"Stand up. With a command, the soldier sitting on the lawn began to slowly get up. They carried parachute bags on their backs, tactical vests, grenades, bayonets and water bottles. There are also ammunition bags, field tents and raincoats, various food stuff and other bits and pieces underneath.

This was the most standard German paratrooper configuration, carefully trained exactly as required by the Führer, two out of every ten of them had explosives expertise, and the other two were trained in the use of radio. Nearly half of these men are armed with the latest MP-44 assault rifles, while the other half use G43 semi-automatic rifles and MG42 machine guns.

Here I have to explain why this machine gun born in 1932 is called "42", which is completely a bad taste of the Führer Acadon, who likes the MG42 general-purpose machine gun in another time and space very much, so he named the machine gun born under his supervision MG42.

The successful development of the German MG42 machine gun is actually an important breakthrough in firearms production technology. The designer of this machine gun, Grunov, was not a gunsmith himself, he was an expert in metal stamping technology.

When Accardo approached him, he thought that it would be difficult to meet the needs of the traditional firearms manufacturing process, that is, machining, using a solid piece of metal to be processed by a lathe, milling machine, etc., and cutting off unnecessary parts.

In this traditional manufacturing process, the metal utilization rate is only about 25 percent, so he said to Accardo that it is an inevitable trend for machine guns to be manufactured by metal stamping process. The Führer was very pleased with his concept and ordered him to take charge of the design of a new machine gun. In practice, the MG42 produced by the metal stamping process not only saves material and man-hours, but is also more compact, which is very practical for Germany, which is short of metal resources.

However, when the MG42 was first born and equipped with troops, it was actually a crude weapon, a patchwork of several pieces of iron and an iron pipe, in the eyes of Western spies lurking in Europe. Snowflakes flew to Washington and London, and the content was the same: Germany was no longer good, they were desperately short of raw materials, and even the machine guns at the heart of their tactics were made with such rudimentary and crude manufacturing techniques.

When the machine gun was used, the German military used three superlative adjectives to describe its excellence: "the shortest time, the lowest cost, but the most excellent weapon".

The MG42 machine gun has a minimum rate of fire of 1200 rounds per minute and a maximum of 1500 rounds per minute, and after the rate of fire of the machine gun exceeds 1000 rounds per minute, people cannot distinguish a single gunshot.

Because of the MG42's high rate of fire, the shooter can fire 12 to 15 rounds of short bursts each time he pulls the trigger, and if an unfortunate soldier is shot by the MG42, then he will be shot several times in an instant, and the chances of survival are very small. In actual combat in Poland, the MG42 is not only very effective against small group targets because of its high rate of fire, but also against group targets.

The German paratroopers helped each other to stand in a queue and began to board the Ju-52 transport plane waiting for them in an orderly manner, one plane could carry 12 German paratroopers that is, a squad of heavily armed German paratroopers, and two large packages of supplies could be empty at the same time. In order to transport more paratroopers into enemy-occupied territory at once, the Ju-52s also towed a wooden glider to transport six additional soldiers.

The Germans used 610 Ju-52 transport planes to transport the paratroopers at the ready, and in this battle the Germans would drop 10,000 paratroopers into the Netherlands in one go, and the second wave of the attack would be no less than that. This operation will be the largest paratrooper operation in human history to date. The Germans used two paratrooper divisions totaling 30,000 men to ensure that the Netherlands was captured without fail.

And the capture of the Netherlands will be a crucial battle for the success of the offensive operation on the entire Western Front. Rundstedt knew very well that if the Netherlands was not captured in the first place, then as a giant port, Britain would transport batch after batch of troops to the European continent, and the entire Army Group B would lose its superiority in numbers, and the entire operation would be declared bankrupt.

So this time General Steudent will be ordered to complete the most difficult airdrop mission, and his paratroopers must cooperate with the German frontal Army Group B to capture the Netherlands in the shortest possible time. Stud had even gone to the Stone Fort himself a few days earlier, where he had identified all the targets with Führer Accardo.

As a veteran with actual combat experience, Borol is now the leader of a paratrooper squad, and this time he is very experienced in fastening the rifle to his chest, rather than strapped it to the duffel bag he helps under his legs. He sorted out the magazine and grenade on his chest, confirmed the position of the pistol, then drew his bayonet and examined it carefully, and fixed it back to his shoulder.

The parachute squad he commanded had 4 veterans and 7 recruits in addition to himself. That's the best configuration I can put together right now. As a squad leader, he had to guard the position of the plane door, so his soldiers walked ahead of him. Soon he helped the penultimate soldier climb onto the plane with great difficulty, and then it was a little difficult for him to get on the plane himself, and it took a lot of effort for the people above to get him onto the plane.

As the plane moved, they all knew that their plane had already taken off, and through the two-time fuselage window, Borol could clearly see another plane flying to their side. Soon their planes saw the wings cut through the white clouds, and at least a dozen Ju-52s could be seen flying in formation in the distance.

On the constantly jolting plane, Borol and his deputy squad leader were identifying their targets, and the cacophony of voices made their conversation louder.

"After landing, if you can't find me, set up a defensive position here now, and then gather as many troops as possible. Borol drew a mark on the map in thick pencil: "We must take this village, understand?"

"The task of our platoon is to occupy the village here and build a defensive position on the perimeter to protect the bridge. His lieutenant shouted loudly, "But if there were only us, the forces to take this village would be somewhat insufficient." ”

"Don't worry, this time the Air Force won't leave us in a messy position!" Borol laughed and said: "In my absence, if the troops are insufficient, you are responsible for taking people back to the bridge to report to the battalion headquarters, no problem, right?"

"Okay. The deputy head of the class replied loudly.

"Enter Dutch airspace! Gentlemen, watch your seat belts. The co-pilot of the plane turned around and loudly reminded the paratroopers behind him through the open back door: "The air force that came just now warned that the Dutch air defense forces are attacking us. ”

"Check your seat belts! I need you to keep yourself firmly on the plane! There will be enemy artillery fire in a moment, so no one needs to ......be nervous," Borol could not finish his sentence when a shell exploded in the air not far away. The loud explosion can be heard clearly even in a noisy cabin.

"Don't panic! Keep your posture!" Borol stood up with difficulty, walked to the door, held the handrail with his hand, and stared at all his men: "It is impossible for anti-aircraft artillery fire of this density to hit our plane!"

And just as he was saying this, a glider towed behind the Ju-52 transport plane on their left was hit by a shell, and the six German paratroopers inside were scattered in the sky covered in fire, and only one of the noses of the glider was still dragging behind the tail of the Ju-52 transport plane.

"Who's going to start singing?" Borrell asked, feeling that God was joking with him, and asked aloud with some helplessness. A soldier sang the song of the German Airborne Forces, which was vetoed by Borol: "This has been sung too many times!

"Ah, who is marching in enemy territory and singing the devil's song?" a veteran sang holding the MP-44.

"That's good!" Borol nodded in agreement, and then sang along: "A soldier stood on the bank of the Oder River, humming silently. Whistling, we walked back and forth. And the whole world may, curse or praise us—so be it. Wherever we are, let's move on!" and the devil laughed, "Hahahahaha." ”

With the singing, it seemed that everyone's mood became slightly better, and the recruits also sang this March of the German paratroopers: "We fought for Germany, for freedom and honor." We will keep the enemy at bay, and no matter how far the march is, we will be quickly put into battle. Resolutely, always ready to fight, attacking day and night! Firmly, courageously holding on to the rifle, assaulting the enemy's positions! With a roar of 'Long live the Führer', we face death. The enemy was eventually cleared and the corpses piled up. Wherever we are, let's keep going, let's keep going. And the devil laughed like this: Hahahahahaha. ”

The song was sung repeatedly, and as time passed, the red readiness alarm in the cabin lit up, and Borol gave the order in a loud voice: "Stand up!"

The plane was shaking, all the paratroopers had already stood up, they checked the equipment on their bodies, and fastened the messy equipment that they were carrying, and the red lights on the plane kept flashing, which reminded the paratroopers in the cabin that this trip to the Netherlands was a very dangerous mission.

Seeing that everyone stood up, Borol continued to give his own orders loudly: "Check the equipment one last time! Everyone confirms the parachute!

"One! over!" "Number two!" "Number three!" "Number three!" ...... "Number Eleven! finished!" ......

"Gentlemen, get ready! We'll sing this song when we parachute! Now, we'll go down and meet our Dutch enemies. Borol shouted.