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After careful comparison, it was discovered that the turret of this new face seemed a bit off: weren't the Tiger II's cannons mounted on the valve-like gun shield at the base? Why didn't this one?
It was only then that she noticed a note at the very end of the Tiger II's file: "According to American prisoners of war, Germany possesses a mass-produced tank that is similar in shape and outline to the Tiger II. Once this suspected target is detected, it must be reported with the highest priority."
"So this counts as winning the lottery?" Hearing Mary's explanation, her teammates were both dissatisfied and incredulous. "Excuse me for being blunt, but when that tank came out of the woods just now, it didn't fit the Tiger King's 'slow reaction' at all!"
"Are you kidding me? So the generals still haven't figured out that this 'imposter' is not only at the same level in offense and defense, but is also much more agile than the real deal? Captain Mary, how did you deal with the giant rhinoceros and the Minotaur during the Berlin breakout?"
“The Rhinoceros might be able to target the turret head-on, or at the very least, find an opportunity to flank it. The Minotaur can only wait for air support or some skilled KMF aces to take care of it.” Mary recalled the predicament she and Sally faced against the Soviet IS-2 and IS-3 more than half a year ago. “But the problem is, back then we were all waiting for an opportunity to strike back when the Soviets were attacking!”
“So, I wasn’t much better off dealing with the American Triceratops three months ago than you were back then?” another lieutenant in the team named Dawken complained about his predicament fighting the M26. “The answer is obvious, Captain. Either we get close to it, or we go around it, but either way, we have to move!”
"You're going to go?!" Mary was a little hesitant. "Alright, if you insist, I'll cover you with all my might, but be careful, there's definitely more than one enemy tank ahead."
……
They didn't spend much time setting up the smoke screen. Several infantrymen led the way, passing between the houses, while KMFs and tanks quietly circled out from the open area.
"Damn it! Stop right there! Stop!" They hadn't gone far along the two forks of the Y-shape when a burst of gunfire rang out ahead, killing the man in black. They found cover while letting Dawken and his men stop at the station.
They were French soldiers, and they didn't have many fully automatic guns, but the group didn't rush in too much—soon they heard the roar of gasoline engines coming from the direction of those bolt-action rifles.
"Another one?...Wait, what should we call it?" The tank, exactly the same as the one on the hillside, stopped on the road leading out of the village, with the same long gun barrel and the same completely unassailable sloped frontal armor.
"There's one here too! This is a dead end!" Both roads leading out of the village were blocked by a French "heavy" tank and its supporting infantry. The latter protected the flanks of the former, while the former provided suppressive fire with two MG34 machine guns mounted on the hull and turret. Occasionally, a shot would be fired, blasting through a house or aiming at any KMF tank that dared to move.
"Isn't this a pointless dragging on?" Mary asked, sounding anxious. "What if the French reinforcements arrive?"
At the crucial moment, it was the infantry leaders who took the initiative. Considering that the machine guns on the tanks could not suppress every nook and cranny, and that the French infantry did not seem to have many machine gun squads to fight them, they simply used assault rifles to fire first, supplemented by some grenades and rocket launchers, and managed to drive back the French who did not have time to bolt and reload.
"The tank is backing up! Don't let it get away!" Seeing that the "roadblock leopard" was about to reverse and escape, a KMF with a machine gun quickly rushed to a position less than 30 degrees to the left of its front and fired two UL rounds.
A dramatic scene unfolded. The KMF was designed to break the tracks, and the first UL round did indeed achieve that. However, as soon as the second round left the barrel, the tank, already crippled on one side, shifted to one side, and the UL round, wedged between the steel wheel and the track piece, actually pierced through the side armor.
"What?!" Captain Mary got out of the car and ran over to see for herself when she heard the news. As soon as she got to the billowing metal object, it burst into flames.
"Just to confirm, Captain? Didn't your file say that the Tiger II couldn't be damaged even at point-blank range or a vertical angle?" An infantry squad leader snatched her PDA and looked at it again. "So what the KMF just dealt with was actually that little metal box with the toothpick in its mouth that the Americans were using?"
"Phew, so the enemy only has two tanks left?" The French soldiers who had been guarding the tanks were now moving up the hillside in a disheveled state, joining the tank that had greeted them at the beginning.
"Split them apart and take them out one by one! Captain Dowken, you flank up the hillside from the right, I'll lead the team to deal with the other vehicle on the road at the village entrance!" Before leaving, Dowken parked the vehicle next to the burning wreckage, casually fired a few shots into the fire, and after confirming that his assault gun could easily hit its side, he set off with satisfaction.
This time, the French army couldn't sit still any longer. After witnessing this unexpected turn of events, they immediately changed their tactics. They shrank their positions, crouching in houses at the village entrance and on the hillside, using everything at their disposal to cover their tanks as they moved out of the village.
Looking again at the tank on the hilltop, it had finally decided to move. This tactic of widening the firing range through coordinated attacks had clearly worked; it was reversing into the woods while constantly adjusting the direction of its front to maximize its ability to meet the incoming fire head-on. It was terrified.
"I've always regretted not being able to destroy one of your District 45's heavy tanks by myself, kid." Docken chased after the tank on the hillside, extremely excited. "Who knows when that next meal will come, but today, I'm going to make you my target!"
"Lieutenant!" But suddenly, the car following closely behind him seemed to have spotted something on the road leading out of the village into the distance, and a familiar sound immediately rushed to his ears—it sounded like the "Jaguar" that Captain Marie had fought, and the roar of the 88mm gun that he had encountered near Dresden.
……
"Désolé, we're late."
Seeing that Dawken and the turret of his vehicle had flown several meters away in the blink of an eye, the group, who were planning to make a flanking maneuver, were immediately thrown into a panic when faced with this uninvited guest suddenly chasing from their flank.
It looks like a French tank that was just destroyed and has been brought back to life. The same body is replaced by a huge 55-degree integrated frontal armor and a larger fixed gun barrel. The side is painted with the insignia of the French 5th Armored Division.
"How are you doing? We have a German-made Cheetah here that can help you."
"We just lost a Black Panther, gentlemen, but since you're here, it's alright."
The tank destroyer, armed with an 88mm anti-tank gun, stood guard in the middle of the road, just like the Panther tank, allowing the KMF and assault guns to rain bullets down on it, steadily providing cover for the arriving French troops as they entered the village. The troops also brought several Bren gun carriers equipped with machine guns and flamethrowers. These tracked but roofless iron tubs, at least, provided some suppressive fire.
Looking at her companions crammed together in the village, and the increasing number of KMFs and tank captains who had been reduced to wreckage after futile attacks against the black panthers and cheetahs, Captain Mary finally had no choice but to order an orderly retreat.
“Life is only once. The more you're willing to take a gamble, the less likely you are to see tomorrow’s sun. Sally, you and Dawken have already taught me that, and besides, I need to live to tell more people about these tanks…”
……
As she led her troops in a hasty retreat, another group of Britannian soldiers clashed with French troops in a village less than 15 kilometers to the east.
"Who can contact Captain Mary?" The former commander, facing an evenly matched opponent who was locked in a fierce battle with him, was starting to panic. "Wasn't it supposed to be that she would join us in a pincer attack to wipe out the people in District 45? Shouldn't she be here by now?"
Looking down the planned route she had taken, the commander seemed to spot a dark figure. However, the truth was that it was Bono and his sergeant, riding in the Panzer III tanks they had been in close contact with for some time, arriving via the rear road that had been protected by the heavy defenses of the Panthers and Jagdpanthers.
"Get out of the tank! Get to the enemy's flank on foot! Don't let them escape!" The sergeant jumped off the tank and called to the group. "Don't fall behind, Bono!"
"Glad to obey, sir! I can finally stop hiding in the trenches and become a Frenchman who charges into battle!"
Chapter 379, Section 481: Turning East
Eisenhower was still waiting for news from the front lines at the US military headquarters in Frankfurt, while Bradley continued to run errands for him as always.
"The General of the Soldiers" had just returned from Italy by connecting flight, where he met with Mr. Enrico, who had just become president, and a group of local businessmen in Rome.
On the new battlefield, can the Italians perform as well as the veterans of Free France? That's a matter of opinion, but Bradley's trip there wasn't about manpower.
Eck's current headaches extend beyond just the manpower shortage of American and French troops in southern Germany—with the increased troop deployment and the losses inflicted at the Battle of Nuremberg, the logistical support for the American forces on the southern front is now inadequate.
One need is for trucks, and the other is for people who know how to drive them. Moreover, unloading supplies from the Americas at ports on the west coast of Italy and traveling overland to Munich would be much shorter than traveling from the coast of Belgium or France.
Bradley went there specifically for this reason. The president is now mobilizing Italian labor to repair and maintain the railway and highway network connecting to Germany, and is also providing as many Italian-made Fiat trucks as possible to the North American forces, and like the French trucks, almost all of their diesel engines will be removed and replaced with gasoline engines.
Faced with this problem, the US military had to choose to wait—either wait for the French to hold the line in the Munich direction, or wait for its own rear supply lines to recover, or wait for Britannia to begin to turn its attention to the Soviet Union.
These three reasons for waiting determine that the US military cannot launch a large-scale offensive at present.
……
When this news reached the ears of that old man Patton, one can only imagine the reaction it would cause.
He was standing triumphantly at the crossroads where the American troops were advancing, directing traffic, when Bradley arrived with this order, and all of Germany could hear him yell "Bullshit!"
How could he not be angry? Finally, Montgomery wasn't on the same side this time, but he still had to compromise with others.
“This battlefield doesn’t belong to you alone, George!” Bradley was once again facing Patton head-on. “The French who are helping you defend against the Munich forces are also our allies!”
"You want Ike to come rolling out of Frankfurt and come back to see for himself? Give the Third Army another half month's worth of supplies and we can grind those bastards' ashes all the way back to the walls of Nuremberg. And you want me to stop the attack?!"
"Get your facts straight!" Bradley snapped. "This isn't like the overlord operation we launched two years ago when we established ourselves in Western Europe. If Britannia pulls up its game, it could drag us all the way out of Germany and south of the Alps. Get this straight, it's not just your guys who want to go home; the French want to go home too!"
"Yeah, the Germans are just as homesick!" Patton roared, unable to contain his rage. "When have those idiots in Washington ever cared about anything here? They'd rather my buddies be stuck in the trenches fighting alone every day. I should have dragged all those homesick Nazis out of the POW camp with me..."
"Hey, hey, hey!" The moment that keyword came out, Bradley was so startled that he quickly stopped Patton's rambling. "Damn it, thank goodness Ike stopped the reporters. If any of them heard this, would you still be able to keep your job as army commander?!"
“George, you’re an outstanding person, one of the best commanders I’ve ever seen.” Bradley composed himself, continuing to try to calm the furious general. “But what bothers me most is that you don’t know how to shut up!”
After hearing this, Patton clicked his tongue and his anger subsided a little. "I know I'm moody, I admit it, but I want the young soldiers to understand that we can win against these aliens, the sooner the better... Everyone should understand that opportunities are fleeting!"
“Come here.” Bradley called him over to the map and pointed north of Munich. “The French just told us that although they have basically blocked all the salients extending towards Munich and the city will be safe for a while, just last night, the Britannians suddenly began to gather along the Danube and head upstream.”
“You should understand what this means, George. It’s true that we need to defend Stuttgart and Munich, but now the enemy has their sights set on Austria. They only need to cross a 10-kilometer-wide hilly field to get there, and in that direction, neither we nor the French might even be able to muster five divisions to block that gap!”
"Think back carefully, George. How much did you want to lead your troops into Berlin and share the glory with the Soviets? Now you expect the Soviets to take all the credit for defending Austria? Or are you sure that your attack on Nuremberg, a siege of Wei to relieve the siege of Zhao, can stop those beasts rushing eastward?"
Patton glanced at the arrow on the map pointing his Third Army toward Nuremberg, and like a deflated balloon, he stretched out his hand holding the riding crop. "Tell Ike to call Warsaw."
……
Of course, Eisenhower anticipated that Patton would listen to Bradley, so he told Rokossovsky about the matter the day before.
During the months of rest and reorganization of the Soviet Red Army, the Marshal did not rest. As soon as he heard that the North Union troops in the Austrian direction were too busy, he immediately sent a message to Marshal Konev, who was in charge of the Czechoslovakian and Austrian garrisons.
Rokossovsky didn't need to worry about how the latter would be arranged; he was currently discussing the intelligence they had with Zhukov and a group of marshals.
In the past few months, neither the Soviet Union nor Poland had inflicted much damage on the Britannian forces, and the anti-landing operations in Sweden had not yielded any significant results. In fact, the Soviet Navy and Air Force's several squadrons of anti-ship aircraft seemed less important to the enemy than the bombing of Stockholm.
Every move on the German-Polish border was under surveillance, but strangely enough, ever since the day Nuremberg fell to the enemy, the Britannians began to mass their troops in the southern part of the German-Polish border, in the narrow waters of the upper Oder River suitable for crossing, while similar movements were also taking place in Szczecin to the north.
This is indeed a prelude to an attack, but the question is, the Britannians previously shifted their attention away from the Soviet Union to compete with the United States and Britain, with the Battle of Rügen serving as a prelude. So why are they turning back this time?
Meanwhile, the Strategic Intelligence Exchange Offices located in Vienna and Stockholm received information from the US and UK regarding the interrogation of captured mid-level officers. Southern Germany remained Britannia's primary target, and this remained unchanged. Therefore, it seemed that there was only one possibility: Britannia's military strength had become sufficient to contend with the US, the Soviet Union, the UK, and France simultaneously.
However, we cannot easily make such a rough guess.
The marshals had the front lines observe for a few more days: Britannia was still reinforcing its troops on the border, but also on the upper reaches of the Oder River and in the direction of Szczecin. And, very importantly, the enemy had not repaired the road and railway bridges in the middle of the Oder River that they had already destroyed.
This presents a problem. If they are determined to invade the East European Plain and engage in a major conflict with Poland and the Soviet Union, the size of the offensive forces required would be far too small to be deployed across such a narrow battlefield.
In other words, if the bridges in the middle of the river are not repaired, this width will only break the Britannian forces into several smaller attack waves, turning them into piecemeal tactics. But now, would the Britannians, who are already capable of capturing American troops in organized units, still make such a mistake?
"The Britannians did intend to attack Poland, but they still considered the American forces as their primary target. However, they did not underestimate the numbers of their opponents, the Soviet Union and Poland... Does this indicate that there were disagreements within their organization regarding strategic direction?"
Perhaps this is a somewhat gloating and optimistic thought? But the marshals obviously could not afford to be complacent about such an opponent. After all, Rokossovsky did not want to see Zhukov encounter another airborne operation in Poland, where the Britannians had forced their way through at night.
……
After everyone had discussed the necessary plans and troop arrangements, Rokossovsky was returning to his office to rest when he heard his adjutant announce his arrival.
Someone wanted to visit him, and his adjutant had even agreed to the visit? The marshal put on his peaked cap and went out to meet him, only to see an Asian-looking man, dressed as a Soviet major, standing before him—he remembered this major; his real name was Liu, and he had met him when he brought Marshal Paulus to Warsaw for a meeting.
"Come in, come in." The marshal was a little puzzled; he wanted to know why Colonel Liu wanted to see him so much.
"I know how much blood you shed in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, and I understand the setbacks you suffered in Germany over the past six months," the major stated in fluent Russian, a graduate of the Frunze Military Academy. "So, comrades, you must be facing a significant manpower shortage, right?"
The Marshal understood what he meant: if the Soviet Union and Poland were short of manpower, the major would do everything in his power to write to his homeland to provide some manpower assistance to the Soviet Union.
“That sounds like a good thing, but,” Rokossovsky nodded and smiled apologetically, “I’d like to ask you something: When your country and people faced Japanese aggression in the past, how many people were skilled in using artillery and tanks? How many people had experience fighting on the plains, using positional warfare or even mobile warfare, against armored offensives that were even more aggressive than the Japanese?”
“That’s definitely impossible, comrade.” The major paused. “But what about building fortifications? Or could we provide you with trucks?”
“But if you go to any construction site in Warsaw now, you could probably pick up any Polish man working there and he could be a potential truck driver.” The Marshal frowned. Yes, in that East Asian land, the word “truck” for most people is associated with livestock such as horses, donkeys, and cattle, or even “hand-pushed” vehicles, rather than fuel engines.
"Take a look," the marshal said, showing Liu a map of Europe. "Every clear-headed general understands that relying on infantrymen who can at most operate machine guns to defend against armored forces on the plains of Eastern Europe is useless. They don't even know how to use anti-tank guns or anti-tank rifles. No matter how well you can march and fight on foot or dig trenches, it won't be of any use."
"This strategy is only viable in mountainous areas, like the Czech-Slovak border, the Changbai Mountains in your homeland, and the Taebaek Mountains in North Korea. But the problem is that even if you take the train now, it's too late to get here."
“Look,” Rokossovsky said, taking out an opened envelope from his drawer. The sender was Josip Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia. “Even the comrades in the Balkans might be coming to our aid soon.”
“I know what kind of enemy we are facing, but,” the Marshal gently patted the back of Colonel Liu’s hand, “even setting aside the fact that you don’t speak the same language as the people of Eastern Europe, I think that now, with the new flames of war burning along the Huai River, I doubt any outsiders will come to help you mediate, will they?”
"I would love to see the day when your homeland's troops can impress the world, but that's certainly not today, comrade. Please clean up your own home first, and leave everything here to us, okay?" Rokossovsky stood up and saw Major Liu out.
……
……
……
[022 Warm Reminder: The following concluding paragraph can be enjoyed with the original soundtrack "Shapkakov" from the documentary "The Great Patriotic War"]
July 1946 was drawing to a close. On this day, as Captain Anton Vasilyev was enjoying accordion music and dance with his comrades in the barracks outside Wrocław in southwestern Poland, he saw two faces he hadn't seen in a long time.
Catherine and Ilya had been separated since the Battle of Berlin and had not been able to meet again. After both of them thought that the other had died, everything today was such a pleasant surprise.
However, before the captain could get the two to join in the music, an ominous roar came from the east bank of the Oder River in western Poland—the sound of Britannia's armed transport planes tearing through the siege lines of Berlin last November.
Chapter 482, Part Eleven: The Battle of Nuremberg
In late May 1946, the Battle of Hamburg ended with a defensive victory for the Northern Union. After a brief period of calm on the battlefield, the Britannian army unexpectedly continued its operations in towns around Hamburg. The American forces, who were resting and recuperating, believed that the Britannian army "might launch a second Hamburg offensive" and took the initiative to launch a counter-offensive towards Lüneburg and Lübeck.
However, in reality, this was a highly risky strategic deception by the Britannian army. By deploying a large number of understaffed veteran troops, they completely drew the attention of the US-led North American forces to northern Germany, while at the same time secretly preparing fresh troops to launch operations on other fronts.
After nearly a month of entanglement, on June 17, completely unexpectedly, five army groups of the Britannian Expeditionary Force launched an attack on ten US divisions stationed in southern Germany in Bavaria, hundreds of miles from Hamburg.
Due to the rapid offensive and the unpreparedness of the US forces, on June 19, Britannia completely broke through the northern border hills of Bavaria with superior forces and occupied Bamberg; on June 21, the US forces abandoned Würzburg, and several defensive nodes resisting the southward advance of Britannia basically collapsed, leaving them trapped in Nuremberg with no way to escape.
On June 26, after completely controlling the outskirts of Nuremberg, and realizing the possibility of a breakout attempt by the US forces, the Britannian army began to attempt a deep breakthrough from the eastern suburbs to the main road south of Nuremberg in an attempt to tighten the encirclement.
After Nuremberg fell into crisis, the U.S. military quickly began evacuating troops from the city while simultaneously dispatching troops from other directions to rescue it, but failed to make any progress.
On June 22, two infantry divisions and one armored division of the U.S. Army rushed from the direction of Frankfurt to begin an attempt to retake Würzburg, but progress remained slow for the next few days.
On June 27, the U.S. 1st Marine Division arrived to reinforce the U.S. positions in the southeast that were on the verge of collapse. After two days of hard-fought resistance against the attack, the French 2nd Armored Division arrived and helped the U.S. hold their positions while repelling the Britannian army's plan to occupy Neumarkt. The defense of eastern Nuremberg was thus preserved.
On July 1, the U.S. 2nd and 4th Armored Divisions launched a surprise attack on the advance of the Britannian forces attacking Heilbronn, forcing them to retreat, but they were unable to eliminate the Britannian forces west of Nuremberg one by one. Although NATO reinforcements, including two French infantry divisions, had arrived by this time, the defeat of the battle was already a foregone conclusion.
On July 2, Britannian troops entered the city of Nuremberg. On July 4, American Independence Day, approximately 20,000 remaining American soldiers and wounded, having exhausted all hope of resistance, surrendered to the Britannian army after learning that all roads leading out of the city to the south were completely blocked. Nuremberg fell.
The Battle of Nuremberg was Britannia's second large-scale offensive against American forces after Hamburg, and the first battle in which the French Army participated at the division/brigade level since World War II. In terms of casualties, due to the element of surprise and the containment and suppression of American air power, the Britannian forces remarkably captured Nuremberg from the Americans with almost a one-to-one ratio of casualties.
The U.S. military suffered a total of approximately 10.7 casualties, including about 7.9 combat casualties and 2.8 prisoners of war, with the remainder being mostly missing. Each of these figures surpasses those of the Ardennes Offensive. The 90th and 94th Infantry Divisions, which accounted for a significant portion of the losses, suffered 1.2 casualties and 1.9 prisoners of war in the three-week campaign, nearly being disbanded.
After Nuremberg changed hands, all routes to Stuttgart, Munich, and Austria were opened to the Britannians. Faced with immense frontline pressure, the U.S. Army quickly replaced its troops and sent reinforcements to southern Germany, while handing over the command of the Third Army back to General George Patton.
Over the next two weeks, Britannia's aggressive and daring infiltration offensive plan was thwarted by the combined resistance of the US and French forces, turning into a smooth east-west straight line. Although the offensive speed was slowed down, Britannia still maintained a huge initiative and troop advantage on the battlefield.