"Boom! Rumble! "The French large-caliber artillery shells exploded one after another on the front-line positions, red light exploded, waves of air burst out, and deadly molten shrapnel shot like a torrential rain. The attacking German soldiers were not blown to a bloody pulp with severed limbs; It was the shrapnel rubble that was wrapped in the high-pressure air wave that pierced the body, and the blood shot out, and he fell to the ground with a terrible scream. In just a few minutes, hundreds of German troops completely fell on the French forward position, which was repeatedly ravaged by heavy artillery on both sides, and the remaining officers and soldiers hurriedly looked for shelter from the shells.

Buried deep in the crater of the earth, Werner felt a violent explosion like a hammer hitting his eardrums, and he couldn't help but curse at the cunning French artilleryman. The French must have figured out the shortcomings of the German fighters in the air, and had already thought of a countermeasure in advance: when the German fighters came with the roar of the attacking troops, they hid their observation balloons in a position that the air troops could not detect, thus avoiding the strafing and suppression of the fighters. While the one-winged dragonflies staggered away less than an hour later due to fuel constraints, the French raised their observation balloons to direct the artillery and deliver precise and lethal blows to the German attacking forces. In contrast to previous battles, the French artillery was no longer the same 75mm cannon; A large number of 105-mm or even 155-mm shells crisscrossed and whizzed down, and the explosion power was directly several times stronger than before!

"Boom!" There was another thunderous roar in Werner's ears, and a great earthquake trembled; The waves set off by the explosion suddenly fell after dancing dozens of meters high. Buried him directly in a cloud of dust. Werner spat out the dry sand in his mouth. In his heart, he began to greet the grandparents of his artillerymen. Judging by the current shelling range of the French army. They committed at least 300 large-caliber guns to counter the German offensive; And before the infantry tanks attacked, the German heavy artillery cluster was bombarded with a storm for five days! After spending so many shells and time, our own artillery even let the other side retain a large amount of heavy artillery firepower, what is this not a serious dereliction of duty? Werner let out an angry roar, his chest filled with rage, completely forgetting the fact that the French position, which was nearly four kilometers deep, had been reduced to rubble by the powerful bombardment of German artillery, which had enabled him to advance quickly.

In fact, the reason why the French artillery was not wiped out in the preparation of German artillery fire. It's all due to the current context of the times.

For the Western Front of World War I, which was dominated by trench warfare, the short-barreled howitzer was obviously a store that could exert its power better than the cannon. Thanks to this characteristic of low muzzle velocity, the howitzer not only has a high projectile trajectory that is easy to attack the top, but its shells can also be loaded with more explosives due to the reduced strength requirements, and the impact on trench fortifications is much stronger than that of cannons of the same caliber. In addition, the short-barreled howitzer also has the advantages of light weight and low cost, which has the unparalleled advantages of long-barreled cannons in the field of battlefield mobility and mass production. You must know that the 150-mm howitzer commonly installed in the German army is less than 2.2 tons, while the cannon of the same caliber is as high as more than 5 tons. That's enough to illustrate the problem!

For this reason, the General Staff of the German Army was under the influence of Qing Ying. From 1908 onwards, a large number of such weapons were ordered from domestic arms dealers, and before the outbreak of the war, on the basis of the original heavy artillery regiment (2 battalions and 8 companies) at the army level, each infantry division was equipped with a battalion of three heavy howitzer units. At present, most of the German heavy artillery involved in the bombardment of Paris is a powerful weapon with such ballistic high throws. However, howitzers also have their inherent flaws, that is, the range of their shells is greatly reduced due to their low muzzle velocity.

Unlike the howitzers of World War II, which often had a tube length of more than 20 or even close to 30 times the caliber, the body diameter of the howitzer of World War I was only about 15 or even 12, and the short tube inevitably brought a lack of range. At present, the German army is equipped with a large number of 105-mm and 150-mm howitzers, with a range of only 7,000 meters and 8,500 meters, respectively, and even 240-mm heavy howitzers have a range of more than 10 kilometers. And this distance can be easily reached even by a 105-mm cannon. According to Qing Ying's previous assumptions, the Germans would not launch a large-scale offensive on the Western Front, so the shortcomings of these artillery guns with a short range would not be a problem in the interior defensive battle. And in the current situation of a large-scale German attack on Paris, the shortcomings of the howitzer in range manifested themselves.

In order to prevent countermeasures by enemy artillery, the attackers did not set their artillery positions directly in the first line when preparing for artillery fire, but deployed them in hidden positions behind the second line. Coupled with the no-man's-land in the middle of the battlefield, the already somewhat deficient range of the howitzers of the First World War era was even more stretched. If the enemy's defense line has enough depth and artillery is deployed in the rear position, it will be difficult for the attacking force with howitzers as the core to wipe out the defender's artillery counterattack ability in the initial artillery preparation. In fact, this is also an important reason why the trench fortifications were difficult to break through during the First World War: when the attacker had gone to great lengths to destroy the defender's first line of defense, it was only to find that there was a second or even third line of defense in the rear that was basically intact!

The cannonballs in the air whistled through the wind and crashed into the positions that originally belonged to the French, and exploded like thunder. Under this sudden and heavy artillery fire, the German advance slowed down suddenly: a large number of soldiers were forced to alternate positions between the inside of the trench and the depths of the crater, and from time to time German officers and soldiers were hit by artillery fire and shrapnel, and their flesh and blood flew and died on the spot. The artillery lookouts above the German positions were wide-eyed, trying to find the location of the French artillery fire, but the French had already paid enough for the previous two and a half months of fighting: their artillery positions were perfectly concealed, and the rate of fire of the cannons was controlled within a reasonable limit, and it was difficult to find out where the French artillery fire was hidden in a hurry. Even if the German lookouts made some gains, the German artillery was embarrassed to find that the range of their howitzers was not enough to hit the target area, and the trajectory of the cannon was too straight to cross the obstacles in the middle of the battlefield.

"Buzzing ......" accompanied by the hiss of diesel engines, 20 huge airships with beige bodies began to slowly lower their altitude, and began to carefully search their respective areas for any suspicious places that might have sheltered the fire of the evil French heavy artillery. Round and chubby aerial bombs fell leisurely from their bellies, whipping up purple waves like landslides and tsunamis on the ground. In an instant, the rear position of the French army was like a volcano erupting, and every earth-shattering sea of fire and flames swept out hundreds of meters away; As far as the air wave reached, the French army's trenches, barbed wire, bunkers, machine-gun positions and other fortifications all collapsed and exploded, and people could still feel the strong shock wave coming from a distance of 1,000 meters.

"Well done, send all these French people to hell to repent of their crimes!" Seeing the thrilling waves of fire surging out one after another on the French position, the power was no less powerful than the 420 mm Great Berta cannon, Werner was greatly excited, and couldn't help but wave his fist in the crater and vent loudly. As a veteran of all the battles of the Fifth Army, Werner had seen his own airships on the battlefield more than once; Today's battle in Paris, however, is far from being comparable to any previous battle. The sight of 20 heavy bombing airships wreaking havoc on the same battlefield can only be described as shocking; Although the frequency of its explosions was far less intensive than that of artillery preparations, the French fortifications were still being destroyed at an alarming rate!

"Boom!" A 250kg aerial bomb crashed into the ground, exploding in a cloud-like blazing wave in the glittering purple light. After a short time, a series of giant mushroom clouds that were almost not inferior to the previous ones suddenly erupted near the explosion point, and several mutilated cannons and limbs could be faintly seen being pushed by the air waves, and they were thrown straight into the air at an altitude of more than 100 meters. Werner's body was shocked, and then his heart was ecstatic, this must have been caused by the bombardment of one of the French artillery positions by his own airships, and the ammunition stacked next to it was detonated! Paying attention, I found that the French artillery fire seemed to have weakened somewhat; A large number of German soldiers began to crawl out of the creeping craters and swept towards the depth of the French positions.

"Glara ......" accompanied by the clanging of tank 027's tracks, Werner jumped up from the crater, continued to form a straggler formation with his company's comrades, and advanced towards the French position in front of him. Machine guns and mortars strafed the French soldiers' locations, while the infantry, suppressed by tanks, used grenades and rifles to break through the French trenches. The German soldiers clashed and swept through the trenches of the defensive line, as they had just set foot on the French positions, and strafed the French forces in the defensive positions with intensive explosive fire and bullet rain.

The explosions roared, the guns roared, and Werner's German chasseur company attacked like a tide, and in a short time advanced a distance of more than 200 meters. As the advance progressed, the resistance of the French army became more and more stubborn, but the giant airship in the air like a giant gave the German officers and soldiers a huge cover effect, making the advance of the German officers and soldiers smooth. However, no one expected that the muzzles of several black holes had quietly stretched out from the cover of blades of grass and were directly aimed at the sky. (To be continued......)

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