Chapter 365 Boomerang

General Winter hurriedly said goodbye to Charles and went to visit Joffre.

Everything seemed reasonable. Britain needed a "remarkable" victory on the Western Front, which was mainly composed of French troops. Of course, it had to go to Joffre, the French commander-in-chief.

As Charles expected, when General Winter met with Joffre and explained his purpose, Joffre suddenly felt that fate had favored him.

While Charles led his troops to fight in the Gallipoli Peninsula, Joffre had equipped his First Special Artillery Division with "Saint-Chamond M21" tanks and started training.

(The above picture shows "Saint-Chamond M21", which is Schneider's attempt in the direction of light tanks. There are two ways of maneuvering. The wheels can be retracted and use tracks. It has been posted before, and I will post another one because it has been too long.)

This is a mixed unit of improved "Saint-Chamond" and "Saint-Chamond M21", with Major General Christian as the division commander.

The key point is that the division uses Charles' tactics, and "Saint-Chamond M21" even has a modified version equipped with 37MM artillery.

Major General Christian once reminded Joffre implicitly: "General, if we use Charles' tactics and the tank guns he invented, even if we win on the battlefield in the future, it does not mean that we have defeated Charles."

But Joffre replied: "The key lies in the tank, Christian! It is a completely different tank from the 'Charles A1'. It is much faster than Charles' tanks. It may become the future of tanks!"

The "fast" Joffre said refers to the road maneuvering speed of the "Saint-Chamond M21" when using tires. It reaches 28 kilometers per hour, which is much faster than the maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour of the "Charles A1".

However, its maneuvering speed when using tracks is only 6 kilometers per hour.

Joffre was completely blind to this shortcoming, and he explained it this way:

"We don't need too fast speed in combat, 6 kilometers per hour is enough, and the infantry can't keep up with it if it's faster."

"When it needs to be mobile, it can drive on the road at a speed of 28 kilometers per hour."

"More importantly, we also have a combination of heavy tanks and light tanks, which is perfect!"

Major General Christian felt something was wrong. He had studied the battle in which the "Charles A1" defeated the German "A7V" tank, and he believed that tanks also needed to be mobile in combat.

As for the combination of light and heavy tanks, it would only count if the heavy "Saint-Chamond" could drive in front of the enemy.

But Major General Christian said nothing. He knew it was useless to say anything. The tanks had been equipped with the troops, and he could only do his best to lead them to win the victory.

What the confident Joffre didn't expect was that the German tanks were no longer the A7V he imagined, and the "First Special Artillery Division" he trained was just cannon fodder used by Charles to test the German army's new equipment.

...

Charles could actually guess the Germans' new aircraft.

At this time, the German "Fokker E" series fighter should have been released. In history, it caused a "Fokker disaster" as soon as it was born. The Allies had almost no fighters that could match it.

(The picture above shows the German Fokker E series monoplane fighter. It was successfully tested in 1914. It is a sports stunt aircraft, model M5K. After that, the German army urgently converted it into a military fighter and installed machine guns on the battlefield. The Fokker triplane familiar to the world is the DR series, which was equipped by the German army around 1917)

However, Charles knew that this was far from enough. He did not remember the data of the Fokker E series, such as the maximum speed, how many machine guns it had, and how maneuverable it was.

As for what Germany's new tank would be, Charles knew nothing, because Germany had no other tanks in actual combat after the A7V tank.

Therefore, Charles needed to use some tricks to let Joffre and Schneider explore the way ahead, so that the real trump card in Charles's hand could be targeted.

But what Charles didn't expect was that Joffre actually tried to get a battle plan from Charles in a roundabout way.

That day, Charles was sorting out intelligence at the headquarters as usual, and the phone on the table rang.

Charles was a little surprised. The phone hadn't rang for a long time. Most of the time, they would call the telecommunications room first and then be transferred to the headquarters by the staff, rather than contacting Charles directly.

Foch's voice came from the other end of the phone: "Are you busy, Brigadier General?"

"No, not busy, General." Charles replied, thinking to himself, did Foch still want to discuss "offensive theory"?

Foch said "um" and said:

"I have been thinking about your tactical theory repeatedly recently, and suddenly I have an interest in your tanks."

"I am curious, if you were to command a battle, I mean a breakthrough in the enemy's defense line, what would you do?"

Foch said it very obscurely, and he had indeed discussed tactical theory with Charles before, so it sounded like there was no problem.

However, Charles immediately thought of what General Winter said, "We need to win a remarkable victory on the Western Front."

Afterwards, General Winter went to find Joffre.

Now Foch was coming to test the battle plan, what a coincidence?

More likely, the person who really wanted to ask this question was Joffre.

Charles felt that it was almost certain.

Joffre and Foch did not know that General Winter had already found Charles before them, and Charles knew everything.

This was somewhat ironic, a boomerang that hit Charles again.

Charles pretended to be ignorant and thought about it for a while, and decided to come up with a practical plan. After all, he had to draw out the "secret weapon" of the Germans. If Joffre was too weak, the other side would not bother to deal with it.

"I think we should first find a flat, open, hard ground." Charles said.

"Hard ground?" Foch asked, not having the concept at this time.

"Yes." Charles explained: "For example, the muddy land in Ypres is obviously not suitable for tank mobility. Without the support of the environment, even the most advanced tactics and equipment cannot work. It should at least be suitable for tank mobility."

"That makes sense." Foch agreed.

"Secondly," Charles continued, "Tanks should concentrate on breaking through and interpenetrating the enemy's defense line, so that they can break through quickly."

Foch said "um" to show his understanding. If they were dispersed and pushed forward, the combat power per unit area would be evenly distributed, and it might become a protracted war in the face of the enemy's defense.

"Finally," Charles said again, "Before the war, artillery preparations that are too intensive or long should not be carried out."

Foch was silent on the other end of the phone because they were preparing to do so.

After a long while, Foch asked, "Why? Why not?"

"Because this tells the enemy that our tanks will break through here, General." Charles replied, "The enemy will mobilize a large number of artillery to prepare for defense, and once the enemy does that, no tank can break through."

Foch suddenly realized that if the enemy's artillery was so numerous that it could cover the no-man's land in front of the trench, even if the tanks were mobile, they would fall apart under their dense shells.