: fifty-five siege
On July 23, the German paratroopers on the island of Malta, like a rock, stood still under the attack of the British infantry.
In the afternoon, the British soldiers who kept attacking finally realized a fatal problem: they seemed to be unable to penetrate the enemy's defense line!
German paratroopers rely on foxholes and simple traffic trenches for every step of the way. With rich combat experience, they can calmly face three or even four times their own enemy.
It is a pity that even the whole island of Malta could not find so many British soldiers to defeat these terrible German paratroopers.
After taking down the seventh enemy with his precise shot, Lyman retracted into his foxhole and replaced a brand new magazine.
The burst attack allowed him to save a lot of bullets, while also allowing him to kill enough enemies.
Now, as an experienced German paratrooper, Lehmann loves his STG-44 assault rifle.
The Führer is simply a genius. He can not only draw, he can design military uniforms, and he can also create such intimate weapons and equipment!
In Lehmann's heart, he already felt that the head of his country was an idol comparable to a star.
Although I realized that this weapon is very useful during training, I didn't expect the effect in actual combat to be so excellent.
At a common engagement distance of 200 meters to 300 meters, this weapon can provide accurate burst attacks, and the suppression firepower at about 100 meters is also fierce and fiery.
This is simply the treasure of paratroopers. After anyone has used this weapon, they will no longer have a favorable impression of other weapons.
The craftsmanship of German workers and technicians is really not boasted. Precision machining and carefully crafted parts endow the STG-44 assault rifle with almost perfect attributes!
For medium-range precision shooting, this weapon is much more accurate than the later AK series, and Lehmann is also very satisfied with continuous shooting and reliability.
It is precisely because of more than 50 such assault rifles that the paratrooper battalion where Lyman is located can so calmly defeat four times as many British infantry.
"Bah!" Next to the foxhole where Lehmann was, a German paratrooper emptied the bullets in his Mauser rifle. When he was taking out the bullet, he was hit by a bullet that flew from nowhere and fell down. .
Lehmann quickly climbed out of his foxhole, crawled about three meters away, and came to the side of the friend who was shot.
He saw that the other party was vomiting blood, and a hole in his neck was tumbling out a red liquid like a fountain.
"Medic! Medic!" Lyman shouted loudly, disregarding the bullets beside him, so that the medic could hear his voice.
A German medic bent down and crawled to Lehmann's side. As soon as he arrived, he fell to the ground, picking up the surrounding dust.
"Someone is injured!" Lyman lowered his body as much as possible and shouted loudly with his comrades in his arms.
"I see! I'm not blind!" The medical soldier propped up the front of his steel helmet with his fingers, and after replying, he pressed his hand over the hole where blood was gushing out.
"Damn it! It hit a blood vessel!" The medic felt the warmth and unrestrained power, and complained.
This is the front line. There is no plasma and no rescue environment. What's more sad is that he has no place to even tie a tourniquet - that is the neck. There is no difference between tying a tourniquet and strangling him.
"Help me hold down here! I'm going to prepare morphine!" However, out of his professional conscience, the medic decided to do his best.
He pulled out his blood-stained hand, and pulled out the medical morphine from his pocket.
"Don't worry! It's just a small hole! Can you hear me? Look at me! Can you hear me?" The medic shouted to the wounded while preparing the medicine.
The other party seemed to want to speak and answer, but blood spurted out of his mouth. Lyman pressed the other party's neck with worry on his face.
He knew that in this case, the possibility of being rescued was very small. The reason why the medic was still working hard was because the poor man lying in his arms was still alive.
"Alright! Alright! You'll be fine!" Inserting the morphine needle into the other's arm, the medical soldier held the wounded's hand and comforted.
The other party struggled for a while, and then suddenly became quiet. The medic glanced at Lyman, then shook his head: "Get out of here, don't get hit!"
Lyman also realized that the person in his arms was no longer alive, so he withdrew his finger from the wound that was no longer gushing blood.
After smearing the opponent's uniform twice, Lehmann realized that the bullets that attacked him seemed to have burned a lot.
In the sky, the wandering Stuka bombers arrived again, and they swept the ground with their cannons, driving the British back to where they started.
After losing more than 200 people, the British soldiers gasped in embarrassment at the place where they started, but found that they didn't even advance a meter...
Lehmann's German paratrooper squad lost two soldiers in the battle just now. This is the biggest loss they have suffered since they were airborne. It also indicates that the Battle of Malta will not end so smoothly.
Luftwaffe bombers came over Malta once again, and Stuka bombers hovered in the sky with bombs.
The Maltese defenders, deprived of air supremacy, had absolutely nothing to prevent German aircraft from attacking the targets they found, as most of their anti-aircraft guns were destroyed or captured by German paratroopers.
This is the Luftwaffe supporting paratroopers, so the area of activity is not in Valletta, which is heavily fortified by the British, but in the middle of a more remote island, which makes the British even more powerless.
In the main direction of the British counterattack, on the battlefield near Rabat, these British troops who fought back achieved nothing, and the performance of the British on other battlefields was even more tragic.
The Germans successively occupied Mellieha and took control of the town of St. Paul's Bay. Now these troops have descended along the River Asel towards the important town of Mostar.
The Germans attacking from this direction almost walked halfway around the island of Malta, but they hardly encountered any decent resistance.
The British did not expect the Germans to attack from both sides. When the British commanders realized that the size of the German army might be twice as large as they had guessed, the situation they had to face had made them unable to care about these small details.
The British defenders in the small town of Rabat are organizing a second counterattack, trying to repel the front German paratroopers, that is, the three battalions where Lehmann is located.
But when they reluctantly recruited 1,000 people to continue the attack, they found that Germans also appeared on their flanks.
The German paratroopers attacking Rabat were not a battalion of 500 troops, but two paratrooper regiments, an army of more than 3,000 troops.
A new regiment of these German paratroopers was parachuted to Malta by glider, carrying more ammunition and more machine guns.
Of course, they also brought more Iron Fist Bazooka. Two such regiments attacked Rabat at the same time, as the German command was determined to win Rabat.
Only after capturing Rabat, can we continue to attack southeast and kill important military targets along the road, the largest military airport on the island!
And only if it threatens there, will it really disrupt the British's strategic deployment and let the Battle of Malta go towards the pre-rehearsed script.
"Hello? Hello? Is it Valletta? Commander! This is the Rabat garrison!" Picking up the phone, a regiment commander of the British front reported the situation he was facing to the highest commander on the island.
"A large number of German troops are trying to defend Rabat! At least 2,000!" His troops are being compressed, and Rabat is already at stake.
"Please retreat! If we continue to fight, our troops will be surrounded in Rabat!" His tone was very rapid, obviously frightened by the number of enemies.
"..." After thinking about it for a long time, the local British supreme commander had to let his subordinates die: "You are not allowed to retreat!"
"Your troops must defend Rabat, and you can withdraw to rest when my men rush to reinforce there!" The commander said firmly.
"Stay there until evening! My reinforcements will arrive! Understand?" He couldn't bear the consequences of Rabat being occupied by the Germans, which meant that the British forces on the island were even more passive.
In fact, the reinforcements he can give Rabat are not many, and now he only has a reserve team of more than 1,000 people. If he wants more, he must be drawn from the coastal defense forces that are preparing for landing.
"Sir! I can't complete this order! The German army is twice as large as mine, and my troops lack ammunition and medicine, so it's impossible to last for a few hours."
"Lost Rabat, you know what it means to us." The British commander asked with a frown while holding the phone.
"Sir! The Germans have surrounded this place on three sides. You know that if we are surrounded, it means you will lose 1,000 soldiers and Rabat!" The regiment commander finally fought for his troops.
"Okay! I allow you to retreat! Get out of there! But you can only retreat to Zebbug! No further retreat is allowed!"
At more than 2 pm that day, the British were forced to abandon the important defensive node Rabat.
About 900 British soldiers withdrew from the battle, and more than 100 voluntarily stayed behind, delaying the pursuit of German paratroopers.
At about 3 o'clock, German paratroopers captured all the buildings in Rabat, and on the roof of the tallest building here, a huge German flag was laid.