"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

When the dull roar came, Hoptman was sitting in a Ju52 transport plane. Walter. Major Cork chuckled in his heart.

"Still discovered!" Hoptman. Walter. Major Cork muttered under his breath.

Born in the Miuta Special Forces Army, he served as a company commander of the 8th Paratrooper Company in the Polish Campaign, led an airborne officer who parachuted in Lviv, and is now leading a "Cork Commando" of 493 elite special forces (mainly from the 1st Parachute Regiment and the Brandenburg Special Forces) on a daring surprise mission.

The target of their surprise attack was the Eben-Emer Fortress, a key stronghold of the Belgian army on the Albert Canal line, guarding three important bridges and using artillery to control all the crossings on the Albert Canal and the Maas River within a 16-kilometre radius.

If the Germans could not have taken the fortress at the beginning of the Belgian campaign, then the German army that had broken into Belgium through the Netherlands would have been blocked in the "Maastricht cecum zone" east of the Albert Canal - the Maas River passed through the city of Maastricht, and the Elbert Canal passed through the city of Maastricht to the west, and south of Maastricht, the canal and the Maas River would quickly converge into a "parallel river" to the north of Maastricht, where the Maas River and the Albert Canal were connected by an artificial river. So it looks like a cecum from the map.

Because of the surrounding rivers, once the main bridges were blown up and the main crossings were controlled by artillery, it was difficult for the Germans to break through quickly.

Therefore, since the day of its construction, the Eben-Emer Fortress has been the focus of research of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht. Three plans for the seizure of the fortresses were worked out long before the outbreak of the world war.

The first option was to use super-cannons for bombardment, which was a regular means of taking fortresses.

However, the Eben-Emer Fortress is very strong, it is a fortress built on a small granite plateau, its northeast and northwest sides are almost vertical cliffs, about 40 meters high, and the Albert Canal flows through the cliffs; The south is separated by a wide anti-tank trench and a reinforced concrete protective wall 6 meters high and 2 meters thick, and a large minefield outside the protective wall and trench.

It was impossible to destroy the granite cliffs to the northeast and northwest with artillery, only to bombard the high concrete walls to the south. But in order to bombard the wall directly with artillery, it was necessary to transport the cannons across the Maas and Albert Canals. It's a very difficult task!

The second option was to blow up several of the main artillery forts of the fortress with heavy armor-piercing shells, destroy the fire of the fortress, and at the same time take 3 bridges erected over the Albert Canal with infantry.

The difficulty of this scheme was that it was difficult to get the bombshells to hit the artillery barrier directly, and the infantry attack could not succeed in a short time. Because the Belgians guarded 3 bridges with 3 infantry brigades each. Although they could not stop the German attack, there was still time to blow up the bridge.

The third option is the bold use of the Airborne Forces! Strike from the air, take the fortress and dismantle the explosives that the Belgians had planted on 3 bridges. Now this plan is the first choice for capturing the fortress!

In order to ensure the suddenness of the air assault, the technical adviser of the Luftwaffe General Staff, Hannah . Madame Leich (who had been a Luftwaffe test pilot since 1937) also proposed a bold plan to use the H to land on the flat top of the Eben-Emer fortress (because there was no radar in Belgium at this time, the plane was detected by sound positioning, and the H plane did not make a sound when flying).

According to this eventual adopted raid plan, the assault force would be carried out in two groups in two groups, flying in 42 DFS-230B-1H aircraft (445 pilots including the H pilots) and several Ju52 transport planes (47 people). First, the H aircraft silently descended from the sky to launch a surprise attack, and then the Ju52 dropped paratroopers, ammunition and some weapons.

But when 41 Ju52 transport planes cut the ropes of the same number of DFS-230B-1H aircraft and began to turn back, the Belgian anti-aircraft artillery still fired.

"Major, the Belgians are firing at Aunt Juncker!" The voice of the pilot of the H Aircraft was heard from the speakers in the cabin.

Major Cork picked up the intercom and shouted: "Leave the Belgian anti-aircraft artillery alone, we continue on the mission!" Go and win victory and glory for Germany! ”

"Yes, Major!" The driver's voice came from the loudspeaker again, "The H Aircraft has begun to assault the intended target!" ”

"Okay!" Major Cork said, "They will make it!" We parachuted in 15 minutes! ”

At 5:15 a.m. on April 10, 1940, 41 H aircraft belonging to four attack squads (one of the H aircraft had its cables disconnected and landed in the Netherlands) began to launch air assaults on four targets.

Among them by Gustav. The "Steel Group" (code name for the assault squad) commanded by Lieutenant Altman was tasked with taking the Feldwezette Bridge; The task of the "concrete group", commanded by Ensign Gehacht, was to take the Fronthofen bridge; by Martin. The task of the "Soldering Iron Group" under the command of Second Lieutenant Shakter was to seize the Cannes Bridge; And by Rudolph. The "Granite Group" under the command of Lieutenant Wiecschy was to parachute on the flat top of the Eben-Emer Fortress and destroy the main battery and machine gun towers of the fortress with less than 100 men, clearing the way for the subsequent infantry attack!

……

A huge, dazzling fireball suddenly rose from a bridge over the Albert Canal, accompanied by a deafening roar.

"The Belgians blew up the bridge! The Belgians blew up the bridge! ”

At 5:25 a.m., Rudolph, Hersman's precious son, shouted in the cockpit of a Fokker Zero. He first witnessed a DFS-230B-1H being hit by Belgian ground artillery fire, and the H was broken in two and planted to the ground. Two minutes later, he saw the bridge blown up again.

"Rudolph! Concentrate, your mission is to cover in the air! Heinz came to his headphones. Lieutenant Barr's rebuke.

"But, but there are no enemy planes...... Rudolph looked around, there was not a single shadow of enemy planes in the sky, only a few dozen Fokker Zeros and BF-109s flying freely. So he was very keen to use the Fokker Zero's 20mm cannon to support the airborne German commandos.

Lieutenant Barr continued to reprimand, "Second Lieutenant, today's air superiority cover mission has just begun, we are going to fly in the sky for 5 hours, you can spare me some strength." ”

The Fokker Zero is an ultra-long fighter that can hover in the sky for up to 7 hours. However, under normal circumstances, the duration of an air superiority cover mission will not exceed 5 hours, otherwise the pilot will be too tired and affect the performance.

"Understood, Lieutenant." Rudolph looked at the ground 3,000 meters below again, and saw that fireballs were constantly rising near the bridge where the explosion had just occurred, and it seemed that a fierce battle was taking place. On Dutch soil to the east of the battlefield, countless tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks are marching in long lines on several roads connecting the bridges.

Obviously, the offensive on the ground has now begun as well! As long as one of the three bridges was not destroyed by the Belgians, these German armoured-motorized clusters via the Dutch province of Limburg could quickly break into the Belgian hinterland.

"Kurt, Kurt, the bridge is still there! The bridge is still there! ”

Armored Meyer's headset came the commander of the 17th Motorized Reconnaissance Company, Hans. Glazer's voice.

Kurt. Meyer's "Adolf. Hitler's "Flag Guards" were now one of the vanguard of the 18th Army, which had attacked through Limburg, the Dutch, and immediately after crossing a bridge over the Maas in the Netherlands, they advanced to the Fronhofen Bridge over the Albert River, which had just been blown up by the Belgians. The Frönhofen Bridge is still there!

"Kurt, Kurt, get your assault guns to go faster, there's a fierce battle going on here on the bridge! It was the brothers of the Airborne Forces who were surrounded! ”

"Got it!" Kurt. Meyer yelled into the intercom, "We'll be there right away, we'll give the damn Belgians a taste of the power of the No. 3 assault gun!" ”

In this time and space, the concept of assault guns was proposed by Hersmann, and as early as 1938, when the No. 3 tank had not yet been finalized, the task of developing the No. 3 assault gun (based on the chassis of the No. 3 tank) was issued. Before the Polish campaign, the first prototype of the No. 3 assault gun, mounted with a 24x diameter 75mm gun, was built. Subsequently, improvements were made based on the experience gained during the Polish campaign, and the Type 3 assault gun A was created.

Since this assault gun has no turret and is relatively simple in structure, it is inexpensive to build and is ideal for mass production. Therefore, its monthly production soon surpassed that of the No. 3 tank itself, and it was not only equipped with 4 motorized infantry divisions and 3 SS elite flag units, but even some of them were directly assigned to armored divisions and used as tanks.

About a quarter of an hour later, belonging to the SS "Adolf. 6 assault guns of the 16th assault gun company of Hitler's "Guards Banner Corps" (the previous 14 were wrong, it has been changed to 6 units, because the assault gun company is an artillery formation, and each company is 6 assault guns) No. 3 assault guns have been deployed in a row in the wilderness east of the Fronthofen bridge.

The motorized infantry that followed the assault gun action also got out of their respective vehicles, and 6 of the squads followed behind the 6 assault guns, and the rest also took up positions and set up MG34 machine guns and 80mm mortars (34 model).

Seeing that everything was ready to stop, the armored Meyer, who was half leaning out of the top hatch of a No. 3 tank, picked up the intercom and gave a loud order to attack: "Directly ahead of the target, the position of the Belgians under the Fronhofen bridge!" Guards Flag Corps fighters, forward! (To be continued.) )