Australian Storm 1876 - Chapter 1065

Chapter 1065 No grass grows

Admiral Michelet of France and Lord Gaff of England left with displeased expressions after sitting for a while. They had a negative impression of being tough and inflexible about the Marshal of the Ocean Empire, and they felt that he was not a good master to work with.

Watching them leave in the car, Marshal Li Shuanzhu’s eyes narrowed slightly, and there was a gleam of clarity.

These senior generals of the Anglo-French coalition were unhappy in their hearts, but they would still strictly implement artillery tactics and would not bring their personal emotions to such a large-scale battle.

Every day of a full-scale attack on the battlefield of **** is related to the casualties of tens of thousands of officers and soldiers. The cost is so great that no one dares to ignore it.

Why insist that the shelling conversion time should not exceed three minutes at most?

The roads demarcated by the German troops may be reinforced. The coverage of artillery fire is about 2.5 to 3 kilometers. The barrage bombards with full force at night, which will form an impassable death zone.

A person can run with all his strength on a flat road, and he can run less than 1 km in three minutes. On a road full of bullet craters at night, he walks one foot high and one foot low, and a soldier in full armor cannot do this.

German officers and soldiers who dare to take risks will inevitably pay the price of their lives.

And if the time is extended to 6~7 minutes or more than 10 minutes, the blocking effect of artillery fire cannot be fully guaranteed.

Then wouldn’t the German army pass over the plain?

The Somme region was originally a village and town in northeastern France, which was mainly agricultural. Except for the roads, there were large tracts of farmland.

After entering December

Continuous rain and snow and cold weather made the original farmland even more muddy. At night, the surface layer was frozen and hardened. During the day, the sun came out and it basked.

In this muddy field for a few kilometers, it was a severe physical test for every German soldier, not to mention that there was more than one artillery blockade area for reinforcements ahead.

In the wilderness 10 kilometers away from the German positions in front of the Somme, in the daytime, it is the area where the Ocean Empire Air Force is raging. .

It is quite difficult to cross such a long distance overnight and bypass the area blocked by artillery fire.

“Commander, can they do it?” It was General Bian Chunsong, deputy commander of the 1st Army, who asked with doubts.

The commander of the army was concurrently served by Marshal Li Shuanzhu, and General Bian Chunsong was the No. 2 figure.

The more than 300,000 troops of the    Expeditionary Force assembled in the Somme and the southern battlefields are all under the jurisdiction of the 1st Army Group, which is also the 1st Army Group in the history of the Ocean Empire.

The vanguard of the 2nd Army was still resting in Hampton on the east coast of the United States, waiting for the cruise ships to and from the Atlantic to transport them to Europe. As for the Eastern or Western Fronts, there are two things to say.

It depends on whether the 1st Army can cooperate with the British and French forces to break the deadlock on the Western Front?

As an authority in the field of tank armor of the Imperial Army, Admiral Bian Chunsong was in charge of commanding the implementation of the third phase of the armored group to break through the German positions, so he was particularly concerned.

Marshal Li Shuanzhu looked at him over the years, and snorted coldly; “Hmph, don’t underestimate our allies, their fighting will and ability to execute are among the top armies in the world, worthy of the world’s powers. title.”

“Commander, but in the previous battles, the British and French coalition forces did not strictly limit the German reinforcements with artillery fire, and it became a tactic of adding more oil to the face and adding more water to the face. This is probably the main reason for the current stalemate. one of the factors.”

“The soldiers are all good. These high-level British and French generals have rigid tactical thinking and do not seek flexibility. They have given the Germans a great opportunity. .” Marshal Li Shuanzhu shook his head gloomily and sighed.

Lord Gaff, commander of the British 5th Army, didn’t know the benefits of the three-minute rotation interval?

The answer is obviously no. If this artillery blockade tactic is strictly implemented, it will completely eliminate the possibility of large reinforcements of the German army, and the benefits are obvious.

The British and French artillery units have such capabilities and enough artillery shells to implement this artillery blockade tactic. Since they know it is a good tactic, why not actively cooperate?

in the final analysis

stemmed from arrogance and rigid tactics in the bones. The old British command method was that the army rushed after the artillery bombardment. If it was unable to attack, they used the artillery bombardment. After the bombardment, the army rushed again, and so on.

was not at all concerned with cutting off German reinforcement channels, suppressing German artillery fire, clearing extremely dangerous heavy machine gun positions, and destroying enemy ammunition and food transport lines.

Maybe, but not completely.

Even if the battlefield of the Somme turned into **** and killed millions of people, it did not change the stubborn thinking of these senior officers.

If he had a hammer in his hand, he really wanted to knock open the heads of these high-ranking British and French officers to see what kind of stubbornness was inside?

Especially the senior generals of the British army, stubbornly adhered to the tradition of intensive charging in the 19th century. Each soldier carried a weight of more than 30 kilograms and was equipped with 200 rounds of ammunition, grenades and rifles. When charging, they moved forward like clumsy wooden stakes.

Due to the low effectiveness of British artillery shelling, most of the German soldiers who hid in the trenches survived and used periscopes to observe the approaching British soldiers.

As the British soldiers got closer and closer, the Germans were ordered to fight back. First, the artillery that could still fire in the rear of the Germans slammed, and secondly, the German infantry waiting for the order at the underground tunnel entrance began to pour out, and quickly filled the trenches and began to fight back.

Controlled heavy machine guns to shoot frantically, and the dense bullets harvested the lives of the British like the sharp scythe of death.

British soldiers retreating in panic as the muddy roads slowed down, congestion and falls caused more casualties.

This kind of one-sided massacre made Marshal Haig in the United Kingdom unbelievable. In his opinion, under the heavy bombardment of 7 consecutive days of artillery fire, the Germans could not have such a ferocious counterattack.

So he shouted, “That’s absolutely impossible!” to express his shock.

Marshal Haig became angry, and regardless of the life and death of the soldiers, he continued to order to strengthen the attack, attack, attack again, and be sure to take the German positions.

Then a tragic cycle appeared, that is, the British bombarded, the Germans hid, the British charged, and the Germans came out and fired with the Maxim machine guns, knocking down a large number of British soldiers like cutting wheat…

Then the British continued to shell, the Germans continued to hide, and again and again…

Marshal Hegel’s simple and rude command caused the British army to suffer heavy casualties. More than 60,000 casualties on the first day of the war shocked the whole world.

compared to

The German army suffered more than 12,000 casualties on the first day, and the French 6th Army, which served as an auxiliary offensive, only suffered more than 1,590 casualties.

It can be seen from this point that the French artillery was more effective in suppressing the German army, and it killed the German army in the trenches more, so the counterattack encountered was less.

Marshal Li Shuanzhu waved his hand and said, “We can’t control others, we can only take our destiny in our own hands. The great boys of the empire came to Europe with me, and I want to bring most of them back instead of burying them here. On cold and muddy ground.

Order the artillery calibration machine to strengthen the observation. I will remove all the German defense lines and the artillery positions 20 kilometers behind them.

After three days of shelling, the Allied artillery positions will move forward across the board and continue to bombard the towns and all possible deep targets behind the German trench positions. I will blow them all to pieces.

There is no need to save artillery shells for the French. Our expeditionary force buys and sells this hammer and shoots out all the hoarded artillery shells.

There is no need to fear casualties of the Army Air Corps, pass my orders;

From the 4th day of the bombardment on the whole line, the medium-altitude bombing tactics were abandoned, and all the low-altitude precision bombing tactics were used, and they gave me fixed-point strikes and dropped bombs into the trenches.

Every time one more heavy machine gun position is cleared, it is possible to save the lives of hundreds of young men.

The first, second and third German positions on the Somme front, I will turn them into a sea of ​​fire, and nothing will grow. ”

Marshal Li Zhuzhu swung his big hand down fiercely, which represented his confidence in shattering everything.

He didn’t believe that the German soldiers could survive in this sea of ​​steel fire.

do not forget

The third axe he played was a tank and armored group assault, and the infantry followed the tactics. The German defense line was bombarded by air for 17 consecutive days. After 6 days of artillery bombardment, the powerful T5 Tiger tank will be the main attack. The goal is to occupy the three German defense lines. A total of 23 kilometers of deep positions.

After the day of the attack, the artillery and aerial bombardment of the army will be more intense and deadly, and the Royal Army Air Forces will go out across the board to support the attack of the armored forces at any cost.

Bian Chunsong raised his hands in awe and saluted, and answered with a strong voice; “The 1st Army Group resolutely carried out the command of the commander and blew the German positions into a sea of ​​flames, leaving no grass alive.”

Under the strict order of the high command

A new round of aerial strangulation has begun again. From morning to night, the fighter jets whistling above the German Somme positions continued to make a terrifying screeching sound, and the roar of engines resounded over the battlefield. All possible German targets.

This harsh aerial strangulation almost suffocated the German Second Army and suffered unprecedented heavy casualties. Urgent call for help.

The two German divisions reinforced from the positions of the German 1st Army Group to the south were discovered not long after walking out of the night, followed by the overwhelming bombardment of aircraft and concentrated artillery bombardment, almost killing the two German divisions. It was wiped out, with nearly 20,000 casualties.

The railway from the rear of Germany to the front has long been blown up, and planes whizzed past from time to time, searching for traces of German reinforcements along the road, not even a carriage on the road will be spared, as long as it is found, it will inevitably rush Shoot down.

Many fighters were shot down by the German machine gun positions, a total of more than 40 before and after.

But this kind of sacrifice is worth it. There are no ghosts and shadows on the hundreds of kilometers of roads. There are blown up vehicles and dead soldiers along the way, which basically blocked the possibility of the German army’s massive reinforcements to the front line.

The British 3rd and 4th Army Groups and the French 6th Army Group also launched feints one after another on the battlefield of the North Somme, which contained the strength of the German 1st Army Group and made it impossible to look south.

(end of this chapter)