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"But Your Excellency, it was your decision not to borrow more mine-clearing vehicles from those generals in the end... You said you didn't want too much leverage or favors to fall into the hands of Her Highness Elizabeth's circle of 'disloyal people'." The colonel was extremely aggrieved—presumably the officers reporting from the front lines felt the same way.
"Now, you're not allowed to call me again!" Manslit slammed his fist on the table in anger over the phone. "Sophia, Marshal Sofia, her airship is already in position over Polish airspace. There will definitely be more Soviet warplanes coming to obstruct us. Keep an eye on the skies. If the Soviets manage to block both ends and take down the bridge, you're out!"
……
Every now and then, planes would still approach the vicinity of the bridge, but some of their insignia had changed from red stars to red and white checkered patterns, like a chessboard. Polish pilots were incredibly enthusiastic about defending their homeland.
After leaving the front lines and flying back to the rear of the Soviet and Polish forces, the fighter jets escorting the Polish People's Army's Il-2s began to slowly move away from them.
"We've received another mission, and I'm sorry we have to leave now. Other comrades will help us with the rest of the journey." The Soviet lead plane, acting as the escort leader, led the team away from the attack aircraft, while turning his voice to the slightly slow-witted man at the back of the formation, "Didn't you hear me say 'Follow me,' Comrade Gurevich?"
Perhaps only Mr. Marx knows how those four MiG-3 fighters managed to get back, especially this one named Gurevich—when they were flying over the Neisse River, the entire squadron almost crashed into the Britannians' reactive strafing.
However, when they took off, the entire team was unharmed except for Gurevich, who hid at the very back, too afraid to utter a sound. He was the one who dragged the team down when they were flying through the barrage of fire; he had a damaged aileron and a missing flap, and he was too timid to report it to the lead aircraft.
Their current mission is to break into the enemy's escort fleet of skyships.
Those bizarre creations from outer space were swaggering over Poland in a five-ship formation, their large-caliber cannons not only recklessly firing at friendly forces on the ground, but also clearing paths through their minefields to pave the way for the expeditionary force's wheels and legs.
Before these few MiG-3s, a larger Polish air squadron had already stormed in. Countless damaged KMFs and fighters, trailing black or gray smoke trails, crawled like centipedes around the hulls and glowing energy shields of the Skyships.
The enemy had long since learned their lesson. Before they could even distinguish whether the enemy in the air was Sunderland or Gloucester, several Nutcrackers on high alert detected their presence and swooped down to launch a surprise attack.
Seeing that they had lost the initiative, the four MiG-3s split into two pairs of aircraft according to their training coordination, and after timely evasion, they began dogfighting with the KMFs.
However, even Gurevich noticed something was amiss. The quality of the enemies that had invaded Poland on the first day was too uneven. The team leader had almost effortlessly driven two Sunderland planes out of the sky; while with the same Sunderland plane, he and his partner struggled for a long time, but one of the KMFs always missed.
Sunderland was chasing after his partner, and Gurevich had to take care of the guy before his partner got hurt. But his Berezin machine gun kept malfunctioning, and the cockpit on the KMF's back, bigger than a bucket, kept brushing past him.
Just as the last 12.7mm bullet was about to leave the cockpit, and the vertical stabilizer of their partner was about to break apart, a La-5 aircraft painted with the Polish Air Force insignia grazed past their forehead, saving them from the predicament.
"I'm sorry, Captain, I..."
"The attack aircraft are almost here." The team leader called him and his partner without directly blaming them, but his tone was full of complaints. "You and Ivan go and help them get into the attack path. According to the experience of the Americans and British, destroying the Skyship depends entirely on them."
"Hopefully nothing else will happen." Now, only two 7mm Shkas machine guns of the Grevich are still working. Fortunately, the Pe-2 bombers carrying rockets are visible to the naked eye, and their twin tails are still visible.
More and more Soviet-made fighter jets were appearing higher in the skies above the Pe-2. Gurevich and his partner led the way, using machine guns to help locate gaps and openings in the shields—even the Schkas machine guns could do that. Then they could safely release the RS-132 rockets from the bomber pylons.
……
At this moment, Jones, who was guarding the riverbank, suddenly received a message that one of the Sky Fleets heading to Polish airspace had encountered trouble and was retreating at full speed. To make matters worse, the Soviet and Polish forces were still chasing and attacking it from the sky.
"Calling California Sail, please respond." The colonel contacted the personnel aboard the distressed airship. "Please respond!"
But no matter what, there was no response on the radio. Finally, he was startled by several emerald-colored Vincents speeding overhead—those were the aircraft of the Jade Knights, who had recently gone to the American front lines and returned. If they were all mobilized, it must be something serious.
Looking up at the eastern sky, you don't even need binoculars anymore; the damaged Calian-class airship is trailing a plume of thick smoke as it heads toward the River Ness.
"This is the USS California Sail! Ahem!" Jones rushed towards the landing site and finally heard a crew member answer, "I, I'm the ship's medic Smith! The captain is dead, the bridge windows were blown open by Soviet fighters!"
"Can you find the Skyship's steering wheel now, sir? It's in the middle of that pile of equipment in the second row at the front of the bridge, the one that looks like a car steering wheel!"
"I'm holding it right now!" Along with the doctor's reply came the whistling sound of a flood. "What should I do? I'm not a helmsman by trade!"
“Calm down, sir. First, use the steering wheel to keep the Skyship as balanced as possible, then tighten the steering wheel.” Jones instructed the soldiers at the landing site to set up a green smoke screen while teaching the medic how to operate the Skyship. “Then, look at those computer screens on your right. Isn’t there something that looks like a wrench?”
"I found it, but it seems to be stuck very tightly!"
"That's used to manually manage the pitch angle when the Skyship is sailing!" Jones looked at the California Sail through his binoculars. "Right now, your ship's pitch angle is too high. You'll have to pull out the manual control pin and then pull it towards your chest with all your might!"
"it is good!"
On the ground, the colonel and his crew involuntarily crouched down, jumping up and down with their palms facing upwards, praying that the Skyship would quickly raise its bow—as long as the people on board obeyed orders and worked hard, it wouldn't crash into complete scrap metal.
"But is it really okay to go this fast, Colonel?" the medic on the bridge called out to Jones in a panic. "Should I contact the engine room?"
"Quickly tell them they've crossed the river, there's no need to go full speed!"
But instead of Dr. Smith's voice, Jones saw the bridge of the Skyship suddenly erupt with large bursts of electric sparks and slightly glowing smoke, and heard screams of agony all around him.
"Can you still hear me, Doctor? The bow is too high! Lower it!"
It was too late. The people at the emergency landing site were terrified and quickly ran away from the abandoned farmland. The air-cushioned engine at the rear of the 200-meter-long Calian-class hull slammed hard into the ground first. Then, under the influence of inertia and center of gravity, the flight deck, which served as the bow of the ship, crashed to the ground from a height of tens of meters in the blink of an eye.
In an instant, the wide, long flight deck shattered from the hull with a dull thud, like steel bars snapping, and the two massive steel plates tore off and flew out of the fields. Then, the spindle-shaped ship lost its balance, began to slide sideways across the ground, carving a trench large enough to accommodate the entire destroyer of District 45, before finally coming to rest in a wooded area.
"Save people! Save people! Quickly check if there are any survivors inside! Fire trucks, hurry over there and spray water to cool it down. The ammunition depot probably still has ammunition stored; if it explodes, it will be a disaster!"
Chapter 390, Section 495: The Cannon Before the Red Star Spinner
The new recruits finally understood why the veterans had given them so many instructions before they set off.
This short journey of just over ten kilometers has never been as difficult as it was before setting foot on Polish soil.
There were no villages or towns along the way, no human voices or barking dogs. The desolate woodlands and barren fields were silent, and countless landmines were buried there.
As they were focused on traversing minefields in an attempt to break through the distant Soviet and Polish positions, they clearly forgot why the veterans were so grateful to have survived the Soviet offensive—when the roaring diesel engines of the T-34s echoed through the woods and behind them.
"retreat!"
If multiple spearheads advance side by side, they can support each other. However, if a lone force advances recklessly, it will be in big trouble. Staying in place means waiting for the "Bison" tanks to run over your face. Retreating at full speed might offer a sliver of hope, but it also exposes your vulnerable back to the T-34's tank gun.
The tender shoots of the expeditionary force were soaked to the bone before they even matured. Using the directions they had carved out of the minefield from memory, they ran back as fast as their lives depended on it, with Soviet and Polish tanks chasing after them.
For a fleeting moment, they suddenly felt a strange expectation and hope for those destructive and insidious landmines—a sudden wish that these things that had previously blocked their progress could grow back like weeds, in the footprints of their retreat, and block the T-34s that had followed them out of the minefield.
"We need air support!" Faced with the all-out air resistance from the Soviet Union and Poland, even deploying armed helicopters wouldn't guarantee many would return alive. They could only learn from the Americans and British. Yes, battlefield interdiction: sending large squadrons of heavy bombers to carve a chasm through the land.
After the call for help, while the Britannian soldiers on the ground were still busy dealing with the Soviet army's excessive pursuit, the support of armed transport planes descended upon them in a strange and terrifying way—what blocked the battlefield was not air-dropped bombs or rockets, but one after another plane wreckage torn open by machine guns, or even broken into several pieces and crashing to the ground.
……
To the people of District 45, the armed transport planes were indeed formidable and terrifying in every way. They could carry cargo, drop bombs, were massive and powerful, and could even fly back after being riddled with machine gun fire—if they could also engage in air combat, they would be even more perfect than the KMF.
It's understandable that the British and Americans could use their vast resources—B-17s, B-29s, and Lancasters—to offset or even surpass the quality of their aircraft. But when it came to the Soviet Union, facing such a large and arrogant fleet, all they could do was deploy all their fighters and try to launch a counterattack from the defensive end.
Now, another group of armed transport planes that had come to the battlefield for interdiction were slowly descending to bombing altitude. The crews and the escorting KMFs were on tenterhooks—being safe at an altitude of about 10,000 meters did not mean that they would not be caught in the dogfighting zone that Soviet fighters were best at below the clouds.
"Scatter! Scatter!" Several squadrons of Yak fighters encountered them at almost the same altitude, and the two sides collided and became entangled in a chaotic mess before they could even regroup.
"Watch out for their wings!" The leader of the armed transport plane who gave the order had a golden vulture painted on the nose of his plane, carrying the American flag. He was definitely a veteran who had fought against the American and British forces before.
Previously, information had been gathered about the ground troops on the front lines, who had been attacked by bombs dropped by Soviet fighter jets—a dangerous sign, as if they could drop bombs, they might also be able to drop rockets.
As for what this meant, when the Golden Vulture was calmly facing the relatively nonchalant .50 caliber machine gun fire from the Mustang fighters, several HVAR rockets suddenly flew out from outside the crew's windshield. If the HVAR that pierced the cargo hold hadn't failed to explode, he would have long since turned into fragments in the sky, resting in eternal rest over Hamburg with the other "Vultures."
Today, as he leads his recruits over Poland, where the 20mm cannons of Soviet-made fighter jets have replaced theirs, hovering amidst the roar of jet engines and defensive turrets, it is all the more necessary to pay close attention to the new details of their every move.
"Please respond, leader." At this moment, several crews in the formation simultaneously reported the anomaly they had noticed: "There are some Soviet fighter jets that are still not moving at an altitude of about 1,000 meters. They don't look particularly special, and their numbers don't seem to indicate that they are on high alert."
"Are you sure they don't have anything strange hanging on them?"
“I won’t joke around with my own life or the lives of everyone else, sir… wait, they’re charging down! Fire! Fire!”
Captain Golden Vulture gripped the control stick, calmly preparing to open the fuselage hatch after entering the bombing runway. The massive armored transport plane, in the dogfight between the escorting KMF and Soviet fighters, inevitably suffered from the vibrations of bombs hitting its fuselage.
However, just then, as the crew members throughout the aircraft were calmly responding as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, a terrible explosion suddenly came from the left side of the fleet, accompanied by the mournful sound of steel frames breaking.
No one heard the sound of rockets, and no anti-aircraft guns fired from the ground. Instead, a Yak flew over the unfortunate armed transport plane, and its massive left wing suddenly broke off from the fuselage at the base with a plume of black smoke. The engine, however, was not hit by the machine guns and caught fire. The entire fleet stared in disbelief as the plane, now in two pieces, plummeted into the sky.
Then came more bad news from the rear of the formation, also caused by one of the many Yak fighters that had swooped down. Amidst the sudden flashes of sparks and smoke from the rotor shaft of the second transport plane, several pairs of large holes were suddenly punched through the ceiling and floor of the cabin. The flying debris and sparks ignited a fire in the cabin, heading straight for the bombs carried on board.
Not only the Golden Vulture, but the entire fleet wanted to know how all this happened, but the fact was that those Yak fighters did not look particularly special. After attacking the transport planes, they inexplicably blended into the air combat. The sound of the Berezin machine guns still lingered on the top of their noses, and without any abnormality, they used their 12.7mm bullets to riddle the KMFs with wounds.
But only the keen-eyed golden vultures noticed that the Yak fighters, which had just attacked the transport planes, were using their mysterious weapons very carefully and were not firing easily.
But once the deafening roar of the cannon—which was truly the sound of cannons—was heard, every KMF that was unfortunately hit by it was instantly reduced to flames as a jet of high-pressure water jets burst from their upper bodies. Until they fell to the ground, their tragic state was not much more glamorous than that of the humanoid weapons that died in front of the T-34 cannon.
"I know you're scared too, sir!" The KMF escort leader was also panicked. "Please stay calm, we will do everything we can to intercept these fighters!... Oh damn, has anyone here noticed the difference between these birds?"
In this situation, the golden vulture became increasingly flustered. Instinctively, it led the entire team to lower the dive angle in an attempt to accelerate away from the sky. One crew was a step too slow and was naturally spotted by the red-starred bird with its "cannon" on its nose.
"I've been hit, leader! Ah!—" The Yak-9T's 37mm cannon had just swept its outer shell directly through the windshield at the nose of the fuselage and across the rear, leaving a row of huge holes from the cockpit to the middle of the cabin as it began to fall.
Even a fleeting glimpse of this scene in the corner of his eye was enough to make him cry. The armed transport plane plummeted headfirst at high speed, its upper fuselage and massive wings torn apart by the sudden, powerful airflow. Like peeling paint, the plane was sliced into countless fragments along the "line" slashed by the 37mm cannon, disappearing into the horizon.
"No...no no no!" It was too late. The Golden Vulture became the last prey of the Yak 9T. It flew in front of the leader, turned around quickly, and ejected the remaining two 37mm rounds at his cockpit.
Just two, two powerful blows. As the warheads tore apart the golden vulture carrying the Stars and Stripes on the nose of the aircraft, the captain and co-pilot's dashboards were instantly ripped open. Before the crew in the back could even turn around to look at the cockpit that had been pierced through, countless fragments of metal, flesh, and electronic components filled the cargo hold like spilled ashes, slashing their eyes and piercing their internal organs.
Before the empty Yak-9T detached from the battlefield, before the out-of-control armed transport plane crashed into a blazing wildfire on the ground, the gates of paradise were already within their grasp.
……
Meanwhile, Colonel Jones, who had previously been in charge of guiding the river crossing, had been ordered to urgently lead a team to the front line to fill the gaps.
With their backs to the land about three or four kilometers east of the Neisse River, the troops retreating from the front escaped through the gaps in the minefield to their location. Behind them were the artillery fire of the Soviet and Polish forces in pursuit, as well as the Il-76 attack aircraft that occasionally flew overhead. The reason why the T-34s and IS-2s had not yet been able to reach them was actually thanks to the enemy's minefield.
Even if the Neisse River were completely covered to allow Marshal Manslitt's army to cross easily, the landmines scattered across the mountains and the overwhelming Soviet warplanes overhead had already shattered their originally orderly advance. If they were continued to be pushed along like this, the plan for 170 million men to reach Wrocław and Poznań would become nothing but a pipe dream.
The colonel understood this as well. After much deliberation, he decided to call the marshal.
However, the voice that answered him was not that of the marshal, who was old and frail; instead, it was a rather young officer.
"You are not currently in command center, Colonel. Is there anything urgent I can relay for you?"
"The Marshal isn't here?" Before Jones could even express his surprise or doubt, a Soviet artillery shell landed nearby, startling him so much that he dropped to the ground. "You're not telling me he's not even in Dresden anymore...?"
"That's certainly true, Colonel..."
"Tell me, where is the marshal? Or is the marshal wounded?"
"Keep your voice down, Colonel. I'm the only one in command right now." The officer's voice stammered. "Um, I have something to tell you..."
"Don't scare me! What happened, Marshal?!"
"His Excellency the Marshal has taken his men to Berlin."
"Huh...huh?!" Jones was completely stunned by the reply. "What are you up to, sir?"
"Considering your good relationship with the Marshal, I'll only tell you this first." The officer on the other end of the phone covered the receiver and looked around. "Your Excellency went to Berlin to see the Marquis Louises, the high-ranking official in charge of administration and personnel management in the 45th district. It seems you were going to ask him for civilians from the 45th district."
"Civilians?" Jones frowned, carefully considering and guessing at the marshal's motives. "Looking for German civilians to show us the way to Poland?"
"Yes, lead the way, lead the way through Poland, lead the way out of this minefield on the border between Poland and Germany."
"A minefield?...My God!" Jones nearly screamed in shock—the Marshal actually wanted to drag all the civilians of Sector 45 out to clear landmines? He'd only been in Sector 45 a short time, how had he already learned such inhumane work?!
"I overheard this during a meeting between the Marshal and several generals. Don't tell anyone, please, please don't..." The officer on the other end of the phone also lowered his voice to tell him, "Lord Suzaku Kururugi will be coming to support the war in a few days. If this gets to that traitor from District 11, he'll probably drive his Lancelot around and help the people from District 45 deal with us..."
……
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Announcement: I'll be uploading another video on Bilibili during the New Year's holiday, this time a rant about "Code Geass: Lelouch of the Resurrection," continuing from the previous video.
Chapter 391 Homeland and Foreign Lands (Part 1) (Section 497)
Now that things have come to this, let's see how Marshal Manslitt is trying to get people.
Marquis Louis-Sébastien was busy collecting gifts. Behind the secret door of his office, the cabinets were overflowing with cash. It was inevitable for local bullies or speculators to bribe the local officials if they wanted to do something shady and profitable in a certain place.
"You should know that the Chief Administrative Officer of District 45 is no small position."
“I know you’ve already made a fortune, Louis, so I’m not here to take your cake. I’m just here to help you launder money.” The marshal didn’t immediately reveal his true intentions upon arrival. “Hey, where are those old men with mobility issues, and those disabled fellows?”
“Currently, I’ve assigned them to the villages and towns north of Leipzig.” However, Louises seemed a little wary. “I thought you were going to recruit laborers to help you dig trenches?”
“Who do you think you are? Do you think my million-plus soldiers are just there to take a nap…” Manslit muttered a few words. “Speaking of which, haven’t you been busy with all these civilians in District 45, especially worrying about the old, weak, sick and disabled? Give them to me, I have plenty of uses for them.”
“Those old people and disabled people…” Louis still put on an embarrassed face, then turned his eyes away, rubbing his thumb, middle finger and index finger back and forth with one hand, “Oh dear, this is a bit difficult.”
"What the hell?" The marshal immediately flew into a rage. "No, I understand that the arena and factories want to make money off the laborers, but these old bastards want to rip me off too? To put it bluntly, we're both working for Prince Schneizel. What's our problem? It's war!"
"Fool, the problem lies in the economy, Your Excellency Manslit." The Marquis quickly patted the Marshal on the shoulder with a grin, then went back to his drawer and took out a stack of papers. "Look, we've struck it rich."
Manslitt picked up the stack and looked at it; it turned out to be all movie scripts.
"Hey, have you ever thought about selling your superiority as a commodity?" The Marquis raised his eyebrows and pointed to a few photos, all taken in areas where the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled lived. "Many directors have discussed with me that these people from District 45 are ready-made extras. After they finish filming, they can show the local people and soldiers who are about to enlist how miserable District 45 is... You know what I mean!"
"I..." The marshal was stunned—this operation was completely at odds with his plan to clear the minefield with civilians. "No, did they take all the old, weak, sick, and disabled people with you? Could you give me even a thousand people?"