Company Commander of the 1st Armored Reconnaissance Company of the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion of the 3rd German Panzer Division, Kurt Brown. Lieutenant Meyer was not the slightest sleepy now, and the whole company, like him, awaited with the greatest excitement the arrival of this sacred hour at 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939.

The company was assigned 17 8-wheeled heavy armored reconnaissance vehicles of the Sd.Kfz.231 type and 1 6-wheeled heavy armored reconnaissance vehicle of the Sd.Kfz.231 type with a radio station on board, and by this time there was a long line on a road on the Polish-German side of the border.

These 18 heavy armored vehicles are all huge steel behemoths, and the Type 231 6-wheeled vehicle with 6 wheels is Kurt. Lieutenant Meyer's command vehicle, weighing 5.356 tons, had a powerful radio on it, which could communicate directly with the division headquarters in the rear and the air force bombers in the sky.

The other 17 Type 231 eight-wheelers were even larger, weighing 8.3 tons, which was heavier than a No. 2 tank. And its armor and firepower are no less than that of a real tank, with frontal armor up to 14.5mm thick at its thickest point, and it also has a 20mm cannon and an MG34 machine gun.

With such sharp chariots, Armored Meyer and his brothers couldn't resist crossing the border to teach the hated Poles a hard lesson. The border side was German land 20 years ago, but after the defeat of Germany, the ungrateful Poles tore up the border treaty, forgetting the fact that Germany supported their restoration, and forcibly seized German land with the support of Britain and France, expelling, bullying and killing German compatriots.

Now that Germany is strong, it is time to take revenge, reclaim what has been lost, and save the enslaved compatriots.

"Lieutenant, how much time is left?" A gruff voice rang in Armored Meyer's ears. He was the gunner of this 6-wheeled armored car, Gustav. Schwarzenegger. The gunner is positioned in front of the commander, who is the armored meyer, and by pushing open the hatch on the top of the vehicle (the upper part of the turret), they can get half of their bodies out and smoke a cigarette at the same time, as they do now.

Like Panzer Meyer, Gustav came from the Waffen-SS. However, he was a member of the Austrian National Society, and before the German-Austrian merger, he joined the Thunderbolt Paratroopers, an armed group of the Austrian National Society. Later, he was selected as a member of the motorized unit of the Waffen-SS. It is now integrated into the Wehrmacht's Third Panzer Division - many of the Waffen-SS elite units are being broken up and integrated into the Wehrmacht under the operation of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff......

"It's 4:08 a.m., and there are still 37 minutes before the shelling begins!" "The shelling will last an hour, the vehicles will be started at 5:40 a.m., and we will cross the border at 5:45," said Panzer Meyer, smoking a cigarette. He accentuated, "We are the first German warriors to set foot on enemy soil!" ”

"Is it necessary to shell for an hour?" Gustav looked very strong and stubby, and he rolled up his sleeves, revealing his tanned, thick arms. He crouched on the bezel of the turret, in front of which were 20mm guns and machine guns sticking out side by side, "There don't seem to be any troops over there except for a few Polish border guards." ”

In fact, the motorized reconnaissance company of the 3rd Panzer Division had already penetrated east of the border line to check that the Poles were not well defended on this section, and only some border guards belonging to the Primorsky Civil Defense Brigade were located.

"Their line of defense, which is 8 to 10 kilometers east of the border, is not a dense line, but a line of fire strongholds. Those strongholds were the targets of the shelling. Armored Meyer dropped the cigarette on the ground, leaving only one cigarette butt, and his face sank slightly. This is the result of reconnaissance by the Air Force...... There are a few enemy strongholds in our way, and we need to kill them and make our way through the Thohora Forest. ”

……

Naval aviation replenishment pilot Rudolph. Feng. Heinsberg-Hersmann stood on a high control tower and looked down at the military airfield in front of him. Sixty-five Zero fighters belonging to the 3rd and 4th Brigades of the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment of the Navy were neatly lined up on the airfield. Forty pilots preparing for the expedition were climbing into their cabins with the help of ground crews - they were all officers of the 3rd Group and 4th Group, including the regimental commander "Papa Mauders".

The current Luftwaffe and Naval Aviation Corps usually have 4 brigades, of which the 4th is a training group. It was to familiarize such a "rookie" as Rudolph with tactics and aircraft. Therefore, only the officers (instructors) of the 4th Brigade will participate in today's attack, and all the "rookies" can only stay at the base to act as airfield defenders...... If there were a plane of the Poles flying over.

"I'd love to go with them," Walter said. Novotny took out a cigarette, handed one to Rudolph, and then took one himself. "Papa Maudels' plane is about to take off. He has 14 wins in Spain, and this time he can score at least six, so that he can take Blue Marx. ”

The emperor returned, and so did the "Blue Marx". Fighter pilots, tank and armored commanders already know the "price code", and 20 downed or destroyed planes can be exchanged for a "Blue Marx" medal.

At this moment, the Zero of "Papa Modles" had already started, and the propeller rotated rapidly, generating a huge thrust, allowing the light Zero to run quickly on the concrete-paved runway, and the nose of the Kung Fu aircraft had been pulled up in the blink of an eye, and then it slammed into the sky that had just begun to brighten.

"It's a fast climb!" Maudels couldn't help but admire again, the performance of this Zero is better than the BF-109B and BF-109C he drove in Spain, with strong horsepower, light fuselage, excellent speed and hovering performance. And the range of this plane is unbelievably large. The theoretical maximum range of 3,350 km (with auxiliary fuel tanks attached) far exceeds the more than 600 km of the BF-109 series, making it the most ideal escort aircraft.

This time, the task of the 1st Combat Aviation Regiment of the HNA armed with Zero fighters was to cover the 102 He111 bombers that had taken off from Silesia to drop bombs on Warsaw. A round trip is almost 1,000 kilometers, except for this Zero, I am afraid that no single engine fighter in the world today has such a terrible range.

……

"Admiral, why are you here?" Major General Schwépenburg, the commander of the German 3rd Panzer Division, saw his superior, Guderian, commander of the 19th Panzer Corps, actually walk into his temporary headquarters.

"I've decided," Guderian smiled a little witty, "I'm going to act with the 3rd Panzer Division, because the 3rd Panzer Division is the sharp knife of the entire army group, and the success or failure of the battle depends on the performance of the 3rd Panzer Division." So I had to sit in the 3rd Panzer Division. ”

His words were not wrong, the 3rd Panzer Division was a sharp blade capable of stabbing the Poles to death! According to the plan, the division would be the vanguard of the 19th Panzer Corps, be the first to break through to Poland, cut the Polish Primorsky Army with five divisions and two brigades into two sections, then enter East Prussia, join the "Kampf" Panzer Division assigned to the 3rd Army, and then turn back and rush all the way south to the 22nd Panzer Corps, which also belongs to Army Group South, on the Bug River east of Warsaw, to complete the strategic encirclement of Warsaw. At the same time, it was necessary to crush the Polish Primorsky Army and the Polish reserves deployed along the Bug River. If there was still room for it, the 19th Army would have to make a surprise attack on Lviv and occupy it before the Soviet Red Army did.

If all was completed, the 19th Panzer Corps would have to move almost 1,000 kilometers - compared to the 20 days set for Guderian in the White Plan. In 20 days, he fought thousands of miles from Pomerania all the way to Lviv. The 3rd Panzer Division was the vanguard of the 19th Panzer Corps. To this end, the 3rd Panzer Division has been strengthened with an armoured instruction battalion composed of instructors from various armoured schools. The battalion had 2 companies equipped with tank No. 3 and one company with tank No. 4.

And the speed of the thousand-mile march was created in the world in 1939 only by the German Panzer Army.

Not only do they have a large number of well-made tanks and well-trained armored troops, but they also have a large number of trucks, which are enough to support the 19th Panzer Army (3rd Panzer Division, 10th Panzer Division, 2nd Motorized Rifle Division, 20th Motorized Rifle Division), 15th Army (2nd Light Division, 3rd Light Division), 16th Army (1st Panzer Division, 4th Panzer Division), 10th Army Reserve (1st Light Division, 12th Motorized Rifle Division, 29th Motorized Rifle Division), The 22nd Army (2nd Panzer Division, 4th Light Division), 8th Army (5th Panzer Division), and so on, these mechanized units advanced at high speed on enemy soil.

Major General Schwebenburg, knowing that his command was about to be deprived by Guderian, was thinking about arguing for a reason, when a dull roar came.

It was already 4:45 a.m., and German artillery had already begun to bombard Polish land.

"We're going to leave in one hour," Guderian looked at his watch and smiled, "Is there anything to eat?" I'm a little hungry and want something to eat. ”

"Yes, of course," said Major General Schwebenburg, shrugging his shoulders, "except for the divisional artillery, the whole division will have breakfast at 5 o'clock, start the vehicles at 5:30, and advance to Polish territory at 5:45 p.m. on time." If all goes well, we will cross the Vistula into East Prussia by September 5th. ”

"On September 3," Guderian said, "on September 3 we will be able to cross the Vistula, and on September 4 we will crush the Polish Primorsky Army!" (To be continued.) )