Chapter 265: The End of France (35)

The British and French forces in the original time and space did not retreat blindly, they also fought back.

In order to stop the German advance and hold the defense line, the commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Viscount Gort, ordered a counterattack against the German flank near the small town of Arras in northwestern France, attempting to delay the German offensive to avoid being surrounded by the British.

Frankly speaking, the British counterattack this time was really excellent. The German army was still unaware of the situation when it came to the end, and the German army failed in the first confrontation. The reason was that the British army used the Matilda 2 tank that had been hidden for a long time. The armor of this tank, especially the front armor, was extremely thick. The armor-piercing shells fired by the German standard 37mm anti-tank gun were like tickling, and had no effect on the Matilda tank. Some soldiers even fired at the risk of being injured at a distance of 5 meters from the Matilda, but still could not penetrate the armor of the Matilda. At this time, the bravery of the soldiers was meaningless. All they could do was watch the Matilda rotating turret, destroying the German anti-tank guns one by one, and then rushing into the German positions to wreak havoc on the Germans. The Germans suffered heavy casualties, and even Rommel's adjutant Lieutenant Most was killed by the British army only 1 meter away from Rommel.

In a hurry, Rommel transferred the 88mm anti-aircraft guns and 105mm field guns in the division to use as anti-tank guns in the defense line. At the last moment, a lot of explosives were set around the positions to stop the Matilda tanks. The British Expeditionary Force was forced to stop advancing after suffering losses. Later, Rommel, with the support of the German Air Force, launched a successful counterattack and drove the British army back.

As the secret weapon of the British Empire, the Matilda II tank first appeared in the Arras counterattack.

In the 1930s to the late 1940s, the British military divided tanks into: infantry tanks and cruiser tanks. Among them, the requirements for infantry tanks are: strong armor protection; not too high a speed so that the infantry charging on foot can keep up; not requiring strong attack power, the tank's weapons only need to have a machine gun. These requirements are indeed not high, but the restrictions on the cost are also very strict, and the cost of the whole vehicle is only 6,000 pounds.

Soon, the largest arms manufacturer in the UK, Vickers, designed a Matilda I tank with only one vehicle-mounted machine gun for infantry support. The Matilda II tank has made many improvements in design compared to the original I type. The thickest part of the armor has reached 78 mm. The original turret position has also been improved from a 7 mm caliber vehicle-mounted machine gun to a 2-pound (40 mm) caliber high-speed tank gun.

Although this counterattack ended in the failure of the British army, the Matilda heavy tank as a "trump card" can be said to be almost invincible.

Even Rommel, the "Desert Fox" who would dominate North Africa in the future, once exclaimed when he saw the Matilda heavy tank in the distance: "It would be great if we could have such a tank too." It can be said that in the early days of the war, the Germans had no weapons that could stop the Matilda except using minefields to trap the Matilda, sending infantry to blast it at close range, and using powerful 88mm anti-aircraft guns.

This time it was very different. The German jackal tank was equipped with a 50MM KwK 39L/60 tank gun, and the vertical armor penetration at a distance of 500 meters could reach 88mm. The infantry not only had the Hunter destroyer equipped with the same powerful tank gun, but also had individual rockets with a penetration depth of 220mm.

Having seen the French B1 heavy tank being beaten to a pulp, Viscount Gort did not dare to let his armored forces fight back easily. After all, Prime Minister Churchill repeatedly urged that the expeditionary force must be brought back intact.

But not fighting back does not mean they can be safe and sound.

At this time, Admiral Wells, the commander of the 1st Armored Division of the British Expeditionary Force, looked at the oil statistics report he had just received and sighed deeply.

The 1st Armored Division of the United Kingdom was an armored unit established by the United Kingdom after the First World War. During the First World War, the British first used tanks in actual combat. On the battlefield, some British commanders realized the importance of preparing armored units for combat. At that time, many countries were still unfamiliar with tanks, and Britain had already taken the lead in using mechanized troops on the battlefield in World War I, so after the war, some commanders of the British military wanted to strike while the iron was hot to form a real armored unit.

The 1st Armored Division included 2 armored cavalry brigades composed of tanks and armored vehicles, 1 tank brigade, 2 mechanized infantry battalions, and some artillery and engineer support units.

At this time, the 1st Armored Division of the United Kingdom had 500 tanks, most of which were light tanks.

They retreated all the way from Brussels to here, being chased by German infantry and armored forces and retreating all the way. They lost countless supplies on the road, and left nearly 120 tanks to block the German army. As a result, they still couldn't get rid of the German army behind them.

The most fatal thing is that there is a lot of fuel in the lost supplies, and the French transportation line has been cut off by the Germans, and it is impossible to deliver supplies to them; they are armored forces, and once the fuel supply of armored forces is cut off, they will be a pile of broken copper and rotten iron.

Viscount Gort repeatedly urged them to speed up the retreat, but they are not infantry, and they can walk at any time. Without fuel, can they be asked to carry tanks and run?

Admiral Wells roughly calculated that the remaining fuel can only allow his division to go more than 50 kilometers away from Dunkirk, and then they will have to shut down.

Now he had only two choices. Either he could charge forward and go as far as he could. When he couldn't go any further, the tank soldiers would get off and become infantrymen to continue moving forward. Or he could abandon another batch of tanks and armored vehicles and gather the fuel. In this way, the remaining tanks should be able to reach Dunkirk. But they had already lost nearly 100 tanks. If they lost another batch, it would be equivalent to losing half of the tanks of the entire armored division to the German army.

"Damn it, this is too cowardly!" Even rabbits bite when they are anxious, let alone the proud British Empire soldiers.

After a fierce curse, Admiral Wells called the communicator. "Send a telegram to His Excellency Viscount Gort, telling him that I will personally lead an armored brigade and an anti-tank artillery regiment to stop the German army and buy time for the large army!" Being chased by others like this, even if they could retreat to Dunkirk, they might not even have the opportunity to build a defense line and would be flattened by the German armored forces.

When he called his men together to announce the decision, they all volunteered to stay, but all were rejected by Admiral Wells. "Don't talk nonsense, I have made up my mind. The German army will catch up with us at any time, you hurry up and collect fuel!"