At the front assembly site of the German Marine Forces, Duran and Xiashu, France, welcomed their new partner, General Oscar von Hutier. On that day, two of the three marine brigades scheduled to be put into the Western Front were already fully arrived, and the remaining combatants and equipment were transported from the country. More than 200 kilometers away, the Battle of the Marne River was more protracted and bloody than people expected. From Fort Thierry, less than 40 kilometers from Paris, to eastern France

Saint Mier, both sides successively invested more than two million troops and tens of thousands of artillery pieces. After six days of fierce fighting, most of the infantry divisions originally organized by the Cluke Legion were crippled, and many of the first newly added troops had suffered more casualties. Cluke, who was keen on attack, had to stop counterattacking the battlefield where the troops were consumed more. The pressure on the Bilo Legion was no less than that of the neighboring troops. The two corpses that crossed the Marne River suffered particularly heavy losses due to the fierce bombardment of French artillery.

In addition to the loss of troops, the German team also faced the dilemma of poor supply. On the one hand, the German army's baggage transportation mainly relied on railways and livestock vehicles, and the French army blew up a large number of railway bridges during the retreat, which greatly affected the German supply to the front-line troops. On the other hand, in order to reinforce the right wing, the German army used the fastest speed to transfer combat troops from the middle and left wings. The roads in the Marne River Basin were crowded with marching soldiers and vehicles, resulting in slow movement of the baggage team, which naturally reduced the supply efficiency of the military supplies department to the right wing troops.

On the Allies, the British and French troops performed very well in the first few days of the Battle of Marne. At Fort Thierry, they almost repelled the German right-wing Cluke Legion, and then threatened the fragile flanks of the Bilos Legion. As the battle deepened, the heavy casualties of the participating troops made the front-line offensive weaker. The German team also used the gap between combat to consolidate their field fortifications, machine guns and artillery to make these positions a terrible nightmare for the Allies' infantry...

Since Xia Shu and von Hutier are old acquaintances, they can directly get to the point without contact and understanding. Due to the decisive significance of the Battle of Marne and the unprecedented stalemate, both sides have almost put the reserve troops of the last division into battle. The draw seems to be an acceptable result between both sides, but in fact it is even more unfavorable to the German team seeking a quick victory. Therefore, Hutier strongly agrees with Xia Shu's view that although the three brigades of marine forces have fewer troops, they are completely likely to become a battlefield surprise to break the deadlock.

The wonder of the surprise weapon lies in the fact that it is unexpected to the enemy, the speed, ruthlessness and accuracy of the combat operations. It requires keen insight, careful preparation and meticulous planning, and no luck can be tolerated.

Xia Shu's combat strategy was to conquer Amiens in one go, and use this as a breakthrough point to advance quickly along the railway line to Paris.

Amiens is located on the banks of the Somme River, the capital of the Picardy region of France and the capital of Somme Province. It has railways and highways to Paris. In peacetime, it takes only more than two hours to drive from Amiens to reach the French capital. In the early combat operations, the right-wing troops of the German army swept across Amiens, broke through the French defense line in the upper reaches of the Somme River, and then fought all the way to the Marne River. Now, the French teams retreated from the French border to the Somme River basin and the British Expeditionary Forces who came across the sea have built a north-south defense line in the lower reaches of the Somme River from Amiens to the Port of Le Crotova, and the Avr River defense line was deployed by the French army to the southeast. Amiens is located at the connection point between these two defense lines.

To capture an industrial city of 100,000 people like Amiens, the German Marine Force, which mainly uses infantry light weapons, seemed ineffective. However, except for a regiment of field artillery provided by General Sigmund, the German Army could not provide any other assistance, so Nakashu borrowed twenty train guns from the naval fortress and transported them to Duran via railway line.

Due to different combat purposes, the structure and performance of naval train guns are different from similar equipment from the German Army. These train guns borrowed by Xia Shu are divided into two calibers: 152 and 203 mm, with a range of between 15 and 20 kilometers, and are equipped with ordinary grenades and armor-piercing bombs.

With these powerful train guns, the German marines' attack on Amiens did not reach the level of victory. In Huthier's view, the naval infantry had sufficient land combat capabilities through long-term training. After learning about the real goal of this trip, they were excited and eager to fight. However, most of the officers of this unit had neither war experience nor valuable teachings from their predecessors to be baptized by war. On the battlefield, such troops could break through the limitations of traditional rules and win victory with a rainbow of momentum, or lack the tenacity of old troops, and collapsed when fighting was frustrated or even suffered heavy casualties.

Xia Shu had a completely different view of Huthier's hidden worries. He knew that the Marine Force had a strong sense of honor, and the courage and determination of the soldiers were not inferior to those of the combatants of the High Seas Fleet. As long as it was properly deployed, it would definitely become a sharp knife to tear open the seemingly solid defense line of the Entente Team. Now the combat operations of the First Marine Division have been approved by the German Emperor, and they had to be fired like an arrow on the string. They did not need to worry too much about this issue, and the discussion quickly turned to the tactical level.

Xia Shu gave Buddha a gift through flowers and proposed the tactics of infantry assault group that should have been opened by Huthier, that is, equipped with pistols, light machine guns, grenades, and flamethrowers (the flamethrower in the modern sense was invented by the German Richard Federer. In 1901, he created the first flamethrower sample for German army evaluation. The device was carried by manpower and was equipped with a cylinder container. The inner interior of the container was divided into two parts, the lower half was a compressed air bottle and the upper half was a combustion agent bottle. By the time of World War I, the German army had formed 12 fire spitting companies) and a small elite force of light artillery as assault forces, finding the enemy's weak areas and making breakthroughs, infiltrating into the opponent's defense system, attacking important targets, cutting off traffic lines, and cutting the relationship between defense deployment, creating conditions for frontal attacks.

By the end of the summer of 1914, this novel tactic had never appeared on the battlefield, but it could find its original prototype from history. The shrewd Huthir quickly understood its essence and enthusiastically listed a series of extension ideas: the artillery bombardment before the attack should not be too long, it only needs to suppress the enemy's frontier firepower rather than try to destroy it, and the assault troops should be covered in the way of barrage, so as to effectively improve combat efficiency; the assault teams can be divided into two types: light-equipped and heavy-equipped. The light-equipped commando bypassed the enemy's firepower support point and wedged into the enemy's position at a speed as fast as lightning, cover the heavy-equipped commando to approach the enemy's defense line and remove the enemy's firepower point, thereby guiding ordinary infantry to break through the enemy's defense line in full.

Tactical strategies are often easier said than done. Obviously, the officers and soldiers of the assault troops must be bold, careful, brave and tenacious, and be able to deal with the enemy's machine guns and bayonets without fear and flexibility, and be able to skillfully use weapons suitable for melee combat, from pistols, short knives, shovels to light machine guns, grenades, flamethrowers, etc., which can alternate cover and cooperate tacitly. Assault operations require artillery soldiers to no longer provide artillery support according to the established schedule but actually need to provide artillery fire support, so the assault troops need to communicate with the rear troops on the battlefield, while the existing radio equipment is too bulky, and the communication between the troops is mostly wired telephones and manpower transmission. In addition, the assault troops need to have the ability to fight completely independently, which requires engineers, blasters, medical soldiers, etc., and the mixing of multiple arms and multiple roles also means that the difficulty of logistics supply is far greater than that of ordinary infantry units...

During the previous combat operations, Huthier commanded the 1st Guard Infantry Division to fight several tough battles. The deeper they entered the French territory, the greater the resistance they received. Moreover, the French team gradually realized the importance of trench defense. Without the support of heavy artillery and chariots, it was very difficult to break through the trench defense line with infantry. Because of this, Huthier was a little overly excited. Natsuki reminded: "Considering that the landing troops will not be able to obtain continuous support for naval artillery fire after advancing inland.

In the past two years of military exercises, we have tried infantry assault tactics many times, and the effect of the exercise is relatively optimistic, but you also know that the exercise is just a subjective simulation of the battlefield situation and is completely different from the real war. Conservatively, our first attack on Amiens may be frustrated, and the participating troops must adjust their deployment within one or two hours, and then immediately launch a second attack. We must break into Amiens within half a day and completely occupy Amiens on that day."

General Huthier calmed down and thought: "Since we chose to launch an attack in the early morning, we sent a sharp knife platoon to approach the French positions before dawn, using farmland, houses and canals to lurk. Only 5 minutes of rapid artillery fire was carried out before the attack. The 1st Land Brigade followed the commando with the strength of two infantry regiments to launch the first wave of charge. Before 9 o'clock, we entered the city of Amiens and controlled the main bridges on the Somme River, guided artillery to attack the targets on the west bank of the Somme River, occupied the bridgehead on the west bank of the Somme River, and waited until the troops of the 2nd Land Brigade entered the city, and then turned around to clear the French troops on the east bank of the Somme River."

Xia Shu nodded. Compared to Scher, Huthier's decision was more straightforward, and his courage and courage were even better, but this did not mean that Huthier was better than Scher. One of them was the naval commander and the other was the land commander. If the latter was negligent or misjudgment, there was still a chance to make up for it on the battlefield, but the latter might ruin the entire fleet by a single thought.

"In addition to field artillery and heavy artillery in trains, we can also get direct support from the naval aviation forces. The naval aircraft of the two squadrons will all arrive at the western suburbs of Aras before tomorrow. In order to ensure the safety of this flight force, General Sigmund has dispatched two battalions of infantry and one battalion of artillery to set up defense lines around the airport." When he said this, Xia Shu had no intention of showing off, but with such a "magical" chief of staff, Huthier's burden on his shoulders would undoubtedly be much easier.
Chapter completed!