artillery arc

Chapter 597: Proson Empire Summer Campaign Plan

Belka Test Site No. 2.

The new assault gun had just completed its driving test and stopped directly in front of the emperor and his entourage.

The officer who was driving the assault gun climbed out of the hatch, landed lightly, straightened his clothes, and saluted the emperor: "Your Majesty, the new assault gun is performing well. I hope it can be delivered to the soldiers as soon as possible!"

Emperor: "Did it withstand 100 rounds of enemy fire?"

"Yes, and its walking ability and reliability are also quite outstanding at present."

It's just that the maintenance is too cumbersome, but no one will say this directly in front of the emperor.

"Very good." The emperor nodded. "We still have three to four months before we launch our offensive. We must produce them as soon as possible and put them into battle!"

General Moltke frowned: "Assault guns have no turrets and are not suitable for offensive operations. When Rokossov used his assault guns, he used them all for defense and rarely for offense.

"Even if we launch an attack, we will only use it as long-range support firepower. The ones in front are still T34 tanks."

The Emperor turned to the Director of Armored Forces and said, "Are you saying that I made a mistake in naming the assault gun?"

"Uh, no, there's no such thing."

Emperor: "You just said that Rokossov once used his assault guns in an offensive, so we can refer to his tactics."

General Moltke: "This is... difficult, because their assault guns have the same mobility as the T34, or even better. And our experimental assault gun..."

Emperor: "I don't understand, the Ants can achieve high defensive capabilities with so little weight, why can't we do it?"

At this time, the academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences who had been listening nearby interrupted and said, "According to our calculations, Rokossov's new heavy tank should be 60 tons, which is similar to our new tank."

(Actually it’s 40 tons.)
Emperor: "But his new tank has already been galloping on the battlefield, and it has left a psychological shadow on our soldiers! This should have been the effect of our Type 6 tank on the battlefield! The soldiers of Ant should have feared our Type 6 tank as much as they feared our empire itself!
"But now it's our soldiers, the creation of Ant who is not strong in fear technology! You should be ashamed! Everyone in the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Design Institute should be ashamed!"

The academician nodded repeatedly.

At this time, Air Force Marshal Grand Duke Meyer said: "The Air Force's new fighter jets have recently begun to be equipped to the troops, which can ensure that we can completely gain air superiority."

The emperor frowned slightly. "Has it been equipped to the troops? When you reported the progress last time, didn't you say that the first flight would be in April?"

"Well, it's not a jet fighter. It's the Tower 190 fighter that we improved on the basis of the Focke-Wulf 152. Its performance is higher than the 190, especially at high altitudes..."

As soon as he finished speaking, the air defense siren sounded.

The emperor frowned. "A daytime raid? Don't those rats in the Royal Air Force only dare to raid the cities of the Empire at night?"

Before he finished speaking, the messenger from the test site rode a motorcycle to the emperor, got off the motorcycle and saluted: "Report! Multiple observation posts and radar stations in the empire have discovered a large-scale fleet of aircraft, which is rushing towards the interior of the empire."

Grand Duke Meyer was sweating profusely: "This has never happened before, but I have deployed enough fighter squadrons to control the air. They will never succeed!"

The army generals all looked askance at the fat former ace pilot (Field Marshal Meyer was once an ace pilot).

Suddenly, anti-aircraft guns near the test site opened fire.

The emperor, generals, and scientists all turned their heads to look in the direction of the air defense position, and then looked up together.

The first batch of shells had already exploded into black clumps in the sky, and judging by the size of the clumps, the explosions must have been very high.

Then countless white lines appeared, and the emperor realized a second later that they were the contrails of an airplane flying at high altitude.

The white lines are clearly distributed at three or four different heights, densely stacked on top of each other.

Giles: "This flight direction is Prothenia. They are going to bomb the capital!"

Grand Duke Meyer wiped his sweat with a handkerchief and said, "We have seen more than 300 of them. How can such a large fleet be possible? Didn't Raberville report that the United States only had 1000 heavy bombers? Why are they sending out one-third of them at once?"

Emperor: "Let all citizens of Germania enter the air raid shelters. My air force commander, where are your interceptors?"

"There!" shouted an adjutant of an unknown general, "coming from the northeast!"

Everyone's attention turned to the sky again.

Sure enough, there was a row of white lines approaching the large fleet in the northeast direction.

"Why is there only this much?" the Emperor asked again. Grand Duke Meyer: "It looks like this is already a fighter wing, no less, no less, Your Majesty!"

The white line of fighter jets rushed into the dense bomber formation. The bombers' self-defense firepower network could not be seen clearly on the ground, and everyone could only watch the development of the situation with their eyes wide open.

----

At this time, the air was already in chaos.

The bombers, in dense formation, launched intensive fire at the Plosson fighters that tried to intercept them.

The latest modification of the B17 bomber is simply an aerial hedgehog, with its body full of self-defense cannons and machine guns. The firepower of one aircraft may be stronger than that of a destroyer of the Fuso Empire.

A dense formation of more than 300 aircraft projected ultra-high-density firepower. As soon as Plossen's fighter planes rushed into the formation, several of them caught fire and fell to the ground, dragging thick smoke.

The pilots of the Eighth Air Force had been training in the mainland for more than half a year, so their marksmanship was guaranteed. Moreover, the missions of the bomber self-defense firepower and the ground air defense firepower were similar, both of which were to drive away enemy aircraft and force the enemy to give up the attack.

As the enemy planes rushed in, the group also entered the fire net of ground anti-aircraft artillery.

If they were Royal Air Force planes, they would most likely choose to avoid ground anti-aircraft fire and engage in a battle of wits and courage with the gunners.

But the United States Air Force adopted a completely different strategy. The generals believed that at the altitude where the fleet was flying, Plossen's fixed anti-aircraft fire would not have much effect, and it would be better to maintain a dense formation to deal with the threat of enemy fighters.

So more than 300 bombers plunged into the area where shells were constantly exploding.

Just as the generals said, the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery has basically no accuracy - and it is unlikely to have accuracy. Ground attacks on bombers flying at this high altitude are generally just aiming according to the parameters issued by the air defense commander, and then firing according to the parameters.

Even if a bomber was really shot down, the anti-aircraft artillery crew on the ground would not know that they had accomplished a meritorious service because they could not be sure whose shell had shot down the bomber.

----

Emperor Proson kept his head up and watched the enemy bomber group leave the field of vision.

He looked away only after the anti-aircraft guns stopped firing.

The emperor had an ugly expression.

Emperor: "The United States has begun bombing our industrial cities. If the Air Force does not work hard, our industry will soon come to a standstill. But now, let us forget about the United States' blatant daytime bombing and return to the Wolf's Lair to look at our attack plan!"

The Eagle's Nest is far away from Prothenia and naturally far away from the Belka Test Site.

The Wolf's Lair is the code name for Emperor Prothenia's secret bedroom, which is also the emperor's wartime headquarters.

An hour and a half later, the emperor led a group of generals into the large conference room of the Wolf's Lair. The staff had prepared maps in advance, and the draft battle plan was placed on the table according to the number of participants.

After the generals took their seats, the emperor spoke: "Last year and the year before, we tried to end the war quickly, but our efforts failed. This summer, we will try again to end the war, or at least strive for a more favorable peace. Marshal Celtic, you tell us about it."

Marshal Celtic stood up, picked up the map stick, and came to the map prepared by the staff: "Ladies and Gentlemen, to achieve your majesty's goal, we think the fastest way is to annihilate a large number of the enemy's living forces.

"This is also more feasible than the goals of the previous two years. In the previous two years, we were defeated by mud and severe winter because we required the troops to drive straight into the vast territory of Ant. This put a huge pressure on our logistics supply.

"This time, we are only fighting in areas that our supply lines can easily reach. We can expect that our troops will have better supplies during the battle."

After the Chief of the General Staff finished speaking, all the generals nodded. Grand Duke Meyer added: "The battle line is very close to our Yonggu Airport, which is in good condition. The Air Force can also use its full strength."

Marshal Celtic nodded: "That's it. The shorter the advance distance, the more we can accomplish our goals. So the next question is which part of the enemy we should eat.

“Currently, the Ants have five heavy troop groups on the front line. The northernmost one is the St. Andrewsburg Front. From north to south, they are the Belix Front, the Western Front, the Shepetovka Front, and the southernmost Khazaria Front.

"Let's talk about it from north to south. The St. Andrew's Fort Front in the north has a combat area full of dense forests and swamps, and dense water networks, which is not convenient for large-scale encirclement operations.

"The three fronts in the middle are actually connected. The front lines in the areas they defended have been stable since the winter of 914. There are many large industrial cities and a large number of reinforced concrete fortresses. Trying to eat up the enemy's heavy troops here is like pulling teeth out of a tiger's mouth!
"And please see, the terrain in the entire central region is not suitable for our attack, because the area we control protrudes towards Ant, like a fat belly..."

The Celtic Marshal looked at Grand Duke Mayer.

Emperor: "That's enough, we know what you mean."

Marshal Celtic nodded: "There are not many options left. In fact, there is only one option, which is the First Khazaria Front that occupies Borsk. The good news is that we almost surrounded the Borsk Front here, but we were deceived at that time and deployed our troops to the Yeisk-Yarvik direction.

"Now, we will not split our forces. We will surround Rokossov's Khazaria Front here!"

(End of this chapter)