"Attention all...... Keep calm! See the enemy and fire again! Be calm! ”

In the valley, in makeshift positions, young non-commissioned officers greeted their comrades in Ulster, with a strong Lorraine accent. Soldiers who lack combat experience can easily fall into the "wrong way" of using shooting to relieve tension, and as a result, not only can they not effectively kill and injure their opponents, but they also consume ammunition in vain and expose their own position, which can be described as a hundred harms but no benefits. Before the battle began, the Lorraine Reserve Command issued several directives to the participating troops, requiring them to be conveyed to the basic combat units, one of which was this purely technical and tactical directive.

From the training ground to the battlefield, the reservists have crossed the biggest gap in life, when they are "bathed" in the rain of bullets, when they face the direct gaze of death, all the dogma, all the advice is completely possible to be forgotten in an instant, at this time it is extremely necessary for officers, non-commissioned officers or veterans to guide rookies to develop their strengths and avoid weaknesses.

For this temporary line of defense, which blocked their back, the Normans rarely opened up their positions and launched a round of charge. These professional soldiers, who have been on the battlefield for a long time and are well-qualified, have brought into full play the characteristics of their existing equipment without heavy weapons. In the dark, their magazine-type machine guns are like oversized sniper rifles, suppressing and killing the defenders with accurate fire, and their short-barreled curved guns are simply mortar nemesis, with similar ballistic characteristics and better range and power, they perfectly suppress the mortars and machine guns in the hands of the defenders. In addition, the Norman detachment advance tactics have evolved to a very mature point through continuous training and combat evolution, when the defending officers and soldiers concentrate their firepower in one place, the rest of the detachments will rush forward as quickly as possible according to the battlefield situation, and then rush to the end in one go, and the goods in turn share the firepower for the suppressed friendly forces, so that the attack line is constantly approaching the defenders' positions, and if the opponent does not retreat, they will be forcibly broken......

"Attention, the enemy is coming up from the left! Hold your head down when shooting, don't raise it! Shoot and change positions! ”

The young non-commissioned officer, who had received formal training at the non-commissioned officer school and had taken an assault training course before the start of the battle, once again sent the right reminder to the reservists around him at a critical moment. The 1909th Reserve Battalion was stuck in the enemy's way of breaking out, and its position was blocked in the valley between the valleys, with sparsely vegetated slopes on both sides, and forcing its way through would inevitably be met with the fire of the defenders' mountainsides and valleys - but if the fire could not be covered in time, it would still be possible for small Norman assault forces to pass quickly from here and threaten the position of the 1909th Reserve Battalion from the flank.

The flares lit up, and the reservists could see the enemy's figure on the slope on the left side of the position, bolt-action rifles, assault rifles, and light machine guns opened fire one after another, and the dense fire poured down, and the Normans all fell down, and those who were not hung disappeared. This output is as fierce as a tiger, and I feel very relieved, but I am not as comfortable as I imagined when I meet a powerful opponent. It was too late to say that it was too late, and the guns of the Norman troops in front of the position suddenly broke out, and the defenders' positions were suddenly dusty, and the reservists who could not effectively conceal their bodies when shooting suffered a great loss. After a few moments, several of the defenders' firing points were "named" by enemy machine guns and short-barreled curved guns, and the flames and smoke of the explosion dissipated, avoiding another mess.

From a makeshift observation post on the mountainside, Weiss overlooked the battle in the valley. Benefiting from adequate preparation and rational organization, the Lorraine reservists had all the three elements of time, place, and people, but the battle was very difficult. In the dead of night, searchlights and flares not only fail to fully illuminate the battlefield, but often confuse the human eye. Such an environment and atmosphere obviously have a far greater impact on rookies than the enemy's elites, and a large part of their firepower output is inefficient or even ineffective. If they just hold on to their positions, they will have less trouble, and when they need to advance, retreat, or support friendly forces, the bumpy mountain roads can be more abominable than the enemy's guns. Through the special vision as a battlefield cheat, Weiss accurately grasped the enemy's movements and adjusted his deployment - he did everything he could, and now he can only hope that the reservists will survive the first battle of their lives.

Time flies as the intense battle continues. On the north side of Russell Air Base, thousands of Lorraine reservists joined forces with the regular troops stationed there to surround the raiders. On this side, the Normans had less than a thousand troops and tried to break through from two different points. With the strong support of the artillery units, the two combat companies of the 1901st Battalion were wedged between the two Norman units, successfully separating them. UU Library

However, with their technical, tactical and psychological superiority, the Normans ignored the dilemma of being divided and surrounded, and constantly attacked the defenders' positions and consumed the defenders' combat strength. The 1912th Reserve Battalion, which occupied the "eye of the formation", bore the brunt of the battle, and after more than an hour of fighting, more than 400 wounded soldiers were pulled out of the forward positions, plus nearly 200 dead in battle, the whole battalion lost half of its combat effectiveness, and although the enemy in front also suffered personnel losses, the attack power did not significantly decay. In order to stabilize the "eye of the formation", Weiss did not increase his troops one by one, but transferred two combat companies from the 1904th Battalion, which was the reserve of the campaign, to replace the 1912th Reserve Battalion, which had suffered heavy losses, and assigned his capable subordinates to temporarily reorganize the remnants of the battalion and use it as a reinforced company.

In the previous two wars, the Norman Marine Corps performed well in all the important battles, they had the best soldiers and the strongest equipment of their time, and officers at all levels were also the elite of the elite, especially those who had been in the army for more than ten years, and the young and middle-aged officers with good experience and vitality could be said to be the meridians of this army. Realizing that the defenders had been replaced by a more powerful force, they quickly adjusted their strategy, turning a frontal assault into a feint, and quietly concentrated their forces to advance on the divided friendly forces. Weiss saw clearly the intentions of the Normans, and also used the field communication lines to adjust the deployment in time, but the reaction speed and reaction power of the reserve troops were limited, and the troops belonging to the 1901st Reserve Battalion failed to withstand the fierce attack of the Normans, and the "wedge" was pulled out, and the Norman troops located on the north side of the Russell Air Base combined their main battle forces and turned to attack the positions where the 1909th Reserve Battalion was stationed.

In contrast to the temporary positions previously held by the 1912th Reserve Battalion, the 1909th Reserve Battalion occupies a heavily vegetated slope with a more defensible terrain, and the defenders have laid hundreds of mines and improvised trigger-trigger traps in front of the position, which the Normans are said to have broken their heads and bleeds. However, on Weiss's operational map, the defense area of the 1909th Reserve Battalion is marked with a striking red line, because the defensive front here is too wide and the depth of the defense is relatively thin, if the Normans break through the minefield at any cost and concentrate their forces to break through a little, with the efficiency of the reserve forces, this front is very likely to be breached.

Weiss kept an eye on the clock and the battlefield on the other. A short time later, news came from the headquarters of Russell Air Base, and the Normans, who had attacked the base from the south, broke through the siege of the defenders and reserves, and escaped into the vast mountains and forests to the west and south in two ways. Although he tried his best to lay out here, the beast was difficult to trap, and Weiss was mentally prepared. Now, the annihilation of the enemy in front of them has become the final bottom line of the Union Army in the battle of Russell - if they were allowed to break out again, no matter how many Normans were killed and wounded in the course of the battle, the battle would be much more dishonorable.

Examining the situation on the battlefield, Weiss contacted various artillery forts, dispatched artillery bombardment, and concentrated his forces to attack the Norman troops in the defense area of the 1909th Reserve Battalion. As early as the battle planning stage, the Federal Army tactical numbered the area around Russell Air Base to facilitate timely and effective artillery fire delivery during the battle. The Normans were in a position of activity, which was exactly within the range of fire from three artillery forts. After ten minutes of covered shelling, their lethal offensive withered for the time being.

Relying on the time gained by its own artillery, the combat command of Russell Air Base quickly mobilized troops from the battlefield on the south side to reinforce the north side - the mobile forces were mainly reserves, and the regular army units stationed in various artillery forts and anti-aircraft positions also sent some combat detachments to participate in the battle. While mobilizing troops to reinforce the battlefield north of Russell Air Base, the Federation also had to watch out for the Norman troops who broke through and left to kill the horses, which was a plan they had discussed before the battle. When victory was within reach, no one wanted to overturn the battle.

Perhaps receiving news that friendly forces had broken through, or perhaps catching a hint from the change in the pace of the battle, the Norman force, which was bombarded by the defenders, quickly launched a new attack, regardless of casualties. At the critical juncture, they no longer concealed their purpose, and directly piled up firepower head-on, using detachment assault stacking thrust, what they wanted was to break through the defensive positions of the 1909th Reserve Battalion.

At the beginning of the battle, this Lorraine reserve battalion had nearly 1,200 officers and men, half of whom used Grumman bolt-action rifles, and the whole battalion was equipped with 12 rotary tube machine guns, 24 water-cooled machine guns, 12 mortars, 180 assault rifles, and sufficient ammunition. Before the time of the duel, both sides suffered casualties, and the Normans clearly suffered a higher proportion of losses, and the 1909th Reserve Battalion should not have been left behind. In fact, the human factor was crucial in a hard-fought battle, as the Normans braved a hail of bullets to attack on their backs, and as they approached the defenders' positions, someone would fall within a few steps, and the living continued without hesitation, like a steel nail, chiseling into the solid concrete surface...... They were getting closer and closer to the defenders' positions, three hundred feet, two hundred feet, one hundred feet...... The two sides threw grenades at each other, the smoke of gunpowder dispersed, the vision was obscured, and a fire snake suddenly burst out of the dust and smoke, which may be the last surviving flamethrower in the Norman ranks, using the little fuel left for the final spray, but it was this bright fire snake that became a sign of encouraging the Normans, and the rest of the people rushed forward and attacked violently!