Chapter 384 "Camel" Fighter

The German First Storm Assault Battalion launched a fierce attack on the French defense line in the trenches.

They always threw a few grenades at the corner first. After a burst of explosions, the soldiers holding MG08/15 light machine guns flashed out and fired at the French soldiers who had not yet recovered or had just emerged from the tunnels. Then the riflemen rushed forward and accurately supplemented the shots. When they encountered a tunnel on the way, they would first stuff a few grenades into it.

On the other side, the main force of the German army also launched a charge against the French defense line from the front, under the cover of tanks.

The French soldiers who were caught off guard had no power to fight back. They only fired a few shots in a hurry and retreated to the rear in a large area. No matter how Christine tried to stop them, it was useless.

Amid the shouts of the German army, Gasdon found Christine in the crowd and shouted: "Retreat, General, it will be too late if we don't leave now!"

Christine asked loudly: "We have no way out! No matter how fast we run, we can't outrun the enemy's tanks!"

"No, we have a way out!" Gasdon gritted his teeth and responded: "Just leave the Second Artillery Regiment!"

"What?" Christine looked at Gasdon in shock. The Second Artillery Regiment was Gasdon's unit.

"Yes, General." Gasdon said firmly: "We have no other choice, otherwise no one can go back alive!"

"But, you..."

Gaston patted Christine on the shoulder and interrupted him: "Take care of my family, your choice is right!"

Christine understood what he meant. Gasdon was referring to joining Charles.

Without waiting for Christine to give the order, Gaston grabbed his pistol and waved at the signalman behind him, and shouted: "Second Artillery Regiment, forward!"

The signalman waved the signal flag behind him, and the "Saint-Samond M21" originally in the second line drove out of the bunker one by one, and drove towards the German army rushing up against the retreating French army.

"Leave here!" Gaston shouted to Christine in an imperative tone, with some sarcasm in his tone: "Tell Joffre that I launched the attack according to his order, and hold on to the last moment!"

...

In this battle, the "Saint-Samond M21" was almost wiped out, and only a few tank soldiers survived, but they were either burned or fainted.

The deaths of others were extremely tragic, and the body of the regiment commander Gaston was not found in the end. People had no way of knowing which of the charred or blown-up bodies was his.

However, they successfully covered the retreat of the main force of the First Special Artillery Division.

When the Germans were chasing after Christine, Charles' First Tank Brigade appeared in time to block the Germans from attacking.

Because they knew the accurate data and tactics of the German new tanks in advance, and the "Charr A1" was equipped with additional armor, even if the German tanks were equipped with 57MM artillery, they could not penetrate it from the front, so the Germans were defeated by the First Tank Brigade without any surprise.

But artillery is not important.

When he knew that the Germans relied on K bullets to fight, Charles asked his troops to hang sandbags on both sides of the tanks and control them at the height of the enemy's machine guns.

The Germans still did not use tank guns as before, but instead hoped for machine guns equipped with K bullets.

In principle, there was no problem. The accuracy of tank guns during this period was very low. Even if the target was close, the high-density shooting of machine guns was much more reliable.

However, until the moment of passing each other, the German machine gunners were horrified to find that they were not facing the enemy's side armor, but sandbags.

Bullets were fired one after another, but the damage they could cause was just to make holes in the sandbags and let the sand spill out.

At the same time, the tank gun of the "Charle A1" had rotated to an angle and waited quietly until the side armor of the two tanks passed each other and faced its 37 gun vertically. Then it fired with a "boom".

One after another, the German tanks were paralyzed on the battlefield, emitting smoke and burning.

This tank developed for the "Charle A1" was unexpectedly targeted by the "Charle A1" on the battlefield.

…

After suffering a disastrous defeat on the ground, the German army finally couldn't help but dispatch a new fighter. They hoped to regain the disadvantage for the ground forces by fighting for air supremacy.

Major General Nicolas planned to use it to block the desperate "carpet bombing" of the bomber.

Although the "Fokker E1" fighter has a maximum speed of 133 kilometers per hour, it is still not as fast as the 137 kilometers of the "Caproni" bomber.

But there is almost no difference between the two, and the "Fokker E1" is small and flexible, so it can indeed shoot down the "Caproni" in actual combat.

It is even more of a piece of cake to deal with the "Avro" fighter of France, which has a speed of only 100 kilometers per hour.

Once the German army has full control of the air, it can rely on air superiority and 105MM howitzers to suppress Charles' tank troops.

But it is regrettable that the French army did develop a new fighter as Nicolas expected, and it is a new fighter that is much faster and more maneuverable than the "Fokker E1": the "Camel".

(The picture above is the "Camel" fighter, with an engine of 150 horsepower and a maximum speed of 187 kilometers per hour. It pioneered the use of a smooth curved fairing on the nose, and the two machine guns also used fairings that look like the hump of a camel, so it was named "Camel". It is the first fighter to use aerodynamic shape to increase speed)

The result of the air battle was one-sided, and the German fighters were shot down one after another like turkeys with their tails burned.

Finally, the German army still had planes, but they did not dare to fly into the air to fight.

Colonel Yinmerman, who was in charge of commanding the fighter planes, stared blankly at the telegram from the front line, which had a cold and cruel number written on it: 43 to 1.

43 planes were lost and only one enemy plane was shot down.

And that plane was probably shot down by the Germans because the engine failed and it could not accelerate.

"This is not an air battle, this is a massacre." Colonel Yinmerman gritted his teeth and ordered: "Order all troops to withdraw to the airport."

"Colonel." The staff officer replied: "But Major General Nicholas wants us to send all the fighter planes. He said this is very important, otherwise the infantry will be devastated by the enemy bombers."

Colonel Yinmerman was silent for a while, and finally shook his head and said: "No, tell Major General Nicholas that we can't stop anything. Doing so will only increase the loss of fighter planes and the casualties of pilots, meaningless casualties."

The most important of these is the pilots.

Immelmann knew this. The skilled German pilots had suffered heavy casualties under the continuous bombing by the French. If they were pushed forward to die, even if Germany built faster fighter planes capable of competing with the enemy in the future, it would still be at a disadvantage because it did not have enough pilots.