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Page 178
"The situation is simple: a nutcracker over four meters long. We don't have a cannon, so let's shoot it down!"
"OK Sergeant, watch out for friendly fire behind you."
Turning around, the soldiers saw a low wall suddenly being pushed down by something. With the rolling and tearing sound of the tracks, a small and exquisite Stuart tank slowly drove out. Together with several soldiers beside them, they aimed their sights at the KMF, which was only just reacting. A 37mm shell finally brought down this giant, which still had some riverbed mud on it.
"Oh, the bastards are finally done for." Before any guests in the sky or on the ground could disturb them, the soldiers emerged from their bunkers and approached the pile of ruined river visitors. Following the method they had used to find the nameplates on Sunderland and Gloucester, they quickly found a piece of metal.
"Portman? Has anyone heard of that name?"
"No, sir, shouldn't we report this to our superiors right away? Isn't it a bit too unethical for a thing that can go into the water and on land?"
“Okay… Captain Drucker? I have something here.”
"what?"
"It's that..." Just as he was about to describe it, the soldier next to him suddenly exclaimed in surprise at the sky.
"The enemy is coming!"
Immediately afterwards, the Stuart tank was hit on the top of its turret by a shell falling from the sky, turning it into a burning backdrop that contrasted sharply with the uniquely shaped KMF that had just landed after flying down from the sky.
"Damn it... scatter, scatter!" The soldiers were hurriedly herded back into the house by this all-silver-white guy, who didn't care about them at all, and carefully examined the few Portmans that had been destroyed under the hail of bullets.
"That's going too far! Bazooka, get ready!"
However, just as the rocket was whistling away, the white-clad figure suddenly raised his hand towards the direction of the incoming rocket, and the rocket was reduced to nothing along with a piece of green glass that suddenly appeared in the explosion. Did it not even leave a scar on KMF's body?
"What the hell is this?!" The soldiers went crazy. The rocket launcher operator was stunned for a moment, and then KMF randomly picked a big rock and kicked it down.
"What the hell are we going to do, sir?" a private yelled frantically at Jonathan. "Concentrate the fucking shit firepower?"
The sergeant didn't know what to do either, but he wasn't in a complete panic yet—KMF simply turned his back to the riverbank and used the green glass he had just gestured with his bare hands as a shield, letting the bullets hit it one after another, deform, and fall to the ground, no different from sand and gravel.
Suddenly, the KMF began to accelerate rapidly forward. The soldiers watched as it leaped up, performed a spinning back kick in mid-air, and kicked an M1919 machine gun in the window. Then, it landed on the still-burning Stuart tank and ran towards the city center.
"Damn, that's an ace. Captain Drucker, there's trouble heading your way, be careful!"
……
The captain was clearly in a bad mood as well, because he couldn't get any tanks to help him anymore. The only armored force that the 3rd Panzer Division had reached in Schönebeck was the 33rd Panzer Regiment, and almost all of them were deployed to the western suburbs and the northern bridgehead to defend against the enemy's attack. The only things that could help him now were an M16 weapon carrier and a jeep with two M2 machine guns mounted on it.
Even so, it's not entirely up to them.
"Watch out above you!" Looking up, another helicopter slowly descended from the sky, opening fire almost simultaneously with the weapons transport vehicle just before its four machine guns turned around. However, how could four machine guns alone withstand the machine guns and rocket pods that had the advantage of altitude? The half-track vehicle was helplessly reduced to a pile of scrap metal burning in the middle of the road, and the helicopter, riddled with bullet holes, slowly crashed behind the houses on the opposite side.
"Fxxk..." The jeep managed to dodge and wasn't hurt, but it was clearly not enough for an ambush.
"Captain, can you hear me?" Jonathan quickly replied, "My ace doesn't seem interested in two-legged creatures at all; it seems to be looking for heavy weapons and vehicles."
"Okay, now try to bring it this way, I'll make some noise for you." After saying that, the captain ordered the jeep to be hidden quickly, and then called over a few soldiers to throw grenades into the street for free, creating a long series of noises like anti-aircraft guns firing.
"It's here!" the soldiers exclaimed, watching as a pair of grappling hooks stuck to the building brought the all-white creature down with a somersault.
As it fired, it looked around and found only the soldier's rifle. Just as it was about to leave, the captain quickly called for a jeep to come out and preemptively injured KMF's arm.
The jeep rushed forward, and KMF hurriedly retreated, swaying left and right while summoning the green glass with its left hand again. It seemed that it was waiting for the jeep to pass it before flipping over and using its grappling hook to launch a surprise attack on the four wheels.
"I made it!" Jonathan rushed out from the retreating KMF route with some surprise, holding a shell that he had somehow gotten from the mortar crew who were retreating with him.
"Yeah, that's it." While running, he aimed at the KMF's trajectory, tapped the back of the mortar shell on his palm, swung his arm and threw the shell high into the air with the head facing up. As the sergeant rolled and landed behind a sandbag, a puff of smoke appeared on the KMF's lower back, slamming the overly agile guy to the ground.
"Go, go now!" Captain Drucker was so excited that he quickly ordered the jeep to fire a burst of bullets at the cockpit. The poor black box was riddled with holes and soaked in blood before the pilot could even activate the escape device.
"Huff huff..." At this moment, Jonathan slowly sat up from the ground, looked at the soldier who was busy prying open the KMF cockpit, looked at his own hands, and then repeated the gesture of firing the mortar fuse in the air. "Thank you for teaching me, Miller."
……
"Ah, Sunderland Crabbe, that's a rather unusual name." After inspecting the white KMF, the captain used his PDA's camera to photograph the nameplate on the KMF. [Author's Note: I've never seen this model name before. See the next part of the shield chapter in the setting volume for details. Thank you.]
"Let's go, Sergeant, take me to find that rag doll that came out of the water."
"No problem, sir, but shouldn't we worry about the safety above us again?" The sergeant pointed to the roar of helicopter engines overhead.
"Tell everyone to stay along the houses on both sides and not to go to the middle of the road. How can the First Division of the Great Red Army stop advancing just because the sky is not calm?"
The captain was absolutely confident in his statement, because there were pilots in the sky fighting alongside them, and of course, there were also KMFs and helicopters that were shot down by aerial machine guns.
"There are still too many of them, far too many." Easy and his squad were still holding out in the skies above Schönebeck. Although reinforcements were slowly filling the battlefield, the number of Mustangs and Thunders shot down was not small. Unfortunately, there were also anti-aircraft guns and machine guns firing desperately in the city.
Looking down at the ground, tanks and tents painted with white stars were still blocking the Britannian ground forces rushing towards the city in the western suburbs. This was not only the key to ensuring victory in the battle, but also the target of swarms of armed helicopters. The M2 heavy machine guns on the turrets, operated by soldiers with flesh and blood, could not guarantee the safety of these tracked oxen.
The US troops on the ground were completely on the defensive, even with anti-aircraft guns providing cover.
"Pull up a bit, boss," his wingman reminded him amidst the busy work. "How long can we hold out? I'm curious."
"When the fuel runs out, it's that simple."
"Watch out!" Easy looked up sharply at the sound and saw a KMF being chased by fighter jets, swaying and entering its flight path. She quickly turned the control stick, and the wreckage of the doll fell to the ground, but something still hit the plane, making it shake.
“Emmm, sir, look at your right side,” the waiter reminded him. “Right now, your wing looks like a fork just pulled out of spaghetti.”
A joke failed to calm him down, because the KMF that had just been shot down still had one of its grappling hooks stuck to its wing, looking like a frozen owl stuck in the snow. The long steel cable on the grappling hook danced in the cold wind at hundreds of kilometers per hour, making Easy's Mustang fighter jet look like a street performer desperately pulling a ribbon.
“Jesus.” He pressed the fire button. “Damn it, my buddy, two of my machine guns on the right are out of commission.”
"Damn, bad news."
“Easy! Easy, where are you?! Help!” At that moment, a heart-wrenching cry for help came through his radio.
"Calm down, Mickey, we're on our way."
"Come quick, buddy! There's some bastard with two swords chasing me, hacking away like crazy! Donald's already dead!"
"Damn, another ace?" the wingman muttered. "Sir, are you sure you can take him down looking like this?"
“Don’t worry, buddy, I have a way with this.” Easy cleared his throat. “Mickey, I see you now. Dive right now, you hear me? Dive right now!”
"Yes, sir!"
He glanced at the plane, then at Gloucester chasing at full speed behind, and in the wingman's eyes, he rolled over and landed almost at a ninety-degree angle.
"Oh my god, are you crazy, Kamikaze?" Easy had no intention of firing at KMF. Now that enemies were chasing him, he had no choice but to temporarily abandon the captain who was dragging the steel cable and take cover himself.
……
“Mickey, calm down, calm down…” Easy gripped the control stick in his hand, squinted, and just as he was about to crash into Gloucester, he suddenly jerked the stick back, and the Mustang fighter jet roared and raised its nose in such a violent maneuver.
The pilot sitting in the Gloucester didn't hear the machine gun fire, nor did he expect that a third person would suddenly approach him from directly in front of him, and he certainly didn't expect that this unremarkable fighter jet had a steel cable flying towards his face.
"Huh?" A sharp rope lashed out from the sky, slapping the uniquely painted KMF face hard across the face, turning it into a foolish creature tumbling wildly towards the clouds. Mickey immediately turned around and, before it could react, used his machine gun to shoot the badge on its back into sparks.
"Phew, even a naughty little calf needs a good whip." Easy wiped the sweat from the corner of his mouth with satisfaction. At that moment, the Spitfire fighter jet gradually appeared in the northwest sky.
"Calling, this is the Royal Air Force. We are entering the air battlefield. Be careful of your firing direction."
Section 287 Chapter 216 Schönebeck, the Water and Fire Chessboard (Part 4)
Chaos reigned both inside and outside the city, and even the Britannian ground forces that were launching a major offensive in the west were bogged down in the quagmire and unable to advance.
The assault guns and KMFs continued to recalibrate every American target, tank, artillery, and position. They also had to endure heavy fire from American howitzers in the distance. Although the fire density had been reduced a lot thanks to the efforts of the armed helicopters, the weapon skeletons and shell craters scattered all over the ground still caused them a lot of trouble.
The frontline commanders had no choice but to detour some of their forces, hoping to flank the US defenses, but so far, they haven't seen any movement from those KMFs.
"Hey? What's going on with you guys?"
Suddenly, sparks flew several meters high like fountains from the alley the KMFs had circled into. The commander couldn't help but examine it closely—in the distance, in what appeared to be American-occupied jungle and villages, shells trailed white light as they continued to fly towards the corpses. When the smoke cleared, the distinctive tank emerged from beside the charred remains of the KMFs.
Unlike the M4, which they call the "porcupine," this is a little guy that many friendly soldiers returning from Bainburg would occasionally mention.
"Go straight! Turn left immediately after that tree!" Yes, it was that same Chaffee tank painted with "Peanuts," its paint scheme adorned with several comical heads of Sunderland, once again dancing amidst the enemy shells fired from afar. Its tracks, like a bladed skirt, moved with heavy yet agile steps across the muddy, cold winter ground with its five pairs of road wheels. The 75mm tank gun fired a half-hearted blind-fire drumbeat at the enemy, leaving behind only the lingering exhaust smoke of the Peanuts and the speckled armor phantoms amidst the shell blast clouds.
"OK, OK, turn around and go back." With the commander's order, the tank, propelled by its high-speed inertia, made a 180-degree turn, drifting across the unmelted snow and mud, and fled into the distance.
……
"Alright, 'Pretty Kelly'." The tank commander then climbed out of the tank hatch, picked up the radio, and called a familiar Sherman tank commander who was still fighting on the outskirts of Schönebeck, "I think our battalion's reinforcements are on their way."
“I hope you’re not just trying to comfort me, buddy!” At this moment, Kelly’s commander’s eyes were still glued to the cockpit periscope. He, like every other guy in the fighting compartment, was immersed in the tense atmosphere and the sweltering, pungent smell. Like every brother holding the line, their ears were only concerned with whether the current target had disappeared, confirming the location of the next target, the sound of each shell being loaded, the muzzle blast, and the ejection of spent cartridges, and the prayers for that damned tank armor to be breached.
Finally, when the tank commander saw that many enemy vehicles in the distance were turning their course and gun barrels toward the direction where the Chaffee had appeared, he was able to calm down and realize that Peanut's tank commander had yelled at him many times.
"What did you say? Repeat it."
“Jesus, my mouth is almost dry, fuck you... I’ll say it one last time, I think I see the vanguard of the 32nd Panzer Regiment arriving, oh, and there are even TDs.”
What did Commander Peanut see through his binoculars? Six tracked bulls, three Sherman tanks of different calibers, and the other an M10 tank destroyer. Together with Chaffee, they were trying their best to draw the enemy's attention and relieve pressure on Kelly's 33rd Armored Regiment's main force.
Did I just say 'TD'?
"Sir? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. Think about it, we'll never hear the term 'tank destroyer battalion' again, and we won't need to call for tank destroyers from the rear when we encounter troublesome Tiger tanks like before... But at least we're not fighting the Germans anymore..."
What should we worry about now? I think only the sky. Sure enough, just as the M10s were hastily deployed, two Britannian attack helicopters came knocking. Fortunately, the fighter jets in the sky managed to make those big birds in the treetops fall into the forest in time.
"Perhaps it's time to keep an eye on the sky." The beautiful Kelly, the commander, called to the machine gunner sitting in the front right of the vehicle, "Go out and pick up the .50 machine gun and point it at the sky."
The machine gunner stumbled past the gunner and loader, stepping on the tank commander's body before falling to the ground.
"Damn it, did you poop in the car?" The driver sniffed the footprints the guy had left on his shoulder and almost vomited up all the bile he was craving.
The machine gunner wasn't exactly a novice, but he panicked a bit as soon as he came out—he was used to sitting in a metal box and looking at people through a periscope, and now that the helicopters that had almost caused a massacre of the Sherman tanks were passing by, he stared at the sky for a long time before taking aim with the ammunition belts of the nearby anti-aircraft weapon vehicles and fixed anti-aircraft guns.
"Hey, it's finally my turn to beat you up, huh?" As he fought, he regained his composure and could now laugh like an idiot as he watched the helicopters in the sky being chased around by his own anti-aircraft ammunition belts and Mustang Thunders in the gradually brightening sky.
"Holy crap!" A loud bang came from behind. Looking closely, it was a KMF that had been shot down from the sky and landed right behind the tank. The Sunderland guy's head was stuck in the wrecked body, tilted to the side, staring at him along with the deformed horns on his head.
On a whim, the machine gunner ran away from his firing position and stood on the edge of the tank, in front of the wreckage of the KMF, ready to kick it like a cockroach on behalf of the fallen pilots.
"what!"
A scream rang out, and the tank commander leaned out to look. His face was full of disbelief that this guy was in the same tank as him. He shook his head—this machine gunner could fall off the tank even if you stepped on his head, leaving half of his lower leg dangling in front of him. That's enough.
If it weren't for the presence of more of his own planes in the sky, he probably would have actually shot that idiot.
……
"So, could you guys help me chase after those big guys?"
Easy and his fighter jet were still holding on in the sky, along with their equally disheveled companions. Mustang and Raiden were finding it increasingly difficult to chase after the group of puppets in the sky, not only because the US military had not taken off and was on standby at dawn, but also because the enemy was becoming more and more troublesome.
According to another captain, the enemy ace who had previously worried them were becoming increasingly easy to deal with, because they would often be separated from their units, either intentionally or unintentionally, and then chase after them with melee weapons, even though they did not have a speed advantage.
Meanwhile, the enemy's hordes of mediocre "targets" are becoming increasingly deadly. For example, these slow-flying Sunderland helicopters are desperately trying to maintain a clear tactical mind while also protecting the helicopters' safety and survival. This is precisely what they are doing.
The arrival of friendly forces meant that Easy could relax and wipe the shards of cockpit glass off his body, and then wait for them to chase after those fat rabbits he hadn't had time to catch before—those massive, strangely shaped jet fighters that had just ravaged the town with rocket pods and bombs.
“Hey, gentlemen.” He was following behind a squadron of Spitfire fighters. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
“Hmm, like some of those fancy German gadgets,” the fire-breathing leader replied. “But a bit slower, though even so it doesn’t seem easy to catch… it flies a bit too fast.”
"How about this? You guys climb up first and see where these guys are headed?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
“I’ve been paying attention to these jets before, and then I remembered something a guy told me about.” Easy racked his brains, “ME262? Yes, that’s the name. These jets seem to need a large turning radius because of their various parts. Look at these extraterrestrial bugs, they’re the same. They don’t have propellers, so they need an even larger turning radius… But why do they obviously turn much wider?”
"So, is that why they were 'forced' to pass over the entire ring of Union Jack positions outside Magdeburg?" The flamethrower leader pondered for a moment. "Okay, thank you for the information. Everyone, follow me, climb."
"what's your name?"
“Me? Hudson, thank you.”
Easy watched silently as Hudson's flamethrower squad headed west to chase away the jets. He then called over two other equally battered young men from his squad, assuring them that no KMFs would disturb the British gentlemen's good time.
"Alright, gentlemen, we're home again." Indeed, the jet brought these men back to British airspace.
"Watch closely, see when he turns... He moved! He moved! Roll right and catch up with him!"
At a single command, four Spitfire fighters swooped down from the sky, aiming at the large bird that was cautiously maneuvering, as it flew over the woods, grasslands, and trenches and foxholes of the British ground troops. All the treasures adorned with the Union Jack were witnessing this moment.
"Come on, give it your all..." Hudson was sweating profusely, pushing the accelerator to its maximum, and the flames were shooting towards breaking the speedometer. The wobbling needle was like a machine vibrating at high speed. At this moment, he didn't know whether the wings on his sides were more important or the life of the big guy in front of him who was gradually getting level with him and had a bright, fiery tail.
His wingmen opened fire first, and the bullets from the Hispano cannons streaked across the increasingly indifferent sky, grazing the massive machine gun and finally leaving a few bullet holes and wisps of black smoke.
"Is there something wrong with you, sir?" The wingmen scattered, and seeing that he hadn't fired, they thought something had happened.
"Three, two..." All that could be heard was Hudson counting something. When the last "one" came out, his aircraft slightly raised its nose. With a few clicks of the machine gun, everyone could see clearly that a large and bright spark had been ejected from the nozzle of the jet.
"It's smoking! Its engine is smoking!" The pilots were overjoyed because the jet was clearly slowing down, and they began to recklessly unleash all the ammunition in their machine guns onto the aircraft.
Until the uncontrollable fire gradually rose from the tail, spread across the fuselage, engulfed the massive white eagle, and finally perished in a jungle, turning into flames.
"Yes! We did it! We did it!"