Hardcore ruthless starts in the Pacific

2022年12月11日4点33分。

1.美利坚陆军第101师第506空降步兵团2营E连3排

What is the biggest threat to the Airborne?

It's not as simple as ordinary people think - the airborne area is full of unknown enemies, the Germans have laid a net in the Normandy area, the anti-aircraft artillery is as much as the fence posts on the farm, and you can only see the New Year's fireworks. Firelight and hope that the shells it fires don't come at you.

The biggest threat actually comes from the load when airborne.

“我在跳伞服下穿着一套绿色军装——这是下达给所有人的命令——钢盔、靴子、手套、主伞、备用伞、‘梅惠斯’救生衣、步枪、点45口径自动手枪、堑壕刀、伞兵刀、猎刀、砍刀、一条子弹带、两个备用弹匣、两盒点30口径机枪子弹共计676发、66发点45口径子弹、一颗能炸断坦克履带的‘霍金斯’地雷、四块TNT炸药、一把铲头处贴着两枚雷管的工兵铲、三个急救包、两针剂吗丨啡、一个防毒面具、一个水壶、三天的K级口粮、两天的D级口粮、六枚杀伤性手雷、一枚‘加蒙’手雷、一枚橙色烟幕弹、一枚红色烟幕弹、一块橙色面板、一条毛毯、一件雨衣、一双替换袜子、一套内衣裤、两条香烟。”

It sounds like a menu, but that's all an Airborne machine gunner needs to carry, and Private Burgett complains that it weighs almost as much.

During the airborne, many soldiers were killed by the Germans’ intensive anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns, but they fell to the wall and died, were strangled to death by the parachute hanging from the branches and couldn’t untie their straps, fell into the swamp and watched themselves fall into it and could not save themselves. Drowning into the lake... and so on. The reason for a series of death methods is that the load is too amazing.

It is worth noting that the 4 knives do not mean how much the paratroopers love knives, but that everyone must bring at least 3 knives.

As the name suggests, the trench knife is to prevent the bayonet from appearing in the hands of soldiers because it cannot play the role of flexible fighting in the trench. It is smooth and small.

As the name suggests, the paratrooper knife exists to prevent paratroopers from being able to easily disengage the parachute strap after landing. The parachute of the Yankee is different from the parachute of the British. The latter has a quick-release buckle, while the former has 5. Theoretically speaking Buckles that are easy to undo, but in fact the paratrooper's thumb and forefinger are often helpless against them, because the parachute harness not only supports the paratrooper in the harness, but also ensures that the huge equipment belt is snug to the body.

Therefore, the paratroopers are held tightly by this heavy load, and if they do not want to be dragged when they land, they must cut the straps.

As for hunting knives and machetes, in order to reduce even a little bit of load, many paratroopers choose not to carry hunting knives, but they will definitely not carry machetes.

The Upper Normandy area in northern France is not a plain where there is no difficulty in crossing the terrain at a glance, but a place full of rivers, lakes, and swamps. The Germans also filled the low-lying areas behind the bunkers on this basis. water, in open ground seven or eight miles from the shore, booby-trapped, with trip wires between the stakes, which would be detonated at the touch of a touch, and by activating the Laval, a few miles above Carentan. The Cotentin sluice released water to the Cotentin Peninsula. The peninsula was already covered with swamps, and a large area of ​​land was submerged, which almost completely cut off the peninsula from Normandy.

In this way, except for the roads, causeways, and bridges, the Normandy area can be regarded as a hellish jungle, and a large number of hedge trees are no longer at the level of stimulating people's minds, but at the level of killing people.

The hunting knife is to ensure that the paratroopers can use this knife to solve their stomach problems after landing without food supplies, and the machete is specially used to deal with environmental creatures.

Those vines, vines, twigs, and twigs are going to be one of your nightmares if you don't cut them down.

Staring at the pile of things in front of him, Ivan felt an unprecedented headache.

It’s hard to live the life of a second-class person, but find that maybe it’s not as good as Ma Run... You don’t need to carry a hunting knife, and you are not a machine gunner, but you can carry it with 30-06 rifle ammunition The amount will be reduced by about half. Even so, with such a large pile of items, it is estimated that the socks and a set of underwear can be thrown away directly, and the rest are more important.

The most important things are life jackets, spare umbrellas, 5-day rations, and explosives with strange names. TNT is easy to understand, and the anti-personnel grenade is the MK2 defensive grenade. The 'Hawkins' mine can also be understood. After all, it is aimed at the tank tracks. , the more difficult to understand is the 'Gamon' grenade.

This is actually a piece of plastic explosive in an elastic fabric bag. When you throw it out accurately, it will stick to the outer wall of the tank, fry the inner wall of the tank armor plate, destroy its combat compartment, and kill the crew members in the vehicle.

Of course, it may not blow through, and then the muzzle of the tank will slowly turn to you - when you thought you were about to be blasted to pieces, you would find that the vehicle-mounted machine gun on it beat you into a sieve first.

In addition, some technical soldiers will also carry bazooka to provide anti-armor power, as well as the standard 60mm mortars and 81mm mortars of the US military, but to be honest.... these things are thrown Normandy, its power and effect are basically equivalent to the second kick you ordered to go to heaven during the Chinese New Year.

The only 'heavy' artillery the 101st Airborne could rely on was the 12 75mm detachable howitzers, but no joke the artillerymen thought of these as more of an elaborate toy, designed for precise purposes and could be easily broken down into There are 9 parts carried by parachutes, but the problem is that the gun is "non-lethal" after assembly.

Historically, the artillerymen of the 101st Airborne Division discovered that it can't do anything when they found the accessories from outside the gliding area and excitedly assembled them when they thought about flexing their muscles.

Yes, it can also deal with firepower points that cannot be regarded as bunkers at all, and a wave of weak artillery support for the airborne troops to launch an attack, and sometimes there are some strange problems due to too fine accessories, which leads to many times When the airborne troops are working, they can't ask for artillery support.

【Name: Hausmann Evan】

[Military rank: second lieutenant]

[Affiliation: 101rd Platoon, Company E, 506nd Battalion, 2th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 3st Division, American Army]

【Position: Deputy Platoon Leader】

【Salary: $1043】

[Physical fitness: 26]

[Physical: 17]

[Explosive Power: 19]

[Intuition: 15]

【Luck: 17】

[Evaluation: Normal airborne troops]

Ivan didn't expect that he could only get such an evaluation with such a high attribute, which means that the physical fitness of the paratroopers who have undergone two years of training in the mainland is quite terrifying. No wonder in modern warfare, no matter which country it is, regardless of For special forces, in terms of individual quality and elite level in the regular army combat sequence, airborne troops will always rank first.

The complicated but uncluttered memory tells what kind of devil training the soldiers of Ivan E Company have experienced, all of which are given by a certain guy. The paratroopers vote for the most annoying guy they've ever met in their lives.

'It turned out to be the deputy platoon leader instead of the platoon leader. '

After seeing the position matching the military rank, Ivan was a little depressed, and then he was relieved. After all, Winters is now a lieutenant, not the company commander of E Company, but only the second platoon leader and star of E Company. Officer, the company commander is Lieutenant Meehan, and the deputy company commander is Lieutenant Hurst.

The so-called star officer is more of an officer on duty in the company headquarters, and completes some administrative work. He is not as exaggerated as a "deputy" by the former commander of Company E who engaged in devil training. The guy who desires to oppress others, unfortunately, in order to make Winters subdue all kinds of extreme operations, and his own command ability is too stretched, which eventually led to the non-commissioned officer's riot like a mutiny. Colonel Sink thought twice and let Captain Sauber leave E Company, but Lieutenant Winters, who was destined to be the commander of E Company, did not logically take over the position of company commander after Captain Sauber got out.

There is currently a platoon leader on top of Ivan's head, one of the familiar characters in "Band of Brothers".

Lieutenant "Goat" Compton, this is an eclectic officer, and he is also an officer who likes to stay with soldiers very much. You can't seem to see any airs of an officer in him, and he likes to play cards with soldiers when he has nothing to do gamble.

Winters didn't like this behavior, and reminded Lieutenant Compton-what if you win?

The subtext is to warn him not to take advantage of the soldiers from any angle. From Ivan's point of view, as long as it is not the money won by the old man, it is all about luck... There is no big problem, and the internal forces of the US military The stakes are generally relatively small, mainly to pass the time.

If Lieutenant Compton really went for the goal of winning money, he would have been secretly written down and buried by the soldiers below, because only by cheating can you really win money, otherwise the money will arrive at your home today and it will arrive tomorrow his home.

By the way, Lieutenant Compton did not participate in the devil training of E Company. He was only transferred to E Company in the past half a month. During that time, he had been dealing with the soldiers, never regarded himself as an officer, and received a very warm welcome, and then it didn't matter if he was a gang of five big and three rough. Ivan didn't take the post of platoon leader.

To be honest, I don't really care.

Because the airborne operation is not the same as when you go to the island by boat, it cannot be said that you will definitely reach the designated area. When you land on the beach, you will experience abnormal chaos. The bombardment changed the course, and finally sent a boat of people to an undesignated area, but they will always fight on the island, and they can always find superiors and subordinates. Airborne is not necessarily the case... Ivan is already ready to land The soldiers in the third row next to him were not prepared.

There are enough materials on this airborne operation in the main world, and the most frequently mentioned one is—a rare officer in history commanding more officers to fight.

Where are all the soldiers?

I don't know, but after landing, there are officers and no soldiers around. Originally, the soldiers were commanded to fight, but the officers and officers gritted their teeth and launched an attack towards the target area in the absence of soldiers.

"It's already June 6th."

The reincarnation system did not give him about 3 days to familiarize himself with it like in the past, and he came directly to the upcoming D-day.

There have been several times in the past when orders were issued from above - to fly tonight, to go to the battlefield tonight, the mobilization before the battle was very full, and then at night when the soldiers had perfected the camouflage, they were suddenly informed that the weather was not good tonight. It's time to fly.

This is bad for morale, because the airborne during this period is quite dangerous, and there have been many casualties due to mistakes during the training period alone, not to mention that it is impossible for the airborne troops to land in the daytime during this operation.

At that time, there may be about one-tenth of the casualties even when parachuting, and no one of the paratroopers, who are composed entirely of volunteers, can accept this kind of aggrieved death.

Even so, no one in the two divisions wants to back down. Putting aside the volunteers, it is more that the rigorous training for the past two years is finally coming to fruition. Isn't it wasted?

And all the airborne troops are treated equally. If you are a second-class soldier who wants to parachute, the major general who is the commander of the division must also jump—Major General Ridgway of the 82nd Airborne Division and Major General Taylor of the 101st Airborne Division. They must lead by example and be the first to parachute.

Those who can be used as the second batch of airborne personnel, such as the deputy division commander, division chief of staff, and later ministers, can use the glider to rush to Normandy, but the division commanders of the two divisions cannot.

In this case, the paratroopers have no reason to back down.

So when they learned that tonight was real, the mood of the paratroopers obviously improved a lot, and the dinner was the most sumptuous meal ever.

Looking at the dinner in front of him, Ivan felt that even an ordinary meal would blow Ma Run a few blocks. For the latter, a hearty meal would have warm bread. Perfect, but for the airborne soldiers, the pork chops are too old and tasteless, and they are mainly steaks.

Today's menu is rich enough, you can choose from beef, pork, and chicken, as many fruits, salads, and vegetables as you like, and there are three or four flavors of ice cream, not to mention that everyone can get a small glass of whiskey and two large glasses of beer .

"Ha ha ha ha......"

The Screaming Eagles in the 3rd row were laughing while eating. I have to say that Lieutenant Compton is very capable, but he almost made all the soldiers laugh.

E company is also full of joy before going to death because of him and another 1st platoon signalman George Lutz.

In contrast, Ivan's side is much deserted.

In fact, according to memory, his popularity in the past two years is not too bad, and his ability to work is definitely not as good, but he is unsmiling and obeys orders from his superiors perfectly. He can only be regarded as a normal officer, otherwise 2 The Screaming Eagles in the platoon will not feel any pity for him.

At 9:05 p.m., the paratroopers had already put on quite heavy equipment with the help of others, and were making final preparations for boarding the plane.

Some soldiers prayed, some soldiers were in a daze, and some soldiers chewed gum and smoked cigarettes, trying to relax themselves as much as possible.

Ivan was still alone. After a while, he performed the duties of the deputy platoon leader. As usual, he reminded the Screaming Eagles in the 3rd platoon of various points to pay attention to, what to do before landing, what to do after landing, and what is the mission goal? ...although he knows very well after boarding the plane that everything mentioned now is useless nonsense.

All the plans in advance couldn't keep up with the changes. The most serious thing was the paratroopers on D-day.

Skydiving, landing, gathering, killing German devils, seizing traffic arteries, winning the victory, and finally returning to the hometown with medals and honors to pretend to be girls - all have been planned, but there is a slight discrepancy in reality.

The most frightening thing is that many paratroopers failed the first step of their plan, that is, skydiving, let alone landing safely and getting closer to their comrades around to complete the assembly.

At 9:45, Ivan, who had nothing to say, was smoking silently, when Lieutenant Compton walked over.

"Are you unhappy?" he asked tentatively.

"How come, sir." Ivan gave him a smile, "If you think you robbed something, you don't have to think so."

"This platoon leader was originally destined for you." Lieutenant Compton said, "I read the records, and you have never missed anything in the past two years. Whether it is training or leading troops, you can be described as an example... ...Lieutenant Sauber never found a problem with you, and you were treated favorably, but always with the brothers, because I..."

"Sir."

伊文打断了他，外<*群<5-<1*|7>8}<8|0{7>6~1<

"That's what I should do, not for praise or some insubstantial achievements. On the contrary, I think you did better, sir. That's a talent I don't have—!"

"I can rest assured that."

Lieutenant Compton breathed a sigh of relief, "I don't want to see you after landing, I want to fight side by side with you."

"Thank you, sir. Coincidentally, I thought so too."

Not long after he left, the paratroopers began boarding the plane.

The prelude to the largest landing operation in human history is about to begin. The 82nd Airborne Division and the 101st Airborne Division undertake very important tasks. They will land behind Utah Beach and destroy everything that can be destroyed by the American 4th Infantry Division who landed on the beach. Chaos, blocking all German troops going to the beach to support.

The two airborne divisions and one infantry division have only one ultimate goal-Cherbourg in the northern part of the Cotentin Peninsula, which is a very high-quality port and one of the fulcrums of the entire Overlord operation.

2. Airborne in advance

At nearly 6:5 on the evening of June 11, the Screaming Eagles could only hear one sound, that was the rattle of the starter when it was tightened, and the hoarse cough of the engine when it was ignited. There is a roar of full speed.

The lead aircraft slowly slid onto the runway and into a windward position, and the other aircraft formed a single file, following the lead aircraft, like a swarm of soldiers.

A corporal named Koskimaki in a C-47 transport plane wrote about this: "At 22:45, our plane began to slide into the runway, quickly assembled and flew away from the concrete runway lightly. .other planes take off every 7 seconds until the entire cluster is in the air. One plane after another continues to circle the sky...until all 45 planes are in the air and in formation. Our plane is responsible for Lead plane, every 9 planes form a V-shaped formation. Of the three planes at the front of each nine-plane formation, the plane in the center is the pilot. The indicator lights on the wings are on and can be seen through the open hatch A beautiful sight."

The prelude to this operation was witnessed by a core figure in the American military-General Eisenhower.

He stood outside the runway, saluting every passing plane. Perhaps the airborne soldiers in the cabin might not be able to see him, but he knew that many people would die in this trip, and he had no reason not to do it. These things.

For people at the time, it was the last time or two to see such a situation, just like the dreadnought fleet in 1910-1920-the sight of them patrolling the narrow waters of the North Sea in dense formation made every witness wonder. Feeling fascinated and awed, like a tourist who accidentally stepped into an elephant cemetery, the idea of ​​a huge airborne fleet proved outdated almost as soon as it appeared.In the face of enemy attacks, heavy warships are almost indestructible, but in just a few years, with the emergence of fragile but deadly carrier-based aircraft, the survival of warships has become precarious. The life of the operation is even shorter, because after a few years, with ground and air-launched missiles, no generals will consider sending large groups to carry out airborne strikes on established positions, and the role of paratroopers is gradually reduced to covert infiltration By.

即使如此，也不可忽略1944年6月5日至6月6日的黑夜里，伞降正处于这种战术的发展巅峰！

The huge swarm of C-47s straddled the moonlit, cloudless night sky, full of confidence, and like the fleet of Jericho and Beatty, they headed south to rendezvous with the High Seas Fleet.

According to Ridgway's recollection, the sights he saw were 'extraordinary', 'amazing', and 'majestic', which are definitely not compliments in the normal sense.

"Airplanes in V formation wingtip to wingtip, two planes up to 150 feet apart, no lights to guide them except lavender lights you can barely see, 1000 feet apart in each V formation, 500 planes The planes were flying on the same trajectory and could easily hit the plane in front of them."

It can be said that he started to be in shock when he was on the field, which perfectly explained what it means to be scary-the way to control the flight formation is exactly the same as that of the fleet. Every 45 aircraft form a large formation, which is controlled by the lights from the plexiglass pilot cabin of the lead aircraft.

The problem is the speed of your warship, the speed of your aircraft, how many years of development and accumulation of warships, and how many years of development and accumulation of aircraft. How much sophistication varies between technicians.

Among the 1590 transport planes dispatched this time, it would be nice if 300 C-47 crews were experienced or veterans. To put it bluntly, it would be fun if they could give you regular operations according to the manual.

If it goes well, the airborne steps are not that complicated——according to the signal of the lead plane, all the planes turn to the predetermined marker point, and then turn on the red light in the plane to announce that they are approaching the empty area. When the green light in the cabin is on, The paratroopers can start parachuting one by one in order.

If it doesn't go well... no one knows how the airborne will be completed, or if it will not be completed at all.

It is not to be admired that the paratroopers have a big heart, or they have completely resigned to their fate. When they come up, they will either successfully parachute or die together. Some of them fell asleep directly after taking the airsickness medicine, and some of them also closed their eyes as sleep, and a small part Cigarettes were smoked one by one, and the whole cabin was quite silent.

The C-47 carried by Yiwen has half of the 3rd platoon of E Company, two fully-organized infantry squads, plus a communication team attached to the platoon headquarters, plus himself a total of 28 people.

Normally, the communication team of a platoon is best to follow the platoon leader instead of assigning it to the deputy platoon leader, but Lieutenant Compton felt that having an M2 60mm mortar squad next to him could play a better role than the communication team As a result, besides, each platoon has a communication team, if it doesn't work, he can go to the friendly army to borrow it.

Facts have proved that such an idea is a bit optimistic, but it can be regarded as wrong.

There is no more than ten hours of uptime after landing, and the communication cannot be restored to normal. Therefore, during the critical time, the effectiveness of the mortar squad can far exceed that of the communication team. Can the mortar squad bring every single assembly of the M2 60mm mortar to the ground?

In fact, Ivan now has no time to worry about the other half of the platoon. The reason is very simple - because there is no one on this transport plane that has a name that he has remembered and known in advance.

I read a lot of information beforehand, and even re-watched the first few episodes of "Band of Brothers" is almost a waste of time. Any familiar name in this show is not by Ivan's side, and E Company has not assembled enough troops in the dark after landing A platoon, after contacting the large forces during the day, can be worth a little more than a platoon.

The Screaming Eagles may not be able to return to the team in a short period of time, but the probability of this is actually very small.

In other words, the greatest possibility is that all the 47 people in this C-28 failed to land successfully, or none of them survived after landing.

The sky is not the ground, but if something goes wrong in the sky, there is basically no possibility of surviving. Yiwen really didn't expect to encounter such a big trouble when he first appeared on the stage. No wonder the [main mission] has not jumped out.

I guess he was waiting to see if he could land safely.

'Those who ride a horse must see the timing and jump straight away. '

Ivan, who had prepared himself in such a way, naturally could not forget to remind the brothers. He first told the two squad leaders and deputy squad leaders beside him, Sergeant Putin, Sergeant South, Corporal Jenkins, and Corporal Leo. view.