"Your Highness, are you accusing the Army of backward tactics?" If the previous construction can still make Schlieffen's eyes shine, now Jochen said that the tactics of the German Army are not suitable for the current war situation, which makes Schlieffen a little unhappy.

"Isn't that so? We have enjoyed peace since the Franco-Prussian War, which has led to the inability of our tactics to expose the inadequacy of the development of the rest of our weapons and equipment in actual combat. So our tactics are exactly the same as they were a few decades ago, and although the military doctrine of the army is the same in all countries and there is no progress, do we have to wait for a war to come before we can make progress in our military doctrine? Jochen did not flinch from staring at the Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial Army.

The other army officers around saw that the crown prince and the chief of the general staff were arguing, and one by one they didn't even dare to come out. Fortunately, Schlieffen clearly realized that the army did have the problem of disconnection between tactics and equipment, but it was a little embarrassing to be pointed out so directly by the crown prince.

"You are right, Your Highness, it is true that the emergence of bolt-action rifles and machine guns has increased the firepower of the infantry by more than an order of magnitude, and the increase in the range of artillery has made the artillery more likely to use intermittent firing methods that are conducive to improving the survivability of artillery. And our infantry offensive tactics were not much better than they were during the Franco-Prussian War. Schlieffen softened and acknowledged the Army's problems.

Naturally, Jochen immediately softened his tone and said to Schlieffen: "This is not a problem for you alone, Your Excellency Chief of the General Staff, and its realization has the same problems as we do in the whole of Europe, but we can't wait until war comes and we suffer on the battlefield to improve the tactics of the army, can we?" ”

"You're right, Your Highness, this kind of exercise really doesn't reflect the problems we face in actual combat, maybe we need a larger-scale exercise." Schlieffen said.

"That being the case. We might as well conduct a bottomless case exercise. "No bottom case? What is that? As for the statement that he had never heard before, Schlieffen thought that this was a new idea for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

"The bottomless plan is that there is no predetermined plan, just like our exercise, the troops on both sides know what they want to do in advance, and then carry out the predetermined work under the established plan. There is no suddenness or suddenness of war, so we need bottomless exercises.

We can quite well build a hypothetical enemy force. Use the most advanced equipment and the most advanced tactics to form them, and then we can randomly select any unit in the country to join the exercise at any time, and then imagine that the enemy troops can attack or defend in any way, and the participating troops will have to rely on their own ability to be flexible. There is no plan, no script, no rehearsal, everything is unknown. Sudden.

In order to increase the difficulty, we can even randomly increase the number of unexpected situations during the exercise, constantly changing the situation faced by both sides, thus increasing the difficulty of the exercise. In this case, our problems will be exposed a lot, problems will be found, problems will be solved, and then our performance in actual combat will be better. ”

For this Jianyì Schlieffen is not as cautious as he is about the artillery reform of the barrage Xu Jin. This is because this plan can undoubtedly greatly improve the army's adaptability: "This is indeed more effective in helping the army improve its battlefield survivability than following the script set by the exercise director's department."

In the future, it is entirely possible to randomly check the movement, marching, and participation in the battle of all the full and standing divisions in the whole country in the face of emergencies during the exercise, instead of notifying them to enter the exercise area first and then start the exercise. "Schlieffen is also a person who can draw inferences.

"And that's not all. As a matter of fact, the army can completely build a stronger imaginary enemy force, the latest technology, the latest equipment, and the latest tactics, regardless of the cost, and give them all of them, and if they can't be defeated, the General Staff will not be able to shout, 'This is what our future enemy will look like.'" Now that our army can't win at all, do we need more funds to improve its combat effectiveness'? Jochen said with a wicked grin.

This method of cheating funds by building an imaginary enemy force with zenith technology that could not be won at all was very common between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Americans often do the of letting the red side be beaten by the blue side and then shouting that the Soviets are all monsters and go to the Congress to ask for money, and the Germans can also learn from the advanced experience of others now.

Looking at Jochen's evil smile, Schlieffen also understood it and said seriously: "Imagine the enemy's situation to be stronger." Better so that we can be better prepared. We are simply taking into account the enemy's situation more thoroughly, and we are not deliberately exaggerating the enemy's strength. ”

is worthy of being the chief of the General Staff, and he said shameless words with a righteous face.

"Also, Your Excellency Chief of the General Staff, in the present situation of such a huge density of firepower, it is very likely that the machine guns will sweep a large area, and the shells will be a whole block, so I think that the new infantry offensive tactics should widen the distance between the soldiers and attack in a looser formation. In this way, in the attack, we will suffer fewer casualties in the face of enemy fire. ”

"You mean to attack with a skirmisher? However, in this case, we will have to attack too widely, and the officers will not be able to effectively control the troops. "What Schlieffen raised was the inevitable problem of skirmisher tactics.

In fact, as early as the Napoleonic era, the infantry offensive formation had a development trend of evolving from a column-sparse formation to a straggler formation, but European countries did not learn valuable experience from this war, so the cluster assault formation prevailed in Europe for more than 40 years, until the reality of World War I slapped everyone's face with an ear scraper.

In fact, as early as 1902, the Germans carried out a drill of skirmisher offensive tactics, a platoon of 80 people spread out to a width of 300 meters, and a battalion of 960 people reached a width of 3,000 meters.

"If it is an ordinary unit, it will indeed be very difficult, but if this unit is an elite unit with a large number of veterans and non-commissioned officers within the unit, then the officer assigns the combat objectives to the non-commissioned officer in detail before the attack, and each combat squad centered on the non-commissioned officer attacks under the command of the non-commissioned officer, then the problem of command difficulty can also be solved in a certain way." Jochen said.

"You mean that the establishment of our current offensive force is too bloated and difficult to command?" Schlieffen asked.

"Yes, a company has 240 people, but there are only 5 officers, and in this case it will be difficult to command the problem of widening the width of the offensive front, but if we break down the troops a little more, for example, every 4 people are a combat squad, each squad has a non-commissioned officer, and the soldiers in each squad cover each other and fire alternately.

With a company deployed and 60 attacking arrows covering each other, then if these units are well-trained and well-coordinated, the command problem can be alleviated to a certain extent.

And when these soldiers break through the enemy's trench, they can tear a hole in the enemy's defensive line, and the follow-up troops can pour in from this opening, and then expand the breach, so that more troops can pour in, and then continue to penetrate into the enemy's depth. ”

In fact, this is the famous infantry assault group tactic of the Germans in World War I, and the basic infantry offensive tactic of the famous Huttier tactic or infiltration tactic is the infantry assault group tactic. It can be said that if there is no infantry assault group tactics, there will be no infiltration tactics, and the elite assault infantry units that carry out infantry assault group tactics are the famous storm commandos.

The Germans formed a solid force in the 8th Army in March 1915, commanded by the commander, Major Carlson, also known as the Carlson Commando. This was the first time that the Germans had abandoned the tactics of dense infantry charges and formed skirmisher offensive units designed to break through trenches.

However, due to Carlson's own lack of understanding of the new tactics, the new commander Willy in August? Martin? Ernst? Captain Roch took office. In his hands, infantry assault group tactics were gradually formed and refined.

The first public appearance of the infantry assault group tactics after the completion was on the battlefield of the Verdun meat grinder, and the assault team broke through the French defense line in only one morning, and if it were not for the chief of the general staff, Falkingham, who ordered the troops to consolidate their positions, otherwise the French defense line would have been torn open by the German troops who followed up.

There was once a saying that it was tanks that ended trench warfare in World War I. This sentence is only half true. Tanks are naturally the ultimate means of solving trench warfare, but the performance of early tanks is really bad, Germany's A7V, France's Saint-Chamond, and Britain's nomads, these things can't be counted on at all.

In the later period, the French sprung up, and some people were stunned by the excellent designs of the Renault FT-17 light tank and the FCM-2C heavy tank, while the poor Germans even produced the A7V.

But the same problem was the same for the Entente, because the damaged France, which had a bad industrial capacity, had a good design, but also struggled to come up with a large number of tanks that could turn the tide of the war.

Therefore, it is unrealistic to rely solely on tanks to solve the problem, and in the final analysis, it still falls on the "human" factor. The infantry assault group tactic, which has been proven to be extremely effective, is naturally an excellent choice in this situation.

In the attack on Picardiel and Flanders on March 21, 1918, the Germans used infantry assault group tactics on a large scale for the first time, with 3 army groups with a total of 32 divisions and a total of 800,000 troops, of which 10,000 were elite infantry assault groups.

During the 16-day operation, the assault group stormed the defensive line, and the follow-up troops followed up to expand the breakthrough, breaking through to a depth of 60 kilometers on a 70-kilometer frontal battlefield. Feng? The 18th Army, commanded by Huttier, used infiltration tactics to achieve great results in advancing 84 kilometers. The Germans mastered the tactics of the Guò infantry assault group, which fully achieved the tactical purpose of breaking through the trenches without relying on tanks. (To be continued......)