Chapter 772 Hawaiian Islands (4)
The bombardment of the German fleet lasted for a whole day and night, and only stopped in the early morning of the next day. This was not good news for the US troops on the island. The cessation of the bombardment meant that the Germans were about to land!
Major General Wilson immediately picked up the phone and ordered the troops hiding in the bunker to enter their respective positions and start counterattacking according to the original counterattack plan.
But when these American soldiers returned to the ground, they saw that the fortifications they had carefully built before had been destroyed by the German artillery fire. The entire position was as desolate as the surface of the moon. There was no position at all.
At this time, giant transport ships were coming one after another on the sea in the distance, and the attack aircraft formation in the sky attacked again, dropping dense bombs on their heads.
"Hide!"
The American soldiers didn't care about anything else and immediately rolled into the nearest craters. Since the position was gone, they could fight using these craters as trenches!
Puff! Puff!
The bomb that fell on the ground did not explode, but began to emit thick white smoke. In an instant, the entire position was surrounded by thick smoke; the German attack aircraft kept dropping smoke bombs, but even the sea breeze could not blow away the smoke.
The American soldiers' vision was completely blocked, and the wide sea in front of them even disappeared. The entire beach was filled with thick smoke, like a white sandstorm.
After a while, they heard the rumbling sound of engines coming from the beach, as if something terrible had landed!
"Tutu! Tutu!" A machine gun position near the beach finally opened fire. Although nothing could be seen in front of them, the sound was enough to prove that the German army had rushed to the beach, and they could only open fire. The bullets swept through the smoke blindly, and no one knew what they hit. Occasionally, screams were heard from the opposite side.
Perhaps stimulated by this machine gun, or realizing that the situation seemed not to be favorable to them, the American soldiers took their weapons and began to shoot blindly. In order to make up for the gap in individual weapons with the German army as much as possible, the US military began to equip a large number of M1 Garand automatic rifles. Although it was not yet at the level of one per person, a squad was already equipped with five or six M1 Garands. The rest of the soldiers used submachine guns or carbines. After this effort, the US soldiers' ability to dump ammunition has also been greatly improved.
Although they could not see anything, these soldiers still pulled the trigger frantically, firing bullets one after another into the smoke, until the magazine made a crisp sound and popped out, they would squat down, take out the magazine full of bullets from their pockets, knock it hard on the helmet twice, and then press it back into the magazine compartment, and then continue to repeat the shooting action.
Finally, the smoke gradually dissipated, and the American soldiers were horrified to see the German tanks rumbling towards them, and the number was not one or two, but at least thirty.
"Oh my God! Tanks!!" The American soldiers were stunned. Are the Germans performing magic? ! How did they get so many tanks ashore at the same time? ! And judging from the depth of the tracks sunk into the sand, they were not the light tanks with thin skin and large fillings, but the main tanks of the German army!
Because of the smoke, they did not see the hovercrafts "floating" out of the German army's giant transport ships. Each hovercraft could carry a jackal tank and two squads of soldiers. Thirty hovercrafts could carry thirty tanks and a battalion of soldiers.
The minefields and barbed wires that the US military had laid on the beach had long been blown away by the intensive artillery fire of the German army. The hovercrafts directly transported these tanks to the depths of the beach.
Before the US soldiers had time to recover, these German tanks were not polite. The 75mm tank guns began to roar, bombing one fire point after another; the machine guns on the tanks fired crazily, like the sickle of the god of death crossing the US military positions, suppressing the US military and making them unable to raise their heads.
"Commander, our first line of defense was breached by the Germans!" A staff officer hurried into the underground command post and reported the bad news to Major General Wilson.
"The German Marines are so strong?" Major General Wilson's face was a little ugly. Although this was already expected by him, he was still very unwilling.
Another staff officer sighed. "Their weapons are much better than ours."
The German attack aircraft almost shot back and forth over their heads, their destroyers had approached to five kilometers away for precise artillery fire, the German tanks were like indestructible monsters, and the weapons and equipment in the hands of the German soldiers were more advanced than theirs.
Among military fans in later generations, the US Marine Corps was jokingly called the fourth class. The first class is the navy, the second class is the air force, and the third class is the army. Because the Marine Corps has much less funding than other arms, and the training intensity is high, the equipment is replaced slowly, and it is always sent to the most dangerous battlefield, so it is naturally the fourth class.
For example, during World War II, the U.S. Army had basically replaced the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle, and the Navy Army was still using the Springfield M1903 bolt-action rifle. They had no choice but to pay for someone to design the M1941 Johnson semi-automatic rifle. The equipment was old, but the battle was not easy. They were transported to the Pacific Islands to fight the Japanese army to the death, so some people simply called them the "suicide squad."
The U.S. Marine Corps has a long history. The earliest Marine Corps can be traced back to 1755 (when the United States was not yet established). The Continental Congress at that time decided to establish an army that was "familiar with maritime affairs and could fight on the sea and on land" - the Continental Marine Corps. And the facts have proved that this force did fight well, attacking many British merchant ships, and harassing British colonies from a distance, making great contributions during the American War of Independence.
By 1834, Archibald Henderson, the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Marine Corps, resisted the plan of U.S. President Andrew Jackson to incorporate the Marine Corps into the U.S. Army. He believed that the Marine Corps should be able to fight against ships at sea and to land on the beach for ground combat. If it was incorporated into the Army, it would endanger the amphibious combat capabilities of the United States.
Finally, after bargaining, the U.S. Congress decided to merge the U.S. Marine Corps and the Navy into one department, which is the Department of the Navy, but the Marine Corps is still an independent branch of the military.
This laid the groundwork for the embarrassing position of the Navy Army. The Navy Army did not have its own military department. The power to purchase equipment and allocate funds for the Navy Army was in the hands of the Navy Minister. During combat, the Navy had to be controlled by the Navy at sea and the Army had to make decisions on land. Some people joked that the Navy Army was truly independent only when it "jumped off the landing ship but had not yet landed".
Due to this embarrassing position, the Navy Army was naturally in a role that was not loved by the grandmother and uncle when it came to military expenditure allocation and equipment deployment, and this was reflected in the war.
Under Yannick's care, the German Marines, like the paratroopers, were equipped with various advanced weapons first.
For example, the firearms they used were all FAL guns, not to mention 98K, even G43 was nowhere to be seen.
FAL semi-automatic rifle, FAL squad machine gun (with heavy barrel, 30-round magazine, bipod, fixed buttstock), assault rifle using 7×43mm intermediate-power bullet (the FAL prototype gun was designed to use the 92x33mm intermediate-power bullet of the German StG44 assault rifle), sniper-type FAL rifle equipped with a 4x scope, etc.