,
The French really couldn't imagine that the Prussians were so crazy that before their soldiers could withdraw, artillery shells were already falling like hailstones!
Boom boom boom... Explosions came one after another, and the entire position turned into a sea of fire!
According to their original plan, when the enemy began to retreat, these heavy machine guns would immediately retreat to the rear to avoid enemy artillery fire.
But I didn't expect that Prussia would actually play the trick of breaking off the strong man's wrist. In this shelling, almost half of the heavy machine guns were blown into parts.
On the artillery position, the commander had earplugs in his ears. He was shouting crazily, regardless of whether the soldiers below could understand him!
"Fire! Keep firing!"
"Avenge the soldiers who died in the front! Blow up the Vosges Mountains!"
"Don't be stingy with ammunition! All the railway lines in the rear have been repaired and unobstructed. We have plenty of artillery shells!"
"Blow these Frenchies!"
In the dark night, even the barrels of these Krupp steel cannons were red-hot. These soldiers continued to operate the artillery at the risk of exploding the barrels.
The French should be lucky. Fortunately, in this era, there is no control over recoil technology, and the recoil of artillery relies on recoil!
It is difficult to ensure the accuracy of the artillery with this kind of mounting and retreating technology, because after three or four shells are fired, the recoil force has already moved the position of the artillery.
At this time, the shooting data need to be readjusted. At this moment, the Prussians have already killed the red eye, and no one has the time to recalculate. What they want now is the firepower density, and they don't care about accuracy at all.
It was precisely this flaw that allowed less than half of the heavy machine guns to escape from the shooting position!
"Crazy, these French people are crazy! They even bombed their own people!"
The heavy machine gunners who retreated to a safe place said with lingering fear!
The crazy bombardment lasted for twenty minutes, and no soldier could stand in the position leading to Saarburg. At this moment, the Prussians blew the horn of charge again, and the revengeful soldiers went into battle again.
This time the Prussians were fighting for their lives. They were racing against death. They had to rush forward before the heavy machine guns entered the firing position, and rush forward to fight the enemy hand-to-hand!
This time they succeeded. When the thousand death squads in the lead gasped and rushed to the French position at a speed of 100 meters, those terrifying heavy machine guns were really not ready!
The Mitrayotz heavy machine gun is powerful, but its operation is too complicated, and it is completely incomparable with the mature machine guns of later generations.
Moving back and forth and rebuilding the shooting platform is a time-consuming and troublesome task!
Facing the rapid charge of the Prussian army, the French soldiers could only once again engage in hand-to-hand combat. Taking advantage of the high morale of the massacre just now, soldiers from both sides launched a tenacious and cruel hand-to-hand fight.
The war has returned to its most primitive form. Those fighting in the dark light and shadow are no longer humans, but a group of beasts!
They used bayonets to pierce the enemy's body, used engineering shovels to tear off the opponent's skull, and used fists and teeth to attack the red-eyed inhumans in front of them.
They rolled together, blinding their opponents' eyes with their nails, and biting their throats with their teeth!
This scene is so cruel that even ghosts and gods dare not open their eyes!
The more brutal the battle, the closer it is to the essence of war! In the final analysis, fighting is still about numbers. The Prussians with an army of 120,000 people had the upper hand this time. They advanced inch by inch, and the French veterans could no longer resist it.
"Breakthrough! This is the third wave of charging warriors! Look...breakthrough!"
The staff officers around Prince Carl roared with excitement. After suffering such heavy casualties, the Prussian army finally captured the French's strongest and most strategically important peripheral position!
The defeated French army began to flee to higher ground, followed by groups of pursuing Prussian troops!
At this moment, the heavy machine guns in the French army's rear position opened fire again. The flames were suffocating, and batches of Prussian troops were swept to the ground.
But this time the Prussians had experience. When the French heavy machine guns opened fire, they quickly lay down, loaded bullets, and started to counterattack. They began to dig individual shooting holes while the soldiers were covering each other.
This set of civil engineering work was learned from Xiao Letian. The civil engineering work displayed by the Chinese army during the Austro-Prussian War shocked the Prussian army.
Subsequently, these Prussian officers began to exchange experiences with Chinese officers. At present, more than half of the Prussian army's field troops are able to carry out simple civil engineering operations.
These soldiers curled up and tried to get as close to the earth as possible. Then they started digging holes around them with one hand, and the dug soil piled up in the direction facing the enemy.
These individual soldier shooting pits do not need to be very deep. Twenty or thirty centimeters is enough, just enough to hide the soldier's chest inside. There is also a twenty centimeter shooting mound in front, which can be used to mount a Mauser rifle.
Facts have proved that this kind of cover is very effective. After the war, mathematicians and military experts have done various precise calculations. They found that this kind of individual shooting bunker, which is only 20 to 30 centimeters, although simple, can reduce the number of hits by 70%. Bullet probability!
Especially in the dark, it is difficult for heavy machine gunners to find soldiers close to the ground, which further reduces casualties!
Individual shooting pits are connected into a piece! Soon the Prussian counterattack was able to exchange bullets with the French army. Under their cover, more Prussian troops began to remove the sandbags left by the French, and rushed up one by one to build their own defensive positions!
"Very good, let our soldiers fight steadily and fight up step by step. The Vosges Mountains are not that big. We can surround Napoleon III in Metz after a bloody night of fighting!"
Prince Carl picked up the cold cup of green tea and drank it in one gulp. Only then did he realize that the cup of tea was so sweet and refreshing!
The war has entered a critical stage. The French built nine defensive positions along the Vosges Mountains. The Prussian army only broke through three of them after paying heavy casualties.
However, although the battle was tragic, the Prussian officers and soldiers also gained experience. They knew that the only trump card of the French on the opposite side was heavy machine guns!
As long as we can move forward steadily and learn some experience from the Chinese in civil engineering, it may be slower but more effective!
At the beginning of each wave of attacks, the Prussian artillery opened the way and carried out area-wide bombing. When the French were dizzy, the soldiers began to accelerate the charge, and they must enter hand-to-hand combat before the Prussian heavy machine guns opened fire.
If they are fired upon by heavy machine guns before they come into close contact, the soldiers will immediately crawl on their knees to find cover, and then the artillery will bomb the exposed heavy machine gun positions!
This is a set of tactics that tests the coordination of infantry and artillery as well as the level of civil engineering work. This tactic basically has the shadow of the First World War. It can be said that the overall combat thinking is nearly half a century ahead of the French!
McMahon was scurrying back and forth like an ant on a hot pot. He looked at the hands on his pocket watch and roared, "It's already three-thirty in the morning! Are the Prussians still finished?"
"They have abandoned tens of thousands of corpses, right? Why haven't they ceased fire yet? When did Karl become so crazy? Why is this?"
"Why on earth is this?"
