Chapter 257: Aerial Reconnaissance

The assault unit Erik was assigned to was trained by a Sergeant from the Instruction Assault Battalion.

The Sergeant appeared young, but his eyes were exceptionally steady. The specific aura of lethality and competence unique to elite forces was something Erik had never seen on the seasoned veterans of the 42nd Infantry Regiment.

The training took place in a relatively flat area in the rear with few shell craters.

Erik had initially expected this short 48-hour training to impart some of the Instruction Assault Battalion’s ‘Battlefield Secrets’, like how to make every shot count or how to dance through artillery fire.

But his expectations were too high.

The content of the training was surprisingly simple.

Aside from issuing new MP14 Submachine Guns and MG14 light machine guns to the most experienced veterans in these hastily assembled assault units and teaching them how to use them,

The remaining time was spent practicing squad-level dispersed charges over and over again.

There were no complex tactical lectures, no profound shooting techniques.

The young Sergeant instructor simply used the most concise language to issue commands.

“Listen, you have one mission: keep up with us!”

The Sergeant pointed to himself and the few other soldiers from the Instruction Assault Battalion next to him.

“When we charge, you charge! When we drop, you find the nearest shell crater and drop! When we open fire, you provide cover on our flanks!”

“In short, don’t fall behind! Don’t you dare drag your feet behind us! Whoever can’t keep up will be turned into a sieve by the Gauls!”

The young Sergeant’s language was rough and direct, but none of Erik and the surrounding soldiers felt offended.

Because they had witnessed firsthand yesterday how this unit advanced through a hail of bullets.

Every word they spoke was experience bought with their lives.

The training began. Erik and the other selected ‘elite soldiers’ started following the soldiers of the Instruction Assault Battalion, repeatedly charging, dropping prone, and seeking cover on the simulated battlefield.

Initially, they struggled to adapt.

Accustomed to charging in dense formations, they felt uneasy when spread out, as if they lacked comrades nearby.

They also couldn’t keep up with the rhythm of the charge; they either charged too fast, moving beyond the cover range of the Instruction Assault Battalion soldiers, or they were a beat too slow, still standing foolishly after the instructors had already dropped.

“Swine! Are you trying to be live targets for the Gauls?”

“Hey, you! Yes, you! Why is your butt sticking up so high when you go prone!”

The soldiers of the Instruction Assault Battalion corrected their mistakes without ceremony, sometimes even kicking them directly in the backside to shove them into a shell crater.

Erik was kicked several times, but he felt no resentment.

He began to force himself to forget everything he had learned in the past, absorbing every movement and detail the instructors taught them like a sponge.

How to use the slope of a shell crater as cover, how to change a stripper clip while moving, and how to determine the safest route in the shortest time.

Morin stood on one side of the training ground, silently watching it all.

Standing next to him were Manstein and Kahn, the 1st Platoon leader of the 1st Company.

“Battalion Commander, the batch of new weapons the First Army Group just received from the homeland has all been distributed to the Assault Troops participating in this main attack,” Manstein reported.

Morin nodded. He knew the number of weapons the First Army Group received was small—a drop in the bucket for an Army Group-level offensive.

But having some was better than none.

Currently, all Army Groups had experienced the benefits of automatic weapons, so their headquarters were demanding automatic weapons from the General Staff and the War Department.

Morin believed that domestic factory production was maxed out, but there would certainly be a state of short supply for a while.

To be honest, managing to allocate these weapons to the First Army Group at this critical juncture was already quite an achievement.

He looked at the ‘elite soldiers’ in the distance clumsily imitating the actions of his own men, without much optimism.

He knew clearly that 48 hours—two days—was nowhere near enough time to train ordinary Saxon Army soldiers into qualified Stormtroopers.

For them to truly grasp the essence of Assault Group Tactics, it would require at least half a month or even longer of systematic specialized training.

But as General Mackensen said, time was not on their side.

The Gauls and the Britannians could stall, trading space for time and using lives to wear down the Saxon momentum.

But their force, which had advanced deep into enemy territory, could not afford to delay.

The longer they were mired in the mud of Creil, the more likely the Britannia Expeditionary Force on the flank was to pounce, and the more vulnerable the rear supply line would become.

Even more crucially, on the main battlefields of the Ardennes Forest and Alsace-Lorraine, the Saxon main forces were already showing signs of decline.

Once the main line collapsed, the Gauls would be free to mobilize heavy forces and, together with the Paris garrison, encircle the First Army Group from both inside and out.

At that point, their large army would be a turtle in a jar.

Therefore, taking two days to give these hastily assembled attack units the most basic adaptive training was the limit of what General Mackensen and General Seeckt could manage.

There was also worse news: the ‘last offensive’ Morin had spoken of at the emergency meeting yesterday had come true.

According to the messages appearing in the [Intelligence] tab , the First Army Group had concentrated 260 77mm field guns , 120 105mm howitzers, and two 420mm ‘Big Bertha’ cannons.

These artillery pieces were currently being drawn from various units and concentrated on the Creil front line.

The problem was that the First Army Group’s current shell reserves were only sufficient to launch one high-density artillery strike.

This was because before the war, neither the Saxon Empire nor the Gallic Republic and the Holy Britannia Empire had anticipated the heavy ammunition consumption of artillery.

Before the war, the Saxon Empire Army had stocked about six million shells of various types, which the General Staff predicted would last for at least three years.

However, in the month since the war began, the Saxon Army’s artillerists had already expended half of that reserve.

Coupled with the overly extended supply line, which lengthened the time for ammunition resupply, the crucial fact was that the First Army Group’s shells at this moment could only support one such large-scale offensive.

Thus, Morin clearly understood the pressure currently resting on Mackensen and Seeckt’s shoulders; the upcoming offensive was a complete all-or-nothing gamble for them.

“Battalion Commander, do you think they can pull it off?”

Manstein looked at the clumsy movements of the allied soldiers, asking with some worry, interrupting Morin’s thoughts.

“Whether they can or not, they must.”

Morin’s voice was very calm, devoid of apparent emotion.

“Our job is to tear open the breach. They just need to follow us in and hold that breach open, ensuring it doesn’t close.”

With that, he looked at Platoon Leader Kahn again.

“Tell our men not to hold back during training; teach them as much as they can learn. Also, emphasize the essentials of grenade usage several times—that thing is better than a rifle for clearing trenches.”

“Yes, Battalion Commander!” Kahn nodded and turned to relay the order.

Morin continued to watch the training ground, but his mind was occupied with another matter.

Yesterday at headquarters, although his ‘Assault Group Tactics’ had received support from Mackensen and Seeckt, he had clearly heard the doubts raised by the staff officers.

Especially the issue of artillery coordination.

Asking infantry to charge immediately behind extending artillery fire was indeed a huge challenge for the current Saxon artillery.

This was not just a technical issue; it was a test of the psychological fortitude of the artillery officers and gunners.

If any part of the process went wrong and the shell landings deviated, the Assault Troops in the lead, including his own Instruction Assault Battalion, would face utter annihilation.

He believed Mackensen, Seeckt, and the staff of the First Army Group would exert their utmost effort in coordination and supervision, but there were simply too many variables on the battlefield.

“I hope those artillery officers can be reliable this time…” Morin muttered inwardly.

Just as he was pondering these issues, a distinct ‘buzzing’ sound suddenly reached the air.

The sound was completely different from the roar of the Armored Airships’ engines; it was sharper to the ear.

Morin instinctively looked up and saw a strangely shaped monoplane flying overhead.

The plane bore the insignia of the Saxon Air Force, and the shape of its wings was unique, resembling a large bird with its wings spread.

The wingtips drooped slightly, full of a certain biomechanical aesthetic.

[Saxon Empire Air Force Reconnaissance Aircraft – Dove Monoplane]

A new entry popped up in the [Information] tab on Morin’s system interface.

In fact, even without the system’s prompt, Morin recognized the device.

In his memory from before he crossed over, this pigeon-like plane was precisely the type of reconnaissance aircraft widely used by Germany in the early stages of World War I.

In this world, the existence of Armored Airships and Mages made the survival environment and ’employment opportunities’ for these early aircraft even more challenging.

So, while he always knew that aircraft existed in this world, today was the first time Morin had actually seen one in the sky.

Perhaps because the Saxon Army’s advance had been too rapid previously, the Fortification Troops responsible for building temporary airfields hadn’t yet caught up with the main force. Consequently, these fragile little birds, which required runways for take-off and landing, only appeared on the Creil front today.

The Dove Monoplane quickly soared over the Saxon positions, then adjusted its direction and began flying parallel along the no-man’s-land between the two sides’ trenches.

Its mission was clear: to use the superior view from the air to scout the Gauls’ defense line for troop deployment and fire point arrangements.

Inside the plane’s cramped cockpit, the pilot Hans and the observer Otto in the front seat were both nervously sweating in their palms.

This was their first time executing a real reconnaissance mission on the front line.

Although they had flown this ‘dove’ countless times on training fields in the rear, a real battlefield and a training field were two completely different concepts.

Below them were crisscrossing trenches and densely packed shell craters, and the smell of gunpowder smoke permeated even the air high above the ground.

All of this reminded them that they were on the edge of hell, and one misstep could lead to them being pulverized.

They were not particularly worried about the Gauls’ large Anti-air Magic Device arrays…

Those expensive strategic weapons would only target their own Armored Airships. It was utterly impossible for them to waste valuable firepower on their low-cost reconnaissance plane.

What they were truly worried about were the Gauls’ Mages.

According to intelligence, the Gauls’ Battlemages were capable of short-term aerial ascent and could release powerful offensive spells.

For a fragile aircraft like the ‘Dove’, let alone a Fireball Spell, any offensive spell could easily cause it to disintegrate in mid-air.

“Otto, see anything?”

Hans shouted over the noise, trying to keep the plane steady.

The engine noise was loud, and they had to yell to hear each other.

“I see something! There’s movement in the Gauls’ positions! Lots of people! They’re moving troops!”

Otto in the front seat yelled excitedly. At the same time, he grabbed a bulky Zeiss camera next to him, aimed it at the positions below, and rapidly clicked the shutter.

This camera was the most important ‘weapon’ on their plane, besides the Gew.98 rifle he carried personally.

The photographs it took would provide the most direct and accurate intelligence to the Army Group Headquarters.

“Hold steady! Hans! Let me take a few more shots! It looks like their artillery positions are also moving!”

“Got it!”

Hans carefully controlled the plane, trying to maintain a fixed altitude and flight path. He was under high tension.

However, even as their reconnaissance mission neared its end, the anticipated Gaulish Mage did not appear.

Otto turned back and exchanged a glance with his partner, Hans. Both quietly sighed in relief and grinned. It seemed their luck was good.

However, their smiles did not last long. Otto suddenly pointed to the side ahead and shouted: “Hans, look over there! What is that!”

Hans followed the direction he was pointing, only to see another aircraft appearing in the air not far away.

That plane had the same monoplane structure as their ‘Dove’, but it looked even more fragile.

Its fuselage was painted with the Gallic Republic’s symbolic blue, white, and red roundels.

“It’s a Gaulish plane!”

Hans yelled, his heart immediately tensing up.

Since both sides were flying parallel to the trenches, the distance between the two planes quickly closed.

In this era, no one had yet thought of mounting a machine gun on an aircraft.

The rules of aerial combat were still in the most primitive stage.

As the two planes drew closer, Hans saw the opposing pilot pull a revolver from his holster and fire a few random shots in their direction.

“Damn it! Return fire! Otto! Return fire!” Hans roared, pulling the control stick, trying to evade.

Otto reacted as well. He clumsily raised the long Gew.98 rifle in his hand, trying to aim at the opponent.

But trying to hit another moving aircraft with a rifle from a high-speed, constantly jolting plane was as difficult as trying to hit a lottery jackpot.

“Bang!”

Otto pulled the trigger, and the bullet flew off into an unknown direction.

The Gaulish plane had already crossed paths with them and began turning to return to its own position.

“Bastard!” Otto cursed angrily.

“Never mind him! Our mission is complete! Take the photos we got, let’s head back!” Hans shouted.

Hans and Otto did not know that this somewhat comical ‘aerial dogfight’ might become an amusing anecdote in future history books.

They only knew now that they had to immediately deliver this priceless intelligence to the General’s desk.

The two planes traced graceful arcs in the sky, then flew toward their respective temporary airfields in the rear.