章 175: Chapter 253 The French Doomsday (23)

Prime Minister Reynaud called the British Prime Minister's office again. "Mr. Prime Minister..." as he began speaking, a sense of despair welled up, nearly causing him to cry.

Who could have imagined that in just a few days, France, the strongest land army in Europe, would be in such a dire situation?

In fact, various data indicated that France's title as the "strongest land army in Europe" was not just a name.

In terms of the number of troops, the size of the French regular forces had been maintained at around 3 million, surpassing the UK, Germany, and the US, ranking first in the world. When the war broke out, France urgently conscripted citizens into the military, rapidly increasing the total number of troops to 6.99 million in a short period. This was an astonishing figure. After all, France's total population was only around 41 million. This meant that about one in six French people volunteered to join the military.

In terms of weapons and equipment, France was no less equipped than any other world military power. Taking the army as an example, the French army was well-equipped, highly mechanized, and had strong mobility, with a large number of motorized units. Shortly before World War II, the French army had about 5,800 tanks, 14,000 artillery pieces, and 1,562 aircraft on the front lines.

As for the navy, the French navy was one of the most modern in the world, second only to the UK in Europe and superior to Germany, ranking fourth in the world in comprehensive strength. The French navy had 1 aircraft carrier, 3 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 12 light cruisers, and more than 50 destroyers, with 101 submarines.

Moreover, France had spent 11 years building an impregnable Maginot Line. This defensive line was located in the northeastern border region of France, built of reinforced concrete, and equipped with various large-caliber cannons, trenches, fortresses, kitchens, power stations, hospitals, factories, etc. If the German army chose to break through frontally, it would undoubtedly pay a heavy price.

Thinking about all this, Prime Minister Reynaud still couldn't believe that they were about to face the reality of defeat.

It sounded absurd and incredible!

"What happened, Prime Minister?" Sensing Prime Minister Reynaud's unusual tone, Churchill asked.

"Mr. Prime Minister...", Reynaud took a deep breath, not intending to hide it anymore, and spoke with a bit of recklessness. "I'm afraid we're going to lose this battle!"

"What?!" Churchill was suddenly shocked, instinctively asking, "Are you drunk?" It had only been a few days since the war started. What do you mean by losing?

"...", Reynaud sighed deeply. He did want to drown his sorrows in alcohol, but he was afraid that after getting drunk, the first news he would wake up to would be that France had completely lost the war. Just thinking about it made him shudder; how could he dare to get drunk? "Mr. Prime Minister, I am sober now, and what I'm saying is not nonsense."

"Sober?" Churchill had a foreboding feeling. "Has the counterattack around the Meuse River failed?..."

"Yes, Mr. Prime Minister. It failed, the counterattack failed. The German armored forces are continuously crossing the river."

"Oh my God!" Now even Churchill couldn't sit still. "I'm coming over right now! Mr. Prime Minister, let's discuss it in detail when we meet." After hanging up the phone, Churchill immediately ordered his staff to prepare an aircraft and rushed to the airport.

As Churchill's plane took off, in the town of Montcornet, France, the pioneer units of the great Blitzkrieg theorist, France's de Gaulle, and Germany's Guderian, clashed with each other in modern history.

On the German side, it was a tank reinforcement platoon consisting of 25 uniform Jackal tanks (accompanied by armored grenadiers and several Cheetah anti-aircraft tanks), the French had an armored battalion with over a hundred tanks of various models.

This encounter could have been avoided, but the German reconnaissance vehicle monitoring the French armored unit happened to experience a radio malfunction. By the time they urgently returned to report, the French armored unit was already not far away.

The morale of the German tank crews was high, and they bravely faced the approaching threat without hesitation.

Looking at the tank numbers alone, the German side was at a definite disadvantage. However, in terms of tank performance and the combat quality of personnel, the German advantage was substantial. This was the confidence that the German tank crews had in facing the enemy.

Seeing the approaching French tank unit, Captain Hans retreated into the tank and loudly gave orders over the radio. "Prepare for battle! The leading tank is the B1 heavy tank, length 6.30m, width 2.48m. Open fire at 500 meters!"

Anyone who has played certain tank games knows that in the game, as long as the reticle is aimed at the enemy tank, the system will automatically calculate the distance and adjust the gun elevation angle, whether it's a modern tank or an old one. This simplified design assumes that all tanks are equipped with laser rangefinders and ballistic computers, fundamentally making them modern tanks!

Of course, some more hardcore games require players to manually calculate distances, adjust elevation angles, and handle various parameters, making the learning curve quite steep.

Those who have played such hardcore games should have a sense of the difficulty of operating tanks without modern technology, especially in terms of aiming and judging distances.

During World War II, tank sights were divided into non-stabilized and stabilized types. The former was relatively outdated, involving an additional step in the aiming process, and firing took longer. This type of sight was used by the early Soviet Union. The German army, on the other hand, started using more advanced stabilized sights for the Panzer III and IV, while the Soviets adopted them later.

This optical sight gave German tank gunners a significant advantage: they could calculate the target's distance without having to fire a ranging shot in advance. German gunners only needed to remember the length and width of enemy tanks beforehand. During battle, they could calculate the distance based on magnification, the target's length, and width, allowing them to reliably hit the target with the first shot.

Although this was a head-on battle and there was no need to know the enemy tank's side width, Hans reported it out of habit. Even if he didn't say it, the other tank crew members had already memorized it; it was also his habit, almost like an obsession.

"Boom! Boom!" Whether due to nervousness or fear, the French tanks over a thousand meters away began to pause and fire.

"These fools." Seeing this, Hans sneered disdainfully. According to his understanding, not to mention the S35 medium tank or R35 light tank, even the B1 heavy tank had to get close to about 400 meters to have a chance of penetrating their frontal armor. Opening fire from such a distance, were they trying to show off how many shells they had?

As expected, the opposing side fired two rounds without hitting their own side. The most exaggerated shell landed over a hundred meters away from them!

The French seemed to realize that their actions were futile. After moving forward for a few hundred meters, they stopped and fired another round of shells.

"These forgetful..." Before he could finish his sentence, Hans, who was observing the enemy through the periscope, suddenly felt like he had been hit head-on by a speeding train, slamming his head against the tank's steel wall in a massive shock.

After shaking his somewhat dizzy head, he felt a bit more awake. A warm stream flowed down his cheek, and a familiar salty taste appeared at the corner of his mouth. He touched it with his hand, and his palm was covered in fresh blood.

"Damn it!" Cursing fiercely, Hans called out to the other crew members. "Is everyone okay?!"

"Ah, I'm fine."

"Ouch, that hurts!"

"No big deal!"

"Damn it!"

Hearing the responses from the others, Hans breathed a sigh of relief. Although everyone looked quite disheveled, there was no serious harm. He guessed that the impact just now was from the 75mm shell of the B1 heavy tank on the opposite side.

At this moment, there was a continuous sound of gunfire around, and Hans quickly approached the periscope to look at the other side. He saw more than a dozen tanks in the opposing tank group on fire and exploding! Moreover, they were all the most threatening B1 heavy tanks!

"Beautiful!" Shouting in excitement, Hans gave the order. "Everyone, reverse!"

Following his command, the entire tank platoon began to shift into reverse, slowly pulling away from the French, increasing the distance.