In the following days of meetings, the General Staff Department conducted a review and summary of the entire Torch operation based on Axia's backtracking and the search results of the Taquila ruins. Reports are sent to Roland's desk almost every day, piled up in front and back and about half a person's height.
More and more details became clear one by one.
For example, the huge sacred stones that appeared in the battle of Wangbeipo and the Taquila siege successively came from the sacred stone ore veins in the ruins. At the bottom of the mine, the detective team found the missing part of the ore cluster. The two medium-sized sacred stone pillars were cut in half, and the sections were very smooth, as if they had been cut by a sharp tool.
Although the backtracking ability cannot be used near the god stone, from a global perspective, it is likely to be related to the giant skeleton. In fact, the latter is not only a means of transportation, but also has the function of a small obelisk, which can regenerate the red fog, as evidenced by the corroded land around the ruins. However, compared with the obelisk, which covers hundreds of kilometers, its coverage is only one or two hundred meters, and it cannot be created out of nothing. It still needs the supply of red lines to maintain it.
As a "sentry point" that can move freely, its strategic significance is self-evident. The conclusion given by the staff is that compared to the spider demon, this super-large carrier is in all likelihood a rare species for the devil, otherwise it can completely replace the role of the outpost and occupy the fertile plain before humans can react. The whole territory.
In addition, most of the passages behind Taquila were excavated by spider demons. Although their digging ability was far inferior to that of swallowing worms, it was still much better than that of mad demons. These passages all start from the Shenshi mine, and the depth from the ground obviously takes into account the threshold of observation ability, and with sufficient preparation time, it is by no means easy to find.
Since both Celine and Agatha tended to think of giant skeletons and spider demons as the same type of devil, Roland also gave him a new name: monstrous beast, to distinguish carrier-type enemies from other devils, plus a specific prefix , you can quickly name an as-yet-undiscovered kind of devil.
At present, these two carriers are named "fortress-type abnormal beast" and "spider-type abnormal beast", of which the latter is further divided into one type that throws stone needles and two types that throw personnel. Accurate names are not only conducive to combat deductions It is also more convenient for post-war statistics and records to be issued with orders
In addition to the detailed analysis of the battle situation, another focus of Roland's attention was the shortcomings and areas for improvement listed by the General Staff Department based on the results.
Among them, Edith made the report herself, and it was also ranked first among many problems, and it was still the shortcoming of reconnaissance ability.
Aside from the sky, in the history of human warfare, tunnel warfare has always been limited by excavation tools and cost-effectiveness. However, this rule is not quite applicable in the face of devouring worms and spider-shaped monsters. As long as enough carriers are gathered, the enemy may even dig an underground passage for the army to pass through in a short time, so the land under his feet is also It has become a dangerous area that has to be guarded against.
There is no doubt that relying on Sylvie alone is not only impossible, but also extremely uneconomical. When the magic eye penetrates obstacles, the consumption will be greatly increased. Under the condition that the total magic power level is fixed, it can monitor the target ten kilometers away on the surface for a whole day. If it is replaced by scanning the ground, it is only the size of one or two football fields. , a shallow layer of three or four meters deep.
What's more, except for the extraordinary, all witches' abilities have a threshold. When a certain condition is exceeded, the magic power consumption will increase exponentially. In this case, any non-emergency behavior is a waste of magic power. .
This vigilance work must be undertaken by the First Army itself.
Roland vaguely remembered that there were times in history that both sides used underground monitoring to prevent each other from digging tunnels and raiding positions. Clearly capture the movement of the opponent when they dig.
However, this method is only limited to the tunnels that are being excavated near the position. A trap like Taquila has been laid early, and listening alone cannot solve all problems.
He thought about it again and again, and then came up with a feasible method to drill.
This is a detection method that is widely used in the civil engineering industry. As one of the two dogs of science and engineering, he often hears it from his roommates in the civil engineering institute. Simply put, it is to smash a steel bar into the ground vertically, and judge the softness and hardness of the soil layer according to the distance of each hammer. The test points are generally distributed with plum blossom piles at intervals of several meters. As long as a probe is equipped, a few people can complete a large-scale inspection. When the rebar sinking data suddenly increases, there is a high possibility of voids below.
The combination of listening and probing can basically ensure the detection of threats from underground without resorting to witches' abilities.
As for the detection of the enemy situation in the air, the only way to get rid of the dependence on Lightning and Maisie is to develop the Air Force.
And when this part can be made up is up to Tilly.
In addition, there are many conclusions in the report such as "too much reliance on positions" and "lack of quick support capabilities", which made Roland feel a little helpless while lamenting the rapid improvement of the staff level. He is not clear about these issues. But limited by the population of Neverwinter City, it is difficult for him to make up for the above shortcomings in a short period of time.
Finally, among the numerous reports, one comment caught his attention. It was a report from the base of the army, submitted by a logistics officer. According to the report, in high-intensity combat, the performance of the Mark 1 machine gun was not stable. After the decisive battle, many soldiers in the machine gun squad complained that they took more time to replace the barrel than to shoot, which also caused logistical problems. Not a small burden. Hope the engineering department can improve it if it can.
This is also the first time Roland has received direct feelings from frontline soldiers after the establishment of the feedback mechanism. As the personal users of the weapons, they are the ones who know the pros and cons of weapons the most.
In fact, he noticed an abnormal growth in the scrapped barrels as early as the attack on the Tower 1 site, but since these parts can be returned to the furnace for reforging, he did not pay much attention to it at the time. Now that I think about it, it should be due to the lack of experience of the shooter and the sudden increase in the pressure of the enemy. During the night battle, the soldiers were more nervous, and it was difficult to confirm the result of the battle. They almost held the trigger and would not let go. The air-cooled barrel itself is not as good as the water-cooled barrel in terms of stamina. The previous combat intensity can basically be handled. Now, when the shooting time is long, the heat dissipation can not keep up.
This also gave Roland a sense of alertness. The reason why he used gas-guided recoil and air-cooled barrels at the beginning was purely because he wanted to use one gun for multiple purposes. If it was designed according to Maxim, it would not conform to the idea of "universal", but the actual effect was Not as ideal as he expected. Although the production of tracer rounds and the increase in night combat experience can alleviate this situation, the enemy's troops on the Western Front are only a small number. If it really comes to a decisive battle for the main force, and the devil is pouring in from all over the mountains and plains, the impact of the misfire of the heavy machine gun will be fatal.
Fortunately, the report made him realize his mistake.
The solution is to separate the two, and replace the heavy machine gun designed to suppress the enemy with a longer barrel with a heat sink, and no longer consider the multi-purpose problem. The general-purpose machine gun, which can both hold a charge and be suitable for vehicles, has been redesigned based on the Mark 1 to meet the needs of future wars.