Chapter 268: Let Me Go to Sleep
George Patton's use of armor was like a scalpel to push the Han Army's 8th Guards Panzer Division into a corner.
The commanders of several Tigers at the back of the queue tried to make an emergency U-turn and return fire, but they still couldn't escape the fate of the side armor being penetrated. At this moment, the small defect of poor maneuverability became fatal.
The 7th Panzer Division, which was mired in street fighting, and the 9th Division, which was fighting on the coast, were unable to rescue the 8th Division, which was being flanked from the front and rear, in time.
But the Gepard armored infantry vehicles of the 8th Division staged an extremely tragic scene. After the infantry soldiers in the nearly 100 Cheetahs got out of the car with individual weapons, only the driver was left behind, and after quickly turning around in a dense formation, they launched a decisive charge against the hundreds of M4s of the C Brigade that were firing rapidly.
With infantry vehicles against medium tanks, you would say that is not looking for death?
Yes, they just want to "look for death", charge in a dense formation, and use their own "death-seeking" behavior to buy time for the tigers behind them to turn around, "the leopard dies and the tiger lives, and then the tiger is violated" This is the purpose of the cheetahs' decisive charge.
No one is to judge whether they are doing right or wrong, and in such a battlefield, the Tiger tanks can turn around and face the Sherman, who dares to provoke the tiger, with the front armor of the "breakwater", which is a victory.
Play drift with a medium tank weighing more than 30 tons, play drift after not sleeping for more than 20 hours, and play drift with your comrades to buy time with their lives.
The training of tank drivers of the Guards at any cost showed an extremely high level in wartime. The drifting U-turn of the sixty-odd Tigers made the other crew members of the tank almost vomit out of their stomachs - their stomachs were empty, and there was nothing else to vomit.
After retching a few times, the commanders who welcomed the turning machine immediately opened their mouths and shouted wildly to reload and aim. However, the sound that can be made is not bad, and it is far from the loud command they imagined during training, and even ...... Some of the commanders only opened their mouths wide, but no sound came out - they had already marched for a day and night without sleep, starting from Gussemaya on the border between Egypt and Liberia, and had marched for three hours before entering the battle.
The extreme physical fatigue and tense battle made some of the commanders lose their voices!
It didn't matter, the ammunition man and gunner just glanced at the commander strangely, saw his big mouth, and immediately turned his head to finish his job, and the tacit understanding between his comrades made it quickly realize that something was wrong, or that the commander was ordering him to do something.
Pushing away the kettle handed by the communicator, the commander knew that there was not much water in the kettle, and the battle did not know when it would end, and there was no time to make up for it, and it was necessary to ensure that the communicator's throat was moist.
"Nima, this battle was fought, when did our guards be so aggrieved!"
The correspondent was very young, and when he saw that the commander refused to drink the water in the kettle, he cried and cursed, which immediately resonated with everyone in the car. Don't? When did the Guards Panzer Army suffer so much?
The commander wanted to say something, but he opened his mouth, and the sharp pain in his throat made him realize that he was still in a state of silence, so he had to grin bitterly.
The gunner was not so leisurely, the ammunition man had finished loading, and the long Type 85 barrel moved slowly, slowly aiming at an M4 Sherman in the distance in the rapid movement of the tank.
Even though it was in a relatively flat desert area, the tank's scope was still shaking up and down, and the gunner was trying to keep the Sherman from leaving the scope, and at the same time as he pressed the launch button, he found that the Sherman's muzzle was also glowing, "Dodge!" ”
The driver tightened the lever again, and with another beautiful 360-degree drift, the bulky tank drew a large circle with a diameter of more than ten meters on the dunes.
The armor-piercing shells fired by the Sherman tank whistled by, and the gunner found the M4 again in the scope, which had turned into a fireworks, and the word "done" passed through the corners of his mouth with a slight grin, and the car was full of jubilation, only the commander frowned slightly, painful and happy!
"These boys, if they hit, they hit it, what are you laughing at, so that Lao Tzu wants to laugh too, and his throat is like a knife."
More than 60 Tigers that "drifted" turned around and opened fire one after another, causing chaos in the formation of Brigade C. Although the number of Shermans far outnumbered the Tigers who turned around, everyone knew that Sherman's 75 guns hit the front armor of the Tigers, which could have been just a crater, while the Tigers' 85 guns hit Sherman...... At such a close range, it is lucky not to become a lighter.
Patton's tactical use of armor was taken to the extreme. However, the gap in tank performance between the two sides gave the 8th Division a glimmer of life.
The tigers crossed the cheetah, which was destroyed as a meat shield, and all the drivers and gunners bit their lips. The tragic sight of the personnel carrier hit by tank shelling deeply stimulated them, and the belief in avenging their comrades repelled physical exhaustion. It is their greatest wish to turn all the Shermans of those American troops into lighters.
Unfortunately, such a wish is difficult to fulfill.
Just like the real tiger pounces on food, the most difficult hunt has been successful, but the tiger's mouth is coming!
The G-40C Veyron attack aircraft reappeared in the sky, and the 16 black dots changed from small to large. When the turret cover was lifted and the commanders who poked their heads out could clearly see the numbers of the dragons, the long-crested penguin air-to-surface missiles guided by advanced radar imaging technology had begun to wield. Some attack planes are armed with 55 mm uncontrolled rockets, and the pilots who fly the Weilong shoot rockets in a terrifying dive and roar, and the hit tanks will of course ignite a fire, and even those who are lucky enough to escape will be stunned by the violent explosions in the tank, and even die of bleeding from the ears and noses.
The excellent low-altitude performance and powerful ground attack power of the Weilong attack aircraft have been fully exerted in such a ground type. It was clear that they had wasted expensive long-crested penguins on the last attack, and this time more uncontrolled rockets were hung under their wings.
"Isn't it a loser? Isn't it a random shot? I'll fill you with cheap rockets and let you shoot whatever you want. ”
So said the ground crew at the Siwa Air Force airfield in western Egypt.
Feng Shui took turns, and just now it was flanking the 8th Guards Division on both sides, and the C Brigade immediately fell into the abyss. The Sherman tank, with weak air defense, was beaten miserably by the Weilong. There are also dozens of tigers on the opposite side, firing fatal blows from time to time. Because of the chaos of the C Brigade itself, the gunners of the Tigers could press the firing button more calmly, which made the hit rate of the 85 gun also improve a lot.
The Sherman Tank lived up to its name as the "Famous Lighter", and the Royal Air Force's Veyron and the Guard's Tiger Tank teamed up to create the most expensive desert bonfire.
Extinguishing the spark on their buttocks, the soldiers of the 8th Division were very glad that they had not been beaten into monkeys.
On the No. 30001 command tank that acted with the 8th Division, Major General Dong Zhihua couldn't help but quietly wipe the sweat on his forehead, tired and nervous.
If he wasn't the commander of the army, the moment the Weilong attack aircraft group appeared just now, he really wanted to jump out regardless of his image and shout a few times with joy!
If the 8th Division is surrounded and annihilated here, the 7th Division, which is still fighting street battles in the city, will be even more dangerous, and even ...... Commander Dong didn't dare to think about it anymore, personal honor and disgrace and safety are all trivial matters, and the Guards unit that has been eliminated has not yet appeared, right? Dong Zhiguo didn't want the 3rd Army to bear this title that he couldn't tear off for the rest of his life.
Dark clouds flew across the skyrim, dispelling the last shred of hope that Patton's multinational forces would have for the city of Ajdabia.
It was not a dark cloud, but it was mixed with rolling thunder, and the sound of 300 WZ-40 Haidong Qingwu equipment helicopters flying in formation was really like continuous thunder, deafening!
This battle can't be fought, unlike fixed-wing attack aircraft, helicopters that can rotate and attack at any time are definitely the most terrible killers of tanks.
In other words, it is the Mammel (Apocalypse) heavy tank with super anti-aircraft firepower of the Han Army, and perhaps in the face of helicopters, there is still a fight. Let Sherman and Cromwell face the Haidong Green Fleet?
Barton admits he's not crazy.
Urban street fighting, hiding and shooting cold guns, is also a great threat to helicopters, but when the protagonist of street fighting is a tank, is there still a fight? Narrow streets limit the maneuverability of tanks, and for helicopters flying in the air, it is a fixed target, or a lighter-type fixed target.
The U.S. 2nd Panzer Division and the British 3rd Dragoon Brigade quickly withdrew from the city of Ajdabia, covering their withdrawal with twelve Shermans and four Cromwell tanks.
Like the Cheetahs during the desperate charge, the crews of these sixteen tanks were also determined to die generously, and used their last heroic battle to delay the pursuing Tiger tanks.
Thirty minutes later, the 7th Guards Panzer Division destroyed the last Cromwell's cruiser of the enemy's broken rear force at the cost of two Tigers and a Cheetah - which was also the last Cromwell of the British army in Africa. However, they soon discovered that it was not what they thought that could come true. The so-called renewal of armor and firepower, nothing more than in relation to their own Crusader light tanks. In front of the main battle tanks of the Allied forces, whether it is the Tiger or the Siberian Tiger, or the German Leopard, Cromwell is still a scumbag.
As a result, Britain quickly stopped the Cromwell production line, which had just entered mass production, and replaced it with a full replacement of American-made tanks.
At the corner west of the city of Ajdabia, a Tiger gently pushed away the destroyed Cromwell cruiser tank numbered E3157.
Of course, the Tigers' Guards Panzers didn't know that what they pushed away was the last hope of the British cruiser tank, the last tank apocalypse of Britain, the country that invented the tank, and perhaps the last glory of the Japanese Empire.
The 3rd Armored Army of the Han Royal Guards won the battle for Ajdabiya, a military town in northern Libya, with great difficulty, well, in front of the victory, add the credit of the Navy, the Air Force and the 19th Guards Army Aviation Division. It was precisely the frequent sorties of naval and air force pilots who spared no physical strength to save the armored force from fire and water when it was in danger, and it was precisely the 19th Army Aviation Division's day and night journey to the battlefield in time that frightened the multinational troops away.
"Okay, is the credit all yours for? Just beg to let me go to sleep! ”
This is not only the wish of Commander Dong Zhihua, but also the words that all the officers and men of the 3rd Guards Armored Army want to say the most.