"Mademoiselle 75 is still the most reliable! If only those bastards in the artillery regiment had been a bit faster, we wouldn't have had to sacrifice so many men!"
Major General Degizel, commander of the Belgin 4th Division, finally breathed a sigh of relief. Through his high-powered binoculars, he watched his rapid-fire artillery use direct fire to take out two heavy machine gun emplacements on the German Army's outermost defensive line.
The rumbling artillery fire gave him an extra sense of security.
At the same time, his dissatisfaction with the earlier performance of his two incompetent regimental commanders continued to grow.
The 3rd Regiment had arrived at dawn today, and the 4th Regiment by noon.
Even lacking heavy firepower at the time, the combined strength of the two regiments still amounted to nearly five thousand men.
Facing a ruined town defended by a single reinforced company—three to four hundred men at most—and failing to break through after an entire day of attacking was an absolute disgrace, especially with the sun about to set!
In the end, he'd had to swallow his pride and personally borrow a few trucks from His Majesty—vehicles originally intended for transporting royal valuables—just to haul the remnants of his division's artillery regiment to the front lines. Only then had the stalemate been broken.
It couldn't be helped. After retreating continuously for over ten days, the remnants of the Belgin forces had lost nearly all their trucks. Their limbers and draft horses were equally depleted, making it extremely difficult to maneuver the few remaining cannons. They even had to rely on large groups of soldiers hauling them together, or temporarily conscripting dairy cows on the spot.
These four guns were all the Belgin 4th Division had left. The neighboring 6th Division fared slightly better, possessing a few more cannons because their defensive zone was closer and their retreat shorter. The rearguard 1st Division had it worst of all—they didn't have a single gun remaining.With the outermost street on the eastern edge of Niopold cleared, Major General Degizel immediately ordered two battalions from the 3rd Regiment to advance and slowly infiltrate the town.
The two majors leading the battalions pushed forward cautiously, one advancing along the south side of the coastal highway and the other along the north.
As they passed the ruined houses, the soldiers kept their weapons carefully trained on the doors and windows. However, nothing unexpected occurred, and the Belgin troops gradually lowered their guard.
At the outbreak of World War I, neither side had any experience in urban warfare. A close-quarters battle in a town using modern firearms was completely unprecedented in human history.
The Belgin forces passed smoothly through the first defensive line and pushed into the second. The enemy's resistance remained scattered and weak. Coupled with the gathering dusk, the soldiers finally grew bolder.
However, just as the Belgins pushed deeper into the town, a sudden volley of machine-gun fire erupted from the corners on both sides of the cross street, catching them entirely off guard.
"Agh!" Screams of pain and curses instantly echoed down the street. Dense tongues of flame spewed from several casually camouflaged piles of rubble at the street corners.
Vicious bursts of gunfire simultaneously flared from west-facing windows and collapsed holes in walls along the street the Belgin vanguard thought they had safely cleared. The relentless fire reaped their lives. The crossfire mowed down more than half of the infantrymen who had ventured too deep, forcing the survivors to scramble for cover and retreat in a panic.
...
"Well, it goes against military honor a bit, but those camouflage tricks you mentioned are actually quite effective. How did you think of using the ruined houses to construct such convincing hidden emplacements?"
Colonel List lowered his binoculars, looking at the concealed heavy machine gun emplacements massacring the enemies pouring into the trap. He was extremely satisfied with the result.
The locations for the crossfire had been selected by the battalion commanders and personally reviewed by the colonel. The results proved they had chosen well; there were zero blind spots.
However, the camouflage measures for these emplacements came from Lelouch's on-the-spot guidance just moments ago.
He had only recently crossed over to this world. His grasp of the fundamental military tactics of this era wasn't solid enough for him to command independently.
But his head was filled with a wealth of theoretical urban warfare experience from later generations. Simply pulling out a point or two was enough to help the colonel plug any gaps in their defenses.
Of course, facing the colonel's inquiry right now, he had to make up an excuse for the source of his knowledge:
"Have you forgotten, Colonel? I graduated from the architecture department of the Orio Royal Academy of Arts. Civil engineering is my bread and butter. I excel at load-bearing structural design. Emplacements built from broken walls and ruins won't collapse on my watch; I can easily calculate the stress in my head."
"Excellent. Your architecture degree was worth the effort." The colonel set his binoculars aside and proudly patted him on the shoulder.
This scene filled Lieutenant Barack, who was standing nearby managing coordination, with envy.
Barack was the deputy commander of the reconnaissance cavalry company. After Captain Andri was wounded, he had stuck close to the colonel to handle coordination, ensuring the cavalrymen could fight alongside their allies in the 16th Regiment.
Barack hadn't been completely aware of Lelouch's past achievements. Seeing a mere sergeant major receive such heavy responsibilities had been baffling. Now, after witnessing Lelouch's performance firsthand, he felt a grudging sense of respect.
Before he could ponder the matter further, the colonel spoke again. "Good. Have the men maintain this elastic defense. As the enemy advances, we fall back. Abandon the outer perimeters and stay out of the direct line of fire of their rapid-fire artillery. Let them come in before we strike!"
The German Army excelled at elastic defense; it was practically second nature to them.
Over two months ago, right at the onset of the war, they had used elastic defense tactics in the Alsace-Lorraine region to bleed the French Army dry, causing two hundred thousand casualties.
Colonel List, naturally, played this hand flawlessly.
Standing beside him, Lelouch took the opportunity to observe and learn, finding the experience deeply rewarding.
Like a sponge absorbing water, he greedily soaked up the real-world command experience, building a solid foundation to ensure his survival.
The bloody tug-of-war lasted for a full hour. The Belgin forces were repelled twice, leaving hundreds more corpses scattered in front of the defensive lines.
The sky grew pitch black as the fighting raged on, and only then did the momentum of the Belgin charges begin to slow.
On the western side of the town, the French offensive was also repelled by the colonel using near-identical defensive techniques.
...
"The enemy is using elastic defense again! To think a mere company commander could apply such defensive tactics in urban warfare."
Major General Degizel watched his troops get pushed back once more. His initial joy had completely vanished, leaving him as flustered and exasperated as a defeated rooster. He lashed his riding crop uncontrollably against a hitching post.
"General! The enemy must have received reinforcements! During that back-and-forth struggle just now, we killed at least a hundred men. If it were truly just one company, we would have wiped them out by now!"
To mitigate his own blame while facing his division commander's curses, the repelled 3rd Regiment commander, Colonel Dejoka, readily exaggerated his combat achievements, stressing that the enemy forces were far from weak.
However, Degizel knew his subordinates too well. Instinctively slashing the reported numbers, he evaluated the situation with a dark expression.
"Don't make excuses about difficulties! Even if a small number of enemy reinforcements arrived, they're nothing but stragglers driven back by the flood! We have cannons now! How can we still fail to take this little town?"
Dejoka replied, "But our direct-fire artillery is blocked by the ruins of the outer blocks. We simply can't hit the enemy emplacements scattered throughout the town. It's getting dark, and artillery observation is becoming increasingly difficult. Should we wait until dawn to attack again?"
Major General Degizel nearly whipped him with his riding crop.
Wait a whole night? Unbelievable that these idiots could even suggest it! His Majesty the King was waiting for them to clear the road for the entire army to break out. Wait an entire night during a life-and-death race against time?
Major General Degizel paced back and forth in agitation. His gaze swept over the entire battlefield. After pondering for a moment, he finally made his decision. "Pull all the 75s into the town! Move them up for close-range fire and use direct fire to eliminate the enemy emplacements in the deeper blocks!"
Colonel Dejoka was shocked. "General, we can't! Once we enter the town, the distance between blocks is only a few hundred meters! It's too close! The enemy's concealed mortars and heavy machine guns will easily be able to counter our artillery positions. We'll lose our range advantage!"
Degizel knew his subordinate was telling the truth. Field guns were most effective when hiding safely outside the range of heavy machine guns and mortars to conduct a one-sided slaughter, ideally staying over two kilometers away.
To recklessly step into a mutual firing range would just be handing the enemy an opportunity.
In an open field battle, it might be one thing, but this was urban warfare. The terrain was too complex.
Degizel hesitated for a long time. He repeatedly observed the battlefield through his binoculars and studied his map, finally coming up with a solution.
"I've got it! Don't enter the town straight from the front! Have your men charge one more time! After entering the town, move along the outermost two or three blocks and seize the northernmost buildings on those cross streets!
"The sea lies to the north of the town. Before each attack, we can contact the Britannia navy's light cruiser Daring to provide a few rounds of covering fire. It's just a shame that it's a cruiser focused on anti-torpedo warfare; the firing arc of its naval guns is too flat to bombard deep into the town. However, with its presence, the enemy won't dare show their faces on the northern edge.
"Therefore, if you push in from the northeast corner, you'll definitely be able to secure a foothold. Then, pull the rapid-fire artillery batteries to the extreme northern ends of those north-south streets, or even onto the beach itself. Set them up and launch precise direct-fire strikes along the streets to the south. The moment an enemy emplacement exposes itself, destroy it!
"This way, the naval guns will clear a path for the direct-fire artillery, and the direct-fire artillery will coordinate to strike deep street-level targets inside the town. By combining our strikes, we're bound to break through! The north-south length of these streets is long enough to exceed the range of heavy machine guns and light mortars. When the time comes, it will still be us bombarding the enemy while they remain powerless to counter."
This order finally made the eyes of his colonels and lieutenant colonels light up. For once, they genuinely admitted that their division commander's tactical foresight was far superior to their own; they hadn't expected him to come up with such an unorthodox move.
If they only moved the cannons to the northern entrances of the town's north-south streets without venturing too deep, they wouldn't have to worry about enemy ambushes in the complex terrain. The bulletproof shields on the 75mm rapid-fire artillery were enough to block close-range light arms fire, minimizing the threat.
The Belgin forces quickly sprang into action. Disregarding the darkening sky, they hastily organized another assault.
The initial phase of the elastic defense played out exactly as before. After putting up a brief resistance, the German troops pulled back, utilizing hidden emplacements in all directions to fire sniper shots and whittle down the Belgin forces.
Moreover, the positions of the German emplacements changed every time. The locations used to repel the previous wave were abandoned by the next attack, shifted to entirely new spots. The Belgins were forced to sacrifice more lives just to pinpoint them again.
But this time, the Belgin troops gritted their teeth and held fast, enduring much longer than before.
They had been told that as soon as they secured a foothold, heavy firepower would be shifted to the front lines to directly destroy the enemy heavy machine gun emplacements hidden in the ruins.
Soon, Major General Degizel's deployment was faithfully executed.
The cruiser Daring out at sea cleared a no-man's-land in the town's northeast corner where no one dared remain, paving the way for the Belgin infantry to move in and occupy it.
Then, the 75mm guns were dragged onto the beach at the northern street intersections. Turning their muzzles south, they prepared to sweep through the area street by street, from north to south.
...
"The Belgins have finally taken the bait. They actually thought we lacked heavy firepower. Holding the field guns back until this moment was definitely worth it."
Watching the Belgin troop movements from afar through his binoculars, Colonel List finally let out a long breath.
Frankly speaking, at the onset of the Great War, the German Army's 3-inch class artillery was inferior in performance compared to the French Army's.
The M96 77mm Field Gun was vastly outperformed by the Schneider 75mm gun in terms of fire rate, and it held no significant advantage in any other metrics.
The only clear advantage of the German 77mm gun was that its muzzle velocity was significantly faster than the Schneider 75, which theoretically should have provided a noticeable edge in range.
However, in pursuit of a lower profile, the German artillery's carriage design restricted its maximum elevation angle, completely squandering its high muzzle velocity. Ultimately, the practical ranges of both guns were roughly identical.
All these shortcomings had to be compensated for through tactics and training. Fortunately, in this very moment, List's tactical deception had proven wildly successful.
The Belgin forces had been provoked to the limit by the shifting emplacements inside the town, losing all patience and finally pushing their rapid-fire artillery to the front.
"Attention all 77mm field guns! Adjust your firing data within two minutes and execute a six-round rapid fire at the following coordinates!"
"Field Artillery Company copies! Executing immediately!" The regimental field gun company promptly replied to the colonel's orders, scrambling into action with swift, methodical precision.
A few minutes later, a sudden series of massive explosions erupted along the beach on the northern edge of the town.
The Belgin artillery batteries, having just been strenuously hauled forward for deployment, had barely arrived and were not yet fully set up when the German 77mm shells rained down right in the middle of their positions.
"What? This is impossible! How can the German Army have field guns? We were unilaterally bombarding them for an hour or two just now, and they never fired back! Where did they get field guns? How could they possibly drag such heavy equipment across the flooded zone?"
Observing the battle from outside the town, Major General Degizel watched as enemy shells dropped directly into his deploying rapid-fire artillery batteries, erupting into brilliant bursts of fire. A rush of blood surged to his head, causing his ears to ring. He nearly fainted on the spot.
In that instant, he knew his plan was ruined.
The German Army was truly terrifying in its patience! They had cannons but hadn't used them? They had stubbornly relied on heavy machine guns and elastic defense to hold out for an hour or two, deliberately tricking him into dropping his guard!