novelSusiti Chapter 114 The Scepter of the British Empire
Chapter 114 The Scepter of the British Empire
Chapter 114 The Scepter of the British Empire
1940年6月7日，19：30，勒阿弗尔港外围，德军第7装甲师指挥部。
Someone got anxious.
General Guderian stood beside the half-track command vehicle, the newly translated urgent telegram in his hand crumpled in his hand.
The telegram came from the headquarters of the German 2nd Air Fleet.
The content was brief, but it made the already impatient Rapid Heinz even more anxious due to its slow progress.
"As confirmed by a reconnaissance aircraft at 15:30 p.m., a large Royal Navy fleet is assembling in the English Channel and heading toward Le Havre."
"The second wave of air interdiction, launched at 16:00 in the afternoon, failed. It was met with fierce interception by the British Home Defense Squadron."
Although one cruiser was damaged, it did not stop the fleet's advance.
Estimated arrival time: within two hours.
Guderian abruptly raised his head and looked at the distant city ruins that had been swallowed by darkness.
His intuition was right.
That damned British commander, that ghost who had been playing him for fools all the way from Haut to Le Havre, was not just stalling for time.
He is waiting for rescue.
Moreover, it was a force that Guderian could not contend with on the sea, even with three armored divisions.
Rommel took the telegram from Guderian and read its contents. His face, which was always full of confidence and aggressive desire, was now terribly solemn. Clearly, after the shelling this morning, he was very wary of these naval strikes.
"General?" The chief of staff, noticing Guderian's grim expression, asked cautiously, "The artillery is ready again. Shall we begin firing?"
"Not just artillery." Guderian's voice carried a desperate, ruthless edge.
He suddenly raised his head and looked at the city ruins in the distance, which had been swallowed by darkness.
An ominous premonition crept up Guderian's spine.
This is the instinctive sense of danger of a battle-hardened hunter—even though their encirclement is now as solid as an iron barrel, he can still sense that the cunning prey is looking for that one in ten thousand gap, preparing to slip through his fingers once again.
If we can't keep them here tonight—if we can get that British colonel from the Sterling family, named Arthur, back to the other side alive—
His intuition told him that this wouldn't be just his problem.
In the years to come, in the deserts of North Africa, on the beaches of Normandy, and even on the borders of the Empire, this name will be a haunting nightmare for the armored forces of the Third Reich.
This is a demon yet to be fully formed, and tonight is the last chance to nip it in the bud.
Guderian abruptly raised his head, his gaze meeting Rommel's in mid-air.
No words are needed.
In the eyes of that "devil's army" commander, he saw the same gloom, the same fear, and the same sense of destiny.
Clearly, the fox had also smelled the same scent.
If we don't end things here, the gears of history might take a fatal turn tonight.
"Tell the 7th Motorized Infantry Regiment, and those newly arrived assault engineers," Guderian's finger slammed heavily on the map at the location of Le Havre. "We must take the port tonight. If we don't take out that Sterling, if he escapes back to England—"
Guderian paused, a deep sense of apprehension flashing in his eyes. This kind of apprehension was rarely seen in the eyes of the "father of the armored forces." He saw not just an infantry colonel, but a potential, formidable strategic adversary.
"He will cause us endless trouble in the future."
"This is a wolf that hasn't grown up yet; it must be strangled here."
He glanced at his watch.
The clock is ticking.
The Royal Navy's smokestacks were billowing smoke, while his tanks were stuck outside the ruins.
Guderian turned around and gave his chief of staff his final, do-or-die order: "Forget about casualty rates."
"Bring all the flamethrowers. Bring all the explosive charges."
"Have the commandos go around to the side. I don't accept prisoners. I want to see their bodies."
"implement."
19:45, ruins of Le Havre city center.
With Guderian's orders, the German army's tactical logic changed.
They no longer considered it foolish to try and crush the ruins with tank armor, because Arthur had already proven that ruins were...
The graveyard of tanks.
Rommel deployed his sharpest weapon: assault engineers.
These people don't occupy territory. They only kill.
The darkness provided them with perfect cover. These German soldiers, dressed in grey field uniforms and carrying entrenching tools and explosive charges, moved like a swarm of grey rats, infiltrating the British lines through sewers, cracks in broken walls, and ventilation shafts in basements.
Street corner defense line, Cold Creek Guard Regiment outpost.
"Watch out for blind spots!" Sergeant McTavish lay prone behind a pile of rubble, his Thompson submachine gun pointed at the dark street ahead. His voice sounded particularly cold against the background noise of the explosion: "Remember what the young master said during the day! And remember how we brothers died!"
The battle during the day left a psychological scar on everyone.
The German Flammenwerfer 35 flamethrower was a nightmare in trench warfare.
Once that sticky, solidified gasoline gets on the skin, it will burn until the bone is exposed.
"Shoot those carrying tanks first!" McTavish cocked his rifle, issuing the order based on bloody experience: "Ignore the riflemen, shoot the ones carrying fuel tanks first! Shoot their tanks!"
Before the words were finished, a flash of light suddenly appeared in the darkness.
That wasn't muzzle flash; that was the sound of hell opening its gates.
call-!!!
A fire dragon, thirty meters long, emerged without warning from behind a broken wall, like a living venomous snake, and went straight into a basement held by the British troops.
This is the full-power output of the German Model 35 flamethrower. High-pressure nitrogen gas in the backpack gas tank, at a pressure of 25 atmospheres, forces the gasoline fuel mixed with tar and heavy oil in the main tank into the nozzle, where it is instantly ignited by a hydrogen igniter at the outlet.
This is not the sticky "napalm" that the Americans later used to roast Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands.
The gelatinous fuel is like a breathing, slowly burning lava that sticks to the skin. It has a longer range and once it gets on you, it can't be extinguished; you can only wait for it to burn through your bones.
At this time, the Germans used a leaner fuel mixture, resulting in faster and more violent combustion.
It's not so much like "spraying slime" as it is creating an instantaneous thermal storm. It may not have the sustained adhesive flammability of napalm, but in confined spaces, it is superior in its ability to create an instantaneous vacuum and an ultra-high temperature thermal shock of several hundred degrees Celsius.
This is also due to differences in battlefield environment.
Inhuman screams erupted from the basement. The flames instantly consumed all the oxygen in the confined space—
"Aaaaaah!!!"
The sounds coming from the basement were no longer human shouts, but rather the piercing screams of vocal cords being instantly torn apart by the intense heat.
The suffocating vacuum and the direct burning of hundreds of degrees Celsius were enough to snap even the strongest nerves. Two British soldiers, their entire bodies engulfed in red flames, screamed as they rushed out of the basement. They were no longer recognizable as human, but like two moving torches, instinctively rolling wildly on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames on their bodies.
But rolling around didn't extinguish the flames; instead, it smeared the burning, sticky substance all over their bodies. Under the horrified and furious gazes of their comrades on another nearby position, the two bodies stopped rolling within seconds, turning into two black, charred corpses still convulsing violently.
This scene completely ignited the nerves of the surrounding British soldiers.
When fear reaches its extreme, it becomes pure rage.
"Fuck your ancestors!!!"
A British Bren gunner let out a beast-like roar. His eyes were bulging, and the tears that had just flowed were evaporated by the intense heat. He completely forgot the orders to fire in bursts, gripping the trigger of the Bren light machine gun tightly.
Da da da da da da! ! !
The 7.7mm bullet was like an angry chainsaw, frantically gnawing at the broken wall.
Brick chips flew everywhere, and dust filled the air.
He wished he could slice the wall open with bullets and tear the German with the flamethrower behind it to shreds.
But these German assault engineers were veterans of urban warfare and cold-blooded hunters.
The flamethrower soldier had already retreated into the depths of the ruins in the darkness and smoke, leaving behind only the still-burning corpse and bullet holes left on the wall by the impotent rage of the British army.
The sewer area is two meters underground.
The fighting here is more primitive and dirtier.
As per Arthur's instructions, Major Ryder led a squad of soldiers responsible for flank protection, trudging through the darkness two meters underground.
The murky black water reached above his waist, and every step required overcoming tremendous resistance. Ryder nearly fainted from the stench—a mixture of rotting garbage, methane, and human excrement fermenting together.
Logically speaking, Ryder did not believe that the well-dressed elites of the German Wehrmacht, who considered themselves European knights, would be willing to crawl into such a cesspool like rats.
-
But since Arthur Sterling has marked this spot, it must be a fatal flaw in the defense.
For Ryder, the young master's intuition was more trustworthy than divine revelation.
So, despite his doubts, he still took an entire platoon of bayonets and remained firmly rooted in the filthy darkness.
There was no moonlight, only the flickering beams of flashlights and muffled sounds coming from afar.
"Stop." Ryder suddenly raised his fist. From around the dark corner ahead came the sound of rushing water.
That wasn't a rat; it was the sound of heavy military boots stepping on sewage.
The two sides met unexpectedly at the corner. There were no tactics, no cover, and not even time to fire. It was a melee of cold weapons taking place inside a two-meter-wide pipe.
"Kill!!!" Major Ryder had barely fired a single shot from his Webley revolver when a German sapper charged at him, wielding a razor-sharp shovel. Ryder sidestepped the deadly blow, the shovel striking the brick wall behind him, sending sparks flying.
Ryder drew his assault dagger from his waist and plunged it into the man's neck.
Warm blood gushed out, splattering all over Ryder's face.
Meanwhile, behind him, British soldiers from the Norfolk Regiment were grappling with German troops.
Long spears cannot be used here.
One British soldier was held down in sewage, while Germans choked him, trying to drown him in the excrement. Another British soldier gouged his fingers into the German's eye sockets, and as the German screamed and opened his mouth, he plunged his bayonet into the gap between the German's ribs.
The sound of bones breaking. The choking of a dying man. The dull thud of a blade piercing flesh. In this dark, damp underground world, humanity has degenerated into the most primitive beasts, fighting for survival with teeth, nails, and shovels.
A British soldier, who was being held down in sewage and about to suffocate, grabbed the wooden handle at the waist of the German engineer who was pressing down on him in his death convulsions.
That was the iconic German M24 stick grenade.
Without the slightest hesitation, or even considering the consequences, in this desperate darkness, he used his last bit of strength to violently rip off the porcelain bead ignition cord connected to the friction ignition device.
laugh-
The hissing sound of the burning fuse echoed in the narrow pipe; it was death's countdown.
The German sapper stared in horror, releasing his grip on the other man's neck and trying to untie the burning bomb from his belt to escape the madman before him. But the British soldier clung tightly to his waist, his legs coiled around the sapper's like a python.
The two looked at each other's faces, which were so close together.
Even though they couldn't understand each other's languages, the fear and despair in their eyes were universal at that moment.
"No!!!"
"Go to hell!!!"
The two screamed and roared together, but in that small echo space, the screams only lasted for three seconds.
boom!!!
In a closed sewer, the overpressure generated by the explosion has nowhere to be released. In addition, the incompressibility of sewage amplifies the destructive power of the shock wave several times.
There was no complete corpse, not even any severed limbs.
The two bodies at the epicenter of the explosion were instantly reduced to the most basic organic matter. They became a paste of flesh mixed with fragments of military uniforms and bone fragments, which was evenly and tragically smeared on the ancient brick walls on both sides of the sewer, before slowly sliding down and staining the flowing sewage red.
Ryder, who was only a few meters away, had no time to dodge.
He felt a warm, viscous liquid with a strong rusty smell slapped onto his face, instantly turning his vision blood red.
That was the blood of his comrades, and also the blood of his enemies.
He instinctively wiped his face, his gloves covered in slippery bits of flesh, and even a tooth that had been blown out of the air had crumbled into his collar.
Ground, core defense zone. The position of Williams, the top marksman of the Cold Creek Guards.
Williams lay sprawled on the roof of a half-collapsed three-story building. His ears were wrapped in thick bandages, and the day's firecrackers had left him with only a constant buzzing in his ears.
But he doesn't need hearing.
For a top sniper, hearing can sometimes be a distraction.
All he needs is vision.
Williams put down his Lee-Enfield No. 4 and took the Enfield P14 rifle that Sergeant McTavish handed him.
This gun is heavier than a standard infantry rifle, and its bolt action is more rigid, but it has undergone special precision treatment.
Most importantly, an AIdis M1918 optical sight was mounted on top of the receiver.
-
At this extremely dim light distance, the iron sights were blind; only through these precisely polished optical lenses could he see the entrance to hell in the chaotic darkness.
At this distance, he is God.
He was waiting. He was searching for the source of hell that was creating it in the darkness.
Suddenly, a faint light flashed across the ruins four hundred meters away.
That wasn't gunfire; it was the instant the ignition tube at the nozzle of a flamethrower was ignited.
Immediately afterwards, a fire dragon erupted.
Williams' pupils locked onto that spot.
He didn't look at the terrifying fire dragon, but instead used the muzzle flash to instantly lock onto the German soldier carrying the double-canister device.
According to ballistics, this distance requires an elevation of half a mil.
Wind speed, crosswind from the left, adjust your position by one body length.
boom!
A burst of fire shot out from the muzzle of the gun.
The .303-inch caliber pointed bullet spun as it passed through the smoke-filled air.
The bullet did not hit the German flamethrower soldier's body, but instead precisely penetrated the pressure tank on his back, which was filled with high-pressure nitrogen and a mixture of fuels.
This is a real-world demonstration of the BLEVE phenomenon (boiling liquid expansion and vapor explosion). The high-pressure tank ruptures instantly. The liquid fuel atomizes within milliseconds and is ignited by the surrounding open flame.
Boom! ...
The German flamethrower soldier instantly transformed into a giant human-shaped fireball. The shockwave from the explosion sprayed burning, gelatinous oil across an area with a radius of several kilometers. The three German infantrymen who had been providing cover nearby were engulfed by the brilliant fireball before they could even scream. The "fire man" staggered a couple of steps before collapsing to the ground like a melted wax figure; the intense burning even distorted the surrounding air.
The chemical fuels that had once turned countless British soldiers into human torches were now indiscriminately covering their owners.
Thermodynamics is fair.
The executioner who had dedicated himself to creating hell in Le Havre eventually died in the purgatory he had set on fire, becoming one of the piles of charred remains.
Williams, expressionless, pulled back the bolt and ejected a scorching hot cartridge case. He heard no explosion. He only saw his target burned to a crisp.
"Next," he muttered coldly to himself.
Underground command post.
Arthur sat at the map table, staring at the pale blue interface on his retina.
His face was pale, and his forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat.
This is a torment from God's perspective.
On the RTS interface, the green dots representing friendly units are going out one by one.
The disappearance of each green dot represents the complete disappearance of a soldier he could name—perhaps the boastful Scotsman, perhaps the new recruit who had just learned to smoke—from this world.
He possessed a godlike perspective; he could micromanage individual soldiers' tactical movements and calculate the perfect firing parameters, ensuring that every bullet precisely pierced the chest or head of a German, maximizing the killing efficiency of every shell.
But he was not the real God.
He could not use his flesh and blood to block the shrapnel of steel, nor could he reverse life and death or change the balance of yin and yang.
This is the limit of a commander's power, and also the coldest, most fundamental logic of war: you can decide how the enemy dies, but you cannot decide how they die.
They decided how their soldiers would live.
Even the most perfect micro-management is essentially just calculating how to use fewer "units" to destroy the enemy.
"Building 3 on the left flank! Retreat! That's a trap!" Arthur roared into the radio, his voice completely hoarse. "That's German bait! Their machine gun crew is on the flank!"
But it was too late.
On the RTS, the green dot representing an entire class was instantly submerged by a tide of red, and then they all disappeared.
There are too many enemies.
Guderian has gone mad. He's feeding infantry into this meat grinder without regard for cost. The red dots, like living viruses, are devouring the green island that represents the British defenses.
"Young Master—" Jeanne beside her trembled as she took off her headphones: "A Company—lost contact."
Arthur closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
RTS is not a panacea.
Even when overwhelming numerical superiority outweighs tactical micromanagement, he cannot change the laws of the battlefield.
20:50, Le Havre port warehouse district.
The defensive line did not collapse; rather, it was actively compressed.
This was Arthur's carefully calculated retreat.
From the city's outskirts to its core, Arthur Sterling was systematically abandoning ruins that had lost their tactical value.
He traded space for time and firepower density.
As the perimeter of the defensive line shortened, the defensive strength of the remaining British troops actually increased exponentially.
Now, the more than 800 British soldiers responsible for covering the rear—the toughest backbone of the force—have withdrawn into the last two huge port warehouses as planned.
They were by no means a group of defeated, scattered soldiers.
On the contrary, the entire warehouse was transformed into a high-density, fire-prone hedgehog, with every single stinger laced with poison.
Every window and every vent was strategically positioned with carefully calculated crossfire points. The main entrance was completely sealed off with sandbags, industrial shelving, and dismantled heavy furniture.
Inside the defensive line, the seriously wounded soldiers lying on ammunition boxes stopped groaning.
They knew very well that their bodies had become part of the last line of defense. Each of them had a string of Mills grenades hanging from their chests, their pale fingers gripping the pins tightly.
If the German army broke in, these immobile wounded soldiers would be the last human booby traps.
Major Ryder ran back with his face covered in blood. He had been injured in the sewers, and half of his uniform was stained red.
He held a trowel with a dulled blade in his hand; it was his last weapon.
"Young Master!" Ryder gasped, his voice hoarse. "Out of bullets. Thompson's all gone. Bren's machine gun too."
Williams' sniper rifle only has three rounds left. He's out of grenades.
"We had no choice but to dismantle the table legs and chairs—in preparation for hand-to-hand combat."
Arthur nodded.
He didn't blame her at all; in fact, his eyes even held a hint of approval.
This unit has already created a miracle.
But this miracle was not achieved through prayer, but through an extremely cruel exchange ratio.
Faced with the repeated assaults of Guderian and Rommel's armored divisions, they not only held out for a whole day, but also filled the ruins of Le Havre with gray corpses.
Every step the German army took forward came at a bloody cost.
The reason they are now out of ammunition and food is because they have shot every bullet into the chests of Germans and stuffed every grenade into the tracks of tanks.
It was a fair trade: we gave up our ammunition, and the Germans gave up their lives.
British forces still control about a third of the port area, and these two reinforced concrete warehouses are the "heart" of this defensive position.
The shooting range here is excellent.
Through the breach in the wall on the second floor of the warehouse, which had been blown open, one could overlook the entire fan-shaped area in front. The cranes and collapsed buildings that the engineers had previously destroyed formed a natural "tank refurbishment zone" 300 meters in front of the warehouse.
But Arthur underestimated the speed of the German advance; the Germans had already pushed right up to his face.
Now, it's time for this warehouse to serve its purpose.
Crunch— Crunch—
Just then, a chilling metallic scraping sound came from afar. It was the sound of tank tracks crushing gravel and reinforced concrete.
Through his binoculars, Arthur could clearly see a German StuG III assault gun slowly climbing up a pile of rubble. Its low-slung body resembled an ambush toad, and the dark muzzle of its 75mm short-barreled gun was adjusting its angle, trying to find a firing window to directly bombard the warehouse's load-bearing wall.
Behind it, dozens of German soldiers, armed with submachine guns, were hiding behind the tank's armor, awaiting the final order to charge.
Some people even set up loudspeakers.
"British!" came the German voice blaring from the loudspeaker, arrogant and confident, echoing over the empty harbor: "Come out and surrender! General Rommel said we'll give you hot tea and blankets!"
"Look around you! Look behind you, there's the sea! You have no way out!"
"You have five minutes!"
The warehouse was deathly silent.
Arthur's final course for the Germans—a standard, textbook urban anti-tank ambush.
These two concrete port warehouses, with their half-meter-thick load-bearing walls and expansive views from above, have now become two fortresses.
The engineers did more than just block the gate; they even disassembled the four 2-pounder anti-tank guns, hoisted them up to the second floor of the warehouse using pulley systems, and then reassembled them.
At this moment, the muzzles of these four cannons were peering down through the gaps in the sandbags and the wall, locking onto the arrogant StuG III assault gun.
"Two hundred meters away," the gunner whispered, the firing cord in his hand taut. "Armor-piercing rounds loaded."
Aim at the driver's observation window.
Although the 40mm caliber of the 2-pounder gun was somewhat inadequate against the new German armor, at such close range, the superior position of attacking the top or striking weak points such as observation windows and tracks was enough to disable any armored vehicle.
On the first floor of the warehouse, a dozen Bren light machine guns and two Vickers heavy machine guns had formed a tight crossfire network.
This is no lamb to the slaughter; it is clearly a porcupine with its quills bared.
"British!" The urging for surrender from the loudspeaker outside the door still echoed, "Three minutes left! This is the final ultimatum!"
The warehouse was deathly silent. But this silence wasn't due to fear; it was the hunter's breathless concentration before pulling the trigger.
Everyone looked at Arthur.
Arthur drew the Webley revolver from his waist.
He opened the reel, examined the six gleaming yellow bullets, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"Three minutes?"
"Guderian was too hasty. If I were him, I would have blasted this place flat with heavy artillery before sending men up."
He looked up at Jeanne in the corner.
This strong female warrior did not break down; she was wearing headphones and intently focused on the high-powered radio.
The power indicator light was still on red, and all I could hear in the headphones was a continuous hissing white background noise.
That's not because there's no power. That's radio silence.
She was waiting, and everyone was waiting.
Waiting for that agreed-upon "opening signal" from across the strait.
Arthur glanced at his watch, then turned his gaze to the RTS interface on his retina.
The fog of war on the sea was still thick, but he knew that those green lights were there.
The Royal Navy is never late.
"Have a bite, sir." A gruff voice broke the silence.
Sergeant McTavish pulled a flat, silver flask from his pocket—his prized Scotch whisky. He unscrewed the cap, took a large gulp himself, and then handed it to Arthur, his eyes blazing with fighting spirit.
"Warm up your throat a little, young master. Listen to your voice now, it's completely off-key."
McTavish looked at the young officer in front of him, whose face was covered in grease and whose eyes were bloodshot.
He was no longer the pampered young nobleman of Azhabruk Monastery; the smoke and blood had forged him into a piece of raw iron.
To the veterans, that hoarse voice was more pleasing to the ear than any eloquent speech.
"However, this noise sounds pleasant." McTavish pushed the flask forward, his eyes revealing a sense of recognition that only those who had fought in the trenches could understand: "Right now, you don't seem like a nobleman spraying perfume in Parliament, but rather like a real man, like an infantryman."
McTavish casually wiped the wine stains from the corner of his mouth, grinned, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth on his gunpowder-blackened face, his smile radiating a bloodthirsty excitement: "Have a sip. When we're slaughtering the Germans later, it might get quite a commotion, so you'd better save your energy for leading the charge."
Arthur took the flask. There were no tragic last words, only pre-battle mobilization. He tilted his head back and took a big gulp. The pungent liquor burned down his throat like a fire, instantly igniting the adrenaline in his blood.
"Good wine." Arthur handed the flask to Ryder beside him, straightened his collar, and his eyes sharpened. "Tell the artillery crew to ignore that megaphone."
"Open fire as soon as that guy gets any closer."
"First, blow the tracks off that assault gun. Now that you're here, don't even think about leaving intact."
Arthur closed the wheel again, making a crisp "click" sound.
He handed the flask to Ryder, who drank from it and then passed it to Major General Fortune, who in turn drank from it and passed it to the private next to him.
The wine jug was passed around among the crowd.
Only the sound of swallowing could be heard. This was the final farewell ceremony.
20:45, Le Havre port warehouse district.
"Fire! Don't let them get close to the blind spot!"
With Major Ryder's roar, a dozen deadly tongues of fire erupted from the breach in the wall on the second floor of the warehouse. The distinctive, slightly muffled "rat-a-tat-tat" of the Bren light machine guns coalesced into a metallic storm, pinning down the German assault engineers who were trying to sneak up under the cover of darkness at the other end of the rubble.
This is the "Porcupine Tactic" designed by Arthur.
When eight hundred elite soldiers were crammed into two sturdy concrete warehouses, the firepower density had reached saturation.
Any German infantryman attempting to cross that 300-meter open area would be instantly torn to shreds by crossfire.
"Two-pounder cannon! Ten o'clock! That armored vehicle!"
-
The pulley system on the second floor creaked and groaned, and one of the disassembled and reassembled 2-pounder anti-tank guns roared.
Comment! A 40mm solid armor-piercing round whistled out and accurately struck the hood of a German half-track vehicle that was trying to cover the advance of infantry.
Sparks flew everywhere.
Although there was no violent secondary explosion, the shell directly severed the vehicle's front axle. The half-track, like a beast with a broken leg, drifted sideways and crashed into a broken concrete pillar. The German infantry behind the vehicle tumbled down like dumplings being dropped into a pot, and were then mowed down by dense machine gun fire.
But this brief victory did not ease Arthur's brow in the slightest.
Because the StuG III assault gun, painted with dark gray camouflage paint, was still moving.
"Don't shoot it from the front! Are you trying to polish it up?!" Seeing the gunner trying to aim at the assault gun's upper glacis, Arthur shoved the observer aside and personally yelled from the window, "Shoot its legs! Aim at the drive sprocket! Fix it there!"
On the second floor, the gunner gritted his teeth and quickly turned the azimuth mechanism.
Shooting at this distance doesn't require calculating lead time; all you need to do is overcome your fear.
Bang! Another 40mm armor-piercing round left the barrel.
This time, there were no ricochets.
Snap—Splash!
The StuG III assault gun, which was accelerating forward, suddenly stopped. The left drive sprocket was hit precisely, the pin snapped, and the heavy track instantly collapsed helplessly onto the pile of rubble. Losing power on one side, the assault gun spun in place due to inertia and came to rest sideways in the middle of the road.
"It's immobilized! But its cannon can still fire!" Major Ryder yelled as he changed magazines for his submachine guns. "Infantry cover!"
Indeed, despite its broken leg, this steel beast remained deadly. It was frantically turning around in place, attempting to bombard the second-floor gun emplacement with its 75mm short-barreled cannon.
"Shut him up," Arthur coldly ordered. "Molotov cocktails! Burn its engine air intake!"
Several Scottish soldiers who had been lying in ambush on both sides of the first-floor ruins suddenly poked half their bodies out.
What they were holding were not Mills grenades, but makeshift Molotov cocktails made by filling empty bottles with gasoline and stuffing them with a rag.
"Die, Jerry!" With a roar, five or six Molotov cocktails streaked through the air, leaving trails of fire, and slammed into the engine cover at the rear of the StuG III assault gun.
Crash! Crash! The glass bottle shattered.
The viscous liquid fuel instantly covered the hot engine grille, and was then ignited by the strips of cloth.
Whoosh—! The orange-red flames instantly engulfed the rear half of the assault gun.
For any tank or armored vehicle, whether it's the Tiger II or the StuG II, regardless of armor thickness, this burning is deadly.
The flames would be drawn directly into the engine compartment by the engine's intake fan, igniting the rubber hoses and fuel tank inside, eventually turning the vehicle into a giant oven.
Just a dozen seconds later, the hatch of the assault gun was suddenly pushed open.
German tank crews, engulfed in flames, crawled out screaming, only to be riddled with bullets by the dense machine gun fire from all around before they could even land.
"Well done!" Ryder exclaimed, pumping his fist in excitement.
But Arthur's face grew even more somber.
He glanced at the spent shell casings piled up next to the gun emplacement on the second floor, and then at the few remaining Molotov cocktails in the soldiers' hands.
This tactic could be used once, or even twice. But the Germans had an endless supply of tanks, while their anti-tank ammunition and gasoline were being consumed rapidly.
This is not just a tactical victory; it is a war of attrition that is heading towards nothing.
At this point, however many Germans he killed were no longer his primary objective.
The only KPI in this battle is how many people you bring home.
In his field of vision, the green dots that were originally scattered around the perimeter of the defensive line had shrunk and gathered densely within the blue outline of the two warehouses—except for the small cluster at the very edge of the defensive line.
"Ryder!" Arthur grabbed his adjutant, who had just emptied a drum magazine. "C Company and McTavish's men are in position at Warehouse Two! The main force has been fully assembled!"
"Get the heavy machine gun crew ready to seal off the door! We can't wait any longer!"
"Don't seal the door!" Ryder roared, expertly reloading his submachine gun with a look of anxiety on his face. "And Miller! Miller's engineer platoon is still providing cover on the outside! They're laying mines!"
Arthur's pupils contracted sharply. On the RTS interface, the dozen or so green dots representing the engineer platoon were flashing on the outermost edge of the defensive line, appearing particularly isolated and helpless.
Around them, the red tide representing the German army was rapidly approaching, like a gaping mouth about to close.
"Notify Miller to abandon the operation immediately!" Arthur pressed his Adam's apple-shaped communicator, switching directly to the engineers' channel, his tone brutal: "Miller! Take your men back here! Now! That's an order!"
Miller's labored breathing came through the earpiece, accompanied by the deafening roar of exploding grenades: "Young Master! Just two more booby traps! If we don't seal the sewer entrances on the flanks, the Germans will—"
"I don't care about the sewers!" Arthur watched as the two green dots on the screen went out instantly, indicating that two engineers had been killed in action.
His heart clenched: "I said, get back here! I don't need those two booby traps, but I need that row of living men! Get out of here!"
Two minutes later.
Arthur finally breathed a sigh of relief when the last few mud-covered, huddled-up sappers stumbled into the warehouse's side door and blocked the entrance with several heavy oak tables.
Although the green dots on the RTS interface are sparse, the main cluster has been concentrated in these two warehouses.
This is what he wanted. No one is abandoned.
20: 50.
The gunfire suddenly subsided.
This is not a good sign.
On the battlefield, such a sudden silence usually means that the enemy is preparing a big move.
"They've stopped their advance." Major General Fortune, his brow furrowed, held his binoculars. "The Germans have retreated behind the rubble line."
"Because they realized that an infantry charge was suicide." Arthur walked to the second-floor window and cautiously poked half his head out.
At this distance, he could clearly hear the dull roar of the engine and the crunching sound of the tracks crushing concrete.
The sound was heavy and oppressive, each thud seeming to crush everyone's hearts.
"Everyone take cover!" Arthur jerked back, shouting a warning: "It's heavy stuff!"
This time, those steel behemoths did not foolishly rush into the ambush zone set up by the British army.
Through his binoculars, Arthur could clearly see that two StuG III assault guns, painted with dark gray camouflage paint, slowly came to a stop at the edge of the ruins, about 300 meters away.
Instead of charging recklessly, they used the broken walls as cover, revealing only their low-slung hulls and short, stubby 75mm gun barrels.
The muzzle is slowly rising, as if it is measuring distance.
"Damn it." Arthur's pupils contracted sharply. He immediately realized the Germans' intentions. They had finally learned the correct way to use assault guns: direct fire support from outside the defensive zone.
At this distance, the assault gun's 75mm high-explosive shells could accurately knock down the warehouse's outer walls and firing positions one by one, while the British army's pitiful 2-pounder guns and infantry anti-tank weapons couldn't even reach them.
"Everyone take cover!" Arthur jerked back into position. "Get out of the window! It's heavy stuff! They're firing in the distance!"
next second.
Boom! Boom!
Two 75mm high-explosive shells, whistling with death, struck precisely the first-floor entrance of the warehouse and a machine gun emplacement on the second floor. The violent explosions shook the entire concrete structure, sending dust plumes down.
The sandbags blocking the door were instantly blown away by the shockwave. Several British soldiers who were too close were thrown back by the shockwave before they could even scream.
Behind it, a dark mass of German infantry reappeared.
This time, with the cover of long-range heavy firepower, they only needed to wait for the warehouse to be bombed into ruins.
Just then.
Beep—beep—beep—
A sudden sound broke the silence.
It wasn't an explosion, nor a gunshot. It came from the long-dormant radio in Jeanne's arms. Clear,
A powerful, rhythmic metallic clanging sound.
The sound echoed in the empty warehouse; though not loud, everyone present heard it.
That was an unencrypted emergency channel broadcast across the entire frequency band.
That's Morse code.
It was an ancient and arrogant language, a plaintext broadcast only used by the overconfident masters of the sea.
Jeanne suddenly looked up. Her eyes, which had been dull and lifeless, suddenly shone with a new light, as if she had witnessed a miracle.
She trembled as she took off her headphones: "It's a naval code!"
"That's the identification signal of your Royal Navy's Nelson-class battleships!"
"They're here! God! They're here!"
Arthur froze for a second.
Then, adrenaline surged through the body like a volcanic eruption.
He burst out of his bunker, completely ignoring the stray bullets flying around outside, and scrambled up to the top of the tallest stack of crates in the warehouse.
He looked out at the dark sea in the distance through the hole blown open in the skylight.
[RTS system notification: Strong friendly signal detected.]
The fog has lifted.
On his retina.
That black area, representing despair and the unknown, was instantly illuminated.
It was a magnificent scene that brought tears to my eyes.
On the sea surface, countless green dots of light are twinkling, densely packed, like stars falling into the sea.
Destroyers, light cruisers, minesweepers, and even temporarily requisitioned armed trawlers.
They formed a steel Great Wall, cutting off the horizon between the sea and the sky.
And at the very front of the fleet.
There are two huge, gleaming golden icons—that's the emblem of the Capital Ship.
That was the scepter of the British Empire. That was the arbiter of the seas in this era.
Arthur gripped the edge of the skylight tightly, looking at the two mountains in the sea, a crazy smile curving his lips.
At this moment, the German troops on the ground were clearly unaware of what was about to happen. A flash of muzzle flash came from the StuG III assault gun.
Boom! The warehouse door was blasted open, creating a gap.
"Attack! Charge!" The German commander brandished his pistol, and hundreds of assault engineers shouted.
But Arthur didn't even glance at them. He simply looked at the sea, exhaled a soft breath, as if mourning for those reckless Germans: "Goodnight, Guderian."
Boom!!!
A red flash, bright enough to illuminate the clouds, streaked across the sea.
That was a salvo from three triple-mounted 16-inch (406 mm) main guns.
A few seconds later, a shrill whistling sound, like the laughter of death, descended from the sky as the air was torn apart.
This is the 16-inch trial.
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