Hamilton listened to Pétain's words and his brow furrowed even deeper. At present, the Allied air force does not have an air base on the territory that France has recovered, and the Allied air force can fly from London to Tours, but it cannot fight, because the combat radius of the fighters is too small, and it cannot reach Tours at all, and if you want to use the fighters, you must wait for the construction of the air force airport in Le Mans. Now you can't expect the Air Force to help.

Hamilton shook his head and said: "Our plan to bomb the German troops in the city of Tours with the air force bomber group will not work for the time being, we can only think of other ways!" General Petain, could you please contact the Chinese army and see if they can ask them to send an urban warfare expert to guide our army in urban assault operations? ”

Petain nodded and said, "No problem, I will personally send a report to General Cai Guodong immediately!" ”

For three days, the British and French troops did not move, after all, the British and French troops were not familiar with street fighting, and instead of fearless casualties, it was better to wait for Chinese street fighting experts to come and formulate a feasible and detailed offensive plan before starting military operations.

On 3 August, a Chinese colonel arrived at Hamilton's headquarters, where he was personally received by French Marshal Petain and had a cordial conversation with him.

On the morning of August 5, Hamilton met with Colonel Jiang Bin, an expert in street warfare, and then a military meeting was held.

At the star-studded military meeting, Zhao Jiahe's military rank was the lowest among the participants. But he was one of the protagonists of the military conference.

After the meeting began, Hamilton and Petain walked into the room. Jiang Bin followed them into the venue, and Hamilton pressed his hand to sit down the generals. Then he introduced: "My generals, let me introduce you to this is Colonel Jiang Bin, an expert in urban street warfare from the Chinese military, whom we invited!" ”

Jiang Binli saluted the European generals, but did not speak. These European generals applauded.

After everyone had sat down, Hamilton said: "At present, our army is blocked by the Germans in front of the city and cannot advance an inch, and the offensive plan that was made before can no longer be used, and we must have a new battle plan, that is, the street battle plan against Tours!" Colonel Jiang, I don't know if you have any suggestions? ”

The British and French generals all set their eyes on Jiang Bin. There is hope, contempt, disdain, and so on in these gazes. Jiang Bin stood up in the midst of many gazes, took a briefcase from the hand of an orderly behind him, took out a folded map from the briefcase and opened it, and then asked a few junior officers in the conference room to help hang it on the wall.

Jiang Bin walked to the wall and pointed to the map and said: "Generals, please see, this is the situation of Tours that I have collected in the past two days, these places marked with triangular symbols are all relatively high places, with the military command ability of the German commander, it is impossible not to know the strategic value of these highlands, I believe that there must be heavy German troops stationed in these places in Beicheng District." The Germans held these high points and could easily fire and suppress us, and I know that you have only been attacking for a day and that you have made very little progress. Therefore, the Germans did not use the fire from these commanding heights. If we were to attack the German-occupied northern districts, we would have to destroy the heavy firepower or artillery in these places, and it would be feasible to use artillery shelling or send small detachments to carry out a surprise attack! ”

"I also talked to some of the soldiers who were on the attack. I found that the Germans used almost the same defensive methods as the Japanese fought street battles with our Chinese troops in Fukuoka Castle, except that the Germans did not deploy troops in every house. Instead, they were fortified inside some fortified houses and tall buildings, at the entrances of the streets, despite this. The German defense can still be said to be very perfect, and if you want to capture Tours at the minimum cost, you must use special offensive tactics! ”

Marshal Pétain asked: "Colonel Jiang, I don't know what kind of special offensive tactics to use?" ”

Jiang Bin said: "Since the German army does not deploy troops in all houses to defend, but only deploys defenses in strong houses and tall buildings and important communication nodes, then we can use concentrated firepower to carry out targeted elimination of German defense points, on the one hand, to advance to the depth of German defense, on the other hand, to attract the attention of the German army, and then send some small detachments with strong combat effectiveness to raid the German headquarters, important traffic nodes and commanding heights, ammunition depots, etc., we only need to control some traffic nodes, It will be possible to cut off the connection between the German command and the German forces in all parts, and the German troops without command will inevitably be unable to cope with our new offensive, unable to cooperate with each other, and will fall into chaos, which will be beneficial for us to take Tours".

Hamilton felt a little interesting when he heard Jiang Bin's words, and asked, "Can Colonel Jiang tell me more about how these two steps will be carried out?" ”

Jiang Bin said: "I don't have a detailed plan now, I'll first roughly say what I envisioned, two steps at the same time, the first is to organize offensive troops, which is divided into two parts, the first is to organize the frontal troops to concentrate firepower on the German defense points to carry out targeted killing, and the second part is to organize several small detachments with strong combat effectiveness in order to raid the German army headquarters, traffic nodes, commanding heights and ammunition depots, etc., about these, I think your intelligence department should be able to help, don't tell me, You haven't gotten the Germans in the city yet!

How to select and organize frontal units for targeted elimination of German defenses, and what is the optimal size of these forces? I think it's best to have platoons, each platoon should have two mortars, one or two machine guns, and each soldier should have a couple of grenades and enough ammunition.

After these frontal troops are organized, immediately let them take the platoon as a unit to carry out fixed-point clearance of the German firepower points on each street, and after the clearance, they must be cleaned up again, in case there are fish that slip through the net and suddenly kill them, and then mark the safety signs in the area after determining the safety, especially for those neighborhoods where the German defense is strong, and send heavy troops to encircle and suppress them, if the German firepower points are exposed to the outdoors, or not too strong fortifications, they can be used mortars for fixed-point killing, if the German firepower points are hidden in relatively strong, If the German fortress is very strong, you can consider using large-caliber howitzers or siege guns, and use artillery to carry out direct-aim artillery shelling, and the general fortifications can be destroyed.

In the course of the offensive, it is necessary to advance one by one, not to skip a certain block or residential area, and to ensure that the rear and flanks of the attacking troops are safe. In addition, it is necessary to pay special attention to whether there are German bunkers and underground passage entrances, and the soldiers must be careful when searching and cleaning up, so as not to miss any clues, so as not to miss a certain underground entrance for the Germans to come out from behind and attack the back of our attacking troops.

As for the organization of assault squads, each member of each assault squad must meet two conditions: the first is a fighter who can obey orders at all times, and even if the commander's orders are wrong, he can unconditionally obey orders. The second is that the individual combat quality of each fighter is stronger than that of other ordinary fighters! ”

Hamilton turned his head to look at Pétain and asked, "General Pétain, what do you think of Colonel Jiang's proposal?" ”

Petain nodded: "Very good, judging from the advice he just said, he is a commander with a lot of experience in street fighting, I think his suggestion is feasible, at least we now know how to fight this battle, and before that, we all commanded our troops like fools to hit the guns of the Germans, didn't we?" ”

Hamilton, who was holding a pipe, nodded when he heard this, then looked at Jiang Bin and said, "Colonel Jiang, your suggestion is very good, I want to ask you to help us make a battle plan, what do you think?" ”

Jiang Bin hurriedly excused himself: "Oh, no, I'm really sorry, Your Excellency Commander, before I came, my commander told me that I could give you advice and provide you with any advice on urban street fighting, but I could not be responsible for making specific combat plans and commanding operations. So, I'm really sorry! ”

Hamilton saw Jiang Bin's resignation, and he couldn't force it, so he had to say: "Okay, just ask Colonel Jiang to stay here for the time being, if we don't understand anything about street fighting, you can ask for advice at any time, if you have any other suggestions, you can also tell us, you can come in and out of my headquarters at will, and I will ask the adjutant to issue you a special pass!" ”

Jiang Bin nodded and agreed: "Okay, I'm willing to serve you at any time, if you want to find me, just make a phone call or send someone to call me."

Under Jiang Bin's guidance, the British and French troops immediately began to prepare for street fighting, a large number of grenades were transported, a large number of machines were separated, and some elite veterans of the British and French troops were selected to form a small detachment, these squads were equipped as much as possible, and each member was an elite soldier with various tactical skills drawn from individual units. Among the frontal advancing units, some platoon units received grenades, machine guns, and mortars, and some artillery support groups were organized, which were ready to provide artillery support to the attacking forces and clear the German fortifications. (To be continued......)