Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 441 Reasons for Defeat

“I took the Thunder Battalion 131 and the Thunder Battalion 1303 and the local guard regiment stationed at Castle Monkenard to the front line first and now. You wait a few days, wait until the regiment of the Rock Legion changes into a new rifle, and after a short training session, lead the big army and come back. Remember to bring all the mines manufactured by the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop to that group in Berlin, the actual effect of this weapon also needs to be tested on the battlefield..."

Claude commanded General Albert, and then sent a message to General Bitchcline, asking him to find a way to hold on for seven days, and he would surely make it to the front in ten days. General Albert, on the other hand, had some objections to Claude's taking the local guard corps, believing that it would be better to bring the veterans into battle with more troops from the Thunder Corps.

Claude could only hasten to explain to him that the officers and soldiers of the local guard corps stationed at Castle Monconade were all converted into veterans of the Rock Corps, who took them to the front line mainly because they were good at position defense operations, and General Bitchicklin's old men, returning to the front line was tantamount to returning to the old forces of the Rock Corps, believing that they would play a greater role in position defense battles, more trustworthy than those recruited.

Day and night, it took only nine days for Claude to get to the front line with his troops, and then meet some scorching General Bitchcliff. So we got good news, bad news, bad news. The bad news is that the first defensive front was lost only two days after the Hicks' fierce attack. The good news is that for four consecutive days of intense fighting, finally stabilizing the battle on the second defensive front, the casualties on both sides are some big...

“Our Rock Regiment has lost nearly one regiment, and the Nekanca casualties are close to 20,000.” General Beechlin was so annoyed that he said, "We've been taken, the commander-in-chief of the enemy, Nobleton. Pan Belondi's superior will be a sleazy, reckoning fox. His main thrust is in the eastern mountains, not what we call the northern coastal mountains. We were attacked by three standing regiments, using rotating tactics, one wave after another, and when we first came into contact, we were simply unable to resist such wave-like attacks. ”

“He put those two standing legions that just arrived on the offensive?” Claude asked. If the main thrust of the Hicks offensive in the eastern mountains is the two newly arrived standing regiments, then it is clear that troops that have not rested for some time are unlikely to maintain a robust offensive posture and that combat capacity is unlikely to last, perhaps a good opportunity to break enemies.

“No,” General Bitchklin shook his head, “these three regiments were the first to arrive in the colony of the Gulf of Rodex, where they had been rested for three months. We thought the Hicks had placed two of those standing regiments on the northern coastal mountain border, with only one standing regiment on the eastern mountain border.

I had no idea that the Hicks would secretly replace those two newly arrived Standing Regiments and the two Regiments by sending them secretly to the eastern mountains and beat us as soon as the war started.

We thought the Hicks were deployed on the eastern mountain border as the defensive force responsible for attacking and implicating us, but we had no idea that the Hicks had just launched an attack and that the leader of the Standing Army on the eastern mountain border was driving straight in, and those Nikanca battalions deployed in the frontier mountains were overwhelmed and collapsed.

I thought there was only one standing army of the Hicks in the eastern mountains, and even when we hit the defensive front, we resisted. I didn't expect the staff officer who broke down earlier to report that the enemy was the three standing legions, so I realized I was in it! ”

“Why is the Nikancha camp set up in the frontier mountains so unscathed that even a decent defense has not been completed once?” This is also what Claude felt most confused about, even though the Nikancas were really scum, the defensive positions set up in the frontier mountainous areas were perfect and standard. It's easy to take advantage of the ground, but not even a successful resistance before the Hicks attack.

As a result, the three Hicks' Standing Army regiments were allowed to roam the mountains in only fifteen or six days before reaching the defensive front, and quickly seized the first defensive front within two days. How the hell did the enemy do that? Didn't the staff officers of the Rock Regiment, who were assigned to serve as officers in charge of the Nikanca camp, teach the Nikancas to hide in the trenches and shoot? This shouldn't have happened...

General Bitchklin laughed bitterly: "Claude, this can only be blamed on you. The main reason for the defensive positions in the frontier mountains is that the Hicks equipped you with the projectiles you invented. They have also improved their throwing gear, which can be thrown a hundred and thirty four metres away. This is beyond the range of precise fire we have equipped with guns, and we can only stay in the position and get bombed for nothing. These Nikanths are untrained about anti-dropping bombs, and when they blow up, they're all messed up..."

No wonder the Hicks went all the way, and that was because of the bomb drops. Claude is also beginning to regret handing over production permits for dropping bombs to the military-industrial industries of the old aristocratic families of the Kingdom. The projectiles they produced helped Prince Wedlecker defeat Grand Prince Hansburg and regain the capital. But at the same time, the countries of the Farea continent are replicating bomb throwing, and the Kingdom of Hicks is certainly no exception.

“Are they producing the same projectiles that our battlefield is equipped with?” Claude asked.

“Unlike the last time we found ourselves on that smuggling boat in the kingdom of Nasseri, like a pumpkin, it was also ignited by a fire rope, unlike the one we were equipped with, which was ignited by internal friction by pulling strings. They can't use it on rainy days like this, and we can, but it's been sunny for half a month...” General Bitchcline introduced to Claude, “I'll show you a Hicks thrower, which we just caught two days ago. ”

Soon the four high-horse soldiers struggled to carry a one-man tall thrower, and Claude understood at first glance that this was a simplified ancient stone thrower construction, replacing the wood's stone throwing link with a spring piece of steel. Sisters Anna and Lady Sonia have been tested to throw projectiles 200 metres away. It's just that Claude abandoned this thing because it was too bulky, too flexible to manoeuvre, so many people needed to be moved, and when it was easy to be the target of artillery fire on the battlefield, he abandoned this mode of throwing.

Then came another soldier carrying a seized Hicks-produced projectile, although the Hicks-did not call it a projectile, but rather an iron pumpkin, because the projectile had a clear engraving of the iron pumpkin. This iron pumpkin weighs three times more than the projectiles equipped in the theatre, but the explosives are more powerful because of the more powder and iron tablets loaded. It seems that the Hicks cannot choose a thrower like this one, and a two-man thrower like Claude cannot throw this iron pumpkin more than a hundred metres away.

“This kind of thrower should be easy to deal with..." Claude said. Even beyond the 100-metre range of the exact target of the Obash III, a large group of people clustered together to operate the thrower did not require artillery fire, and a squadron of soldiers was assembled to fire directly into their area.

Not to mention the total range of 380m for the Obash III, which is the Six Kingdoms rifle equipped by the Nikanchas, but also the total range of 320m. Shooting at these Hicks does not require precise targeting, and bullets can no longer fly too far from their targets. So many guns always have blind cats when they run into a dead rat, so long as the people around them fall down, the rest of them either panic or get down and hide from the gun...

Or a couple of light infantry field artillery aimed directly at solid bullets, like this, a bunch of people gathered at a distance of 200 meters, and the two regiments of light infantry field artillery gunners basically hit 56 rounds, not to mention 89 out of 10. As long as two or three light infantry field artillery are aimed at a single target, these Hicks can only end in tragedy.

Another option would be for the two regiments of good shooters to take the initiative and leap out of the trenches and crawl into the 100-metre range of the precise target fire of the Obash Type III flare gun, carrying out a nominal kill on the opponent operating the thrower, thus relieving the enemy of the threat of throwing a bomb at the defensive position. These are anti-projectile programmes trained by the Legion of Thunder and the Legion of Rock, and with the new rifle, its range of 200 metres of precise fire is sufficient to suppress the threat posed by enemy projectiles to the offensive or defensive forces.

General Beechlin laughed helplessly, “Don't you think I've ever done this before? Do you know how the first defensive front got lost? All I can say is that these Hicks veterans are crazy, they're not afraid to die, they're even willing to die. It is our sadness to meet such enemies, who hate us so much that they would rather die than be our prisoners again.

Until now, we have not caught an enemy who has surrendered voluntarily, but some wounded and unconscious soldiers. But when we get them back, all they want is for us to make them feel better, and we don't want them to recover and go back to hard labour.

I do not know how much the labor suffered when they were taken away by the emerging commercial aristocrats of the kingdom itself, but they blamed us for all this, we captured them and transferred them to the emerging commercial aristocrats of the kingdom itself.

Before you left, you sent me a letter from the Hawk, in which I imposed a punitive measure of ten kills and one blow on those Nikans who had collapsed from the frontier mountains, killing almost 2,000 Nikans in public, and finally shocking the armed Nikans who had trained with our soldiers.

I told them that they could not escape death, even if they fled back to the ghetto, the army of the Hicks would soon be killed, their parents and children would be killed by the Hicks, and their brothers and sisters would be captured as slaves...

One of them, a Nikantha named Dowu, amazed me and felt sorry for him. Although he also retreated from the frontier mountains, he was brave enough to serve as a staff officer who was severely injured by the Hicks when they dropped bombs.

At the same time, he organized an ambush of a small group of Hicks reconnaissance squadrons and a close fight with several Hicks veterans, who received two bayonets themselves, but annihilated that small group of Hicks veterans, as evidenced by the Hicks' shoulder stamp. Only they also retreated from the frontier, so they were punished with ten kills.

As a result, Dowu drew a must-kill signature, and the Nikantha in his team cried and thought that he should not be punished for being so brave. He was not a deserter, but a warrior who killed his enemies. And his story spread to the ears of the Nikans, almost all of them begging to die on their own behalf.

I sent someone to investigate that the Nikantha was indeed different from his cowardly compatriots, and that he had led a small group of Hicks scouts who were wounded and prepared to pardon him and pardon him from the death penalty.

But I did not expect that the pardon order I issued was rejected by Dowu, who was willing to confess to death, otherwise it would be unfair to pardon only one of the remaining Nikanchas who had been drawn to kill and sign. No matter how brave he was on his way back, he could not deny the fact that he was indeed a deserter.

Because his position was supposed to be in the frontier mountains, not here on the defensive front where he is now. All the Nikanchas who had received this information had the status and prestige to persuade him, but he refused to do so with all his heart and soul.

I felt strange, so I went to visit him and bought him a drink. This Dowwu asked me to make sure that he was executed in public on the same day as the rest of the Nekanchas who had drawn the must-have signature, so that all the Nekanchas would be shocked to learn that the Nekanchas had indeed reached the most critical juncture of life and death.

I'm sorry for his insight, but I can only do what he wants. He was the first to be executed that day, and I went to toast him to a bowl of wine. After drinking, Dowu said a few words to the Nikantha, who were watching the sentence, that this time the Hicks came, we were in the war zone to help them resist the Hicks invasion.

But next time the descendants of those Klemmer pirates from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland come to burn and loot, who can the Nikancas rely on to protect them? Only by reinvigorating themselves, learning all the advanced military knowledge from the theatre and training the Nikans in their own armaments will the Nikans have the capacity to defend themselves in the future.

He hoped that the death penalty for himself and the nearly 2,000 deserters would serve as a wake-up call for all Nikancas, preferring to die on the battlefield rather than turning their heads to be a disgraceful escapee. You may be able to survive, but perhaps at the price of your loved ones being killed and your colonies being destroyed by the enemy.

Now that he has picked up the gun, it means becoming a glorious Nikanca warrior, doing his part to protect his colony and this Nikanca nation, even paying his life at all costs... Having said all this, he voluntarily walked to the execution table and was hanged for the first time... "

......

Claude had no idea that this punitive measure of ten kills and one kills of deserters that he had given to General Bitchcline would involve such a dog's blood that Dowwu was alive as a national hero in the eyes of all Nikansas. After all, in the lazy habit of the Nikanchas, incarceration in the army can be regarded by them as a rare resting benefit, and it is not enough to deter them without the practice of ten killings. Impunity for deserters means that all Nikanchas can escape the war, and this willingness to die is due to the fact that it is clear.

“The execution of Dowu and the nearly 2,000 Nikancha deserters did shock those Nikanchas greatly. So two days later, the Hicks appeared in front of the first defensive front, and almost all of the Nikanchas showed a different and strong desire to fight.

In the face of the Hicks' attack, they were unafraid, under the command of our Rock Regiment officers and soldiers, to systematically resist an attack launched by the Hicks, even in the waves and waves of night raids by the Hicks, to drive the enemy away with a blade... "

General Beechlin sighed: "I just didn't expect those Hicks veterans to be so crazy, so desperate. During the day, their bomb squad was suppressed by us, causing heavy casualties, so they chose to strike at night.

First, the artillery that was propelled into front of the position by infantry field artillery attracted a counterattack from the artillery laid out on the defensive position, followed by a massive crowd of soldiers directly launching a blade battle. Our defense forces and the Nikanchas were also armed with bayonets after they had fired the guns in their guns, and they were killed together.

But we do not know that the Hicks have secretly pushed their firing squads in front of defensive positions, throwing these iron pumpkins directly into the positions. You know, there were Hicks veterans at the position at the time. They even blew up their own men.

We were all lost, and no one thought the Hicks would be so heartbroken. A battalion and more than 2,000 Nikanchas of the Rock Regiment just reinforced were immediately bombed, and the next Hicks veteran source continued to storm, accompanied by the throwing of a bomb, and the first defensive front was so captured by them... "

Claude finally knows why the first defensive front collapsed.

“The first two days, the Hicks wanted to do it again, but I didn't think I'd put our bomb squad in a forward position and directly cut off the bombardment they launched. The immediate reinforcement battalion of the division equipped with the new type of guns was also sent to the position to shoot members of the Hicks' bomb throwing team.

Because their iron pumpkins needed to be lit before they could throw, that bright fire became their fatal flaw at night. They didn't throw a few iron pumpkins. More than a hundred bomb squads were quickly shot half by our shooters and the rest fled back. ”

General Beechlin pointed somewhat proudly at the thrower like the stone thrower on the ground and said, "This and the iron pumpkin next door were captured two nights ago, with 86 throwers and 376 iron pumpkins. I have now been placed on the defensive front and become our defensive instrument..."