All tanks in the coalition's company-level combat units are equipped with radio devices. Even if they are fighting at night, as long as they do not fight randomly and stick to the original defense line in an orderly manner, there will be no accidental damage and it will facilitate coordinated operations.
In contrast, the 3rd Tank Brigade of the Holy Roman Empire could only rely on the experience of the crew to fight, because the surrounding crews at night could not see the signal flag waved by the battalion commander or company commander at all.
As long as the leading vehicle fires, nearby tanks will follow suit. This follow-up style of play has been used since the cold weapon era, and it has not disappeared to this day. @*~~
Everyone believed that, on the other side of the river, there was a large area of enemies swarming with darkness. If we concentrated our firepower to attack, we would be able to severely damage the opponent and kill a large number of enemies.
Across the Vistula River, the two sides engaged in an intense exchange of fire for almost half an hour, which ended with Schwartz leading the remnants of his 3rd Tank Brigade to retreat in panic.
Army Commander Lu Xuecheng did not let his men forcefully cross the Vistula River for a night pursuit, but chose to let the opponent evacuate from the battlefield on the other side of the river.
Without air cover, it is unwise to rashly pursue the enemy at night, and it is easy to be ambushed by the opponent. Everything must wait until dawn.
At dawn, after counting, the coalition forces destroyed a total of sixty-two tanks and three types of trucks in this battle.
The results were neither big nor small, and our own casualties were minimal. None of the T-7 heavy tanks with higher defenses were destroyed. However, the Japanese army lost T-6 light tanks, and more than a dozen of them needed repairs.
After retreating to a safe area, Schwartz received reports from his men that his troops had lost almost two-thirds of their tanks and one-third of their trucks.
The heavy equipment suffered heavy losses in battle. After this battle, his 3rd Tank Brigade was almost severely damaged and lost its combat effectiveness.
Next, if Crown Prince Joseph asks his troops to continue fighting, they can only perform low-intensity tasks of disturbing the opponent's supply line.
The task Lu Xuecheng received was to lead his troops to besiege the city of Krakow. It was easy to fight against the Holy Roman Empire troops in the wild, but the opportunity was hard to come by.
The other side seems to know that it is no match for the Ming Dynasty King's Division. Since the beginning of the war, it has been holding on to towns in various places and using sneak attacks to attack the coalition forces from time to time.
It is definitely not possible to wait in place. After the enemy has suffered a lot, he will not come back to ask for trouble again. Otherwise, he would be really stupid.
Since it was difficult to get a good opportunity to annihilate the enemy in the wild, after the troops had rested and recuperated, Lu Xuecheng led his troops to continue westward until they reached the city of Krakow.
After mobilization, the original garrison in the city has reached 30,000 troops. With the addition of more than 16,000 new Crusaders, the total strength has been taken over.
After arriving at the designated location, Lu Xuecheng found that his troops had even skipped the task of digging trenches, because the opponent had already dug two trenches for him in advance.
The purpose is to prevent the coalition forces from launching an immediate siege. It seems that they have learned the lesson of Poli and know how to take the initiative to conduct field battles during the day, and shrink their troops into the city with the intention of holding on.
Release one of the previously captured prisoners and send a letter of persuasion to surrender to the garrison in the city.
Sure enough, he was rejected by the other party.
This is great...
"Enemy plane strikes!"
"Prepare anti-aircraft guns!"
Nearly a hundred "Albatross" fighter jets flew out from the city. These pilots of the Holy Roman Empire planned to take advantage of the enemy's unstable foothold to catch them off guard and let them experience the severity of the air attack.
"Boom boom boom..."
However, the Ming army had already converted a large number of armored vehicles and trucks into anti-aircraft vehicles, and installed 20mm cannons and 10mm twin machine guns, which greatly increased the anti-aircraft firepower of ground troops.
All air defense troops have received systematic and relevant training and have shot many target drones, so they will not be in a hurry during actual combat.
In particular, the Holy Roman Empire's air force fleet adopted a low-altitude attack method, which was an extremely fatal mistake in the face of the powerful anti-aircraft firepower network, and more than twenty aircraft were quickly shot down.
The remaining pilots also tried to turn defeat into victory, but as a result of continuing to stay on the battlefield, more than thirty more were destroyed, which was equivalent to the loss of more than half of the fighter planes, and they did not gain much victory.
Replace with empty.
Attacking the prairie cavalry responsible for scraping land in the suburbs may achieve very good results.
The Holy Roman Empire's fleet of aircraft directly attacked the armored units with the strongest anti-aircraft firepower, which was like actively seeking death.
The King of Ming Dynasty made his fortune by air raiding others. How could he not be on guard against being air raided by others?
In particular, European countries have equipped a large number of fighter jets, and air defense has become the focus of this campaign.
After teaching the fool who was looking for death, Lu Xuecheng decided to call the bomber unit to teach the other party a lesson!
There were as many as 3,000 "Hercules" bombers participating in the war, enough to carry out carpet bombing of the three major cities of the Holy Roman Empire at the same time.
After receiving the report from the Third Army, the bomber formation immediately dispatched to bomb Krakow. The defenders and people in the city also enjoyed the "preferential treatment" of Warsaw and Lublin!
The Ming Dynasty Air Force dispatched more than a dozen "Hercules" bombers. In March, it dropped 10,000 incendiary bombs on the city of Krakow!
What is not known is that the Ming Air Force, also known as the "Little Arsonist", is particularly interested in enemy cities with a large number of wooden houses!
Even in a fortress-like city, such as Magdeburg, thick city walls are useless in the face of condescending bombers.
Under the cover of hundreds of "Blackfoot Albatross" fighter jets and twenty-four "air gunships", the "Hercules" bomber formation easily turned the city of Krakow into a sea of flames.
More than 30,000 people were killed, bombed, or burned to death on the spot, and more than 60,000 people were injured in the air raid. The entire city was roasted by the high temperature.
Think this is the end?
how can that be possible?
"Rolling Thunder" comes again and again, this time it's coming to your home!
Zhang Huangyan ordered the implementation of "Operation Rolling Thunder", that is, carpet bombing, against the three major cities in the Holy Roman Empire: Warsaw, Lublin, and Krakow!
This can weaken the opponent's will to resist, shorten the time required for the war to the greatest extent, and reduce the number of casualties among coalition soldiers.
The Ming Air Force dispatched 17 bombers on the first day, reduced it to 498 bombers on the second day, and only 424 bombers participated in the air attack on the third day.
Excluding three days of rain, there were seven days of air raids in the first ten days. A total of more than 2,700 "Hercules" bombers were dispatched and more than one bomb was dropped.
After years of continuous air raids, there are basically not many intact buildings left in Krakow, and most places have been reduced to warm ruins.
The defenders, like the common people, were initially high-spirited and united, but gradually became uneasy and anxious, until now they all looked dazed and had dull eyes.
The air force stationed at the city's airport released all remaining fighter planes on the first day of the air raid.
However, the results of the air battle far exceeded the imagination of the defenders, and not a single fighter plane could return safely. @*~~
In the end, even the airport was bombed into craters, and even the fighter planes were unable to take off.
In terms of overall performance, the single-engine "Albatross" is far from the opponent of the "Blackfoot Albatross" that has been upgraded many times.
The experience and level of the pilots of the Holy Roman Empire Air Force can only reach the capabilities of a rookie in the Ming Air Force.
As long as the Ming pilots don't underestimate the enemy, the opponent is just a bunch of turkeys waiting to be slaughtered!
The two sides struggled for a while, and then the winner was decided without any suspense.
The battlefield air supremacy quickly fell into the hands of the Ming Air Force. There is no need to go into details about what happened next...
Lu Xuecheng also asked the engineering troops to build a field airport outside the city to facilitate the takeoff and landing of helicopters and fighter jets.
With this field airport, it would be impossible for the other party to quickly regain local air supremacy.
After being besieged for only ten days, the defenders in the city had already begun to discuss how to break out of the siege, and even surrendered.
If you break through...
There are two trenches dug for yourself outside, and there are a large number of enemies outside the trenches.
If you want to cross the trench, you can't ride on horseback or in a vehicle. You can only swim across it with individual weapons.
The reserved road was also blocked from both ends by our own side and the enemy. Now there was no way out without swimming across the ditch.
However.
With individual weapons, how can we defeat enemies equipped with tanks?
This is a self-contradictory problem, and the defenders have not come up with the best solution from top to bottom.
And those new Crusaders who had previously clamored to kill all the invaders were now dejected.
No matter how powerful they are, they can't shoot down the swarms of bombers in the sky.
Even if the other party comes once every three days, if this continues for a month, all the remaining New Crusaders will go crazy.
They would rather die fighting during the breakout than be bombed alive or burned to death in such a cowardly manner.
Perhaps defending the city itself was a huge mistake, and the forest should have been used to sneak up on the enemy.
Compared with Warsaw, the situation in Krakow is slightly better. The former has almost become a hell on earth.
In the first half of the month, Warsaw was bombed eleven times. In the first month of the war, the city was bombed twenty-four times!
Warsaw started out as a city, but a month later, it was reduced to a giant tomb!
As the air raids continued, the number of dead slowly approached that of the living, and the living were gradually dying.
This city that once had a population of more than 10,000 people may end up in a graveyard.
The defenders organized three large-scale breakouts, but all failed, and tens of thousands of soldiers were lost.
After holding on for thirty days, the Warsaw defenders had to surrender to the coalition forces in order for the survivors to survive.
Even if he is sent to mine, it is better than living in Warsaw.
It's impossible to fight in the streets. The other side doesn't send ground troops to attack the city at all.
Just use bombers to drop incendiary bombs, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, ten thousand...
It was thrown until the defenders could no longer hold on and surrendered.
If you don't surrender, it will really become a "BBQ feast"!
Many people who followed Augusta and escaped the last air raid eventually died in this air raid.
On the advice of his son Joseph, Leopold did not agree to send the air force to support Warsaw.
Using the city to consume the enemy's ammunition and being able to delay the opponent for a month basically satisfied Joseph.
It would be better if it could be delayed for three months or even more than half a year. Unfortunately, the intensity of the opponent's bombing was too great and the defenders could not hold on for that long.
Prior to this, the defenders of Lublin had surrendered to the coalition forces, otherwise they would all be blown to death by the other side.
The experience of these two defenders proves that even if they stick to the city, it seems impossible to block the opponent's attack.
After a large-scale replacement of high-tech weapons and widening the technical gap with the opponents behind them, the Ming army no longer cares whether it is fighting the opponent in a field battle or a siege battle.
If you need to attack a city, you don't necessarily have to let the infantry fight on the city. You can use this carpet bombing tactic to force the opponent to surrender.
As long as it is not a super-large city with a population of millions like Beidu, it will be difficult for ordinary cities to withstand the large number of incendiary bombs dropped by the winner's carpet bombing.
Especially many buildings in European cities are made of wood. In the face of incendiary bombs, these wooden houses are good firewood!
After dropping the bomb, if there is a strong wind, the entire neighborhood, or even the entire city, will turn into a burning sea. @*~~
At this time, Osman's role is reflected!
This ally is the inexhaustible raw material warehouse of the Ming Empire!
The gasoline that arrived on the northern shore of the Black Sea was processed in the local arsenal and turned into an extremely terrifying weapon - incendiary bombs!
This process is also in line with the purpose of Emperor Haojing, which is to achieve local manufacturing and nearby distribution while saving freight!
After the incendiary bombs are prepared, they can be loaded onto trains, transported to frontline transportation hubs, and then distributed to various airports where bombers are deployed.
Now that he had a willing enemy, Zhu Cixiang also told Ibrahim the techniques for making incendiary bombs.
The Ottoman arsenal can also produce this magical weapon that can be used for barbecue...
On the southern battlefield, Austrian bombers with stars and crescents spray-painted on their fuselages were also dropped on Vienna.
This kind of thing.
Ibrahim did not want to destroy Vienna, but wanted to capture the famous city intact.
However, the defenders did not intend to let him get what he wanted, and the war eventually developed to an irreconcilable point.
The first goal of the 200,000 Ottoman troops when they invaded Austria was to besiege Vienna, the home of the Habsburg family! .
Capturing the city was of landmark significance, so Ibrahim attached great importance to it.
In order to reduce the casualties of soldiers and avoid a blow to his own morale, Ibrahim agreed to adopt the same tactics as the Ming army.
It's just that the Ottoman Air Force's combat efficiency is not as good as that of its allies, and coupled with the weather, it can only ensure that only dozens of bombers can drop bombs on Vienna every day. Update without error@
After Zhang Huangyan learned about the battle situation on the southern front, he didn't have high expectations.
As long as the Ottomans sent troops to contain some enemy forces, the main battlefield was still on the Eastern Front.
Leopold and his son want to lure the enemy deeper. Do you first think about whether your country has strategic depth?
If we forget this, our country will be bulldozed by the Ming Dynasty in one fell swoop before strategic depth can take effect...
