"We arrived too late." General Albert put down the gold-patterned monocular in his hand and shook his head: "If we could have come a month earlier, the enemy must not have built the city wall. We may also be able to take advantage of the incomplete defense of the city wall to capture the camp of the Nasseri Kingdom Volunteer Field Corps. Now that they have built the city wall and are condescending, it will be a little troublesome for us to remove this stronghold."
Claude didn't say anything. He knew that General Albert's words about some troubles were to give him face. In fact, it was not some troubles, but a lot of troubles. He did not expect that the captured senior officers of the Principality of Karrnath would confess that the volunteer field regiment of the Kingdom of Nasseri rebuilt a logistics base on the ruins of Wickham Castle. Only now did he discover that they did not rebuild the original site, but instead The expansion and even the outermost city wall have been built.
Originally the capital city of Cromwell's overseas territory, Wickham Castle was known for its dangerous terrain and tight defenses. When the Hicks Kingdom launched its first colonial war, Wickham Castle only had one local garrison, and it was under siege by a standing corps of the Hicks Kingdom for half a year. In the end, it took the Hicks Kingdom's colonial garrison a month and a half to bring in two heavy siege artillery pieces, collapse the city wall, and capture the castle.
The second capture of Wickham Castle was a victory for General Michelich. During the First Colonial War, the two standing armies on the front line of the Kingdom of Hicks were annihilated. General Michelich led the Ranger Division. Pressure. The two walls of Wickham Castle that had been blown down by artillery had not yet been repaired. A dissatisfied local garrison of the Hicks Colonial Army who was defending had no choice but to raise a white flag and surrender, causing Wickham Castle to be destroyed by the Rangers. recover.
Later, after receiving information from the Hicks Kingdom that it had sent five more standing legions to the mainland colony of Nubisia, General Michelich decided to implement the strategy of clearing the country in the two overseas territories of Cromwell and Beringana, and moved All the kingdom residents of Wickham Castle were wiped out, leaving only an empty castle and the Nikancha people living around the castle.
After the start of the Second Colonial War, the standing army of the Kingdom of Hicks easily occupied Wickham Castle, massacred and drove away the Nikancha people occupying the residences of the castle residents, and set up Wickham Castle as a general logistics base. . However, General Michelich ordered the 131st Ranger Regiment led by Claude to sneak attack and capture Wickham Castle through a pre-excavated secret passage, burning all the logistics supplies, and because of the explosion of the ammunition warehouse, the entire Wickham Castle was destroyed. The castle was blown into ruins, forcing the Hicks Kingdom's standing army on the front line to surrender because they ran out of ammunition and food, and won the Second Colonial War.
The Kingdom of Hicks, which suffered only two defeats, still refused to end the war and announced that it would form ten standing legions. And in the name of mercenaries, they hired the so-called retired soldiers from the Kingdom of Ovelas, the Kingdom of Nasseri and the Principality of Karnas, and formed two volunteer regiments, which were transported to the mainland of Nubisia to stabilize the situation in the colony. .
In the first half of this year, the Hicks Kingdom transported two more completed standing corps to Vibato Colonial County, but they encountered a food crisis. While urgently transporting grain, grass and other military supplies, more than 100,000 acres of fertile farmland were reclaimed in Vibato Colonial County to survive the famine. According to the confessions of the captured senior officers, the Colonial County of Vibato had recovered the first batch of planted potatoes and the food crisis had been alleviated, so they decided to launch military operations against Cromwell and Beringana. action.
The Volunteer Field Corps of the Kingdom of Nasseri took a fancy to the favorable terrain of the Wickham Castle ruins and decided to rebuild a logistics base there. If the volunteer light cavalry regiment of the Principality of Karnars hadn't taken a fancy to the extra money from hunting buffalo, they would have stayed in the Cromwell Territory. With the garrison of these two legions, the Crowell Territory will soon become a colonial county of the Kingdom of Hicks.
This is also the main reason why Claude is determined to eradicate the volunteer field army of the Nasseri Kingdom. As the supreme commander of the theater, he will never allow the enemy to drive such a nail within his combat range. In particular, the volunteer field corps of the kingdom's mortal enemy, the Nasseri Kingdom, was famous for its good defense during the five-year war in the eastern region. If it is allowed to occupy the ruins of Wickham Castle, the Cromwell Territory will soon become a place under the jurisdiction of the enemy.
Unfortunately, as General Albert said, they arrived too late. The enemy has built the outer city wall, but the camp is placed inside the city wall. With almost the same troop strength, it is not a good idea to launch an attack rashly. The Thunder Division is likely to encounter a bloody blow in front of the enemy's city wall, and will still be unable to capture Wickham Castle despite heavy casualties. There is a high chance that the enemy will seize the opportunity to counterattack.
Claude originally wanted to see if the enemy was building on the original site, in which case the secret passage might still be used. Unexpectedly, the enemy expanded the entire Wickham Castle this time. The trench where the secret passage exit was has been filled in and included in the city wall. This made Claude very disappointed.
General Albert's suggestion was to besiege, or to besiege the city and call for reinforcements. Use the mobility of the Thunder Legion to force the enemy to be trapped in Wickham Castle, waiting for the moment when their food and supplies are exhausted.
I just don’t know how long it will take for this method to take effect. No one knows how much food, grass and logistical supplies the Nasseri Kingdom's volunteer field army carries. If it is only for a short two or three months, then everyone can get by with patience. But if the enemy has stored supplies for a year, then everyone should go back early to wash up and sleep. They can't attack anyway. If the soldiers stay in the field for a year without using their fighting spirit, they will collapse and die.
But Claude rejected General Albert's suggestion. What he needed was time to eliminate this volunteer field regiment as soon as possible. Instead of entangled with the enemy here, the longer the delay, the more detrimental the impact will be on the war zone. Apart from anything else, just a logistical supply will be in a disadvantageous position compared to the enemy. Even though the Thunder Division has mobility, the consumption of war horses is greater than that of people. This cannot be done by just grazing in the wilderness and eating some grass. It also requires a large amount of nutritious concentrates to feed them.
So Claude decided to attack by force. With the grenades in hand, he did not believe that the volunteer field army of the Nasseri Kingdom could hold the city wall. General Albert didn't understand that Claude had a trump card, so he persuaded him for a long time. Claude just smiled and shook his head, refusing to listen to his persuasion. Instead, he ordered him to disperse his troops to prevent the enemies in Wickham Castle from gathering and fleeing. At the same time, let him see why he is confident of breaking through the city wall built by the enemy.
However, Claude's wishful thinking did not work. To his surprise, the volunteer field regiment did not huddle behind the city wall. After realizing that the soldiers of the Thunder Division in the pits a hundred meters away from the city wall posed a great threat to the defenders and artillery crews on the city wall with musket snipers, they dispatched infantry out of the city wall and launched an attack. The counterattack forced the first batch of Thunder Division soldiers who attacked to snipe the enemy to suffer heavy casualties and had to retreat from the front line.
Claude had a gloomy look on his face. It was obvious that the enemy found that the Thunder Division's attacking force was not much larger than theirs, so they had the confidence to go out of the city to launch a counterattack. If Claude wants to throw grenades on or inside the city wall, he must be within 70 meters of the city wall. But the current situation is that the Thunder Division cannot get close to a hundred meters of the city wall, and cannot even snipe the defenders on the city wall.
Claude had to order to learn from the volunteer light cavalry regiment of the Principality of Karnars that he had annihilated, and dig trenches from 800 meters away to the enemy's city wall in order to avoid the artillery fire on the enemy's city wall and reduce the casualties of the troops. There is nothing that can be done about it. The enemy has a lot of armaments and ammunition. As long as three or more people are seen gathering together within 800 meters, the artillery on the city wall will fire solid projectiles to attack. Under such circumstances, the soldiers of the Thunder Division had no way to dig in front and resist. They could only start digging from a distance of 800 meters, outside the range of the city wall artillery.
It took eight days to dig the three trenches to within 200 meters of the city wall. During this period, the Volunteer Field Corps entrenched in Wickham Castle also sent a night attack force to attack the guards in the trenches, killing nearly a hundred Thunder soldiers. of casualties. Including the soldiers who were injured and killed by artillery fire on the city wall while digging trenches, there were already nearly 400 soldiers.
However, it is precisely because of this that it aroused the anger of the majority of the soldiers of the Thunder Division. Everyone knew that the division still had the deadly weapon of throwing grenades, so the morale was not low. On the contrary, the desire to fight became stronger, and they all demanded to fight day and night. Keep digging forward. I wish I could dig under the city wall overnight and use grenades to retaliate against the enemy.
At this time, Claude had also learned about the difficulty of the volunteer field army of the Kingdom of Nasseri. He changed his battle plan and was determined to fight another difficult battle under Wickham Castle instead of relying on throwing weapons. Defeat the enemy with one shot. He still remembered a famous saying he saw on the military website in his previous life. Weapons are not the decisive factor in war. It is people who truly determine the outcome of a war.
It can be seen from the fact that the volunteer field corps of the Nasseri Kingdom sends people out of the city wall to launch counterattacks from time to time. The enemy's morale is also very high and they firmly believe that they can defend Wickham Castle. If the enemy is not trapped in the castle and their morale is weakened, then even if the enemy is caught off guard with a throwing bomb, the enemy can still continue to fight to the death with the Thunder Division in the castle. Perhaps by then the Thunder Division, which thought the enemy had been defeated by the grenade, would suffer a big loss. After all, the grenade was not a real killer, it was just a variant of the grenade, and its lethality was not that great.
Starting from a distance of 150 meters from the city wall, Claude ordered the soldiers to dig horizontal trenches to prevent the enemy from sneak attacks and counterattacks out of the city. Then he dug horizontal trenches again from a distance of 120 meters, and continued to advance step by step.
However, General Albert watched the battle in confusion and did not understand why Claude did this. The two divisions had brought two months' reserves of grain, grass, ammunition and supplies before setting off. At this rate of attack, it was likely that all the logistics and military supplies would be exhausted before Wickham Castle was captured.
Claude just smiled and said to General Albert, be patient and everything will come to an end in a few days. In the next few days, the soldiers of the Thunder Division finally dug a horizontal trench within a hundred meters of the city wall. Now they could directly use muskets to suppress the artillery fire on the city wall, and even prevented the enemy from leaving the city to arrange to prevent night attacks. bonfire.
At night, in order to guard against night attacks by the Thunder Division, the Volunteer Field Corps had to send a large number of soldiers to guard the city wall, and from time to time they threw torches down from the city wall to use the weak light of the torches to see if there was night. Attack the enemy near the wall trench
However, the night attack commanded by Claude was not prepared to let the soldiers of the Thunder Division get close to the city wall. They only needed to get within 70 meters of the city wall and directly use the throwing device to throw the grenades on and inside the city wall. Continuous explosions exploded on the city wall, and from time to time, soldiers' limbs were blown off the city wall in the light of the fire.
A total of ten rounds of thousands of grenades had blown up the top of the city wall where the Thunder Division had attacked, resulting in heavy casualties. Although the Volunteer Field Corps mobilized several batches of reinforcements, they did not dare to send more people up because the first two batches of men and horses who climbed onto the city wall were killed and injured numerous times. Even after the bomb-throwing stopped for ten minutes, they still stopped under the city wall. , only a few soldiers were sent to watch on the city wall.
The ten-minute pause was just Claude ordering the grenade team to move forward fifteen meters and throw five rounds of grenades into the city. As a result, nearly a hundred grenades were thrown in in the first round. The reinforcements of the Volunteer Field Corps staying below the city wall suffered a big loss immediately. The grenades landed in the crowd and exploded in a large area. The soldiers who were not injured turned around. He just ran away, not even bothering to take his wounded comrades with him.
At this time, the subsequent siege troops had already crossed the ditch in front of the city wall, leaning the ladder against the city wall and climbing up. Although there were more than a dozen soldiers from the Volunteer Field Corps on the city wall who were sent to observe the vigilance, these few manpower were not enough to resist so many attackers. They either turned around and ran away or died under the attacker's bayonets.
Soon the city wall for the frontal assault was occupied by the soldiers of the Thunder Division. Then the soldiers who climbed up the city wall continued to attack along the city wall while going down to the city and opened the door for the frontal assault to let in the follow-up troops. Under the cover of thrown bombs, the four city walls fell one after another, and most of the Volunteer Field Corps were trapped on the ruins in the middle of the city wall.
After capturing the four city walls, Claude ordered not to continue the attack and wait for daybreak to avoid accidental damage. It was only after dawn that the Thunder Division discovered that the volunteer field regiment of the Kingdom of Nasseri was still preparing to resist. They were setting up defensive positions on the ruins in the middle of the city wall overnight, and concentrated their artillery to bombard the west wall, intending to open a gap from there. , to find a way out.
What's sad is that the quality of the outer city wall they built is very good. Dozens of artillery bombarded it for most of the day, but the inside of the wall was only beaten into holes and bumps, but it didn't fall down. Seeing that the enemy had not surrendered, Claude ordered the soldiers to turn around the city defense artillery deployed on the city wall and bombard the ruins in the middle of the city wall, destroying the enemy's defensive positions and attracting enemy firepower. At the same time, he ordered McJack's The 131st Guerrilla Battalion used grenades to launch attacks with General Albert's troops to seize the enemy's defensive positions.
The fierce battle inside Wickham Castle lasted for three days and two nights. In the end, the remaining 43,000 officers and soldiers of the Volunteer Field Corps of King Nasseri Kingdom laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Thunder Division.
The Wickham Attack lasted for a total of twenty-two days. More than half of the Nasseri Kingdom's Volunteer Field Corps suffered casualties, more than 17,000 officers and soldiers were killed, and the entire army ended in annihilation. However, the casualties of Claude's Thunder Division and General Albert's Third Rock Division were not small. The casualties of the Thunder Division were mainly concentrated in the counterattack while digging trenches and the final night attack on the city, with nearly 4,000 casualties.
The casualties of the Panshi Third Division were during the last three days of the city's offensive battle. Because they were not familiar with urban street fighting, General Albert's troops suffered 6,000 casualties when attacking the enemy's defensive positions built on the ruins. Too many, almost a regiment's worth of troops were lost.