On the night of the fourth day after the start of the winter offensive, in the desert of northeastern Algeria.

"Is it okay for us to move forward like this?" The deputy commander of the reconnaissance battalion of the 51st Armored Division asked the battalion commander worriedly, "We have gone too far now." ”

"How much fuel do we have?"

The deputy battalion commander looked back at the soldiers who were hanging empty fuel tanks on the shelves on both sides of the wheeled armored vehicles, and replied: "The coalition supply depot that attacked today provided each vehicle with an extra ten liters of fuel, and I estimate that each vehicle has two-thirds of the fuel left in its tank. ”

"Then let's go another fifty kilometers and stop and wait for the rear troops. In this way, we still have enough fuel to retreat and rejoin the main forces in a bad situation. ”

"Well," the deputy battalion commander pouted, "but battalion commander, I think we have done our job well, we have not only figured out the enemy's disposition, but also attacked the enemy's supply depots and supply convoys, inflicting considerable losses on the enemy, and we can withdraw." ”

"That's why I decided to go 50 kilometers instead of 100 kilometers." The battalion commander glanced at the deputy battalion commander and said in an unquestioning tone, "Now you go and arrange for the soldiers to rest in shifts, and we will set off at dawn tomorrow." ”

The deputy battalion commander closed his mouth, stood up and saluted before leaving.

At dawn the next day, the reconnaissance battalion, after a short rest, set off again, and the wheeled armored convoy galloped across the desert.

After walking for about two hours, the faint white light in the east turned into a bright fish-belly white, and then the pilot car at the front reported on the radio: "The village has been found ahead, and it seems to be the village called Ywell on the map." ”

"Are there any signs of enemy activity?"

"I'm afraid so, sir, enemy trucks line up on the flat ground outside the village, and they don't seem to have noticed me yet."

"Very well, then we will use the speed of wheeled armored vehicles for a surprise attack." The battalion commander paused, and then gave the order, "The whole battalion is scattered and formed a battle formation with companies as units." ”

There are three armored platoons under an armored reconnaissance company, each platoon has four wheeled reconnaissance vehicles, a total of twelve vehicles are arranged at intervals of "front and back", forming a horizontal formation shaped like W, and then the horizontal team of the four companies is arranged from front to back according to the company number, which constitutes a standard shock formation, this formation can easily change formation, and after the vehicle is destroyed, the car behind can also avoid the wreckage very lightly.

For wheeled armored vehicles, the formation spacing is very important, because they need a considerable amount of space to turn once they run, unlike tracked vehicles, which can rely on the characteristics of the tracked device to make relatively small corners even at high speeds. Of course, there are also reasons why the tracked vehicle cannot run fast off-road.

Not long after the formation was set up, the battalion commander's car rushed to the sand dunes in front of the company.

The village mentioned by the pilot car thus came into view of the battalion commander's telescope.

Just as the pilot car said, there was a whole line of Dodge trucks of the American army parked on the flat ground outside the village, and there were even more Dodge jeeps that were several sizes smaller.

"Could it be that there are coalition supply units stationed in the village?" The voice of the deputy battalion commander came over the radio, "But if this village is the enemy's supply center, the number of vehicles parked here seems to be a little small." ”

"Have you ever seen a supply center with more jeeps than trucks?"

As soon as the battalion commander's words were asked, the anti-tank guns on the outskirts of the village opened fire.

"This supply center's defensive firepower is a bit strong." The battalion commander smacked his lips, "Each vehicle releases smoke." ”

Soon, the smoke grenades fired from the smoke grenade launchers on the hulls of the vehicles completely obscured the view.

"We used the smoke to charge directly into the enemy's anti-tank gun positions and opened fire as soon as we left the smoke." As the battalion commander gave the order, he checked the roof machine gun in front of him, pulled down the bolt, and turned on the safety machine.

The moment he burst out of the smoke, the battalion commander pulled the trigger, and at the same time as the machine gun fired, the machine gun of the wheeled infantry also fired, and the trajectory left by the tracer bullet was particularly conspicuous in the faint morning light.

The wheeled infantry battle next to the battalion commander's car exploded into a ball of fire, and the screams filled the battalion commander's headphones.

"Ahead is the road into the village," the battalion commander ordered the driver with an inner line, "rush into the village, and don't stop all the way!" ”

"Understood!"

The advantage of wheeled infantry is that it is fast, although the cross-country ability will be worse than tracked footwork, but in Algeria, wheeled infantry has an advantage in speed wherever you go - this is mainly because the weight of wheeled infantry is relatively light, and you don't have to worry about getting stuck in the sand, if the weight of infantry is increased a little, or the number of wheels is changed from eight pairs to four pairs, then it is estimated that there will be problems.

Not long after the battalion commander gave the order, his car rushed into the village, and he opened fire on the surrounding buildings as he advanced, in an attempt to disrupt the enemy's disposition as much as possible and shake their morale.

He didn't know how many cars rushed in with him, and he didn't bother to look back to confirm, anyway, no matter how many cars came in, he could only move forward, as long as he stopped, and before he could switch to reversing, the enemy's anti-armor fire would come over.

The U.S. military didn't have any individual anti-armor weapons at first, but after fighting with the Germans for a long time, and the Germans were generally equipped with bazookas, the bazooka bazooka might be a little difficult to deal with the frontal and side armor of the German tanks, but it was still easy and enjoyable to fight crispy wheeled foot combat.

At this time, speed is the best defense, the flight speed of the Bazooka rocket is not fast, and the wheeled foot battle of the flying is a large amount of advance, which is basically impossible to calculate accurately for non-experienced shooters, and can only rely on luck. Therefore, in the galloping foot combat, it is enough to pay attention to the enemies that emerge from the front.

The battalion commander focused all his attention on the front, and as soon as someone showed up, he immediately turned the muzzle of the gun to shoot first - the corporal who operated the hull machine gun in front of him was also staring at the road, but his vision was really not good, so the battalion commander who was outcropping above the hull had to be a supplement to the hull machine gun shooter.

Later, the battalion commander simply stopped shooting to the side and kept staring ahead.

Suddenly, he saw an American tank in front of him drive up the diagonal side of the road they were using.

"Turn left!"

The moment the order was given, the infantry had already turned to the left, and the armored car actually played drifting, and the slippery tires kicked up a large amount of sand. After the car rushed into the alley on the left, the battalion commander suddenly found that the alley was not an alley at all, and there was a gate in front of it, which seemed to be a path leading to a large family in the village.

The wheeled infantry rushed straight into the courtyard at the end of the road, and found that the courtyard was actually not large, and there was a small two-story building in front of it.

Foot combat didn't even have time to brake, and crashed into the house.

Fortunately, this house is not a full masonry structure, and this collision actually smashed the wall around the door, and the turret of the infantry battle also forcibly opened a crack seventy or eighty centimeters wide in the wooden floor of the second floor.

Then the foot fighter crashed out of the window - to be exact, the window and the wall were smashed.

"We seem to have bumped into someone." The driver shouted.

"I don't know, I just retracted into the car," the battalion commander poked his head out of the car again, and then found that the machine gun was gone, leaving only an empty stand, "Damn, there are tanks in this village, let's retreat, retreat!" ”

In this way, the reconnaissance battalion of the 51st Panzer Division, after losing half of its combat strength, fled from the village in a puff of smoke.