One of the officers came up with the idea: "Let's cut down trees and build a wooden bridge, the water here is not deep, as long as three or five pieces of wood are tied up and placed on it, it will be enough to support the soldiers from sinking." ”

McLean said, "If we go on like this, when are we going to fight Windhoek." Okay, let's have someone cut down trees and build bridges. Let the reconnaissance troops also send cavalry, and go along the shore of the salt marsh in both directions to the left and right, to see if we can see its border, and if we can get around, it will save a lot of time. ”

Looking at the sun, which was already setting in the west, McLean added: "Let the soldiers set up camp, we will live here today, inform the sappers to cut down trees and pave the bridge as soon as possible, we must do to pass here as fast as possible." ”

The Bostonians did not have a map, and the Chinese Empire was the opposite, and Brigadier General Baden was holding a fairly accurate satellite map, observing the nearby terrain, and the salt marsh blocking McLean was also marked, which was called the Etosha Salt Flats on the map.

"McLean is probably blocked by the Etosha salt marsh, which is after all a large salt marsh more than 140 kilometers long and 60 kilometers wide, and they will not be able to survive in a few days." Brigadier General Baden said, pointing to the map.

Several staff officers next to him also watched, and one of them said, "We have plenty of time to continue building blocking positions, but we don't know what happened to the other way." ”

"There is no problem, with Commander Cheng Guangling here, Bostonians have no good fruit to eat." Senior Colonel Ouyang Zhe, commander of the 915th Infantry Brigade of the National Defense Forces, who was assigned to the Yugoslav Army, happened to come over and take over the topic.

"Yes, we just need to do our part and hold off the Seventh Army for a month, and as for the Third Army, Commander Cheng will solve it smoothly." Brigadier General Baden also nodded in agreement, and he has always been very convinced of the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Chinese Army.

At the same moment, the Third Corps, led by the Chief of Staff, Major General Somerville, was advancing at a rapid pace, and they were marching a little faster than the Seventh Corps, which by this time had already entered the Namib Desert.

"Report to the Chief of Staff, another tank has broken down." An officer came over wiping sweat.

"Damn desert, how can there be such an abominable terrain." Major General Somerville cursed: "It's too inconvenient here, check it out immediately, fix it if it can be repaired, give up if it doesn't work, don't come to me every time." Somerville was in the same bad mood as McLean, the hard Gobi Desert ground didn't drain the warriors too much, but the scorching wind dried everyone's water.

On the march here, everyone needed three times as much water as usual, so all the fighters had to move forward on foot, as trucks and jeeps were used to store water and food. The artillerymen who sat on the gun carriage and were pulled by the tractor or truck were also not happy, the blazing sun burned all the metal surfaces, the skin of those artillerymen was burned red as soon as it touched the gun, and the metal of the seat and backrest was also very hot, making people feel like they were being dried.

The most unfortunate are the poorly designed vehicles, due to the high horsepower of the M4 tank and the more sophisticated engine design, so its air intakes have a fine grid. Due to design problems, the air intake of the tank is at the bottom of the tank, which causes the air intake grid to be often blocked by the sand and dust raised in the Gobi Desert, and the phenomenon of the vehicle stalling because it cannot breathe in air has occurred many times. Although the repairs were very simple, as long as the grid was cleared and they could continue driving, it was a waste of time, but there was nothing they could do but slow down the march.

Major General Somerville, like the soldiers, also walked in the ranks on foot, whether he took off the soft military hat on his head, wiped the sweat that had already flowed down his neck, or fanned the wind, but unfortunately it was quite hot here, and even the wind was hot, but it turned out to be even hotter.

With a grunt pour of cool water, Somerville felt better. "A mountain range has been spotted ahead of the report." A scout came running.

"Really? Are there any trees? "Somerville's main thing now is to find a shade and lie down for a while.

Scout said, "There are trees, but they look like dwarf trees like red willow and poplar, but the mountains are tall and stretch for a long time. ”

Somerville nodded, "That's good, let the troops speed up their movements, and we'll spend the night under the mountain today." "Although there are no trees to shade, it is good to have a mountain wall to block the sun. Hearing that they could camp at the foot of the mountain, the morale of the soldiers was much higher, and they quickened their pace to get to the bottom of the mountain to rest as soon as possible.

As the saying goes, the lookout mountain runs the dead horse, and although they soon saw the mountain, after walking for half an hour, they felt that the mountain was still as far away, and according to the scouts, there was still at least twenty kilometers to the foot of the mountain.

The current Boston soldiers were like looking at Mei to quench their thirst, seeing the camp, even if it was still far away, the soldiers were quite excited, they marched quickly on the hard Gobi Desert, and accelerated towards the mountains. Suddenly, there was a scream, and a large-caliber cannonball landed in the ranks, blowing up a cloud of dust and rubble, and blowing dozens of marching Boston soldiers flying.

"There is an enemy attack." Many soldiers shouted and dispersed, and when they found shelter, they fell down, but the Gobi Desert was flat and empty, and there was not much place for them to hide, so many simply fell on the spot. Somerville was also pounced on by the adjutant, he raised his head, looked at the chaos in front of him and said, "What's wrong?" ”

The adjutant said, "It seems that there is an enemy attack, so I will send someone to ask." ”

The guards who had gone out to inquire soon returned, and when he heard that there were shells exploding nearby, he immediately ordered the reconnaissance troops to expand the search area, but soon more shells flew in, and a dense explosion sounded in the ranks, throwing many people into the sky.

The shelling was clearly a school fire, and now there is no need for reconnaissance at all, because there is a lot of smoke rising from that large artillery salvo, which is obviously where the enemy's artillery positions are located.

Seeing that his troops had entered the range of the opponent's heavy artillery, Somerville immediately ordered his troops to retreat five kilometers while calling the air force for reconnaissance and bombing. A dozen fighters on standby at the rear airfield quickly took off and flew towards the mountain called Brand.

The field airfield was less than 200 kilometers from the area where Somerville was located, and at the speed of a jet plane, it only took more than ten minutes to reach it, but when a dozen planes arrived here, they were immediately attacked by a large number of anti-aircraft guns, and they had to increase their flight altitude after making a circle.

These jets are just fighter jets, and they don't have high-altitude reconnaissance capabilities at all, so they just make a general observation, and they start circling here, occupying high-altitude alert surroundings.

Soon a large number of B29 bombers arrived, and they took off with the jet fighters, but they were too slow, so they arrived at this time. Reaching the skies over the Brand Mountains, they opened their bomb bays, and a large number of small bombs rained down on the ground, blowing up clouds of smoke and dust, and the fragile land on the top of the mountain was severely damaged, and the already scarce vegetation was completely destroyed.

Stationed on the hill were units of the 132nd Division of the 391st Army of the Wehrmacht, which, relying on anti-aircraft fire, fired at bombers raging in the sky. The 391st Division belongs to the reserve forces, and their weapons are not the best, but every soldier has undergone nearly a year of recruit training, and the technical and tactical level is still good, not to mention that many of them are frequent visitors to various clubs, both in terms of marksmanship and artillery fire.

Hou Yu, the commander of the 1019th Regiment stationed in the infantry position on the mountainside, spat out the sand in his mouth and scolded: "These bastards, don't they want money for their bombs? They bombed casually without seeing the target. It was obviously the artillery that was shooting, but they brought down our infantry positions. ”

Zhou Peng, the guard battalion on the side, said with a smile: "Regiment commander, it's nothing, such a bomb is not much of a threat at all, and we don't have much loss." ”

Hou Yu nodded and said: "The sand can effectively remove the power of the explosion, their bombardment will not have much effect, but we have too few people, if the other party starts to attack, it will be difficult for us to hold it." ”

Zhou Peng nodded and said: "Yes, but why do you have to defend it for two days, and when the main force surrounds us, we can completely annihilate these guys." ”

Hou Yu and Zhou Peng were talking, when a group of silver swallows suddenly burst out of the clouds and launched an attack on the B29 bomber, which was the Golden Eagle 4 fighter of the 71st Air Force Wing stationed in Nanfang County. Seeing the appearance of the fighters of the Chinese Empire, those F84 fighters who were on alert immediately met them.

The two sides fought in the air, and since most of the Boston Empire's aircraft were transferred to the Western Continent, and the air force in the Southern Subcontinent was not strong, the F84 was obviously somewhat inferior in terms of numbers.

A squad of four Golden Eagle 4 fighters saw the opportunity and quickly got rid of their opponents and pounced on the bomber group. The F84s were entangled in the other Golden Eagle 4 fighters and could not go to the rescue, and the four planes rushed into the bomber group as if they were in a no-man's land, leaving the clumsy B29 bombers helpless.

After those bombers were attacked, the machine gunners in the cabin immediately turned the large-caliber machine guns in their hands and fired desperately, but the speed of the Golden Eagle 4 fighters was too fast, and they were busy turning the muzzles, but they still couldn't keep up with the speed of the planes. In desperation, the bombers had no choice but to drop the bombs and immediately return home.

A word to readers:

Recommend Su Yinan's new work "Phoenix Picture One Female Doctor", a good book not to be missed.