Chapter 155: Chapter 233 The French Doomsday (3)
After everyone checked their weapons and equipment, Guderian climbed into his armored command vehicle and issued the command. "Target: Sedan! Move forward!"
After a bumpy journey of over an hour, the surrounding trees gradually became sparse, and the road became smoother. Guderian knew they were about to exit the forest and gave the order again. "All units, prepare for combat level one! We're about to make contact with the French!"
Suddenly, a familiar sound of intense gunfire, the noise of MG3 machine guns, came from the front. Guderian knew it was the reconnaissance units engaging the French border defense forces. "Black Fox, Black Fox, respond! What's the situation?!"
Amidst crackling electrical sounds, intermittent voices came through. "Report, it's... French... remnants... captured..."
From those intermittent reports, Guderian learned that the French garrison at the foot of the mountain had been bombed by their own air force, and the remaining survivors had retreated to the Sedan fortress, destroying the bridges over the Meuse River on their way.
After driving forward for a while, Guderian's armored command vehicle finally emerged from the mountainous area.
"Finally out." Letting out a long breath, Guderian turned around to look at the armored vehicles emerging one after another. At this speed, it would probably take until sunset for the entire 19th Armored Corps to come out, let alone the vanguard, the 6th Armored Division.
Looking at the billowing smoke from the bombed Sedan fortress across the Meuse River, Guderian shook his head helplessly. Although he wished to launch a river crossing attack immediately, they had to wait until the 6th Armored Division was fully assembled before taking action. "Send a message to headquarters; we've crossed the Ardennes Forest and will commence the river crossing operation tomorrow morning."
As the German High Command celebrated upon receiving the telegram, the French High Command also received the message sent by General Lafontaine from the Sedan fortress.
Although they found it unbelievable that the German armored forces had broken through the Ardennes Mountains, they didn't panic. After all, there was still a wide Meuse River between the Sedan fortress and the Ardennes Forest. It was summer, and the swift flow of the Meuse River added to the difficulty of a German river crossing.
Coupled with the fortress's firepower covering the entire river, it was enough to block the Germans for some time. Even though they learned from General Lafontaine's message that German dive bombers were systematically removing those firepower points, it was impossible to eliminate all those points, even if those bombers were formidable.
Even if half of the firepower points remained, it would be sufficient to hinder the German river crossing.
According to the French High Command's assessment, it was impossible for a large German force to rush through the rugged terrain of the Ardennes all at once. The German forces appearing on the opposite bank of the Meuse River must be just the vanguard. They would undoubtedly have to wait for a considerable number of infantry and heavy artillery units to gather before launching a river crossing attack.
In their view, this would take at least a week.
By then, their reinforcements would have already arrived in the Sedan area.
Although the 55th Infantry Division currently guarding the Sedan fortress was a second-line unit, it was more than capable of holding off the Germans without heavy artillery support.
However, the German actions once again exceeded the French's understanding. When the 6th Armored Division was fully in position, Guderian ordered preparations for the river crossing, ready to launch a large-scale attack the next morning.
Even without heavy artillery, they had anticipated this situation. So, before departure, the 6th Armored Division supplemented a considerable number of 105mm self-propelled howitzers and 122mm self-propelled rocket artillery, converted from chassis of the Jackal tanks. The shortest range of these Krupp 105mm howitzers was 9,000 meters, and the range of the 122mm rocket artillery easily exceeded 10,000 meters.
Moreover, the distance between their artillery positions and the fortress's firepower points was not more than 5,000 meters. In other words, their artillery could easily strike the French defensive works built along the Meuse River, providing robust support for the river crossing operation.
However, the German forces could now reach the French positions, and naturally, the French were within range of their artillery.
Just as the positions were being set up, French artillery shells came raining down.
Unfortunately, the French artillery forgot about the Stukas circling in the sky. If these cannons obediently hid under the camouflage netting, it would be challenging for the Stukas in the sky to spot them. However, now that they started firing, the billowing smoke exposed their locations instantly. One Stuka after another descended like vultures finding food, systematically destroying all the revealed artillery positions.
General Lafontaine, in a fit of frustration, ordered the remaining artillery positions not to open fire. He commanded the artillery observers to carefully mark the German positions and prepared to bombard them all once night fell.
However, to his surprise, even after the sun had set and the sky had completely darkened, those bombers were still circling over the fortress. Although they refrained from further dive-bombing, General Lafontaine didn't dare take the risk of letting the artillery open fire. After all, even though smoke wasn't visible at night, firing cannons produced not only smoke but flames. Once they opened fire, they might again become targets for destruction.
On the other side of the river, the German forces were not idle. Besides self-propelled artillery and rocket artillery, they also employed advanced equipment like helicopters to transport various artillery pieces.
As early as the Polish campaign, German special forces had used helicopters for several covert missions.
The real development of helicopters could be traced back to 1904 (though the helicopter model found in Da Vinci's notes was quite different from modern helicopters, using a large spiral-shaped disk instead of the common rotor). Professor Zhukovsky, a Russian scientist, published a paper titled "The Lifting Capability of Rotors", which sparked considerable interest within Russia. Subsequently, helicopter development proliferated in Russia, with Sikorsky and Yuryev being the most famous pioneers.
Wilhelm was well aware of the importance of helicopters in warfare. Several years ago, he had secretly "invited" these two experts to Germany, collaborating with local scientists like Baumgarto and Fleit to develop helicopters. Wilhelm had even charted the course for the development of helicopters.
By 1936, Germany had already produced helicopters with an appearance and performance similar to the Mi-1. By the time of the Polish campaign, they had upgraded to the Mi-4.
Although they hadn't been mass-produced yet, assembling around twenty wasn't an issue. These helicopters carried lightweight IG42 infantry guns, and with gunners on board, they soared over the Ardennes Forest, delivering them to the frontline where Guderian was located.
Busy shuttling back and forth until the early morning of the next day, they transported 50 infantry guns and enough ammunition for Guderian to lavish on.
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