"See? On the sunny side of the northwestern ridgeline, there was a group of people, dressed in camouflage uniforms, who were descending the mountain, about 20 people, 4 of whom were on the flank, and the rest were in a column. ”

Through the special vision, Weiss spotted this small group of enemies early, and after switching to normal vision, he instructed his companions to use binoculars to observe and lock on to the enemy's position.

"That's amazing, your eyesight is amazing!" The young reservists expressed their heartfelt admiration.

The officer of the reserve force beside him interjected: "It shouldn't be difficult to deal with these 20 people, I'll take one company up and ensure that they are completely annihilated." ”

"No, don't startle the snake just yet. If they are eliminated by us, the enemy forces behind will be aware of it and change their plans accordingly. We're just here to watch, to see what they want to do, where they're going? If they were heading in the direction of the aviation base, they should be reconnoitring the guards of the aviation base and planning it, and with their current strength, it would be impossible to send a mobile reconnaissance team indiscriminately...... Normally, mobile vigilant forces will move regularly in a specific area, rather than in a search formation like they do. ”

Finally, Weiss added, "It's experience. In guerrilla warfare, our experience is much older than theirs. ”

The vigilance team led by Weiss, consisting of 3 officers, 5 non-commissioned officers, and 16 soldiers, was not on a combat mission, but under Weiss's leadership to conduct routine vigilance reconnaissance -- to be precise, to learn how to conduct vigilance reconnaissance under the old guerrilla commander. Their position at this time was one of the 24 warning points around the Kassel air base, and the Kassel defense operation was the first combat operation led by the Lorraine reserve since the outbreak of the war. Without the support of General Arteus, they would not have had such an opportunity to embark on this, which is both an opportunity and a challenge, after all, nine times out of ten of these officers and soldiers around Weiss are on the battlefield for the first time. The overall combat effectiveness and average were inferior to the front-line troops, but they were not lackluster, and the elite of the Lorraine guerrilla warfare, led by Weiss, who had participated in the last war, was the factor that gave them superiority over their opponents.

Some of the former guerrilla heroes, some of whom were too old to charge into battle, give advice, dispatch the rear, and exert their residual heat, and some were in the prime of their careers, with good physique, spirit, and experience, such as Grunson-Totenberg, Alex Nordimic, and others, who were Weiss's right and left hands in the Lorraine Industrialists' Union, and when the war resumed, they followed Weiss to the Lorraine Reserve Army. With the support of General Arteus, Weiss set about the formation of the A operational command of the Lorraine Reserve Force, with personnel and equipment configured according to the specifications of the divisional troop staff, and highlighting the operational command function. The combat operations around the Kassel air base are codenamed A, and the reserve units that have joined Operation A already have five reserve battalions, 1901, 1904, 1909, 1910, and 1912, with a combat strength of nearly 6,000 people -- the reserve battalion has no strict staffing restrictions, and can be "formed into a battalion" from one or two hundred to three or four thousand. In the past, the reserve battalion was mainly used to provide supplementary personnel for the front-line troops, but the post-war military reform gave the reserve battalion more roles and responsibilities.

Today, the Union Army's front-line combat units are still armed with old bolt-action rifles, but the proportion has dropped to 30 percent, while the proportion of Crumber-Grumman assault rifles has risen to 45 percent. That is to say, among the 10 soldiers, 3 still use bolt-action rifles, 4 and a half use assault rifles, and the rest use pistols, machine guns, and semi-automatic rifles. As a result, in the Union Army, the Clumberg-Grumman assault rifle was considered by most to be the best post-war invention, but everyone who used it was praised. The situation with firearms in the reserve battalions is more or less reversed, with 70 per cent of the soldiers still using old bolt-action rifles, less than 10 per cent of the Clumberg-Grumman assault rifles and about 2-3 per cent of light and heavy machine guns. As far as the level of equipment and training is concerned, the combat effectiveness of the reserve troops is roughly calculated by three to four percent of the front-line troops, and of course there are certain differences between different units, and the reserve units of Lorraine are superior to the reserve units of most federal states in terms of equipment and training, and their combat value is correspondingly stronger.

"Stay hidden, they're only about 10,000 feet away from us. At this distance, we must be careful not to be discovered by them, such a Norman squad has at least two snipers, and their special sniper rifles have a long range and high accuracy, and it is difficult for us to take advantage of long-range firefights. Of course, there is no need to be too inhibited, after all, we are on the active side. ”

Weiss combined with the enemy situation in front of him, patiently and meticulously transmitted his experience to the young men in his companionship. On the hill not far behind them, a conspicuous observation post was erected, which was made of trees, and was not deliberately camouflaged, but deliberately made the enemy dare not move wantonly. There are many such observation posts in Lorraine, and they are not all stationed with troops, but they are in response to the needs of the situation, and they are false and real, making it difficult for the enemy to understand.

Here, there is such an observation post, and the enemy's attention is more easily attracted to it than to the nearby jungles and bushes, which is also a technique for guerrilla warfare to choose observation points, which Weiss and his men have explored through long battles, and this experience has often come at a painful cost of blood and lives......

Thirty miles southeast of the post is the Kassel Air Base, about 150 miles from Somsonas, which is the strategic fulcrum of the Federal Air Force in central Lorraine, with a full divisional aviation unit and several field airfields as auxiliaries. In addition to Weiss's reserve troops, 3 anti-aircraft battalions, 3 infantry battalions and 1 armored squadron were deployed here in advance, with a warning radius of 30 miles. Following the strategy discussed between Weiss and General Arteus to lure the enemy into depth, after the Norman army launched a limited-power air attack on the Kassel air base, the Federation decided to upgrade the defense system of Kassel - General Arteus ordered the deployment of 3 additional anti-aircraft battalions and 6 reserve battalions, the construction of a series of defensive positions, and the expansion of the ground cordon to 40 miles. Even if the Normans were close to the defensive circle, they could not threaten the base with conventional short-range artillery. It would take about two to three weeks to complete this defensive adjustment, during which the movement of troops and the establishment of new positions would provide the Normans with an ideal opportunity for a night attack. In addition, once the defense is deployed, the Normans will be much more difficult to attack, whether it is an air attack or a ground raid. In order to increase the sense of urgency of the Normans, the Federal Air Force units stationed in Lorraine quickly organized two more waves of large-scale long-range bombardment after the Norman air raids, and launched a large-scale night bombardment of the industrial and military areas of the Norman hinterland at any cost.

Weiss's plan of operation, borrowed from the U.S. Army's ambush at Midway in World War II, and they did not need to deliberately leak information, and the omnipenetrating Normans reacted quickly, increasing their aerial reconnaissance efforts at the Kassel Air Base, and ground teams began to appear near the base. Here, the enemy that Weiss and the reserve forces will eventually face may only be a Norman force of one or two thousand men, but the experience of the last war and the lessons of the previous Union army clearly remind them that this is a rather vicious group of enemies, and they must not take it lightly, but treat this battle as a difficult task.

At dusk, another large group of aircraft embarked on a night bombing trip against the industrial areas of the eastern Norman Empire. For this new type of attack of the Federal Air Force, although the Normans organized a variety of interceptions, the fleet was more flexible than the fleet, and once the enemy was detected in a large-scale interception, it could quickly disperse, just as people could not use a machine gun to stop the invasion of birds.

Since the interception in the air was quite difficult and the results were not obvious, the Normans naturally thought of a way to draw a salary from the bottom of the kettle, on the one hand, to strike at the aviation facilities of the Federal Air Force in the west, and on the other hand, their attacks from the north and the eastern front also focused on the aircraft production areas of the Federal Air Force, that is, several major manufacturing plants such as the Star Group.

After nightfall, Weiss went to the alternate airfield near the air base, where the reserve unit had two old biplanes, which were the seeding and firefighting planes of the Agricultural and Forestry Air Corps in peacetime, and in wartime they were an effective tactical reconnaissance and liaison tool for the reserve forces to be used by the reserve forces without the need to recruit additional pilots.

Riding on this old but stable biplane, Weiss carried out a wide range of low-altitude reconnaissance near the air base, which was very different from the activities of the regular army, and it was more through its own experience and special skills to observe the enemy's activities on the ground, and from the observation of this night, it was clear that the enemy was consciously moving deployable ground forces near the Kassel air base.

Seeing the enemy's movements clearly, Weiss flew to General Arteus's headquarters overnight to discuss with him the next operational arrangements, the general principle was to encircle the point and send reinforcements, let the enemy attack the air base, and then surround the attacking enemy and lure the enemy to come to the rescue, so as to strike and destroy the enemy's living forces as much as possible. A dedicated communication line had been set up between Weiss's reserve command and General Arteus's regular army command, and considering that wired communication without encryption technology was not absolutely secure, and in the event that the enemy had infiltrated into Lorraine, all military systems could be eavesdropped by the enemy, so Weiss and General Arteus agreed on some simple ciphers. Unless absolutely necessary, contact is usually only made in secret language, so as to determine the direction of the attack and the time of the attack.

General Arteus was in agreement with the proposed strategy of encirclement and reinforcement, but he had many concerns at the implementation level, such as the Normans were good at designing traps to hinder the movement of the Union army, while on the other hand, the Normans were good at surprise attacks, and if the alliance deployed a large number of troops in advance in the preset area, it would arouse the enemy's vigilance and make them change their plans; If the forces are insufficient, it will be difficult to withstand the enemy's counterattack, which creates a contradiction at the level of strategy and execution.