Chapter 741 Killing Machine "Maxin"
East Africa's past opponents, except for the students of the "Hechingen Military Academy" who participated in the Franco-Prussian War, basically never encountered the queuing-to-kill tactic.
The Portuguese do have this ability, but in the last Eastern-Portuguese War, Portugal wanted to split one of its soldiers into two. There were too few colonial troops, and the black servant army did not have such ability.
The tactic of queuing to kill is not applicable to all armies. First of all, the army must have strong compliance, and secondly, it must have extraordinary courage.
Neither of these two points was possessed by Portugal's hastily organized black servant army. On the contrary, during the previous war between East Africa and the Ndebele Kingdom, the Ndebele people had used the "half-finished" tactic of queuing to kill.
Although the Ndebele people have become history, it is undeniable that their organizational skills are relatively strong. It is a pity that the Ndebele people were exposed to muskets for too short a time, otherwise they should be able to reproduce the tactic of queuing to kill.
…
Facing this "novel" tactic that the East African National Defense Force had basically never seen before, some soldiers of the Ninth Brigade were indeed a little confused, especially the recruits who immigrated from the Far East Empire and couldn't understand it.
“Why are these ‘British people’ lined up so neatly? Are they ready to die?”
“Idiot, those are not the British, but the Indians in the British colonies. Look at their black skin, which is just a little lighter than the black skin in East Africa. Those white-skinned commanders are British.”
The Indian soldiers in front of me looked pretty good, but I don’t know how much success they learned from the British lobster soldiers. You must know that "lobster soldiers" is just a joking term, and the courage of the British soldiers in the face of battle is commendable, otherwise It is impossible for Britain to gain such a large territory.
"The National Defense Force has used it before, but it was not called the National Defense Force at that time, but a colonial army. We also have a colonial history. Later, after the establishment of the kingdom and the upgrade of firearms, this tactic was eliminated. As for the British, they have never Neither of them is good at the army, and countries like Germany and France may have eliminated line tactics again, but we generally call this tactic the queuing-to-kill tactic, so it’s okay if you say this tactic is a death penalty.”
"As for why they formed a neat queue, it's because you have little experience. This tactic is actually very common in Europe. If you have participated in foreign wars in the Far Eastern Empire, you might also have the opportunity to see how the British and French used it. This kind of tactic was only decades ago, and judging by your age, you must have never experienced it.”
The last time Britain and France jointly invaded the Far Eastern Empire was in 1856. East Africa did not even exist at that time, and it was more than thirty years ago. Therefore, except for a few of the early immigrants to East Africa, the immigrants from the Far Eastern Empire later immigrated to East Africa. Haven't seen anyone at all.
The desertion rate of the Prussian army before the military reform can also be seen that the queuing to kill tactic caused the Prussian civilians' fear of war. After all, when using this tactic, either the enemy will fall, or they will fall themselves. It is more like "duizi", whose If the chess pieces are redeemed first, the war will be lost first. Those officers do not take human life seriously, but ordinary soldiers cherish their lives very much.
Had it not been for Prussia's army reform, Prussia would still have had the largest number of deserters in Europe, and it would have been difficult to achieve the great achievement of unifying the small German region.
Therefore, the tactic of queuing to kill is the biggest test of the "people's hearts" for the soldiers at the bottom. Since many soldiers were forcibly recruited, they are naturally more likely to be defeated in one blow.
The official name of the tactic of queuing to kill is "Line Infantry Tactics", but even the Germans like to call it tactic of queuing to kill, because in the eyes of traditional German civilians, war is about dying.
“In this case, why has the National Defense Force not used this tactic? Isn’t this a mainstream tactic in Europe?”
At this time, the Indian soldiers were actually even stranger than the East Africans. In their eyes, the British enemies were also "Europeans", but why were they so different from the British?
Just like now, this tactic of queuing to kill is what the British gentlemen asked them to do. They line up in a neat queue and then shoot at the enemy. This tactic has been trained in India for a long time, so the Indian troops performed well.
Rost was very satisfied with the performance of the Indian soldiers and said: "It seems that we wrongly blamed the Indians before. The Tugela River did hinder the army's attack. Or is it more suitable for us to fight on land." "Yes, division commander, we are here." The training for these Indians in India was very strict, and it was completely in accordance with our military standards, and it was just an accident like the Tugela River."
At the front line of the Tugela River, due to the existence of the Tugela River, the tactic of queuing to kill was naturally impossible to implement. After all, it was impossible to "queue" standing in the water. However, when they came to land, the British army could finally use the secret recipe passed down from their ancestors.
“Attack!” Rost ordered with great confidence.
The strength of the East Africans has been figured out. Whether it is a brigade or not, even with reinforcements, it cannot be more than their own strength. After all, this time the British army, the Portuguese army and the Transvaal attacked from multiple fronts. The East Africans It is certain that not many troops can be mobilized to support the East African army in front of them.
Even if there were surplus troops in East Africa, there would be too little time. Rost knew this after the British army crossed the river. After all, East Africa had surplus troops and could not easily give up the advantageous terrain of the Tugela River.
In the majestic music of the military band, the Indian troops took sonorous and powerful steps and began to attack the "simple" positions in East Africa.
At this time, the machine gunners in East Africa had long been prepared.
Due to the "lateness" of the British army, the 9th East African Brigade was successfully assembled, so the number of machine guns was also fully replenished. The 9th Brigade had a total of 63 machine guns.
The late arrival of the British army was due to an "inertial" error in East Africa. The estimated British marching speed in East Africa was measured based on the marching speed in East Africa, which led the Ninth Brigade to estimate the arrival time of the British army "four hours" too early.
In fact, so far, the British army has not yet been assembled. The heavy artillery units are far away on the other side of the Tugela River. Those big guys are not easy to move, especially the temporary pontoon bridge built on the Tugela River cannot bear it at all.
So only the British army carried light artillery, and the number was not large. At this time, the British firepower was actually far inferior to that of East Africa.
The East African light artillery has long been hidden on the so-called "highlands". At the same time, Aridotus gathered all the machine guns in the brigade and prepared to verify the power of the machine guns.
“Fire!” ordered Aritotle.
East African machine gunners started strafing an array of British Indian troops in a line.
Bullets flew towards the British army like rain, and soon a large stream of white water vapor evaporated from the impact point of the exhaust port in front of the Maxim machine gun. This was the water-cooling structure cooling the gun body.
The Indians on the opposite side fell in pieces like cornstalks under a harvester. Panic quickly spread among the Indians, but the East African machine guns were like "devils", constantly harvesting their lives.
The first large-scale actual combat of weapons such as the Maxim machine gun in the previous life was actually used by the British in 1893, against the Ndebele people. The British wiped out more than 15 million indigenous people at the cost of only four deaths. , and at that time the British army only had five Maxim machine guns.
The British who are currently fighting against the East Africans are also equipped with machine guns, but they are still Gatling guns. Even in the original history, the British did not equip the first batch of Maxim machine guns until October 1888.
So this time the British army has actually fallen behind East Africa in terms of machine gun weapons, and this is the situation of the British Army. Servant armies like the Indians may not even be equipped with the "temporarily backward" Gatling machine guns.
(End of this chapter)