"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

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

"I was still discovered!" Major Hoptman Walter Cork murmured in a low voice.

The Miuta Special Forces was born, served as the company commander of the 8th Paratrooper Company in the Battle of Poland, and led an airborne officer who had parachutes in Lviv. He is now leading a "Kork Commando" composed of 493 elite special forces (mainly from the First Paratrooper Regiment and Brandenburg Special Forces) to carry out a bold surprise attack mission.

Their surprise attack target was Eben Emmel Fortress, which is a key stronghold of the Belgian army on the Albert Canal defense line, guarding three important bridges, and using artillery to control all ferries on the Albert Canal and the Maas River within a radius of 16 kilometers.

If the German army cannot capture this fortress in the early stages of the Belgium campaign, then the German army that broke into Belgium through the Netherlands would be blocked in the "Maastricht cecum area" east of the Elbert Canal, passing through the city of Maastricht, and the Elbert Canal passes through the west of Maastricht. To the south of Maastricht, the canal and the Maast River will quickly move closer and become a "parallel river". In the north of Maastricht, the Maast River and the Albert Canal are connected by an artificial river, so it looks like a cecum from the map.

Because the surrounding rivers are crisscrossed, once the main bridge is blown up and the main ferry is controlled by artillery, it will be difficult for the German army to break through quickly.

Therefore, since its completion, the three plans to seize the fortress were developed, which were the focus of the research of the General Staff of the German Wehrmacht. The three plans to seize the fortress were formulated long before the outbreak of the World War.

The first option is to use super cannons for bombardment, which is a conventional means to seize the fortress.

However, the Eben-Emel Fortress is very strong. It is a fortress built on a small granite highland. Its northeast and northwest are almost vertical cliffs, about 40 meters high and the surging Albert Canal passes under the cliff; the south is separated by a wide anti-tank trenches and a reinforced concrete protective wall of 6 meters high and 2 meters high and 2 meters thick. There are also large minefields outside the protective wall and trenches.

It is impossible to destroy granite cliffs in the northeast and northwest with cannons, only bombard the concrete walls in the south. However, to directly bombard the high walls with cannons, you must first transport the cannons across the Maas River and the Albert Canal. This is a very difficult task!

The second solution is to use heavy armor-piercing bombs to blow up several major artillery bases in the fortress, destroy the firepower of the fortress, and at the same time, use infantry to seize three bridges built on the Albert Canal.

The difficulty of this plan is that it is difficult to directly hit the cannon base by bombs, and the infantry attack cannot be successful in a very short period of time. Because the Belgians used three infantry brigades to guard three bridges respectively. Although they could not stop the German attack, there was still time to bomb the bridge.

The third solution is to boldly use airborne troops! Carry out assaults from the air, seize the fortress and remove the explosives placed by the Belgians on three bridges. Now this solution is the first choice to seize the fortress!

To ensure the suddenness of the air assault, Ms. Hannah Leche, a technical consultant to the Luftwaffe General Staff (she has been a test pilot of the Luftwaffe since 1937) also proposed a bold plan to use the H-Cylinder aircraft to airborne the flat top of the Eben-Emel Fortress (because Belgium did not have radar at this time, it used sound to locate the aircraft, and the H-Cylinder did not make sound when flying).

According to this finally adopted raid plan, the assault troops will take 42 ds-0b-1h gliders (including 445 pilots in total) and several ju52 transport aircraft (47 people) and conduct raids in two batches. First, the h gliders quietly descended from the sky to launch a raid, and then the ju52 dropped paratroopers, ammunition and some weapons.

However, when 41 Ju52 transport aircraft cut off the ropes of the same number of ds-0b-1h gliders and began to turn back, the Belgian anti-aircraft guns were still fired.

"Major, the Belgians are opening fire at Aunt Junker!" The voice of the h-shock pilot came from the speakers in the cabin.

Major Cork picked up the phone and shouted: "Don't worry about the Belgian anti-aircraft guns, we will continue to carry out our mission! Go and win victory and glory for Germany!"

"As for orders, Major!" The driver's voice came from the speakers again, "The h-glider began to assault the predetermined target!"

"Okay!" said Major Cork, "they will succeed! We parachute in 15 minutes!"

At 5:15 am on April 10, 1940, 41 h-gliders (the cable of one h-glider was disconnected in advance and landed in the Netherlands) that belonged to four attack teams began to launch an aerial assault on four targets.

Among them, the "Iron Group" (code name of the assault squad) commanded by Lieutenant Gustav Utman is to seize the Feldwezet Bridge; the "Concrete Group" commanded by Lieutenant Gerhacht is to seize the Fronhofen Bridge; the "Soldering Iron Group" commanded by Lieutenant Martin Schacht is to seize the Cannes Bridge; and the "Gramite Group" commanded by Lieutenant Rudolf Witzheis is to airborne the flat top of the Eben-Emel Fortress, and to destroy the fortress's main battery and machine gun tower with less than 100 people, clearing obstacles for subsequent infantry attacks!

...

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

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

At 5:25, Hessman's baby son Rudolph shouted in the cockpit of a Folk Zero aircraft. He first witnessed a DS-0b-1h glider being hit by the Belgian ground fire. The H glider was broken into two pieces and fell to the ground. Two minutes later, he saw the scene of the bridge being blown up.

"Rudolph! Focus on it, your mission is to cover the air!" Lieutenant Heinz Barr's scolding came from his headphones.

"But, but there are no enemy planes..." Rudolph looked around. There was no shadow of any enemy plane in the air. Only dozens of Folk Zero and B-109s were flying freely. So he wanted to use Folk Zero's 20mm machine gun to support the airborne German commando.

Lieutenant Barr continued to scold, "Lieutenant, today's Air Eighth Cover Mission has just begun. We are going to fly in the sky for 5 hours. Just leave some strength for me."

The Folk Zero is a fighter with a long air stagnation time and can hover in the sky for up to 7 hours. However, under normal circumstances, the time for an air-optimal cover mission will not exceed 5 hours, otherwise the pilot will be too tired and affect his performance.

"I understand, Lieutenant." Rudolph looked at the ground 3,000 meters below. He saw that fireballs were rising near the bridge that had just exploded, and it seemed that fierce fighting was taking place. On the land belonging to the Netherlands to the east of the battlefield, countless tanks, armored vehicles and trucks were marching forward in a long line on several roads connecting the bridge.

Obviously, the ground attack has begun now! As long as one of the three bridges has not been destroyed by the Belgians, these German armored and motorized clusters that were driven through the Netherlands' Limburg Province can quickly break into the hinterland of Belgium.

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

The voice of Hans Glazer, the commander of the 17th Motorized Reconnaissance Company, came from the headphones of Armored Meyer.

The "Adolf Hitler" guard flag team where Kurt Meier is located is now one of the vanguards of the 18th Army attacking through Limburg, the Netherlands. After passing through a bridge on the Maas River in the Netherlands, he immediately advanced towards the Fronhofen Bridge on the Albert River. The Cannes Bridge was blown up by the Belgians just now. The Fronhofen Bridge is still there!

"Kurt, Kurt, let your assault guns go faster, there is a fierce battle here on the bridge! It is the brothers of the airborne soldiers who are surrounded!"

"I know!" Kurt Meyer shouted at the phone, "We'll be here soon, and let the damn Belgians taste the power of the No. 3 assault gun!"

In this time and space, the concept of assault gun was proposed by Hessman. As early as 1938, before the No. 3 tank was finally finalized, the R&D task of No. 3 assault gun (based on the No. 3 tank chassis) was issued. Before the Polish Battle, the first No. 3 assault gun prototype equipped with a 24-diameter 75mm gun was manufactured. Then, based on the experience gained in the Polish Battle, the No. 3 assault gun type A was manufactured.

Since this assault gun has no turret and is relatively simple in structure, it is cheap and is very suitable for mass production. Therefore, its monthly output quickly exceeded that of the No. 3 tank itself. It was not only equipped with 4 motorized infantry divisions and 3 elite SS flag teams, but some of them were directly assigned to the armored division and were used as tanks.

About a quarter of an hour later, the 6 assault gun companies belonging to the 16th Assault Arsenal Company of the SS "Adolf Hitler" Guard Flag Team (the previous 14 were wrong, and it has been changed to 6, because the assault gun company is an artillery organization, and each company has 6 assault guns) No. 3 assault guns have been deployed into a row in the wilderness east of Fronhofen Bridge.

The motorized infantry following the assault gun operation also got off their respective vehicles, six of which were behind the six assault guns, and the rest also occupied the positions and set up mg34 machine guns and 80mm mortars (34-year-old type).
Chapter completed!