"Machine Rifleman...... Check the bolt safety, organize your ammo, and get back to the team! ”

With the threat of French cavalry completely gone, the voices of the non-commissioned officers on the side of the German marines were much calmer. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info Dimir Hook was stowing his gear as he was stowing his gear, when a gunshot rang out twenty meters away, followed by an angry roar from an officer, apparently a panicked guy who forgot to close the safety and went off. Hook made sure his machine gun was safe again, got up and stuffed the magazine back into his magazine pouch, then picked up the Madsen light machine gun.

At this time, except for a group of infantry who went to clean up the battlefield and contain prisoners of war, the rest of the combatants stayed in place for a short rest. There were still a few French horses struggling in pools of blood, and some of the cavalrymen may have fainted when they fell off their horses, while others were wounded rather than killed, and instead of returning to the rear to rejoin the fighting forces, it would be better to take some effort to capture them and send them to prisoner of war camps - it is said that in Napoleonic times, the victorious side tended to sweep the battlefield with ruthless means, but now the massacre of wounded soldiers is expressly prohibited by international conventions, although no one can guarantee that this will never happen, But at least it's no longer a universal practice.

Under the cover of the dragoons, the French cavalry artillery crew abandoned a light ammunition cart that could not be towed, and fled in panic with two cavalry guns. The German naval infantry was able to reverse the passive situation and achieve a hearty victory, and the reinforcements of the tank units played the role of saviors, and the crew members deserved to be thanked by the infantry, who got out of the turret and cockpit, took off their fur hats, unbuckled their collars, smoked cigarettes given by the infantrymen, and enjoyed the cool air outside the vehicles. However, the established battle plan allowed them to stay here for a while. When they had finished their cigarettes, the commanders beckoned their crews to resumption, and the naval infantry followed, marching in a mighty manner towards the city of Amiens to the west.

At about 9 a.m., General Huttier and his staff team drove to a farmstead just five kilometres from the city of Amiens, where they could see the Gothic white spire of Amiens Cathedral, where Henri-Philippe Pétain, a "non-mainstream" French general who was leading the garrison in Amiens. In the eyes of Hu Tier and others, he is just an unknown opponent, but Natsuki has shown great interest in this name.

Before the start of the war, most of the generals of the French army advocated the offensive and sang the praises of bayonets, but Petain dared to resist this trend alone, believing that a general offensive could only be launched when the enemy's defenses had been decisively weakened, and that the weakening of the enemy's defenses could not rely on the blood of the infantry, but on highly concentrated artillery firepower and close coordination between artillery and infantry. This idea was a refresher for the hot-headed French soldiers, and its correctness was confirmed by the later wars, but before the outbreak of war, Petain was regarded as an anomaly by his colleagues. In fact, due to his humble background and unflattering personality, until the eve of the outbreak of World War I, the 58-year-old Petain was only a colonel, and the phrase "the times make heroes" is quite apt for him. Distinguished by his performance in the Battle of the Frontier and a series of rearguard battles that followed, he quickly rose through the ranks of officers and was appointed commander of the reconstituted French 6th Infantry Division, which was stationed on the front line of Sedan at the Battle of the Marne, and the division headquarters was located in the city of Sedan.

Like most French infantry divisions in 1914, the French 6th Division consisted of four infantry regiments, a field artillery regiment, a cavalry battalion, and baggage troops, with a total strength of about 16,000 men. During the border campaign, the division lost more than half of its combat strength, and it barely reached 80 percent of its original strength, or 13,000 men, through a large number of reservists. The field artillery regiment was supposed to be armed with 36 Type 1897 75-mm field guns, but in reality there were only 24.

Petain, who was slow to rise through the ranks, had solid military command skills. He was both adept at directing offensives and skilled in the use of defensive tactics and, like Napoleon, valued the use of artillery flexibly. In order to resist a possible German attack, he immediately strengthened the fortifications of Amiens after his arrival, turning the thin defensive line into a three-dimensional and in-depth defensive system. By the time the German 1st Naval Brigade arrived at the city of Amiens, the French officers and men were ready to meet the battle.

The Amiens Line, which appeared in front of Natsuki's eyes, was mainly laid along a tributary canal on the east bank of the Somme, the canal itself was not wide, and a barbed wire belt twenty or thirty meters wide was deployed on the east bank to resist the forcible impact of the German cavalry, and the west bank was a trench position, and the trench belt crisscrossed and communicated with each other, the dilapidated houses were demolished to consolidate the fortifications, a few strong houses were transformed into fortress-like fire strongholds, and ring fortifications were built on slightly higher ground; A winding traffic trench connects this line with the city of Amiens. In the event of a loss of defensive lines, the French troops could quickly withdraw into the city and continue the battle relying on the buildings in the city. If you blow up all the bridges over the Somme yourself, you can also use the river moat to block your opponent's attack.

In order to turn the rapid attack of the Marine Corps into a quick victory, Natsuki did enough to overcome it in advance, not only did the naval aviation unit conduct aerial reconnaissance of the Amiens Line for many days, but the naval intelligence department also managed to get a lot of battlefield espionage. It is almost certain that most of the divisional artillery and cavalry units of the French army have been transferred to the Marne battlefield, and the defenders of Amiens can only use some bulky and difficult to move old artillery guns, except for the artillery regiments of the 6th Infantry Division, and the total number should not exceed 80. In addition, after the outbreak of war, the French converted the football field west of Amiens into a military airfield, which had previously stationed a French flying squadron and later joined a number of British aircraft, which had recently been transferred to the Marne. The day before the attack of the German marines, the Zeppelin reconnaissance turned out to be only two biplanes, and another two or four aircraft were probably parked in nearby improvised hangars.

At 9:20 a.m., 20 naval train guns arrived at their new firing positions, all the combat units of the 1st Marine Brigade were ready to go outside Amiens, the regiments of the 2nd Marine Brigade were arriving one after another, ready to be put into battle as follow-up echelons, and the 3rd Marine Brigade, as the general combat reserve, was on the march and could gather under the city of Amiens in less than an hour.

Of the 30 naval combat vehicles, except for 2 that broke down halfway, the remaining 28 were all in place, of which 24 were to be put into the first wave of the attack, and they were not divided into four teams, but combined forces to form a one-kilometer-wide assault group, guiding more than 3,000 officers and men of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 1st Marine Brigade to tear through the French defense. After attacking the city, the vanguard will capture several major bridges across the Somme as quickly as possible, block the retreat of the French defensive guards, and capture the railway station of Amiens all the way with chariot troops, and the airfield west of the city with chariot troops, while the 2nd Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Marine Brigade will attack and advance along the French trench belt to the north and south, completely crushing the French defense.

After five minutes of rapid shelling of the French line, the fire of the German train guns began to extend into the city, some shells directly into the Somme, and some were only a few hundred meters away from the Amiens Cathedral in the center of the city, and the powerful explosion shattered the glass of the houses. With the rumbling roar of the tank's engine, the first siege of the city entered by the German marines began. In previous exercises, they had "captured" the seaside town of Heiligenhafen, which has thousands of inhabitants, the inland town of Lütjenburg, near the coast, and the port city of Wismar, which has a population of 50,000, and this is the first time they have attacked a riverside city of 100,000 people like Amiens.

At the outset of the offensive, the German marines met with fierce resistance from French artillery. The fleet had only advanced a thousand meters before four Hubert-13s were damaged. After all, they are only light combat vehicles, and the hull armor can withstand ordinary bullets and most shell fragments, but in the case of intensive shelling by French artillery, it is inevitable that the combat vehicle will be directly hit by shells or damaged tracks.

The chariot unit continued to assault without fear of the French bullets, and the naval infantry who followed up the battle were a little overwhelmed. The number of French artillery is small, but the 1897 field gun they are equipped with can be called the Enfield of artillery, the normal rate of fire is already very good, and the efficiency in the explosive state is even more amazing, the flying shells bombarded the soldiers of the 1st Naval Infantry Regiment to the point that they could not raise their heads, they could only watch the chariot group gradually move away, every time they mustered up the courage to get up and move forward, they had to lie down again to avoid the French shelling after walking a few steps, otherwise their flesh and blood would bloom gloriously in the merciless artillery fire!

The French artillery concealed behind the defensive line evaded the suppression of fire before the attack, which did not exceed Natsuki's expectations, and the artillery officers deployed at the forward observation post directly contacted the train artillery units in the rear through field telephones, guiding them to fire at the positions of the French artillery. In the process, because there was no cover from the accompanying infantry, the German tanks stopped at the barbed wire belt of the French defense line, and constantly bombarded the French fire points on the other side of the canal with tank guns, clearing the way for the naval infantry to attack in advance.

Point-to-point artillery fire is the most efficient, more than 10 kilometers away from the front-line battlefield train artillery began to cover the area where the French field artillery is located, the whistling and falling heavy shells do not need to pursue a high-precision impact point, even if they hit within a range of 100 meters, they can also interrupt the French artillery shooting, forcing them to move their positions, and with the continuous coverage of heavy artillery fire, as long as a shell falls on the French artillery position, it is possible to cause direct damage to the artillery, ammunition and gunner.

Taking advantage of the fact that their train guns had suppressed the French field artillery, the officers and men of the 1st Naval Infantry Regiment engaged in a weight-bearing race, armed with weapons in their hands, carrying bullets, grenades and sapper shovels - the soldiers of the heavy machine gun crew, carrying heavy guns and gun mounts, were driven by death through the dangerous open area, and followed the chariot units to the barbed wire belt.

(End of chapter)