Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 448 Attack Failure

Claude can only laugh when he learns from the messenger what's going on. Obviously, the Hicks' commander-in-chief had seen through his plans, so the Hicks forces on the eastern front would withdraw completely and abandon all occupied eastern frontier mountain areas. And the three divisions of the northern mountain border, the Hicks, recall reinforcements, must now be fortified.

And Claude now faces two choices, the implementation of the original plan, and General Albert's division, the Hicks, who clinch the northern mountain border three divisions back and forth. Secondly, the detachment sent a regiment of troops to escort more than 20,000 Hicks prisoners and led the three regiments eastward, attacking the Hicks who were evacuating from the eastern mountains.

Select a comparative safety point and at least the winning fruit you have won will not be discarded. Option two is risky, and no one knows if the Hicks in the three divisions of the northern mountain border will launch an attack to rescue the prisoners, and it will be difficult to escort them smoothly to join General Albert with the strength of a regiment. Also, even if Claude led three regiments to attack the Hicks evacuated on the eastern front, there was a great chance that the enemy would not be able to seal off the mountains.

Now that the commander-in-chief of the Hicks had seen through his plans, he should have been prepared, and Claude doubted that he would be able to take his troops to the East Front. The northern mountain border, where General Albert has only one division, makes it difficult to create a repressive situation against the Hicks of the three hard-held divisions. If you take your troops to the eastern front, maybe the Hicks in these three divisions can pull out the troops and mess up behind you, that would be a bigger threat to Claude, who cut off logistical oversupply...

Another unfavourable factor is the fact that the two regiments of Muried and the three regiments of Diaved, more than 9,000 troops, went to ambush the enemy's reinforcements, which ended up being blank and blank for five days in the wild. Though the rest of their morale has improved considerably after two days, Claude doubts if his body can sustain itself if he takes them to the eastern front...

Forget it, Hundred Birds is better off in the woods than a bird in the hand, Claude canceled the idea of going to the East Line and decided to attack the three divisions of the Hicks in the northern mountains as planned. The annihilation of the three divisions of the Hicks, coupled with the defensive strength of one division, the all-encompassing battalion of the General Logistics Base, represents the annihilation of a standing army of two enemies and a serious blow to the aggressive Hicks.

After taking the idea, Claude sent a message to General Albert asking him to command his forces to attack the Hicks' camp, involving the Hicks. At the same time, more than a dozen Nikancha battalions deployed in strategic locations in the frontier of the northern coastal mountains could be brought to the forefront, so that the Hicks, who held the camp, thought that the theatre had launched a comprehensive response.

Three days later, however, Claude met with General Albert from that dry trench, bypassing the Hicks' camp, and found that the fighting was not progressing ideally. General Albert commanded the second division of the Legion of Thunder and sixteen Nikancha battalions to break through the Hicks' first battalion line, but the Hicks used their strength to wage a blade battle or drove out the attackers who had just occupied the first battalion line.

“The casualties of our offensive forces are somewhat high. General Albert said somewhat bitterly:" The second division invested four regiments in a rotating offensive, but there were only three regiments left, including the wounded, to withdraw. Sixteen Nikanca camps have also lost seven, and now those Nikancas have refused to follow us again. In addition, our projectiles are draining heavily, and our current stockpiles are no longer capable of supporting us in launching another major offensive. ”

Attack failure was not General Albert's fault, and his command force launched a night raid that covered the Hicks' first battalion defense line with a projectile, striking the Hicks in short notice and taking the first line of defense from the Hicks' camp with very minor casualties. The choices of command and tactics are pointless and irrefutable.

But General Albert underestimated the battle resilience and vengeance of veteran Hicks and the defensive battalions set up by the Hicks over the first line of defense. The attack on the Hicks' first battalion line did not reveal anything unusual, but it was only after occupying the first battalion line that it was discovered that the enemy's second defense line was on average three metres higher than the first battalion line, limiting the offensive path of the first line to the second line, while remaining high enough to cover the entire area of the first line with artillery.

The general camp is both permanent and temporary when it is established. The permanent camp, by definition, refers to the place where the internal team is stationed for a long time and for a short period of time, while the temporary camp is essentially stationed during the march and during the war. Residential camps require building walls and trenches, as well as defensive facilities such as guard towers and outposts, while temporary camps are less sophisticated, basically a simple trench, or a wooden fence or something...

The same is true of the permanent and temporary camps, where defensive perimeters are set up, mostly with tents to serve as dormitories for troops and officers, and separate areas to distinguish between the different force sizes. Defensive battalions are in fact one type of permanent camp, the only difference being that they are several times larger than most, combining defensive positions and battalions in strategic locations and assigning troops to guard each region.

From the outside, the defensive barracks staffed by the three Hicks divisions, apart from their size, are no different from the general permanent barracks. The periphery is also a soil fortress with logs and dirt piled behind logs, one hundred metres apart from the sentry post and guard tower, and three trenches have been dug outside the logs.

According to the pre-war reconnaissance, it can be seen from the heights that the Hicks built another civil fence at a distance of two or three hundred meters behind that log fence in front of them. Five trenches were also dug on the ground between the first log fence and this fence...

After Claude led the Thunder Division, General Albert launched a sweeping attack on the Hicks' peripheral guard post and used Claude's remaining battalion of 1303 regiments equipped with new rifles to successfully block and ambush the Hicks' forces. The Hicks were forced to retreat from the barracks and were afraid to send troops or approach the northern mountain border.

But the Hicks have been shrinking in the camp since they sent reinforcements back in a hurry, and there seems to be little interest in responding to General Albert's harassing offensive against the camp. No matter how the Thunder Legion soldiers tease out there, they just don't attack, as if they were going to die guarding this camp.

Then General Albert received a message from Claude's Eagle that he would attack the Hicks' camp in front of them, attract the attention of the Hicks, and when Claude led the Thunder Regiment from behind, he could clinch back and forth and play Kai. General Albert then carefully orchestrated the offensive plan, launching a night attack the night after receiving the Hawk message, which took over the Hicks' first battalion line.

It was only after occupying the first fence that General Albert discovered himself as if he had stabbed a wasp nest. There was a harassing attack on the Hicks' first line of defense against the Wall, when the Hicks shrugged their heads like turtles and responded lazily, without even making sense. But as soon as the first line of defense broke down, the Hicks woke up from their dreams, jumping like a thunderous backlash day and night.

Especially when soldiers from the Second Division of the Thunder Legion entered the trenches behind the first walled defensive line of the Hicks' camp. There is an altitude drop of about a foot and a half between the first trench and the second trench, which means you can lie in the first trench and shoot outside the walls. But to shoot in the direction of the second trench, you can't reach it, you need to lift your toes or put a wooden stool under your feet or something.

Looking outside at the five trenches within three hundred meters of the Hicks' first and second fence walls, there's really nothing wrong with noticing the small slope, and nobody takes it as a big deal. As a result, soldiers and Nikanchas who entered the five trenches suffered greatly. They couldn't hit the enemy, but it was easy for the enemy to stand high and shoot precisely across a trench.

For the officers and soldiers of the trained Legion of Thunder, this was not a major difficulty. Soon, empirically, they responded by padding the upper soil and appeased the Nikancas who accompanied them into the trenches, securely occupying the first and second trenches, while striking back at the third. But the Hicks set up these five trenches between the first and second fence walls in an attempt to turn these two or three hundred meters into the main battlefield that the attackers are entangled in, and it is only here that they can take advantage of the strength advantage to be passive.

The Hicks placed most of their catapult-style throwers on the back of the second fence, covering the fourth and fifth trenches within the throwing range, or even in segmented sections, which were responsible for the throwing of bombs. The Thunder Legion officers and Nikancas who did not know about this suffered a huge loss when they entered these last two trenches and were killed and injured by the Hicks throwing bombs...

General Albert came to the front and commanded the attack, but was nearly killed when he was attacked by fire from Hicks defensive artillery. The captain of the guard next to him alerted him and caught him jumping into the trenches next to him, avoiding the fate of one of the five giants in the war zone. But General Albert's deputy and two guards were less fortunate and were killed on the spot by dozens of solid bullets the size of fists.

It was also because of the personal experience that General Albert came to understand that the Hicks monitored all movements from the first building wall to the second. When General Albert decided to come to the battlefield personally, his distinct uniform appeared on the first Wall Defense Line and became the target of attention for all Hicks observers, so that the first Wall Defense Line was about 300 meters from the second defensive wall and was not within the bounds of the iron pumpkin thrown by the Hicks, otherwise General Albert would be welcomed more enthusiastically from the sky...

However, the Hicks mobilized more than a dozen light infantry field artillery fire on General Albert, who was lucky enough to escape the attack. Only in person did General Albert discover that the battle on the front line was very difficult and that the Thunder Corps officers and soldiers could not occupy the fourth and fifth trenches...

In terms of weapons and equipment, Legion of Thunder soldiers took advantage of the precise range of firing of the Bash III and Sonia 591 new rifles, posing a lethal threat to the Hicks veterans defended in the two rear trenches after overcoming the high drop between the trenches.

But the Hicks did not want to engage in shooting exchanges with the soldiers of the Legion of Thunder. They simply abandoned the fourth fifth trench, most of them behind the second protective wall, and did not show up at all, rendering the precise targeting of the soldiers of the Legion of Thunder useless.

In the event that the fourth and fifth trenches are covered by the Hicks' iron pumpkins, the soldiers of the Thunder Corps must first occupy the fifth trench in order to attack the second fence. Only by taking possession of the fifth trench can the Hicks throwers placed behind the second defensive wall be destroyed with a bomb thrown to neutralize their threat to the fourth and fifth trenches.

The Hicks are also well aware of this, and the fourth trench can allow the soldiers of the Thunder Corps to occupy it. There are observers watching at heights. The soldiers of the Thunder Corps gathered in which trench, or the Nikancas, send a signal a little more armed and throw iron pumpkins, forcing the attackers occupying the fourth trench to disperse and not gather together...

And when General Albert discovered this, he secretly made a trick to get the Nikans up, hoping to use the Nikans to consume more of the Hicks' reserves of iron pumpkins. Soon, however, the Hicks realized that they were no longer concerned about the Nikans, but rather that the gathering of more than five Legion of Thunder soldiers would inevitably lead to a bombardment of iron pumpkins.

So General Albert also wanted the Nikancas to change the uniforms of the Thunder Legion soldiers, and the Koenikans were not all fools. He simply didn't believe what General Albert said about changing uniforms would show us that our attackers were more powerful to shock the enemy's bullshit and refused to change uniforms.

This is only the fourth trench, which the Hicks arranged for a lightweight infantry field artillery that fired shotguns, blocking the entrance from the fourth trench into the fifth trench. Few people can get in, and many people use several artillery cannons to seal the entrance and throw iron pumpkins at surrounding assembly sites, leaving the soldiers of the Legion of Thunder with no access to the fifth trench.

General Albert attempted to have the soldiers of the Thunder Legion storm the fifth trench single-handedly before joining forces to blow up the thrower behind the second defensive wall directly with the carrying projectiles. But it soon became impossible. The Hicks left a small number of veterans in the fifth trench to guard, and a Thunder Corps soldier rushed in to deliver food to the Hicks veterans.

From here, General Albert had to refer again to the battle will of those Hicks veterans, who, in his view, fought very hard, especially without fear of death and with extreme ferocity. This viciousness is not only against the enemy, but also against themselves. In the final battle between positions and white-blade battles, General Albert repeatedly saw those Hicks veterans strike the Thunder Regiment's defences with iron pumpkins that lit the line of fire in search of common ground, leading to the eventual collapse of the Left-wing Nikancas, thus allowing the position to be seized by the Hicks...

It's not that the Thunder Corps took the Hicks' first line of defense into the first three trenches, which meant taking over the entire battlefield, and that the Hicks have been in passive defense. In fact, the Second Division of the Thunder Legion occupies only a small position on the front of the entire defensive camp of the Hicks, while continuing to attack the second defensive wall of the Hicks, as well as guarding against counter-attacks by the Hicks on the left and right flanks.

General Albert commanded the Second Division of the Legion of Thunder only to occupy the front first wall line of defense for three days, during which battles took place all the time. The first two days also used projectiles and new rifles to suppress the Hicks' counterattack, but the third day the Hicks amassed a lot of troops and launched an attack on the left and right wings, involving part of the Thunder Legion's defense force, suddenly launched a wave-like raid from the front...

Veterans Hicks attacked from high down, and not only proceeded along the connected trenches, they were even prepared to mount boards on the trenches, strike directly into the flat ground, and then jump into the first three trenches to fight the Legion of Thunder officers and Nikancas with a white blade.

The Thunder Regiment was able to withstand the enemy's bursts at first, but as the casualties grew and the Hicks grew, the first three regiments became impotent. When several Hicks veterans burst into the crowd on their side with iron pumpkins that lit the fire rope, the Nikanca collapsed, causing the position to fail completely...

General Albert said he couldn't figure out why the Hicks were so insane to reclaim their positions, even in spite of casualties. It was only when Claude was seen that the Hicks knew that Claude's troops were approaching their camp. In order to avoid losing sight of each other, they must first recover their frontal positions and inflict a heavy blow on General Albert's troops, so that they can turn their heads in response to the Claude attack in the rear.

“How many casualties?” Claude didn't expect such an end, nor did he expect the enemy to set such a targeted defensive position as the main battlefield of the camp's defense.

“The total number of casualties was more than 10,000, almost one third of the total strength of the second division, of which nearly 6,000 were killed in the war, which is why I said I lost a regiment.” General Albert was somewhat frustrated, the biggest failure since the establishment of the Legion of Thunder and the loss of such a large position of casualties, and now the morale of the Second Division is somewhat low.

“The Nykancha also suffered more than 10,000 casualties, of which more than 7,000 were killed in the war, mainly because they eventually collapsed and fled without bringing back the wounded left in their positions, all of whom were executed by the Hicks.” General Albert can only shake his head:

“Now they blame me for my indiscriminate command and think that I deliberately directed them to the position to die, and that attacking the enemy's camp was only the responsibility of our Legion of Thunder, which was supposed to defend mountainous sites and should not have been part of the attack. So now the Nikantha have refused to cooperate with our Legion of Thunder and are unwilling to continue the attack..."