The "vaulting" operation will be an encirclement, suppression, and sweeping war launched with high-intensity raids. The guerrillas had an accurate prediction of this, and they even guessed that it would be an airborne raid. Going further – the objectives of the raid, the size and composition of the raiding force, the equipment used, the start time of the operation, the sequence and coordination of the peripheral forces – these vital pieces of information are completely blank.

The Defence Force's secrecy has always been in place, and their racial leanings have also made it more difficult for potential adversaries to obtain high-level core intelligence. Limited by the "invisible ceiling" and various secrecy regulations, the chances of human officers and soldiers touching core secrets are slim. The inside line planted in the security police can only provide a general picture of the possibility that the Defence Forces may carry out a major operation against the guerrillas in the near future, and further information is blank.

In fact, even if there were renegades within the Defence Forces, it would be impossible for him to send the information out in time. Because the troops participating in the battle did not know the details except the commander, it was not until X-1, that is, the day before the operation, that the division-level command structure of the participating troops did not receive a formal order to operate. Prior to this, all participating troops were on standby in the barracks, and any act of ventilating themselves would expose themselves. Even if this insider is willing to risk his identity being exposed to send the information, and is extremely lucky to do so, under the obstruction of a tight blockade and all-round electronic interference, it is absolutely impossible for this information to be delivered to the guerrillas in time, so that they can prepare in advance.

Even so, it is remarkable that the guerrillas were able to grasp the general direction of the "vaulting horse".

You know, in the beginning, even within the defense forces there was a lot of controversy about whether to use the airborne raid plan.

The defense forces are no strangers to surprise attacks, and in several raids, three-dimensional airborne operations, including paratroopers, are indispensable, and they have rich experience in modern airborne assault operations that their counterparts in other countries cannot match. They have a rather deep understanding of the various pros and cons of this epoch-making tactic.

As an important part of blitzkrieg, paratroopers are to go deep behind enemy lines, bypass enemy lines, and launch surprise attacks on weak parts of the enemy's defenses or command hubs and other targets when they are defenseless.

Previous wars proved to be a proven tactic, with paratroopers dropped to the rear of the battle line often disguised themselves as soldiers of the Royal Charlemagne Army or gendarmes to occupy and destroy important bridges and storage sites, disrupt road signs, hunt down heralds, and cause chaos in the rear of Charlemagne's army. When the armoured group emerged from the Ardennes Forest and flanked it, many of Charlemagne's troops were run over by the Wehrmacht chariots in the chaos, unable to put up a decent resistance. In addition to the lightning-fast march of the armored assault group, the infiltration and disruption of paratroopers also contributed to this.

It can be said that as long as you use it in the right way, you only need to airdrop a paratrooper battalion to cause endless trouble to your opponent, and sometimes even a disaster. But on the other hand, if you do it wrong, it's a giveaway.

The biggest problem with paratroopers in the airborne is nothing more than the accuracy of the intelligence and the ability to airdrop troops and equipment of sufficient size to the designated place in a short time.

The intelligence is not accurate, the light is to pounce on the air, wasting resources and time, and the serious is to jump directly into the trap and give people heads and equipment for nothing. The troops that were airdropped were not concentrated enough and numerically enough to form a sufficient suppressive force, or they could simply be airdropped far from the target, but they still could not achieve their goal.

The question of the size of the Airborne Forces can be solved by concentrating transport equipment and troops, but the Alps, where the operation took place, were in the midst of a snowstorm, and a large-scale airborne landing in such weather was tantamount to suicide. Even if the aircraft is fine, the paratroopers and their weapons storage barrels are likely to be blown away from the target area by the wind, and if it were a glider, it is likely that the people and the plane would fall directly into the ravine.

In conclusion, it is necessary to have a means that can quickly land in the target area in batches without fear of wind and snow, without the need to dispatch large air transport equipment, and quickly assemble in a group.

Sounds like a fantasy.

But this kind of fantastical means of delivery does exist, and its prototype can even be traced back to BC before the invention of airplanes and rockets.

That's right, this is the first siege equipment to use parabolic ballistics - trebuchets.

Applying the simple principle of lever and the law of inertia, the stone projectile is projectile into the air after exerting kinetic energy, and when the projectile climbs to the highest point, it begins to fall rapidly, and the kinetic energy formed by the superposition of its own mass and inertia acceleration is enough to destroy the solid stone city wall. Sometimes, if needed, incendiary materials can be thrown into the city to cause fires – before gunpowder and cannons were invented, trebuchets were one of the most important siege tools and one of the few projectile tools.

Of course, sending people to heaven with trebuchets is still a bit too whimsical. Constrained by the lack of acceleration momentum, the lack of ascent to reach the height necessary to open the parachute, and the limited weight of the projection, the pioneers who tried to use the catapult to fly into the distance and even the sky ended up on the fast track to hell, using their own flattened corpses to tell the world that trying to use the trebuchet to go to the sky would only achieve a "heavenly" effect in another sense.

The Wehrmacht was not so whimsical as to count on the use of trebuchets to carry out airborne landings, which were simply murdering subordinates.

But—

They didn't say they were going to use trebuchets, and it wasn't flesh and blood that was projected into the target area.

Fifteen giant metal insects are lined up, with slender six-legged legs and numerous shaves (generally installed at the end of the gun mount to hold the gun in place to prevent the gun from being displaced by the reaction force of the shot, also known as hoe aids) deep into the snow and earth.

After locking all the joints and holding themselves firmly in place, the metal insect unfolds a 90-meter-long track on its back, and heads to the mountains and depressions below the horizon in the face of the bitter wind and snow, the core target area of the "vaulting horse" operation.

The small metal insects, which had been prepared for a long time, climbed the orbit in order, and as the advance force, they were equipped with two standard 7.92mm general-purpose machine guns or a 40mm automatic grenade launcher. Compared to the second echelon, which is equipped with flamethrowers, six-pack iron fist launchers, and a single 75mm recoilless gun or 12.7mm heavy machine gun, which is enough to deal with lightly armored targets, it inevitably seems to be a little lacking in firepower. However, considering that their opponents are guerrillas who lack heavy armor and heavy weapons, this configuration alone is also suspected of excessive firepower. What's more, the time for the two echelons to reach the target area will not exceed fifteen minutes, so there is no problem of insufficient firepower.

The small metal insect holds its foot against a reciprocator at the end of the track, which resembles a starting point on a sports field, and presses its body down, as if preparing to start. Moments later, a blue-purple electric light swirled around the track.

This is the same technology as the RailGun, which uses Fleming's left-handed law to accelerate and eject objects. But unlike railguns, this technology does not focus on muzzle velocity, and the payload is what it looks at.

Using this technology, it is the "electromagnetic catapult type", a member of the highly intelligent unmanned combat machine "Legion", one of the next generation of weapons and equipment of the Imperial Defense Force, who is responsible for catapulting more than 10 tons of objects into the air.