novelSusiti Chapter 101 I predicted your prediction
Chapter 101 I predicted your prediction
Chapter 101 I predicted your prediction
June 6, 1940, 19:55, France, south bank of the Somme River defense line, German 7th Panzer Division forward command post.
Major General Erwin Rommel stood in a semi-buried observation post on the high ground.
He wasn't wearing goggles. His bluish-gray eyes were pressed against the eyepiece of his Zeiss 630 binoculars. Through the finely polished optical lenses, every movement on the distant horizon was magnified and brought closer, presenting a flat, shallow view lacking depth.
To the due east, in the valley region of the upper reaches of the Bétine River.
A huge, grayish-brown column of particles is rising.
That wasn't a naturally formed sandstorm. It was the result of hundreds of off-road tires and rubber tracks violently rubbing against the dry surface. Dust obscured the view of that sector, but through the gaps in the dust, one could occasionally observe metallic reflections and black smoke billowing from vehicle exhaust pipes.
The dense sonic waves of the explosion traveled through the valley at a speed of 340 meters per second, striking the concrete walls of the observation post and causing a slight resonance.
"General."
A staff officer in the operations department of the 7th Armored Division put down his radio receiver, his notebook recording coordinate data sent back by the forward reconnaissance battalion.
"The 3rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion reports high-density radio communication signals detected in the eastern sector. Acoustic positioning indicates that at least a regimental-sized artillery unit is conducting interdiction fire into the area."
The staff officer drew a straight line on the eastern road of the map: "Judging from the dust and vehicle noise, the main British force is breaking away from its current lines. They are moving at full speed toward Amiens."
Rommel put down his telescope.
He looked down at the map spread on the hood of the command vehicle, his oily fingers leaving a blurry fingerprint on the map.
A scene suddenly flashed into his mind.
To the west lies the English Channel.
Why not divide the troops to occupy the port of Le Havre?
In Rommel's view, to capture an empty city with less than a battalion of defenders was a crime against the armored forces; fuel and time were his most precious resources.
The whole world knows that the British "Dynamo Project" has come to an end. That kind of miraculous retreat, achieved with the full force of the nation, is impossible to repeat.
The Royal Navy's destroyers had burned out, and they had neither the capability nor the resources to evacuate even a regiment, let alone a division, from this beach.
Therefore, without any definite intelligence of the arrival of any fleet, retreating to Le Havre was tactically meaningless—it meant either dying in battle or being fished out.
That's not a way out, that's a dead end.
To his south lay the main force of Army Group A, which was already on high alert. He had received a telegram from Army Group A informing him that General Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps was conducting a large-scale flanking maneuver.
Interestingly, although the 7th Panzer Division headquarters had yet to receive any definite response from the 19th Corps headquarters, or even establish a communication connection, Rommel was not worried at all. He knew that the old man was definitely on the move, and very fast, just as fast as him.
This is the tacit understanding among top armored commanders, just like when traversing the Ardennes Forest, everyone is silently making their way.
Only the east side.
Rommel frowned as he looked at the blank area circled in red pencil on the map.
"If the enemy breaks through to the east—"
As he spoke, his finger traced the smoke trail Arthur had created, finally stopping at the junction of the German lines and the French 10th Army's defensive zone. He paused, stunned: "They can cut into the junction between our lines and those of our allies."
Rommel knew that it was a defensive vacuum.
Once the enemy gets through, they will receive heavy equipment support from the French army and could even directly threaten the flank of the 7th Armored Division.
This was originally just a temporary tactical exercise for Rommel. But at that moment, a terrible thought took root in Rommel's mind, causing his fingers holding the pencil to stiffen slightly.
That broadcast.
An hour earlier, Winston Churchill announced to the world on BBC radio: "We will do whatever it takes to receive the 51st Hill Division during their evacuation."
At the time, Rommel and all his staff believed this without a doubt.
He naturally assumed that if the British were to retreat, they would have to go to the coast or to the port, just like they did at Dunkirk.
He then pinned down the main force of the 7th Panzer Division on the three-kilometer road leading to Le Havre on the west side. If any enemy convoy dared to pass under his nose, the anti-tank guns deployed there would wreak havoc.
But now, looking at the billowing dust in the east, Rommel suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
"wrong----"
Rommel jerked his head up, his composure instantly replaced by panic and rage: "Smoke bomb! That was a smoke bomb planted by that fat Qiu!"
"What prime minister would publicly reveal his troops' strategic withdrawal route in front of the whole world? Unless he's an idiot, or—it's a strategic deception in itself!"
He figured it out.
Churchill's broadcast was a huge trap, designed to lure his hundred-plus tanks to the west to guard an empty gate, so that the troops could slip away from the eastern junction!
"Damn it! I've been scammed!"
The enemy commander was no fool who stubbornly waited for reinforcements; he was a master of infiltration warfare! He had been waiting for this moment!
A sense of shame at being fooled and a sense of crisis from a tactical blunder surged within him simultaneously. Rommel knew that if this unit escaped from the junction, he would have been outmaneuvered twice, a disgrace that would forever befall the 7th Panzer Division.
"Stop them! We mustn't let them get close to the junction!"
Rommel threw down his pencil, grabbed the microphone, and roared in exasperation, his voice devoid of its usual composure: "78th Artillery Regiment! All artillery! Turn due east immediately!"
"No need for data calibration! Fire on that smoke-covered area!"
"Use high-explosive bombs! Blow up the road! Blow those British rats who are trying to slip away from under my nose to pieces!"
""
"25th Panzer Regiment," Rommel continued, issuing the order.
"Order Colonel Karl Rothenburg to immediately abandon surveillance of the ford in front if he still desires revenge. The entire regiment shall turn immediately at 090 degrees."
"The 7th Motorized Infantry Battalion will follow up."
Rommel raised his telescope again and watched the dust storm moving eastward.
"Tell Rothenburg, no matter how much oil is left, that I require him to cut off the road to Amiens within an hour. We must devour the British and French on this plain before they meet up."
The radio waves quickly transmitted the order to the armored group several kilometers away.
The German tanks that had been lying in wait in the bushes and low-lying areas on the west side began to move.
The roar of the Maybach HL120TRM engine shattered the evening's tranquility. Thousands of pistons reciprocated violently within the cylinders, and explosions in the combustion chamber propelled the crankshaft to rotate, transferring kinetic energy to the drive wheel.
Numerous Panzer IV and Panzer III tanks, as well as Sd.Kfz.251 half-track vehicles, began to turn in place. The tracks crushed the grass and kicked up large amounts of mud.
The torrent of steel changed its course.
This formidable armored force was drawn to Ryder like a magnet, and roared eastward.
In Rommel's blind spot, on the road leading to the western port of Le Havre.
With the movement of the main force, huge gaps suddenly appeared in the previously impenetrable defensive line. Within the entire five-kilometer frontal defense zone, only a reinforced infantry battalion lacking heavy weapons and a newly arrived 37th Anti-Tank Battalion remained.
This is a tactical vacuum created by tactical deception.
Rommel was not foolish. He made the optimal solution within the logical framework of conventional warfare. Every judgment he made was in accordance with common military sense, and every order he issued was highly targeted.
Unfortunately, conventional logic cannot explain the thinking of a madman.
Because his opponent was not waging a conventional war.
A British commander possesses a God's-eye view that transcends the limits of optical observation and ignores communication delays.
Rommel looked at the smoke and dust rising in the east, a slight smile playing on his lips.
That was the expression on a hunter's face when he watched his prey fall into a trap.
20:10 PM, D925 secondary highway, 4.5 km east of the Bétine River.
The air was tense and stimulating—for Major Ryder.
Ryder gripped the steering wheel of the half-track tightly; the bumpy road made his skeleton protest, but he didn't even dare to blink.
Behind him, a convoy of 20 decoy vehicles was speeding along. The bushes trailing behind the vehicles kicked up clouds of dust up to ten meters high, and in the dim moonlight, it certainly looked like a mechanized regiment launching a full-speed assault.
call out-
That was the distinctive whistling sound of a heavy grenade cutting through the air; it was the prelude to death.
Rommel's 78th Artillery Regiment began executing the "covering fire" order.
Precise aiming wasn't necessary. The Germans were simply dumping ammunition onto the plume of smoke.
boom!
The first 105mm grenade landed in the farmland to the left of the convoy. The shockwave, carrying black soil and shrapnel, swept across the road, rattling the side armor of the half-track vehicles.
"Accelerate! Don't go in a straight line! Weave in and out!"
Ryder roared into the radio, thankfully not commanding Matilda; his serpentine maneuver finally came in handy this time.
Before he could finish speaking...
Boom—!
A 150mm heavy high-explosive shell from the German 1st Battalion, carrying enormous kinetic energy, struck truck number 4 in the middle of the convoy almost vertically.
This is a Bedford MW truck driven by Norfolk Regiment soldiers.
Even heavy tanks are vulnerable to being hit by large-caliber grenades, let alone a vehicle with a canvas roof and wooden carriage that can't even stop bullets.
The impact fuse of the projectile was activated the instant it struck the floor of the carriage. Several kilograms of TNT released terrifying chemical energy within milliseconds.
There were no screams—the speed at which human vocal cords vibrate cannot keep up with the speed at which the overpressure propagates from an explosion.
Ryder saw that scene in the rearview mirror.
The truck was split in two – the cargo box and the cab.
A massive fireball erupted from beneath the chassis, hurling the entire vehicle into the air. The intense heat instantly ignited the fuel tank, engulfing the Norfolk Regiment soldier driving the locomotive.
When the wreckage crashed back to the ground, it was no longer a car, but two burning steel skeletons.
Steel slag clattered and crashed down in front of Ryder.
The fifth truck behind slammed on its brakes, trying to avoid the wreckage.
"Don't stop!!"
Ryder grabbed the communicator, roaring, his eyes red-rimmed, but he forcibly suppressed the urge to cry: "Ram it! Car number 5! I order you to ram it!"
"That's an order!"
The driver of car number 5 could be heard crying on the radio, but he still released the brake and stepped on the gas.
Truck No. 5 crashed directly through the burning wreckage of Truck No. 4, its tracks crushing over the still-burning limbs scattered on the ground, and charged through the inferno.
Ryder withdrew his gaze and forced himself to stare at the dark road ahead.
He was the supreme commander of the convoy, he was the decoy, and he knew this was the "price" Arthur spoke of.
These Norfolk Regiment soldiers, who survived the massacre by the SS Totenkopf Division, were prepared to die once again for the main force on this nameless French country road, as the "left hand" of the army.
Don't look back!
Ryder roared at all the surviving drivers, tears mingling with dust and flowing into his mouth, tasting bitter: "The faster we run, the safer our brothers over there will be!"
"Full speed ahead! Lure Rommel's artillery and tanks here!"
20:30, France, north bank of the Bétinne River Bridge, British troops' departure position.
Arthur Sterling sat in the back seat of the Model 251 communications command vehicle.
Only red tactical lights illuminated the vehicle. The low color temperature wavelength of these lights didn't impair the human eye's ability to adapt to darkness, making his face, etched with shadows, appear exceptionally dark.
The red blocks on the RTS originally represented extreme danger—those signal sources marking the German 25th Panzer Regiment—
Moving eastward at 35 kilometers per hour on the dynamic map, all of them are German equipment. They are about the same speed as Ryder, but Ryder has taken the initiative.
These vehicles are leaving the main road on the west side, departing from Arthur's planned breakout route.
That huge red arrow is drawing a perfect arc on the map, clearing the way to the port of Le Havre.
Arthur raised his head, his gaze passing through the bulletproof observation slit on the side of the half-track, and looked toward the eastern horizon.
Even without RTS, he could clearly see what was happening in that direction.
At the edge of what was once pitch black night, a violent "physical redshift" is now taking place.
That wasn't a sunrise, nor was it the aurora.
Those were the afterimages left on my retina by hundreds of artillery shots and high-explosive shell explosions.
The eastern sky was flashing orange-red light at a morbid frequency. Each flash meant that a 105mm or 150mm grenade had landed on Major Ryder's inevitable path.
Several kilometers away, the muffled explosion sound was no longer a sharp tearing sound, but a low-frequency vibration like muffled thunder rolling across the ground, transmitted through the tracks and chassis to Arthur's military boots, making the steel plates beneath his feet tremble slightly.
Rommel is firing.
The enraged German was dumping tons of TNT into that fake dust, trying to crush the non-existent "breakout force."
"Rommel seems to have anticipated my prediction."
Arthur withdrew his gaze, his voice playful. He had assumed Churchill was on the second layer and he was on the third, but in reality, Arthur was in the atmosphere.
But he quickly became serious again.
He knew what that firelight meant. It meant that Major Ryder was racing through hell, every second potentially a matter of life and death, but it also meant that the western gate was now fully open.
"Notify the entire army to ignite the fire."
There will be two more chapters today.
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