Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 413 Adaptation and Surprise

“Turns out we're all in the lead...” General Bolognick said with a bitter smile.

There is a huge map of the kingdom on the table, and the red line outlined above is the route of Prince Hansburg's Qi soldiers raiding Wangdu. The generals present understood why the Grand Prince had sent that secret order to return Port Vibato to the Kingdom of the Hicks, and to cede Cromwell and Bering Ghana.

Prince Hansburg had lost his mind for the throne, and had made such an irrational decision to increase his strength to transport the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rocks. It is only now understood that the cooperation agreement between the Grand Prince and the Kingdom of Hicks also includes a sneak attack on the Kingdom's fearless fleet before transporting the Blue Feather Regiment and a standing legion straight into the Kingdom's hinterland, bypassing the Odin Mountains and appearing on the Ibnister Plains.

This is a genius strategic plan, and everyone expected that the vast ocean would become a clear way for the great prince to march. The kings of Odin Mountains only know how to muster their troops, prepare to reject the forces of the great prince in the new occupied territories, prepare to stabilize the situation in the country after Prince Widreck's ascendancy, and then slowly mobilize their troops to grind the great prince to death.

Because in any way, Prince Widreck, who occupies two thirds of the kingdom's local county, is stronger than Prince Hansburg. One third of the kingdom's mainland occupied by Grand Prince Hansburg is a new occupation of the kingdom. Although nearly a decade had passed since the Great East War, the Kingdom's economy had not improved much and the new occupation had also been devastated. For Grand Prince Hansburg, the longer it takes, the worse it will be for him.

As General Bolognick and Claude and several of their generals said in private, nobody sees the future of Grand Prince Hansburg. There is no way for the newly occupied territories to compete with the kingdoms under Prince Widreck's administration, whether they are supplemented by military sources or weapons and ammunition. The war was fought with logistical and economic strength. Claude doubted that after a year and a half, if the Grand Prince spent all the money at his disposal on what to support...

Needless to say, Prince Widreck took over the capital and had a big name, and the kingdom's power bosses mostly supported his succession. On the other hand, on the supply of arms and ammunition, Prince Widreck has the support of the five major military industries of the old aristocratic family, while the Grand Prince has only one unfinished military complex in the three southern counties, with neither side at all on the same level.

So the Grand Prince sent the secret order, which pissed off several generals in the war zone. Claude also took the opportunity to break up with Grand Prince Hansburg and clear up the relationship between the two sides, fearing that after the end of the civil war in the kingdom in which the two kings fought, Prince Widreck, who held the throne steady, would carry out the post-autumn grand reckoning, and that several generals in the war zone would be implicated because of their relationship with Grand Prince Hansburg. Unfortunately, Mei Eyed showed it to the blind, and Wang Du's powerful men did not take into account the secret orders of the big prince reported to the war zone, but rather denounced the war zone for issuing disarmament orders.

Well, it's only now that everyone understands Prince Hansburg's plan, but regrets are running out of time. No wonder the Grand Prince was willing to pay the price of three overseas direct administrations to the Kingdom of Hicks, without the assistance of the King's fleet and the United Fleet of Hicks, the Grand Prince could not have achieved the purpose of surprise and occupied the King's capital.

Several generals in the war zone are now sitting waxed. They don't like Prince Hansburg, refuse to obey his orders, and to some extent betray the great prince's knowledge of everyone. But this was beaten in the face by Prince Hansburg, the strange soldiers raided and captured the king's capital, and Prince Wedelec's Kura fled, and the whole civil war situation in the Kingdom changed.

“Why does the Kingdom of Hicks help the Great Prince when we refuse his secret order, fail to return him to Port Vibbato, and fail to cede Cromwell and Bering Ghana?” General Albert is a little confused.

General Skerry shook his head: "While these three direct jurisdictions are under our jurisdiction, don't forget that we don't own them. We can now reject the Grand Prince's secret order, but if the Grand Prince triumphs over Prince Widreck, ends the civil war in the Kingdom, and officially takes the throne as king, then he will be our king, and if he is to give these three jurisdictions to the Kingdom of Hicks as a reward, there is nothing we can do to stop them..."

“Most importantly, we have offended Prince Hansburg.” General Bitchicklin pointed out the point: “If the Great Prince were king, we would believe that none of us would be better off. The Grand Prince's integrity is well understood. He is very generous to soldiers and officers at the grassroots level, but he is harsh on us high-ranking officers, and he will never forgive us for rejecting the secret order he issued. ”

General Skerry nodded helplessly beside him, agreeing with General Beechlin. When he was a close deputy to Prince Hansburg at the beginning of the Five Year Eastern War, he saw the great prince joke with soldiers and officers at the grassroots level, forming a team. But the high-ranking officers who made mistakes were very poignant and bitter. The ridicule was still mild. Sometimes, despite all the people around them, they shouted and scolded, leaving the high-ranking officers out of the stage.

Claude could only laugh bitterly. Prince Hansburg's hand detoured the raid so amazing that he beat the bad card of his hand into a king bomb. Now no one can be sure that the great prince is ineffective, that he will occupy the king, and that he will be greatly strengthened, both in terms of resources and sources. To put it badly, the scale of the entire kingdom's civil war has slanted towards the great prince of Hansburg. Likewise, the intensity of this kingdom's civil war will rise as the great prince takes over the king's capital, and the whole of the kingdom of Orvilas will face a war catastrophe.

But Claude didn't regret rejecting the Grand Prince's secret orders, and in any case, he had to preserve his family name and the honor of his soldiers. Because if Claude accepts the Grand Prince's secret order, even if the Grand Prince succeeds in ascending the throne, he and General Bolognick will continue to be charged with surrendering the Port Vibator administration to the Cromwell and Beringana jurisdictions. The name of the traitor will accompany him and his family for the rest of their lives, and Claude will eat enough to carry this black pot for Prince Hansburg...

“Stop it, now that we have expressed our allegiance to Prince Widreck, we can only go one way to the end. Although the Grand Prince of Hansburg occupied the capital, there were many opponents of the kingdom itself, with the Red Dragon Regiment, the Guardian Regiment and the Eagle Regiment under Prince Widreck. The kingdom's four field-class legions are the only ones, and they also occupy a great name. As long as he can climb high, all parts of the kingdom will gather troops to fight back. Perhaps Prince Hansburg will soon be expelled from the king's capital.” General Bolognick can only comfort us so much.

Claude nodded: "Neither can we rush here now unless we are ordered to return home to fight. Let us begin today with the restructuring of disarmament. In the meantime, I've come up with a plan, and if we don't adapt to a division full of a division empty shelves, why don't we use a three-and-three system, where two divisions of each regiment maintain the same fighting power. ”

“Three or three systems, how are they prepared?” General Albert asked curiously.

“This is actually very simple.” Claude took a blank sheet of paper from the table and wrote it down: "We can now call each regiment a four-four-two system: four squadrons as a squadron, four squadrons as a large squadron, four battalions as a battalion, four battalions as a group, four divisions as a division, two divisions as a regiment, plus units with more than 63,000 direct units.

My idea is to have three squadrons as a squadron, three squadrons as a large squadron, three battalions as a battalion, three regiments as a brigade, three brigades as a division, and then three divisions as an army. This would reduce the number of units' immediate units, similarly by 33, so that a division would have more than 21,000 personnel. At present, we have two divisions per regiment, and if there is a war in the future, we can expand the formation of a third division, then the regiment's full strength would also be around 63,000. ”

General Bolognick took another blank sheet of paper and calculated it on it, a squadron of twelve soldiers, three squadrons as squadrons, plus a squadron of forty, then a large squadron of one hundred and twenty soldiers, plus auxiliary personnel such as captains, guards, correspondents, medics, paramedics, etc., an artillery squadron, a heavy squad, totalling about one hundred and fifty.

Three battalions are one battalion and one battalion is estimated at 560 troops. Three battalions are one regiment, one regiment is about 2,000 troops, three regiments are one brigade, one brigade is 6500 troops, three brigades are one division and 21,000 troops. According to Claude, a three-and-three system, both the Thunder Legion and the Rock Legion can maintain two divisions with little difference in fighting power.

The only thing that kept the generals hesitant and hesitant was that Claude, a three-and-three system, was actually a small regiment, whereas the Kingdom of Orvilas was basically a large regiment, with a force strength of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 troops. Both the Thunder Corps and the Rock Corps have been restructured by reinforced divisions, each with more than 7,000 troops, one division plus a direct unit and an additional reinforced battalion, with a full strength of 32,000.

Really speaking, each regiment has only two thirds of its main combat strength, while the rest are the units' immediate units and auxiliaries, which makes the regiment look bloated. Now Claude's three-and-three system is small group size, all major field-type, and then he added a brigade unit between the brigade and the division unit, which made the generals present feel a little strange. He thought that the brigade unit played the role of formerly large group size, but changed its name.

Immediately thereafter, the generals started arguing, some in favour of Claude's small regiment, some in favour of such a random restructuring of the army, although they shared the view that denying the brigade's configuration would create more trouble for an additional unit on the battlefield and allow the military to move up and down, which would only lead to more inconvenient exchange of information and intelligence.

Claude thinks the regiment is outdated, since the main focus of the wars on the Farea continent was formerly queuing shootings, so the more troops the better, the more units a regiment is to launch offensive or defensive forces, so it is easy to scale up and sometimes reluctant to plug a division in.

But the five years of war in the East and the colonial wars in the Overseas Territories have shown that the methods of warfare in which shootings are queued are outdated, with flexible and mobile raids and precisely targeted shootings, as well as the reliance on solid defensive positions to defend the war.

Whether it's the Thunder Division or the Rock Regiment, they've long abandoned the way they marched in line, lined up for shooting, used more precise targeting for offense and defense in combat, and now they have the help to throw bombs, so Claude thinks it's better to prepare a return team, so it's also more flexible and convenient to direct the battle.

While everyone agreed with Claude's explanation that small groups were indeed useful to combat, this was not an endorsement and support for the three-and-a-half system. The most objectionable of these is the brigade size, because with more brigades there is a huge difference from the military system of the Kingdom of Ovieras, which is difficult to describe to the Royal Army Ministry of the past, and the unauthorized reform of the military system is also a crime.

However, the 33rd and small regiment proposed by Claude inspired the generals present, and after intense controversy there was finally consensus that General Bolonik, as acting Chief Commander of the theatre, had decided to adopt a 445 system for the restructuring of the regiment.

The so-called four-four five-system, from squad to regimental level, remains quadrinary, with four squadrons as a squadron, four squadrons as a large squadron, four battalions as a battalion, one battalion strength of 800, four battalions as a group, one regimental strength of about 3600, one division with a full complement of 21,000, one direct reinforcement battalion in five regiments and other logistical support personnel.

In this way, both the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock can have two divisional configurations with the same fighting power. In the future, one division can be expanded if there is a war, and both regiments can still reach full strength. Everyone was relieved when the restructuring programme was finalized, but General Bitchklin immediately asked whether the nine local guard corps to be formed would be so restructured that it would be desirable to maintain uniformity as a reserve complement to the two corps.

If only the local guard corps were so restructured, then 12 local guard corps, instead of nine, would need to be formed, and General Bolognick finally decided to deploy two local guard corps in Port Vibato and Port Patres, as well as the forthcoming Silver City Castle of Monknead, to strengthen the guard capacity in those three strategic locations.

In late May, General Bolognick travelled to the Tyrsim administration in preparation for a meeting with the governors and governors of the three jurisdictions, Tyrsim, Mormali and Arturas, to discuss the issue of military spending in theatre. Prior to departure, the task of restructuring and forming 12 local guard corps in the theatre was entrusted to General Claude and Albert, General Bitchlin and General Scully.

In mid-June, General Bolognick and the Hawk sent a message, reportedly not very well spoken to by the Governors of the three Direct Administrations, ready to return to the theatre in early July. As a result, in July, General Bolognick suddenly lost his message, and the battlefield command sent several successive hawks in the past without returning them.

On 23 July, Mr. Viberon headed into theatre headquarters, bringing shocking news to Claude and others. The governors and governors of Tirsim, Mormali and Arturas have declared their allegiance to the great prince of Hansburg, who has detained General Bolognick, sealed off the immediate territorial boundaries with private arms, and prepared to threaten the war zone with General Bolognick's life...

How is that possible? Claude's first reaction was not to believe a word from Mr. Viberon that the governors and governors of the three direct governorates were in the water? Why would they threaten a war zone, knowing that it has two regiments, and that no regiment north of it can eat and walk, do you really think that the private guards formed by the governors can stop the attacks of the regiments sent by the war zone?