Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 205: Shame or Glory?

All the surrounding audiences, including Lieutenant Moster, Lieutenant Kermont, Lieutenant Colonel Leoncro, and that fat, fat Major Morrimade, were coming to this hillside defensive position. They couldn't wait for Claude's soldiers to move those fallen human wooden targets to the dune for inspection, but to come and see them first.

Incredible, the whole offensive drill was like a joke. Claude led a guard team of more than 20 people through the artillery attack area in a scattered formation, rendering the defense's artillery ineffective, and then lying on the ground at the maximum range of three hundred meters of artillery fire, leaving the defense without a target that could be targeted and ready for close physical combat. As a result, Claude, they didn't go any further at a distance of 150 to 200 meters, but they were shooting on the ground.

This is a shooting exercise! Even if the defense had a cannon, all the lookouts were sober, realizing that the cannon had no role to play in the face of such an attack. Even in a hundred rounds, only five rounds could be fired in that time, and Claude's offensive side was reduced by up to five soldiers, but that still did not change the end of the defense's total defense.

It cannot be blamed for the immobility of man-made wooden targets in defensive positions, as is the case with the military regulations in force, which strictly dictate that soldiers should also queue up to destroy or destroy enemy offenses with full fire and much more than the enemy's range of guns. Even if a companion is injured or even sacrificed by a stray bullet, the rest of the soldiers must remain in a tight queue to fill the gaps in the queue and continue to rely on the officer's orders to load them with fire...

Sixty-one man-made wooden targets in defensive positions are neatly arranged on the hillside, as they are field combat exercises, so these man-made wooden targets have just been taken out of the warehouse, and the surrounding viewers can see the clear and fresh bullet marks left by the shooting of these man-made wooden targets.

Claude's trained guard soldiers still have a good shot accuracy, although it's not like shooting in the yard behind the treatment center, and it's over 100 meters away. But because I was used to shooting on the ground, the muzzle was still holding. In addition, those tightly aligned, clustered, man-made wooden targets in defensive positions appear to be larger as well, and even if they don't hit the target they're targeting, don't worry about where the gun will fly, as it's likely to hit the next man-made wooden target.

The first and second rounds of firearms were mostly aimed at human wooden targets next to the tree that used them as artillery, and it appeared that the soldiers of the guard had borne in mind what Claude had said beforehand that the threat of artillery was the greatest on the battlefield and must be fought first. As long as all the members of the artillery crew were eliminated, the artillery would become ornaments and would not pose a threat to the safety of everyone.

The third round of gunfire swept most of those human-type wooden targets in three queues, a total of 27 guns, the big belly rice bucket Gemini Goma Da, Claude let him carry five guns loaded with gunpowder to follow himself, when he started shooting, Claude could shoot six times in one breath, very confident that he hit five targets in the first round, it was not clear whether Claude had been hit in the last shot, it was likely that he had hit the human-type wooden target again once.

The last two rounds of musket fire were purely leftovers, because there were few remaining human targets, and Claude remembered that six or seven were still standing before the fifth round, but only three human wooden targets remained in the last round of pre-shooting defensive positions, two of which were shot two or three times, and the last human wooden target was the worst, with seven or eight holes above it.

Looking at the bullet marks left on the 61-man wooden target set on the hillside, many of the surrounding audiences were shocked, and they didn't expect Claude to be able to use this method to win weakly, which was a very big surprise for many officers who were accustomed to marching in line to shoot such a way of warfare, and many had begun to wonder whether Claude's way of attacking could be introduced into the great battle.

Lieutenant Kermont looked at the human wooden target on the ground, his face was blue and white. At the beginning of the drill, he was confident. I had no idea that he had been hit so fast in the face, and it was on his side that he had failed. The dominant force, the artillery aid array, turned out to be the end of the whole army.

“I'm not convinced, Sergeant Claude, that you fought like this for a fool's sake. You should line up bright and strong against my soldiers with full fire, so that destroying our defense will be a real victory..." Lieutenant Kermont has some strong words to say.

Claude shook his head: "That made my soldiers die, my strength was weak, and my task was to occupy positions, not to queue up against you. Now that I have occupied the position, it is clear that my way of attacking is effective and feasible...”

“I have no objection to your self-righteous victory if you think that having your soldiers climb and crawl on the ground to win this field confrontation drill.” Lieutenant Kermont blushed, "I thought of you as an honorable Blue Feather Corps soldier, so I wanted to be straight with you, but you disappointed me. Look at yourself. Do you have a soldier's mantra?

We Blue Feather Corps soldiers, even the battlefield should be kept neat, but look at your soldiers, do they still have a little dignity like this, they are soldiers, not beggars, on the ground sneak shooting, there is nothing glorious about such victory. If we learn how to fight in war, then even victory will be a joke for the entire Farea continent: we are the Blue Feather Legion, not the Maggots Legion! ”

The April rainy season has just passed, and although the mountains are green, the soil is still somewhat damp. Claude walked his guard down first and then crawled forward as he practiced his offense. The quality of military uniforms in this era is not really that durable, it's just over a hundred meters long, many of the guard soldiers' knees and elbows have been worn, and a few of the uniforms on the body have been cut wide open by the rock vines and stuff on the ground.

Combined with the dirt contaminated, and the smoldering face of shooting on the ground, Lieutenant Kermont's accusations were correct, and the soldiers of the guard did act like the sloppy beggars. Even Claude had a lot of dirt stains on his uniform. The outside of his left leg pants had been ripped open by something. Even the grey white wool warm johns inside could be seen...

The army officers who had been watching were surprised by the way Claude attacked and the outcome of the battle, but listening to Lieutenant Kermont's argument, and looking at how Claude and the guard soldiers were doing now, it had to be assumed that Lieutenant Kermont was right. Claude's way of attacking, though effective, was very embarrassing, so that the triumph of climbing on the ground made many perimeter officers who viewed military honor above their own lives rethink in their hearts, whether it was worth it or not.

Claude could only laugh bitterly, and he could not convince officers like Lieutenant Kermont to do his best to save the lives of his soldiers on the battlefield, at the expense of paying a few broken uniforms such as beggars. Isn't war essentially about destroying enemies and preserving yourself for victory?

I'd rather have my soldiers fight like maggots on the ground than live like maggots. This is bullshit. Do you think all your soldiers would die like you said? If it weren't for the harshness of military law, which soldier would be willing to line up neatly to face the threat of death with enemy artillery fire...

Officers like Lieutenant Kermont, not to mention the Blue Feather Corps, have many in the kingdom, and they see soldiers as grass mustard, not their own hands and feet. For them, soldiers recruiting young and strong in civilian areas will have many recruits, who can walk to the battlefield and become their own steps to gain military merit and glory only after a short training session to march in queues and fire to obey orders. As for the number of soldiers who died, they did not care, much less went back to civilian recruitment.

While lieutenant officers also risked their lives in battle to be tested by artillery fire, their survival rate was much higher than that of soldiers regarded as cannon ash, at least than that of a sergeant like Claude. When marching in queues like Claude, a sergeant like Claude is often dependent on the soldiers, who need to stand in the middle of the queue and direct the soldiers on both sides of the queue to ensure the speed of the queue and the distance from the front queue.

Lieutenant Kermont, on the other hand, is on both sides of the queue, two or three meters apart from the queue, supervising and blowing the bronze whistle in the mouth so that the soldiers' queue follows the whistle rhythm of the bronze whistle. After entering the enemy's range, anyone can imagine whether the enemy's firing range will be aimed at a single officer or a group of soldiers clustered together. Unless it's bad luck, a line of soldiers and officers and sergeant chiefs have been sacrificed, and the officers next to them still have the ability to fill the previous vacancies in the following line of command...

There are also medical and stretcher teams, the first rule of which is to rescue officers when carrying out first aid for casualties on the battlefield. Soldiers are seriously injured and officers are slightly injured. Save officers first. Officers were killed and soldiers were injured, and the bodies of officers were first taken off the battlefield and placed in a safe place, regardless of whether the wounded soldiers were alive or dead. A wounded soldier may be rescued on the battlefield only if no casualties of an officer are found on the battlefield.

It is precisely this unequal provision of the army that creates a real contradiction between the two classes of officers and soldiers, which, of course, has much to do with the enlistment of a large number of noble sons of the kingdom into the ranks of official officers. As a result, the Royal Army was compelled to promote veterans from among soldiers to sergeants and chiefs as a means of bridging tensions between officers and soldiers.

So Lieutenant Kermont's accusation of Claude sounded very smooth to many, such as Major Morrimade, the fat head, who shouted in favor: "Well said, we Bluefeather Corps soldiers should be in a neat queue, taking firm steps, leaning back and making big strides! No matter how fierce the artillery fire, it will not defeat our conviction of victory, let the enemy crumble in front of our steely will. Even if we make a huge sacrifice, we will be able to paint the image of a hero who sees death in the enemy's heart, so that all the enemies will see the blue feathers flying on our caps in the future, they will tremble in fear, smell the wind and flee...”

Claude did not want to argue with the fool, and Major Morrimade was merely in the position of a bystander, naturally praising and bullshitting those soldiers who had died. If you let him take a look in the middle of the first line, he might not have walked a few steps before he heard the enemy's artillery fire, he would have pissed his ass off, he could have fallen on the floor and drilled into the dead body pile...

Instead, the conversation next to the lieutenant colonel and several other officers attracted Claude's attention.

“In fact, the construction of a short wall in front of the defensive party can resist most of the offensive shooting and effectively reduce the unnecessary casualties of defensive soldiers. Perhaps we can include this as one of the points to be aware of in the defensive position…”

“I think the defense side is waiting in line for a bit too rigid in the defensive position. In fact, the offensive side is not strong enough. When they start shooting on the ground, they immediately counterattack and rely on the strength to rush past to destroy the enemy with a white blade...”

Claude walks to Lieutenant Moster: "Are we going to have defensive exercises next? ”

Lieutenant Moster shook his head: “No need. Lieutenant Kermont thought that if you just lay on the ground shooting and defending him in the same way as the attack, he couldn't do the drill. He thought you were a rogue and embarrassing maneuver. There was no morale and glory in the military, so he didn't want to go back to camp with his squadron with the same insight as you...”