In the early morning of 19 February, the German troops who landed in Cuba finally launched the first large-scale bombardment of the US troops on the opposite side with artillery, and tens of thousands of shells were poured into the US positions within two hours, as if to vent all the grievances they had felt about being trapped on the beach for nearly a month. Looking into the distance from the trenches on the front line, I saw that clouds of smoke composed of gravel and earth waves were constantly exploding into the sky on the American position, and the light and flames were surging, and the targets that were hit soon rose with clearly visible flames and smoke.

After a week of continuous transportation, the German forces on the island of Cuba had increased significantly compared to before, and most of the 4th Army under the command of General Kruger had already landed, including an armored corps and more than 2,000 vehicles. The increase in the strength of the army prompted Kesselring to launch a major offensive on the island of Cuba in order to completely open the way to the American mainland: by now, the German army had been delayed in the Caribbean for more than eight months, and the American industrial machine had begun to fully switch to the war track. No matter from any point of view, the Allies should not have any more delays, and every day earlier the war is burned to the territory of the United States, the Allies have a better chance of winning the war!

While the roar of artillery fire continued, the German fighters and tens of thousands of attacking troops were already slaughtered from their positions. From the beginning of the last battle, the Germans used this new tactic of the Xu Jin barrage in the attack, which greatly increased the artillery support for the front line compared with the traditional method of charging after the shelling. After more than 20 years of deductive induction during the war, the current German army's Xu Jin barrage has long been perfected with the close cooperation of infantry, artillery, and armored troops. So much so that these thousands of attacking troops seem to have only one soul in control!

Although due to the congenital limitations of logistical supplies. This prevented the German artillery from squandering shells at a rate of 200,000 rounds per hour as their ancestors did on the French battlefield. But their continuous advance at the tactical level makes the current support for the attacking forces also appear timely and powerful. The U.S. officers and men, who were poorly concealed, only felt that every shell of the other side seemed to have eyes, and the battle site where they were located was soon enveloped by the deafening explosion of the shells, and the roaring and rushing waves of high temperature washed all kinds of earthwork fortifications to the ground and collapsed. And finally waited for the fire and thunder to leave his head on this day, and before he had time to catch his breath, the American soldiers found that the opponent's tank had appeared less than 300 meters away from him! As the on-board machine guns roared, the US officers and soldiers in the area in front of them were so suppressed that they could not raise their heads at all. Some machine-gun firing points had just spewed out tongues of fire for counterattacks, and in an instant they were blown to pieces by the roaring tank shells!

Machinery roared, tracks rolled wildly, and long-lost Tiger tanks rumbled across the battlefield, their cold-glowing steel bodies as breathtaking as Titans. Today, these vehicles have received further improvements in performance compared to the Battle of France: their front armor sloping 60 degrees has been thickened to 90 mm, and the side armor sloping at 30 degrees has been thickened to the same thickness as the front of the hull. In addition, it is for the sake of prevention. The tank's 105 mm gun has also been replaced with a 56 x diameter gun with a longer barrel, and its ordinary armor-piercing projectile (APCBC) can even penetrate 175 mm armor at a 30-degree angle at a distance of 1,000 meters.

In the face of the bunker fortifications and various types of armored vehicles of the American army. The Tiger tank is completely like a tank opener on the battlefield, and no target can withstand its thunderous blow. And when hit by anti-tank guns, its survivability is far stronger than those Type IV vehicles in the queue: even with the side fully exposed at a 0-degree angle of incidence, the 76mm L52 gun on the Sherman tank of the US Army cannot pierce this heavy armor equivalent to 115 mm without hard-core armor-piercing shells (APCR, that is, gold coin shells in a game developed by a file). Considering the obvious disparity between the soldiers of the two sides in terms of combat elements, it is even more conceivable that the US military will be able to destroy these steel behemoths: since the number of Tiger tanks accounts for only seven to one-eighth of all the tanks of the German army, this makes it easy for most of the members of their crews to be excellent veterans.

"Boom! Rumble! The light and flames were blowing, and the huge recoil of the new long-barreled gun made the Tiger tank, which had increased its total combat weight to 54 tons, tremble significantly. With a distance of 1,500 meters, German tankers used Guò's sophisticated optical rangefinders to name the enemy anti-tank guns that lacked concealment. A large number of Tank IV guards the two wings of the Tiger tank, forming a standard wedge-shaped array; This well-ordered offensive meant that the U.S. anti-armor weapons were almost confronted head-to-head with the Germans, and they were soon all turned into piles of twisted scrap metal in the short-stop fire of the Tiger tanks. The American officers and soldiers were desperate to find that all the armor-piercing shells hit the bodies of those heavy tanks with a crisp rebound, and this confrontation between the armor and bullets had completely evolved into a one-sided massacre by the Germans!

When ordinary armor-piercing methods are ineffective against heavily armored targets, there are theoretically many ways to deter an adversary: mine ambushes, aerial bombardment, direct attacks from large-caliber grenades, and armor-piercing shells fired at close range...... Among these means, air raids and bombing are undoubtedly the most effective means of support. Historically, when the Allies faced the heavy tanks of the German army, the fighter air attack was their absolute trump card, otherwise with the strong heavy armor of the Tiger King, it would never have been possible to suffer huge losses in the later defensive battles. At present, however, the US military's air power, which once roamed the island of Cuba, is no longer as strong as it was at the beginning. Through the guò missile raid and the intensification of transport, the Luftwaffe had already turned the skewed balance of air warfare back in the midst of the trade-off; Although the BF-109 and FW-190 have short legs, they are ideal for stealing air supremacy. At this time, a large number of German fighters attacked, so that the US pilots had to spend almost all their energy on entanglement with the opponent's fighters, and the ground support was sharply reduced. And once it enters this kind of pure ground battle, the American army is not an opponent of the German army at all!

And on anti-tank mines, the US military is equally hopeless. Since all they had thought about was to drive the Germans from the front to sea, they did not begin to build a temporary defense until the situation changed; The hastily laid minefield had already been blown open by the concentrated German artillery bombardment before the battle, and it did not play any role in blocking it. As for the time-consuming and laborious wide anti-tank trenches, it is even more impossible to dig them into shape. The Tiger tank, which did not receive any substantial damage, did not hesitate to rush into the trench line in front of it; According to previous combat intelligence, the U.S. military did not have individual anti-tank weapons like an "iron fist", and the upright tracks ran directly over the infantry trenches. To the surprise of the German officers and soldiers, the American soldiers in the trenches had long since fled without a trace, which made their flamethrowers specially prepared to clear the trench resistance useless. However, no one would be dissatisfied with the current situation, and after achieving a breakthrough, the German armored forces immediately turned around and encircled the American troops from the flank and rear.

After a day of fierce fighting, the 17th Infantry Brigade of the US Army, located on the right flank, collapsed. Their artillery was blown to pieces shortly after the battle broke out, and the corpses of the front-line troops were lying on their backs; The German tanks whizzed past, leaving behind only burning debris and mutilated corpses. A large number of American soldiers raised their hands to the advancing German troops in despair, their faces were full of bitterness and frustration, their fighting spirit had been completely crushed in the battle, and the other party's Su zhì was completely different from them! The German front-line generals were somewhat unprepared for the arrival of these thousands of captives, but they soon reached a consensus on the prisoners, that is, they would be used as coolies to carry supplies on the beachhead and build docks. As for the provisions of the Geneva Conventions that prisoners may not be used for war purposes, this kind of thing was originally formulated by the strong to restrain the weak!

On 20 February, the German armored forces continued their rapid westward advance with the spring flood bursting. According to Kruger's plan, he would use his armored corps as a spearhead to penetrate the enemy's rear and encircle about three American divisions on the opponent's right flank in one fell swoop. In a way, this is a scaled-down version of the Schlieffen plan. Since the area of the Cuban theater of operations was significantly smaller than that of Western Europe, the German army only needed to penetrate dozens of kilometers to reach the seashore after forming a breakthrough, which undoubtedly greatly reduced the difficulty of implementing this plan.

Although the U.S. forces had deployed a large number of reserves, including panzer divisions, in an attempt to halt the advance of the German panzers, they were invariably dashed in the offensive on the plains of Cuba. Tank cannons painted with white five-star logos were destroyed into burning scrap metal, and soldiers wearing boat-shaped caps were killed and wounded. Trucks rushed all the way, constantly bringing ammunition and other supplies to the combat troops, and the German tanks, which still had most of the stocks in the tanks, started again to continue their combat mission. At noon on the 21st, they arrived at the predetermined beach, and with the exception of a few outlying troops who managed to escape before the arrival of German tanks, the vast majority of American troops had fallen into the encirclement. Like a trapped beast in a cage, although the U.S. military has launched many breakthroughs, they have never been able to tear through the solid barrier in front of them. (To be continued......)

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Today, I have a convulsion, and I can't get on the backstage, so I have been waiting for a long time