The machine gun is a work of art, striking for the glitter of the polished steel parts and the full-bodied roundness of the brass parts; The machine gun was at the same time a coquettish prostitute, delicate and expensive, requiring many items to keep it to work, and it had to be carefully maintained, and a large group of men had to surround it to serve. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

This is a French officer's image description of the machine gun in his biography, when the Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun swept Britain, Germany, Russia, the United States and other countries, and almost became the standard weapon of the world's armies, only France and Japan insisted on their "non-mainstream" choice. Ten years ago, in the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese army equipped with the Hatch Chase M1900 showed stable shooting performance and excellent rapid-fire firepower, and in the European theater, whether against the German infantry or cavalry, the Hatch Chase in the hands of the French soldiers was an invincible meat grinder, in the first month of the war, at least 200,000 German officers and soldiers fell under the guns of the Hatch Race, and in skirmishes, attacks thwarted by a machine gun abounded.

However, in the defensive positions outside Amiens, the French machine gunners encountered their natural nemesis. Hatch Cash's 8-mm bullets simply could not penetrate the armor steel plates of German naval vehicles, and it was difficult to break their steel tracks. At a distance of about two thousand meters, these German tanks constantly bombarded French machine-gun fire points with 30 times the diameter of 37 mm guns. This vehicle-specific direct-aim gun is easy to operate and can be easily operated by a single gunner, reloading in five or six seconds, and each Hubert-13 is equipped with 128 rounds of 37mm shells,7. 92 mm machine gun 3200 rounds of ammunition, enough for a large-scale battle. On the battlefield of 1914, the only things that seemed to be able to stop the advance of these small mobile fortresses were rivers, swamps, and their own mechanical problems.

The assault fire of 24 German naval tanks quickly removed machine gun fire points from the French positions, and it was not until the German forward units approached the barbed wire in front of the trenches that the French field artillery reacted and began firing. In previous battles, the French 75 mm Schneider M1897 field rapid-fire guns played a more effective role than any kind of weapon, they can not only use ordinary grenades for saturation fire, but also can be loaded with howitzer shrapnel to strafe the enemy infantry at close range, especially in the process of the French army's defensive operations or orderly retreat, they can kill and injure a large number of German troops, effectively covering their own infantry, but today the French artillery is obviously in big trouble with machine gunners. As soon as they opened fire, they were captured by the German artillery observation balloons, and the data on bearing and distance were transmitted to the firing command post of the naval train artillery unit through telephone lines, and the professional artillery command personnel quickly calculated the firing parameters based on these data. The effective range of the French M1897 was 8.5 km, while the range of the German train guns was essentially twice that figure, and they could bombard French artillery positions without being threatened at all. The French did not even see what the enemy artillery looked like, the artillery positions behind the positions were bombarded, the artillery was destroyed, the ammunition was detonated, and the suppression of the fire of the German attacking forces was terminated......

As the sky grew brighter, German naval aviation also rushed to the battle. The grey-painted biplanes roared over the French positions without lingering for a moment. Before the battle, the main forces of the French defense were stationed on the Amiens line, and the outlying positions were set up to monitor, alert, blockade, and delay the advance of the German army at the beginning of the attack. In the face of the sudden and ferocious German offensive, the French troops stationed in Amiens had to send reinforcements to help, regardless of whether the outlying positions could be held or not - by the dawn of the morning, the German pilots saw trucks, cars and troops of cavalry on the road to Amiens from west to east, and the counter-attack of the cavalry against the infantry was self-evident, and these vehicles also carried heavily armed infantry and a considerable number of machine guns, if not stopped, This French reinforcement could reach the forward position in less than twenty minutes.

In the previous stage of combat operations, the German Army seconded heavy artillery and combat vehicles to the Navy, but did not invite naval aviation units to participate in the war. In order to make up for this shortcoming, the naval aviation unit conducted intensive training and live-fire exercises without hesitation in the first month of the war, and made some technical improvements by using the combat experience of the carrier-based aircraft on board the "Bismarck," including equipping the aircraft with mechanical bomb-dropping mounts and improvised flying bomb-dropping sights.

The first four German Navy fighters to arrive in the predetermined area were all Albatross BIs, which were short, stocky and distinguishable from Hubert's aircraft at a glance. These "albatrosses" were originally developed and manufactured as reconnaissance/school firing aircraft at the request of the Army, and their original design did not have combat capability, and they flew at a relatively high speed and could flexibly travel over the battlefield. Considering that the take-off and landing of seaplanes is greatly affected by the weather, the German Navy also purchased a large number of land-based aircraft in the process of building aviation units, and the early role positioning of the Albatross BI was also reconnaissance and calibration, and then a series of low-altitude surprise tests were secretly carried out with bombs. As the pace of war approached, the German Navy began to equip all kinds of aircraft with weapons, and the new standard for the Albatross BI was one rear-seat machine gun, two belly bombs, and six additional light bombs in the rear, which were manually dropped by the machine gunner.

After more than a month of fighting, the French soldiers had a relatively full understanding of the tactics commonly used by the German army, and saw several German planes rushing down like eagles pounced, and the car drivers hurriedly drove off the road, but after all, their speed of action was not as fast as that of the planes, and the bombs quickly fell from the sky, a truck was directly overturned, three or four cars were injured by shrapnel, and some cavalrymen were also blown up on their backs. The rapid air raid had an immediate effect, and the remaining French officers and men hurriedly abandoned their cars on the side of the road, and all the men abandoned the cars and scattered, firing rifles and machine guns into the air in a panic, while the cavalry swarmed into the woods.

The German naval aviation units that flew to the battlefield dragged the French reinforcements, and on the forward front, the infantry of the German 1st Marine Brigade opened the way with their chariots and rushed to the French positions in one go. In the extremely unfavorable situation, there were still many French soldiers who bravely rushed out of the trenches with bayonets, but they were either knocked down by the machine-gun fire of the German tanks, or killed by the guns of the German naval infantry. In hand-to-hand combat in narrow trenches, the French infantry's Le Boer or Bochtier rifles were heavy and clumsy, and they were one meter two or three without bayonets, and turning around in the trenches required a lot of movement. In this regard, the German Army's Mauser 1898 was not much better, but the Marines used the shorter barrel of the 1888 cavalry rifle and the Mauser 98AZ carbine, the former with a full length of only one meter, the latter is one meter long, the weight is reduced, and the flexibility is correspondingly much more.

In a face-to-face battle with German marines on the battlefield, the French soldiers would find their bayonet skills almost useless, and the Germans in navy grey uniforms relied on not only short rifles but also light machine guns, semi-automatic pistols, grenades and even terrifying flamethrowers in close combat. On the other hand, on the French side, the infantry only had pistols in addition to rifles and machine guns, and in 1914, the standard pistol issued by the French army was the 8 mm caliber Lebel revolver, which had the advantages of being strong, reliable and accurate, but the power was weaker than the British 11 mm caliber Wilbury revolver, and the combat rate of fire was slower than the German semi-automatic Ruger pistol, and the equipment personnel were limited to officers and soldiers who performed unconventional combat missions, unlike the wealthy German Marine Corps, which used the pistol as a retort with rifles, Combat weapons in the same position as machine guns were massively distributed.

Before the battle began, the regiments, battalions, and companies of the 1st Marine Brigade had arranged their order of attack, and Fairrich's company was in a higher position, and the battle to clear the remnants of the French army was still going on when the corporal with his first-class marksmanship led his infantry into the French trenches. He had a Mauser C96 with a 10-round magazine in one hand, and his melee firepower was comparable to a Madsen light machine gun, and at first sight, he saw the French soldier in a blue shirt and red pants more than ten meters away, Ferrich didn't think about it, he raised his hand to the left and right with three shots, and his companions around him also raised their guns to shoot at the first time, and the crisp gunshots still echoed in his ears, and the Frenchman's upper body had been beaten into a hornet's nest.

The first murder since the mother's womb, simply made Fairrich unbelievable, the strong sensory impact made his mind blank, the whole person froze in place for two seconds, and suddenly saw a French soldier with a rifle running along the trench, in this case, Fellrich didn't think about whether the other party wanted to attack him or run away in a panic, the Mauser C96 in his hand fired in a sideways state, and three shots left and right, although only two bullets hit the target this time, but it was enough to kill the French soldier, And Fellrich realized that the bullet had pierced through the opponent's body, stirring up small clumps of mud on the wall of the trench behind him.

Killing two French soldiers in quick succession, Fellrich and several of his companions were suddenly at a loss, and they stood stunned, but there was no third French soldier in front of them. As more German naval infantry moved into the trenches, the battle for position, with a huge disparity in firepower, quickly came to an end, and the remaining French soldiers withdrew in the direction of Amiens. According to the original plan of rapid attack, the German naval tank units crossed the French line without resting, and led the German infantry of the 1st Marine Brigade all the way to Amiens, and after the attacking troops successfully captured the French outer defensive line, the naval train guns marched along the railway line to the westernmost part of the garrison area of General Sigmund, where their range was just enough to cover the city of Amiens on the east bank of the Somme, and to attack the targets on the west bank, it was necessary to wait until the German sappers repaired the railroad tracks that had been destroyed by the French along the road. And this usually takes a long time.

(End of chapter)