After the end of World War I, France, the nominally victorious power, also paid a terrible price, with more than 6 million casualties, the northern provinces destroyed by the war, the country saddled with heavy war debts, a withering economy, and a poor livelihood. In addition, demographic considerations also added weight to the defensive school. Post-World War I demographics show that France has a population of only 40 million, while Germany has 70 million, and Germany has a higher birth rate. Because of the effects of the war, France would face a severe shortage of military service personnel for five years after 1930. The brutal First World War made ordinary French people yearn for a peaceful and stable life, and since the national humiliation has been gone, and the public opinion that does not want to fight again has also made it impossible for the people to maintain a "total offensive" army without the support of the common people, peace is so precious, who wants to take the initiative to start a war? It is precisely under the impetus of this idea of "living at peace" that the idea of passive defense has also spread among the military.

In fact, the construction of the Maginot Line was a source of pride for the French, and from 1929 to 1933 2,000 laborers worked around the clock to excavate the large underground fortifications near Beach. After that, countless specialists were sent down to equip the fortifications. Europe's largest project has taken the technology of fortification to the extreme, and it is not for nothing that the French place their national security on it. Such a strong line of defense completely cut off the possibility of the enemy from the flank, and it was possible to achieve a breakthrough only at a terrible cost, and how happy it was that the French army, with a small number of troops to defend the line, could muster as many reserves as possible to strike at the invading enemy! To be precise, the French did not fully consider the Maginot Line to be impregnable, and they were also prepared to use mobile reserves to carry out a counter-assault on the invading enemy after the breakthrough, and Marshal Petain believed that "it is necessary to have highly mobile forces to prepare to close the breach, or to flank the enemy who has broken through the line". In the French philosophy, the enemy forces that broke through the Maginot Line were bound to suffer heavy losses, and the enemy's offensive was bound to fail under the blows of the French mobile forces.

After France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the French troops deployed on the front line did not have any pre-war tension, and the French from the front line to the rear agreed that the Germans would inevitably be bloodied in front of the Maginot Line, and that the war would be an "easy war". They had nothing to do all the time, neither fighting nor training, let alone practicing the tactics of infantry and tank coordination and air-ground coordination that they had never heard of. The daily work of the French soldiers consisted of digging useless field fortifications and enjoying the abundant and comprehensive recreational facilities provided by the rear.

But not everyone is so optimistic, a commander of the British Army, Allen? Sir Brooke said after visiting the Maginot Line twice: "There can be no doubt that the whole view of Maginot is the assumption of genius. But! It only gives me very little security, and I think France could have done better, if it had spent money on equipment for mobile defense, such as more and better planes and more armored divisions, instead of throwing money into the ground...... The most dangerous aspect of the Maginot Line was psychologically, it created a false sense of security, the feeling of hiding behind an impregnable steel line, and once this feeling was broken, France's will to fight would be crushed together. ”

No one in the French today thought that the words of the British would one day become a reality.

Roger? Bruge crossed the long road to a transit station, where a small railway passed, and Roger waited for a while, and soon a small electric locomotive drove up.

"Where are you going?" An officer on the train asked.

"I'm going to the cafeteria." Roger replied.

"Come on." The officer said, and Roger got on the open-top electric locomotive, and the locomotive moved forward.

Not long after, a locomotive much larger than the electric locomotive where Roger was located emerged from another tunnel. Roger turned his head to look and saw that the open carriage of this locomotive was full of French soldiers.

"There are more mouths to eat now." A French soldier next to Roger smiled and said, "I don't understand what it's like to send so many people in." ”

"The Germans have taken Norway and Sweden, the Russians have taken Finland, and now they have nothing to worry about, and they can rest assured that they will do it to our dear motherland, haha!" Someone laughed, "These people are here to help us defend our homeland!" ”

"The problem is, this line of defense doesn't need so many people." The French soldier just now said, "This is not where they should go." ”

"Maybe the Germans are coming. The superiors felt that the troops of the defense line were insufficient, so they asked them to come. Roger looked at the people talking and laughing in the locomotive and said to himself.

"If they are all in the defensive line, who is acting as a mobile force outside?"

"What mobile troops? Not at all! ”

While a few people were talking, someone suddenly shouted: "Listen? What was that? ”

Roger heard it too, and it seemed that strange noises were coming from the depths of the tunnel.

Everyone became quiet little by little, and they all looked around uneasily.

There was another sound, this time above their heads, and several people in the small electric locomotive all looked up in unison.

"What's going on?" Someone asked uneasily, "Did there be an earthquake?" ”

"It's not an earthquake." Roger shook his head and said.

The sound came again, as if the giant had walked over their heads, and with the vibration of the sound, a little dust fell from above the tunnel and fell on the heads of Roger and the others.

At this time, the electric lights on both sides of the tunnel also suddenly flashed, but after a while, they returned to normal.

Somehow, Rogé's heart suddenly felt uneasy.

He vaguely felt that such a sound might be caused by their enemies in some way.

After a while, the locomotive arrived at the canteen, and Roger jumped out of the locomotive and hurried to the canteen, where the canteen was preparing for lunch, and several pot-bellied cooks saw Roger come in and greeted him.

"Hey! Ground observer! Any idea what just happened? A chef asked Roger.

"What do you mean?" Roger asked.

As soon as Roger finished speaking, the voice came again, and Roger felt a tremor under his feet, and the uneasiness in his heart became stronger and stronger.

"That's it, I think you've felt it." The chef pointed to the ceiling with the sauté pan in his hand, "What's going on?" Is it shelling? ”

"I think so." Roger nodded, "I'm afraid I'll have to go back quickly." ”

"What do you want?" The chef asked.

"I want a cake and a bottle of gin." Roger said.

"Wait a minute." The cook nodded, turned to leave, and after a while, he took the cake and wine that Roger had asked for, signed the list with his unit number and name, packed the bottle and cake box into his bag, and then said goodbye to the chef and left the cafeteria quickly.

By the time Roger returned to the underground observatory, the basement had completely changed, and the laid-back atmosphere had completely disappeared, replaced by a series of nervous shouts and ringing telephones.

"What's wrong?" Roger asked.

"Come and see for yourself! Ouch! I knew that when a tooth hurts, nothing good happens. ”

Roger took his comrade's periscope and looked at it, and when he saw the scene outside, he immediately understood what was happening.

What caught my eye was a huge crater and gunpowder smoke soaring into the sky.

Roger looked around carefully, and he didn't find any sign of the enemy, but every now and then a huge beer bottle-like object would fall from the sky, and whenever it hit the ground, it was a huge flame and a pillar of smoke that soared into the sky, and a terrible tremor.

The telephone bell next to him rang rapidly, and Roger picked up the microphone, and the anxious voice of the commander of the underground fire control post came from inside: "Haven't you seen the enemy yet?" ”

In the Maginot Line, the gunners did not directly observe the target as if they were fighting in a submarine, but the ground observer notified the underground fire control command post by telephone to make command corrections to the artillery fire.

"Nope." Roger turned the periscope, but still didn't find the enemy.

"I think they're attacking us with a terrible long-range artillery."

"I think so." The commander said, "Watch carefully, and notify us as soon as you find the enemy." ”

"I will." Roger replied.

At this time, Roger could not have imagined that a hundred kilometers away, the enemy was doing something to the Maginot Line.

"Fire!"

With a loud order from a German army major-general, the 800-mm "Dora" cannon with its muzzle held high spewed out long tongues of fire and fired a terrifying colossal projectile into the air.

On the railroad tracks not far away, several other "Dora" cannons also opened fire, and looking at the roaring of the cannons, Ruprecht I's heart felt more happy than ever.

This time, he concentrated 20 "Dora" cannons to attack the Maginot Line, with the aim of challenging this strong line of defense that the French were proud of.

The "Dora" cannon in his hand today is no longer comparable to the "Paris cannon" that bombarded Paris during World War I.

In order to bombard Paris, Krupp's ordnance workers built the famous "Paris Cannon", which had a barrel almost 12 stories high - 18.2 feet long and a muzzle diameter of 8.26 inches. Its 276-pound shells were fired from 430 pounds of gunpowder piled up to twelve feet high. Propelling the cannonball more than twenty miles above the sea at its muzzle velocity of 5,500 feet per second, it lunged almost with little resistance in the extremely high stratosphere before falling in an arc toward Paris with the help of gravity. The inventor, Dr. Eberhardt, used mathematical calculations to deduce the interrelationship between all the factors – the shell, the amount of gunpowder, the three-minute flight in the air, and the curvature of the earth.

Eberhardt supported the barrel with cantilever brackets, and also designed wheels with rims that could roll along the railway tracks, giving it a maneuverable surname. The total weight of the "Paris cannon" is 375 tons, and the cannon itself is 180 tons. The barrel was raised at a fixed angle of fifty degrees, while the increase or decrease in range was regulated by changing the amount of black powder. The huge railway wheeling wheel allows the gun carriage and cannon to rotate horizontally to change direction.

Unfortunately, however, even a genius like Dr. Eberhardt could not predict which district of Paris the "Paris cannon" would hit. A few days before the start of the shelling, German agents received orders to report on the places where each shell hit, but the calculations made according to their reports could not even make a single shell hit a strategic target. All shells fell indiscriminately on parks, public buildings, residences and hospitals. As if to indicate its non-strategic purpose, the Paris cannon was fired at its most tragic on 29 March, after the crucifixion of the Crucifixion. At 4.30 p.m., when the church was full of kneeling worshippers, a cannonball flying towards the church of Saint-Gervais in the center of Paris interrupted its journey and landed on the roof.

One of the pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling broke, and tons of stone collapsed with a thud, crushing eighty-eight men, among them sixty-nine women and three children; Sixty-eight others were seriously injured. On Tuesday, April 2, a mass funeral was held, which was attended by many high-ranking political officials. At that time, the chief of the German General Staff, Ludendorff, had ordered the Paris artillery to be silent that afternoon, but Wilhelm II happily drove to the firing position of the Saint-Gobain "Paris cannon" in a car to personally congratulate the gunners.

After firing between 50 and 75 shells, the old barrels of the "Paris Cannon" had to be removed and transported to the Krupp factory, where the muzzle caliber was expanded to 9.15 inches. This arrangement made it possible to have only one cannon at a time in the line of fire. After firing one hundred and eighty shells in thirty-nine days, the artillery had to move to another area, where the shelling of Paris was resumed.

In total, the "Paris Cannon" fired about 370 shells at Paris. After defeatism and revolt in 1917, the French were wary of the danger of demoralization. Mobile teams of workers rushed to the site of each shell explosion, removed the debris and resurfaced the streets. In order to erase all possible scars from German indiscriminate fire, the shrewd French always restored the damaged public buildings to their former appearance, and the military installations were never hit. So the Germans' goal of using the "Paris cannon" to demoralize the French army ultimately failed.

But twenty years later, everything has changed.

Thanks to the efforts of German engineers and technicians, the world's largest artillery, the "Dora" cannon, quietly came out in Germany.

The Dora Cannon is a super-range artillery, which was secretly developed by Hitler after he came to power, and was designed to be used against the Maginot Line and the fortifications of the Gibraltar Fortress.

The Maginot Line is 351 kilometers long and consists of about 5,600 permanent fortifications. The fortifications were extremely strong, with the roof and walls of the shelter up to 3.5 meters thick. Even if a 420-mm cannon shell hits directly, such as the "Big Belta" gun, it is difficult to cause casualties and damage to equipment inside the defensive line. From the very beginning of the emergence of the Maginot Line, the German army was trying to break it, so there was a "Dora" cannon, because only with the most powerful firepower can break this strong defense line, in order to effectively reduce the casualties of the German army.

In addition to being inferior to the "Paris Cannon" in the length and range of the barrel, the "Dora" cannon can be called the world's largest in many aspects: the whole cannon is about 43 meters long, 7 meters wide, 12 meters high, and weighs 1,350 tons, which is almost twice as long as the "Paris Cannon". The shells were also surprisingly large, with a high-explosive shell weighing 4.81 tons and containing 700 kilograms of explosives. Another type of armor-piercing projectile used to destroy concrete shelters weighed 7.1 tons and contained 250 kg of explosives. It is powerful enough to penetrate 1000 mm thick armor steel plates or 7000 mm thick reinforced concrete walls at maximum range.

The "Dora" cannon, as the trump card of the German High Command, was commanded by a major general. When firing, a colonel gave specific command. There are more than 1,400 soldiers who directly use each cannon, plus two antiaircraft artillery regiments, guard personnel, and maintenance personnel who are responsible for air defense tasks, a total of more than 4,000 people.

In addition to this movable railway cannon, the "Dora" cannon also had a fortress cannon. The single-mounted 800-mm Dora Fortress turret has a diameter of 60 meters and a height of 12 meters, and is divided into two layers. The inner layer is a polygonal rotating turret mounted on a conventional turret (similar to a ship turret, but with an elevation angle of more than 55 degrees), the frontal armor is 1500 mm thick, and the top, sides, and rear are 500 mm thick. The outer layer is a rotatable cast steel cover mounted on an annular track (similar to the steel concrete cover of historical German fortress turrets), with a thickness of 2 meters around and at the top. The rotation of the outer steel cover was used to change the firing range of the inner turret; The inner turret does precise aiming. In this way, the shell hitting the outer steel cover will not cause the inner turret to get stuck. Due to the large tolerance between the outer steel cover and the annular steel rail, it does not jam itself. This type of fortress turret can not only do 360-degree omnidirectional shooting, but also have a strong enough impact resistance and reliable surname.

Different from the railway artillery, the "Dora" fortress gun is equipped with three types of ammunition, 7,100 kg of armor-piercing shells with a range of 37 km, 4,800 kg of semi-armor-piercing high-explosive shells with a range of 48 km, and 3,000 kg of reduced high-explosive shells with a range of 64 km. With this shell, groups of turrets with a distance of 54 km can support each other (the maximum interval between the fortified artillery groups in the German mainland is 54 km, and the minimum distance is 47 km).

In addition to the "Dora" fortress guns deployed in the German mainland, the fortress gun group on Helgoland Island has three 800 mm 44 x diameter turrets, in addition to the Ulstrup fortress gun group also has three 800 mm 44 x diameter turrets, and the rest are railway guns. Before the war against France, it was quietly transported to the front.

(To be continued)