Weiss and his companions were in the third week of their special training camp when they were taking graduation exams for graduates of the Delafig Senior Staff Academy. In accordance with the management regulations of the Senior Staff College and the practice of previous years, all assessment items are conducted openly within the College. In order to let the trainees see more and learn more, Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein specially won the right for them to observe and observe, and adjusted the daily special training arrangements accordingly so that they could go to the scene to observe.

The graduation examination of the Delafig Senior Staff College is divided into three major items: comprehensive combat skills, comprehensive combat theory, and graduation discussion. The first two items are the integration of operational skills and tactical theories, and focus on organizational implementation and overall planning, with relatively low requirements for individual capabilities. The third is that each graduate prepares a graduation topic, presents his or her arguments in the auditorium, and is questioned on the spot – this sounds similar to a dissertation defense, except that everyone in the room is qualified to ask questions, and the grading committee scores the graduates' overall grades based on the quality of the arguments and the questions and answers.

The graduation topic chosen by the university this time is called "Tomorrow's War", which aims to explore the development trend of modern warfare.

49 graduates, the same graduation discussion topic, but do not have to worry about the same, because this is an open-ended topic, which can be discussed from a tactical and technical point of view, as well as from a strategic point of view, and can even be analyzed and refined in combination with the country's political and diplomatic strategy.

In the auditorium of the Senior Staff College, Weiss and his companions sat in the back row, listening intently to the future senior staff officers to present their views. Some people, with concise views and concise arguments, talk about well-known and less divisive content, and it only takes half an hour from beginning to end; Some people, with a clear-cut stance and thorough analysis, will talk for 20 minutes just for a discussion, and with questions and answers, and debates, an hour may not be enough.

In such a morning, I answered 7 graduates.

Among them, there are only 2 people who can praise Weiss, one is talking about the future war economy, expounding the advantages and disadvantages of the current economic model of the Ulster Free Federation to deal with the war, and putting forward a series of suggestions for wartime economic transformation; One is the future air combat model, which comprehensively considers the economic cost, combat performance, and technology replacement of flying warships, and calculates the reasonable range of the size of the flight fleets of the three major powers, and then calculates the recommended configuration ratio of each ship type of the federal army.

For more than 100 years, the Deelefig Higher Staff College has trained and sent a batch of high-level staff officers for the Federal Army, during which 19 of the 26 Army Chief of Staff were born here, and many of the wise generals and famous commanders who have made great contributions to the country in previous wars are also graduates of the Deelefig Higher Staff College. With the discovery of the floating characteristics of the "Star Source Stone", the rapid development of flying warship technology, and the increasingly important position of the flying fleet in the national defense system, the Deelefig Higher Staff College has also adapted to the development of the times, opened aviation technology and tactics courses, and actively promoted the "general-purpose staff personnel" - qualified graduates can not only be qualified for the role of army staff officers, but also be able to adapt to the requirements of aviation staff officers.

This novel talent strategy was originally suggested by a graduate during a graduation discussion.

In the afternoon of the same day, 8 more graduates passed the graduation discussion, but all of them were mediocre and did not show any eye-catching opinion analysis.

After dinner, 40 special training cadets from four military academies gathered in the No. 2 wargame deduction room. The day's special training sessions are divided into two parts, physical and basic in the morning, and tactical and theoretical in the evening. As usual, the team of instructors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein, personally practiced in battle, and the cadets of the Advanced Staff College sometimes came to help, and they always benefited the younger brothers from both military fundamentals and tactical skills......

"Oh, Captain Gomy, I thought you weren't coming today. If I'm not mistaken, your graduation discussion is scheduled for tomorrow, right? ”

Following Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein's direction, Weiss saw the young officer named Buffka-Gomi striding in. He has an enviable figure, and he is masculine and dignified, and he was born with a calm and unhurried temperament. I saw him smile slightly: "You remember correctly, my graduation discussion is indeed tomorrow, and the order of speeches will be decided by lottery tomorrow morning." ”

Lieutenant Colonel Lundstein smiled and said, "Shouldn't you be in the room at this time to prepare materials?" ”

"Grinding guns? No, that's not my style! Captain Gomi replied, "It's been ready for a long time, and all we have to do now is relax." ”

Lundstein nodded: "General Almut has never looked at people, and I believe this time is no exception!" ”

Gomi did not say anything about this compliment. He looked around and nodded to the students he knew.

"Would you mind telling us a little bit about what you're going to say tomorrow?" Lundstein suggested, "You say, how about we ask questions as if it were a rehearsal?" ”

Captain Gomi thought for a moment: "If you want to hear it, and promise not to reveal what I said before tomorrow...... I think you can try it! ”

"Of course!" Lieutenant Lundstein turned his head to look at the trainees participating in the special training, "We can't ask for such an opportunity, and besides, we will definitely keep it a secret for you." ”

The trainees who participated in the special training said "yes" one after another.

Gomi laughed: "Okay! It's not a secret, but I need to keep a little bit of suspense in mind before I take the stage. ”

He cleared his throat and, like the graduates who speak in the auditorium during the day, discover ideas, sort out logic, and make statements on their own. In contrast, Captain Gomi is fluent and coherent, and he uses a lot of vivid and interesting embellishments, and more importantly, his views are not "moaning without disease" like some graduates, but he clearly proposes that the real masters of tomorrow's war will not be the aviation forces, but will return to the roots, and the army will decide the victory or defeat of the war!

At first glance, the idea of the supremacy of the army may sound like a retrograde approach, and it is at odds with the trend of technological development. YOU MUST KNOW THAT AMONG THE FLYING WARSHIPS IN SERVICE, THE LARGEST TONNAGE HAS EXCEEDED 35000T, EQUIPPED WITH HEAVY NAVAL GUNS OF MORE THAN 70PIR CALIBER, AND THE FIREPOWER OUTPUT OF A SINGLE ONE EXCEEDS THE ARMY'S STANDARD ARTILLERY DIVISION, AND THE DESTRUCTION AND DOMINANCE OF THE ENTIRE FLEET FAR EXCEED THE ARMY'S MOST ELITE CORPS, AND THE MOVEMENT SPEED IS MUCH FASTER THAN THAT OF THE INFANTRY!

In order to derive his own opinion, Captain Gomi discussed the various inevitable factors of the war between the great powers - if a war broke out between the Free Federation of Ulster and the Norman Empire, the commanders of both sides would not send their main fleets to fight an earth-shattering duel, after all, the two powers spent many years and astronomical money to build the existing flying fleet, and no one wanted these expensive and important ships to disappear in just a few hours, but regarded them as the core force of the national strategy, Plunge into the key battlefield at the critical moment. In light of this, the air battle between the two sides may be only tentative and point-and-point until the balance of war is out of balance. In this way, the advancement of the war situation and even the breaking of the deadlock will mainly depend on the army units.

The above is based on the assumption that the air forces of the two belligerents are evenly matched or not very different. If there is a huge disparity in the strength of the warring parties, such as the outbreak of war between the Norman Empire and the Kingdom of Wessex, and the Ulster Free Federation for some reason, the Norman Empire will launch an air offensive with twice the air power of the opponent and then seize air supremacy. In order to completely defeat the Kingdom of Wessex, the Norman Empire still needs to rely on land - without the strong performance of the army, it is difficult to capture enemy fortresses with aviation alone, and then conquer cities and annex territories.

On the other hand, assuming that Wessex fought against the Norman Empire alone, and wanted to win the war, its aviation forces would have to avoid reality and preserve their strength as much as possible to wait for the opportunity, and the heavy responsibility of resisting the Norman invasion naturally fell on the shoulders of the army. Whether it is using strong fortresses to carry the line with points, or avoiding the enemy's edge, luring the enemy into depth, and using the terrain to deal with the enemy, an elite army with strong strength and tenacity is needed.

Laying out the various modes of warfare, Gomi's thinking returned to the defense construction of the Ulster Free Federation. He analyzed the national defense construction of the federal army in recent years, the investment of aviation units accounted for more than two-thirds of the national defense budget, and the overall size of the flying fleet ranked first in the world, but the number of flying ships was too large, resulting in high maintenance costs for the fleet, and slow upgrading, and the number of ships built and put into service in recent years has lagged behind the Norman Empire, and even compared with the Kingdom of Wessex. On the other hand, the construction of the Federal Army is limited by insufficient funding and insufficient attention from the top level, and compared with the Norman Empire and even the Kingdom of Wessex, there are many problems such as outdated weapons and equipment, outdated tactical theories, etc. In order to seize the opportunity in the "war of tomorrow" -- or at least not to fall behind, the federal army must change its existing development strategy; on the one hand, it must resolutely reduce the size of its aviation units, retire and dismantle the flying ships that are older and have poor performance, recycle the "star source stones" for the construction of cutting-edge warships and fast transport ships, invest part of the saved funds in army construction, and focus on upgrading the army's individual weapons, multi-purpose artillery, and other technical equipment. In addition, through the establishment of an incentive fund, active duty soldiers, technicians, as well as civilians, industrial enterprises are encouraged to invest in military technological innovation, and so on.

Captain Gomi's brilliant speech, with almost no pause from beginning to end, lasted nearly half an hour. After he finished his explanation, the special trainees couldn't wait to raise their hands one by one to ask questions. Their rebuttals and questions were very pertinent and well-founded, and Captain Gomi answered them one by one with his calm attitude, so that every questioner could not continue.