Chapter 18 Before the War (2)

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  ……

  Please go ahead and provide the text you'd like me to translate. I'll return the translation in English.

  "It's too expensive... it's too expensive!" Xuyang was sweating profusely, and the strange smell inside the tank made him feel like he could hardly breathe. He opened the hatch and exposed half of his body outside, picking up the binoculars to observe the slope in front of him.

  It was a slope of about 35 degrees, and from Xu Yang's angle, the view wasn't very good. Two clusters of trees blocked his line of sight. He shouted to the people inside the vehicle: "Turn the muzzle towards 1 o'clock!" Then he focused on observing again, feeling that if there was an ambush, it would definitely be there.

  Behind this command vehicle followed 16 Type I tanks, scattered and concealed in hollows or thickets.

  Xu Yang seemed to have heard something and suddenly a dark cannon barrel stretched out from the woods. He raised his hand and shouted: "Fire!"

  A shell from an exercise cannon shot into the woods, white smoke came out, and the mouth of the cannon sticking out of the woods fell down weakly.

  Xu Yang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and conducting a mock battle with Guderian was indeed a suffocating experience. Guderian always managed to find good hiding spots as ambush points. He didn't order the entire regiment to concentrate and launch a surprise attack, but instead sent out a flag signal: "Fall back, retreat behind 56 Highland!"

  Treads stained with mud, rolling back and forth, just as Xu Yang's tank company was retreating, the enemy tanks suddenly appeared on the slope and both flanks, their bodies jerking to a halt, turrets slowly rotating...

  "It's all over......" Xu Yang sighed in his heart, only to see that a small number of their tanks put up a brief resistance before they all spewed out white smoke and their gun barrels drooped powerlessly.

  A tank with a command flag inserted at the rear aimed its barrel at Xu Yang's command vehicle. A "boom" sound came from the dark muzzle, and white smoke burst out. Xu Yang only had time to feel the car shake before he fell off the vehicle, his head hitting the engine compartment partition. "Ah damn!" His head buzzed loudly, almost fainting.

  Boye was the driver of this command tank. He turned his head and looked at Xuyang, sighing: "Lieutenant, we lost again."

  How is there an 'again'? It's very simple, Xuyang has never interrupted the competition with Gudrian, and in dozens of competitions, Xuyang seems to have never won once.

  Return to the barracks.

  Xu Yang stood dejectedly in front of Guderian, his two assistants, Barbarossa-Rick and Weist-Joseph, also standing at attention with a defeated look. The entire regiment's morale had been dealt a crushing blow after losing continuously.

  As for another departmental staff officer, Hans-Günter von Kannen, this guy has already 'defected' to Guderian's camp.

  Goodrian summarized the results of the exercise just now, "Hehehe... there's progress! This time I destroyed six of my tanks."

  Xu Yang thought Guderian was smiling very slyly.

  "Know why I always win?" Goodrian waved the tactical map in his hand, "Because my tactical thinking is more mature than yours, and... your tactics are learned from the textbooks I wrote. So don't be discouraged, you've done well!"

  This is indeed a true story, teachers winning students, seems like there's nothing worth being proud of.

  Xu Yang and others stood at attention and saluted: "We won't always lose!"

  Goodrian smiled brightly, "Alright! Good job! You've got spirit!" He walked over and patted each of them on the shoulder, encouraging, "You'll all be pillars of the Empire in the future! Especially you, Strak, I've already forwarded your suggestion to HQ."

  What he said was Xu Yang's suggestion for infantry coordination operations.

  K'armen seemed to agree, saying: "Tanks as the main assault force, with infantry following up, this tactic has been studied by both England and France, but your tactics are more mature than theirs."

  "What?! Xu Yang was shocked and asked hastily, disregarding his identity: "Are the British and French really studying this tactic?!"

  Goodrian was perplexed by Xu Yang's unexpected move, saying: "To be correct; tanks as a breakthrough force to cover infantry charges, this is the tactical concept first proposed by Britain and France. Is there a problem?"

  Xu Yang suddenly wilted, feeling extremely disheartened. "So the British and French already have such tactics." He paused, "Hmm!?" Suddenly he lifted his head, "You mean they use tanks as a shield for infantry to charge forward? Not as the main attacking force?"

  Goodrian nodded seriously.

  Xu Yang's tense nerves finally relaxed, "Oh..."

  Now, except for Goodrian, everyone else felt a bit strange.

  Xu Yang's expression was extremely relaxed, and he even showed a unique smile that made people envy. "Their thinking is backward. Tanks are not auxiliary tools, but the main force that determines the outcome of the battlefield. The joint operation plan I drafted is to use infantry as the defensive force on both sides and rear of the tank. You all know that once the tank is approached, it loses its defensive power, and the top cover machine gun becomes a decoration... Hmm? Soldiers going up to operate the machine gun when the enemy approaches is a suicidal act. The internal assault rifle in the tank has too many dead angles..."

  Xu Yang stopped to let his colleagues digest, after about two minutes, "Perhaps you will worry that the tank's mobility advantage will be restrained, this idea is extremely incorrect! Our national defense army already has a mature motorized force, in terms of speed, the motorized infantry unit is not inferior to tanks, only their striking power is weaker than tanks.

  We call motorized infantry units; mechanized troops.

  The tactics I wrote about the cooperation between infantry and tanks are not yet mature, but I believe that once they are perfected by the staff of the General Headquarters, when our national air force is built up and we have air support, we will be invincible!

  I call this method of warfare: combined arms operations."

  Germany has been without its own combat aircraft for over a decade, and they can't imagine how terrifying the combat capability of an armored division with air force support would be!

  However, Xu Yang's theory faces too many problems. Firstly, Germany's resources are not enough to establish too many armored forces. If purely armored forces are mixed into motorized infantry units, the cost will definitely increase by several times. With Germany's financial resources, establishing such an efficient force means giving up the establishment of several ordinary infantry divisions and investing these funds in a mixed armored force that doesn't even know what effect it will have? Are you kidding me?!

  Furthermore, the theory emphasizes the importance of land-air coordinated operations. This is the most difficult thing for Germany to accomplish, and this over-the-horizon theory has not been practiced by any country in the world so far; it's an unreliable combat theory.

  According to traditional thinking; troops should be reasonably configured, and one troop with the same function is enough, focusing on their own work is the way to exert high combat effectiveness.

  Most people have an idea: "Mixed into so many troops, can such a troop have combat effectiveness? Is the command system too complicated?"

  Guderian initially questioned the necessity of mixed infantry progress, saying: "I agree with your idea, but... I don't understand what a tank can do once it loses its mobility?"

  Xu Yang knew; the German father of armored warfare valued combat mobility above all else. Although infantry had been motorized, many people still thought that motorization of infantry was just to enable them to quickly arrive at the battlefield, and after arriving at the battlefield, soldiers would still have to rely on their own two feet to move around.

  Infantry riding in light armored vehicles? Ah, dizzy! Is that still called infantry? So... Riding a motorcycle on the battlefield, using the universal machine gun on the motorcycle to injure the enemy army? It seems feasible. But another problem arises, the motorcycle's defense is too poor, and such an obvious target will become the enemy's important care object?

  Xu Yang had his first doubts about his own ideas...

  "How can infantry coordinate with tanks in combat without affecting the mobility of the tanks?"