gnovel Chapter 55: Heavy Artillery Strike Detected En route
Chapter 55: Heavy Artillery Strike Detected En route
Chapter 55: Heavy Artillery Strike Detected En route
The German 19th Panzer Corps forward command post was located 15 kilometers from the direction of Berg.
General Heinz Guderian was not angry.
At least, he wasn't as angry as his Prussian colleagues who only knew how to yell at maps.
The "father of Blitzkrieg" showed little surprise at the fact that William Monk was hung on the walls of Berg like a dead dog.
On the contrary, deep down he vaguely felt that the British commander had done a good thing—he had done a necessary "clean-up" for the armed forces, sweeping these political scoundrels who only caused trouble for professional soldiers into the rubbish heap where they belonged.
Like Lieutenant General Sharl, he believed that the SS political fanatics in their fine uniforms, aside from marching in parades and clearing out Jews in the rear, often behaved like a bunch of amateur actors in the face of real hard battles.
Monk's death merely confirmed his long-held belief: fanaticism cannot replace tactical skill.
What truly infuriated Guderian was the latest battle report from the 10th Panzer Division placed before him.
"The attack was thwarted."
On that report stained with mud and oil, those four words stood out starkly.
"The enemy continues to put up a fierce resistance, relying on its strong medieval city walls and well-developed underground fortifications. Our division currently lacks heavy siege weapons to effectively destroy such permanent fortifications. Frontline casualties are increasing, and continuing a direct assault is pointless."
Guderian put down the report, took off his glasses, and rubbed his slightly sore eyes. He walked to the huge battle map, his gaze locking onto the small town of Berg, which stood like a nail blocking the path of his armored spearhead.
He didn't need Monk's death to jolt him; the situation on the tactical map was enough to illustrate the problem—or worse, the awkward situation the entire 19th Panzer Corps was currently facing.
Guderian's finger traced the coastline on the map.
The 19th Armored Corps is now like a forked three-pronged rake, fiercely thrusting into the last defensive perimeter of the British and French forces, but every single prong is snapped shut.
On the left flank, the 1st Armoured Division was advancing toward Furney, but instead ran headlong into the core defensive line of the British 1st Corps.
The main force of Arthur's unit, the Cold Creek Guards, was stationed there.
These British men, who usually wore bearskin hats at the entrance of Buckingham Palace and were mocked by the Germans as the "Red Guard," displayed a despairing level of tactical skill here. As soon as the tanks of the 1st Armored Division arrived, they decisively blew up all the aqueducts and small dikes around Flörné, turning the entire lowland into a huge, sticky mud pit.
Those Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks that should have been speeding along the highways were now all stuck in the mud.
The Cold Creek Guardsmen buried themselves in the damp, cold trenches like groundhogs, using the mud as cover and machine guns and grenades to turn the place into a World War I-style trench warfare scene that Guderian found nauseating, as if he had traveled back to the Somme battlefield in 1917.
Lieutenant General Kirchner, commander of the 1st Panzer Division, called Guderian three times in one day to complain, his voice filled with despair: "My tank tracks are completely stuck in mud, I can't move! And those damned British Guards are hiding in the mud, even if a tank runs over their heads, they'll crawl out from behind and stuff explosives into the gaps between our tracks!"
"This isn't a blitzkrieg, sir! This is like swimming in concrete!"
The unspoken message is simply: It can't be pushed! It's impossible to push it!
In the central sector, the 2nd Armored Division attempted to capture Niupot, aiming to seize the sluice gates that determined the fate of the entire battlefield.
But the situation there was even more frustrating for him than on the left wing.
The 2nd Armored Division wasn't that it couldn't win, but rather that it simply didn't dare to fight.
Those seemingly ordinary sluice gates and dikes were the Achilles' heel of the entire Flanders Lowlands. Guderian strictly forbade heavy artillery bombardment or air raids on the core area of Niupt—because if the sluice gate structure were damaged, or if the British were forced to breach the dikes, the North Sea would instantly flood in.
At that time, let alone an attack, the entire operational area where the 19th Armored Corps is located will instantly turn into a vast expanse of water, and those expensive tanks will have to be fed to the fish.
The unit stationed here is another elite force from the British 1st Corps.
These cunning British seemed to have seen through the Germans' weakness. They set up machine gun positions, mortars, and explosive charges directly on the sluice gate's machine room and the dam, turning the battle into a disgusting game of "dancing on eggs."
The left wing is mired in a World War I-style quagmire, while the center is held hostage by a looming threat.
Faced with such a suffocating strategic deadlock, the loss of Monk on the right wing sounded like absolutely good news for the 19th Panzer Corps, which commanded tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks.
But the reality facing Guderian was cold and cruel:
All three routes were blocked.
This is the mud, flood, and steel-cast walls that blitzkrieg fears most; in the face of these three, all sharpness will be worn down.
Guderian stared intently at the massive battle map, his face grim and his brow furrowed. He was searching for the future of the 19th Panzer Corps, but the source of his anxiety was not only the stalemate at the front, but also that damned telephone behind him, which could ring at any moment.
In all of Germany, no, in the whole world, perhaps only a very few people know what a crazy gamble Heinz Guderian is currently undertaking.
He is disobeying orders.
The Supreme Command's order to "cease advance" remained in effect, and the Führer hoped to preserve the strength of the armored forces, even fantasizing about handing over the final cleanup work to Göring's air force.
Every shell fired now, every turn of the tracks, is a forced action by Guderian under the guise of "fire reconnaissance," with the tacit approval of General Kleist and Field Marshal Bock, and under immense political pressure from Berlin.
But how long can they hold out for me? Half a day? Or only a few hours?
Guderian repeatedly asked himself this question. He knew very well that if he couldn't achieve any substantial results before dawn, if he couldn't break through the Anglo-French defenses, then what awaited him was not the Knight's Cross of the Oak Leaves, but immediate dismissal, or even a military court.
He was even more anxious than the British who were rushing to board the ship and escape.
His gaze finally locked onto Berger.
Compared to the other two British strongholds, Berg, defended by the French, seemed easier to breach and was the linchpin of the entire front.
But this city is like a fishbone stuck in your throat.
Guderian's finger slammed into the coordinates: "If we don't remove it, the 10th Panzer Division will be immobilized. And if I go around it at all costs, my entire right flank and rear will be completely exposed to the British."
He no longer had any chips left to gamble on at this gambling table.
So he decided to flip the table.
"Since the 10th Division's teeth can't bite this bone—"
Guderian turned around and gave the order that would decide Berg's fate to the operations staff behind him, his tone devoid of any emotion: "Then use a different sledgehammer to smash it."
"Contact Army Group Command. Tell Field Marshal Bock that I don't need air support; I don't trust that fat Göring. I need to borrow the 610th Heavy Artillery Battalion."
The staff officer paused, clearly taken aback by the rank of the order: "Your Excellency, the 610th Battalion is equipped with 210mm heavy mortars, which are designed to deal with the Maginot Line. To use them against a small place like Berg—"
"Too wasteful?"
Guderian interrupted him coldly, his eyes filled with impatience: "Tell them I want to see Berg disappear from the map before dawn. I don't care if it's stone or flesh, I just want the road to be flat."
"Execute the command. Let the hammer fall."
1940年6月3日，06：45AM，伯尔格市政厅地下指挥所。
[WARNING: High Energy Signature Detected]
[Source direction: Northeast, distance 18 kilometers]
[Type Identification: Characteristics of Cluster Firing of Large-Caliber Artillery]
The alarm came without warning.
The morning sun slanted in through the ventilation window high up in the basement, and everything looked so peaceful in that beam of dusty light. Arthur sat on an ammunition box, trying to soothe the fatigue of the previous night with a cup of French military-grade instant coffee.
Suddenly, the RTS interface in front of him exploded into a blinding crimson without warning.
That deep, almost blackish red hue instantly awakened a chill deep within Arthur's soul as a veteran RTS player. At that moment, he even experienced a vivid auditory hallucination, as if he were hearing the cold, mechanical, yet ultimately destructive notification from StarCraft: "Nuclear Launch Detected."
It wasn't the yellow alert signifying "tactical threat" that appeared when 105mm howitzers were detected before, nor was it the purple marker signifying "spiritual pollution" that appeared when the SS appeared.
This is a deep red color that has never appeared before, representing absolute destruction.
"Damn it—"
Arthur abruptly stood up, the movement so forceful that it knocked over the ammunition box beneath him. The tin coffee cup in his hand slammed onto the concrete floor with a jarring clang, scalding brown liquid splashing all over his military boots, but he was oblivious.
In that instant, the RTS player's survival instinct took over his brain—his eyes darted around frantically, trying to switch screens on the tactical map on his retina, searching for that damn, flashing red dot.
That's muscle memory etched into your bones, the adrenaline rush that every StarCraft player feels when facing a Ghost guiding a nuclear missile.
Arthur's tactical instinct: counterattack.
If he could find and destroy the position before the enemy completed their final corrections—just like he had previously used the terrain to flood that unfortunate German artillery battalion—he could break Death's finger before it pulled the trigger.
"18 kilometers?!"
However, the constantly flashing, cold distance reading in the lower right corner of his retina instantly extinguished all his hopes.
Arthur's heart sank to the bottom.
With the expansion of his combat units, especially after connecting to the data link of the massive "ally" French 12th Division, his RTS system's detection radius has been enhanced to an epic degree—the boundary of the "fog of war" has been pushed outward by a whopping 10 kilometers.
Within this absolute radius, he is an omniscient and omnipotent god.
Thanks to the excellent visibility this morning, the real-time rendering accuracy of the RTS system was outrageously high—he could even see the red, swollen pimples on the face of a new SS recruit assembling in a formation several kilometers away, and even read the German trademark on the cheap cigarette pack next to his mouth.
At that moment, perhaps on some high point of the city wall, a dutiful French observation post was peering into the enemy lines with a high-powered Zeiss telescope. Every frame of light and shadow captured by his retina, perhaps without his own awareness, was transformed into a high-precision texture in Arthur's mind through the system's data link, and could be tracked in real time.
But 18 kilometers?
That is a blind spot beyond God's vision.
It was a black abyss that he could neither touch nor explore, yet which could freely project death upon him.
Beyond the 10-kilometer radius of the tactical map in his mind, illuminated by the map, lay a thick, asphalt-like fog of war. He could clearly see countless red ballistic trajectories, representing death, emerging from the darkness and whistling into his territory, but he couldn't find the source of the attacks.
The system couldn't mark those artillery pieces. He couldn't see the muzzle flashes or the artillery positions.
He was like a person standing in a brightly lit room, being hunted by a sniper hiding in the dark wilderness outside. He could see the bullets coming, but he couldn't see the one firing the shot.
Unable to retaliate with artillery fire. Unable to call in airstrikes. They can only take the hits.
Before he could recover from this feeling of powerlessness, it felt as if a red-hot steel needle had pierced his brain.
The RTS system is screaming.
Data Stream Overload
[WARNING: Multiple super-heavy ballistic trajectories detected]
On his retina, countless red parabolas were being generated, intertwined, and collided wildly.
There are too many, and the speed is too fast.
These were not the conventional artillery pieces he had seen in games. These projectiles were ridiculously high, as if they were going to penetrate into the stratosphere and then, at an almost vertical angle, bathed in the golden light of dawn, carrying tons of kinetic energy and hundreds of kilograms of high explosives, crashing to the ground like meteorites.
That was the wrath of the god of war.
"Everyone! Get to cover!!"
Ignoring the warm liquid dripping from his nostrils, Arthur roared with all his might, "Heavy artillery! It's a heavy artillery barrage! Everyone on the surface, get into the underground bunkers immediately! Now!!"
The French staff officers in the command post were stunned for a second, but they were immediately terrified by Arthur's ferocious expression and blood-covered face. Major General Rensen almost instinctively jumped up, grabbed the still-stunned communications soldier, and shoved him under the table.
"Sound the air raid sirens! Quickly!"
The piercing alarm instantly blared through the night sky of Berg.
But Arthur knew that wasn't enough.
He endured a splitting headache, forcing his vision to focus, trying to find the first impact point in the jumbled ballistic chart.
[Ballistics Correction Prediction]
[Expected landing points for the first wave: City Hall Square, South Barracks, and the breach in the eastern city wall]
"Higgins! Take your men and get off the eastern wall gun emplacements immediately! Forget those damned anti-aircraft guns! Run!"
Arthur grabbed the phone and yelled.
"Sir? But they're German infantry—"
"Fuck your infantry! If you're not out there in ten seconds, you won't even be left ashes! Run!!"
Arthur cut off the communication and slumped against the damp wall, utterly exhausted. Blood streamed from his nostrils and the corners of his eyes, dripping onto the binoculars on his chest.
The RTS interface in Arthur's brain has turned into a snowy mess of static and gibberish; RTS is forcibly reducing its frequency to protect Arthur's brain from burning out.
He did everything he could. He issued a warning. He gave the notification.
Next, it's time for the laws of physics to shine.
About half a minute later.
When the first shell landed, there was no sharp whistling sound.
Because they come too fast and are too heavy.
For soldiers who didn't have time to take shelter in underground bunkers, or who were unfortunately near the point of impact, the first thing they felt was not the sound, but the pressure.
The air seemed to be sucked out in that instant, and eardrums bulged out to their limit. Then, a visible shockwave wall that distorted light, carrying temperatures of thousands of degrees and countless deadly shrapnel, swept everything away.
Boom!
That wasn't an explosion; it was a small-scale geological disaster.
A 120-kilogram 210mm high-explosive grenade, like a giant hammer from heaven, slammed into the 300-year-old fountain sculpture in the center of the city hall square.
There were no craters. In that instant, the entire square seemed to turn into liquid. Tons of stone slabs, soil, and the bronze statue were instantly vaporized, then mixed with black and red flames, forming a mushroom cloud of death fifty meters high.
Within a 100-meter radius of the explosion's epicenter, everything standing was flattened.
Those French soldiers who didn't have time to run into the basement didn't even have time to scream before their internal organs were shattered by the shockwave. Their bodies were thrown into the air like rag dolls, and then torn to pieces by dense shrapnel.
Then came the second shot, the third shot, the tenth shot—
This was completely different from the previous Stuka dive bombing.
While the 250-kilogram aerial bombs dropped by those "Screaming Death" aircraft were indeed incredibly powerful, easily overturning tanks and collapsing buildings, they were ultimately "pulse" strikes—the aircraft needed to dive, drop bombs, pull up, and return to base.
Between the two waves of attacks, the survivors at least have a window of opportunity to catch their breath and pray.
But what falls now is "assembly line" death.
While a 210mm heavy mortar may be far inferior to an aerial bomb in terms of single-shot propellant charge, it excels in its despair-inducing sustained firepower and density.
The German artillery didn't need to return to base. A German heavy artillery battalion only needed to mechanically repeat the actions of "loading, pulling the rope, and ejecting the shells," like a tireless steel pile driver, to evenly spread destruction across every inch of Börg at a rate of dozens of rounds per minute.
The earth was trembling.
The real tremor wasn't the instantaneous shock of an explosion, but a continuous, low-frequency resonance, as if the earth's tectonic plates were fracturing. The entire underground command center felt like a tin can thrown into a blender; even the air seemed to thicken from the excessive vibrations.
The people hiding in the underground command post felt like they were inside a tin can that was shaking violently. Dust fell from above, the maps and water glasses on the table bounced around, and the originally solid concrete support columns creaked with a teeth-grinding sound, as if they would break at any moment.
"My God—"
Major General Mori covered his head and cowered under the table.
As a survivor of the Verdun meat grinder, he shouldn't have been in such a sorry state—after all, in that crazy era, he had witnessed far more terrifying 420mm "Big Bertha" siege guns and heard the apocalyptic roar of tens of thousands of cannons simultaneously.
But because he had experienced it, he understood the despair of this moment better than anyone else.
Back in Verdun, he was protected by a formidable fortress of reinforced concrete and granite, several meters thick; but now, between him and the 210mm heavy grenades raining down from the sky, are only the fragile red brick floors of the Berg City Hall, as thin as biscuits.
This is practically a death sentence.
Each tremor of the earth awakened PTSD that had been dormant in his bones for twenty years. Every loud bang told the old general: This time, no fortress can save you.
The Germans are systematically demolishing the city using the most violent methods of physics.
With each loud bang, Arthur's body would involuntarily twitch.
Although he no longer paid attention to the marked shell landing points on the RTS, his instinct to connect with the battlefield data stream still allowed him to feel the yield of each explosion.
His brain was like an overloaded seismograph, faithfully recording every painful groan of the city.
"Report casualties!" Arthur wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, his voice low and terrifying.
The radio was filled with static noise and intermittent screams.
"East city wall—the east city wall has collapsed! 3rd Company—the 3rd Company has lost contact!"
"The southern barracks has been razed to the ground! My God, there's still a platoon of wounded soldiers there who haven't been evacuated—"
Bad news kept coming. Faced with overwhelming firepower, morale, tactics, and courage all became meaningless.
Under heavy artillery fire, all beings are equal.
Arthur closed his eyes.
He knew he couldn't save everyone. His system could issue warnings, but it couldn't withstand the energy released by hundreds of kilograms of explosives. All he could do was give more people a chance to shrink one centimeter deeper into the bunker in those fractions of a second.
The bombing lasted for a full fifteen minutes.
Those fifteen minutes felt longer than fifteen years to the defenders of Berg. When the last shell landed, when the suffocating explosion finally ceased, a deathly silence followed.
And then came the heart-wrenching screams of the wounded, and the crackling sounds of countless buildings collapsing and burning.