The bunker complex in Metz seriously hampered the advance of the German army.

Every day, it was like a slaughterhouse slaughtering the German army that was frantically attacking.

Rommel, who had just been promoted to division commander, had a headache, and the progress on other fronts was very smooth, only the progress on his own side was terrible.

"Divisional commander, it looks like we can't take Metz right now. There are so many bunkers here that it is useless for us to prepare for fire, no matter how long we have been preparing for fire.

Some of these bunkers have been excavated for centuries and are likely ten or twenty meters deep underground.

And the army on the opposite side was Marshal Ney's First Army, the First Army was known for its bravery, and in the face of the Ming army, it did not retreat, and repelled the Ming army.

We......! ”

"Alfred, I know it's going to be difficult to take Metz. But ......, this is the order of the Führer. We must conquer Metz, even if we run out of divisions. Rommel's face turned pale.

"Commander, I know your relationship with the Führer. If you ask the Yuan to have those two Ming 580mm mortars, then we will be able to conquer Metz! Alfred suggested to Rommel.

"That ......!" Rommel knew that the 580mm mortar was powerful. During the Warsaw war, this weapon was extremely powerful.

I heard that when a cannonball goes down, a building is gone.

"Otherwise, there really can't be helped! I inquired, the run had already arrived in Berlin and was on its way to the front.

I heard that it was for Feng. Bock's side used it to attack Ardennes.

The area of Ardenna is mountainous, and many places are not connected by train. Without rails, the cannon couldn't move at all.

If you look at our place, the train station is ten kilometers behind us.

If the mortar is coming, let's temporarily build a section of the railway to facilitate the maneuver of the mortar.

As far as the fortifications in front of us are concerned, if a cannonball is smashed down, any castle or fortress will be finished. Chief of Staff Alfred reminded Rommel.

"Well, send a telegram to the Führer. I'm going to get those two mortars! ”

"Great, division commander, with your relationship with the Führer, the Führer will definitely allocate those two mortars to us." Alfred was glad to personally supervise the telegram.

It has to be said that the relationship between Rommel and Asie is extraordinary. Just three days later, mortars, which were supposed to be destined for the Ardennes, arrived at the Metz front.

To this end, von. Bock lost his temper.

Ney felt that the German offensive had slackened in the past two days, and even the artillery bombardment had been much less.

At the same time, the situation on both wings is even more encouraging.

The Germans suddenly rushed out of the Ardennes and directly threatened the flanks of the French army.

As a last resort, the troops of the Fifth Army Alcatel rose up. The two sides are now fighting fiercely in the Ardennes.

If the Germans had made a breakthrough in the Ardennes, the Germans would have surrounded the French rear from the flanks. This trick is commonly used by the Ming army, but the Ming army has armored troops that can rush forward.

And the Germans, there were only infantry.

But the Germans had a large number of airships that could be used to support logistical supplies. This is very useful in the Ardennes, where there is a lack of effective transportation.

For this reason, the French also sent a large number of airships, in a vain attempt to use airships against airships.

After two battles, the French abandoned the idea.

The bulky airship, the equally bulky airship opposite, basically belongs to shooting each other. The situation on the battlefield is almost the same end.

The French could not compete with the Germans, because their production capacity did not allow it.

Rommel finally got his hands on the 580mm mortar, and on the day the mortar arrived, Rommel went to see it himself.

As soon as they met, he was shocked by the huge body of the mortar cannon, and the 580 mm barrel could easily drill into a person.

The shells alone weighed two tons. It is necessary to use a crane to lift the shells on.

The maximum speed of each gun is one shot in five minutes, which is already the limit. Normally, being able to reach a shot of ten minutes is not bad.

The shells were heavy and the reload time was too slow, making them look weak in the face of great power.

The French troops on the Meesburg front were somewhat lax, since the Germans did not launch a large-scale offensive for these two days.

The corpses of the German soldiers in front of the position began to decompose, and the increasingly strong wind blew the smell of corpses, which made the French army lose their appetite.

In broad daylight, the soldiers hid in the fortifications and did not come out.

Only the best bully will become the unlucky observation post, lying in the trench with binoculars, watching the movement on the other side.

"Carl, why are we always so unlucky?"

"Almond, I can't help it, because you're too thin and I'm too short to beat them."

Two French observation posts were lying in the trenches looking at the German positions in the distance.

There was not the slightest movement on the German side, not even a single figure in sight.

And today is also very strange, the other side didn't even bother to fire a shell, it seems that they are not ready to continue to attack Metz.

This is good news for the big guys, and no one wants to go to the battlefield to fight to the death.

The First Army has been fighting for two years, and the fighters are homesick.

And the first French troops to enter Russia, now there are not a few left.

When the veterans get together for a drink, they often say, where this person died, where that person died.

If someone goes home with a missing arm or leg, that's something to celebrate.

"Listen, what sound does it sound?"

"Damn it, is there a snake?"

The two young recruits looked at each other suspiciously, not unconsciously moving.

"Boom......!" The two of them felt a thunderclap explode around them.

Then the ears could not hear, and only the dirt and the fortifications and everything on the ground could fly.

A sapper shovel for building fortifications actually flew fifty or sixty meters high. Then it fell to the ground with a smoke!

"Carl ......! Cal......! Sentinel Almond shouted to his companion, but he couldn't hear what he was shouting.

Until his throat was almost bleeding, he couldn't hear a sound.

I stepped on a soft thing under my feet, and I moved it to find that it was a leg.

Like a groundhog, Almond picked at the soft dirt. Finally got Carl out!

Carl coughed violently, spitting out a lot of dirt from his mouth.

Then, like a drowning dying man, Carl took a big breath.

When Carl took a breath, he realized that the bunker behind him had turned into a large pit more than ten meters deep.

As for the people in the bunker, he didn't find any of them. I just found half of my ass on a dead tree that was blown up with shrapnel nearby.

Soon, a huge explosion also occurred at a trench support point more than 500 meters away next to it.

A squad inside the support point, plus a Maxim machine gun, all flew into the sky.

"Oh God! What exactly did the Germans use? Almond only saw Karl's squirming lips, but he didn't know what he was saying.

"What? The front line was shelled by large-caliber artillery? When Ney heard the news, he was immediately shocked.

Large-caliber artillery, how big is it?

In his impression, the one who liked to use large-caliber artillery the most was the Ming army.

One hundred and twenty mm guns, nothing more than regimental artillery. Inside the division, there were 155-mm howitzers.

The power is truly amazing.

Listening to the report of the chief of staff, General Guy, it seems that the German army now uses artillery with greater power than the Ming army.

What the hell is this!

"Your Excellency, I have personally seen the crater. And I watched them measure it, and it was fifteen meters deep.

The granite bunker is completely gone, and even the sleepers on the floor tiles supporting the bunker are gone.

There is also a great thing, that is, this kind of artillery is extremely accurate. And they seem to know where our bunkers and firing points are. ”

"Isn't that nonsense? It's been a long time since we fought, and our bastions can't move, and the solid support points of those bunkers have long been exposed.

How stupid do the Germans have to be to not accept the lessons of human life. ”

Ney was so angry that the three corpses jumped violently, could his staff members be stupid pigs?

"They can't be blamed for that, the castle in Metz has been under construction since 500 years ago. Later, in the era of smoothbore guns, many more fortresses were built.

Later, there are our permanent bunkers, which are all reinforced concrete structures.

These things can't be moved.

The Germans are afraid that during this period of attack, they have already figured out the location of these places. Now the super-large caliber artillery is brought in, and it is necessary to knock out these bunkers one by one.

Your Excellency, I now propose. We abandoned the medieval castles and the fortified bastions, and moved all our troops to the field fortifications.

Otherwise, if this continues, the German army will knock one by one like opening a can, and our troops will collapse sooner or later. ”

An old partner, Ney gave the chief of staff some face.

But soon Ney broke out again, because he couldn't help it, as the chief of staff, he actually came up with such a bad idea.

"Bring the troops out of strong fortifications? Into the field fortifications?

So if the Germans shelled field fortifications on a large scale, would we be able to withstand it? Ney roared.

The French army originally wanted to rely on the fortress for defense, and did not pay attention to field fortifications at all.

Think about it, who would put a fortress that is in a key place and has ready-made strong fortifications not to defend it, but to dig fortifications in the field.

As long as the brain is not flooded, it will not do this.

But now the situation has changed, and the fortress, which was originally thought to be very strong, was completely destroyed by the newly transferred artillery of the German army.

Even the granite bunkers could not withstand the attack of German artillery.

This......!

"The main forces withdrew from the bastions and hid in the rear.

Only a small number of people are left inside, which can effectively reduce casualties.

Let's do it! "There's nothing Ney can do about it.

In fact, the entire French line was already in jeopardy.

The defensive line on the front of Metz is still good, and the defensive line of the Second and Third Armies is now retreating step by step.

In the past few days, they have retreated five kilometers.

If it retreated again, the flanks of the First Army would be exposed.

His Majesty the Emperor is an emperor who fights the world with the barrel of a gun, and he will never allow the battle line to be broken through, and then the First Army was made dumplings.

So, as long as he held out for two more days, Ney felt that he would be able to receive the order to retreat. So that the French front will be unified again.

Operations with a clear front are like this, and the front needs to be consistent.

As soon as one point on the front is breached, the whole front has to move with it. That's the real pull and move the whole body!

Rommel had a great day!

I watched as the French fortifications were blown up into the sky by artillery fire, and there were not many shells used.

Only using a mortar cannon can achieve this purpose, which makes him admire Daming's military technology even more.

In particular, the accuracy of the mortar made him very shocked. How could such a large-caliber artillery shoot so accurately?

In fact, Rommel didn't know about these mortars made by the Ming Dynasty, first of all, the caliber of this mortar is super large, and the direct consequence is that the size of the cannonballs is very large.

When a shell comes down, a large crater more than ten meters deep can be smashed out of the flat ground.

Coupled with the weight of two tons, the charge is more than one and a half tons, and the power of the explosion can actually make up for some lack of accuracy.

No way, artillery with a large caliber, the shell is just a big one.

Another point is that the range of the mortar is a full thirty kilometers. This is not the ultimate range, and now Rommel uses mortars with a range of less than twenty kilometers.

The shortening of the firing range also greatly increased the accuracy of the mortar.

The most important thing was that the fortifications and bunkers on the French positions could not be moved.

In particular, the fortifications on those bastions were built more than a hundred years ago, and it was impossible to move them.

For mortars, this is to hit a fixed target.

If this kind of target could no longer be hit, Rommel would have been able to shoot the artillery commanders and calculators.

In the evening, Rommel ordered the troops, who had rested for three days, to begin crossing the river under the cover of artillery fire.

During the day, the mortars had already blown up most of the fortifications and bunkers, and at night the Germans crossed the river with the help of the darkness of the night, and if the bunkers were found, almost all the artillery fire in the rear would be bombarded towards this firing point.

When the shells are dense, there will always be one or two shells that enter the bunker through a small firing hole.

Then, there was an explosion, and there were no more bullets from the bunker.

In the dark, the French had no choice but to engage in a white-knuckle battle with the Germans.

The battle was very fierce, and it had been fighting for almost half a month, and both sides were red-eyed. Especially the German army, a few days ago, they couldn't touch the side of the French army at all, and now they have the opportunity to face each other head-on, where will they let it go.

If the rifle is smashed, use a dagger, and if the dagger is broken, use a grenade.

Even a dying person will not hesitate to pull the grenade on his body and die with the enemy.

For a whole night, the First Army and the Germans fought desperately on the west bank of the Moselle.

The sound of gunfire and grenade explosions continued throughout the night.

Rommel was already red-eyed, and his command post was less than three kilometers from the front line. He could even see the explosion on the other side of the river clearly.