At the command post of the Allied Somme front, the last meeting before the offensive began.

At this meeting, the reader will meet another great future celebrity, "Montgomery", who was not a general at this time, but who was the chief of staff of the 104th Armoured Infantry Brigade of the British Expeditionary Force with the rank of captain.

Speaking of brigades, although they are not so suitable in today's flexible army formations. At that time, it was larger than a regiment and smaller than a division, which met the needs of the war at that time. After all, the infantry of a regiment does not play a decisive role, but a brigade is always useful for the British, who have a small population.

Today, as chief of staff of the 104th Armored Brigade, the main force of the British infantry division, he and his brigade commander, General Sandy Lands, had the privilege of attending this meeting, which was attended mainly by divisional officers.

"This offensive will begin with the armored infantry brigades of the British divisions, and they will break through the enemy's first line of defense under the cover of social air power, and then the main infantry brigades of the division will take over. Then the offensive continued......"

Being a captain serving as Chief of Staff of an Armored Brigade while taking on the main attack mission when breaking through enemy lines was honorable in Montgomery's eyes. But in order to attract the attention of the Germans and create favorable conditions for a large-scale offensive of the French army, he was not very willing to do.

"I don't know what's wrong with this Mr. Jazz!"

He secretly looked at the gentlemanly gentlemanly man who had retained his damned gentlemanly demeanor in this arrangement, which was apparently sent to death by the British and invited by the French. The French officer who explained earlier is still chattering non-stop.

"This tactic of successfully breaking through the German defense line without the preparation of artillery fire, using armored forces to successfully break through the German defense line under the cover of precision strikes in the air, was fully demonstrated in the engagement on the Nancy side. Therefore, the infantry should use horse-drawn carriages, automobiles, and other transport equipment, in the ......"

"But in the damn Nancy City battle, those Thunder International mercenaries are fully mechanized, and they don't even have people in carriages!"

Montgomery scolded in his stomach, these French staff officers who copied and copied the ancients.

Compared to the other brigades in the division, their 104th Brigade has an armored assault infantry regiment and a tank company of 15 tanks, which is the assault force of their armored brigade. The other regiment is still an old-fashioned infantry regiment, and when attacking, they will follow behind the large nomadic tanks, which can travel at only 8 kilometers per hour, as the main force of the assault.

"It shouldn't be like this, our tanks are too slow, far less agile than the French fire support vehicles with 75mm guns."

Montgomery had the truth in mind, because the British Grand Nomad, although the armor thickness was comparable to that of Thunder International's MPM tank, was equipped with two 57mm guns and four machine guns, and the crew reached 11 people.

The thickness of the armor is 18 mm, the maximum speed is about 8 km / h, the maximum range is 30 km. These are the data that the British have repeatedly modified after obtaining the data of infantry fighting vehicles, but they are still not enough to match the speed of infantry fighting vehicles.

As he thought about it, he looked up to see the large map on the wall that was constantly pointed out by the French chief of staff, showing the battle lines of the French, British and German armies.

“…… When the British broke through the German line and forced the Germans to move their troops to reinforcements, the French army would attack the German front with air strikes under the cover of a large number of aircraft. Our simultaneous sortie of infantry armored vehicles will reach ** units, ** aircraft, which can completely break through the first line of defense of the German army. At this point, the Germans should be in disarray, while the French attack is on hold, waiting for the subsequent rapid infantry to take over. The British should launch an offensive on the German lines, causing even more confusion among the enemy forces. Subsequently, the French army resumed the offensive again......"

Finally, the French chief of staff's voice stopped at the smug look on Xia Fei's face, and Xia Fei began to "talk about it" that the British officers did not like very much.

"Brave young men, our attack will be like two hammers, falling on the heads of the Germans alternately, so that they will not be able to save each other. I believe that the final victory is ours, God bless the Entente! ”

Before the meeting was adjourned, the meeting was adjourned by the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Douglas Murphy. Haig makes a concluding statement. After fully affirming the plans drawn up by the French General Staff, he spoke a little differently.

"Here I want to emphasize that as a soldier, it is the most glorious thing to forge ahead. I think that while our plan is made in this way, we must at the same time take the initiative and hold on to the enemy if the opportunity permits, and we will not let up until they have completely collapsed...... Finally, I would like to stress that the plan must not be communicated to the forefront until the moment when the offensive is launched, because neither the German minefields nor their barbed wire can stop the advance of our Iron Lion......"

The meeting will be held to this extent, and there is still something that the divisional and brigade-level officers present here do not understand. It was purely a competition, entirely between the British and the French. The officers who understood this, at the end of the meeting, their eyes had become as hot as a fuse.

The confidence of the French officers was derived from Major Miller's performance at Verdun and from the proof of the victory at Nancy. Today's British officers derive their "unique" tanks from the offensive advantage they have been given.

The common denominator this time was that hardly any of the Entente officers took the German Second Army, which was greatly strengthened on the opposite side, commanded by Falkenhein, too seriously.

After the gunpowder meeting, the battle for the Somme offensive was about to begin.

The British, who took the lead, were not as honest as the French imagined, and the day before the start of the war, a large number of engineering units secretly entered the front. Paves the way for heavy tanks to keep them balanced to the forefront of their trenches.

(The first release of this book) does not laugh at group A: 35761481; Email: [email protected]

On June 15, 1916, the weather was clear, the sparse clouds were quite high, and the long-lost sun covered the land. It also carried the last shimmer of spring tenderness, so that the morning wind blew, even the warmth was not so dry, what a wonderful morning, but the killing was about to begin.

In front of the French front confronting the Germans, between the deer barricades. The long calm has caused some weeds to grow there, representing life, which sway gently in the early morning wind.

In such weather, the soldiers also had no desire to shoot. Even the snipers were surprisingly quiet, and did not bother with the soldiers who had come out of the bunkers to bask in the sun.

Until the sun actually rises!