"Grara ......" was accompanied by the sound of trees being bent and broken, and the stout green trees nearly ten meters high fell down in the roll of the root system, and the birds flew in shock, and the branches and leaves were scattered. A broad and majestic Tiger tank let out a deep roar, rumbling over the fallen body of Bimu, and behind it, hundreds of tanks, half-tracks, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles of all kinds followed closely behind, speeding west along this makeshift road.

In one of the armored command vehicles with steep antennas, Guderian with a swaggering appearance was sitting peacefully in the back row; Looking at the familiar deep mountains and forests around me, I had mixed feelings in my heart. After nearly a quarter of a century, he was back in the Ardennes jungle, but this time he was no longer the young second lieutenant of the armored corps, and he was no longer commanding the light I tank that broke down once on average after driving an average of 15 kilometers. After decades of development, the entire German mobile forces have been reborn, and the steel chariot that spews green smoke and moves forward is the best example of the German army entering the mechanized era from the era of mules and horses!

"General, in three hours, we will drive out of the Arden Forest." Amid the roar of an engine, the adjutant in the front row turned his head and said loudly to Guderian. Guderian raised his eyebrows, and then spread out the low-scale battle map in front of him; Turning his gaze, he saw that the convoy he was in had reached the edge of the forest, and was about to drive out of the mountains and into the wide foothills of the plains.

"Order, let the divisions enter the first level of combat readiness, ready to engage the French defenders at any time!" Guderian did not hesitate any longer, and immediately gave the order for the highest combat readiness. Although his breakthrough from the Ardennes was a surprise. But it is also obvious that the opponent will leave an unguarded hole in the defensive line; When their own armored troops drove out of the mountains and forests. It means that the real battle is coming. But for Guderian. It was a moment he had long dreamed of; The heavy armor of the French army's defense will be pierced by the sword he has tempered today!

After a while, the road in front of me gradually became smoother, and the lush trees gradually thinned; The heavy tanks that took the lead did not press the trees to open the way, but turned around rather environmentally friendly. Guderian's heart was filled with joy when he saw them still in their original vigor: after replacing the new turret with a 105-mm L48 gun and thickening the front armor to 80 mm, the total combat weight of the Tiger rose to 54 tons, during the course of this difficult terrain. It is undoubtedly a rather severe test for the body suspension and the engine. Now, however, they have proven themselves to be excellent. After two days of 110 kilometers of mountain driving, more than 90% of the Tiger tanks were still able to operate normally, and their combat effectiveness was preserved intact, even exceeding Guderian's initial estimates!

"Boom!" A faint roar of cannons resounded through the valley. Goodry was relieved to know that his armored reconnaissance team had exchanged fire with the French border guards. Due to the unknown situation of the enemy, as the commander of the first army, he could only choose to stay in the rear position, and trusted the officers and soldiers under his command to make a breakthrough. An hour later, the gratifying news came from the front, that the French garrison stationed at the foot of the mountain had fully withdrawn. Retreated into the city of Sedang in the rear. All German troops were methodically moving out of the mountains and preparing to launch a fierce assault on Sedan. Guderian breathed a sigh of relief. A confident smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, his army had begun to fully sail out of the mountains, and it was time for them to use their full power.

The rugged mountains and forests finally faded into view, and the tires and tracks of various vehicles drove up the wide plains. Because the roads in the Ardennes were not comparable to the regular routes, the German 19th Panzer Corps was slowly assembled, and it was not until the afternoon when the red sun was deflecting that the 6th Panzer Division, which was in the vanguard, barely freed itself from the forest. However, this was strong enough for the Sedan garrison on the north bank of the Maas River. Since the French high command did not expect the German elite armor to break through from here, the defense of Sedang was only a group of second-line reserve troops: they were not only untrained, but also almost hardly armed with heavy weapons, and had no power to resist the attack of German tanks. Before the sun had completely set, the German Iron Cross was already flying in all corners of the city. When heavily armed German soldiers marched through the streets of Sedan in tanks and other vehicles, the local French people could only stare at this qiē as if they were in a nightmare; The invaders came so fast that they didn't even have time to cross the river and flee south!

At the same time that Guderian captured Sedan, the French high command also received the news from the defeated army of Sedan. Although they were taken aback by the breakthrough of German armoured forces from the Ardennes, they did not feel threatened by the burning eyebrows, for no other reason, the French had a wide Maas River south of Sedan as a moat. As an important project to save unemployment after de Gaulle came to power, the Maas River defense line on the south bank of Sedan was a fortified area built on the slope overlooking the river in accordance with the modern principle of regional defense. The entire line was 6 kilometers deep, with 103 fortified bunkers, and the artillery inside the fortress was large enough to cover the entire length of the river. It was early summer, and the deep Maas River was fast-flowing, which made it more difficult for the Germans to force their way across the river.

According to the French high command, the Germans would have to wait for the arrival of large numbers of infantry and heavy artillery units before they could attack such a solid defensive line. Due to the congestion caused by the narrow roads of the Ardennes, even if they were able to cross the Ardennes, they would have to wait until a week later, on May 23, at the earliest. By that time, he would have already sent enough reinforcements to the area. And if the Germans dare to launch an immediate attack, the two divisions and one regiment currently stationed on the south bank of the Maas River will definitely not be vegetarian: although they are second-line troops, they will undoubtedly be able to capture the enemy without heavy artillery support because of the river!

However, the actions of the German army were once again beyond the understanding of the French military. Guderian, who had captured Sedan, ordered preparations to be made overnight to cross the river, and launched a massive attack early the next morning in order to penetrate the gateway to the heart of France before French reinforcements arrived. Faced with the dilemma that the heavy artillery of the infantry division had not yet entered the Ardennes Mountains, Guderian had two cards in his hands that could be relied on: one was the self-propelled artillery of his three armored divisions, and the other was the support of fighters from the air. Due to the cheap nature of the IV tank, the Wild Bee and the Rhinoceros self-propelled guns modified from its chassis can also be equipped in large quantities in the armored divisions, and the Air Force, which has been above the army in recent years, has an extremely rich family base. After a telephone exchange, the deputy commander of the Air Force, Kesselring, assured Guderian that he would provide very strong air support for 10 hours from 8 a.m. the next morning, enough to suppress the French positions on the south bank.

In the early morning of May 17, the German offensive to cross the river was in full swing. Nearly 100 150-mm or 170-mm guns let out a deafening roar, raining down high-explosive shells on the positions on the opposite bank; The French defenders watched in amazement as the heavy shells whizzed around them, stirring up a sky-high flame and shaking the mountain. Mines planted on the river beach were detonated, and the barbed wire fence used to impede the progress of the river crossing was blown to pieces and rolled up, and it could no longer be used for the purpose of being used. Just when the French soldiers were furious at the strange appearance of the German heavy artillery, a large number of dense groups of planes appeared in the light of the oriental morning light, although they had different appearances, but their fuselages were sprayed with scorching and dazzling iron cross logos!

"Boom!" The roar of a 500kg bomb shook the sky. The blazing fire clouds like clouds of steaming clouds rose and rolled, and in an instant, they rushed into the air hundreds of meters high; The sand collapsed, the earth shook wildly, and a concrete bunker near the explosion site was torn into thousands of pieces in an instant, and along with the shrapnel dust, it was blown away by the heat and waves. And this horrific sight was only the beginning of the Luftwaffe bombing. A large number of JU87 dive bombers screamed and hissed, dropping bombs at precise enemy targets at a vertical angle of nearly 90 degrees; Even the fighters in charge of escorting the escort hung up additional bombs and suppressed the French infantry on the ground with cannons and heavy machine guns after the bombs were dropped, so that they could not effectively assemble and fire normally.

In order to ensure the successful crossing of Guderian's troops, the Luftwaffe provided three full groups of fighters and dive bombers, and the concentration of so many air forces on the battlefield of the Maas River south of Sedang was enough to be described as terrifying. Violent explosions like volcanic eruptions continued to appear on the French positions, destroying the targets and shaking the French army's determination to resist. They were originally second-line troops composed of reservists, and their hearts and wills were not as strong as those of the core troops; When the characteristic terrible buzz of JU87 in the dive sounded in their ears, the soldiers were left with endless fear, "as if every plane was coming at them." Even in the face of the German rafts that were no different from live targets in the river, the French soldiers' return fire was unusually weak.

Under the indiscriminate bombardment of more than 1,200 sorties by the Luftwaffe that day, the French defenders on the south bank of the Maas River finally collapsed after holding out for most of the day. They threw away all their weapons and fled to the rear as hard as they could, just to get away from the explosion that seemed to be pouring fire. The Germans, having established a beachhead, immediately erected three pontoon bridges over the Maas River, and the brigade was able to cross it in a swarm; And the armored strength of the 19th Army was like a spring flood bursting its embankment, pouring in from this breakthrough to the west. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you book friend I don't have a festival, Ma Mingfeng Xiaoxiao's monthly ticket support, and birdcheng, zhouyu1976's reward~~~