Three days later, a report on low-altitude dive machine-gun fire appeared in front of Governor Fislav.

It is the fine tradition of the Austrian army to record the experience on the battlefield and summarize the gains and losses, and at the same time, the unique characteristics of the Austrian army in this era.

Documenting the history of the war may seem simple, but it is not something that can be done by everyone. At least not in countries that have not completed compulsory education, it is not possible.

The benefits of this are self-evident, perhaps most of the recorded combat experience is repetitive nonsense, but as long as one thousandth of the content is valuable, it is all earned.

In particular, these materials are particularly important in the application of new weapons and equipment and the exploration of new tactics.

Therefore, the army only writes reports, while the newly released air force has to write reports for everyone.

Low-altitude dive bombing and low-altitude dive machine gun strafing are not new terms, and similar concepts were put forward more than a decade ago.

Don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with His Majesty the Great Franz. Franz is a military novice, but he also knows that although the military concepts of later generations are good, they are also based on specific conditions.

Take dive bombing, for example, but it's not just about flying low and dropping bombs. Not all kinds of flying machines have the ability to fly and dive at low altitudes.

Even if the performance of the aircraft is satisfied, what kind of low-altitude method this low-altitude flight is must be explored in actual combat.

While being able to achieve results, it is also necessary to ensure the safety of personnel and aircraft as much as possible, otherwise it will be a copy of the kamikaze brigade.

Therefore, the great strategic concept of playing with airships with low-altitude dive carpet bombing is not Franz's masterpiece.

The emergence of this concept in the Austrian army is not untargeted, but supported by actual combat cases.

As soon as the airship was put into military use, the Austrian airship force tried it on the Ottomans and achieved remarkable results.

At that time, this strategic concept also became the mainstream of the world and was recommended by many military Vs.

It's just that with the advent of anti-aircraft weapons, everyone discovered that a low-flying airship was a live target, and this theory was quickly shelved.

The fact that airships are not applicable does not mean that airplanes are not suitable either, at least at this stage, the air defense weapons of various countries pose little threat to aircraft, and theoretically low-altitude dives have become feasible.

Because of the insufficient payload of the aircraft, the dive-type strategic bombing turned into machine-gun strafing, and the power was weakened by more than one point.

With the case of the failure of the airship, Admiral Fislav did not rush to make a decision, but fell into deep thought.

Whether this is an individual case or a military concept with long-term development and application prospects remains a mystery to this day.

Seeing that Fislav couldn't make up his mind, Air Force Major General Andrew McCarthy on the side added another fire.

"Your Excellency, whether or not there is a prospect for the development of dive plane rush strafing, it is only effective for a short time.

We have conducted many exercises, and the existing air defense weapons pose very little threat to aircraft, and dive strafing can easily achieve results.

Even if the French discover the weakness of this tactic, it will take time to find a way to deal with it. Until then, it will not affect us from promoting this tactic. ”

Major General Andrew was so active that he was essentially forced out. Compared with the army and navy, the air force is a little brother.

If the air force is strong enough, this kind of thing does not need to be coordinated with other arms of the armed forces to promote tactics, and there is no need to report to the commander of the theater at all, and it will be done by itself.

The Austrian Air Force has been established for too short a time, and there is no record of winning at all, and the waist pole of speech is naturally not hard enough.

If it weren't for Franz's support, they would still be an army flying unit and would not have the ability to form an army on their own.

Against this background, the Air Force is holding its breath and desperate to prove its worth on the battlefield.

Therefore, in the promotion of new tactics, the Air Force has always been the most active. Otherwise, it would not be possible to verify the feasibility of a battlefield report immediately after receiving it.

After pondering for a moment, Fislav nodded: "It is indeed feasible in theory, but it needs more practical cases to support it before it can be promoted to the whole army."

In the days to come, I will allow your air force to strike on its own to validate, or rather refine, this tactic. ”

The development of military technology has never been smooth sailing. A big country like Austria has enough capital to pay for the development of military technology, and the promotion of any new tactics is piled up with countless failures.

This is also the reason why many weapons and tactical concepts have been unable to be adopted for a long time after they were born. Without the support of actual combat results, everyone has no bottom in their hearts!

……

Having received the support of the commander of the theater of operations, the Austrian Air Force, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, immediately took action.

The Egyptian region was "lively", not only the positions and fortresses became the hardest hit areas of the bombing, but the streets and alleys and fields also became the hunting grounds of the Austrian Air Force.

In order to collect more actual combat data, the Air Force does not care about the cost, and has to try a wave everywhere.

As for the consequences, this is not within the scope of Major General Andrew's consideration, anyway, the bullets hit the enemy's ground, and it is nothing more than a matter of the size of the results.

……

Since the end of the airship unit, the skies over Cairo have become the territory of the Austrian Air Force, and every day there will be a combination of airships + planes coming to clock in and going to work from time to time.

For the sake of his life, Governor Jacob had to move the headquarters into the basement. In fact, he was initially looking for a safer anti-gun hole.

Unfortunately, Cairo is in the heart of Egypt, and the French have never considered the threat of foreign enemies, the most recent military threat being the last rebel siege.

The rabble of indigenous rebels had only a few earthen cannons at most, and the shells could not reach the governor's palace at all. There is no need for anti-artillery, so naturally there are no anti-artillery holes.

After the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War, Governor Jacob was only thinking about the canal defense line, and did not think that he would face a threat from heaven at all.

When the crisis comes, it will naturally be too late to dig now. After all, the anti-artillery hole that can accommodate the headquarters of the French army is not a large cave.

"Your Excellency the Governor, the enemy's air force is so rampant that it simply does not take France into account, and we must fight back."

Those who can say such things will naturally not be French soldiers. Any officer present knew that it was not that they did not want to fight back, but that they simply did not have the ability to fight back.

Looking at the angry middle-aged man, Governor Jacob frowned, and after being silent for a while, he slowly spoke: "Senior Abraham, please read the war report, or care about the current political news in the country.

Not to mention our side, even the air force of the Austrians could not be helped, and just a week ago Paris was attacked by enemy air strikes. ”

Hearing the news of the air raid on Paris, the faces of everyone present changed drastically, and it was obvious that everyone had received this news for the first time.

Seeing everyone's expressions, Jacob knew that something was wrong with his concept. Before the outbreak of war, the news of what happened in Paris only took a few hours to reach Egypt.

The telegraph business in France was run by the capitalists, and the first consideration was how to maximize profits, and what was not strategic or not was to be relied on.

Against this background, it was naturally impossible to lay a special submarine cable for the telegraph from mainland France to Egypt.

Instead, it passed through the Algerian region through the land cable channel, passing through the regions of Austrian Africa along the way, and cooperated with the Austrian telegraph company.

This is also in line with international management, and the telegraph can be spread to most of the world within decades, relying on regional cooperation.

If they all do it alone, no telegraph company has the ability to connect to the world.

The European War broke out too suddenly, and after only a few months of brewing, a fight broke out. There was a brief moment of confusion on the part of the French government, not to mention the telegraph company.

The economy also had to give way to politics, and the Austrian telegraph company, which had been working with them after the outbreak of the war, naturally suspended the business of providing them with information transmission.

At present, Egypt's communication with the mainland mainly relies on the transmission of information by warships traveling between the two places. Even the most well-informed lord in the past now has a hard time receiving news from home.

After a pause, the high-ranking official Abraham, who reacted, was shocked and said, "Your Excellency the Governor, are you sure you are not joking?" ”

Paris in these years has a very sacred status in the hearts of the French. The news of the attack on Paris is so appalling that it is not at all comparable to the bombing of Cairo every day.

Jacob nodded cautiously: "Your Excellency thinks that if it hadn't happened, I would have joked about this kind of thing?" ”

"However, things are not as serious as you think. The enemy just swept through Paris and did not inflict much damage on us.

Presumably, everyone has also discovered that the enemy's air force is not so terrible. Apart from the magnitude of what appears to be enormous, the actual damage caused by the bombing is not significant.

The domestic production of aircraft is already being prepared, and as long as we hold out for this time, the enemy's superiority will no longer exist.

Now we ......"

The bombing was terrible and not terrible. Although the French air defense units were rubbish, they still did not dare to fly at low altitudes with their backward air defense weapons.

Throwing bombs down from a height of several kilometers, the hit rate is so touching, and they are about to catch up with winning the lottery.

Purely in terms of lethality, the casualties caused by a dive-strafing plane from time to time are higher than the efficiency of airship bombing.

The senior Abraham officer interrupted: "Your Excellency, I would like to correct here, the losses inflicted on us by the enemy's air force are not small.

From the beginning of the enemy bombardment, factories, shops, entertainment venues in the city of Cairo ...... They can't do business anymore.

The people have fallen into a panic, and those who have a little bit of family background are desperately running outside. According to incomplete statistics, nearly 15,000 people have left Cairo in the last week.

Not only Cairo's economy has been hit hard, but the rest of Egypt has also suffered losses to varying degrees, especially in terms of human casualties.

After analyzing the information coming from various places, the preliminary estimate is that the number of civilian casualties caused by the enemy's air force attack has exceeded five figures. ”

There is no way, no matter how bad the accuracy of the bombing is, as long as the bomb is dropped, it will always have an effect.

The area of activity of the troops was limited, and they knew how to survive the enemy's bombardment, except for the initial discomfort, the casualties of the troops behind were not too large.

Civilians are different, in these years, when they encounter enemy bombing, everyone's first reaction is to run, and few people have air defense awareness.

As soon as they ran in a hurry, the number of casualties naturally went up. Especially after the Austrian planes began to strafe at low altitudes, the situation became even more serious.

Slamming the table, Governor Jacob exclaimed, "The Austrians are so despicable, how can a war involve civilians!"

Senior Abraham, you are responsible for gathering information about their atrocities in the international community. ”

Receiving this answer, the crowd fell silent again. The diplomatic protests of these years have been the last struggle of the weak, and the great powers prefer direct threats.

Naturally, there is no expectation of Jacob's suggestion to use the international community to exert political pressure.

There is no way, in this era of worse than rotten, there is a dark history behind any colonial empire. If it is really revealed, no one should think about it.

By contrast, the civilian toll of war is not a matter at all. Especially since the place of the fighting is still in Africa, the influence on the European world is even less.

……