1890 King of Southeast Asia

Rumble rumble rumble...

Squeak squeak...

Puff~~

A German artillery armored vehicle slowly passed over a crater, and just when it passed over the crater, it suddenly stopped.

"Hans, damn, the engine is broken, go and check it!" The commander Alvin patted the "steering wheel" and urged.

The loader and mechanic Hans opened the door on the side of the car body, carrying a tool bag, and opened the hood to check nervously behind the shell body.

"Damn, according to the plan, we should reach the front line in ten minutes." Alvin looked at the smoke in the distance angrily.

At this time, Europe or the world at this time did not deeply feel the cruelty of modern war, nor did it leave the trauma of modern war. There were many people who wanted to rely on war to cross classes.

Especially in Germany under the control of the Prussian army.

Alvin served in the German army for 9 years. He initially served in the artillery, and later transferred to the logistics to drive a car. His rank was sergeant. After the war began, he came to the tank company as an acting officer and served as the commander.

"Acting officer" is a temporary military rank established by the German Empire in 1887. When there are heavy casualties and a lack of officers, sergeants and sergeants can be upgraded to the rank of "acting officer" and serve as platoon 1 officers.

However, this is a temporary rank and will be returned after the war. It is not enough for a soldier to become an officer just by meritorious service.

"Sir, there is no problem with the engine, but the transmission system has a problem. Some shell fragments from nowhere have stuck the gears on the transmission shaft."

"The good news is that I have cleaned up the fragments and the tank should be able to move. The bad news is that there are scratches on the gears and I am not sure how long it can last."

Hans said to Alvin with oil all over his body.

"Can't we change one? I remember we brought two spare gears. We don't know what we will face later." Alvin asked irritably.

"No, sir. The spare gears we carry are for tracks, and they don't match the gears on the drive shaft."

"And the tank is too heavy. We have to go back to the repair yard to replace it. The people in the factory are too lazy. They should add a cover to the bottom of the tank."

Hans thinks the factory's designers are stupid.

They didn't encounter any shelling along the way, and there were no explosions that were slightly closer. The drive shaft failure couldn't have been caused by the explosion fragments.

Shrapnel naturally couldn't appear out of thin air, so it could only be caused by the scattered shrapnel on the ground being bounced up by chance.

At this time, most vehicle chassis had no protection measures. On the one hand, the high failure rate was convenient for maintenance, and on the other hand, it was also to reduce weight and save costs.

The tank was a modified tractor chassis, and the designer didn't consider the situation on the real battlefield, and couldn't consider it. This was the first time.

The directional gear on the drive shaft was damaged. Fortunately, in order to avoid the crater, the tank moved forward very slowly, and the shrapnel stopped as soon as it got stuck. If the speed was too fast, it might have collapsed.

Of course, it is also possible that the shrapnel was bounced off by the high-speed gears.

"How long will it take? Can we reach the battlefield?" Alvin listened to the explosion in the distance and still wanted to fight.

The British tanks put heavy psychological pressure on the German infantry, so that the Germans suddenly lost the second French defense line they had captured since the start of the battle.

The German Verdun Campaign Command and the German General Staff were very angry about this. If Alvin could perform well in this battle, he might win a medal.

If he could accumulate enough military industry, Alvin could send his children to military school in the future, become an officer after graduation, and officially enter the German ruling class.

As for Alvin, there was an extreme shortage of middle and lower-level officers and non-commissioned officers in the war. It took a long time to become an officer, and the army would not let him go back for training.

If he could survive until the end of the war, he would have a chance to become a low-level officer, but with such a war intensity, Alvin would not ask for so much.

"I don't know."

"Maybe? Probably..."

Hans was not sure either.

"Let's give it a try. Our comrades are fighting for victory on the front line. If we sit here and do nothing, the superiors will not let us have an easy time." Alvin decided to try his luck.

Even if they could not get military merit, they had to appear on the front line, unless the tank was completely unable to move.

Rumble...

Alvin restarted the engine, and the tank slowly moved.

...

boo!

A German artillery armored vehicle was hit by a 37mm rapid-fire artillery shell, and the tank stopped instantly.

Boom!

The 37mm main gun of the tank fired again, but unfortunately, it did not hit the target 1,400 meters away from it. Even so, it still stopped where it was.

The 37mm gun equipped on the Mark 1 tank is an old gun, and it also fires traditional high-explosive ammunition. At a distance of more than 1,000 meters, it did not penetrate the 22mm front armor of the German artillery armored vehicle.

However, the kinetic energy of the 465g 37mm shell and the explosion of the 25g charge still caused the tank to have a mechanical failure and could not move.

(The armor-piercing capability of the tungsten alloy armor-piercing projectile fired by the pak37mm 42-caliber anti-tank gun is 48mm at 500 meters.)

The commander and gunner at the front of the vehicle were killed directly by the shock and explosion, while the loader at the middle and rear of the vehicle was fine, but was stunned.

After waking up, they fired back once, but unfortunately they didn't hit the target.

After the British tanks reacted, they immediately fired back with their short-barreled 76mm main guns. Even though the power of the short-barreled 76mm guns was much lower than that of the long-barreled guns, they were not blocked by the mere 22mm armor.

Because there was no turret, aiming was difficult. The British shot three times before hitting the target, and then the German tanks became a lighter.

boo! !

The German tanks exploded, and the flames were blazing.

When the first 37mm shell hit, the vibration caused a gap in the oil pipeline route, gasoline leaked, and the 76mm shells ignited the gasoline, and the high temperature caused the explosion.

This kind of thing happened frequently on the entire front. When crossing the complex battlefield terrain, the German tanks gradually broke down due to various mechanical failures, and the British could hit fixed targets.

Similarly, the British Mark 1 tanks were too bulky even with increased horsepower. Their large bodies were the best targets, and armor only a few millimeters thick could not stop 37mm shells.

Half an hour after the start of the war, the Germans lost 7 tanks and the British lost 12 Mark 1 tanks. It seemed that the Germans had the upper hand.

However, the British had 63 Mark 1 tanks in the battle, while Germany had only 16 artillery armored vehicles, one of which was down and one was on the way to the battlefield.

In fact, looking at the data on paper, the German artillery armored vehicles should have been a mess against the British tanks.

With a lower body, faster speed, and thicker armor, they were enough to penetrate the enemy's firepower. The German artillery armored vehicles had a complete advantage on paper.

Actual combat showed that the two 37mm rapid-fire guns carried by the British Mark 1 tanks could not penetrate the front armor of the German artillery armored vehicles at a distance of 1 kilometer, while the Germans could easily penetrate any part of the British tanks at this distance.

Unfortunately, the data on paper is just data on paper after all. It was not tanks and field guns that defeated the German artillery and armored vehicles, but the mechanical reliability under complex terrain.

The German field artillery group had to deal with the field artillery group of the British and French coalition forces, and did not have enough energy to support the tank battle on the front line. The balance of the war was tilting towards Britain and France.

Whoosh~

boo!

A black shadow passed through the air. After a delay of a few seconds, a Mark 1 tank spewed out flames and then exploded.

"Very good! There is no target in sight. Support our infantry brothers and move forward!" The commander and driver stepped on the accelerator, and the tank "flew" forward at a speed of 8 kilometers per hour.

There was no way. The transmission shaft was damaged. The commander could only drive slowly. Not only could he not drive faster, but he also had to choose a good road to drive, so of course he could not drive faster.

The good news is that the speed of the infantry was slower.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom...

The 37mm artillery and the 92mm water-cooled machine gun fired in succession, easily repelling an attack by the British army.

"Hurry up, hurry up, let's fight back!" Alvin didn't know that the battle line had changed, and called on the soldiers around him to attack together.

The soldiers saw that the British retreated and the "monster" was also burned by the flames. The excitement overwhelmed the fear in an instant. They took the g98 rifles in their hands and followed the artillery and armored vehicles to fight back.

The British army that lost the tank retreated like refugees. Alvin easily reoccupied the lost position and led his men to attack the position lost yesterday.

The British just occupied this place yesterday. The march was hasty and they were not prepared for defense. Alvin faced the rain of bullets and easily broke through the barbed wire and rushed to the position.

Boom!

Boom!

The 37mm gun was almost one gun per fire point against ordinary field fortifications. The British machine guns were blown away and extinguished one by one, and the Germans reoccupied this place.

"I love this car so much. I didn't expect it to last a whole day." During the night break, Alvin squatted beside the car and handed tools to Hans who was repairing it.

"Sir, will we get medals?" After the maintenance, Hans stepped out, wiped his black hands on his black clothes, and asked honestly.

"Of course, didn't you notice that there were no other friendly troops around us? It proves that we rushed to the front. After the battle, we will all get the Iron Cross Medal." Alvin enjoyed it.

"Are there no friendly troops around us?" Hans didn't pay attention to the Iron Cross Medal. He seemed to have heard something extraordinary.

"Yes, we didn't find other friendly troops around us, but it doesn't matter. Our contact with the rear is still there and has not been cut off."

"According to the performance of the British, we can win with 1,000 people." Alvin knew what the young man was worried about, but he didn't care.

Alvin was full of confidence. The embarrassed escape of the British army on the battlefield today gave him extremely strong confidence.

In order to escape, many British soldiers even threw away their life-saving equipment, such as gas masks.

Besides, the rear has already known their location, and I believe that reinforcements will arrive soon...

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