Chapter 5: Let Him Go Wild For An Hour Before Closing The Net
“The 75mm guns are still the most useful! If only those guys in the artillery regiment had been a bit more efficient, we wouldn’t have had to sacrifice so many officers and soldiers!”
Major General Dejizer of the Belgian Army’s 4th Division, seeing through his high-powered telescope that two heavy machine gun fire points on the outermost German Army defense line in the distance had been successively taken out by direct fire from his own rapid-fire cannons, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The rumbling sound of the bombardment gave him an extra sense of security.
At the same time, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with the previous performance of his two useless regimental commanders.
The 3rd Regiment had arrived at dawn today, and the 4th Regiment had arrived at noon.
The two regiments’ forces, even lacking heavy firepower at the time, added up to around 5,000 men.
Against a ruined town defended by an reinforced company at most, with only three or four hundred men. Yet they had attacked for a whole day without breaking through, and now the sun was about to set—it was truly shameful!
In the end, he had to personally swallow his pride and borrow from His Majesty several trucks originally used to transport royal family valuables, load up the remnants of his division’s artillery regiment, and arrive at the front line to finally open the situation.
There was no choice; the Belgian Army remnants, after continuous retreats for over ten days, had almost completely lost all their trucks. Artillery carriages and draft horses were also completely depleted, making it extremely difficult to maneuver the remaining cannons, to the point where large groups of soldiers had to drag them together, or cows were temporarily requisitioned on the spot.
The entire Belgian Army 4th Division had only these 4 cannons left. The neighboring 6th Division, because its defense zone was closer and the retreat distance shorter, had more cannons remaining. The rearguard 1st Division was the worst off, with not a single one left.
As the easternmost outermost street in Niobodetown was cleared, Major General Dejizer immediately ordered the two battalions of the 3rd Regiment to search and advance, slowly probing into the town center.
The two majors commanding the battalions—one along the south side of the Coastal Highway, the other along the north side—advanced cautiously.
When passing ruined houses, the soldiers carefully watched the doors and windows, but nothing unexpected happened, and gradually the Belgian soldiers became less vigilant.
When the war began, both sides’ urban warfare experience was a blank slate. Human history had never before seen hot weapons urban warfare scenarios.
The Belgian Army smoothly passed the first defense line and advanced to the second defense line. The enemy’s resistance fire was still sporadic, and with it already being evening and the light fading, the soldiers’ courage finally grew.
However, just as the Belgian Army continued to push deeper into the town,
“Da-da-da——”
Suddenly, from street corners on both sides of a cross street, machine gun bursts erupted, catching them off guard.
“Urgh ah—” agonized curses and screams instantly echoed through the street. From several rubble piles at the street corners, simply camouflaged, dense tongues of flame spat out.
From some west-facing windows and collapsed wall holes in the street that the Belgian vanguard had just safely passed, tricky tongues of flame suddenly appeared, continuously licking at life. Crossfire swept down most of the infantry that had pushed too deep, and the survivors could only huddle and scamper back in retreat.
……
“Hm, although it somewhat violates a soldier’s honor, those camouflage techniques you mentioned are really quite effective.
How did you think to use the wreckage of house ruins to build such realistic concealed fire points?”
Colonel Lister lowered his telescope, looking at those concealed heavy machine gun fire points that had deployed, slaughtering large numbers of enemies who had walked into the trap. He was very satisfied with this result.
The positioning of the crossfire points was selected by the battalion commander below and personally reviewed by the colonel; facts proved it was well chosen, with no fire dead zones at all.
However, the camouflage measures for these fire points came from Lelouch’s on-the-spot guidance just now.
He had only been here a short time and wasn’t yet solid on this era’s military basics, so he couldn’t command independently.
But he had plenty of later-era urban warfare lessons from book knowledge in his head; pulling out just one or two could help the colonel fill in the gaps.
Of course, facing the colonel’s question now, he still had to find another excuse on the surface for his knowledge source:
“Didn’t you forget, Colonel? I graduated from the Oreo Royal Academy of Arts architecture department. Civil engineering is my old trade. I’m best at load-bearing structure design—even fire points built from broken walls and ruins won’t collapse. I can do simple mental calculations for stress.”
“Very good, that architecture degree was worth it.” The colonel lowered his telescope and smugly patted his shoulder.
This scene made Lieutenant Barrack, who was beside them responsible for coordinating command, quite envious.
Barrack was the deputy company commander of the reconnaissance cavalry company. After Captain Andri was wounded, he had stuck close to the colonel to handle coordination, allowing the cavalry company’s soldiers to cooperate with the 16th Regiment’s friendly forces.
Barrack hadn’t known much about Lelouch’s deeds before. Seeing such a mere sergeant major being so heavily relied upon was hard to understand. Now, after seeing Lelouch’s performance, he was slightly convinced.
But before he could think more, the colonel spoke again: “Very good, have the officers and soldiers continue this elastic defense. When the enemy advances, we retreat; abandon the outer positions, don’t expose yourselves to the enemy’s rapid-fire cannon direct fire range—just let the enemy in and hit them!”
The German Army was very good at elastic defense; it was basic training.
Two months ago, when the war had just begun, they had used elastic defense tactics in the Alsace-Lorraine direction to bloody the French Army badly, killing 200,000 French soldiers.
Colonel Lister playing this move was naturally extremely proficient.
Lelouch stayed by his side, taking the chance to observe and learn for a while, and felt he benefited greatly.
He was like a sponge constantly absorbing water, greedily taking in practical command experience to build a foundation and win more capital to survive.
The repeated bloody back-and-forth fighting lasted a full hour. The Belgian Army was repelled twice, leaving at least several hundred more corpses in front of the positions.
As they fought on, night fully fell, and the Belgian Army’s charge momentum finally slowed.
Meanwhile, on the west side of the town, the French Army’s offensive momentum was also blocked by the colonel using nearly identical defensive techniques.
……
“The enemy is using elastic defense again! I didn’t expect a mere company commander to use such defensive tactics in urban warfare.”
Major General Dejizer watched his troops repelled again. His initial joy had completely faded, and he was furious like a defeated rooster, his riding crop uncontrollably whipping the hitching post.
“General! The enemy must have received reinforcements! In the repeated back-and-forth just now, we killed at least a hundred. If it was really just one company, we would have wiped them out already!”
Colonel Deyoka of the 3rd Regiment, to lighten his own blame amid the division commander’s cursing, casually exaggerated his combat results, emphasizing that the enemy’s forces weren’t weak.
But Dejizer knew his subordinates too well; he instinctively discounted their reported results by several times and said with a grim face:
“Don’t emphasize the difficulties! Even if the enemy has a few reinforcements arriving, they’re just flood-driven stragglers! Now that we have cannons, we still can’t take down this kind of town?!”
Deyoka: “But our direct fire is blocked by the ruins in the outer street blocks; we really can’t hit the fire points all around inside the town. It’s getting dark, and artillery observation is getting harder. How about we attack again tomorrow morning?”
Major General Dejizer nearly whipped him with his crop on the spot.
Wait one night? These wastes actually thought of that! His Majesty the King was waiting to open the road for the whole army to break out. In this life-or-death race, wait a whole night?
Major General Dejizer paced anxiously back and forth, scanning the entire battlefield. After thinking for a while, he finally made a decision: “Pull all the 75mm guns into the town and use close-range fire, direct fire to take out the enemy fire points in the next few street blocks!”
Colonel Deyoka was shocked: “General, no! Once inside the town, the intervals between street blocks are only a few hundred meters—too close! The enemy’s ambushed mortars and heavy machine guns can easily counter our artillery positions. We won’t have a range advantage!”
Dejizer knew his subordinate was right. Field guns were best used for one-sided slaughter outside the range of heavy machine guns and mortars, ideally keeping over two kilometers.
Rashly entering mutual fire range would just be giving the enemy an opportunity?
If it were open field, fine, but this was urban warfare—the terrain was too complex.
Dejizer hesitated for a long time, repeatedly observing the battlefield terrain through his telescope and studying the map, finally thinking of a solution.
“Got it! Don’t enter the town directly from the front! Have your men charge once more! After entering the town, occupy all the northernmost buildings in those cross streets along the outermost two or three street blocks!
The north side of the town is the sea. Before each attack, we can contact the Britannia Navy’s Bold light cruiser for a few rounds of covering fire. It’s a pity it’s a cruiser focused on anti-torpedo duties, with naval guns that have too flat a firing arc to bombard town depths. But with it there, the enemy at least won’t dare show their faces on the northernmost side of the town.
So attack from the northeast corner—you’ll definitely gain a foothold. Then pull these rapid-fire cannon positions to the northernmost ends of those north-south streets, even onto the beach, deploy them facing south along the streets for precise direct fire strikes—take out any enemy fire points that show their heads!
This way, the naval guns clear positions for the direct fire cannons, and the direct fire cannons cooperate to strike deep street targets inside the town. Together, we’ll definitely break through the enemy! The north-south length of these streets is also enough to exceed the range of heavy machine guns and light mortars. Then it’ll still be us bombarding the enemy while they can’t counter us.”
This order finally lit up the eyes of his several colonels and lieutenant colonels; they sincerely admitted for once that the division commander’s tactical vision was indeed superior, actually thinking up such an improvised move.
If they just pulled the cannons to the north entrances of those north-south streets in the town without going deep, they wouldn’t have to worry about enemy ambushes in complex terrain. The 75mm rapid-fire cannon’s own armored shield was enough to withstand close-range light weapons fire; no big threat.
The Belgian Army quickly moved, ignoring the darkness, and hastily organized another attack.
In the initial “elastic defense” phase, it was the same as before. The German Army resisted lightly then withdrew, then used fire points hidden on all sides to snipe and consume the Belgian Army.
Moreover, the positions of the German ambushes were different each time. Fire point locations used to repel the previous wave were gone by the next attack, changed to somewhere else. The Belgian Army had to use more lives to locate them again.
But this time, the Belgian Army gritted their teeth and held on, lasting longer than before.
Because they were told that once they gained a foothold, heavy firepower would move forward for direct fire to destroy those enemy heavy machine gun fire points hidden in the ruins.
Soon, Major General Dejizer’s deployment was put into practice.
The Bold cruiser on the sea surface routinely cleared an uninhabited zone at the northeast corner of the town, then Belgian infantry occupied it.
Then they pulled the 75mm guns onto the beach at the northern street entrances, swung the muzzles south, preparing to sweep street by street from north to south.
……
“The Belgians have finally taken the bait. They thought we had no heavy firepower; holding back the field guns until this moment was indeed worth it.”
Seeing the Belgian Army’s dispatch movements from afar through his telescope, Colonel Lister finally let out a long breath.
To say something not embarrassing, at the start of the great war, the German Army’s 3-inch class cannons were inferior in performance to the French Army’s.
The M96 77mm field gun was crushed by the Schneider 75mm gun in rate of fire, with no advantages in other specs.
The German Army 77mm cannon’s only clear advantage was that its shell muzzle velocity was much faster than the Schneider 75mm, which should have given a clear range advantage.
But the German artillery, pursuing a lower silhouette, had a gun carriage structure that limited maximum elevation angle, wasting the high velocity. In the end, their actual ranges were about the same.
All this had to be compensated by tactics and training. Fortunately, at this moment, Lister’s tactical enemy inducement was very successful.
The Belgian Army had been provoked by the roaming fire points inside the town into completely losing patience, finally unable to resist deploying rapid-fire cannons forward.
“All 77mm field guns attention: in two minutes, adjust firing data, and according to the following coordinates, rapid fire six rounds!”
“Field artillery company received, executing immediately!” The regimental field artillery company immediately acknowledged the colonel’s order and got to work swiftly and methodically.
A few minutes later, “boom boom boom” sudden massive blasts rang out at the northern beach edge of the town.
The Belgian artillery positions, just forcibly dragged forward and not yet fully deployed, had German Army 77mm shells land right in the middle.
“What? Impossible! How does the German Army have field guns? We bombarded them unilaterally for one or two hours and they didn’t fire back! Where did they get field guns from! How could they drag something so heavy through the flood zone!”
Major General Dejizer, observing the battle from outside the town, saw enemy shells land in his own deploying rapid-fire cannon positions, exploding in brilliant firelight. He felt a rush of blood to the head, his mind buzzing, nearly fainting.
In that instant, he knew his plan was doomed.
The German Army could really endure! They had cannons but didn’t use them? Just relying on heavy machine guns and elastic defense to hold for one or two hours, tricking him into lowering his vigilance!
