Battle of the Third Reich

The performance of the German tank company and the French armored forces before the official exchange of fire made everyone fall through their glasses. The German historian even used the word unimaginable stupidity to describe the two sides in the comment on the beginning of this **** battle. The reaction at this time.

The German tank group was demonstrating what it means to be too careful. Snyder directed his company to retreat at the fastest speed. He did not even order his tank to put one or two guns to test the French offensive determination.

The French tank commander also showed sufficient caution at this time. He may have failed to understand the reason for the Germans’ retreat, or he may have burned the wreckage of the French tank all over to affect his psychology, whether for the sake of What, he made a puzzling decision. The French tank group suddenly slowed down their progress, and they did not fire, but only silently moved slowly toward the German tank group at walking speed.

So between the push and the advance, the troops of the two sides opened the distance. On one side, they retreated quietly, and on the other, they advanced silently. On both sides, there was no one on either side, but neither side was willing to fire first. People feel a little weird.

Snyder made a stupid mistake, he did not take the initiative to attack the opponent when the French tanks were not stable, if he did so at that time, then it is very likely that he will not fall into the **** hard fight behind , And maybe still have the initiative on the battlefield.

But now it is just the opposite. He gave the French time to stand up, not only letting the enemy slowly find out their strength, but also giving the other party the opportunity to master the initiative on the battlefield. In the end, in order to make up for this mistake, Snyder paid a heavy price.

But having said that, Snyder issued the order at this time, which also had his reasons for excuse. In the final analysis, Snyder had never encountered that kind of opponent. He knew very little about the performance and strength of those French tanks, so he Under such circumstances, it is indeed difficult for a strong man to take the initiative to attack.

After all, the German tank commanders are professional soldiers who are professionally trained and full of rationality and pragmatism. They will not consider letting their troops take risks before the last resort. The American stupid and full of Western cowboy style is in the German team. Hardly find it.

There are, of course, exceptions. For example, at the same time, the biggest stupid daring in the German Army is leading a bunch of similar people to rush here. The topic is a bit far away, let's continue to understand the situation at that time.

Just when the German squad made the first mistake, if the French commander was smart enough to take advantage of this, then the destruction of the German tank group would not become very difficult. Because the tank performance of the French armored forces at that time was not much different from that of the German tanks, and some places still surpassed the German tanks.

And in terms of firepower and quantity, the French have occupied an overwhelming advantage. If the French tank commander has enough combat determination and desire and skilled command skills, then he can use all his tanks to the Germans. Launching a fast and powerful attack, relying on his superiority in quantity and firepower, the Germans completely wiped it out before they realized their mistake.

It is a pity that this French commander obviously does not have the above qualities. The French army colonel Jean Devalier has never had any military talents, let alone any commanding skills. The reason why he can take this position is because he used to Have stayed in the armored forces and have a sufficiently high rank. The Luftwaffe destroyed his determination and desire to fight with endless bombing. His courage had long been scattered with the thick smoke rising from the wreckage of the French tank, and now the tragedy of the entire army of the forward forces has made him pass. A high estimate of the strength of the German tank.

As a result, this crappy armored commander also made the same mistakes as the Germans. Excessive caution caused him to miss the best chance to give the German tanks a fatal blow, and he also gave the opponent time to reconsider the tactics. The colonel who commanded the main tank regiment with seventy tanks received the final promotion because of his mistake.

When the distance between the two sides opened to a thousand meters, the German tank group finally stopped retreating. They have rehabilitated their formation on the way to retreat. The nineteen tanks are divided into three rows, each row is 70 meters apart, and a box-type attack formation is formed centered on the two tanks of the company. .

Five minutes after the ridiculous confrontation between the two sides, the Germans first lost their patience, and Snyder decided to end this stupid tango with their 75mm cannon, and the fierce battle began.

"One row attacked the French left-wing tank, two rows and three rows attacked the middle lane, and four rows attacked the right wing. Let's see what we can do. With high-explosive grenades, prepare for volleys" Snyder gave the order calmly.

Now the tank commander is working hard to recall the situation of the French tank in the headquarters briefing.

In the early stages of the French campaign, only the Reinhardt armored army had the luck to encounter this French tank. At that time, this tank caused the German armored soldiers to suffer a lot, although the tankers destroyed the b1 in the end. , But also suffered a major loss of an entire No. 2 tank platoon and three No. 3 tanks.

In later battles, the German squad captured a whole regiment of such tanks in an intersecting operation. At that time, the Army attached great importance to this, and they quickly transported such a tank back to Germany for analysis and research by domestic research institutions.

After simple measurements and experiments, the experts of the German Bureau of Armaments and Equipment considered that it was a weapon comparable to the German tank No. 4 in certain indexes. Although it had many fatal flaws, it could not be erased. Where it shines. Those experts asserted that it would be impossible for the German Army to capture them without loss if the b1 tanks belonging to the French First Armored Division had consumed all the fuel on the roads full of refugees and were waiting for resupply.

However, Germany's bloated bureaucracy prevented these valuable research materials from being handed over to the Army in time. As a result, Snyder received only a simple enemy notification and a notice from the headquarters.

Although the command clearly stated in the notice that he tried not to fight the French b1 tank without the support of large-caliber artillery, he did not explain the reason clearly. If it weren't for a simple sketch below the notice, they might not even know what the b1 tank looks like.

The rudiment of the information and the vagueness of the notice led to this situation. Snyder was misled by the notice. He did not underestimate the fighting strength of this Gaul chariot, but the key issue is that he Estimate the wrong armor thickness of the opponent.

The French b1 tank weighed 31 tons. At that time, the weight was between medium and heavy tanks, which was more than nine tons. This tank has 60 mm thick frontal armor, and the weakest part is 40 mm thick.

But as a result of the French's pursuit of this protective power, b1 completely lost the mechanical power it should have as a tank. Its maximum speed on the highway is only 27 kilometers per hour, and the speed in off-road state is even more conceivable. .

This is actually related to the French's old combat thinking. They never regarded the tank as a separate weapon. In their eyes, the tank was only a tool to assist infantry combat. Because of this, in their view, the tank only needs to be able to keep up with the pace of the infantry attack, and does not need a strong maneuverability.

This tank is equipped with two main guns, one is installed in the front of the car body, next to the driver, this is a 75 mm howitzer, this installation method makes its shooting range almost fixed, France The tank driver has to turn the car body to aim at the target. For this reason, the tank is specially equipped with a precision hydraulic differential device to achieve precision aiming. The other is the 47mm 35x diameter gun installed in the small turret on the roof of the car. This weapon is more powerful than the 37mm main gun installed on the third tank.

Although the size of the car is similar to that of the German No. 4, it is higher in height than any German tank at the time, so the German infantry nicknamed it "Giant". From the data point of view, it belongs to the same level as the No. 4 tank, which can be said to be comparable. But in fact, it has some fatal weaknesses, and these are not data that can be reflected. This can only be discovered by people in real combat, and the French tank drivers pay the price of life for this.

"The high-explosive bomb is ready."

The loader Karl pushed a high-explosive armor-piercing ammunition into the chamber, and the young loader then lay on the observation window on his side and looked curiously toward the French tanks that were slowly advancing in the distance.

"Nine hundred and thirty meters away." The gunner reported seriously.

"Attention, fire!"

Snyder gave a command to fire aloud, and a dull sound of gunfire sounded, the tail of the 75mm gun slammed backwards, and the huge body of the tank shook the heavy body of the tank. Strong smell of fire. When the shelling was over, Snyder poked his head out of the control tower and picked up the telescope to observe the effect of the shelling.

Snyder chose high-explosive grenades over armor-piercing shells for a reason. Although the trajectory of the armor-piercing projectile is relatively straight and the hit rate is higher than that of the high-explosive projectile, it should be the first target when attacking the tank. But in fact this is not the case. The commanders of the No. 4 tank very much preferred to use high-explosive armor-piercing shells in the early battles.

The reason is that when dealing with certain armored targets, high-explosive armor-piercing grenades are used more than armor-piercing shells. The early model of the German No. 4 tank was equipped with a short-tube 75 mm gun with a diameter of 24 times. This was not originally an anti-tank gun. From a performance perspective, it was more like an infantry gun.

The position that the German Army initially assigned to the No. 4 tank was to support the fire support and command vehicles of the No. 3 tank battle. It did not require him to engage in a head-on conflict with the other's armored targets. However, after the war broke out, the purpose of this tank deviated from the War Department's expectations, and the No. 4 tank was pushed to the forefront of the battle. Because it has more powerful firepower than No.3, it is used as a main tank in many occasions.

However, although it has a main gun with a caliber of 75 mm, the barrel of that gun is too short, which directly leads to the initial velocity of the shells it fires. The initial velocity of the shell is the most critical indicator related to the armor-piercing ability of the shell. Without sufficient speed, the armor-piercing shell will not have enough kinetic energy to penetrate the opponent's armor. No matter how hard the warhead is, it needs huge kinetic energy to make it work, and this is exactly what the 75 gun of the No. 4 tank lacks.

High-explosive armor-piercing grenades are different. Speaking of this is related to its armor-piercing method. At that time, the German ** team used shaped charge armor-piercing bullets. The shaped charge warheads relied on the high-temperature metal jet generated by the explosion to penetrate the armor. board. This means that it does not need a high initial velocity, as long as it can make the shells hit the opponent's hard armor plate to detonate. Moreover, no matter how far this shell is fired, its armor-breaking depth is the same, and it will not happen that the armor-piercing ability decreases because of the distance.

What is even more surprising is that the armor-piercing shells fired from the short-barrel gun of the No. 4 tank are not as powerful as high-explosive armor-piercing shells. The weight of the armor-piercing shells is about two kilograms heavier than the high-explosive armor-piercing shells, which makes it The muzzle velocity is not as good as that of high-explosive shells, which can only reach a pitiful 385 meters per second, while high-explosive armor-piercing shells can reach 452 meters per second. The armor penetrating through a 41-millimeter-thick 60-degree inclination angle is only 35 millimeters in depth if the distance is more than one kilometer. The high-explosive armor grenades can penetrate the armor plate at an inclination of 45 mm and 60 degrees at any distance.

The German captains are very savvy. After comparison, they learned what kind of shells to choose in which circumstances. In this situation, Snyder is a wise choice to use high-explosive armor-piercing shells.

Less than two seconds later, the first shells of the German tank hit the head of the French armored forces. The high-explosive grenades exploded in the first row of French tanks. Snyder was very satisfied with this attack. He saw more than half of the shells hit the target, even if they missed, they were all in the distance. The French tank exploded very close. According to his previous experience, this near-missile bomb can also cause great damage to the target.

But after the smoke had cleared, the sight was stunned. The French tanks that were hit only paused a little, and then slowly started to move towards themselves, and the French tanks that were hit by the near-missile bombs did not even have a pause at that moment. It seemed that Snyder's first attack did not cause any substantial damage to the opponent except for adding a few black spots to the front armor of several French tanks. Snyder's cold sweat came down at that time.

"It's really a monster whose main armor looks thicker than we thought."

Snyder decided to change his tactics. Since he could not destroy the opponent from a long distance, he could still get into close combat with the French. Tracks, engines and body sides were the usual weak links of French tanks. Snyder did not believe in France One can cast the side armor as strong as the front armor.

"Pay attention to each row, move forward at full speed, stay in formation, and seduce the shooting. Try to attack the opponent's track as much as possible, and then paralyze it and say.

Snyder coldly gave the order, he found himself in an awkward situation, his tank could not destroy the other's tank at this distance, he hoped that the French had no such ability, otherwise I was really miserable.

The tank group responded quickly to the command, and all tanks began to accelerate. The German tanks lined up neatly with a box-shaped impact formation approaching the French tank forces.

"302, I'm 301, pay attention to keeping the distance."

Snyder commanded loudly to his wingman, but before he finished speaking, a sudden violent explosion drowned his voice.

The French finally launched the first wave of attacks on him, probably to vent their dissatisfaction with the commander on the opponent.

At that moment, the driver Lawitt felt that the ground in front of him disappeared, and the tanks of his comrades in front of him also lost track. Instead of these, a glare of firelight, a huge ball of fire kept rising in front of his eyes. It felt as if the whole world was burning, the scorching waves rushed into the cab violently from the armor observation window, and Lawitt quickly put down the armor cover on the observation window, and then pulled down the eyepiece of the driving periscope.

Although the French tanker's bombardment lasted only three seconds, these German tankers felt as if they had spent their entire lives.

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