The battlefield is the stage of the army, and if it is the stage, there will be an audience.

In the early days of the Napoleonic Wars, and even when the war broke out, the residents of the vicinity of the battlefield would even feel the neighborhood in horse-drawn carriages, lay out the carpet on the hill, set up lunch, and watch the battle with binoculars while having a picnic.

At that time, the concept of Europeans was still stuck in the dynastic war, believing that war was just a war between lords for territory, which was the same as the Chinese thought that war was a game for the emperor to fight for the world, so during the Opium War, a large number of Chinese people chased the British warships on the banks of the Pearl River to watch the battle between them and the Qing army.

It wasn't until the Europeans discovered that the firepower of the cannon had evolved enough to reach the audience, and after being baptized by the artillery indiscriminately many times, that they began to understand that war was no longer the lord game of the past, the warmth in war was no longer there, and war had returned to the essence of killing. After that, let alone watching the battle, when you hear that the enemy is coming, fleeing for your life is the first priority.

But outside the battlefield stage, there are still spectators watching, these spectators who do not shy away from danger, of course, are not ordinary people, they are all professional officers, military attaches stationed in various countries, or called field observers, Westerners are through the way of observation, always let their own military keep up with the recent war.

China also sent observers to the battlefield, from the port of Silla to the Crimean Peninsula, the military attaché in Austria to the Danube battlefield to watch the battle, the Prussian military attache to the Warsaw battlefield to watch the battle, of course, the military attaché in Russia, will also observe the war from the other side, and finally write their field investigation reports, so that their own countries can have a full understanding of these countries in the war.

There are some risks associated with these observations, but in general, the risks are not significant, otherwise the system would not have survived and become an important phenomenon of military culture in Europe.

In general, observers are located behind the battlefield and can observe the battle through telescopes at best.

Since then, it has been no exception, but everyone was shocked, the way of fighting has not changed, it is still mainly field battles, the two sides line up infantry formations, and the infantry and cavalry cooperate with each other, which is the most advanced way of fighting in this era, and what is shocking is the casualty rate of both sides.

The field troops of both sides, according to the previous way, even the line formation method that was popular even ten years ago, the two sides marched in line to the position of gathering two or three hundred meters, and then began the first round of shooting, continued to reload the design, and finally launched a bayonet charge when it reached twenty or thirty meters.

This classic infantry tactic is called the queue shooting tactic by the Chinese, because the Chinese have never experienced this tactical era, so they think this tactic is stupid, even the officers under Zhou Lang in the early years thought that the Europeans were stupid, but after various practices, it was found that this tactic was the most effective.

The reason why the tactic of lining up to shoot has been popular for hundreds of years is not the design of a certain genius, but the experience that officers have slowly mastered through countless battles, and the experience summed up by officers must be the experience of victory, and the loser is more likely to die on the battlefield. Using the law of survival of the fittest, it is inferred that in the long history of warfare, the tactic of lining up to shoot slowly occupied the battlefield because of the highest probability of victory.

Later generations of scientists tried to decipher it, and some mathematicians found through calculus and other mathematical methods that this kind of queuing shooting tactics, in the case of using smoothbore guns, can achieve the maximum firepower output, and this derived mathematical equation is called the Lanchester equation.

In the past, because of the accuracy of smoothbore guns, although the bullet could hit a long distance, even to a distance of four or five hundred meters, it could not be said to be accurate if it exceeded 200 meters, and some people exaggerated that aiming at a target at a distance of 200 meters to shoot the probability of hitting was the same as shooting directly at the moon.

Scientific verification has shown that at a distance of 75 meters, the hit rate of shooting can reach 60%, 150 meters to 40%, 225 meters to 25%, and 300 meters to 20%. And this data is obtained in training, in fact, under the conditions of the battlefield, under the tense atmosphere of the soldiers, coupled with the complexity of the terrain, the shooting hit rate on the march may not even reach half of the training, how much can be maintained completely depends on the training by the way and the psychological quality of the soldiers, so the difference between the veteran troops and the new troops is greater than that of later generations.

Based on these data, the general combat concept is that the gun can only be fired within 300 meters, and recruits are easily nervous and may shoot from 300 meters away, often wasting bullets in vain.

The British army traditionally liked to put the enemy into the fight, and they were always victorious. During the Seven Years' War, Britain fought with France overseas for colonies, besieged Quebec City in North America, and fought the siege for more than three months.

The British commander was Major General James Wolff, commanding about 3,300 men in a two-line-long formation about 1,000 meters long on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City. Major General Wolf ordered his men: "Each rifle is loaded with two pellets, and you are not allowed to shoot until you have seen the whites of the French army's eyes!" ”

The Marquis de Montcalm, the commander of the French army, left 7,200 men to defend the city, and led about 3,500 men to line up in three lines to meet the British army. The field strength of the two armies was equal, and it was because of the difference in tactics that the French army suffered a crushing defeat.

At that time, when the French army was 300 meters away from the British army, they began to shoot according to the traditional tactical design, and fired two volleys at the British army as they advanced. The British suffered about 20% casualties, but did not return fire under the command of the officer, and stood quietly in place and stared at the French. The commander, Major General Wolff, who was dressed as a soldier, was shot three times and was put to the ground, still not allowed to return fire.

When the French advanced to a distance of 30 meters, there were not even any casualties, and only then did the British give the order to shoot, and only one salvo knocked down more than 1,000 French troops, while beating war drums and playing bagpipes, and advancing forward. At a distance of 20 meters, the British fired a second volley, and the French army fell by more than 800 people, and the large number of casualties in a short period of time made the French army collapse instantly.

The French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, was also shot in this battle, and like the British commander, he died of gunshot wounds.

The battle lasted 20 minutes, and the French who were the first to shoot were killed and wounded about 2,000, while the British who fired later were less than 600 killed and wounded.

The British army has maintained this tactic of firing back, as was the case in the American Revolutionary War twenty years after the Seven Years' War, and in the Napoleonic Wars twenty years after the American Revolutionary War.

In the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington's army used the thin red line tactic, which was actually a copy of this tactic of the British army. This was true of the Spanish Peninsula War, as was the final Battle of Waterloo, faced with a French cavalry onslaught led by French Marshal Ney. The Duke of Wellington formed a hollow phalanx of British infantry in battalions, and artillery was placed in them. Wellington demanded that the artillery not open fire until the French approached within 100 meters and the infantry within 20 meters, and finally used the dense fire at close range to kill and wound a large number of French cavalry.

The tactics of the British army were effective, and of course the rest of Europe knew about it, but they could not imitate it, because in order to keep their troops intact in order to withstand the fire of the enemy's bullets, they had to go through the most rigorous training, and in Europe only the British and Prussian armies could achieve this kind of discipline, not the French army, which relied on high fighting enthusiasm, and the Russian army, which relied on brave bayonet charges.

So everyone knows it, but it is not suitable for their own army, and each country has its own characteristics based on the tactics of lining up to shoot.

However, in the past, when the armies of various countries could still line up and shoot at twenty or thirty meters, they launched a bayonet charge with the vast majority of their forces, but in this war, observers found that when everyone fired two or three salvos at two or three hundred meters, the attrition between them had reached half, and in the end, the remnants of the troops charged each other, and the number of people who survived a battle was rarely more than half.

Such a high casualty rate has turned the battlefield into a slaughterhouse.

So the observers were shocked.

"Lin, my friend. Did you fight the last Russian war like this? ”

In the Danube Delta, during the army's attack on the shipbuilding town of Tulce, with the cooperation of the Russian navy, the French military attache asked his Chinese counterpart in amazement.

Both were resident military attachés who followed the Austrian army. Like this, the rank of the military attache stationed in the area may not be too high, but being selected as the military attache in the station means that they are all promising new officers in the army, so that they can understand the national conditions of foreign countries, and they also have the intention of knowing themselves and the enemy, and they can often be promoted quickly after returning to China.

Chinese military attache Lin Ao is such an officer, unlike the European armies, the Chinese military attache has no military rank, but can retain the military position, or China has a unified rank. Ten people are the captain, 100 people are the general, 1,000 people are the generals, 10,000 people are the generals, and the deputy generals have already done it, and the management of an army is 15,000 people, 10,000 people, and the maximum can be 30,000 people. 1,000 people set up 1 battalion, and those who manage multiple battalions are also thousands, but they often add the rank of general, and this kind of additional rank is lower than the actual general, so it can be said that it is an alternate general.

Before becoming a military attaché, Lin Ao was a senior general, leading 3 battalions in the war army, and was a middle-level backbone officer.

He participated in the Kazakh War ten years ago, but mainly fought on the Kazakh battlefield, and unfortunately did not participate in the legendary Northern Front that can go down in history.

But the record of capturing two million Russian troops has won the Chinese army a world-class reputation, and no one dares to deny that this is a strong army, plus it has experience in fighting against Russia, so when it was amazed, the French military attache instinctively asked his Chinese colleagues.

Lin Ao shook his head, he was also amazed, in the last war, he was already the commander of the battalion, and at that time, as the main force of the first and second armies left by Yang Ke in Kazakhstan, he had fought head-on with the British and Russian coalition forces on the battlefield many times, but he rarely encountered this kind of casualty rate of battles.

But he suddenly remembered: "We had this situation last time!" ”

After Lin Ao finished speaking, the neutral military attachés of other countries, including France, Spain, and even the Netherlands, looked over and wanted to hear his understanding.