my head

ps: Brothers, do you have a double monthly ticket?For the survival of the Führer, vote points! ! ! !

Soon, some Panzer IV tanks reached the river bank (the 4th Division had about 17 of them) and began firing at French fire points less than 20 yards away.The effect of the suppression was obvious, the French firepower weakened, and the crossing began slowly again. "Flender is everywhere. For a while, he indicated the target for the tanks, worked with the engineers for a while, and boosted the morale of the infantry..." Flender followed the first batch of rubber boats to cross the river and went to the earliest A company across the river.There, he found that they were making rapid progress.At this time, someone reported that French tanks were found ahead, and at this time, the German army still had no anti-tank guns to cross the river.Friend immediately ordered small arms fire on the tanks, and the deception apparently worked, and the French tanks retreated.

Flender then returned to the east bank of the river, and once again came to the crossing point of the 6th Infantry Regiment.At this time, crossing the river was in full swing.Here, 20 anti-tank guns have already crossed the river.The engineers were erecting an 8-ton floating ferry, and Flender ordered a 16-ton one to be changed.The engineers were desperate, and the engineer battalion commander and many soldiers were killed.Flender's overly optimistic preparations at noon moved on before securing the bridgehead.However, due to the shelling of the French army, the first batch of tanks did not start to cross the river until evening.At this time, it seemed that the French army was about to launch a counterattack on the bridgehead.The situation was very dangerous at one point, Flender came to the west bank again, and returned to the east bank after understanding the situation, and ordered the tanks to continue crossing the river at night to support the west bank

So, what did the French army opposite Flanders do?Judging from Flanders' account, the resistance of the infantry on the first line of the French army was tenacious.until the evening of the 1th.There are still small French troops holding out on the west bank (behind the German troops crossing the river).but.The performance of the French support forces and chain of command was problematic.From now on, we will continue to see that the French side will miss opportunity after opportunity until they fall into the abyss due to the lack of discipline, lack of enterprise, weak communication links and obsolete command staff.

Actually, 13th.The main forces of the German Air Force are supporting Guderian, and there is very little support for Flanders.Therefore, France's failure in this region can only find its own reasons.The first problem of the French army was that the German army was too fast, and the 1th Infantry Division (18th, 66th and 77th regiments) responsible for defending the river bank were not all in place.The 125th regiment facing Flender was particularly weak.Second, the French were slow to respond due to a weak communication system.At 66 o'clock in the morning, the commander of the 1th Motorized Division received the news of the German crossing from the 5st battalion defending Hawkes. Five hours later, although his headquarters was only 5 miles from the front line, he could not communicate with that battalion.Without any choice.He sent a team of motorcycles and a few light armored vehicles to scout the river bank.

(这可能就是中午弗兰德用轻武器击退的那支法军) 上午10点，第5摩托化师决定使用其第129团向豪克斯渡河的德军反击。时间定于下午1点，不过这个团直到下午2点才开始行动，几乎立刻就因为敌机的威胁而延迟。反击的任务随后由第2步兵军的一个精锐的摩托化龙骑兵团接手。但这个团报告说他们=直到晚上8点以前不能准备好，于是进攻就被推迟到第2天早上。-----所有这些就是法国第9集团军的最好部队的最大努力。

For the French 18th Division, the connection between its 3 regiments was almost broken.General Martin, the commander of the 11th French Army, had to come to the headquarters of the 18th Division in the afternoon. General Martin met the commander of the 39th Regiment here. Scout.General Martin then ordered the 8th to counterattack the river and "throw the Germans into the river."The counterattack would be supported by a company of tanks and three artillery battalions, and the attack would be launched at 39:3 pm.Meanwhile, the 7th Regiment reported being exhausted, the 66th Regiment was fleeing, and the 77th Regiment could not be contacted.All of these are just the achievements of several infantry companies of Flender, who have not yet had any heavy weapon support.

At 6:39 in the evening, the 8th regiment reported that the regiment could not arrive on time, and the counterattack was postponed until 7:45.However, by [-]:[-], the regiment again reported that it could not advance.So the tank company had to attack alone.The tank easily swept the Germans in front of it. However, without infantry support, the tank could not hold its position and could only retreat before dark. -----This is the whole effort of the French army on the German bridgehead.If Flender hadn't come to the front line in person, and if the French army had a little more aggressive spirit, history might have been rewritten. At least, if the German bridgehead could be wiped out, although the German army would inevitably regain strength later, it would undoubtedly buy time for France.At this time, the German bridgehead had only a small area, without heavy weapons and anti-tank guns.A company of tanks can already sweep everything.

Throughout the night, the German tankers waited anxiously for the engineers to build the bridge.At this time, the news of the German army's strength on the Metz River began to slowly reach the headquarters of Ganmaling.The first is the Haux area, followed by the counterattack of the French 9th Army.Until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, there was a snowflake of news about Sedan (Guderian) from the 2nd Army.The French chain of command apparently did not realize the seriousness of the problem.General George briefly told Gamelin: The front line in the Sedan area is under a little pressure!!!

At 13:7 am on the 15th, Guderian issued the final order on crossing the river.At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the 6th SS Panzer Corps will cross the river from the Bar to Bazeje around Sedan.The 2nd Armored Division, if it can arrive, will cross the river at Dancharli on the right flank; the 21st Armored Division will cross the river at Torcy, slightly north of Sedan; the 22nd Armored Division will be on the left, crossing the river downstream of Torcy Seize the high ground on the other side.The main attack was undertaken by the 21st Armored Division. After crossing the river, the division had to quickly control the road from Torcy to Bellevue and the surrounding highlands, and uproot the French positions in the Sedan area.The 1st Armored Division was reinforced with the "Grossdeutschland" infantry regiment, the heavy artillery battalions (22mm) of the 23nd and 150rd Armored Divisions and an assault engineer battalion.All firepower will be concentrated on a 2-mile breakthrough.The crossing was carried out by 1 battalions of Lieutenant Colonel Balck's 3st Infantry Regiment and 4 battalions of the "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment.In order to encourage his troops, Guderian told the German soldiers that almost all the Luftwaffe would cover them in the sky. At the same time, General Reinhardt's Panzer Corps (16th and 18th Divisions) would cross the river at the same time in the Bellevue area. The 14th Motorized Army is ready to expand its results at any time.

In the early morning, amidst the continuous rumble, a group of German soldiers with their sleeves rolled up, tall and healthy, full of confidence, approached the river bank under the cover of morning fog.All kinds of vehicles finally got rid of the traffic jam and parked in any suitable place near the river bank for cover.There was the hum of German planes in the sky.At this time, the French army began to shell.Soon the 21st Armored Division reported that enemy fire was making any movement impossible, and that to cross the river the air force would have to destroy the enemy batteries.The German artillery, infantry and sappers, with their equipment, were concealed as close to the river bank as possible, ready to charge.The opposite bank was much higher than this one, and they evidently realized that if this shelling continued there would be serious losses in men and equipment.

The French army on the other side also clearly saw the German army, more than 200 tanks, countless vehicles, personnel and equipment, an excellent target.However, at this time, the French artillery received an order from the commander of the 10th Army to limit the ammunition consumption of each gun to 30 rounds.The main reason for the French army to limit the amount of ammunition is not the lack of shells, (a large number of shells will fall into the hands of the German army in a few days).The reason why Grande Sade, the commander of the French 10th Army, restricted ammunition was that, based on the experience of 1914-1918, it was impossible for the German army to cross the river within 6 days.Therefore, he did not want to waste too many shells before the decisive stage came.Although he witnessed the build-up and preparation of the German army on the other side, the commander of the 55th Division, who was about to be directly attacked, also held the same view.

The reason for their opinion was that the Germans were unable to prepare the large quantities of artillery and ammunition required for their strength at such a rapid pace.They were right, the Germans had only divisional artillery to follow, and each gun had only 50 rounds of ammunition, but, as the French could not have imagined and Guderian predicted in his book <<Attention--Tank>> , the bombers of the entire Luftwaffe will more than make up for the lack of artillery power.

In the Battle of Sedan, the Luftwaffe concentrated 2 air armies and 1500 aircraft to support Guderian. (The Luftwaffe has 5 air armies on the Western Front.) Starting at 7:17 in the morning, there were waves of Dornier 10 bombers, and the bombing targets were mainly the communication systems of the French army.Grandesard, commander of the French 71th Army, soon discovered that the effectiveness of artillery fire was greatly reduced due to communication delays.The advancing 71st Division was severely affected, and the division telephone switchboard was destroyed. (Grand Sard comforted the 55st Division, the German army will not cross the river today!) The 2th Division reported to the commander of the [-]nd Army, Hunter Zieger, that the air strikes of the enemy plane had seriously affected morale, and asked for air force support. The answer was: they must accept Baptism of fire.

There are many reasons why the Allied Air Force lacked support for the ground forces. First, the French Air Force did not receive a request from the 13st Army Group until 09:40 am on the 1th to use the main force of the Air Force in the direction of the 2nd Army.However, in the order, the urgency of the situation was not stated, but it was vaguely stated that the German army might cross the river within the next 2-3 days.It was not until noon that the 2nd Army reported to the Air Force that there was an enemy tank group on the other side of the river. However, influenced by the tradition of 1914-1918, the Air Force was requested not to attack, so as not to affect the artillery observation.

As for the Royal Air Force, the number of front-line bombers dropped from 135 to 72 due to the attack on the direction of the German army's feigned attack two days ago. "At the moment, there may not be enough power. (When is it more critical than the 13th) The result is that Britain did not dispatch bombers on the 13th.In terms of fighter jets, due to the divisional defense method of the French Air Force, the French army can only use limited fighter jets in this area, and only 250 sorties are used in the direction of Sedan, which is almost a drop in the bucket.

... (To be continued..)