For the French, the "chicken" is a cute and sacred animal, and the French themselves call themselves "Gallic roosters".

Although Qin Zhiyuan is now a French citizen, Qin Zhiyuan does not like chicken outside the dining table.

Of course, when formulating the battle plan, Qin Zhiyuan didn't mind using "hen" as a pronoun, because it was indeed very vivid.

The "hen" is the bomber, because there is not enough artillery, so Qin Zhiyuan hopes that before launching an attack, there can be a certain number of bombers as a firepower supplement.

Under the auspices of Qin Zhiyuan, the Renault factory developed transport planes, which were slightly modified to become bombers, each bomber could carry eight 100-kilogram bombs, or four 200-kilogram bombs.

At this time, Britain and France actually had bombers, but they were basically horizontal bombers, limited by the amount of bombs and bombing accuracy, and were not widely used.

The bomber presided over by Qin Zhiyuan is a standard dive bomber, which can not only carry out relatively accurate dive bombing, but also carry out horizontal bombing, and completely destroy all bombers in this era.

Qin Zhiyuan asked for 100 such bombers.

Since the day he received the battle order, Qin Zhiyuan asked the old Renault to start modifying the aircraft, starting with the dozen or so transport planes that Qin Zhiyuan had already obtained. By the beginning of August, Qin Zhiyuan had obtained a total of 60 bombers, including newly produced bombers and modified bombers, which met the minimum requirements for launching an attack.

If all these bombers are dispatched, when carrying 50 kg of aerial bombs equivalent to the power of 155 mm howitzers, each aircraft can carry about 20 bombs, and a single sortie is equivalent to a salvo of 1,200 155 mm guns, and its lethal effect can cover 180,000 square meters.

Well, the so-called "180,000 square meters" is just theoretical data, and the power may not be so great when it is actually used, of course, it may be greater than this.

What Qin Zhiyuan valued most was that among these bomber pilots, there were about 80 Chinese.

These Chinese were all test pilots in the Renault factory, and they had mastered enough flying skills with almost no effort.

To operate the aircraft at this time, it does not require many complicated skills, nor does it require a college graduate, it is not much more complicated than a tank, and the requirements for personnel are not even as high as those of the gunner in the tank.

For the value of pilots, no one understands more deeply than Qin Zhiyuan. Therefore, Qin Zhiyuan attaches great importance to the training of pilots, and as long as there is an opportunity, he will always let more people give it a try.

The results are satisfying.

It seems that the Chinese are more suitable for staying in the cockpit than the Westerners, and many people are not only qualified to fly bombers, but also many are qualified to fly fighter jets, and some even join the air force.

Before the launch of the spring offensive in Nivelle, the British and French organized 550 aircraft into 15 air squadrons and fought fiercely with the Germans for air supremacy.

The outcome of the battle was sad, the Entente lost 131 aircraft and 105 pilots killed in the first five days alone. Throughout April, Britain alone lost 912 pilots and scouts.

April 1917, also known as the "Scarlet April".

In this battle, a German named "Manfred" rose to fame, he single-handedly shot down 21 Allied fighters, and was known as the "Red Baron" because he often flew a red "Albatross" D biplane.

Chinese pilots missed the April battle because of the feud between Qin Zhiyuan and Niveler, and now this is the first time that Chinese pilots have appeared on the European battlefield.

At the beginning of August, the artillery of the 17th Army began shelling the German defensive positions between Tadenoy and Reims, covering the line from Sassi to Sassi.

In keeping with French tradition, the pre-war fire preparation lasted for three days, and the battle's high-cost artillery fired 2.5 million shells, including 150,000 poison gas shells, with a total weight of more than 100,000 tons.

In the Battle of Ypres at the same time, the British fired 4 million shells, with a total weight of only 65,000 tons, from which we can see the ferociousness of the 17th Army's heavy artillery proportion.

For three days, the only task of the front-line infantry was to stay in the starting position, drinking a variety of white wines, red wines, and beers while enjoying the fireworks show held on the German positions.

The Germans had never suffered an artillery bombardment of this magnitude, and according to post-war statistics, at least 12,000 German troops were killed in these three days of shelling, which is almost the number of a full division.

The Germans had never experienced such a scale of artillery bombardment, and Admiral Oskar von Hurtier, before the infantry of the 17th Army could go on the offensive, was forced to withdraw two divisions from the front, which had suffered heavy casualties, to the second line and replace them with new forces to prepare for the attack of the 17th Army.

The artillery bombardment commanded by Qin Zhiyuan was very distinctive, according to the terrain covering the line from Yuyu to Saxi.

Qin Zhiyuan ordered a sectional artillery bombardment.

The so-called "sectional shelling" is the shelling of the enemy's positions in different parts. If it is mountainous, then gas shells are used, if it is plain, then high-explosive shells are used, and Bastian's troops also use "indirect fire".

The so-called "indirect shooting" is to raise the muzzle of the machine gun upwards and shoot at the air of the German position, so that after the bullet flies into the air, it will gradually decline under the action of the earth's gravity, and in the process the kinetic energy of the bullet will not lose much, if you are lucky, it is indeed possible to hit the Germans.

However, this probability is not much higher than that of "looking for a needle in a haystack", because no one is sure whether there are Germans on the other side of the mountain, so this tactic is estimated to be of little vitality, and the War Office will soon put a stop to this wasteful behavior.

After Qin Zhiyuan asked Bastian this question, Bastian's answer made Qin Zhiyuan feel incredible.

Bastian believed that even if such a shot did not have much effect, at least it would be able to train the skill of the machine gunner.

What surprised Qin Zhiyuan the most was that even Maxim agreed with Bastian. It seems that this is not a "flash of inspiration" for a certain person, but a common understanding of this era.

In this way, what else can Qin Zhiyuan say?

The reason can only be attributed to the fact that the French have too many resources, and it is estimated that the British are similar, with the support of global colonies, and the French and the British are wasted.

It's not just the French who are wasting, the Chinese aren't much better.

The Chinese today are a bit like the American GIs during World War II, when the two armies face off against each other, regardless of whether the targets on the German positions are valuable or not, the Chinese soldiers will habitually call for artillery to attack.

Well, now the miniaturization of radio stations is not complete, and calls are not very easy to achieve. However, there is no need to call artillery, the infantry units on the front line are equipped with a large number of mortars, which have been popularized to the company level, and if a target is found, the front-line infantry can directly use mortars to attack, regardless of whether those targets are worth the shell money or not.

This made Qin Zhiyuan quite worried, now the Chinese ammunition is paid for by the French, and the Chinese can waste it at will, if the Chinese return to the Far East in the future, when they lose the Renault factory as a backing, can the Chinese still fight? Can the existing combat effectiveness be maintained?

This is indeed a problem!

(To be continued.) )