The decisive battle against the Third Reich

"Smoke bomb!" Bazel shouted.

The advantage of the German army is that the company level has its own mortar support firepower, and this support firepower is not weak... Each of their platoons has a mortar team, and this mortar team has three people: a team leader, carrying binoculars and rifles , benchmark and 10 rounds of shells. Two crew members carry the barrel, base and 20 rounds of artillery shells respectively.

In other words, a platoon is equipped with a mortar with 50 rounds.

In this way, the company's three infantry platoons have three mortars.

In fact, in many cases, German infantry companies are equipped with five 50MM caliber mortars. The reason is that the German army also has an anti-tank vehicle group under the company organization.

This anti-tank team was originally equipped with PzB anti-tank rifles... There was one team leader and six team members, and each two people were equipped with one anti-tank rifle, that is, three anti-tank rifles.

But talking about this anti-tank rifle is a bitter tear: its armor penetration depth at a distance of 100 meters is only 30 mm, while the British "Matilda" tank even has a rear armor of 50 mm, which is This means that anti-tank guns cannot even penetrate the rear of enemy tanks.

This time it became a laughing stock among the German army, as the anti-tank team was completely powerless against enemy tanks.

But that's not the worst.

Even if an anti-tank rifle cannot hit tanks, it can always hit armored vehicles or enemy cars on the battlefield. At any rate, armored vehicles can still be regarded as "combat vehicles."

This will not have any problems in terms of penetration. Even the anti-tank rifle can penetrate the target 300 meters away (note: the penetration depth of the PzB anti-tank rifle at 300 meters is 25 mm).

The problem is... the anti-tank rifle is a big thing. It is like a cannon when it goes to the trench. It will be discovered by the enemy and become a target from a long distance. This makes it easy to become an enemy sniper, machine gunner or even a gunner. The target of the mortar is hit, and the 16 kilogram weight of the anti-tank rifle makes it difficult to move quickly.

So this thing became completely useless. German soldiers were unwilling to go to the battlefield with this kind of equipment that could not effectively attack the enemy but was designed to trap themselves. They would rather replace their anti-tank rifles with machine guns or 50MM caliber mortars. .

Bazel's company changed the anti-tank group into two mortar groups, so the whole company had 5 mortars.

Following Bazel's order, five mortars fired a row of smoke grenades toward the forward position, and a cloud of smoke suddenly rose between the enemy and our positions.

"Fix bayonets!" Bazel ordered loudly.

Colonel Olbridge, who was commanding at the front line, noticed the smoke immediately and couldn't help but feel angry.

"What are they doing?" Colonel Olbridge scolded: "Actually firing smoke grenades in front of the tanks? Don't they know that this will affect the tank's shooting?"

Colonel Olbridge was so furious by the British army that he lost the calmness that a commander should have. Otherwise, he should have known that smoke grenades would also affect enemy tanks when they affected the shooting of his own tanks.

However, what surprised Colonel Olbridge even more was what happened next. After a burst of mortar shells, a group of German infantry actually used the smoke and dust to cross the tank and charge towards the enemy!

"Damn it!" Colonel Olbridge shouted hysterically: "Which army is this? Let them stop this stupid practice immediately!"

"Yes!" the adjutant responded.

"God!" Colonel Olbridge continued to roar: "How did these infantrymen get out of the training camp? How can we expect to win if we fight with these idiots..."

But before he finished speaking, Colonel Olbridge seemed to notice a problem. The British tanks seemed to have little reaction to the infantry charging forward, and the same went for the British infantry behind the tanks.

Of course, the British tanks will not react. As mentioned before, the main target of the "Crusader" tank is the enemy's tank, so it does not even have a heading machine gun, only one installed side by side with the tank's main gun. machine gun.

The heading machine gun is also called the front machine gun. It is installed on the right side of the driver's cab and is served by the radio operator. It can shoot up, down, left and right. This thing is the real infantry killer, because it is separated from the gunner and its range of fire is not limited by the main gun... The early "Crusader" tanks were not equipped with directional machine guns.

Of course, the parallel machine gun can also straf infantry.

But the problem is...

The parallel machine gun rotates together with the main gun, and the person who operates the main gun and the parallel machine gun is the same person, that is, the gunner. At this time, the gunner was manipulating the main gun and nervously looking for the opposite tank in the smoke. Of course, he was unable to operate the machine gun.

What's more, the field of vision and external perception inside the tank are very limited, so the gunner and even other tank crews are not aware that infantry is already charging them in the smoke.

As for the British soldiers behind the tanks, they may have discovered that the German infantry was charging. After all, the wind in the desert was strong and the smoke was thin and thick. They could vaguely see the enemy's leaping figure.

The problem was that enemy mortar shells were pouring towards them in pieces. They were unable to organize an effective defense in a short period of time. They wanted to notify the tanks but could not get in touch with the tank crews.

(Note: The tanks at this time did not have external phones. It was not until the Vietnam War that the United States installed a phone on the back of the tank so that the infantry hiding behind could easily talk to the crew in the tank for coordination)

As a result, the British army could only watch as the German soldiers rushed forward with bayonets drawn.

Qin Chuan was one of the soldiers rushing forward in the smoke. He couldn't tell what he felt at this time... The suffocating smoke, the shells exploded in front of him, and the bullets flew overhead with a whistling sound. What's even more terrifying is that there are monster-like "Crusader" tanks standing in front of them. Their barrels are towering, and from time to time they fire an armor-piercing projectile towards the opposite side with a "bang".

Although Qin Chuan knew that these tanks would not threaten his safety, which was also the basis for Qin Chuan's proposal to charge... But these were enemy tanks after all, a killing machine. As long as their gunners discovered something and diverted their attention to the ground, or their driver speeds up and hits the accelerator...

All of this made Qin Chuan's feet feel as heavy as lead, but Qin Chuan still tried his best to leap forward and follow his own shells extending forward, because he knew that his only way to survive was to move forward.

Although the maximum range of the 50MM mortar is only 500 meters, which often makes it suppressed by enemy machine guns or snipers, if the battle reaches a certain level and requires close fire support or an attack on the enemy's trenches, the 50MM mortar can The mortar can almost be said to be an artifact... Each mortar has 50 rounds of shells. If you hit them all at the fastest speed on the enemy's position in an instant, the enemy will be completely suppressed for a period of time. To fight back, the Germans often took advantage of this moment to launch a charge.