Chapter 32: Modern-day Clausewitz
Given that Lelouch’s previous advice to General Hipper had just taken effect,
Duke Rupprecht was very patient with his latest suggestion, listening very carefully before raising a few questions:
“Do you think radio communication equipment, artillery call authority, and more support fire should all be concentrated for use by the most frontline grassroots troops?
What makes you think that after this reorganization, combat effectiveness will be better? And where will all that radio and support fire equipment come from? What will the other troops use?”
Fortunately, Lelouch had anticipated these questions and mentioned them in the plan, but the leader had no time to review the materials now.
Lelouch quickly picked up the plan left on the table, flipped to one of the pages, and explained in detail:
“I know some ideas are too advanced, even jumping ahead. So I hope to start from the basics. Your Highness, as you have seen, since this war broke out, the nature of warfare has changed dramatically.
In the previous war, the attacker’s disadvantage was not so obvious. The defender had some terrain advantage, but the attacker could achieve a breakthrough by concentrating absolute superior forces on a local battlefield—decades ago, Marshal Moltke won against Napoleon III this way.
But now, at least on the Western Front, both sides have dug more and more trenches and fortifications. Whoever attacks suffers, and the casualty exchange ratio is becoming more lopsided. Examples of one regiment holding off several divisions’ attacks are everywhere.
The essence of all this can actually be summed up in one point: in the previous war, soldier density and firepower density were proportional, but now they are not.
In the era without automatic weapons, when artillery was direct line-of-sight aiming, to concentrate a certain amount of guns and cannons’ fire, you had to physically gather the human bodies capable of operating that many weapons together to launch the attack—up to now, Ollie and Lusha on the Eastern Front are still fighting this way, completely unaware that the times have changed.
But after automatic weapons and indirect fire long-range artillery became widespread, for the attacker to project that much fire, there is no need to concentrate so many people at one point. A small number of people can fully guide massive fire delivery.
The fewer people concentrated during the attack, the smaller the target. When covered by the defender’s artillery fire and machine guns, the losses are also fewer.
So there is an obvious general trend in human war history: the more advanced military technology, the fewer soldiers needed to fill the defense line per unit length of frontline units, leaving more manpower for rear reserves and defense lines.
Soldiers on the frontline for filling the line or fire reconnaissance have to wait for casualties before replenishing reserves from the rear defense line to move up. Otherwise, piling too many people on the front at the same time is just sending heads to be harvested.”
Duke Rupprecht and Major General Hipper fell into deep thought after hearing this.
What Lelouch said made sense; as a general commanding an army group, Your Highness naturally had similar basic understandings. He just hadn’t summarized these theories from the level of military strategy.
After all, the world war had only been going on for more than four months, and many hazy things hadn’t yet formed a theoretical system.
Yet Lelouch had outlined and summarized them for him. The principles were the same, but the logic was clearer.
After pondering for a while, the duke became increasingly delighted, as if breaking through a layer of paper after seclusion and meditation.
After figuring it out, the duke couldn’t help muttering to himself:
“…So this is the inevitable trend of history? The more advanced technology, the fewer people needed to deliver fire. In the rifle era, concentrating the fire of a thousand rifles required a thousand infantry; in the machine gun era, twenty machine gunners can replace those thousand infantry.
This way, what originally required a thousand soldiers in attack status can now have only 20 soldiers in attack status at the same time, with the remaining 980 continuing as reserves in defensive posture, less easily mass-killed by machine gun fire and artillery barrage. Just wait for casualties among the front 20, then replenish from the reserves… Is my understanding of this ideal model correct?”
The duke even humbly asked for instruction, actively seeking confirmation from Lelouch on the correctness of his thought process, his eyes full of sincere thirst for knowledge.
Lelouch was not stingy and revealed a bit more high-level summary insight:
“Your summary is spot on, but there’s one detail I’d like to add. I believe those ‘remaining 980 people’ are not entirely idling in the rear as reserves.
They can fully cooperate with the true spearhead troops carrying out the attack mission, rushing into the newly captured areas and providing real-time defense after the spearhead troops break through the enemy positions and wedge into the enemy defense line.
For example, if spearhead assault troops tear two deep gaps in the enemy defense line, like iron pincers with a good chance of cutting off the retreat of a section of the enemy defense zone, completely annihilating the enemy.
Then, out of survival instinct, even if originally in defense, the enemy will have to switch to attack status, crawling out of the trenches to launch a full counterattack on the weak points of the flanks of our newly captured pincer area.
At that point, sending our second-line reserves to fill the line and hold the positions just torn open by the spearhead assault troops allows us to wait at ease for the weary enemy counterattack and defend in place.
Because in modern warfare, a soldier’s ‘defensive power’ when in ‘defense status’ is several times higher than in attack status. So the more of our troops in ‘defense’ status while more enemy soldiers are forced into ‘attack’ status, the greater our advantage.
As argued earlier, at the micro tactical level, defense has too great an advantage over attack, and attack’s advantage is only in macro strategic concentration of forces. So the more perfect future military strategy must achieve ‘having both,’ ‘enjoying as much as possible the attacker’s advantage of concentrated forces at the strategic level, and the defender’s defensive power advantage at the tactical level.’
Storm Commando Tactics, infantry-tank coordinated blitzkrieg, deep battle strategy theory—all share this one point.
That is, at their respective levels of weapons technology development, they exhaust every method to make their own side ‘although needing to play the attacker’s role at the macro strategic level, have as few and as sparse soldiers as possible playing the attack role at the micro tactical level.’
Then turn as many remaining own troops as possible into temporary defensive roles as the situation dictates.
The tank troops in later armored divisions are the spearhead attack troops tearing open the defense line.
While the mechanized infantry regiment attached to the armored division is actually the temporary defensive role. It’s just that these defensive roles’ defense locations are relatively forward, belonging to ‘frontline defense.’
As technology advances, the equipment for ‘spearhead’ and ‘frontline filling the line’ will keep iterating, but the underlying logic remains the same.
……
“So, based on these considerations, I came up with the overall direction for tactical improvement: in our current combat troops, when executing attack missions, far too many people are in ‘attack status’ at every moment—it’s too wasteful.
Soldiers in attack status are very vulnerable with low defensive power, so at any moment, minimize the number in attack status. This requires tilting firepower concentration toward these people, while other filling the line troops only need basic firepower density.
In the future, we can further develop along this overall thinking, but that will require support from more advanced weapons and equipment. Advances in weapons technology and tactics are always complementary.”
Lelouch’s remarks could be said to draw from ancient and modern military strategy, integrating them thoroughly.
Finally, it invigorated Duke Rupprecht entirely, just like Liu Xuande after hearing the Longzhong Plan.
The duke sincerely exclaimed: “You might have a chance to become a modern Clausewitz! My God, who would think such a person never attended military academy? Alright, I’ll try my best to meet your requested weapon configurations.
But first, tell me about this idea you mentioned of ‘separating assault troops and filling the line troops’—what should the rough proportion be between these two parts? Or simply put, how large a scale of assault team should a division be equipped with?”
Lelouch thought about it; historically, the German Army later implemented commando tactics, basically one battalion per division. For second-line divisions, it wasn’t needed.
So he didn’t bother innovating and directly copied the mature answer on this point:
“I think, ideally, a main force division tasked with the main attack needs to be equipped with one battalion of assault troops, then distributed down so each regiment gets one company. The company should be the smallest unit for dispersed use of assault troops.
That is, in actual combat, a company might still split into platoons and squads to advance, but at least ensure one company in the same combat zone so the company commander can command the whole company in time. As for the battalion, it can be split into companies to follow different regiments and act separately.
However, in an actual campaign, an army group can’t have all divisions as main attack; the attack won’t be a flat push on one line. So filling the line divisions don’t need assault battalions. At the start, if equipment is insufficient, second-line divisions can also go without.
Duke Rupprecht thought about it and felt this proportion was quite appropriate, close to his own guess.
He muttered softly, calculating: “One elite main force division with one battalion, as the army’s spearhead attack role? There’s not much time to prepare before the Battle of Ypres starts. Even if I try my best to gather and concentrate equipment, in the short term I can at most assemble two or three such battalions.
And personnel training and break-in for new tactics must be considered. So pick two main attack divisions from the army group, attach such assault battalions as a pilot. If they perform well in this campaign, train and expand later.
List the specific weapon inventory, see how many personnel each battalion needs and what equipment. Um, Karl’s 12th Division is quite suitable as one of the two main attack divisions then; you’re relatively familiar with them, so stay with the 12th Division.
Then I’ll assign a battalion commander for the assault battalion to Karl, and with your captain rank, you’ll temporarily serve as battalion deputy and company commander of one of the companies. Your company will be reorganized from the 12th Division’s division reconnaissance company, with all equipment prioritized for your pilot unit.”
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PS: New book seeking comments, follows, collections, tickets. Thank you.
Plot’s here, must elaborate some military theory thoughts, don’t complain about padding. Fortunately, still free chapter.
