ps: The number of words in this book is more than a million......

My classmates encouraged me with tickets, because the tickets are less wood-powered......

........................................................................

2 August, 2757 (1916), Orleans.

France is a very flat country, most of the land is located in the plains of Western Europe, 80% of the country's territory is plains and hills, of which the plains below 250 meters above sea level account for 60% of the total area of France, 250~500 meters of hills account for 20%, and the mountainous areas above 500 meters account for only 20%.

Such a place is particularly suitable for tank operations, and today in the vicinity of Orleans there are tanks from three countries, Britain, France and Germany, the total number of which is close to 2000 units.

At this time, on the side of the German position, several young officers in armored uniforms were talking next to a group of tanks. They are all lieutenant-level officers, and among them there is also a major of the Chinese Army, and his arms badge is also an armored soldier.

"You should have used the chariot a long time ago! If you had used the chariot at the beginning, you would not have been able to delay the breakthrough until now. I told you a long time ago that the combat vehicle should be used intensively, as the main assault force, and not as a nanny for the infantry, that is the matter of armored personnel carriers......" The lieutenant ** officer's expression was excited, and he kept making powerful gestures, and he spat out.

¥10 The guy looked angry and said, "Why don't you listen? I don't understand, you have made so many chariots, why don't you use them? If it weren't for the fact that the Anglo-French forces were ready to use the chariots this time, you might not have taken it seriously!"

The few German officers all looked embarrassed, and the lieutenant colonel, the largest in the grade, said helplessly: "Major Long, we can't do anything about this matter." Marshal Moltke and many generals have always had doubts about the combat effectiveness of our armored forces, so ......"

"Well, Major Rundstedt, I won't talk about the past. But there are some problems with your current tactics, and now your chariots should not carry infantry, otherwise once you start a battle with the opposing chariots, they will be targets......" Major Long shook his fingers, revealing a full "brick style", and began to lecture these Germans.

This Chinese Army Major is called Long Xiaofei. He is one of the first batch of officers in China to learn the command specialty of armored forces, and one of the indigenous backbones of the army trained by the Socialist Party itself.

Long Xiaofei was born in a merchant family in Chenzhou, Hunan, and was the first graduate of the "Xingke Security School" (the predecessor of Southwest Military University), and served in a certain army department after graduation. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the central government was preparing to form an armored corps, and Long Xiaofei, who was a lieutenant at the time, was selected to be sent to Zhongshi University (formerly the Wuchang Revolutionary Army Command College) to participate in the advanced course of armored troops because of his advantages of being fierce and wise, and having a flexible brain. During the Sino-Japanese War, he served as the captain and company commander of a tank company, and after the war, he was promoted to major and served as the commander of a tank battalion.

He and these Germans met during the Sino-German military exchanges, and at that time, Germany also took a fancy to the new weapon of the tank, so it sent many officers to learn the tactics of armored troops, and these were among them. said that it was "communication", it was just a good face for Erdezi, in fact, they came to learn. So although these people are about the same age as him, some of them are even much older than him, such as the one who is taking the lead now. But strictly speaking, they are all students of Long Xiaofei. Now that he has the opportunity, Major Long naturally wants to put up a teacher's shelf.

"Mr. Major, I remember you said before that the chariot has a limited field of view and needs infantry cover. We also do this so that they can cover the tank. A captain named Guderian said.

Long Xiaofei smiled and said, "Captain Guderian, you are right. Combat vehicles do need infantry cover, but it depends on the situation. The current situation is a direct confrontation between tanks, in which the role of infantry is minimal, not only does it not play the role of cover, but it is a burden to the tank. In this case, the infantry should be in an armored personnel carrier and follow the combat vehicle into the battlefield......"

"Mr. Major, what if there are ......no armored personnel carriers? There are very few armored personnel carriers in our country," asked Captain Manstein, who was next to him.

Long Xiaofei thought for a while, and then replied: "The armored personnel carrier is very important, it is an important auxiliary to the combat vehicle, this thing must not be missing, otherwise how can your infantry keep up with the combat vehicle? If you really lack armored personnel carriers now, then it is better to take the car for the time being." If possible, it is best to modify the car and add some steel plates to the vital parts of the car. In short, in battle, the infantry should not be hung on the chariot, and the car can do this in peacetime. ”

"What about the cavalry, Major Long, can we use cavalry instead of armored personnel carriers?" asked another captain.

Long Xiaofei took a look and found that he was also an acquaintance who went to China for "exchanges". He said, "Captain Rommel, if you are not afraid of too many losses, of course you can use cavalry." The opposing vehicle's tank is also machine-gunned......"

............................................................

Entente positions.

When Long Xiaofei was a "brick family" on Erdezi's side, another armored corps officer from China, Colonel Yang Ning, was also a "brick family" on the side of the Entente.

Of course, because of his high rank, he served as a "brick house" in the headquarters of the coalition forces, and the audience was composed of high-ranking officials such as General Ferdinand Foch, commander of Army Group "South" in France, and General Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force.

"Mr. Colonel, the armored combat vehicles that Germany is now using were imported from your country. You must know a lot about its performance. General Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, looked at Yang Ning and said.

Yang Ning smiled and said, "Of course, Your Excellency General." The Germans used our own, and this tank is also the active equipment of our country, and I use it all the time. ”

Haig nodded and continued to ask: "Mr. Colonel, you are an expert in your country's tanks, so in your eyes, can our tanks have an advantage over German tanks?"

"Well...... Your Excellency, with all due respect, your vehicles have their own strengths in terms of performance from our Wolverine, especially your Mark 2 tank, which has more firepower. Yang Ning first complimented him, and then said: "However, the armor and speed of your country's chariot are not as good as the [Wolverine] chariot, if the two clash, it depends on the specific tactical application." In my opinion, you currently have more than twice as many tanks as the Germans, and it will not be difficult to achieve victory if the Allies can make full use of the numerical and firepower superiority, coupled with the cooperation of other arms......"

Yang Ning said it politely, but in his heart, he didn't look down on the British and French tanks at all. If it's just a comparison of paper performance, it is indeed as he just said, each has its own strengths. Niuniu's Mark 2 tank with 2 57-mm guns and 4 7. The 7mm Vickers water-cooled heavy machine gun, while the Chinese [Wolverine] tank only had one 45mm gun and two 8mm Type 1909 air-cooled heavy machine guns (the early version of the Wolverine also had two models: 25mm and 35mm guns).

On paper, Niuniu's tanks do have more firepower, but weapons are based on comprehensive performance. When all that comes together, that's not the case at all. The biggest difference is the speed, the road speed of the [Wolverine] is up to 60 km/h, and even on the battlefield it can reach 40 km/h. And the current tank of the Entente countries, the fastest Renault tank, has a maximum speed of only 30 kilometers (this is the latest model of Renault, the previous one was only 12 kilometers).

The speed difference between the two is doubled, which means that the two virtues can play various mobile tactics such as outflanking and detouring at will, and the rooster and the cow can only eat ashes in the back. Not to mention, the armor of the [Wolverine] far exceeds that of the British and French tanks, and the survivability is much higher.

Based on the deduction of Yang Ning and his comrades-in-arms, if the [Wolverine] on the opposite side was commanded by him, at least he could do it one against three. This is still the German version of [Wolverine], if it is a genuine Chinese [Wolverine], you can pick five. And according to his observations, the armored forces of Britain and France were very problematic, both in command and tactically, there were many loopholes. Of course, it's the first time for people to play this kind of large-scale armor cluster, which is understandable.

However, Yang Ning didn't say this, he just recorded these things. After all, we are now observers of neutral countries, and we must remain neutral!

As for why Long Xiaofei, who is also a Chinese observer, is over there to carefully teach the experience to the Erdezi. Ahem, well, that's just his personal behavior.

Yang Ning talked with the high-ranking officials of the Entente countries for a while, said some things that were relatively large, and pulled out the 2C super-heavy tanks equipped by France and praised them, and then began to talk nonsense. He had studied in France before, and there were still a lot of things he could brag about, and after talking about the Eiffel Tower for a while, he began to talk about the similarities and differences between French cuisine and Chinese cuisine, which made the British and French officers present have to be patient to brag with him.

The British and French officers really couldn't come up with anything useful, so they had to forget it. In fact, they don't expect to get much useful good material from the mouths of the Chinese, and now everyone is not an ally, why should they tell you?

After Yang Ning left, Foch said with a cold face: "In my opinion, the kind of chariot Chinese may be stronger in terms of performance, but in a large-scale war, this difference in performance is not a big ......."

"It is true, we have more than twice as many tanks as Germany. There are also many more tactics to choose from...... "Haig agrees.

Although he was the main planner of this campaign, he did not have the face to say that his tanks were better than those of China. It's all an old soldier, even if he hasn't touched a tank before, but basic reasoning can still do it, not to mention that he's not that kind of conservative.

..................................................................

Like the original plane, Britain did not pay much attention to tanks in the beginning, and even with the precedent of China's use, they were still skeptical of this weapon. It was still the Admiral Churchill who had some vision, and he felt that this weapon was still very promising, so he privately embezzled the Navy's special funds to build a batch. But these things were not accepted by the army bosses, they contemptuously called it "Churchill's tractor", especially the Secretary of War for Churchill's behavior of reaching out to the army, not only resolutely did not want those tanks, but also sued the fat man in the cabinet. In the end, Qiu Fatzi couldn't get off the stage, so he had to allocate those tanks to the Marines.

So after the outbreak of the war, the British Army also did not use this new weapon. But later, the situation on the Western Front was extremely unfavorable for the Entente, and the fierce fighting caused staggering casualties, and the losses of the British army had reached an intolerable level. By this time, the army could not take care of it, especially the British front-line commander Haig, who could not sit still after learning that the German army also had a large number of tanks. In February of this year, despite the opposition of many of his colleagues, he directly submitted to the cabinet a request for tanks to participate in the fighting.

He planned a counteroffensive with tanks as the protagonists, which required a large number of tanks. In this case, the British cabinet did not say anything, and directly agreed.

However, the number of tanks at that time was insufficient, because after all, Churchill privately embezzled funds from the Navy to build, but less than fifty were built. Even if it was later equipped with the Marine Corps, only a hundred were built, and the Marine Corps did not have much demand for such a thing. At the strong request of the front-line generals, the Minister of War had no choice but to pinch his nose and admit it, and personally ran to find Qiu Fatzi for help, but Qiu Fatzi did not take the opportunity to slap his face, he still took the overall situation into consideration. Immediately, all the tanks of the Navy were transferred to the Army, and at the same time, the Army also expanded the production line at its own expense and began to manufacture them overtime.

At this time, the tanks were still relatively simple, and once the number one power like Britain broke out, it was still quite powerful, and within a few months, seven or eight hundred were built, and they were rushed to the front line for Haig's use.

France, on the other hand, was in a better position than the British, and they attached great importance to tanks, and soon after the Sino-Japanese War, they came up with a light tank called the Renault FT-13 (similar to the Renault FT-17 in the original space, but slightly more powerful). There were already more than 500 before the war. But there is a big problem with the way the French use it. They used this weapon as a support weapon for the infantry, and distributed the tanks to various infantry battalions and infantry regiments.

In previous battles, they had used this weapon as well, but it didn't work very well. Because the Renault FT-13 they use is a very small two-man tank, and it is currently the simplest tank in the world. The advantage is that it is low in cost, and it is indeed the cheapest tank at present, and it is said that the unit price is only 20,000 francs (about 7,700 yuan).

But there is no good thing about cheap, and the Renault FT-13 is not only weak in firepower, but also has only one machine gun. And the defense is very low, because this tank does not make the hull from armor steel plates at all, but from ordinary steel plates. It's a model for counterfeit and shoddy products.

As a result, the French tanks suffered heavy losses in the battle with the Germans, and the Renault FT-13, which had a very low defensive strength, became a live target for the German army. In combat, it could not withstand heavy machine gun hits, and even a close-range rifle shot could damage the surface armor of the FT-13 tank, and the falling fragments would cause secondary damage to the occupants of the vehicle, some of whom were even blinded.

Moreover, the Germans now had anti-materiel guns, and under the attack of such guns, the FT-13 was even more vulnerable. There is also the threat from the sky, after the Germans gained the upper hand in air combat, many fighters did the work of attack aircraft, they used machine guns to strafe ground targets, and the Renault tank, which is slow (only 14 kilometers per hour), large (equivalent to infantry), and crispy, is simply the best target.

As a result, in a series of battles, the French, who were the first to use tanks, suffered a crushing defeat, losing nearly 700 Renault FT-13 tanks, but the results were too few to mention, so that their front-line troops almost lost confidence in tanks.

If it weren't for the repeated insistence of the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Admiral Haig, they would not have wanted tanks to be the "pig's feet" of this campaign. Of course, the French are not stupid, the tanks in front are so bad, of course they have to be improved.

They soon came up with an enhanced and improved version of the Renault FT-12, the FT-16. Compared to its predecessor, the FT-16 has not changed much in appearance, but the main armament has been changed from the original machine gun to a 37mm gun, and the engine has been replaced, and the speed has been increased from the original 14 kilometers to 30 kilometers. At the same time, the professional armor steel of the warship was used to make the hull, and the thickness of the armor was greatly increased, doubling on average, and it is difficult to say whether it can withstand the German tank guns, but at least there will be no jokes about being damaged by rifles.

Moreover, the French also accelerated the development of their 2C super-heavy tank, and built 60 into the army before the battle. Of course, the 2C Super Heavy Tank on the Plane is much better than the original plane, and it is equipped with a radio.

Compared with the original time and space, not only the performance of the French tank has been greatly improved, but the British Mark tank has also improved a lot compared to the original time and space product of the same name, mainly because of the stimulation of China, the powers of the original plane have been in the engine technology tree earlier, and the strength is also stronger, and the tank technology has improved faster.

Like the British main tank Mark 2, although it is still their signature diamond shape, the shape and structure are already similar to the Mark 4 type of the original time and space, and the very cumbersome guide wheels that are dragged behind have been canceled. The armor and speed are far beyond the original time and space Mark 4, its speed reaches 20 km / h, the armor reaches 10-30 mm, and of course the weight has increased by several tons, exceeding 30 tons.

What's more interesting is that Niuniu's tank is still divided into "male and female" as the original time and space, and the "male tank" has not changed much, and it is still developed according to the purpose of the main combat vehicle. But unlike the original plane, their current "mother tank" is more like an armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle. The "mother tank" had only 4 machine guns on board, but it had a troop transport compartment that could carry 10 infantrymen.

I have to say that under the influence of the little butterfly flapping its wings, the battle of this plane has become almost unrecognizable.

Now both warring sides are making final adjustments to their armored forces, ready to destroy each other in one fell swoop and break the current stalemate. Not only has the performance of the French tank been greatly improved, but the British Mark tank has also improved a lot compared to the product of the same name in the original time and space, mainly because of the stimulation of China, the powers of the original plane have been in the engine technology tree earlier, and the strength is also stronger, and the tank technology has improved faster.

Like the British main tank Mark 2, although it is still their signature diamond shape, the shape and structure are already similar to the Mark 4 type of the original time and space, and the very cumbersome guide wheels that are dragged behind have been canceled. The armor and speed are far beyond the original time and space Mark 4, its speed reaches 20 km / h, the armor reaches 10-30 mm, and of course the weight has increased by several tons, exceeding 30 tons.

What's more interesting is that Niuniu's tank is still divided into "male and female" as the original time and space, and the "male tank" has not changed much, and it is still developed according to the purpose of the main combat vehicle. But unlike the original plane, their current "mother tank" is more like an armored personnel carrier or infantry fighting vehicle. The "mother tank" had only 4 machine guns on board, but it had a troop transport compartment that could carry 10 infantrymen.

I have to say that under the influence of the little butterfly flapping its wings, the battle of this plane has become almost unrecognizable.

Now both warring sides are making final adjustments to their armored forces, ready to destroy each other in one fell swoop and break the current stalemate.