Two Hundred and Six Were Played
"The shells are loaded! The shooting parameters have been confirmed! You can fire at any time!" A French artillery officer loudly reported to his commander: "The two artillery guns are aimed at the large bunkers on the main peak of the German position opposite, and the other three All have chosen their respective goals. (Starting)”
"How is the preparation of the field artillery group?" The commander of the French Railway Artillery Force looked at the distance and asked.
The officer immediately handed over a document: "A few minutes ago, they had reached the designated position, and 60 artillery pieces will fire along with our cannons, which can definitely destroy the Germans' shit Ziegfeld line."
Nodding his head, the railway gun commander ordered: "Start the timer. According to the mission instructions, 7 minutes will be the action time. Fire the gun on time and cooperate with our army to break through the Siegfried line of defense."
"Yes!" said the junior officer standing at attention.
At this moment, in the temporarily excavated field headquarters on the top of the hill closest to the German border, de Gaulle was looking at the Siegfried line of defense in Germany with his binoculars.
Vaguely in the bushes, you can see the concrete walls "exposed" of the German bunker; in some dangerous positions, there are machine gun "shooting" holes, although these "shooting" holes are all long It's full of weeds, but you can still see the dark machine gun barrels inside.
But for some reason, he always had a bad feeling in his heart, and this premonition of being deceived was like a shadow lingering in his heart. He put down the telescope and looked at his adjutant and staff: "Although the German defense line is ingenious, it has many flaws."
He pointed to the opposite hill: "They are more willing to deploy machine gun bunkers and artillery bunkers, but they are not willing to bury anti-tank barriers and barbed wire in front of them, which is a very strange thing in itself."
"General de Gaulle, the Germans have always lacked steel and other resources, so they are not willing to waste precious steel to build barbed wire and tank barriers. This is the analysis result of the intelligence department, which is very convincing." The staff officer replied with a smile.
"We're also short of steel." De Gaulle glanced at his staff, and apparently dismissed this statement: "In non-critical sections of the Maginot Line, anti-tank barriers are made of wood, which also works very well. Why didn't the Germans put up improvised anti-tank barriers in an area so suitable for a tank attack?"
"General! It is possible that they are leaving an offensive position for their tanks." De Gaulle's adjutant thought for a while and said: "There is information that the Germans have laid a large number of mines in other areas, maybe the Germans are more willing to use them. Mines to defend against tanks?"
"Has anyone seen the German team laying a lot of mines?" De Gaulle raised his eyebrows.
He seemed to have guessed something, but after thinking about it, he couldn't think of anything.
"No... but the scouts have seen a lot of minefield warning signs." The adjutant frowned and replied: "Maybe the Germans buried it at night..."
"It's too late to say anything now. We can only fight and see how to change the battle plan." De Gaulle sighed and said: "Victory has made us forget the scars of the war. The Germans on the opposite side are fighting hard, but our officers are thinking about it. I'm on vacation. I set up an armored unit on the second line, and I haven't been to the front line for more than half a year, and you didn't even detect the other's defense line clearly."
...
On the opposite German position, two fat wild mice were mating under a German cannon. Several telegraph poles painted black were buried in the soil, revealing a round shape that served as a fort on an important German defense line.
Not far away, the reinforced concrete fortification that was "bare" and "exposed" was actually just a small lump of cement that was "exposed" outside, and those machine guns "shot" holes were simply dug out "holes"— Most are inhabited by mice.
And those barrels are really just broken mop bars, scrapped bike keels, or just a broken flute. Those so-called minefields are just "insert" a warning sign - only a few mines are buried in it.
The entire Siegfried line of defense is a shocking scam. When this scam is carefully laid out, all voices questioning this flawed scam will lose their effectiveness. If the power of a country is used to mobilize a scam, no matter how false the scam is, it will have a certain real effect.
The French had been warned by the Comintern that the Siegfried Line had not been built with large numbers of civilians. This huge loophole was justified by the French themselves, who believed that the Germans secretly recruited prisoners in the concentration camps and persecuted political opponents to participate in labor.
A French businessman who saw Germany set up fake positions and reported to his homeland what he saw was caught by the French as a spy for trying to help the Germans spread false news.
Even the adjective "vulnerable" used by the Führer himself when talking about the Siegfried line in public was taken as a genuine word of modesty. After assessing its Maginot line, the French "government" explained that the Führer gave the Siegfried line the adjective "vulnerable" as being able to stop the French attack for at least half a year.
But anyone who thinks that the Germans are unprepared for war on the Western Front is very wrong: after the Polish campaign, about half of the Eastern Front Air Force has been transferred to the Western Front Airfields, so the Luftwaffe is still in numbers. There are absolute advantages in quality.
At dawn on September 30, the Luftwaffe had a total of 1,970 fighter jets at the western front-line airfields, more than three times the number of fighter jets used by France in this operation. Ninety percent of these fighters are advanced fw-190d fighters, which are much more advanced than those fighters that the French can fly to the sky.
Likewise, the Luftwaffe also prepared a large number of bomber units, who played an important "role" in the top-secret Western Front defense plan "Preparation Plan": these bombers were to paralyze French ground forces, attack their supply lines and staging areas, Buy time for the ground forces to counterattack.
At the same time, the German ground troops on the Western Front are also enough to describe the lineup. General Lundstedt has a total of 800,000 troops, with the fifth and sixth non-main armored corps. These troops are equipped with outdated but not outdated No. 3 assault guns, No. 2 tanks and other weapons and equipment, and Has a large number of anti-tank guns and iron fist bazooka. It can be said that they are ready to face the French attack alone, not to mention that several hundred kilometers behind them, several world-famous tank units are arriving by train as a reserve.
These units can now be said to be famous, including Rommel's Seventh Armored Army, and the Second Armored Army commanded by General Baukenf-Guderian's First Armored Army is resting in Poland, and half a month later will also gather westward. These troops are now synonymous with victory, and it only took them 16 days to lay victory in Poland.
Moreover, Germany is now mobilizing its own reservists. The head of state has ordered the civil administration and the military to complete the expansion of the army by 3 million in 1938, and by 1939, the total number of the army will be expanded to 4.5 million.
...
"Fire!" On September 30th, the French artillery roared with a deafening roar, and the shells flew towards their pre-selected targets, smashing the so-called defensive lines on the German border into a sieve.
The heavy railway artillery fired deadly shells, and then began a long process of clearing the barrels, but those field guns of various calibers could keep roaring, and the shells exploded on the German Siegfried line of defense as if they were free of money. With a sound, the soil was turned up and the gravel flew away, and the ground trembled with it.
"This is observation post No. 2! The Germans didn't fight back!" A French artillery observer reported loudly into the walkie-talkie.
At the other end, soldiers at another observation post were saying the same thing: "Report, the Germans didn't fight back."
Hundreds of French fighter jets appeared under the clouds to control the air superiority of the battlefield, and below them, there were dozens of French bombers with bombs that they were going to drop on German positions to help the French artillery Completely destroy the Siegfried line.
Before the artillery fire had ended, the French infantrymen began to charge with their rifles. They carefully groped for the place where the warning words of the minefield were written. From time to time, some people were killed by mines, but most of the soldiers arrived safe and sound. In front of German positions. They shouted slogans and waited for the German troops to "shoot" at them, but found that in the entire position, apart from the artillery fire of their own people who kept exploding, there was no German troops who could fight back.
"Cease fire! Our soldiers are attacking! Cease fire!" an officer at an observation post shouted loudly on a walkie-talkie. After more than ten minutes, the French artillery finally stopped, and the entire German Siegfried line of defense returned to its pre-war tranquility. Except for the black smoke crater, there was almost no change here.
"This... No, it's not an exercise, right?" A French battalion commander held up the steel helmet on top of his head and looked at the holes that the enemy machine guns "shot" not far away. The bunker that harvested their "life": "Go up and see! Are the Germans scared to death?"
Of course, the Germans would not be frightened to death on the ground. A group of infantrymen climbed behind the bunkers to find that none of the bunkers and forts had designed the most important place: the gate. When the soldiers brought back a few mop poles and rusted iron pipes, the French infantrymen who were ordered to attack did not know they had been fooled.
"Let the tanks come up quickly! We've been tricked by those damn Germans!" De Gaulle pinched the phone in exasperation and roared through gritted teeth: "Cross the German border, search and attack ten kilometers forward!"
...