Yu Xueli immediately took a look, only to find that hundreds of meters in front of the trench were lying on the white sand beach, and I don't know how many corpses were lying on it, how many stumps, broken arms and flesh and blood were scattered. The red blood flowing everywhere was particularly dazzling on the white sand, and it was particularly shocking. The field of vision moved a little further, and even the bay in front of them was filled with the corpses of a large number of German and Italian soldiers, and the large amount of blood that flowed out of the sea stained the blue water purple.

The average temperature on Malta Island is 20 degrees Celsius throughout the year, and swimming is possible all year round. The island is surrounded by snow-white sand, and when viewed from the air, it looks like a huge pearl set in the middle of an aquamarine, surrounded by sparkling diamonds. It used to be a picturesque tourist destination, but now it has become a terrifying Shura field full of wolf smoke, full of broken mountains and rivers and bloody killings!

Yu Xueli took a deep breath and glanced back at Nie Wudao: "What is the casualty situation of the brothers of the first battalion?" Nie Wu's face darkened slightly: "There are 12 killed on our side, 15 seriously injured, and more than 30 minor injuries!" The injured brothers have now all been taken to the hospital for treatment! After a pause, Nie Wu nodded to the side and said, "At least more than 40 people were killed on their side, and there were forty or fifty people who were slightly and seriously injured!" ”

"You've done a great job, learn to protect yourself while destroying the enemy!" Sure enough, there is no harm if there is no comparison, Yu Xueli was still mourning for the dozen or so brothers who died just now, and when he heard that the friendly troops in the flank position had killed at least 40 people, he suddenly felt that he had made a lot of money on his side! "Yes!" Nie Wu hurriedly responded, and then said with a deep pride while chewing the sauce beef to satisfy his hunger: "This battle is really too painful, our battalion has killed at least more than 500 enemies, and more than half of them are German devils!" ”

"Very good, your first battalion has won the first merit of the expedition to Africa today, and the brothers have done a good job. When I turn around, I will definitely ask for credit to you in person! Hearing this, Yu Xueli smiled happily again, to have such a disparity in casualty ratio, although the geographical advantage played a great role, but in any case, it can really be regarded as a victory, and played an extremely beautiful defensive battle. Nie Wu became modest at this time, scratched his head and said, "Hehe, we are taking advantage of the beach landing battle!"

The military quality of these German troops is indeed very high, and in this way, they have caused more than 50 casualties to us due to their extremely unfavorable terrain! If we change places, I really don't know what kind of record we will play, and how many people will die! "Let's think about it later, don't worry about it at all!" The most important thing at the moment is to hold the other islands of Mahai, so that it can become strong as soon as possible and become a sharp blade of the ** Axis army! ”

Yu Xueli waved his hand, thinking too much about those life and death will only make his life unhappy, just take every step and cherish every day! "What the group said is very true!" Nie Wu nodded with a smile, and then said: "This time, the brothers of the anti-aircraft artillery unit also performed very well, I saw them shoot down at least 6 bombers, and they also helped us sink two troop carriers!"

However, their casualties should be not small, at least 5 anti-aircraft guns were destroyed! "Hmm! Soldiers are martyred for the country, for the country and the nation, what does it matter if we die on the battlefield and the horse leather shroud! I firmly believe that our magnificent China will definitely stand on top of the world in the future, and the great achievements of our brothers will be forever recorded in history! Yu Xueli gritted his teeth, although he was very willing to face these life and death, but how can there be immortals in war, as long as these sacrifices are worth it, then there is nothing to regret!

Woo~Woo~Woo~ About an hour later, when Yu Xueli, Bai Liang, Peng Liang and others were condolences to the front-line officers and soldiers at an anti-aircraft artillery position, a fierce air defense siren sounded again on Malta Island! The shrill sound of sirens soared into the sky, making people feel extremely uncomfortable. "Holy shit, these ghosts are really willing to spend their money!" Yu Xueli subconsciously looked up at the sky, but where could he see the trace of the enemy plane.

At this moment, the enemy bomber group was still more than 100 kilometers away, and it would take at least 10 minutes to reach the island of Malta. Shen Mao, the commander of the artillery company, hurriedly saluted Peng Liang and the others and said, "Tuanzao, Commander Yu, you should go back quickly, the enemy plane will come again soon!" Peng Liang saluted the officers and soldiers under his command and ordered heavily: "Brothers, you must pay attention to your own safety!" When you can't do anything, immediately abandon the cannon and hide in the bomb shelter!

You are the ones who matter more than the artillery and the lives of the enemy! Remember! Remember! "Please rest assured, we are not so delicate, and we are not so easy to die!" Shen Mao smiled and nodded, comforting his immediate boss in pale and weak words. "Please rest assured, we will never embarrass you, and we will definitely let these dogs come and go!" Dozens of artillerymen next to Shen Mao saluted in unison, with a resolute face.

The 88-mm anti-aircraft gun can only be fought in the open air, so that it can obtain a firing range without dead angles for any angle of anti-aircraft shelling, so there is no way to hide in a pillbox or turret and control it as an anti-aircraft gun. This means that there is no way to guarantee their own safety, especially when facing dive bombers and fighters, they can easily become the primary target.

However, as an air defense force, they cannot refuse to be desperate and rigid because they are greedy for life and afraid of death, and allow the enemy's aircraft group to carry out ultra-low-altitude precision bombardment of ground military targets. Otherwise, the defense system of the other islands of Maldives will be carried out, and the casualties of the ground combat forces will be multiplied.

"Take care, brothers!" Peng Liang hardened his heart and turned to leave, and tears overflowed from his eyes as soon as he walked a few steps, because he knew that maybe this goodbye to his brothers would be forever! In the previous battle, their anti-aircraft artillery regiment had already killed 16 fighters, and more than 20 others were seriously injured and are being rescued in the hospital!

"Brothers, you must survive!" Yu Xueli saluted heavily, and then turned around and left with a few staff officers. "Brothers, don't be stunned, hurry up and the guys! If we want to survive, we must beat the enemy and make them dare not be presumptuous in front of us! After Peng Liang and his party walked away, Shen Mao sat on the anti-aircraft gun position and began to make preparations.

"Fuck the guys, fuck the fuck!" "We only managed three bombers in our company before, which was really not enjoyable, but this time we strive to achieve another good result and surpass the brother company!" "That's a must!" The rest of the artillerymen were also busy, and at this moment they had only one thought left in their eyes, that is, to destroy the enemy as much as possible.

Buzzing, it didn't take long for the thunderous sound of a motor to come from the distant sky. "Brothers, get ready to fight, it's time for us to perform!" Through the artillery mirror, Shen Mao followed the prestige and clearly saw a group of small black dots flying rapidly from the north of Majia Island, and this time there seemed to be more bomber groups than the last time.

"Fire!" "Kill!" "Boom! Boom! Boom! Soon, as soon as the enemy aircraft group had entered the effective firing range, the anti-aircraft artillery positions on the other islands of Malay began to hear earth-shattering rumbling guns.

The long barrels that shot straight into the sky erupted with dazzling tongues of fire, and then a 7.7-kilogram shrapnel pierced the sky with an initial velocity of 1,000 m/s, and the enemy planes shot away with endless roars. These 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, which were purchased directly from the Shanghai Military Industry Research Institute, not only have advanced fire control data display units, but also use electric drive technology, which can easily carry out 360-degree indiscriminate strikes

With a maximum range of more than 12,000 meters, it can fire 40 shells per minute, and each howitzer shell explodes in at least 1,500 fragments after explosion, which can damage or destroy any aircraft within a radius of nearly 200 meters. Boom! A moment later, these shrapnel exploded one after another in the air, like fireworks blooming in the air, exploding black clouds and interweaving into a storm of death metal.

As the shells exploded in the air, I saw that 4 enemy bombers were hit with smoke, and then lost control and began to fall at a rapid speed. In a few moments, two bombers landed on the island of Malais and exploded into a blazing fireball, while the other two fell on the shore and splashed a skyrocketing wave.

"These damn bastards! How can there still be such a powerful and dense anti-aircraft artillery! "Quickly disperse the formation and immediately drop bombs to blow up the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery positions!" Before they could fly over the islands of Malland to drop bombs, they were hit in the face, four bombers were shot down in a single field, and several bombers suffered considerable damage. However, this was only the beginning, and the continuous explosion of anti-aircraft shells formed an impenetrable metal storm in the air, seriously threatening the safety of the aircraft group.

The German-Italian pilots felt that they had suddenly become small sailing ships moving forward in the stormy seas, and that they could be directly overturned by a wave at any time, and the ships would be destroyed and killed. "Brothers, keep beating me hard, so that all these dog days will come and go!" Shen Mao firmly attached the crosshair to the body of a bomber through the gun mirror, kept pulling the trigger of the cannon, and kept blasting out the shrapnel one after another.

"Haha, Lao Tzu has done it again, it's worth it today!" The hard work paid off, and soon Shen Mao went to the next city and blasted an enemy bomber in the air, full of a sense of accomplishment like a stimulant, and the whole person suddenly became high and became more and more stated. Boom! Boom! Boom!

At the same time, the anti-aircraft artillery on other positions were not idle, and after a frantic all-out output, three bombers were killed in a row in less than a minute. "Haha, well done! Hit, we hit! "Wow, one, two, three, four,......, and in a moment we've got eight of them!" It's so awesome! ”

"Well done artillery brothers!" "Damn, it's so exciting, I see how arrogant you are with these ghost bombers!" "Oh, the Huaxia artillery is so powerful!" "Thank God for sending messengers to save us!"

The officers and men of the Chinese and allied forces, who were hiding in the bunkers of the defensive positions in various places around them to observe the enemy's situation, could not help but scream in surprise when they saw the enemy bombers that were constantly being beaten and smoked and falling, as well as the group of enemy planes in the sky. If it weren't for the fact that the enemy planes were already flying in the sky and had already begun to throw bombs frantically, they would have rushed out of their bunkers, and then happily raised their arms and shouted and danced a samba.

"Chirp!" Thoroughly enraged, the German-Italian aircraft group began their show, and the horizontal bombers bombed wildly with a dense range of anti-aircraft shells. A heavy bomb fell from the sky with a sharp scream, and when I looked up, the sky was densely packed with rapidly falling black spots, which continued to magnify in the retina, as if hail fell from the sky and smashed down on the head and face.

But it is clear that these powerful bombs are not comparable to hailstones. As these bombs fell to the ground one after another, an earth-shattering explosion continued to explode like fried beans, and in the noisy explosion, clouds of black gunpowder smoke rushed to the ground and suddenly rose into the air.

Moments later, the entire island of Malta was covered in a thick cloud of billowing smoke. The pilots of the dive bombers and escort fighters gritted their teeth and swooped down on the anti-aircraft gun positions on the ground that were still spewing tongues of fire with endless anger and murderous intent.

Strings of bullet lines that flashed and disappeared fell from the sky, and caliber ammunition poured down to the ground without money. One by one, the bombs broke away from the pylons and smashed into the artillery positions on the ground in a parabolic trajectory. "Dog's day, let's see who dies first!" Seeing that the killing machine was coming, the red-eyed anti-aircraft gunners completely ignored it, and turned their guns one after another to frantically fire at the enemy planes that were diving at high speed.

"Company commander, get out of the way! Dangerous! "Leave me alone, you all spread out, let me fight with these shits!" Shen Mao was no exception, he was not willing to give up his most loyal and reliable close comrade-in-arms like this, and he still kept pulling the trigger and firing at a dive bomber in the northeast. Boom! Shells shot up into the sky and bombarded out incessantly, covering the enemy's dive bombers' offensive routes.

However, the bombers that dive at high speed were extremely fast, and it seemed that every shot was aimed at the bull's-eye, but in fact, it had missed tens or even hundreds of meters in an almost negligible short period of time. Without precise guidance, it would not be so simple to take out such a high-speed diving aircraft, even if it was a proximity fuse shell.

However, there is a good saying, a blind cat can also meet a dead mouse, not to mention that Shen Mao is also a senior gunner, and after five or six shells in just a few seconds, he finally hit the soul and exploded the bomber that was coming towards him in the air. However, at this moment, a bomb was coming towards him at a rapid speed.

"Hold the grass!" At the moment of life and death, Shen Mao didn't have time to think about it before he got out of the gun position as quickly as possible, and ran towards the nearest anti-artillery hole. Boom!

However, this bomb came too fast and too fiercely, Shen Mao just ran a few meters away, and then exploded behind him, and then a powerful wave of air hit, only to feel that it was like a heavy truck crashing behind him, Shen Mao couldn't help but accelerate forward, and then the internal organs began to tumble over the river and the sea, and the person was still in mid-air A mouthful of blood gushed out.

Thump! was directly swept away a few meters away, and Shen Mao fell heavily to the ground, and then, with a crooked head, he fainted.

"Ah, company commander!" "Medic, come and save people!" Hearing the sound of explosions not far away, several artillerymen who had arrived at the anti-artillery hole first ran out to check the situation, only to see that their company commander was already "lying on the ground" at the moment, and his life and death were unknown, and everyone panicked for a while.

"Quick, shoot these damn Germans!" "Oh Shet, I'm sending you to God!" "Falk oil! Go to hell! "Inspired and driven by the artillery unit of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the anti-aircraft machine gunners of the British and American forces also disregarded life and death, put the crosshair on one after another Stuka dive bombers that were frantically diving at low altitudes, and pulled the trigger with all their strength to output frantically.

Da Da, a string of bullets head-on, one by one dragged the light bullets in the air to draw a series of bullet lines that flashed and disappeared. During World War II, ground attack aircraft flew at relatively low altitudes, and the German Stuka dive bombers were only able to drop bombs or use machine guns to attack ground targets when they dived to a certain height on the ground. And at this altitude, ground-based anti-aircraft machine guns, quite capable of hitting this bomber and inflicting fatal damage.

Similarly, other bombers, in order to achieve accurate bombing, must also reduce the altitude, and the American B-17 bomber fights at an altitude of about 500 meters. At this altitude, anti-aircraft machine guns, especially those mounted on tanks that move, still pose a great threat to the B-17 bombers. Although these anti-aircraft machine guns were far less powerful than the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, their rate of fire and sensitivity were far stronger than those of the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, and they were still effective against these high-speed dive combat aircraft.

In a series of fierce air defense battles in which you either die or die, bombers and fighters are blown up in smoke and volleys, and crash one after another on islands and oceans. At the same time, one anti-aircraft gun position and anti-aircraft machine gun position after another on the island of Mala were subjected to frenzied strafing, bombing, and destruction!

At this moment, the Italian fleet anchored in the distance also began to approach the island of Malta, and in the process of marching, a large-caliber naval gun continued to spew tongues of fire, and began to bombard the coastline of other islands in close range.

"What the hell is going on, why did so many powerful anti-aircraft artillery groups suddenly appear on the other islands of the Malaeus? And when did these damn sick men of East Asia land on the other islands of the Males? "On an Italian cruiser, the commander of the Libyan Navy, Zando, was holding a telescope and was engrossed in watching the battlefield in front of him that was fighting fiercely, watching with great pain as one plane after another was bombed down.

"General Zando, do you still think that the Huaxia Expeditionary Force is an army like sand?" Meneki, the chief of staff of the Afrika Korps, was equally ugly, and just yesterday the other islands of Malay were still pretending to be dogs, and the air force units bombed several times without encountering decent resistance.

Today, however, so many anti-aircraft artillery groups suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and at once caused heavy casualties to our own air force units and landing forces. These newly emerged anti-aircraft guns turned out to be exactly the same as the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns of the Third Reich, and they were also "better than the blue", and their shelling accuracy and operational sensitivity far exceeded their own 88-mm anti-aircraft guns.

To Meneki's great puzzlement, it was not the British and American troops who skillfully operated these 88mm anti-aircraft guns, but a group of yellow-skinned oriental faces. At this time, even if Menekie thought with his feet, he could know that these artillery pieces must belong to the combat sequence of the Chinese Expeditionary Force. If he hadn't seen all this with his own eyes, Meneki would not have believed that the Chinese Expeditionary Force would have such advanced anti-aircraft artillery and such a well-trained anti-aircraft artillery unit!

"So what, no matter how powerful their anti-aircraft guns are, they will only be blown to pieces under the bombardment of the coalition air force and the shelling of the fleet, and they will only be annihilated after all!" Although the losses of the air force exceeded expectations, Zando did not panic, as long as the other side did not have fighter jets to come out to do things, even if the ground air defense forces were powerful, it would only have a limited effect.

However, Menekie poured cold water and said: "If it is just a few dozen more anti-aircraft guns, it will naturally not change the overall situation, but do you think it is just like this?" Obviously, the ground forces stationed on the other islands have also been greatly strengthened, and it will not be easy for us to make a successful landing on the beach and conquer the other islands in a short period of time. ”

Speaking of which, Menekie really has a headache, it is very simple to destroy air defense forces and blow up military targets on the ground, as long as you are willing to spend money. However, the terrain around the other islands of Malta was very strange, and there were few suitable places for landing, and the troops had to withstand the attack of Gozo, which was next to the island of Malta. Gozo's battery had four 380 mm guns and a large number of guns of different calibers, most of which were older but still powerful.

And if they force their landing, the troops will inevitably suffer heavy losses, and a strong attack is actually not a good choice. The materials required to carry out such an amphibious landing operation will also be astronomical, and in order to rely on Italy alone, it is certainly not enough, Rommel will have to transfer a large amount of resources from Germany.

But the problem is that the existence of Malta is so disgusting, its strategic location is so important, it has always been a sharp dagger in the heart of Rommel's Afrika Korps. Although the dagger had long since lost its edge under the prolonged bombardment and blockade, there was no immediate and substantial threat to the supply lines of the Afrika Korps.

But after all, the island of Malta holds the Mediterranean shipping lanes and is a nail in the coffin for the British army in the Mediterranean. Basically, any convoy departing from mainland Italy to North Africa could be detected by a Maltese radar station. Once discovered by the Maltese defenders, the British Mediterranean Fleet could quickly dispatch and sink all these transports overboard.

As a result, both the German Führer and the Italian leader planned to capture Malta as soon as the situation in North Africa stabilized, to ensure that their transport ships would no longer be driven into the sea to feed the fish. However, due to various reasons, the battle plan to capture Malta Island has been delayed until now, giving Jiang Qiang an opportunity!