The German Army's greatest concern now is whether the theory of armored warfare proposed by Xu Jie can solve the French direction facing Germany on the Western Front, which is an underground defense line built over several years, composed of countless trenches and fortresses, and equipped with the most elite army corps in Europe, with a large number of fortress guns, field artillery and machine guns and other terrifying weapons. This direction was blocking the German army's advance, and now, Schlieffen needs to theoretically judge whether this line of defense is stronger or the Panzer Corps is attacking more sharply!

And for this question, Xu Jie has already given the answer, that is, in the environment of World War 1, even armored troops cannot break through the trench system and reinforced concrete fortifications that have been formed! Especially in the face of a relatively narrow front, and the opponent's defense line consists of a complete system of fortifications without any loopholes, for example, as the French are building now.

In Xu Jie's plane, there are many junior military fans and German fans who are obsessed with the invincibility and efficiency of the German blitzkrieg in the early days, the German armored corps defeated Poland in only a few weeks, and then moved westward to wipe out the former enemy, the French Army, known as the first in Europe, in just a few months. The blades of armor that cut through Belgium cut through the hastily deployed French and British defenses, and then turned their heads towards Paris. The Maginot Line, which had been built at great expense, did not make any difference. Since then, the "impenetrable" line of defense has become the laughing stock of history.

Those junior military fans have since indulged in the invincibility of armored forces, and have since believed that as long as there are armored troops, they can break through any defense line and fortress. This view is extremely wrong! Judging from the French campaign, let's not mention that the entry point of the German attack was the unfortified section of the Maginot Line. From the point of view of its means of attacking, a large number of heavy artillery and the support of the Luftwaffe are indispensable, and there is no elite Luftwaffe to guarantee air supremacy. Without the JU87 and JU88 and other excellent ground attack aircraft and heavy artillery groups responsible for removing nails in the way forward and implementing battlefield covering, what can tank 4 with short-barreled 75mm guns and tank 3 with long-barreled guns with 50mm guns do? What is a real fortress offensive and defensive battle? The Battle of Sevastopol on the Soviet-German battlefield will show you what it takes to break through a strong, unavoidable fortress!

Strategically speaking, if the opponent's fortress is scattered on the battle line, then the armored forces can bypass these difficult bones and quickly penetrate the opponent's rear to destroy the opponent's vital force. And when the opposing fortress loses rear support, the defenders of the fortress who have run out of ammunition and food will be eaten sooner or later. But if you can't cross the other party's fortress. And what to do when it is necessary to forcibly capture it? German Field Marshal Manstein will tell you the way.

"Slowly bomb it with a large number of heavy artillery and bombers that have absolute superiority, there is no other way!" This is Xu Jie's evaluation of the battle after watching the offensive and defensive battle of Sevastopol. In the largest fortress attack and defense battle in history. In this amazing battle, famous for its heavy artillery use, let's see how much heavy firepower the Germans put into their victory.

KNOWN AS THE KING OF ARTILLERY, THE DORA CANNON IS NATURALLY INDISPENSABLE, THIS ONE HAS A CALIBER OF 800MM AND WEIGHS MORE THAN 1,400 TONS. A war machine operated by a regimental soldier can shoot a 7.1-ton concrete-piercing projectile for 37 km or a 4.8-ton high-explosive projectile for 47 km. And this terrifying weapon really lived up to expectations. One shot pierced a 30-meter layer of soil and a concrete dome, pinned the ammunition depot of the Sevastopol fortress, and significantly shortened the course of the campaign. And then there were two heavy mortars with the name "Karl Mechanics"! THESE TWO DOORS WEIGH 124 TONS, HAVE A CALIBER OF 600MM, AND CAN SHOOT 2.4-TON CONCRETE ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS OUT OF 4,000 METERS!

In addition to these three big guys, the Germans also had the following super-heavy artillery. 9 283MM LONG-RANGE TRAIN GUNS, 2 420MM HEAVY GUNS, TWO 355MM HEAVY GUNS AND 4 305MM LONG-RANGE GUNS. Although many of these guns were from the 1st World War period. However, their long range and great power did not prevent them from continuing to serve the German army.

Are these big guys all the German artillery in the Sevastopol fortress? THE ANSWER IS NO, THE GERMANS ALSO HAD AS MANY AS 268 105MM HOWITZERS AND 80 150MM HOWITZERS. These were all only for the German army. ROMANIA SAID THAT IT ALSO HAD 20 100MM GUNS AND 30 150MM GUNS, PLUS 2 122MM GUNS AND 2 152MM GUNS IN THIS CAMPAIGN! As for how many small and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns and mortars were used by the Germans? I'm sorry, this really can't be counted, at least Xu Jie doesn't know what to do.

And how much ammunition was consumed in this battle? WE CAN TAKE A LOOK AT THE FOLLOWING SET OF DATA, IN THIS FORTRESS ATTACK AND DEFENSE BATTLE, THE GERMANS CONSUMED A TOTAL OF 46,480 TONS OF AMMUNITION, INCLUDING 410,000 105MM ARTILLERY SHELLS, 100,000 150MM SHELLS, AND 32,000 ROCKETS! Even with such a strong firepower, the Germans still paid a huge price of 4,264 dead, 21,626 wounded and more than 1,500 missing, with a total loss of more than 27,000 people, not counting the 8,454 lost by the Romanian Allied forces, and the Axis side lost a total of 35,866 men in order to take the fortress!

Just by looking at this, we can already appreciate the cost of attacking a well-defended fortress to the ground, and that's not all, let's look at the efforts of the Luftwaffe again! The Luftwaffe said that it was also deadly! Without the help of the Air Force vomiting blood, do you think the army buns would be able to conquer this fortress in a short time? Look at the defensive strength of the Russian line.

The mobile artillery at the disposal of the Russians consisted of 34 152 howitzers and 40 122 howitzers. AND WHAT WAS REALLY TERRIBLE WERE THE FORTRESS GUNS, WHICH INCLUDED 4 TWIN-MOUNTED 305MM TURRETS (GUNS REMOVED FROM BATTLESHIPS) 10 152MM GUNS AND 17 130MM GUNS, 3 120MM GUNS, 8 100MM GUNS, 1 180MM GUN. These fortress guns were very difficult to destroy in reinforced bunkers, and if there was no air force intervention, the German artillery was afraid of the ultra-long range of the 12-inch twin turrets, and could only knock out the fortress guns with Dora cannons and a few heavy guns first, and then they could give full play to their own firepower advantage. But with the Air Force, the speed of the offensive was greatly increased.

I have to say that the Luftwaffe still made full preparations for this battle and did a very dedicated job. The Luftwaffe sent an entire air corps to support the operation, with 3 squadrons of 100 BF109s for air supremacy, and 5 squadrons of 168 JU88 and HE111 bombers for targeted killing! 3 squadrons of 73 JU87s and BF110s were used for front-line support sweeping, 45 HE111 torpedo bombers were used to strike the convoy, plus 24 other aircraft were used for soy sauce. (Uh, well, the author doesn't know what these 24 planes are for——! There are more than 400 planes of all kinds!! The lineup is so strong that it's breathtaking!

IN ORDER TO DEAL WITH THE 12-INCH HEAVY GUNS AND REINFORCED BUNKERS HIDDEN IN THE TURRET, THE LUFTWAFFE ALSO SPECIALLY GOT SPECIAL REINFORCED CONCRETE ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS WEIGHING 1700KG AND 1400KG TO BE THROWN BY JU88, AND THE 500 TO 800KG BOMBS WERE EVEN WORSE ON THE STREET! More than 1,000 sorties of bombardment per day are enough to smash the entire fortress!

In this battle that shocked the world, tanks and assault guns played very few roles, and in the face of strong fortresses and sharp fortress guns, the small and medium-caliber guns on tanks and assault guns were simply toys! Without enough heavy artillery and air force to kill the opponent with explosives, and unable to bypass the fortress to cut off the opponent's supplies, then the fortress and trench system are the myth of invincibility!

Let's take another look at the level of the warring sides at the time of World War 1. IN TERMS OF TANKS, IT IS ALREADY THE LIMIT TO INSTALL A 75MM SHORT-BARRELED GUN AT MOST, THIS THING CAN FIGHT CIVIL FORTIFICATIONS, BUT AGAINST THE REINFORCED CONCRETE FORTIFICATIONS DEFENDED BY 75 FAST GUNS, IT IS BETTER TO WASH AND SLEEP! THE ARMOR-PIERCING SHELLS FIRED BY THE 75MM GUN COULD EASILY SHRED THE PROTECTION OF THE TANK AT THAT TIME! As for the heavy artillery, Germany and Britain and France are half a pound and eight taels compared to each other, and neither side can concentrate overwhelming superiority to completely tear apart the opponent's position, and it is okay to concentrate superiority to tear apart a defensive line, but the subsequent defensive line will give the other side time to rearmament, and a long defensive line will eventually exhaust the energy of the attacking troops! Whoever attacks and who is unlucky has become an iron law in the late stage of World War 1!

As for the Air Force, well, it would be good for the aircraft to be able to throw 100KG bombs at that time, coupled with the tragic range and bomb load, the role of the Air Force in World War 1 was really limited, and compared with Britain and France, although the German Junkers aircraft were good, they were not invincible, and they could not get rid of a big gap in numbers. Therefore, in the case of World War I, the trenches that have been built for a long time plus various artillery and automatic weapons are absolutely invincible. Of course, there is a premise that the opposing commander does not make stupid mistakes!

In addition, there is another very important factor, that is, the logistics support during the First World War is far from being compared with the Second World War period, although the railway transportation can easily send the troops to the front line, but the railway can only be responsible for the transportation along the line, how to transport the materials unloaded from the train to the front line is another serious problem! At that time, automobiles were very scarce, most of them could only be transported by large carts, and the number of large vehicles of the German army was 1,168 in 1914, and this number continued to increase in the following days, even so, it still could not meet the consumption of the German army. It can be said that even if the German Army's firepower is enough to tear apart the opponent's defenses, the severance of logistics will still make the Germans ultimately fail!

uh well, yesterday's subscription was half of the day before yesterday, in the tragedy of the author——! Request fire support~~~ (To be continued......)