I Became a Plutocrat in World War I: Starting with Saving France-Chapter 789: The Time to Acquire Has Come

The reason the British Army retreated so quickly is partly because of Shire’s warning.

Shire accurately predicted the movements of the German Army, but the British Commander-in-Chief Haig ignored it. Therefore, when the German attack became a reality, any remaining trust and hope the British officers and soldiers had in their commander vanished completely.

If you don’t trust your commander, nor his abilities, naturally, there will be no morale for fighting.

This left the British Expeditionary Force almost one-sided in the ensuing defense battle, being driven back like sheep by the German Army.

The other reason is that the Germans timely unveiled the K-Wagen super heavy tank.

This tank actually just looks intimidating; it has no real advantage in tank warfare, with a top speed of only 7.5 kilometers per hour.

This speed is only slightly faster than walking.

The actual speed is much slower than walking because its weight and massive size cause all sorts of issues along the way, requiring constant maintenance and even track replacement every other day to prevent breaking in transit.

However, when it appeared in the British Army’s sight and stormed into their ranks, its impressive appearance terrified them.

Against infantry, it was like a moving arsenal, with 4 77mm infantry guns and 7 Maxim machine guns.

The powerful firepower created a hurricane on the battlefield, with bullets sweeping madly in all directions, and shells trailing the retreating British tanks, embodying a "stop me and you die" spirit.

The British Army had never seen such a "war machine." Out of fear of the unknown equipment and self-preserving pride, they retreated and exaggerated its firepower and power to their allies, causing a chain reaction that left the rear British Army in panic.

So much so that large numbers of deserters appeared even before the Germans reached the city gates.

...

Bicangxi Training Base.

Shire was discussing the reconnaissance methods for the "truck cannon" with Tijani. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"All other issues with the ’truck cannon’ have been resolved, but the reconnaissance method still bothers Tijani immensely.

"The ’truck cannon’ is characterized by rapid attack and retreat," Tijani explained, holding exercise data in one hand and a pencil in the other, marking as he explained, "We’ve tested it. It can retreat to a safe area in about 5 minutes, meaning this cannon is almost invincible."

It takes an enemy at least 5 minutes to discover the target, calculate the parameters, and finally hit the target area with a shell.

Note: Normal artillery takes over 10 minutes to withdraw. In extreme cases, the enemy’s shells often arrive before withdrawal. The truck cannon only needs to pack up its stabilizers to switch from combat to marching, taking only one minute.

"But the problem is," Tijani drew a horizontal line on the schematic with his pencil, "its range is more than ten kilometers, which means its targets are often enemy artillery more than ten kilometers away, and our forward-placed artillery observers can’t usually see these long-range targets."

Shire understood what Tijani meant.

The enemy’s firepower setup is usually from front to back: a no-man’s-land, enemy defenses, 77mm infantry guns, and finally, long-range 105mm howitzers.

Even if artillery observers are placed heavily in front, they are usually seven or eight kilometers away from enemy 105mm howitzer positions.

More importantly, enemy artillery positions are often very concealed, sometimes in blind spots, making them difficult to locate and calculate parameters for.

Without parameters, even fast-moving and fast-retreating ’truck cannon’ is to no avail.

"Planes can locate enemy artillery positions," Shire said, "as long as the enemy artillery fires."

Firing releases large amounts of smoke, which is easily observed from the air.

Tijani shook his head helplessly: "Even if you observe them, General, planes need to transmit positions via ’message bottles,’ a method that takes time and is inefficient, unable to guide artillery accurately into target zones."

Shire thought for a moment: "I’ll handle it, leave it to me."

"You’ll handle it?" Tijani was incredulous. What solution could there be?

"We just need to bring a radio onto the plane, Major General," Shire replied. "We have bombers and air superiority."

The only issue is that radios are prone to malfunction due to vibration during flight, so bombers must maintain stable flight throughout.

Tijani was stunned by Shire’s suggestion, stuttering, "Bring a radio onto a plane? Can that really be done?"

"Of course," Shire nodded with certainty.

At this time, because radios were bulky and prone to faults, using them in fighter aircraft for inter-plane communication was realistically impossible.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t be used on bombers for air-to-ground communications.

Of course, this requires fighter escort to ensure its safety; otherwise, bombers maintaining low speed and stable flight are vulnerable to enemy aircraft attacks.

"This is fantastic, General," Tijani shook Shire’s shoulders excitedly. "Do you know what this means? Our ’truck cannon’ will fully suppress the Germans’ artillery, even if we only have two artillery regiments with 80 cannons."

Tijani was right.

Although Shire’s ’truck cannon’ uses the same German 105mm howitzer, with performance indistinguishable from the German model, the key to long-range artillery duels is which side can more quickly and accurately grasp the enemy’s location, fire shells, and quickly retreat.

If Shire can achieve aerial reconnaissance coordination with ’truck cannon,’ then artillery warfare in this era will be like having cheats on, becoming almost unbeatable.

And this is just the beginning; in the future, aerial reconnaissance will provide data for other artillery used by infantry, achieving a qualitative leap in overall artillery combat capability, even if the French artillery does not match the German’s.

At this moment, Staff handed over a telegram, Tijani glanced at it, looking at Shire with admiration: "You guessed right again, the Germans launched a counterattack this morning, and the British have retreated on all fronts!"

Shire took the telegram for a look; he was more interested in the German’s introduction of a super heavy tank?

K-Wagen?

Good news.

It just confirmed what Shire had mentioned in Parliament not long ago: "The Germans are developing a 150-ton super heavy tank."

Some members of Parliament still did not believe it.

Now the facts are laid out before their eyes, leaving them with no choice but to believe.

At the same time, the appearance of this German super heavy tank and the failure of the British Army will further exacerbate the panic of domestic capitalists:

The development of the battle situation is exactly as Shire estimated, with the Germans using both super heavy tanks and Paris Cannon in attack, effortlessly routing the British army of over 500,000.

So now, who the final victor will be remains uncertain, and Paris might fall once more.

Thus, asset and land prices will bottom out.

Shire said nothing, calmly returning to his quarters, using a private radio to send separate telegrams to Dejoka and Arman: "The time for acquisition has arrived."