Expedition to Europe

For the French, the animal "chicken" is lovely and sacred. The French themselves call themselves "Gallic roosters".

Although Qin Zhiyuan is now a French citizen, he does not like chickens outside the dining table.

Of course, when formulating the battle plan, Qin Zhiyuan does not mind using "hen" as a nickname, because it is indeed very vivid.

"Hen" is a bomber. Because there are not enough artillery, Qin Zhiyuan hopes to have a certain number of bombers as firepower supplement before launching the attack.

Under the leadership of Qin Zhiyuan, the Renault factory developed transport planes. These transport planes can be slightly modified into bombers. Each bomber can carry eight 100 kg bombs or four 200 kg bombs.

At this time, Britain and France actually had bombers, but they were basically horizontal bombers. Limited by the amount of bombs and bombing accuracy, they were not widely used.

The bomber presided over by Qin Zhiyuan is a standard dive bomber, which can perform relatively accurate dive bombing and horizontal bombing, which is better than all bombers of this era.

Qin Zhiyuan asked for 100 such bombers.

Since the day he received the combat order, Qin Zhiyuan asked old Renault to start modifying the aircraft, starting with the dozen transport aircraft that Qin Zhiyuan had already obtained. By the beginning of August, including newly produced bombers and modified bombers, Qin Zhiyuan had obtained a total of 60, meeting the minimum requirements for launching an attack.

If all these bombers were deployed, when carrying 50 kg bombs equivalent to the power of 155 mm howitzers, each aircraft could carry about 20 bombs. One attack was equivalent to a salvo of 1,200 155 mm caliber artillery, and its killing effect could cover 180,000 square meters.

Well, the so-called "180,000 square meters" is only a theoretical data. The power may not be so great when it is actually used. Of course, it may be greater than this.

What Qin Zhiyuan values ​​most is that among these bomber pilots, there are about 80 Chinese.

These Chinese are test pilots in the Renault factory. They have mastered enough flying skills with almost no effort.

To operate the aircraft at that time, it did not require complicated skills or university graduation. Compared with tanks, it was not much more complicated, and the requirements for personnel were even lower than those for the gunners in tanks.

No one understood the value of pilots more deeply than Qin Zhiyuan. Therefore, Qin Zhiyuan attached great importance to the training of pilots. Whenever there was an opportunity, he would always let more people try.

The results were very satisfactory.

It seemed that the smaller stature of Chinese people was more suitable for staying in the cockpit than that of Westerners. Not only did many people obtain the qualifications to drive bombers, but also many people obtained the qualifications to drive fighters, and some even joined the aviation team.

Before Nivelle launched the spring offensive, the British and French organized 550 aircraft, which formed 15 aviation squadrons and fought fiercely with the Germans for air supremacy.

The results of the battle were sad. The Allies lost 131 aircraft and 105 pilots in the first five days alone. In the whole month of April, Britain alone lost 912 pilots and scouts.

April 1917 is also known as "Bloody April".

In this battle, a German named "Manfred" became famous. He shot down 21 Allied fighter planes by himself. Because he often flew a red "Albatross" D-type biplane fighter, he was called "Red Baron".

The Chinese pilot missed the battle in April because of the disagreement between Qin Zhiyuan and Nivelle. Now this time, it was the first time that a Chinese pilot appeared on the European battlefield.

In early August, the artillery of the 17th Army began to bombard the German defensive positions between Tadenois and Reims, from Gaie to Sassi.

In line with the French tradition, the pre-war firepower preparation lasted for three days. The artillerymen fired 2.5 million shells, including 150,000 poison gas bombs, with a total weight of more than 100,000 tons.

In the Battle of Ypres, which was taking place at the same time, the British fired 4 million shells, with a total weight of only 65,000 tons. From these data, we can see the brutality of the heavy artillery proportion of the 17th Army.

For three days, the only task of the front-line infantry was to stay at the starting position, drinking all kinds of white wine, red wine, and beer while enjoying the fireworks party held on the German position.

The Germans had never encountered such a large-scale artillery bombardment. According to post-war statistics, at least 12,000 German soldiers were killed in the three-day bombardment, which was almost the number of a full-strength division.

The German army had never experienced such a large-scale bombardment. General Oscar von Hutier was forced to withdraw the two divisions with heavy casualties on the front line to the second line before the infantry of the 17th Army was launched into the attack, and replaced them with new forces to prepare for the attack of the 17th Army.

The artillery bombardment commanded by Qin Zhiyuan was very distinctive, based on the terrain of the line from Gaiyu to Saxi.

Qin Zhiyuan ordered segmented bombardment.

The so-called "segmented bombardment" is to divide the enemy's position into different parts for bombardment. If it was a mountainous area, they would use poison gas bombs; if it was a plain, they would use high-explosive bombs. Bastien's troops also used "indirect fire."

The so-called "indirect shooting" is to raise the muzzle of the machine gun upwards and shoot at the air of the German position. After the bullet flies into the air, it will gradually fall under the action of the earth's gravity. In this process, the kinetic energy of the bullet will not be lost much. If you are lucky, it is indeed possible to hit the Germans.

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However, this probability is not much higher than "finding a needle in a haystack", because no one is sure whether there are Germans on the other side of the mountain, so this tactic is estimated to have little vitality, and the Army Department will quickly stop this wasteful behavior.

After Qin Zhiyuan asked Bastian this question, Bastian's answer made Qin Zhiyuan feel incredible.

Bastian believes that even if such shooting does not have much effect, it can at least train the proficiency of the machine gunner.

What surprised Qin Zhiyuan the most was that even Maxim agreed with Bastian's view. It seems that this is not a "flash of inspiration" of a certain person, but a common understanding of this era.

In this case, what else can Qin Zhiyuan say?

The reason can only be attributed to the fact that the French have too many resources. It is estimated that the British are similar. With the support of global colonies, the French and British can afford to waste.

It is not just the French who are wasting, the Chinese are not much better.

The Chinese now are a bit like the American soldiers during World War II. When the two armies confront each other, regardless of whether the targets on the German positions are valuable, the Chinese soldiers will habitually call for artillery attacks.

Well, the miniaturization of radio stations has not been completed yet, and calling is not easy to achieve. However, there is no need to call for artillery. The front-line infantry units are equipped with a large number of mortars, which have been popularized to the company level. If the target is found, the front-line infantry can directly use mortars to attack, regardless of whether those targets are worth the money for the shells.

This makes Qin Zhiyuan quite worried. Now the French pay for the ammunition of the Chinese, and the Chinese can waste it at will. If the Chinese return to the Far East in the future, when they lose the Renault factory as a backing, can the Chinese still fight? Can they maintain their current combat effectiveness?

This is indeed a problem!