used heavy machine guns and mortars to fight back, they were unable to suppress the armored vehicles of the Marine Corps. The Marines use amphibious vehicles, which are relatively small in tonnage and size, and can be used in most situations.

The 20-mm cannon on the armored vehicle is like a scythe of death, reaping the life of the reaper. No German soldier was able to escape after being hit. When a machine gun of this caliber hits a person's body, it is directly torn to pieces.

In addition to this, the Ming army also heavily equipped various armored vehicles with machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber and 7.62 mm caliber. With their ultra-high rate of fire and incomparably powerful lethality, these machine guns repelled the German army's fierce attack in just over ten minutes.

Although the Germans had used their courage to the extreme for this attack, they could not fight the Iron Storm with their flesh and blood. Nearly three thousand officers and men of two infantry divisions were left on the railway bridge. The blood that came out of the berths stained almost the entire bridge deck.

On the battlefield of modern mechanization, a simple infantry assault has no chance of success in the face of powerful automated weapons.

After a temporary retreat, the Germans mobilized a part of the reserve armored vehicles to cover the infantry attack again. However, in the environment of the bridge deck, the German armored units that lacked mobility were quickly destroyed by the anti-tank guns and individual rocket launchers of the Marine Corps.

From dawn to dark, the German 44th and 71st Infantry Divisions, the 79th Infantry Division and the 24th Panzer Division, which came to support the incident, nearly 20,000 officers and men, and more than 50 tanks and armored vehicles, paid a heavy price on this railway bridge. Instead of capturing the railway bridge, they filled it with 15,000 officers and men in the heat of the battle.

The entire bridge was littered with the corpses of German officers and soldiers. In many places, the blood that flowed out was frozen by the cold weather, and the German officers and soldiers were firmly held together. The firepower of the Daming Marine Corps, which is all equipped with automated and semi-automatic weapons and is heavily equipped with armored units, is too fierce.

The Germans were not able to make any tactical moves in this cramped environment, not even a place to hide. What can be a place to hide on the railway line? Then the train must not crash and overturn? In the face of the dense heavy firepower of the Ming army, although the flesh-and-blood German officers and soldiers did not lack courage and sacrifice, their bodies could not stop bullets and shells.

In contrast to the railway bridge, the main direction of attack of the Germans was actually on the mixed railway-road bridge. The bridge is a very wide and strong bridge, and it is called the Don Bridge.

Many of the German officers and soldiers were familiar with the Don bridge. Because many German officers and soldiers used to travel from the mainland to the Caucasus as a bridge through which the train passed. And now it's them who want to cross the bridge again in order to get home. But this time, they will face the ferocious fire of the Ming army.

The lower train tracks are basically attacked by infantry, and more often play a diversion role. The main force of the German attack was on the wide bridge deck on the upper deck.

The 24th Panzer Division, a subsidiary of the German Fourth Panzer Army, became the main force of the attack. This armored division was in fact an integrated combination of the various armored units under the Fourth Panzer Army.

Due to the lack of fuel supplies, the Germans were unable to bring all their armored units back from the front. They can only choose the best of the best, and organize the ace car groups of various armored units into one unit to provide fuel supply. The unit chosen by Hort was the 24th Panzer Division.

This unit was chosen purely because of its location close to the Don River, its small losses and its fuel reserves. Elite crews drawn from other units allowed the 24th Panzer Division to reach full strength even when it attacked.

An entire Panzer Army can only take out the strength of one Panzer Division after full deployment, which is enough to see how weak the Allied forces in the encirclement have been. It is no wonder that the Ming army was careless, believing that the Allies had no strength to struggle.

Because of the long hours of fighting in the Caucasus, these German armored units did not get the first opportunity to equip the new Mark V and Mark VI tanks. The main armor they used was still the Mark III and Mark IV, which were clearly no match for the Ming army, and, of course, the Type 38T tank.

In fact, this is also the reason why Zhang Cheng and the General Staff of the Ming Army were caught off guard by the Germans before. These tanks equipped by the main forces of the German army are not to mention against the Tiger and Panther, and even the No. 4 tank, which has been in service for several years, cannot be defeated. There is also a reason for the contempt of the Ming army.

In fact, the intelligence services of the Ming Dynasty had already reported on the situation with the new tanks of the Germans. It's just that no one knew that the Germans had put these new tanks into service on a large scale in such a short time. Without paying attention to it and not knowing it, the arrogant front-line troops of the Ming army were severely beaten with a stick by Manstein.

However, the German armored units in the encirclement on the south bank of the Don River did not change their equipment. Their old tanks were basically a one-shot shot in front of the anti-tank guns of the Ming army. Only half an hour after the offensive began, more than 40 German tanks had been destroyed. Similarly, the infantry that accompanied the attack of the armored forces were exposed to the open bridge deck, and suffered heavy losses in the face of the fierce fire of the Ming army.

The wrecked tanks were in flames and smoke, blocking most of the bridge deck. It not only blocked the shooting of the Ming army, but also blocked the advance of the Germans.

But there is no shortage of smart people in this world. The Germans quickly spotted the breakthrough by front-line commanders who sent tanks to push the destroyed tanks forward. It's like adding a huge steel shield to a tank's tether. Under no circumstances, it is impossible for a Ming armor-piercing shell to penetrate a tank and then penetrate a tank in its rear again. (To be continued.) )