At the front-line assembly site of the German Marine Corps, in Duran, France, Natsuki welcomed his new partner, General Oskar von Hurtier. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 On the same day, two of the three Marine Brigades scheduled for the Western Front had arrived at full strength, and the rest of the combat personnel and equipment and supplies were also being transported from the country without stopping, and more than 200 kilometers away, the Battle of the Marne was more protracted and bloody than expected. From Fort Thierry, less than 40 kilometers from Paris, to Saint-Miel in eastern France, the two sides have invested more than 2 million troops and tens of thousands of artillery pieces. After six days of fierce fighting, most of the infantry divisions initially assigned by the Kluk Corps were disabled, and many of the first batch of newly recruited troops had suffered more than half of the casualties.

In addition to the attrition of soldiers, the German army also faced the dilemma of poor supply. On the one hand, the Germans mainly relied on railways and animal vehicles for heavy transportation, and the French army blew up a large number of railway bridges during the retreat, which greatly affected the supply of the German troops to the front. On the other hand, in order to reinforce the right flank, the German army moved combat troops from the center and left flank as quickly as possible, and the roads in the Marne valley were crowded with marching soldiers and vehicles, resulting in the slow movement of the baggage troops, which naturally reduced the efficiency of the quartermaster department in supplying the right flank troops.

On the Entente side, the British and French forces performed very well in the first days of the Battle of the Marne, at Thierryburg, they only narrowly missed the Kluk Corps on the far right flank of the German army, and then threatened the weak flank of the Bülow Army, and as the battle deepened, the heavy casualties of the participating troops weakened the front offensive, and the German army also used the gap between battles to consolidate their field fortifications, and the heavy use of machine guns and artillery made these positions a terrible nightmare for the Allied infantry......

Natsuki and von Hurtier are old acquaintances, and they can get straight to the point without touching and understanding. Because of the decisive significance of the Battle of the Marne and the unprecedented stalemate, both sides had almost all the reserves of the last division into battle. A draw seemed to be an acceptable outcome for both sides, but it was even more detrimental to the German army seeking a quick victory, so Hurtier strongly agreed with Natsuki that the three brigades of marines, though small in strength, could be a battlefield surprise to break the stalemate.

The wonder of a surprise soldier lies in the surprise of the enemy and in the fast, ruthless, and accurate combat operations, which require keen insight, careful preparation, and meticulous planning, and there is no room for any luck.

Natsuki's battle strategy was to take Amiens in one fell swoop, and use this as a breakthrough to quickly advance along the railway line to Paris.

Nestled on the banks of the Somme, Amiens is the capital of the French region of Picardy and the capital of the Somme department, with direct rail and road connections to Paris. In peacetime, the French capital can be reached by car from Amiens in just over two hours. In the early stages of the battle, the German right flank swept across Amiens, broke through the French lines in the upper reaches of the Somme, and then fought all the way to the Marne. Today, the French army, retreating from the Franco-Belgian border to the Somme valley, and the British expeditionary force from across the sea, have formed a north-south line of defense on the lower Somme from Amiens to the port of Le Crotois, and from Amiens to the southeast, the French army has deployed the line of the Havre River. Amiens is located at the junction of these two lines of defense.

In order to take an industrial city of 100,000 men like Amiens, the German marines, who were mainly infantry and light weapons, were not powerful, but the German army could not provide any help except for a regiment of field artillery provided by General Sigmund, so Natsuki borrowed twenty train guns from the naval fortress and transported them to Dulang by railroad.

Because of the different operational purposes, the construction and performance of the naval train guns are somewhat different from the similar equipment of the German Army, and these train guns borrowed by Natsuki are divided into two calibers, 152 and 203 mm, with a range of between 15 and 20 kilometers, and are equipped with ordinary grenades and armor-piercing shells.

With these powerful train guns, the German marines' attack on Amiens did not reach the point where victory was assured. In Hutier's view, the naval infantrymen had acquired sufficient land combat capabilities through long-term training, and they were enthusiastic and eager to fight when they learned the real goal of the trip, but the vast majority of the officers of this unit had neither war experience nor valuable lessons from their predecessors who had withstood the baptism of war. On the battlefield, such a unit can break through the limitations of traditional rules and regulations and win victory with momentum, or it may lack the tenacity of an old army and collapse in the face of combat setbacks and even heavy casualties.

Natsuki has a very different view of Hutier's concerns. He knew that the Marine Corps had a strong sense of honor, and that the courage and determination of the officers and men were not inferior to those of the combatants of the High Seas Fleet. When properly deployed, it could be a sharp knife that could tear through the seemingly impregnable defenses of the Allied armies. Now that the combat operations of the 1st Marine Division have been approved by the Kaiser, they have to send them like an arrow, and they do not need to dwell too much on this issue, and the discussion quickly moved to the tactical level.

Natsuki borrowed flowers to offer Buddha and proposed the tactics of an infantry assault group that should have been opened by Huttier, that is, to equip pistols, light machine guns, grenades, and flamethrowers (the flamethrower in the modern sense was invented by the German Richard Federer, who in 1901 created the first sample of a flamethrower for the German army to evaluate, the device was carried by manpower, equipped with a barrel container, and the inside of the container was horizontally divided into two parts, the lower half was a compressed air cylinder, and the upper half was an incendiary bottle. By the outbreak of World War I, the Germans had formed 12 Spitfire companies) and small elite units of light artillery as an assault force, looking for the enemy's weak areas and breaking through, penetrating into the opponent's defense system, striking important targets, cutting off lines of communication, severing the relationship between defensive deployments, and creating conditions for a frontal attack.

By the end of the summer of 1914, this novel tactic had never been seen on the battlefield, but it could find its original prototype in history. The shrewd Huttier quickly understood the essence of it, and with great interest listed a series of extended ideas: the artillery bombardment before the attack should not be too long, only the enemy's forward fire should be suppressed rather than trying to destroy it, and the assault troops should be covered by barrage in order to effectively improve combat efficiency; The assault team can be divided into two types: light and heavy, the light assault team bypasses the enemy's fire support point, wedges into the enemy's position at lightning speed, covers the heavy commando team to approach the enemy's defense line and pulls out the enemy's firepower point, and then guides the ordinary infantry to break through the enemy's defense line in an all-round way.

Obviously, officers and soldiers in assault units must be bold and careful, brave and tenacious, be fearless and flexible in the face of enemy machine guns and bayonets, and be able to skillfully use weapons suitable for close combat, from pistols, short knives, shovels to light machine guns, grenades, and flamethrowers, and be able to alternately cover and cooperate tacitly. Assault operations require artillery to provide artillery support no longer according to the established schedule but actually need to provide artillery support, so the assault troops need to achieve battlefield communication with the rear troops, and the existing radio equipment is too cumbersome, and the communication between the troops is mostly wired telephones and manpower transmission. In addition, assault units need to be able to fight completely independently, which requires engineers, demomen, medics, etc., and the multi-service and multi-role mix also means that logistics are much more difficult to supply than ordinary infantry units......

In previous combat operations, Huttier commanded the 1st Guards Infantry Division in several tough battles, and the deeper they went into the French territory, the greater the resistance they encountered, and the French army gradually realized the importance of trench defense, and it was very difficult to break through the trench defense line with infantry without heavy artillery and chariot support. Because of this, Hurtier's mood was slightly overexcited. Natsuki reminded: "Considering that the landing force will not be able to obtain continuous support from naval artillery fire after advancing inland, in the past two years of military exercises, we have tried infantry assault tactics many times, and the results of the exercises are relatively optimistic, but you also know that the exercises are only a subjective simulation of the battlefield situation, and they are completely different from real battles." Conservatively, our first attack on Amiens could be thwarted, and the troops involved would have to adjust their deployment within an hour or two, and then immediately launch a second attack, and we would have to break through to Amiens in half a day and take Amiens completely on the same day. ”

General Hurtier calmed down and thought about it: "Since we chose to attack early in the morning, then we will send a platoon of sharp knives to approach the French position before dawn, use farmland, houses and canals to lurk, and only carry out 5 minutes of rapid artillery fire before the attack, the 1st Marine Brigade with the strength of two infantry regiments will follow the assault team to launch the first wave of charge, enter the city of Amiens before 9 o'clock and control the main bridge over the Somme, direct the artillery to attack the targets on the west bank of the Somme, occupy the bridgehead on the west bank of the Somme, and wait until the troops of the 2nd Marine Brigade enter the city, Then we went back and cleared the French troops on the east bank of the Somme. ”

Natsuki nodded, compared to Scheer, Huttier's decision-making method is more straightforward, and his courage and courage are also surpassed, but this does not mean that Huttier is better than Scheer. One of them is a naval commander, the other is a marine commander, and if the latter is negligent or miscalculated, there is still a chance to make amends on the battlefield, but the latter may bury the entire fleet because of a single thought.

"In addition to field artillery and train heavy artillery, we will also receive direct support from naval aviation, and both squadrons of naval aircraft will arrive at the airfield in the western suburbs of Alas by tomorrow. In order to ensure the safety of this flying force, General Sigmund has deployed two battalions of infantry and one battalion of artillery to set up a defensive line around the airfield. When he said this, Natsuki didn't mean to show off, but with such a "supernatural" chief of staff, the burden on Hutier's shoulders would undoubtedly be much easier.

The naval planes mentioned by Natsuki are different from the carrier-based aircraft carried by the "Bismarck" in that they are deployed around the naval base on weekdays to carry out coastal vigilance patrols against enemy airships, planes, and submarines. The two squadrons were equipped with Hubert C and D attack aircraft, as well as Albarots BI/BII fighters.

(End of chapter)