Chapter 555: Great Power Game (5)
This incident greatly boosted the morale of the gunner, and he immediately shared his experience with his comrades. Hearing that the anti-war gun can actually be effective, these soldiers who operate the anti-war gun are motivated, and they begin to look for those small chariots on the battlefield to start.
Collectively targeted by the anti-aircraft guns, the CV-33 tank was considered to be a bad luck, and a large number of such thin-skinned tanks were destroyed one after another, and seeing the large losses of their companions, those surviving tanks quickly stopped advancing. The cowardice of the Satinia army made the charging team have a gap that should not have existed, and the exposed Sardinian soldiers were mercilessly slaughtered by the rebel machine gun fire, and they immediately suffered heavy casualties without any shelter, and the Sadinidian army had to choose to retreat again.
The reason why the CV-33 tank was so easily penetrated by the anti-gun gun was because of the wrong design idea of this tank. In the imagination of the Sardinia military, the chariot should be the existence of a substitute for cavalry, and it should have the shadow of cavalry in the effect of its use. Therefore, at the beginning of the design of this combat vehicle, the military's requirement was to increase speed and flexibility as much as possible, and use it as a mobile force on the battlefield to perform tasks similar to those of light cavalry.
In order to increase speed, the thickest front armor of the CV-33 tank is only 15 mm thick, and it can barely be able to block heavy machine gun bullets within 300 meters, but in the face of combat defense guns that use a special hard steel alloy alloy core, increasing the cartridge load and barrel length, even at a distance of more than 500 meters, they are difficult to spare.
Looking at the defeated soldiers, the commander of the Sardinia Army of course knew what was going on, and now he really wanted to scold the incompetence of the domestic designers, who actually built a chariot that was destroyed so easily, if it was like the Chinese Empire, every weapon was a high-quality product, how could the Sardinia Army end up with the title of a noodle army. However, the commander obviously forgot the fact that those designers also designed the combat vehicle according to the requirements of the military, so in the final analysis, the problem is that the military's rigid military thinking has long been unable to keep up with the needs of modern warfare.
However, no matter who is responsible, it is too late to regret it now, a large number of equipped CV-33 tanks are simply unable to take up the combat mission of the frontal battlefield, and the number of heavily armored Passat tanks is seriously insufficient, so he has to ask the country to support more Passat tanks as soon as possible, and on the other hand, he asks the soldiers to directly charge the infantry group.
For the infantry charge, the rebels dealt with it relatively easily, after all, in the last World War, the pure infantry charge had already shown a decline, not to mention the development of the past 20 years, the firepower density of individual weapons in various countries has been greatly improved.
The infantry charge is a dead end for the current battlefield environment, and those small number of Passat chariots do not have much effect at all, they can only make some breakthroughs at best, and these breakthrough chariots will soon be blown up by the rebel soldiers who are not afraid of death, and finally the Sardinia mercenaries have to stop the attack.
For the Satinian army, with 150,000 troops, was blocked by the rebels, a pure infantry army full of recruits and lacking heavy weapons, Wilhelm II scolded it for being worthy of the Noodle Army, and it was such a waste material. In response to the problem of the lack of chariots reported by the Grand Duchy of Sardinia, the Grand Duchy of Armans finally decided to transfer a batch of chariots made by the Yaman Empire from within the country, which would be transported directly to the Grand Duchy of Sardinia via the railway line of the Habsburg Kingdom, where they would be loaded on ships and transported to the front line of the Kingdom of Sero.
While waiting for the chariots, the Sardinia mercenaries did not dare to attack again, they only used heavy artillery to shell the rebel positions, and at the same time sent small forces to infiltrate the flanks of the opponent's positions in an attempt to outflank the new army from the rear.
The rebel commanders knew that this was their defense area, and the geography was much more familiar than that of the Sardinians, so they sent a lot of small troops to attack the Sardinians by planting mines and shooting black guns, so that these troops who tried to outflank them suffered a lot of losses, and they had to retreat after the worst.
In the midst of the skirmishes between you and me, time passed little by little, Franco's troops were finally assembled in place, and at this time, more than 400 No. 3 chariots of the Yaman Empire also arrived at the front line.
This time, the Yaman Empire did not send the best tank No. 4 in the country to the front, but sent this fifteen-ton medium tank used by the second-line troops. Although the No. 3 chariot weighed only fifteen tons, the Yaman Empire's manufacturing process was much stronger than that of the Grand Duchy of Sardinia, so that this chariot would not suffer much in the battle against the Passat chariot.
In the early hours of the morning of the next day, after the main forces of both sides had arrived, Franco launched an offensive. A large number of M4 tanks and Wildcat tank destroyers, which were intensively used, rushed to the front, breaking through the unprepared Sardinian army defense line at great speed, and quickly advancing forward.
The Sardinians were also ready to attack, but they did not expect to be overtaken by Franco, so they quickly mobilized their chariot troops to carry out a hedging attack with the rebels, and the chariots of both sides were quickly twisted together.
The Sardinia army had many tanks, but the CV-33 tanks were not on the table at all, and they only went to deliver food to the rebels, so these tanks only cruised around the periphery, waiting for an opportunity to attack the infantry attacking units in the rear of the rebels, while only the Passat and the No. 3 tanks fought on the front line, so their numerical advantage dropped a lot.
In the face of the 76 mm guns of the M4 and Wildcat tanks, neither the Passat nor the 3 tanks could withstand it, but the 75 mm guns of the Passat and the 50 mm guns of the 3 tanks were equally powerful, and the meager armor of the Night Cat destroyers could be penetrated even from a distance of 800 meters.
Although the front armor of the M4 is unharmed, its side armor is also unable to withstand such an attack, especially when their side armor is attacked, the distance between the two sides will become very close, and there is no possibility of dodging.
The chariot units of both sides staggered, and in the pre-dawn darkness, the firing range of both sides was narrow, and the enemy could not be seen clearly from a little distance, so their chariot battles turned into hand-to-hand combat. At a distance of several tens of meters, the artillery of both sides was able to exert its maximum power, and various tanks were destroyed in succession as they staggered, and both tank units suffered heavy losses.
At this time, the rebels were already desperate, Franco, who had excellent military talent, had already expected this situation, and the attack of the chariot troops was to attract the opposing chariot troops, and when the attention of the Sardinian army was focused on the frontal chariots, the rebels took 600 trucks as the lead, and drew the three most elite divisions to attack from the left flank.
The trucks were modified by Franco to weld a thin layer of armor on the front, enough to withstand machine-gun fire. Under the cover of these trucks, a large number of rebel soldiers rushed to the positions of the Sardinian mercenaries with semi-automatic rifles loaded with bayonets. Intensive machine-gun fire from the trucks suppressed the Sardinian army's counterattack, and they quickly approached the Sardinian army's position, despite the fact that the trucks broke down in large numbers on the battlefield riddled with craters.
Seeing the enemy launch a surprise attack on the left flank, a large number of CV-33 vehicles cruising on the frontal battlefield immediately drove towards the left flank, but they were soon blocked by the rebels with reinforced anti-gun equipment. A division of rebels formed a dense defensive line, holding back the chariot units of the Sardinian mercenaries with more than a thousand anti-aircraft guns. In the darkness, it was difficult for the Sardinia charioteers to see the enemy lying in the crater, but the huge black shadow of the chariot became the best target, and under the continuous blows of the anti-aircraft guns, the CV-33 convoy suffered heavy losses and had to retreat.
The Sardinia army on the left flank stubbornly resisted the rebel assault, and the commander of the Sardinia army also lost no time in sending a division of reinforcements and bringing more than 30 battle defense guns. These low-bore anti-aircraft guns were placed in trench emplacements, and their exposed ground was less than 30 centimeters, and their sloping shields were fully protective against all shells below 40 millimeters.
The Sardinian army's anti-aircraft artillery continued to fire, and the armored trucks that were only wearing thin armor were completely vulnerable and were continuously destroyed by shells. Franco immediately ordered heavy artillery to cover the Sardinian position, and the Sardinian army also responded with heavy artillery, and the melee between the two sides turned into a full-scale war, with all the troops twisted together and casualties rising in a straight line.
On the same night that the Sardinian mercenaries and rebels were fighting, the Nantes Volunteer Army also launched a general assault on the city of Coimbra. Faced with a full-scale attack by tens of thousands of Nantes troops, the Reese government forces defending the city had no choice but to retreat, having already lost more than 50,000 men in the city street battles, and now there were less than 20,000 remnants left.
The Nantes Volunteer Army also paid the price of more than 30,000 men, and at this time they were also greatly weakened, but in the face of the Reese government army, which had little resistance, their victory was inevitable. The battle in the skies cost both sides as well, and after both the Sahr and the Boston sent their own air volunteers, the pressure on the elite Condor increased and their losses increased.
The Spitfire fighter produced by the Saar Empire also has superior performance, and it is not at all inferior in the face of the BF109E fighter, and the addition of the Mustang fighter will replace all the Sony 406 fighters that have made up the number of temporary fighters, and the life of the Condor Legion will not be easy.
In the continuous high-intensity air battle, although the Condor Legion has made a name for itself, it has lost more than 200 elite pilots, and the loss of aircraft has reached nearly 600.
"I'm not reconciled, I must destroy the volunteer air force of the Axis powers, I want to let them know that the Yaman pilots are the strongest." Hartmann stood up violently, the veins on his head bulging, his eyes shining with essence, and he looked like he had chosen someone to devour.