The decisive battle against the Third Reich - Chapter 901

c898 Counterattack(2)

This feeling of powerlessness on the battlefield is terrifying… It’s like knowing your own death but being unable to do anything about it.

Some Sherman tanks even gave up running away and stopped to shoot at the enemy with their tank guns.

But this was obviously useless. The shells were bounced off the Tiger armor without exception, and before they bounced off, they would flash a spark due to the violent collision with its armor.

Then, these Sherman tanks turned into a ball of fire one after another.

Some of them were destroyed by the Tiger tanks from the front, and some were destroyed by other tanks approaching from the side, but no matter what destroyed them, the result was the same… death, fire, and complete destruction.

Major General Jetton shouted into the walkie-talkie: “Request air cover, request air cover, we are under attack by enemy tanks!”

“Sorry, Major General!” The pilot’s answer almost made Major General Jetton despair: “There is smoke everywhere and visibility is very poor, and tanks and personnel are mixed together, we can’t distinguish between the enemy and us!”

If the pilots can’t distinguish between the enemy and us and make accurate attacks, then the warships in the sea that are rising and falling with the waves are even more difficult… The shells they fired would deviate from the target by several kilometers at any time, and they could only play a role when a large area of ​​artillery fire was covered.

So, Major General Jetton could only watch the German tanks rush into the crowd of American soldiers, and the heading machine guns and parallel machine guns fired everywhere, knocking down rows of American soldiers who were fleeing in panic.

Some American soldiers were smarter and lay down immediately when the tank gun barrel turned towards them. The more experienced ones knew to roll, crawl, and then jump up to hide in the tank’s shooting blind spot… The 4th Infantry Division of the United States had participated in the battle with the German African Corps in Africa, and could be regarded as an experienced veteran unit.

But this still didn’t work, because there were still teams of German soldiers following the tanks to attack the U.S. troops.

The U.S. troops in World War II could be considered the most powerful troops, even the infantry, because they were equipped with M1 semi-automatic rifles in large quantities, whose rate of fire was several times that of bolt-action rifles.

But at this time, the German army was equipped with STG44, whose rate of fire and firepower sustainability were not comparable to M1, not to mention that the U.S. troops were dispersed by tanks and could not take care of both ends.

So, even if they avoided the tanks in front, they became targets of the German soldiers in the rear. After a hail of bullets and the explosion of grenades, the U.S. soldiers soon became corpses lying on the ground.

The fast-running U.S. soldiers finally organized a defense on the “Atlantic Wall”, but this defense could not stop the German tanks, even for a while.

The German tank group “rumbled” up, and regardless of the matter, it fired a barrage of artillery fire, and the defense line was filled with smoke before covering the infantry to advance towards the defense line.

The American soldiers soon found that they had almost nothing to resist or stop the German tanks from advancing, so they finally collapsed at this moment, abandoning their defenses one after another and fleeing towards the sea.

This approach was correct, because in front of the “Atlantic Wall” was the beach, which was a minefield and obstacle set by the Germans themselves… Although American engineers opened several passages in it, some places even had iron plates laid by paving tanks.

But such passages were still not suitable for large-scale tank advances.

That is, German tanks were likely unable to pursue them.

However, this approach was also incorrect, because the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall were only 270 to 360 meters away from the sea, which was completely within the range of tanks and even German soldiers’ rifles.

In other words, the Germans did not need to pursue them at all.

Major General Jetton knew this very well, so he kept ordering on the walkie-talkie: “No, we can’t retreat! This is our last line of defense, I order you to come back…”

But this order has lost its effect.

No one paid attention to this order, as mentioned before…fear will make people lose their most basic judgment. Anyone who is still clear-headed knows that Major General Jetton is right. The “Atlantic Wall” is the last line of defense of the US military and cannot be abandoned in any case. Otherwise, they will only have soft beaches and seawater that keeps hitting the shore.

But American soldiers still rushed to the beach in large numbers, among which there were many soldiers from the German Coastal Defense Division.

The most embarrassing among them should be the soldiers of the German Coastal Defense Division… They had just surrendered to the US military and became prisoners of the US military, and they had to raise their hands to the German army again.

But things were not as simple as they thought.

German tanks drove up the “Atlantic Wall” one by one, and it took a while to adjust the angle of the body… The “Atlantic Wall” is generally located on high ground, and the tanks must adjust the body to a downward tilt state to shoot.

Then the machine guns and artillery spit out flames on the beach mercilessly. Whether it was the soldiers of the German Coastal Defense Division or the US soldiers, they were knocked down or blown up in panic.

Some tanks aimed at the landing craft that was picking up the deserters, and with a “boom” they blew the landing craft full of people into a fireball. The landing craft immediately lost its balance and was capsized by the waves amid the screams and cries of American soldiers.

Seeing this, other landing crafts hurriedly started and tried to evacuate in time, but more and more tanks appeared on the shore and blocked them on the beach with machine guns and artillery shells.

Even worse was… the infantry following the tanks entered the defensive position.

Since the German Coastal Defense Division surrendered quickly, the U.S. Army did not have time to destroy it, so most of the machine guns and artillery in the bunkers were intact. After the German infantry came up, they aimed them at the U.S. troops on the beach… The more violent rain of bullets swept the entire beach like a storm. Due to the impact of the waves, the bodies of American soldiers were everywhere on the dividing line between the beach and the sea, densely packed, like piles of wood washed ashore.

“We were counterattacked by the German armored division and suffered heavy losses!”

“The 4th Infantry Division requested reinforcements!”

“The 1st Infantry Division is progressing slowly, and the enemy’s firepower is much stronger than expected!”

…

Eisenhower in the headquarters quickly received the news. He looked pale and cast his eyes on Halke. After a long while, he said: “Mr. Director, it seems that we guessed wrong this time… We failed to deceive the Germans. To be precise, the Germans successfully deceived us!”

Halke could not deny this either. He gritted his teeth and replied: “General, now is not the time to talk about this. We have to find a remedy!”