Chapter 316: The Instruction Unit’s Monthly Exam Results Were Not Ideal…

Various bad news gathered continuously through horse-riding messengers to the command vehicle where Morin was.

Soldiers who hadn’t ridden in cars much got carsick, drivers fell asleep while driving, rear-end collisions occurred…

Inside the carriage, the atmosphere was so oppressive it almost materialized.

Of course, this oppressive atmosphere was mainly concentrated on a few headquarters officers.

Morin, on the contrary, acted like an outsider, calmly listening to problem after problem.

Then, while taking the real coffee in a military canteen handed over by the orderly, he curiously watched how others planned to deal with them.

Kleist’s face was already as black as the bottom of a pot. He stared fixedly at the map, the pencil in his hand almost poking through the paper.

Every time he heard a piece of bad news, the corner of his mouth twitched.

Manstein, holding a small notebook, frantically recorded every failure and accident… his expression was unusually serious, as if recording a list of casualties.

The newcomer Paulus appeared very calm. He didn’t say a word, just silently marked the position of every problematic vehicle on another map with pens of different colors.

Then he began to calculate the delay time this might cause to the entire convoy.

“Sir, this—this is simply a disaster!”

Kleist finally couldn’t hold back. He held his head in his hands somewhat painfully, presenting the classic “inverted triangle” pose, his voice carrying a hint of breakdown.

“At this speed, we definitely cannot complete the maneuver within the specified time!”

Seeing Kleist’s breakdown, although Morin felt a bit sorry for him, he still comforted him calmly: “It’s okay, Kleist, this is just the beginning, don’t rush~”

Kleist: “…”

“I said long ago, plans are dead, people are alive… The more problems encountered now, the better it is for us.”

“Better?” Kleist simply couldn’t believe his ears, “Sir, our convoy is now in a mess of porridge, and this is called a good thing?”

“Of course it’s a good thing.”

Morin picked up the canteen, took a sip leisurely, and then continued: “This shows that the contingency plans you formulated worked. Look, although small problems are constant, the convoy is still moving forward, isn’t it?”

“Stein and the others are doing a good job too. Most faults can be solved within half an hour without causing long-term congestion.”

Morin’s words calmed Kleist down a bit.

Indeed, thanks to the few “warm-ups” before the exercise and the meticulous maintenance support plan formulated by Stein and others, most broken-down vehicles were dealt with quickly.

Small problems were solved by the drivers themselves. If they couldn’t solve them, they would work with the soldiers on the vehicle to push the car to the roadside first, not blocking traffic, and then wait for the subsequent maintenance team.

Although the entire support system was busy and chaotic, it was still operating effectively after all.

However, just as Kleist’s mood calmed down a bit, the most outrageous news came.

A messenger riding a warhorse that was about to run until it vomited caught up with the command vehicle like crazy. He couldn’t even care about saluting and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Sir! Not good! The 3rd Company of the 2nd Battalion is gone!”

“What?!”

“Thump!”

“Scheiße!”

Kleist stood up abruptly from his seat, his head hitting the roof heavily, but he didn’t care about the pain at all.

And the command truck also stopped temporarily by the roadside.

“The team behind saw them follow a civilian carriage and turn into the wrong intersection. Now—now the whole company has driven mightily into a village! The roads in the village are too narrow, the lead vehicle can’t turn around, and now they are all stuck inside and can’t come out!”

“A bunch of useless buckets! Idiots!”

Inside the command vehicle, Kleist’s roar almost overturned the roof.

His face flushed red with anger, like a lion locked in a cage.

“What are maps for? What are road signs for? A company of people actually followed a civilian carriage and went the wrong way! If this were a war, would they follow the enemy’s field kitchen to the cafeteria for a meal?”

Kleist got angrier as he spoke: “What’s the name of that company commander? When the exercise is over, I must hang him on the flagpole and whip him!”

Manstein beside him also had a livid face, but he was still relatively calm. He pulled Kleist’s arm and persuaded in a low voice: “Ewald, now is not the time to lose your temper. We have to find a way to get them back to the team quickly.”

Morin leaned back in the chair, looking at the furious Kleist, with no expression on his face… but was actually holding back laughter.

Don’t say Morin was too heartless.

Note that this was the situation presented after he rejected the “efficient” marching plan proposed by Kleist and the others to divide forces into three routes and advance side by side.

He ultimately chose the most conservative and simplest single-column march.

If they had really split into three routes, it was estimated that more than one company would have run off to some unknown corner by now.

“Alright, Kleist.”

Morin finally spoke. His voice wasn’t loud, but carried weight.

“Cursing won’t solve the problem.”

He turned to the trembling messenger: “Is the specific location clear?”

“C-clear, sir! About five kilometers from our current main road.” The messenger hurriedly pointed out the village on the map.

“Paulus.” Morin looked at Paulus, who had been silent.

“Sir.” Paulus responded immediately.

“Calculate, if they turn around and detour now to rejoin the team at maximum speed, how long will it take? If they pass through the village and detour from other roads, how much extra time will it take?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hearing this, Paulus picked up a ruler and quickly measured and calculated on the map.

A few minutes later, he raised his head and gave a precise answer: “Report sir, if they pass through the village to detour and return to the main road at an average speed of 20 km/h, they are expected to rejoin the main team in 20 minutes.”

“But if they detour from other roads, they can advance side by side with the convoy and merge 12 kilometers ahead!”

“Then do that! Let them continue from other routes, don’t waste time.”

Morin ordered the officers around him: “Send two messengers over, bring the map with the new route drawn and my order, don’t let them go the wrong way again!”

“Yes!”

Morin’s order was issued quickly, but Kleist sat back in the chair somewhat dejectedly, holding his head in his hands, saying nothing.

He felt that the perfect plan he had meticulously prepared for half a month had now become a joke.

The regimental adjutant didn’t even dare to look into Morin’s eyes, his face burning, full of shame and frustration.

Morin looked at him like this and sighed in his heart.

He knew that this lesson was a bit too cruel for traditional Saxon officers like Kleist.

They were used to strategizing on maps and used to orders being executed precisely.

But they forgot that war… especially this brand-new mode of war, was full of countless variables and accidents.

Morin moved from the passenger seat to the truck bed, sat next to Kleist, and patted his shoulder.

“Ewald, raise your head.”

Kleist slowly raised his head, his eyes full of confusion.

“I’ll say it again, discovering problems is a good thing.”

Morin said word by word: “Talking about war on paper will never teach you how to fight! All the troubles and chaos we encounter today are paving the way for our future victory!”

“The sweat we shed and the mistakes we make now are all so that our soldiers will bleed less on the real battlefield!”

“You, Manstein, and Paulus… there is no problem with the plan you formulated itself! But you ignored what the people and equipment executing the plan would look like in reality.”

“A tired driver, a nervous recruit, an unreliable connector—any trivial detail can collapse the most perfect plan.”

“This is the real purpose of my organizing this exercise… not to see a beautiful armed parade, but to expose all potential problems and solve them one by one!”

“Now, another item has been added to our problem list: troops easily lose direction after leaving the commander’s sight!”

“This is a very serious problem. After we go back, we need to study carefully how to solve it by strengthening the map reading ability and communication means of grassroots officers.”

Morin’s words struck Kleist and Manstein’s hearts like a heavy hammer.

They stared blankly at Morin, their expressions changing from confusion and shame to contemplation and enlightenment.

Yeah, they were just like the “Imperial Exercise” organized by the General Staff, always pursuing the success of the exercise but forgetting that the essence of the exercise was to discover problems.

In the end, for the first phase of the 120-kilometer full-personnel, full-equipment maneuver, the result handed in by the instruction unit was that within 5 hours and 24 minutes, 85% of the vehicles successfully arrived at the predetermined assembly area.

Compared to the four and a half hours planned by the headquarters officers, it was almost an hour late, and fewer vehicles arrived successfully.

Kleist and the others lowered their heads, waiting for Morin’s thunderous rage.

However, Morin just calmly watched the soldiers who, although exhausted, were orderly setting up camp under the command of officers, then turned his head and smiled at Kleist and the others.

“Not bad, better than I expected. I was worried we wouldn’t arrive before dark~”

Morin clapped his hands, focusing everyone’s attention on himself.

“You did very well, Ewald… All of you did very well! Now, we know our strengths and weaknesses! Let the soldiers rest and stand by; the exercise has just begun!”

Kleist raised his head abruptly. Looking at the sincere encouragement in Morin’s eyes, the nose of this iron-blooded soldier couldn’t help twitching.

The chaos and embarrassment of the first day’s long-distance maneuver taught everyone a vivid practical lesson.

Especially Kleist, Manstein, and others in the headquarters, they thoroughly abandoned their previous unrealistic optimism and began to treat the subsequent exercise with a more pragmatic and cautious attitude.

In the following days, the instruction unit launched the second phase of large-scale offensive and defensive drills on this vast exercise field specially approved by the General Staff.

Compared to the long-distance maneuver full of situations, after entering traditional tactical subjects, the unit’s performance finally improved a lot, at least looking decent.

Of course, military exercises in this era were far less complex and realistic than in Morin’s previous life.

There was no mature laser engagement system, nor a “Blue Force” (Opfor) specially acting as the enemy.

The so-called exercise was more like a large-scale rehearsal of tactical movements.