Moltke Jr., commander of the First Army, staggered in a jeep, his troops plunged into the silk assholes of the French as the main force of the right-flank attack. If Moltke was not a qualified commander-in-chief, many people would agree, but no one in the German Army at this time would say that Moltke was not a qualified commander in charge of armored forces - on the contrary, he was still the most proficient general in armored warfare in the German Army at present.

As a high-ranking general sent by the General Staff, Lieutenant General Moltke Jr. was attracted by their armored forces on his first visit to China, and after seeing those seemingly invincible steel monsters, his eyes could no longer be pulled out. Immediately after returning to China, Moltke Jr. submitted a report to Schlieffen and requested that a larger army delegation be sent to China to inspect its armored forces, and asked the government to increase the content of tanks and armored forces in cooperation with China.

Schlieffen keenly felt the role of the armored forces, the core of Schlieffen's plan was the time difference, if it could pass through the Ardennes Forest and the Belgian plain as quickly as possible, if it could defeat France as quickly as possible, then Germany would win more than half of the future war. And the advance of armored forces is significantly faster than that of ordinary infantry, and their assault capabilities are also stronger, and Schlieffen even thought of forming a special armored unit when he read the report.

Soon after, a delegation of German officers headed by Lieutenant General Moltke arrived in China again, this time to inspect the manufacture, application, and performance of tanks, the establishment of armored units, and the use of tactics. It is gratifying that Hua Guo did not hide his secrets, not only presented his main tank T01 unreservedly in front of Moltke Jr., but also ordered Major He Guangsha, a commander of the armored unit, to make a special trip to explain to the German officers.

It is a pity that the technical experts accompanying the regiment believe that with Germany's industrial strength and scientific and technological strength, it is impossible to imitate a tank with the same performance as the T01 tank, and the technical difficulties are reflected in all aspects. But on the other hand, German scientists secretly expressed contempt for the crude craftsmanship of this tank, and if the Germans had mastered the same technology as China, the tanks they would have built would definitely be more advanced and reliable than this tank.

In any case, the expedition continued and lasted for more than six months. Immediately after returning home, the General Staff convened a meeting dedicated to the discussion of armored forces, and Moltke Jr.'s proposal to form armored forces Schlieffen appreciated and unanimously adopted it internally. The 150 T01 tanks sold in China were named Tank No. 1 and used to form an experimental armored regiment.

At the beginning of 1907, the German military factory provided the army with the No. 2 tank, which was developed and produced on its own, and this tank still had a lot of traces of the Chinese tank, but it was more in the style of the Germans themselves. In terms of performance, the No. 2 tank is less than half of the No. 1 tank, the power system output is less than one-third of the No. 1 tank, it is equipped with a 45 mm caliber short-barreled gun, the armor thickness is also insufficient, and the total weight is about 5 tons.

The General Staff was not satisfied with this and ordered to continue the development of more advanced tanks, but Moltke Jr. could not wait, he needed more tanks for the training of soldiers and the expansion of the scale of armored forces. So 250 No. 2 tanks were procured by the army, the 2nd Panzer Regiment was formed, and it was at that time that the current Rommel enlisted in the army and entered the armored unit to begin training.

At the beginning of 1908, the No. 3 tank was successfully developed and passed the army's review, and then entered a state of large-scale industrial production, the first Panzer Army was formed in March 1908, and the Second Panzer Army was formed in May 1909. Before the outbreak of the war, the army had only these two armored units, and the establishment was modeled after the Chinese armored army, according to which the first and second armored armies were not fully established.

The two armies had a total of 150 No. 1 tanks, all of which were equipped with three heavy tank destroyer battalions, which served as a killer weapon for the armored forces. In addition, there were 250 No. 2 tanks and 330 No. 3 tanks, and due to the high failure rate, a total of 620 tanks were actually put into the front line at the beginning of the operation, all of which were used on the Western Front.

The problem of the failure rate is that the technology is not yet fully mature, after all, the time to absorb the Chinese tank technology is not more than 5 years, in comparison, the German tank is not inferior to the tanks developed by Britain and France. Tank No. 3 was armed with a larger 45 mm long-barreled gun, and its firepower was more than 80 percent higher than that of Tank No. 2. Due to the continuous absorption of Chinese tank engine technology, the armor thickness and maneuverability of the No. 3 tank were good, and according to the engineers' predictions, Germany would be able to produce a new tank comparable to the Chinese T01 tank by September 1910, which was great news for the army's armored forces.

Engineers can improve the design, workers can improve the process, all of which can reduce the failure rate of tanks, but even if the failure rate is reduced, it is unlikely that the German armored forces will have more tanks in a short period of time. Resources were the main factor restricting the expansion of German armored forces, and BMW, which produced tank engines, repeatedly appealed to the General Staff to increase the supply of steel, otherwise it would not be able to meet the needs of the army, but it was also ignored.

Steel is not the only thing needed by armored forces, the Navy is currently the main culprit in devouring steel. After the four Chinese superwarships arrived in Germany, the fanatical Wilhelm II named them Deutsche class battleships and ordered Tirpitz to speed up the launching of naval warships.

As a result, more steel was delivered to the shipyards, new battleships took to the slipways, large-caliber naval guns produced by Krupp were mounted on heavy turrets, and countless steel plates became the armor of the battleships. While the battleships slowly took shape, the armored forces of the army had to endure the reality of being robbed of resources. After the Chinese aircraft carrier was born, there was another aircraft carrier boom within the German Navy, although the giant ship artillery faction had the absolute upper hand, the Navy still ordered the modification of two experimental aircraft carriers, according to internal information, the German Navy is likely to pass the proposal to build two large aircraft carriers in April, which is another bad news for the lack of steel armored forces.

The many military exercises and sand table exercises organized by the General Staff proved the key role of the armored forces in the Schlieffen plan, and Schlieffen and other high-ranking generals also became fanatics of the armored forces, but at present only the units of the two armored armies could be used to fight, and they were all arranged on the Western Front, under the command of Moltke Jr. First Army.

According to the plan, the First Army had seven corps, three cavalry divisions and three national militia brigades, of which two armored corps would be the main force of the attack, and the first to pass through the area of the Ardennes Forest with rugged terrain. By reconnaissance it was shown that the Ardennes Forest could quite pass through the tanks of the armored forces. Subsequently, the rest of the First Army was to accompany the Panzer Corps into France through this gap and protect the flanks of the Panzer Corps.

Let's look at the distribution of forces in the implementation of Schlieffen's plan, deploying 11 infantry divisions on the Eastern Front to cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian army to defend Russia. 98 divisions were put into the strategically important Western Front, with Metz as the center, divided into left and right wings. On the right flank, 89 divisions were placed to attack Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, occupy northern France, and rotate like a huge revolving door, all the way across the French coast, making a large detour along the coastline, crossing the Seine, detouring through Paris, and forcing the French army to retreat to the line of the Moselle River. The left flank was deployed in the Alsace-Lorraine area, with 9 divisions, to contain the French offensive.

Unlike the original plane, the German Army had a much larger force before the war, with a total of 109 divisions, including two Panzer Corps. By the time of the outbreak of the war, 3.5 million Chinese laborers had entered Germany, and these strong laborers were distributed in all levels of German society, especially in the agricultural field, replacing the German men who were originally farmers. Eventually, the German Army was able to expand to about twenty divisions, and Schlieffen once said that if Germany won the war, then the military merit medal would be at least one-tenth of that of Chinese laborers.

Compared with the original time and space, the strength of the right hook has increased from 70 divisions to 98 divisions, which is much more powerful, and Schlieffen even swore to Wilhelm II that he could completely defeat France in two months, defeat Russia in half a year, and completely end the war within a year. It's just that the cruel reality makes Schlieffen extremely ugly, Germany is advancing, the enemy is also advancing, they are secretly cooperating with China, and the Entente countries are also colluding with China.

From the point of view of the most intuitive two aspects - the number of tanks and the strength of troops, the French Army had seven army groups before the outbreak of the war in 1910, with a total strength of about 1.3 million, plus the British Expeditionary Force led by Sir John French 150,000 troops, the total strength was almost the same as that of Germany. Among the seven armies, the First Army was 280,000, the Second Army was 180,000, the Third Army was 200,000, the Fourth Army was 160,000, the Fifth Army was 240,000, and the Sixth and Seventh Armies were both 150,000. In addition, there are more than 500,000 reserves that are not included in the actual troop statistics, and France has the ability to mobilize reservists and troops no less than Germany.

As for the number of tanks, France's progress in developing tanks surpassed that of Britain, and it should be said that it was second only to China and Germany. At the end of 1906, the first experimental tank was produced, but it was not equipped with troops, but continued to be developed, and in early 1908, the French Army finally obtained a relatively mature tank, named the FT03 tank.

Before the outbreak of the war, France had more than 900 tanks, more than Germany. Unlike China and Germany, the French Army assigned most of its tanks to grassroots combat units, and also built tank trenches in the barriers of the German-French border area to serve as fixed firing points. (To be continued.) )