Jochen's words were not a good sign for Schlieffen, as it meant that the future German emperor might not approve of, or rather be optimistic about, his plan of warfare against the French. But the problem that Jochen is talking about is a fatal flaw that cannot be ignored, and it is indeed difficult for Schlieffen to accept that he hopes to come up with a flawless plan.

However, Schlieffen was not willing to lose face in front of the crown prince like this, and thought of a way to deal with it as quickly as possible. "The questions Your Highness said are indeed very reasonable, but these problems are all technical problems, and they are not unsolvable, are they? I have received information that there is radio technology in the research sponsored by His Highness, and if this new information transmission technology is used, won't the problem of communication be solved? ”

"Radio technology is not mature now, not only is it huge in size and weight, but also has insufficient transmission power, and there is also the possibility that radio waves will also be intercepted by the enemy and leaked." Naturally, Jochen wanted to highlight the problems and difficulties faced by the technology.

"These are all technical problems, and they can all be solved through guò research, and the army is very interested in this technology, so we very much hope that this technology can be perfected and become the equipment of our army." Schlieffen said that in effect, it was also a gesture of goodwill to Jochen, indicating that the Army was willing to become a significant customer of radio technology.

"Now that the technical shortcomings are so clear, I believe that improvement must be the research direction of those scientists." Schlieffen said with some cunning: "As for livestock, this is indeed a problem, we now need about 100 horses to haul artillery and ammunition in one artillery brigade directly under us, and it is estimated that it will continue to increase in wartime." But isn't a new form of transportation the best alternative to livestock? ”

"The Army wants to replace livestock with cars?" Jochen was a little surprised.

Seeing Jochen so surprised made Schlieffen also surprised: "Your Highness, haven't you ever thought of using a car as a means of transportation for the army?" ”

"Ah, no, of course not. It's just that the Army wants to replace livestock with cars, which is a huge expense. and the transformation of the entire logistics system. In fact, it was not this "big deal" that surprised Jochen. Even if the Army had this idea, it would not be able to completely replace mules and horses with vehicles.

Even in World War II, only the wealthy US imperialism was really fully motorized, and Nazi Germany, which could not find the north of the whole of Europe with mechanized propulsion, was actually an army with a very low motorized range, so Jochen did not expect to achieve complete motorization in Germany, and he was already satisfied if he could achieve complete motorization of some elite troops.

The real reason is that the old antiques in Germany actually want to play motorized? You must know that the conservative German Army is quite distrustful of the internal combustion engine. In addition, the maintenance of this kind of machinery requires a high-level maintenance support unit, so in World War I, not to mention cars with insufficient off-road ability, even motorcycles with good maneuverability in the German Army have very low equipment.

Now to hear that Schlieffen is going to equip the army with cars, how can Jochen not be surprised. Jochen didn't say anything technical, and Schlieffen would have answered himself in the same way anyway.

However, Jochen did not give up: "Of course, I believe that with the maturity of technology, radio, automobiles and other equipment will be more and more able to meet the needs of mobile combat of troops, but we can't think that we will definitely be able to defeat the opponent through mobile warfare, right, if the war is deadlocked." We need offensive means that can break the deadlock in a head-to-head battle. ”

Schlieffen couldn't refute this, but Schlieffen still had to emphasize the difficulty of a frontal attack: "Of course, Your Highness, if a frontal attack is inevitable, then we have no choice. But the price to be paid is too high, and it is very bad for the attacker. ”

"I see that the exercises are all about high-intensity artillery bombardment to try to destroy enemy fortifications, and then soldiers attack. But with little damage to the fortifications, the soldiers would still fall on the way to the attack. Haven't you thought about a different way of shelling? Yochen asked.

"Is there any good way for Your Highness?" Schlieffen asked, maybe His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is indeed an excellent artillery officer of the navy, which can be seen from his artillery theory book "Shooting and Hitting", which is now a compulsory course for naval officers, but it does not mean that he also knows about the army's artillery bombardment, and Schlieffen is a little unimpressed.

"We're going to change the textbook-like way of attacking after shelling, so that the enemy is familiar with it and can even know how long it will take for our infantry to get into the best distance for the enemy to fire after the shelling stops."

Jochen was talking about the norm during World War I. The veteran, having figured out the pattern of shelling on the opposite side, was able to wait for the enemy to rush up without hurrying, and this situation should not be allowed to happen again: "We do not shell the enemy's defensive positions, but shoot at the front of the line and the middle of the line where we are advancing. The depth of the shells continued to advance as our troops advanced until our troops were able to break into the enemy's defenses. This kind of artillery bombardment was able to cover the offensive of our troops very effectively. ”

This is the barrage that only appeared after the warring parties received a bloody lesson in World War I.

"This kind of shelling has no effect?" Schlieffen was surprised by this way of shelling without bombarding the opposing line.

"But even if we shell the enemy's defenses, it's still not very effective, isn't it, and the use of this kind of shelling does not mean that we will not prepare for fire, but only change the kind of shelling that has no effect after 2-3 days of continuous shelling.

The enemy's defensive front line is designated as the first line of coverage, and the rest of the main areas are spaced apart according to the formation of the enemy's defensive positions. Between the main areas, intermediate areas were divided according to the formation of defensive positions, topographical conditions and the speed of the advance of the shock army. The firing area of the artillery battalion should be demarcated on each firing area, and the specific division of the area should be carried out according to the power of the artillery we put in.

In the case of barrage interdiction, fire is transferred from the first main area to all intermediate areas, then to the second main area, and so on.

If we have enough ammunition, we can even use a two-layer barrage of blockages. The first group interdicts the first main area, and the second group blocks the second main area. The first group of artillery transferred fire in the same way as when conducting a layer of creep-in barrage fire. At the same time as the first group of artillery transferred fire to the adjacent intermediate area or to the main area where the second group of artillery had fired, the second group of artillery transferred fire to the next main area. Such a transfer of fire should be followed throughout the entire depth of the Xu Jin barrage of fire.

Single-layer interdiction artillery bombardment can provide troops with a certain defense rate and defense width, while double-layer interdiction artillery bombardment provides cover for your own attacking infantry while the previous layer of barrage mainly kills and damages the enemy infantry who avoid the first layer of barrage and enter the defensive position.

Because if our infantry can easily rush into the enemy's trenches without showing their heads under our shelling, I am sure that the Imperial Army will not disappoint in close combat, and if they come out with their heads in order to stop our attack, then our second layer of blocking artillery will have a certain lethal effect. ”

Such a novel method of shelling would have been unthinkable for a German army officer who had not really suffered enough on the battlefield, so Schlieffen immediately asked: "There is a high probability that this will cause accidental injuries and shells on our own heads." ”

"So this is a drill, and the order to change the shelling area also needs to be given by the attacking infantry, and the essence of this tactic is to be able to accurately strike at each shelling area, and to have a perfect alliance with the attacking infantry."

"What's more, according to the old routine, shelling an area for days, or even weeks, will not only make our ammunition consumption an astronomical amount, but it will be tantamount to telling the other side: 'We're going to attack from here, send reinforcements quickly!' Then they would build a new line of defense behind this smashing position, and then we would have to repeat what we had done before.

It will be a nightmare war of attrition, and a meat grinder to fill the flesh of our soldiers. So if the first goal of our artillery bombardment, how to destroy the enemy in a strong bunker, cannot be achieved, think about how to effectively provide resources for the attacking infantry and reduce the losses suffered during the attack. Jochen emphasized.

Although the actual effect is unknown, it sounds very attractive. Direct opposition would make His Royal Highness the Crown Prince unable to step down, and it would be even more irresponsible to agree directly, and the cautious Schlieffen decided to accept Jochen's opinion: "Your Highness's idea is very instructive, the General Staff will try to do this, and if it really works, the army will adopt this tactic." ”

"In addition, I think there are a lot of problems with the infantry charge formation, two years ago the British killed 3,000 people on African soil with four Maxim machine guns, which is even more beautiful than what we did in Chile. I believe that in the face of tight defense and dense firepower, dense charges are no longer suitable for modern warfare

In order to adapt to the new war environment, we need new infantry offensive tactics, new offensive tactics that are more effective in the current situation of the army's firepower greatly increased, and this is what we must do. Jochen said. (To be continued......)