When the bombardment started on June 24, no one expected that the intensive bombardment would last for a full week. During the continuous bombardment, the British and French troops would also fire chemical shells at the German positions from time to time. They thought The artillery preparation that lasted for such a long time should be very effective.

It is undeniable that countless artillery shells roared and hit the German position. Sand and rocks were flying everywhere, trees were flying, and smoke covered the sky. During the continuous bombardment, 1.5 million artillery shells fell on a dish on the German position. At the peak of the intensity, an average of 3,500 rounds of bombs were dropped per minute. In General Haig Douglas's view, such artillery fire was to be used to hit the German positions and thereby open up a way for the infantry to attack. Even if the attack was wasted, It also gave the Germans no chance of survival. To be honest, it was indeed very wasteful. Even the British soldiers on the front line thought so. This bombardment was enough to destroy all the artillery shells produced by Britain in 11 months.

On the night of June 30, the bombardment reached its final stage and reached its climax. Three to four thousand shells fell on the German positions every minute.

During the rumbling shelling, the British soldiers who had been waiting in the trenches for several days stood on the escalators and looked outside. At this time, they no longer needed to consider the threat of German snipers. In their view, the German positions were now Even if there are still living things, it would be extremely astonishing.

And every soldier who looked around was stunned by the scene in front of them. They were astonished by everything they saw as if they were seeing a wonder of the century. They even stood up desperately and stood on the edge of the trench. First, Some brave soldiers, and finally thousands of British and French soldiers who were originally preparing to attack, climbed out of the trenches. They watched with admiration the spectacle in the history of war. The flashes of exploding shells on the German positions were as numerous as stars, and The stars in the night sky are connected together.

Especially when those airburst shrapnel exploded, they were as dazzling as fireworks at the festival. The night scene was really beautiful. Especially those British soldiers, most of whom were newly recruited and had just completed their training in the UK. When they arrived at the front line, they had little combat experience and insufficient training. However, these young people were naive and optimistic, thinking that as long as they broke out of the trenches and attacked, they could hit Berlin in one fell swoop.

"Oh my god! It's like celebrating our victory!"

At this time, witnessing such a spectacular bombardment and the dazzling fireworks exploding in the sky, these young people shouted excitedly. Victory, victory seemed to be within easy reach!

"Get these bastards out of here!"

Seeing his soldiers standing on the trench watching the "fireworks" as if they were celebrating a festival, Lieutenant Dawson shouted angrily at Sergeant Billy.

"Yes, sir!"

Afterwards, the Belgian soldiers rushed out of the bunker and shouted loudly in the trench.

"Get down, get down..."

He shouted, pulled, and kicked. In just a few minutes, the soldiers of this Irish volunteer infantry company were kicked down the trench. In the process, Sergeant Billy also stood on the ladder and faced him. Looking at the German position, when he saw the dazzling fireworks-like shrapnel exploding in the sky, he did not have any intention of appreciating it, but instead frowned.

"Sir, I saw the artillery fired a lot of shrapnel!"

As a veteran, Sergeant Billy has experienced German artillery fire many times, and naturally has his "own" experience with various artillery shells. He knows very well that the impact of shrapnel in trench warfare is zero!

"Shrapnel is also a cannonball!"

Lieutenant Dawson, who had just completed officer training, ignored Billy's words. In his opinion, shrapnel had defeated Napoleon, defeated the Russians, defeated... now, of course, it could also defeat the Germans!...

"A bunch of idiots!"

Although he was not an artillery officer, when Han Wu saw the fireworks caused by the explosion of shrapnel in the air again, he couldn't help but cursed. This time it was not because most of the artillery invested by the British were small and medium-sized.

Not only that the power of the rapid-fire cannon was extremely limited, but because two-thirds of the shells fired by the British were shrapnel.

Starting from the Battle of Waterloo, after the British army used shrapnel to smash Napoleon's position, since then, armies of various countries have distributed shrapnel for artillery of various calibers. Shrapnel is the best way to deal with troops on open ground.

Choice, at least in that era when the power of artillery shells was insufficient, Napoleon, the Qing army in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Russo-Japanese War, shrapnel proved their value time and time again.

But during the "Jiao'ao Incident", the poor performance of shrapnel in trench warfare made him look down upon it. It was for this reason that when the ratio of shrapnel to high-explosive shells in other countries was usually one

In comparison, in the Jiangsu Army, the ratio is 20 to 1. The Jiangsu Army uses high-explosive shells as its main weapon. After being equipped with a delay fuze, this shell can effectively penetrate the concrete top of the offensive and then attack the fortifications.

Internal explosion. Although this kind of artillery shell is mainly designed to destroy materials, its shock wave has a very strong killing effect on the human body within a certain distance, especially in trench warfare. Its power is by no means comparable to those of air-burst shrapnel.

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"This will be a one-sided massacre!"

Finally, Han Wu and his party, who no longer had any interest in witnessing the massacre, left the British forward observation post. Although the battle would only begin tomorrow, for them, although the war had not started yet, the outcome was already doomed.

This will be a one-sided massacre.

However, despite this, such a high-intensity shelling still bombarded the German position inside and out. The barbed wire fence was blown to pieces, most of the simple bunkers on the surface no longer existed, and the trenches and the communication trenches of the first position were destroyed.

It was razed to the ground, the observation and communication systems of the German 2nd Army were destroyed, and some forward artillery batteries lost their combat effectiveness.

"beep……"

In the early morning of July 1st, whistles reverberated on the British positions. The British soldiers who had been preparing for several hours, with the longing to end the war, stood up facing the direction of the attack.

Although their faces were full of longing, their movements could not hide the fear of death, so much so that they could not even insert their bayonets. They could only insert their bayonets with the help of officers and sergeants.

After checking the soldiers' preparations for the last time, Lieutenant Dawson looked at the soldiers and encouraged them.

"Gentlemen, if we win this battle, then we have won the initiative on the battlefield, then we will soon end this war, and this time next year, we can spend it safely in our own homes..."

After some encouragement, Dawson took out his pistol.

"Billy, hold my gun! If someone retreats or doesn't leave the trench after a while, it's up to you to carry out the order!"

"Yes, sir!"

When Billy's voice fell, the shelling that had lasted for seven days finally stopped, and silence instantly returned to the world. The rising sun shone on the battlefield where the smoke gradually dissipated. The German positions that had experienced a week of shelling were deathly silent.

Everyone knows that this is the calm before the war, and it is the signal that the desperate fight is about to begin.

At 7:30 in the morning, a harsh military whistle suddenly sounded on the British army's position.

"Quick, quick..."

Dawson, who was standing at the top of the ladder, shouted loudly, urging the soldiers to rush out of the trench along the ladder, while Billy kicked the soldiers who were too slow with his pistol, and kept pushing them out of the trench more than two meters deep.

trench.….

In just a few minutes, tens of thousands of British soldiers crawled out of the trenches and began to line up towards the German positions. At this moment, the British and French artillery once again began to cover the German positions with the most intense artillery fire before the charge.

Immediately covered by the rain of bullets again, this is the latest research result of the British. On the one hand, it combines the experience summed up in the battles of the past two years, and on the other hand, it draws on the methods used by the Chinese *** during the Battle of Verdun.

The "Xu Jin Barrage" cover.

Before the war, the British and French troops also conducted a series of specialized camping training for the divisions scheduled to participate in the war, simulating the German defense drill assault method. With the cooperation of artillery fire, the infantry carried out a gradual attack on the defensive positions, aiming to

In terms of weapons and equipment, new weapons such as light machine guns and rifle grenade tubes have been equipped to regiments, brigades, and divisions. In short, the British and French armies have been equipped to ensure the success of the campaign.

France tried every means, even ignoring the lack of universal calibers of weapons and ammunition, and deliberately imported as many as 6,000 2-year-old light machine guns and tens of thousands of 2-year-old submachine guns from China.

However, despite such preparations, the British still did not understand the "how fast the barrage should advance to cover the advance of our infantry". Although everyone was arguing about how fast the barrage should advance, but

In fact, the speed of the barrage can never keep up with the speed of the infantry chasing the fighters. If the infantry is delayed by something - the barrage will break away from the infantry and move forward on its own, while the infantry will stay in the open ground like a wild duck waiting to be slaughtered.

When the infantry advances too fast, they will find themselves limited by their own artillery barrages and unable to effectively pursue the fleeing enemy troops.

On the other hand, many artillery batteries are required to concentrate firepower to form a crawling barrage. Therefore, such tactics at the command level are usually established by infantry division or infantry corps artillery officers to set up observation posts under various communication conditions that are very stable.

Command operations; and infantry battalion and regiment commanders use various flares and rockets to indicate that the speed of the barrage is too slow or too fast.

This method seems to solve the problem, but on the battlefield, the smoke screen generated by the explosion of artillery shells makes the signal coordination between artillery and infantry not so effective. Too slow or too fast is almost inevitable.

In comparison, the expeditionary force's solution is very simple - 150 meters!

The Xu Jin barrage only needs to be kept 150 meters away from the main infantry detachment. The Xu Jin barrage is not controlled by the infantry, but by the artillery observers at the rear. Although this kind of barrage will cause accidental damage, it can maximize the

Use Xu Jin's barrage as a cover, but the British obviously haven't figured this out yet.

When the British troops attacked, the Germans had discovered their movements through the periscope. The soldiers were all squatting at the entrance of the tunnel, preparing to wait until the enemy's artillery fire extended backwards to quickly occupy the surface position. Almost all the British and French artillery fire

Extending back, the German troops immediately poured out from the underground fortifications. They moved all the heavy machine guns to the position, quickly dug bunkers, pointed the black muzzles at the open area in front of the position, and prepared to shoot from a high position.

"Keep formation!"

"Keep formation..."

In the empty no-man's land, the officers roared and roared to maintain the formation of the infantry squadron. Although the war had been going on for two years, for the British, they still had not changed the way they did during the Boer War.

tactics, on the other hand, both the British and the French believed that the German army must have been wiped out long ago by the shelling that could level the world a few days ago, so their charge formation can be described as swaggering.

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The British army even formed a neat square formation to attack just like when they fought Napoleon in the last century. But in fact, because the British army used too many shrapnel shells, the damage to the fortifications was extremely limited, and at the same time because

Most of the German troops were hidden deep in the underground tunnels, and the shelling did not cause much damage to them at all. When the British army launched the charge, most of the barbed wire fences and fire points on the German positions were still intact, even though the German troops had been hit by intensive shelling in the past few days.

They were dizzy, but they were all still alive...

"Attack..."

"Quick, quick, get ahead of the British guys..."

Lieutenant Senge waved the P08 pistol in his hand and shouted loudly at the soldiers. Although the sound of artillery rumbled in the air, the artillery fire did no harm to them. At this time, the wind even blew the gun from the Scottish organ.

The sound of music. That was the "drumbeat!" of the British infantry squadron. Hearing the sound of the organ meant that the British army had rushed to a position very close to them.

The German soldiers rushed into the bombed-out trench. When they looked out, everyone was shocked by the scene in front of them - on the green grass, the British soldiers were getting closer and closer. They lined up in a long line.

A long column was walking towards them. Their steps seemed a bit slow, even heavy, and they didn't feel like they were traveling lightly.

"Keep formation!"

Holding the rifle, Billy kept shouting orders.

"Keep formation..."

Amid the orders of the officers and sergeants, the vertical formations became more orderly. If it had been in the Napoleonic era, perhaps Napoleon would have praised the formation of the British army. After all, most of the people here were new recruits.

But they formed a perfect column.

The reason why their pace is slow is, on the one hand, the rhythm of the "drum beat", but on the other hand, it is the heavy burden they carry. Each of them carries as many as 220 rounds of bullets. Two grenades, and many soldiers also carry

Field telephone equipment, pickaxes, shovels and boxes for communication pigeons carried an average weight of 30 kilograms per person, and some even carried more than 50 kilograms. The heavy burden caused their movements to be very slow.

However, despite this, these British soldiers were still loyal and carried out attacks in several waves under the leadership of officers holding traditional whips. The soldiers in each wave were almost lined up side by side in a neat queue, holding diagonally.

Armed with rifles, they advanced slowly towards the German position.

In the first few hundred meters, they didn't even suffer any attack. It seemed to be just as they had imagined before - the Germans had been wiped out. The Germans had long been blown into the sky by dense artillery shells. They were now facing

I just need to clean up the battlefield!
To be continued...