bullyxtreme Chapter 21 Taming the Wild Beast
Chapter 21 Taming the Wild Beast
Three kilometers east of D916, an abandoned sawmill. On May 30, 1940, at 17:45, a heavy rain turned into light rain, and the temperature dropped sharply.
The rain finally subsided a little, turning from a torrential downpour that seemed to threaten to engulf the world into a light, drizzling rain.
Three Opel Lightning trucks and four massive Char B1 bis heavy tanks were currently concealed in a sawmill on the edge of a forest. The huge piles of logs and the planks that had not yet been transported provided excellent cover for these steel behemoths; at least two hundred meters away, no one could tell whether it was wood or tanks.
The air was filled with the scent of pine resin, the smell of volatile gasoline, and the burnt smell of hot metal cooling down.
The side armor of the Verdun was still radiating residual heat, and raindrops falling on it stirred up bursts of white steam. In the gaps between the tracks that had just crushed the German reconnaissance vehicle, there were still unrecognizable metal fragments and dark red flesh.
This is the digestive system of war: it takes in life and expels waste.
Arthur stood under the eaves of the sawmill, holding a hard, dry biscuit in his hand, but his gaze never left the four tanks.
In the previous battle, these steel monsters displayed breathtaking dominance. But Arthur knew very well that it was just bullying the weak. Against a few light reconnaissance vehicles, the B1 could crush them with its sheer weight. But if they encountered the main force of the Skull Division, or even just a few well-positioned Pak 38 anti-tank guns, this hastily assembled force would expose its fatal flaws.
The human brain is adept at using emotional dopamine like "courage" and "revenge" to mend a broken reality and numb itself, but the system does not. It has no empathy and does not understand what a "white lie" is.
The RTS system interface unfolded before him; the data remained cold and objective, like a freshly printed battle damage assessment report devoid of any emotion.
[Combined Infantry-Tank Efficiency: 15% (Evaluation: A rabble armed with heavy weapons)]
[Tactical Command Network: Not Built (Silent)]
[Structural fatal flaw: Lack of omnidirectional vision/Severe functional overload of the vehicle commander]
In the cold logic of the system, this is not an army at all, but a pile of expensive steel junk that just happens to be placed at the same coordinate point.
"Wild animals bite, not just their enemies, but also their masters."
Arthur swallowed the last bite of the biscuit, dusted off the crumbs on his hands, and walked toward Captain Durand, who was squatting next to the tank smoking.
……
Captain Durand looked like he had just finished a marathon.
He slumped down beside the road wheels of the Verdun, soaked to the bone, his uniform collar ripped open, panting heavily. His right hand was cracked at the base of his thumb, a mark left from operating that damned 47mm gun, even though it was now just an empty shell; his left leg was still twitching slightly, a muscle spasm from stomping on the heavy turret swivel pedal for so long.
Seeing Arthur approach, Durand gave a wry smile and tried to stand up, but Arthur held him down.
"You're already tired, Captain?" Arthur handed him a jug of water.
"Sir, you have to go inside that damn turret yourself and see for yourself." Durand took a big gulp of water from the canteen, pointed at the towering cast iron turret, and said with a tone full of resentment, "The designers at Renault must be sadists or German spies."
"I know." Arthur looked up at the famous APX-4 single-person turret.
In military engineering, this is practically synonymous with disaster.
Inside this cramped cast iron can, the tank commander had to play multiple roles: he was the tank commander, observing the battlefield and directing the driver; he was also the gunner, aiming at the target; he was the loader, taking shells from the ammunition rack at his feet and loading them into the breech; and he was even the machine gunner.
"I only have two hands, sir," Durand complained. "In the last few minutes, I had to keep an eye on the periscope to find the target, and kick the driver in the back to make him stop. Thank goodness I didn't have to shove that damn shell in. If the radio had gone off again, I probably would have bitten the communicator switch with my teeth."
Arthur nodded. In the RTS system, the [Debuff] section for the B1 tank showed the following in bright red:
[Commander Overload: The tank commander's reaction speed is reduced by 60% and situational awareness is reduced by 80% in combat.]
This is one of the reasons why the French army, equipped with the most powerful tanks in the world at the time, was beaten like pigs with no chance to fight back. Their tank commanders were locked in the turrets, busy loading shells, and had no energy to observe the battlefield, let alone command the entire company in tactical maneuvers.
Although the German Panzer III and IV tanks had thin armor and weak guns, they had a three-man turret—the commander was only responsible for command and observation, the gunner was responsible for firing, and the loader was responsible for loading. This was like a calm brain directing strong arms, while the French were like a schizophrenic madman frantically performing acrobatics.
"We can't change the tank's design, Captain."
Arthur was also quite helpless. "We don't have time to add a two-person gun mount to it, nor can we conjure up a loader for you. But I can conjure up a pair of eyes and a spare brain for you."
Durand paused, then asked, "What do you mean?"
Arthur turned around and whistled.
"McTavish! Assemble the team!"
……
Three minutes later, the Cold Creek Guards and the remaining French tank crews lined up in the rain.
Arthur stood on the track of a B1 tank, looking down at the group of soldiers from different countries who spoke different languages.
"You did a good job in the raid just now." Arthur's gaze swept over McTavish and his soldiers, "but you had a fatal misconception—you treated yourselves as hitchhikers and the tanks as armored taxis."
Sergeant McTavish paused for a moment. During the march, they had indeed just held onto the handrails and looked around warily, without actually participating in the operation of the tanks. At most, they had just finished off the remaining Nazi soldiers.
"That's not enough." Arthur shook his head, his tone cold and hard. "If it were complex terrain and you were facing German infantry infiltration, with that kind of loose coordination, you would have been blown up by anti-tank grenades."
He turned around and patted the thick cast iron turret behind him.
"This is a blind rhinoceros. Captain Durand, huddled in this damn single-man turret, has to load and fire, his brain bandwidth is completely full, he has no spare capacity to observe the sides and rear. And you..."
Arthur pointed to the British soldiers below:
"You are the eyes and ears that this rhinoceros originally lacked. But now, the eyes and brain are disconnected."
He picked up a twig, drew a simple top view of the tank on the muddy ground, and then tapped it heavily twice behind the turret.
"From now on, we need you to establish contact with the tanks."
Arthur looked at McTavish: "Sergeant, I want you to turn that temporary 'riding' into a fixed tactical position. Two British infantrymen will be assigned to each tank, positioned on either side of the engine grille."
“But there’s a problem, sir,” McTavish pointed out the real pain point. “The engine noise is too loud. We’re shouting ourselves hoarse outside, but the people inside can’t hear us. If it weren’t for your unified command over the radio just now, we wouldn’t have been able to tell the French which way to turn.”
"Radios weren't issued to every vehicle, and we couldn't rely on those unreliable vacuum tubes."
Arthur drew his bayonet from his waist and struck the tank's thick armor plating twice, producing a crisp, penetrating metallic clang.
Clang! Clang!
"Did you hear that? This is the new language."
Arthur looked at everyone and began to establish the rules:
"I'll have someone open the latch on the ventilation hatch at the rear of the turret a crack. When the radio fails or the noise is too loud, use your rifle butts, or whatever hard thing you can find, to bang on the armor plates."
"Two taps on the left mean turn left." "Two taps on the right mean turn right." "Rapid, continuous tapping means infantry is approaching." "A heavy tap means stop and open fire."
This was an extremely primitive, yet highly efficient "human intercom" system, operating in the chaotic environment of the early stages of World War II, where radio penetration was low and English and French were not mutually intelligible.
In the later Soviet "tank cavalry" tactics, this method of transmitting tactical commands through physical striking was proven countless times. Although brutal, it endowed these poorly sighted steel behemoths with 360-degree all-around situational awareness.
"That's against protocol, sir." Durand hesitated. "Opening the ventilation hatch will compromise the seal, and besides..."
"Throw that damn rule in the mud and stomp on it," Arthur interrupted him, his eyes sharp as knives. "Now, we're facing Guderian's armored forces. We either evolve or we die. Do you really expect this tank to come with us across the strait?"
He stared into Durand's eyes, the data in the RTS system rapidly calculating and projecting the optimal personnel allocation plan onto his retina.
"And one more thing, this is also to prevent you from getting lost."
Arthur's tone shifted, taking on a chill.
"I assigned Sergeant McTavish to the 'Verdun.' He knows a little French—though he learned it in Marseille's red-light district, mostly swear words—but it's enough for shouting 'German on the left.' Corporal Williams to car number two, Leslie to car number three…"
Arthur quickly completed the allocation.
This is not merely a tactical compensation for limited visibility, but a subtle infiltration of command authority.
By placing these loyal British veterans on the "back" of every French tank, Arthur effectively controlled the nerve endings of this armored force. If any French tank commander wanted to turn back in fear or refuse to follow orders during battle, the British soldiers sitting on his head with Thompson submachine guns were the best supervisors.
This was the first step in 'taming the wild beast.' Arthur threw away the branch and dusted his hands. He not only fitted the rhinoceros with eyes but also put a bridle on it."
……
Once the tactical arrangements were completed, the sawmill immediately transformed into a bustling logistics center.
War is not just about shooting and cannons; more often, it's a game of Tetris about how to put the right supplies in the right places.
Those three Opel Lightning trucks are not just troop carriers; they have now become the task force's mobile blood bank and stomach.
"Hang the spare track plates on the lower glacis armor of the tank!" Arthur directed several French soldiers. "Don't think it looks bad. It's not just a spare part, it's additional armor. Even if it can stop one more 37mm shell, it's still a bonus."
Meanwhile, on the other side, the reprocessing of that batch of German 7.5cm Gr.34 shells was underway.
This is no longer a simple logistical maintenance task; it's a "manual calibration" that's testing the limits of nitroglycerin.
Several Guardsmen, like surgeons, held their breath as they carefully sanded the sensitive primers of the German shells with the finest sandpaper. They were attempting to artificially thin the metal walls through this primitive physical cutting in exchange for unreliable firing sensitivity.
But this not only tests skills, but also fate—because no instrument can detect the critical point after polishing. The Newtonian force applied by the gunner when pulling the fuse each time is no longer a controllable mechanical parameter, but a pure game of probability.
"Be gentle! This isn't about polishing your shoes!" McTavish yelled from the side, watching with trepidation.
Arthur walked over, picked up a processed shell, and carefully examined the thickness of the primer.
[Engineering Assessment: Firing success rate increased to 85% / risk of barrel explosion reduced to 12%]
"It's usable, if all else fails." Arthur nodded, then looked at the rows of golden Jerry cans.
For these four fuel-guzzling B1 tanks, the high-octane gasoline was their lifeline. To facilitate resupply, Arthur ordered some of the fuel cans to be directly tied to the rear grille of the tanks with wire—although this increased the risk of fire, in this highly mobile operation, they had no time to stop and wait for trucks to refuel.
"Sir, this is insane!" A French driver, pale-faced, looked at the "bomb" on his back. "If the Germans hit the oil drums..."
"Then pray they're crushed by you before they hit the oil drums," Arthur said calmly. "Besides, it's a psychological game. When the Germans see tanks charging with oil drums on their backs, their first reaction is often not to shoot, but to be surprised. That one second of surprise is your opportunity."
What Arthur didn't say was that diesel engines were relatively safe, but once a gasoline-powered tank's engine compartment was breached, regardless of whether it carried a fuel tank or not, it would most likely become an oven. Rather than worrying about that, it was better to ensure the engine always had fuel and could run.
The rain was still falling, but the atmosphere in the sawmill was gradually changing.
British infantrymen were wiping their guns with oil, while French tank crewmen were adjusting the track tension. Although they couldn't understand each other's languages, they shared a tacit understanding as they passed wrenches and oil cans.
That was the will to survive when you're all in the same wrecked boat.
……
During the brief respite, some unexpected chemical reactions are taking place.
Beside the tracks of the USS Verdun, Sergeant McTavish was trying to "communicate" with a few French soldiers under Captain Durand.
Language barrier? That doesn't exist.
Alcohol is a universal language.
McTavish pulled a flat silver flask from his pocket; it didn't contain water, but rather his private stash of Scotch whisky.
"Have a sip, Froggy," McTavish said in broken French, a mix of English and French, as he handed the flask to a shivering Frenchman. "This stuff will set you on fire in your belly."
The French soldier hesitated for a moment, then took the flask and took a sip.
"Cough cough cough!!"
The intense spiciness made him cough instantly, his face turning bright red.
"Mon Dieu!" the French soldier cried, tears welling in his eyes. "What is this? Urine soaked in gunpowder?"
"This is the Scottish Highlands sunshine, you ungrateful wretch." McTavish snatched back the flask, took a big gulp, and let out a satisfied sigh. "It's much better than your tooth-sore red wine."
"Red wine is art!" another French soldier retorted, pulling a half-empty bottle of Bordeaux from his backpack. "This is the drink of civilized people."
“Civilized people?” McTavish scoffed. “Civilized people are lining up on the beach to swim right now. Only savages survive.”
He patted the French soldier on the shoulder, revealing a smoky smile.
"Listen, if you want to work with me, you'll need to learn a few 'Scottish greetings.' If I knock three times up there, that means you have to stop. If I yell 'Bastard,' that means there's an enemy on the right. If I yell 'Bloody Hell,' that means the left."
"Bastard is on the right, Bloody Hell is on the left..." the French soldier repeated, looking bewildered. "And what about the front?"
"Front?"
McTavish drew the sharpened bayonet from his waist and brandished it in the air.
"If it's in front, I'll yell 'WAAAGH!!!' and then you guys just floor the gas and ram through it."
The surrounding British soldiers burst into a rough, loud laugh, as coarse as sandpaper, yet strangely infectious.
The French might not understand the obscure Scottish Highland slang, but it was precisely this mixture of cheap alcohol and the heavy smell of gunpowder—that arrogance and disdain in the face of destruction—that was a universal language. And so, these foreign soldiers, who had just been teetering on the brink of despair, joined in the laughter.
On the battlefield, life is often cheaper than dirt, but a smile at this moment is an expensive luxury.
After all, since everyone has already grasped that one-way ticket to hell, instead of trembling in front of the Grim Reaper in charge of checking tickets, why not grin and use the most unrestrained laughter to trample on the fear before the finish line?
The gloom of national subjugation and annihilation that had been hanging over the team seemed to have been diluted considerably at this moment.
Arthur stood not far away, watching this scene, a slight smile playing on his lips.
That's morale.
On the RTS data panel, the blue bar representing the morale of this mixed force is slowly recovering, changing from "wavering" to "stable".
"Looks like we don't need a political commissar. A bottle of whiskey and a rude sergeant will suffice," Arthur muttered to himself.
……
"Sir, all personnel are ready."
Half an hour later, McTavish ran over to report. By then, he was sitting behind the turret of the Verdun, looking like a typical bandit leader, holding a Thomson submachine gun in his hand, and even wearing a pair of binoculars that he had stolen from the French around his neck.
On the other tanks, British soldiers were already in position. They had built makeshift shelters on the engine hoods using sandbags and spare tracks, which, though they looked rather odd, did turn these B1 tanks into hedgehogs covered in thorns.
Arthur nodded, taking one last look at the map in his hand.
The RTS system projects the surrounding terrain as a 3D grid onto his retina.
Thirty kilometers to their east, the icon representing the Skeleton Division's logistics hub was still flashing. But Arthur noticed something else as well.
Around that transit point, several small red dots representing "guard posts" were moving. Further away, a massive red shadow, representing the "main enemy force," was rapidly advancing westward.
That was the main force of the Skeleton Army.
"We're dancing on the edge of a knife," Arthur thought to himself.
They must take down this transit point before the main force of the Skeleton Division can react, and then, under the cover of night and rain, disappear like ghosts into the Belgian wilderness.
His purpose in doing this was not only to cut off the German army's supplies, but also to create panic and make the already chaotic situation even more chaotic.
This was a carefully calculated strategic maneuver.
As long as the commotion he creates behind German lines is intense enough—intense enough to be like a hard steel nail stuck between precision gears—Guderian's highly efficient war machine will inevitably experience mechanical spasms due to this "physiological pain."
Both the 19th Armored Corps and the massive Army Group B will be forced to react: either split up their forces to reinforce the flanks or apply the fatal brakes in order to investigate the non-existent "flank force".
This is the allure of the fog of war, and also Arthur's greatest bargaining chip.
Guderian didn't have an RTS system, and Kleist didn't have a God's-eye view.
This creates an extremely subtle strategic paradox.
Although on the macro map it appeared that the German army was besieging Dunkirk, on a tactical micro level, especially in the core defensive perimeter closer to the coastline, hundreds of thousands of British and French troops were concentrated there, fighting desperately for survival. The troop density there was astonishingly high, making it a truly impenetrable fortress.
The deeper Guderian's armored spearhead pierced, the more vulnerable his exposed flanks became, and he risked becoming the hunted instead of the hunter.
In the current "intelligence black hole" of radio silence and reconnaissance aircraft grounded due to rain, this risk is magnified infinitely.
Within the rigid logic of the German General Staff, they could not distinguish whether the force tearing apart their supply lines was a hundred-odd desperate men or the armored vanguard of the French general reserve, which General Wei Gang had never shown himself.
If those four Char B1 bis heavy tanks charged hard enough and fired loud enough, on the battle maps of these German generals, this insignificant "ghost unit" could easily be marked as a fully armored division launching a counterattack.
This was a high-stakes gamble, and also a strategic fraud that transcended dimensions.
In the cold, hard calculations of RTS, every minute wasted here could be exchanged for thousands of survival statistics on the beaches of Dunkirk.
For this isolated army trapped in an encirclement, only by creating absolute chaos, stirring up trouble, and overturning the chessboard, could they find the only ladder to survival between the fingers of death.
"Assemble the officers."
Arthur walked up to the Verdun, where Durand and the other three commanders gathered around.
"For the next operation, we must maintain radio silence."
Arthur pointed to the red cross on the map, his voice deep and powerful, "The target is this farm on the outskirts of Wormhout. According to reconnaissance, it has at least fifty tons of ammunition and two companies' worth of fuel. The garrison is about a reinforced platoon, possibly with two 37mm mortars."
"Only two 37mm guns?" Durand breathed a sigh of relief. "Then we can push through." Although he had some doubts about Arthur's intelligence sources, at least so far, the commander's judgment seemed to have been correct.
"Don't be careless. The Germans reacted quickly."
Arthur looked at Durand with a sharp gaze. "This time, we need to establish a rhythm. Vehicles one and two will charge head-on and draw fire. Vehicles three and four will flank them through the woods and cut off their retreat. I don't want to see any German truck escape."
He paused, then added, "And remember this: we're there to sabotage, not to occupy. Once the fighting starts, blow up everything that can be blown up. Fuel, ammunition, vehicles… I want to turn that place into a sea of fire, big enough for Guderian to see from thirty kilometers away."
"Understood, sir."
"Then get in the car."
Arthur put the charred rag doll back into his pocket, savoring its lingering warmth.
"Let's teach the Skeleton Master a lesson: what a logistical nightmare is."
……
D916 highway, 2 kilometers from Wormhout.
The rain started to get heavier again.
Four heavily modified B1 heavy tanks, like four moving graves, silently rolled over the soft, wet ground.
The sound of the engine was drowned out by the rain and thunder.
Arthur remained huddled next to the cockpit of the Verdun, staring intently ahead through the observation slit.
McTavish sat behind the turret, rain streaming down the brim of his helmet, but he didn't even blink. His fingers rested lightly on the hatch, ready to toll the death knell at any moment.
At the edge of RTS's field of view, the red exclamation mark had entered visual range.
[Enemy engagement countdown: 30 seconds]
Arthur took a deep breath; the stuffy air in the carriage made him feel incredibly clear-headed.
Since he has already messed up history, let's make it even more chaotic.
"Prepare for battle."
He spoke softly into the intercom, as if announcing the start of a banquet.