In view of the fact that the advice Lelouch had previously given General Hipper had just begun to take effect,
Duke Rupprecht was very patient with his latest proposal. Only after listening to it carefully did he raise several questions:
“You believe we should concentrate radio communications equipment, the authority to call in artillery fire, and even more supporting firepower in the hands of the most forward grassroots units?
“On what basis do you think that, after such a reorganization, combat effectiveness would improve? And where are we supposed to find so many radios and support-fire assets to transfer? What will the other units use?”
Fortunately, Lelouch had anticipated these questions as well. He had mentioned them in the plan; it was just that the leadership had no time to read the materials right now.
Lelouch hurriedly picked up the proposal that had been tossed onto the table, flipped to one of the pages, and explained in detail:
“I know some of these ideas are too far ahead of their time, even somewhat abrupt. So I hope to begin by analyzing things from the fundamentals. Your Highness has also seen that since the outbreak of this war, the form of warfare has undergone earth-shattering changes.
“In the last war, the disadvantages of the attacking side were not yet so obvious. Although the defenders could also occupy certain favorable terrain, the attackers could still achieve breakthroughs by massing an absolute superiority of troops on a local battlefield—decades ago, Marshal Moltke relied on precisely that to defeat Napoleon III.
“But now, at least on the Western Front, both sides have dug more and more trenches and fortifications. Whoever attacks suffers, and the casualty exchange ratio is becoming increasingly lopsided. Examples of one regiment holding off the assault of several divisions can be found everywhere.
“And the essence of all this can actually be summed up in one point: in the last war, the density of soldiers and the density of firepower were directly proportional. Now, however, that is no longer the case.
“In an era without automatic weapons, an era when artillery all fired by direct line-of-sight aiming, if you wanted to concentrate the firepower of a certain number of guns and cannons, you had to physically concentrate the human bodies capable of operating that many weapons together to launch the attack. To this day, Aolio and Lusha in the east are still fighting wars this way, without the slightest awareness that the times have changed.
“But after the spread of automatic weapons and long-range artillery fire using indirect aiming, if the attacking side wants to project that much firepower, there is actually no longer any need to mass so many men at a single point. A small number of people are entirely capable of guiding a large amount of firepower delivery.
“And the fewer men concentrated during an attack, the smaller the target. When subjected to dense coverage from the defending side’s artillery and machine guns, their losses will also be smaller.
“So there is one self-evident general trend in the history of human warfare: the more advanced military technology becomes, the fewer soldiers both the attacking and defending sides need to fill the line per unit length of front, and the more manpower can be left for rear reserves and defensive lines.
“Only after the soldiers filling the front line or conducting fire reconnaissance suffer casualties should reserves from the rear defensive line be brought up to replace them. Otherwise, piling too many men onto the forward edge at the same time is nothing more than throwing lives away for nothing.”
After hearing these words, Duke Rupprecht and Major General Hipper both could not help falling into deep thought.
The principles Lelouch had spoken of were, of course, things His Highness the Duke, as a general commanding an army, already had a similar intuitive understanding of. He simply had not yet summarized these theories from the higher perspective of military science.
After all, the World War had only been going on for a little over four months, and many hazy things had not yet formed into a theoretical system.
Yet Lelouch had actually helped him summarize them in a concise and systematic way. The principles were still the same principles, but the logic had been expressed much more clearly.
After pondering for a while, the more the Duke thought about it, the more pleasantly surprised he became, as though he had pierced through a thin layer of paper after secluded contemplation.
Once the Duke had thought it through, he could not help murmuring to himself:
“So this is the inevitable trend of history…? The more technology advances, the less manpower is required to deliver firepower. In the age of rifles, to concentrate the firepower of one thousand rifles required one thousand infantrymen; by the age of machine guns, twenty machine gunners can replace those one thousand infantrymen.
“In that case, what originally required one thousand soldiers to be in an attacking state can now be reduced to only twenty soldiers in an attacking state at the same time, while the remaining 980 can continue to exist as reserves in a defensive posture. That way, they are less likely to be mowed down by machine guns or killed en masse under artillery coverage. Only after the twenty men in front suffer casualties do we replenish them from the reserves… Is my understanding of this ideal model correct?”
The Duke had even begun to ask questions without any sense of shame, actively seeking Lelouch’s guidance on whether his line of reasoning was right or wrong. It was obvious that his eyes were filled with a sincere thirst for knowledge.
And Lelouch was not stingy about revealing a bit more high-level, substantive summary:
“Your summary is absolutely correct, but there is one further detail I would like to add. I believe that the ‘remaining 980 men’ you mentioned do not necessarily have to sit idle in the rear entirely as reserves.
“They can fully coordinate with the spearhead units that are truly carrying out the offensive mission. After the spearhead units break through the enemy positions and wedge themselves into the enemy’s defensive line, they can immediately rush into these newly occupied areas and reinforce the defense in real time.
“For example, if the spearhead assault units tear two deep gaps in the enemy’s defensive line, like a pair of iron pincers, and have a strong chance of cutting off the retreat route of a certain enemy sector and completely encircling and annihilating them.
“Then, out of the instinct to survive, even if the enemy was originally in a defensive state, at that moment they will have no choice but to switch to an attacking state, climb out of their trenches, and launch a full counterattack against the weak points on both flanks of the pincer-shaped area we have just occupied.
“And at that time, if we send our second-line reserves forward to fill the line and hold down the positions just torn open by the spearhead assault troops, we can wait in ease for the exhausted enemy and defend on the spot against their counterattack.
“Because in modern warfare, when a soldier is in a ‘defensive state,’ his ‘defensive power’ is several times higher than his ‘defensive power’ when in an attacking state. Therefore, the more of our soldiers are in a ‘defensive’ state, and the more of the enemy’s soldiers are forced into an ‘attacking’ state, the greater the advantage we gain.
“As already demonstrated earlier, on the microscopic tactical level, defense has far too great an advantage over offense, while the advantage of offense is reflected only in the concentration of troops on the macroscopic strategic level. Therefore, the more perfect military science becomes in the future, the more it must achieve both at once: ‘enjoy as much as possible the attacker’s advantage in concentrating forces on the strategic level, while enjoying as much as possible the defender’s advantage in defensive power on the tactical level.’”
Whether stormtrooper tactics, infantry-tank coordinated blitzkrieg, or deep operations theory, they actually all had one point in common.
That was that, under the level of weapons technology available to them, they all exhausted every possible method to ensure that, “although on the macroscopic strategic level one’s own side must play the role of the attacker, on the microscopic tactical level, the fewer and more dispersed the soldiers playing the attacking role, the better.”
Then, as much as possible, they guided the remaining friendly soldiers into temporary defensive roles according to the situation.
The tank units in later armored divisions were the spearhead offensive units that tore open defensive lines.
As for the mechanized infantry regiments attached to armored divisions, they were actually temporary defensive roles. It was just that the defensive positions of these defensive roles were relatively far forward, belonging to “forward defense.”
As technology progressed, the equipment of the “spearhead” and the “forward line-fillers” would be continuously replaced and upgraded, but the underlying logic would always remain the same.
…
“So it is based on these considerations that I thought of the overall direction for tactical improvement: when our current combat units execute offensive missions, there are simply far too many men in an ‘attacking state’ at every moment. It is too wasteful.
“Soldiers in an attacking state are very fragile and have very low defensive power, so at any given moment, as few soldiers as possible should be in an attacking state. This requires tilting the concentration of firepower toward those men, while allowing the other line-filling units to maintain only a basic firepower density.
“In the future, we can also dig deeper along this general line of thought, but that will require the support of more advanced weapons and equipment. Advances in weapons technology and tactics have always complemented one another.”
These words of Lelouch’s could also be considered a synthesis of military thought from ancient times to the present, integrating it into one whole.
At last, Duke Rupprecht felt his entire spirit lift as he listened, as though Liu Xuande had just finished hearing the Longzhong Plan.
The Duke sighed with heartfelt emotion: “In the future, you may very well have hope of becoming the Clausewitz of our era! My God, who could have imagined that such a person had never attended a military academy? Very well. I will do my utmost to satisfy the weapons allocations you requested.
“But first, tell me about this idea you mentioned of ‘separating assault troops and line-filling troops.’ What should the approximate ratio between these two parts be? Or, to put it simply, how large an assault force should be attached to one division?”
Lelouch thought for a moment. Historically, when the German army later developed stormtrooper tactics, it was basically one battalion per division. As for second-line divisions, they would not need them.
So he was too lazy to force an innovation here and simply copied the mature answer on this point:
“I think that, under ideal conditions, a main-force division assigned the main offensive mission should be equipped with one battalion of assault troops, then distribute them downward so that each regiment can receive one company. The company should be the smallest unit for dispersed use of assault troops.
“In other words, during actual operations, a company may perhaps be divided into squads and platoons to advance, but at the very least, it must be ensured that the company remains in the same combat zone, and that the company commander can command the entire company in a timely manner. As for the battalion, it can be split into companies and follow different regiments to operate separately.
“However, in an actual campaign, it is impossible for every division in an army to undertake the main offensive mission, and an offensive will not simply push forward evenly along the entire line. So line-filling divisions do not need assault battalions. If equipment is insufficient at the beginning, second-line divisions can also go without them.”
Duke Rupprecht thought it over and felt that this ratio should be quite suitable, roughly matching his own conjecture as well.
He could only be heard murmuring in a low voice as he calculated: “One elite main-force division assigned one battalion, serving as the spearhead of the entire army’s offensive? Before the Battle of Ypres begins, there probably won’t be much time for us to prepare. Even if I do my utmost to gather and concentrate equipment, at most we can scrape together two or three such battalions in the short term.
“And we also have to consider personnel training and the process of adjusting to new tactics. Then let us select two main offensive divisions from the army and attach such assault battalions to them, using them as a trial first. If they perform well in this campaign, we can slowly train and expand them afterward.
“As for the specific weapons list, draw one up and see how many men each battalion needs, and what equipment. Hm, Karl’s 12th Division is quite suitable to serve as one of the two main offensive divisions when the time comes. You are also relatively familiar with them, so you can remain with the 12th Division.
“When the time comes, I will assign Karl an assault battalion commander, while you only hold the rank of captain, so for the time being, you will concurrently serve as the battalion’s deputy commander and as commander of one of its companies. Your company will be reorganized from the 12th Division’s divisional reconnaissance company, and all equipment will be supplied first to this trial unit of yours.”
——
P.S.: New book seeking comments, follow-up reads, favorites, and votes. Thank you.
Since the plot has reached this point, some military theory had to be explained, so don’t call it padding. Fortunately, these are still public chapters.