stonecrandall Chapter 501
Chapter 501
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: 0.066s Scan: 0.028sAfter leaving the Iron Tower City, Dai Gaole’s mood was very complicated.
On the one hand, he was happy that he could lead the army alone.
This means that the problems that have been bothering him for a long time have been solved, and he has finally found a stage to show his strength!
But on the other hand, Dai Gaole was also a little nervous.
The task assigned to him by President Dumelo was very heavy. If he succeeded, then there is no doubt that he would become a hero in the hearts of the Gaul people.
However, if he failed, then he might become the historical sinner of the Gauls’ demise!
This kind of victory or defeat represents a huge difference in results, which puts Dai Gaole under great pressure.
However, he did not retreat. The tall young general had been waiting for such an opportunity for a long time, so even though he knew that he would be under great pressure, he did not choose to give up!
After Dai Gaole led the army to set off, he immediately rushed to the Meuse River area and joined the army stationed there.
He did not send troops directly to attack Dunkirk, but chose to attack the Sedan area on the south bank of the Meuse River!
Sedan is a town in Gaul on the south bank of the Meuse River. The population of this city is not large, but because the Gallic Emperor Napoleon III was captured by the Prussian army here during the Franco-Prussian War, this place is very famous. At least in Gaul, when Sedan is mentioned, many people will subconsciously associate it with the disastrous defeat sixty years ago!
The smoke of the gunpowder has long dissipated, but the former enemy has come back with a ghost!
Compared with sixty years ago, the current Hans is stronger. They are equipped with more advanced weapons and have more advanced tactics!
In Dai Gaole’s view, the reason why the coalition forces were defeated on the front battlefield was not because their soldiers were not as brave as the Hans, but because their commanders were not as smart as Commander Hans!
They were still using the old tactics of the First World War to deal with their enemies!
Needless to say, Gaul spent a lot of time and money to build the Maginot Line, but this line of defense was not attacked by the German army at all. The German army bypassed their direction from the flank, avoiding their sharp edge and attacking them from the side, making their situation quite passive!
The situation in Belgium was not much better, because during World War I, Belgium was forced into the war by Hans, which led to their deep vigilance against Hans and their constant guard against possible invasions by Hans.
Especially during the Ruhr crisis, the Belgians followed Gaul to send troops to Hans’ Ruhr area, which caused Hans to hold a grudge against Belgium. This made the Belgians very worried. They were worried that they would be retaliated by Hans, so they desperately built a military fortress in the border area between themselves and Hans, that is, in the Liege area, which was as strong as the Maginot Line of Gaul! This is the famous Liege Fortress!
The Liege Fortress has existed for a long time. As early as before World War I, a military fortress with a large artillery as its core had been built here. After the end of World War I, the scale of the Belgian fortress was expanded, and the fortress was built more solidly. They imitated the layout of Gaul on the Maginot Line, and built a large amount of reinforced concrete outside the fortress, and also attached a layer of iron sheet.
The 3.5-meter-thick reinforced concrete shell enables them to withstand direct fire from 400-mm cannons. Relying on these indestructible fortifications, most of the Belgian army was deployed around the Liege Fortress to block the German army from going south!
However, the war did not happen as expected. The German army did not choose to attack the Liege Fortress head-on, but chose to start from the Windmill Country and entered the Belgian territory from the long border area between Belgium and the Windmill Country. On
November 16, the day after the fall of Dunkirk, Antwerp, the second largest city in Belgium, also fell.
At this time, the hundreds of thousands of Belgian troops stationed in the Liege area, waiting to fight a decisive battle with the German army heading south, realized that things were not going well and that their retreat was at risk of being surrounded by the German army. Therefore, under the persuasion of the Gallic general George Harut, the Belgian army stationed here agreed to retreat southward.
But it was too late. Just as they were retreating, the German army, which had been silent, began to launch a general offensive against the Liege area from the front.
The 500-meter-caliber Gustav cannon made its debut. This cannon with a range of 35 kilometers can attack the fortress outside the range of the artillery on the Liege Fortress.
The power of the 500mm caliber cannon is twice that of the 400mm caliber shells. The result is that the fortress that was previously expected to withstand the bombardment of the 400mm caliber cannon can’t withstand the bombardment of the 500mm caliber Gustav cannon!
After the German army shot off a few shells at the beginning, they quickly adjusted the sights, and each shot was more accurate than the other. Soon, the Liege Fortress began to be directly hit by the Gustav cannon one after another!
For the coalition forces in the fortress, when they saw the existence of the cannon that could directly destroy their solid fortress defenses, they were already scared!
They had always thought that they could rest easy hiding in the fortress, and the enemy’s attack would never be able to break the fortress’s defense!
However, reality gave them a slap in the face, making them dizzy and dizzy!
The German army had not taken action, not because the other side could not do anything to their fortress, but because they were waiting for this kind of big killer!
The German Third and Fourth Army Groups were responsible for attacking the Liege Fortress on the front.
The task of these two armies was to open up the southward passage blocked by the Liege Fortress as soon as possible to support the First Army Group, which was fighting alone in the south.
At the same time, they also cooperated with the Second and Seventh Army Groups to exert pressure in the north to narrow the German encirclement, like a noose, tightening little by little until the enemy inside was completely strangled to death!
The Liege Fortress was still a great threat to the German army, so the German army did not rashly launch an attack before it was absolutely sure.
World War I and previous wars have clearly shown the world what a heavy price it would pay to attack an enemy position with a solid defense line and powerful firepower!
Such a price is not worth it for the German army. After all, they have already won the battle. As long as they continue to exert pressure, they can eat up the enemies in the encirclement!
At this time, after supporting Guderian’s First Army, Goering’s Air Force made a comeback and ran to the Liege Fortress. They used B-29 to drop hundreds of bunker-buster bombs weighing more than 1.5 tons each into the Liege Fortress, blowing up the main building of the fortress.
This bunker-buster bomb is extremely powerful. They can penetrate the walls outside the fortress, enter the fortress, and then detonate through a delayed fuse.
This kind of explosion inside is very destructive to the fortress.
This bomb was originally used to deal with the Maginot Line in Gaul, but at this time the German army had no intention of attacking the Gaul Line from the front, so all these special ammunition for reserve were given to the Belgians!
B-29 A total of 350 bunker-buster bombs were dropped on the Liege Fortress, destroying nearly 20 permanent fortifications, which greatly undermined the defense of the Liege Fortress!
Moreover, the targeted bombing by German bombers also frightened the other remaining coalition forces!
For the first time, they felt that the fortress, which they had always thought to be their amulet and umbrella, could not withstand the enemy’s attack at all. On the contrary, continuing to hide in the fortress would be life-threatening, because at this time, the fortress had become the enemy’s key target, and staying inside might be affected by the enemy’s attack.
Therefore, the coalition forces, which had completely lost confidence in the Liege Fortress, no longer dared to stay in Liege. They hurriedly abandoned the Liege Fortress and rushed to the south.