The sky was blue, the black clouds were like ink, and a ribbon-like red light lit up on the eastern horizon, just when the sun was about to rise. Hundreds of observation balloons quietly rose from the German positions, swaying in all directions with the morning breeze; A German observer with a high-powered telescope around his neck stood in a hanging basket below, surveying his surroundings with their eagle-sharp gaze.

Inside one of the baskets, Private Nasir clutched the fixed rope beside him, and his face was a little pale as he watched the balloon rise into the air. In order to obtain an ideal viewing field, the hot air balloons used by the German army to guide artillery fire usually had to fly to an altitude of more than 100 meters; Due to the fact that hot air balloons are lighter than air, when a gust of wind blows, the balloon itself will drift and shake for a considerable distance. Even if there is a thick rope under the balloon that connects to the ground, this kind of swaying like rootless duckweed in the void is not something that everyone can handle calmly. When he took the hot air balloon for the first time, he was sweating profusely, his hands and feet trembled, and he even had a suicide note to his family in his arms; After a dozen lifts into the air, although Nasir was no longer as nightmare as he was the first time, he still felt a little worried and his legs weakened.

The ground was getting smaller, the morning breeze was getting stronger, and after nearly ten minutes of suffering, the upward trend of the hot air balloon finally stopped. Nasir cautiously stood up, looking ahead. A large shadow loomed over the western horizon, and Nasir knew in his heart that it was the place where all of Germany would be envious: the buildings of Paris. In front of the building, there is a wide defensive line more than 15 kilometers deep; Numerous barbed wire fences are layered in between, and trenches are crisscrossed like spider webs. And in front of the French positions. It was a no-man's land about a thousand meters wide between the positions of the German and French armies; Under the fierce sighting of countless guns on both sides. No one dared to set foot in this territory.

This time, however. The situation is different. Since a month ago, a steady stream of artillery and ammunition began to arrive at the Paris front; And according to the recent order issued by the command of the army group, all artillery will start a five-day artillery preparation for Paris from now on! It was obvious that such a terrible artillery suppression time could not be just for the sake of sounding, and after the French fortifications were completely destroyed by their own artillery, the infantry would certainly launch a breakthrough occupation of the French positions. Considering Nasir at this level, it was difficult to hide the excitement and excitement in his heart; After an unbearable silence and waiting, the Reich is finally about to launch a general assault on the lair of those vile Frenchmen! The German soldiers, who had been beaten in 1871 but remained unrepentant, repeatedly challenged Germany in international affairs, and were deeply influenced by the Prussian martial spirit, were also filled with anger and hatred against him. Everyone hoped to wipe out Paris, the "nest of evil hostile to Prussia", and to wipe out all the "gentlemen" who regarded Germania as poisonous snakes and insects.

Nasir grabbed the corded telephone attached to the gondola and reported to the ground that he had reached the predetermined altitude safely. In order to improve the hit rate of large-caliber heavy artillery and destroy the French fortifications as much as possible, at the request of Qing Ying, each German heavy artillery company was equipped with its own aerial eye. As a member of the aerial vision, Nasir was responsible for the 358th Heavy Artillery Company's landing observation and the calibration of a 240mm howitzer. He looked at the clock on his arm, and the hands were already pointing to 5:13 a.m. The time before the artillery fire is ready to start is already in sight!

Golden prosperity. The neon glow is dazzling; Then the clouds burst through, and a red sun erupted from the eastern horizon.

"Boom!" Thousands of miles of plains suddenly burst into the wind and thunder roaring like the sky and the earth cracking. It is like the vast sound of the sunrise Fuso, and it is like thousands of thunders roaring and exploding in the sky. Nasir's eyes went dark, his mind dizzy, and he almost fell to the basket. He forced his gaze to see that the long front of the German army adjacent to Paris was gushing out a large wave of brilliant light of red, purple, orange and red; Looking down from the sky, it was like a twenty-kilometer-long fire dragon suddenly rushing on the earth, whistling past! Nasir gripped the rope beside him, and his gray-blue eyes were already flickering with excitement; Such a magnificent, almost divine battle, is not seen anywhere else!

Ten seconds later, the opposing French position exploded in succession and exploded into an overwhelming cloud of fire; First came the cannon shells with a higher muzzle velocity, then the howitzers, and finally the stubby mortars. Due to the relationship between the muzzle velocity and the charge of different types of artillery, the blood-red light waves that exploded on the French positions were also higher and higher, and finally hit the ground like a meteor and a tsunami landslide. Nasir clearly saw that there were seven flames like clouds, soaring into the sky to the terrifying height that even he was a hundred meters in the air needed to look up; And the shrapnel from the explosion was even more cloudy, rising all the way to the void of nearly 400 meters!

"Big Berta! Big Berta! Nasir could no longer contain the excitement in his heart, and could not help cheering; At that moment, a monstrous wave of sound swept from afar swept like a hurricane, drowning his cheers into a rolling thunderous explosion. Feeling the sound of the telephone in his hand, Nasir grabbed it, then put it to his mouth and said loudly: "All shells have landed in the predetermined area, and the heavy howitzer has landed about 150 meters away from the target trench!" ”

After the first earth-shattering salvo, the German artillery bombardment became less powerful; However, the damage they did to the French fortifications was a significant increase from the first round of shooting. As the scorching sun rises, the heavens and the earth are steeply bright; The German lookouts in the hot air balloon were able to effectively observe the landing point of the shells they were responsible for, so as to contact the ground and make ballistic corrections. Compared to the lookout positions on naval battleships, which are no more than 50 meters long, the army lookouts on the hot air balloon are twice as high as the masts of the capital ships; And because the range of the Army Artillery is far less than that of the Navy, and almost all they observe is less than 10 kilometers away from the point of impact, so even without the Zeiss rangefinder, its observation accuracy is extremely impressive.

After receiving Nasir's fire control, several heavy guns not far below him immediately began their next move. Since the huge 240-mm howitzer weighed 140 kg and took several minutes to reload, Nasir immediately began correcting the impact points for several more 150-mm guns. It was obviously impossible for the Army's artillery suppression to fire at the highest rate of fire, and no other country had such an abundance of shells; When the German artillerymen staggered the firing time, the explosion in Nasir's eyes became clear. A few shells whizzed down, hitting the barbed wire and trenches with precision, bursting with fire and flying gravel. Five minutes later, the heavy howitzer spewed out a blazing smoke and flames, and a small mushroom cloud suddenly rose in front of a French trench, smashing into a deep pit that was half a circle.

Seeing this, a smile appeared on Nasir's face; The fear of drifting in the wind in the sky is actually not felt because I am immersed in the work of observation.

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The cannon roared, and the light was like a rainbow. A series of cannonballs burst out from the German artillery, crashing into the French positions on the opposite side, stirring up waves of blazing flames. The first line of French defense trembled in the fury of this divine punishment. The trenches collapsed, the barbed wire broke and exploded, and even the mines they had planted in front of the battlefield were detonated one after another by the cannonballs that swept through the clouds, becoming part of the explosion on their positions. Looking at the fine sand flowing overhead, the French soldiers hiding in underground artillery bunkers already had frightened looks on their faces; They kept scratching crosses on their chests, hoping that their bunkers would hold out to the end in the hellish shelling.

However, a considerable number of them are destined to never see the red sun and clear sky again. Although the French had done their best to build and fortify their fortifications, the end of the Battle of the Marne was only a month away; In this period of time, it is clear that they could not strengthen the fortifications outside Paris to the point where they have achieved the results achieved by both sides in the history of wielding shovels in half a year or even a year. On the other side of them, the Germans concentrated more than 1,300 heavy guns, including 7 large Berta, to carry out thunderous bombardment; Such a powerful and domineering firepower, even the artillery bombardment carried out by the German army in preparation for the Battle of Verdun in history is much inferior in comparison!

The 1,800-pound 420-millimeter high-explosive bomb roared like a comet in the sky. The reinforced anti-artillery bunkers of the French army could hardly withstand the thunderous bombardment of such a sensational cannon. The earth, rock, and crosswood used for support groaned and hissed in the tsunami-like energy impact of the explosion, and then finally could not support it, and collapsed with a bang, burying dozens or hundreds of people alive in it. The power of the 350mm train gun is much inferior, but it is also difficult for those unreinforced bunkers to resist!

The sun is in the sky, and the brilliance is dazzling. The sun is slanting in the west, and the sunset is in full swing. After twelve hours of roaring, the German artillery fire showed no signs of stopping; The continuous sound of explosions rose and fell like the waves of the sea, echoing for thousands of miles, and thousands of mountains resounded. By nightfall, the raging fire that had already been ignited on the French front-line positions became an excellent reference for the Germans to continue their shelling. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the evaluation vote that the author has a business trip, and the number of subscriptions will not drop to this point, and there is no motivation (╯_╰) to continue to code words