69novels Chapter 374
Chapter 374
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It turns out that Guderian and Manstein are not vegetarians.
After the daytime attack was frustrated, the two launched a night attack at night. They divided the infantry into small groups, each with five soldiers, and infiltrated the defenders’ positions in the dark, trying to use the cover of night to quietly kill the defenders’ tanks!
Their action was almost successful!
Because they were all German soldiers, they knew very well how to deploy friendly sentries, which helped them to easily kill the outer sentries and infiltrate the defenders’ positions!
The two armies belonged to the same country, and their appearance and language were exactly the same. So when they couldn’t see each other at night, once they broke through the interception of the outer sentries, they could easily disguise themselves as defenders and deceive the defenders, making the defenders think they were their own people!
If Mainz hadn’t specially arranged some secret sentries to discover these guys who tried to approach their tank positions, Guderian and Manstein’s plan would have succeeded!
The battle broke out quickly, and the two sides had an encounter in the dark night, and the scale of the encounter quickly expanded.
Guderian saw that his troops had infiltrated the enemy’s defense line, so he decisively invested in the reserve troops to try to expand the victory!
“These guys are too despicable. They can do this to us, but if they are dealing with enemies from other countries, can they disguise themselves like this?”
Rommel was awakened by the sudden sound of gunfire. He ran to the position and took a look. He was so angry that his nose was crooked!
The attackers relied on their numerical advantage, and they used rifle grenades and flamethrowers to successfully kill some of the defenders’ tanks.
Moreover, because of the poor visibility at night, many of the defenders’ firepower points did not dare to attack, for fear of accidentally injuring their own people. This caused the defenders on the front line to fall into a disadvantage and they were about to collapse!
“Abandon the first line of defense!”
Mainz saw that the situation was irreversible, so he decisively gave the order to the troops to withdraw to the second line of defense to fight!
Guderian saw that the attack was effective and successfully captured the enemy’s first line of defense. He was very excited and thought he had found a way to deal with the enemy, so he made persistent efforts and ordered the soldiers to continue the attack.
However, their luck ended this time. Mainz dispatched one-third of the mobile forces and launched an assault from the flank of the First Army, cutting off the connection between the main force of the First Army and the vanguard forces in front!
Seeing that their retreat was cut off, the soldiers attacking in front immediately did not dare to continue the attack.
They immediately He stopped and began to build a defense line, preparing to resist the enemy’s attack, so as not to be annihilated here by the enemy’s front and back attacks!
Mainz did not intend to eat up this unit.
He did not have enough troops.
Even if he surrounded the enemy, he could not eat up the enemy before the enemy’s reinforcements arrived.
His main purpose was to buy time for his troops to retreat to the second line of defense.
Seeing that the enemy had stopped attacking and his goal had been achieved, Mainz immediately issued an order to withdraw.
When Guderian heard that the defenders’ armored forces had rushed out, he immediately prepared to take his own armored forces to surround the enemy. As a result, when they arrived at the battlefield, the defenders had already withdrawn.
“General Mainz is really powerful. He barely gave us any chance!”
Looking at the armored forces of the defenders that had disappeared into the night, Guderian said to Manstein with regret.
“If I hadn’t been given a chance, I wouldn’t have been able to take the first line of defense!”
Manstein looked at his command with some fear. If the armored forces of the defenders had not attacked the junction of their two armies, but their command post, I’m afraid that at this speed, their command post would have been destroyed!
“you mean?”
“This is an exercise, not an actual battle. We just need to fight seriously, train our troops, and practice tactics. There is no need to expose all our cards. The general asked us to lay the first line of defense, probably to deter the Gauls and let them know that the current Maginot Line is not absolutely safe! If they want to ensure their own safety, they must continue to strengthen the defensive power of the Maginot Line!”
“In this case, General Mainz will not give us any chance to attack the second and third lines of defense! Because if we really break through the Siegfried Line, then we will also have a high probability of breaking through the Maginot Line. How would the Gauls feel if they saw this result?”
Guderian nodded slightly and replied,”I’m afraid they will think that the Maginot Line is useless and will not continue to invest energy and time in this line of defense in the future!”
“That’s right, this is not good news for us. Our strategy is based on the Gauls putting their main forces on the Maginot Line. When there is a vacuum in the defense of the northeast region, we can launch a blitzkrieg against them. If the Gauls also put heavy troops in the northeast region, then we will have no room for blitzkrieg!”
Guderian suddenly realized!
He was so busy playing that he didn’t consider that this was a chess game set up by the general!
Fortunately, he didn’t break through the defense line, otherwise, wouldn’t it ruin the general’s overall situation?
Manstein raised his eyebrows. In fact, he felt that even if Guderian went all out to attack, he might not be able to take down the Siegfried Line. After all, the large-caliber fortress artillery on the opposite side did not fire at their troops at all, but fired at the rear. This was already very obvious!
Imagine if these more than 400 mm fortress artillery fired at their attacking troops, how much loss they would suffer!
……
Seeing that the attacking German army had taken the first line of defense, the Gauls’ faces became ugly again!
He had just boasted to everyone that his Maginot Line was indestructible. Before others began to question it, he began to beat drums in his heart!
The German army broke through the first line of defense in just one day. At this rate, it would probably not take long for them to take down the entire Siegfried Line.
And since they could take down the Siegfried Line, the Maginot Line must be a piece of cake, right?
Thinking of this, the Gauls could not sit still!
Fortunately, the defenders withstood the fierce attack of the attackers. They held on to the second line of defense and did not let it fall again!
The first military exercise lasted about five days in total, and the final result was a handshake between the two sides.
The attackers broke through some of the lines of defense, but failed to gain greater gains.
The defenders, with an absolute disadvantage in terms of strength, withstood the fierce attack of the attackers and caused greater casualties. Judging from the results and the ratio of casualties, they obviously had the upper hand!
This result was acceptable to both sides. Guderian and Manstein learned a lot from this exercise. They both realized the defects and shortcomings of the German army’s current armored tactics, and both of them thought of their own solutions to this shortcoming.
Guderian turned his attention to the tanks themselves.
He believed that the reason why his attack failed was that their tanks had no advantage in performance and were too slow.
With the limited width of the battlefield, they could not send all their troops up, but could only send a part of their troops up.
As a result, they often fought a refueling war and could not play the advantage in quantity.
On the other hand, the tanks sent up did not have an advantage in number, and had no advantages in firepower and performance, so it was difficult to make a breakthrough.
To solve this problem, Manstein’s suggestion was to redesign a tank with more powerful performance, better protection, faster speed and more flexibility.
Although the speed of the No. 1 tank was also very fast, facing the enemy’s solid defense line, the No. 1 tank was simply a waste of time, no matter how fast it was, because the firepower of this thing was too poor and the protection performance was not good. Their use was not in attacking, but in rapid detours and interspersed raids.
If they want to attack, they still need heavy tanks!
Manstein’s idea is different from Guderian’s. He thinks that the main reason why they can’t take the Siegfried Line is the lack of firepower!
They can’t destroy the permanent fortifications of the defenders. If Mainz hadn’t deliberately let them go and didn’t use fortress artillery to bombard them, they might not be able to deploy troops to launch an attack under the threat of fortress artillery!
Moreover, after the enemy’s tanks had bunkers, they offset the impact of ground firepower, which made them need to rely on air firepower.