Just as the German troops commanded by Scholznei attacked Port Cabernier and engaged in street fighting with the American defenders. .

There was a rumbling sound of cannons in the distance, which indicates that the US armored forces coming from the east have already launched an assault on the defensive positions deployed by German paratroopers!

The shells fired by the m12 self-propelled cannon (155mm caliber) and m7 self-propelled cannon (105mm caliber) fell on the loose German front line, and the violent explosions made the earth tremble. Everyone, including Brandt and Mitterrand, were now curled up in the foxglove pit, holding the helmets on their heads in their hands, enduring the seemingly endless bombardment of cannons.

However, the Americans' artillery was not accurately shot, and most of the shells fell at the forefront of the German front. This was because half an hour ago, the American vanguard stepped on landmines there. Now the main purpose of the artillery was to clear the minefields buried by the German army and open up passages for the advance of the tanks.

Perhaps because the US armored troops who had traveled overnight did not carry too many shells, their first shelling lasted less than 15 minutes. Brandt knew that after the shelling, it would be a charge of armored and infantry clusters. So he didn't care about the buzzing in his ears, so he jumped out of his hidden fox pit and ran on the front line while shouting: "Prepare for battle and report the losses!"

The German paratroopers who did not die in the shelling just now answered loudly.

“No loss!”

“No loss!”

"A m2 machine gun is damaged!"

"Someone was injured!"

"Ah, God, save me..."

"Oh my God, Carl doesn't seem to move anymore, he's dead..."

Loses and casualties have already occurred, and a heavy machine gun seized from the Americans was lost, and two people were seriously injured and one person was killed. For a paratrooper platoon with less than 40 people, the loss is not light.

"Arms rescue, rescue the wounded..."

Just as the Germans were busy preparing for war and rescuing the wounded, an American m4a3 medium tank appeared in front of Brandt's position under the cover of night. Then three m4a3 tanks roared, and behind these four tanks, there were more than a dozen or twenty American infantrymen.

The A3 model of the m4 tank is a very mature model. Although it is a medium tank, it has a combat weight of 33.65 tons, far exceeding the German medium tank No. 4 H model. Moreover, the m4 tank was developed late and is not the first medium tank in the United States (the No. 4 is the first medium tank in Germany, so there are many defects in design, but the m4 tank was developed based on the m3 Grant and Li medium tank), so the design is very good and all indicators are very balanced.

The improved model of m4 A3 is a medium tank that is better than the initial model. It has an M1 type 76mm l/52 gun that is quite powerful. When using a sub-caliber high-explosive armor-piercing projectile (similar to a pointed tungsten core armor-piercing projectile), the vertical penetration depth at a distance of 500 meters can reach 208mm (homogeneous steel plate), and the vertical penetration depth at a distance of 1,000 meters can reach 175mm (homogeneous steel plate). In theory, it can penetrate the front armor of the e-50a heavy tank!

In addition to the satisfactory firepower, the m4a3 tank's defense is also quite good. The 63.5mm tilted armor on the front can provide a large inclination effect, which is equivalent to a 90mm armored steel plate installed at a right angle. Moreover, due to the use of quite good bulletproof steel plates, the actual protection capacity exceeds 100mm homogeneous steel plates. The front of the m4a3 turret has 89mm vertical armor, which is not as good as the Tiger and E-50, but is far more than the front armor of the No. 4 H-type tank.

If this type of balanced m4a3 meets German armored soldiers and armored grenades, they actually cannot exert any power. Because after the baptism of the Soviet-German war, the German Wehrmacht Army, which has most of the European production capacity, has fully upgraded their armored forces. The e-50 tanks, e-25 tank destroyers and cheetah tank destroyers have become the main equipment, and they are not enemies that medium tanks can deal with. However, the ones who want to fight against the m4a3 tanks are paratroopers with relatively poor firepower, and obviously there is a hard battle to fight.

Brandt put down the night vision telescope in his hand (including a monocular night vision telescope and an infrared spotlight mounted on the telescope), bent down on the front to the gun position of the captured 57mm gun, handed his night vision telescope and the battery on his back to the temporary gunner. Then he pointed to the tank that rushed to the front and said, "Fire in a while, use the Americans' own pointed armor-piercing bullets, fire at 400 meters, and you must hit the target!"

The United States does not yet have the energy to produce shell-piercing armor-piercing bombs, because this shell was developed by the British and was not completed before the fall of the British mainland, so the Americans did not obtain this technology. It was not until the Soviet Union provided the seized German shell-piercing bombs to the United States that the Americans began to imitate it. However, the trial production had just been completed and there was no mass production.

However, the American pointed armor-piercing bomb (the Americans call it the sub-caliber high-explosive armor-piercing bomb) is still very good. The 57mm pointed armor-piercing bomb can penetrate vertical 91mm homogeneous steel plates at a distance of 1,000 meters, and can threaten the Americans' own m4a3 tanks at a distance of 400 meters.

This distance is a little closer during the daytime battle, but it is late at night. For the German army with night vision equipment, 400 meters is just the right time for the night vision equipment used by individual soldiers to ensure that the outline of the tank can be seen at a distance of 400 meters.

The cannon leader nodded and immediately directed his artillery to stuff a pointed armor-piercing bullet produced by the Americans into the barrel.

Brandt continued to run and arrived at the side of the front line next to a mg42 machine gun. Now the German paratroopers' machine gunners are also equipped with night vision devices (the company commander and platoon leader also have them), which can accurately attack targets within 400 meters at night with extremely poor visibility.

"Are you ready?" Brandt asked loudly.

The machine gunner nodded, and Brandt ordered: "Aim at the tank in the front! Don't fire first, wait until the American tank soldiers crawled out before firing."

"I understand." With the help of night vision, the machine gunner pointed the muzzle of the mg42 at the tank that rushed in the front, but did not fire.

"boom!"

At this moment, the M1 type 57mm anti-tank gun opened fire. It was only 400 meters away, and a night vision instrument was available. Moreover, the US-made m1 anti-tank gun was completely counterfeited by the British 17-pound gun, and it was also equipped in the German army. German paratroopers have learned how to use it, so there is no possibility of failure to hit it.

The shell hit the front of the American m4a3 tank in one go, and then a ball of fire flashed out, which seemed to have penetrated the armor. The American tank moved forward one or two meters with inertia and stopped. However, the broken tank did not launch a big explosion. The turret and the hatch door on the top of the car body were then pushed open, and four terrifying crew members crawled out.

It turned out that the 57mm pointed armor-piercing projectile pierced through the armored steel plate on the front of the tank and then hit the tank's gearbox. The transmission of this era was very large, and most of them were installed in the front of the tank body, just blocking the tank's driver. The explosion power of the 57mm pointed armor-piercing projectile was limited and could not break the huge and sturdy gearbox. The explosion power was absorbed by the gearbox. Therefore, except for the driver being stunned, the other four crew members ran out. Of course, the vehicle's losses were not serious. You only need to replace the front armored steel plate and gearbox to use it normally.

However, the German paratroopers who had been through battle had long anticipated this situation. Just as the feet of the four tank crew members who were about to escape from the battlefield landed on the ground, the continuous and harsh gunshots, as if torn apart in line, suddenly rang out. The bullets of the mg42 machine gun flew towards the four poor American tank soldiers like locusts, and they were shot very accurately, knocking them all down in an instant, turning them into corpses covered with blood holes.

The sudden attack of German paratroopers obviously scared most of the Americans on the battlefield for the first time and were easily frightened. Not only did the three tanks not caught fire dare not continue to advance, but even the infantry following behind the tank stopped moving forward. However, facing the German machine guns firing in the dark, these American freedom fighters did not dare to rush out from behind the tank and fire and counterattacked, but all hurried behind the tank.

However, the three m4a3 tanks that stopped advancing began to fight back. The first one was the 7.62mm machine gun on the front of the vehicle body, followed by the 76.2mm main gun began to bombard violently. There were also several mortars placed behind the attacking US troops that began to fire a flare, illuminating a large battlefield like daytime.

The German paratroopers had completed the loading and aiming again, and fired again. The shells flew towards the direction where the muzzle flames kept flashing in the night. Then there was a loud bang, and the shells hit the armored steel plate on the front of an m4a3 tank, but did not form a throughput!

"Damn it, it didn't penetrate." Brandt heard the sound of shells hitting the steel plate, and knew it didn't penetrate. He immediately realized that the American tanks were not easy to deal with, and it was likely to be stronger than the Soviet T-34 series.

"Boom! Boom!"

The Americans' 76.2mm shells fell continuously around the German 57mm anti-tank guns. It was obvious that they had discovered the cannon and were now trying to destroy it with a 76.2mm grenade.
Chapter completed!