From a strategic point of view, the bombing of targets on the Norman Empire was undoubtedly the correct layout. If this pattern continues, it will be as short as a few months or as long as a year, and the strength of the Norman Empire on all fronts will inevitably become weaker and weaker, until it fails. However, knowing that the Normans were armed and had the most prestigious military tradition on the planet Orens, they never lacked brave and resourceful soldiers, so how could they be dull and beaten? From the moment Lorraine was positioned as a springboard for strategic bombing attacks, it was clear to the top military and the people in charge of Lorraine that once the strategic bombing mode was turned on, the military and civilians of Lorraine would inevitably be subjected to terrible pressure from the enemy.

For this morally defying war, the Norman Empire was militarily prepared, and as soon as the war began, it launched an offensive against the federal forces from the northern, western and eastern fronts at the same time. Fighting on multiple fronts, the inability to concentrate troops in one place was both a constraint on the Normans and the federal army, and the Norman army, as the party that took the initiative, had more options at both the strategic and tactical levels:

On the northern front, the Wessex army, who had just undergone a regime change, was unstable and difficult to achieve, and the biggest threat to the Federation was that they allied with the Norman Empire Jiacheng and ceded the long border derived from the northern foothills of the Monamolin Mountains to the coast of the East China Sea to the Normans.

On the Eastern Front, the Normans had figured out the way and route to navigate the furious seas safely, and their fleets turned the changing weather into a vantage factor, attacking the Commonwealth's ports, towns, and strategic targets, or storming firepower, or landing raids. If the Federalists counterattacked, they would leave with one blow and flee into the rain clouds, and if the Federalists were slow to react, they would be merciless and wash the ground with blood.

On the Western Front, the Normans abandoned the three-dimensional frontal advance of the previous war, ignored the military fortifications in the Monamolin Mountains, and carried out a campaign-level long-range projection in an unconventional way, directly crossing tens of thousands of marines to the border between the federal states of Neuchâtel and the federal states of Lorraine. On the sand table, this approach is undoubtedly stupid, equivalent to sending sheep into the mouth of a tiger, and in reality, people have never made such a bold attempt. Time soon proved that the Normans had an unparalleled talent for military art, and the Norman troops who jumped into the territory of the Union quickly attacked and occupied the few towns on the large "Badlands", and mobilized a large number of aviation forces, taking advantage of the reduced efficiency of the Federal Air Force's night air defense interception, to drop a large amount of ammunition and equipment into the landing area. The Norman forces involved in this leapfrog landing battle were strong and tenacious, and they built fortifications and deployed the battle line almost day and night. In the time that followed, no matter how intense the federal army bombarded them, or how much ground troops were sent to attack, they remained as immovable as a rock.

When the Union Army focused the Western Front on this group of "uninvited guests", the Norman aviation units launched a storm of air raids on large and small federal military aviation facilities in the Federal State of Nachâtar. In the space of a week, at the cost of more than 1,000 combat aircraft and more than 20 combat ships, they swept away the aviation facilities of the federal army in the territory of the Federal State of Nachâtar, and then turned the spearhead of their attack to the territory of Lorraine, despite casualties and fatigue. Once the Normans destroyed Lorraine, an important outpost for air operations, it would be difficult for Union bombers from other states to attack targets deep within the Norman mainland.

In this way, Lorraine's position in this war was raised to the highest level that could be expected before the war.

The situation on the battlefield changed abruptly, and General Fries and his 17th Defense Division were quickly transferred back to Lorraine. However, on the northern front, they had experienced a series of fierce battles, and they were no longer the well-equipped elite troops with high morale at the beginning of the war, but a tired division that withdrew to the rear to rest. Back in Lorraine, the biggest advantage for them is that they are familiar with the land, they are familiar with the environment here, they can get the upper hand in the battle against the enemy, and that's it.

Having gained a foothold in the vast and sparsely populated frontier, the Norman army consolidated the landing zone while employing a new tactic: offensive safari warfare, that is, guerrilla warfare on enemy territory. Their ground forces moved rapidly through the jungle in battalion units, sometimes attacking Union lines at night and sometimes harassing Federation villages and towns. With the limited number of troops invested by the Union Army, the Normans could move as far as a few hundred miles away from the landing area, destroying bridges, blowing up railroads, blocking canals, and creating more and more problems for the Federation by various means.

In the face of the new tactics of the Norman army, General Fries was originally full of ambition, thinking that he could take advantage of the advantages of time and place to destroy the enemy's safari troops one by one, but he did not want to lose almost every battle in the following time, regardless of whether there was aviation support, the 17th National Defense Division and the Lorraine local reserve force were repeatedly ambushed and flanked by the enemy in the battle, as if it was the Normans who had the advantage of the home field. Casualties and morale were declining, and the situation in Lorraine was precarious. As a result, the federal military urgently dispatched the 10th and 39th defense divisions to Lorraine. General Freese's pre-war qualifications and prestige were fully qualified for the role of joint commander, but a series of recent defeats have made the military top brass question his ability, and most of the famous and capable corps-level commanders of the Federal Army are being pinned down on other fronts at this time. At the height of the situation, the Federalists' top brass was thinking of retired veterans, not Weiss, a former Lorrainean guerrilla hero, or rather, the reluctance of the military to choose its commanders from politics, who were unwilling to admit that a military general was inferior to an official who had left the military to join politics.

On the other hand, the military is deeply aware that if Lorraine makes a mistake, the entire war situation of the Federation will become more and more passive. On the other hand, if Lorraine could hold out, then a large part of the Normans' energy would be pinned down on the Western Front, and not too much on the Northern and Eastern Fronts. From a distance point of view, the stability of the Western Front is of great significance for the protection of the capital Liberty City and the eastern industrial zone, and the terrain of Lorraine, the resources of Lorraine, and the people here are all suitable for containing the enemy.

Against this background, the military sent a gray-haired general to Lorraine, who was General Arteus, who had left the mountains for the second time after retiring from the army. In the last war, the veteran, who had been retired for four years, was ordered for the first time to organize the world-famous Battle of Aocheng with the remnants of all walks of life, and through an unprecedented and tragic blocking battle, he contained the unstoppable momentum of the Norman army, which became an important turning point in the early stage of the war. Later in the war, General Arteus retired again, and in view of his experience and high prestige, he remained in the position of counselor of the Supreme Military Council until the end of the war.

Weiss was not familiar with General Arteus, but he was no stranger to it. The Battle of Aocheng was the first urban battle he experienced, and those painful memories were the driving force for the real transformation of his military thinking. At that time, he was a junior officer in the Union Army, and Arteus was the commander of the campaign, and the two met by chance, but no one could have predicted that 11 years later, the two sides would meet again in the war and become military and political partners with a huge age difference.

In the last war, the "veteran came out of the mountain", Atyus was sixty and nine, still energetic, and a little high-spirited, and now, he is eighty years old, and his complexion is not bad, but after all, the years are not forgiving, and his words and deeds are already visible to the naked eye. The first military meeting convened after his arrival in Lorraine, Weiss was present as commander of the reserves. Even the commander of the division, who was in the prime of life in the same year, everyone was respectful to the veteran, but for most of the meeting, he was trying to figure out the current situation of the battle, and issued a series of questions: Why is the Norman army so sharp when it comes from afar, has no ground supplies, and is obviously like an army? Lorraine is a strategic base of the Federal Air Force on the Western Front, with more than 2,000 warplanes and dozens of flying ships deployed. The Norman army was scattered and attacked, and the Union army should cooperate with the military and the people, grasp the enemy's movements, and concentrate its forces to annihilate it, why did it fall into passivity?

General Frees, who was originally in charge of ground defense, and General Blair, who was in charge of the air force, patiently answered some questions, and the angle from which they analyzed the problems and the depth of their understanding of the problems were still objective and in-depth.

"I remember that in the last war, intelligence was the enemy's strength and our weakness. In recognition of this shortcoming, the armed forces have invested huge sums of money every year in developing and consolidating the intelligence system, and it is said that the results have been remarkable. When the war resumes, we are still passive on all fronts, which really makes me regret. General Arteus euphemistically expressed his disappointment with the federal intelligence system, but everyone knows that this is a complex system project, and even if it is developed with the strength of the whole country, it will not be possible to achieve the desired goal overnight, not to mention that there are many shortcomings in the past, and all fields need manpower, material resources and time to transform and strengthen.

The general raised his right hand and clenched his fists: "Since our duty is to guard Lorraine, to ensure that the air force units can attack the enemy's hinterland from Lorraine, there is no point in complaining, we have to rely on our own strength to stimulate our own potential." In the past wars against the Normans, we were always able to turn the tide and win, isn't that what we rely on? ”