It was a gloomy morning with a drizzle in the sky. In Lorraine, a land of endless fighting and life, the two sides fought fiercely and fought fiercely for days, making this weather feel particularly gloomy and depressing.

At the edge of the woods, Stephen Chow followed the partisans to hide and wait, observing the Normans' deployment and movements around the dam for a long time. As a veteran pilot, he has a very strong ability to discern. According to his estimates, the Norman army near the river dam should be about a company, with medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns, small-caliber machine guns, and some machine guns that can be used for anti-aircraft operations. For attack aircraft units operating in formation, such air defense forces are insignificant, and as long as they carry out dive bombing or rapid horizontal bombing, they can easily crush these ants.

For the Federal Air Force, this enemy was inconspicuous, for the partisans it was a completely different matter. The two guerrilla forces gathered together were only more than 200 people, which was the same as the number of enemy troops holding the river dam in front of them. Not to mention the fact that the enemy is on the defensive, with artillery, machine guns and machine guns, the guerrillas cannot be compared with the enemy's regular army in terms of the fighting qualities of the soldiers. They hurried to get here before dawn, which made Stephen Zhou wonder why he didn't do it earlier, or even later, so that he could act quickly under the cover of night, instead of waiting idlely.

What struck him even more strange was that the legendary guerrilla commander, after observing the enemy's situation, did not plan to attack, but sat in the bushes and took out a soft-cover notebook from his backpack to write and draw. After a long time, he couldn't resist the curiosity in his heart and slowly moved over.

This commander is writing a biography like this?

Seeing that the attack aircraft pilot leaned his head over, Weiss did not avoid him, but said calmly: "This is my war note." When the war is over, I will publish a professional military book, the kind that ordinary people can understand, and the name will be "Modern Guerrilla Warfare." These are my experiences and feelings during the war. In fact, I had this plan long after the end of the last war, but it was delayed by many things. ”

Stephen Chow is not the kind of person who is a crepe person, and he has no idea about writing a biography. In his view, those deeds that can be sung and cried need a carrier of inheritance and praise, and books are undoubtedly the most suitable, but their essence is to record, which can be polished, but will not bring about qualitative changes. Therefore, he jumped away from the topic and asked directly:

"Are we going to stay here for a day and wait until the night to attack?"

"That's the worst-case scenario." Weiss replied.

"What's the best plan?" Stephen Chow followed his answer and asked further.

"The best plan is to wait for our air force to crush them, and we go over to receive positions, watch over the prisoners, and receive the airborne troops." Weiss raised the corners of his mouth.

Stephen Chow was puzzled, he remembered that the legendary guerrilla commander had told him that although the dam's hydropower station was used by the Normans, the Federal Air Force had not bombed the dam for fear of flooding and threatening the safety of the villages and towns downstream.

Weiss saw the pilot's confusion and said as he wrote: "At this time and then, now that our field airfields have been deployed around Lorraine, we can use attack planes instead of bombers to deal with the enemy. The superiority of attack aircraft in bombing accuracy, you should be well aware of it. ”

As a veteran of both skill and experience, Stephen Chow certainly knows how accurate tactical bombing can be. It was just that he had traveled all the way here, and witnessed the amazing performance of this guerrilla force, which made him think that he could use the strength of the guerrillas to destroy the Norman garrison around the river dam and win a beautiful victory. He was full of tactical speculation, but he did not expect that the guerrillas would actually put the bombing of the Federal Air Force on the optimal tactical choice.

With a kind of calmness to understand the truth, Weiss continued: "The greatest characteristic of the guerrillas is their flexibility and concealment in the enemy's occupied areas, and their greatest weakness is their combat effectiveness and equipment. If you want to win, you have to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses – this is common sense and reason. Although during war, for strategic reasons, we often abandon this rationality and accomplish some difficult tasks in a more heroic way......"

As the two were talking, a low whimper was heard from the other side of the dam—it was a Norman mechanical anti-aircraft siren. Not long after the air raid sirens sounded, a group of planes suddenly appeared between the distant mountains, flying almost at treetop heights. Some Norman soldiers were still running in the anti-aircraft positions around the dam, some had already entered the battle positions, hurriedly shaking the turntable of the anti-aircraft guns, and the Federal Air Force combat planes struck like lightning. They skimmed over the dam, some dropped bombs on the first shot, and some flew over the dam and quickly circled, turned around, and attacked in a coherent and fluid manner.

Those who were the first to drop bombs in the face caught the enemy by surprise, but the accuracy of the attack was slightly less. Although the bomb was intercepted by enemy fire in the process of returning the rifle, the bomb was more accurate and more destructive.

Judging from the scene of the bomb explosion, these federal fighters were carrying light aerial bombs, which were slightly more powerful than mortar shells, and even if they accidentally landed on the dam, they would not have a fatal blow to the structure of the dam.

Around the dam, the Normans constructed semi-enclosed and enclosed bunkers, which, although concrete, were far from fortress-level defenses, only stronger than the standard of field fortifications, and light aerial bombs were sufficient to destroy them.

After two waves of bombing, some of the Federal Air Force planes adjusted their stance and launched a third round of attacks – dropping all the remaining bombs or strafing them with machine guns. In this back and forth shuttle attack, the Normans around the dam were killed and turned on their backs.

As a member of the Federal Air Force, Stephen Chow was pleased with the effect of the airstrike, and he turned his head to see the guerrilla commander beside him silently staring ahead, with no excitement or other expression on his face. When the bombing was over, and the smoke of gunpowder was everywhere around the dam, he quickly summoned the guerrillas with radio equipment and asked him to send a telegram to the headquarters.

Stephen Zhou listened to it, this telegram was a request for the air force to carry out another air raid, and confirmed that the previous round of air raids had achieved a sudden effect, the casualties rate of the Norman defenders around the river dam was close to forty percent, and the morale of the army had been greatly shaken, as long as there was another round of bombing, they could basically be defeated, and after the previous bombing, their air defense capability had been weakened by almost half.

When the radioman sent a telegram, Stephen Zhou stepped forward: "You have made a quantitative estimate of the battle situation, is this quantification usually accurate?" I don't mean anything else, but I want to know how to translate this estimate into accurate data. ”

"And how did the pilots of the reconnaissance planes of the Air Force confirm the situation of the ground battle?" Weiss did not answer directly, but asked rhetorically.

Stephen Chow muttered, "Well, I was a reconnaissance aircraft pilot for almost half a year. It has to be said that reconnaissance requires a lot of skill. A lot of times we can't describe quantitatively, but rather generalize, which is something that has always bothered us. If you can make a quantitative statement like you just now, I believe it can provide a more accurate and powerful reference for commanders' decision-making. ”

Weiss nodded: "In fact, from past experience, our judgment is very close to the actual situation. As for the technique you mentioned, I think it's more about experience and logic. Yes, logic is important. Let's just say that during the bombardment, many Norman soldiers were still outside the bunkers when the bombing was carried out, and the bombing destroyed many of the enemy's bunkers. Combining these two situations, and with our knowledge of this enemy position, a round of bombardment can kill and injure 30%-40% of the enemy's strength. This Norman army has not been violently attacked for a long time, and the guerrillas have rarely harassed them, so they are used to being stable, and suddenly being attacked like this will definitely take a big blow to their morale. In addition, intelligence indicates that experienced veterans who had previously lived here had been transferred to the front lines, replacing many of the new recruits. ”

Stephen Chow has to admit that these observations and analyses are well-founded. As for the accuracy, he is not very sure, but if he improves it more often and combines it with his previous experience, he thinks that there are some reliable "battlefield parameters", just like some wonderful mathematical laws in industrial production and economic operation. In peacetime before the outbreak of war, in the classrooms of the university, he had heard from wise professors. If the war had ended a day earlier, he would have liked to be able to go back to the classroom and learn more from the knowledgeable and talented professors.

After about 40 minutes, air raid sirens sounded again on enemy positions around the dam. This time, the air raid alert was two or three minutes ahead of the incoming Federal fighters, which gave them more time to prepare. However, as Weiss had judged, their organization had already been greatly weakened in the previous round of bombardment, so the organized resistance this time was not much better than it had been in the previous hasty response.

This time, the Federal Air Force sent 16 attack aircraft, four more than in the first wave, while the full squadron of attack aircraft usually had 18-21 aircraft. They still adopted the strategy of low-altitude flight, skimming the mountains and forests in a compact flight formation, and when they were about to fly over the river dam, all kinds of shells and bullets rose from the ground positions of the Normans, but the weak firepower was difficult to form a complete fire network, and the eagles of the Federation Army easily adjusted their formation, and bypassed the Normans' frontal interception in two ways. One way, it went around the upper reaches of the dam, then attacked along the river, and the other flew downstream of the dam, making a half-circle in the air, bombarding the Norman positions around the dam from west to east.

The fighters of the Federation Army, which were attacked from two directions, one in front of the other, stepped on the point and flew over the river dam. In the process of detouring, the pilots already had an intuitive understanding of the target of the attack, and without further reconnaissance and decision, they directly launched a wave of attacks. Because there was no need to consider the issue of range, each attack aircraft carried 6 light aerial bombs, and nearly 100 aerial bombs fell intensively and orderly on the positions of the Normans, constituting a "carpet bombardment" at the tactical level.

Where the flames swept through, the Normans' guns were instantly muted.

Seeing that the air raid was about to end with a satisfactory result, a federal attack plane was suddenly hit by ground artillery fire, and the engine pulled out a thick black smoke. Because of the low-altitude bombing, the attack pilots had no time to parachute, so they could only try to maintain the balance of the fuselage, and with a whimpering sound, they slid to the surface of the water downstream of the dam, and finally made a forced landing about five miles from the dam. At this time, the Federal Air Force had used a large number of lightweight aluminum alloys as the main material of aircraft, which was much less dense than steel, but not enough to completely float on the water.

After the plane made a forced landing, the air raid also ended quickly, and the combat planes of the rest of the Federation Army lingered nearby for a while. Although he was reluctant, he had no choice but to return first.

At the beginning, Stephen Chow saw one of the Normans' machine guns turn downstream of the dam and fire a cannonball that stirred up a series of columns of water on the surface. Seeing those water columns stretching towards the attack plane's forced landing position, his heart suddenly jumped. Fortunately, a Norman officer called out for the soldiers to stop shooting, presumably intending to capture the Union pilot alive in such a suspenseless situation, rather than killing him on the spot.

Immediately afterwards, two Norman soldiers rowed a small boat from the side of the dam and rowed towards the position where the plane had made a forced landing.

In sight, the gray plane slowly sank underwater. The surviving pilot was floating on the water with a float behind his seat, he looked unfamiliar with the water, struggled for a while, and only moved a short distance.

Stephen Chow sweated for the safety of his comrades, and suddenly realized that the guerrillas around him had taken action under the leadership of their legendary commander. They left the woods and advanced to the river dam under the cover of the terrain, and the actions of the partisans soon attracted the attention of the Normans in the position, and their artillery fire was turned to this side. Stephen Chow had to burrow into a shallow ravine to avoid the attack, and he heard the sound of war drums in the woods behind him, the sound of mortar fire.

The mortar shells fired by the partisans, but not conventional blasters, landed around the dam, producing large clouds of ash smoke that made it impossible for the Normans to shoot accurately. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the partisans quickly approached the dam. The enemy was bombarded by two rounds of air raids in succession, suffered heavy losses in troops and equipment, and suffered a blow to morale, making it difficult to organize a stubborn resistance.

Stephen Chow looked up and watched as the partisans launched an attack on the Norman positions. They were more clever than expected, they skillfully used the terrain to move forward, alternate cover was no less tacit than those of well-trained and experienced field units, and the few mortars and machine guns provided very favorable fire suppression. With the momentum of seeing death as if they were at home, the partisans rushed into the enemy positions and fought with the enemy.

On the water downstream of the dam, two Norman soldiers rowing in a boat approached the overboard Union pilot, who was still trying to resist under enemy gunfire despite his difficult situation. Seeing that the position of the river dam was under attack, and the situation looked very bad, the two Norman soldiers hesitated, and after scooping up the pilot who had fallen into the water, they actually rowed downstream.