I, who was eager to retire, became an Imperial General.

Chapter 153 Battle Lines and Strategy

"Underestimating the enemy on the battlefield is a major taboo, Frank, you really are still too focused on appearances!"

In Horseshoe City, inside the command post, John watched as the two assault brigades that had suddenly appeared in his field of vision, only to be bombarded and completely annihilated by his impromptu tactical changes and the combined advance of infantry and tanks, a hint of amusement flashed in his eyes.

In fact, ever since he had given the order to the Independent Artillery Regiment to advance to the E12 ambush point, he had already guessed that Frank must have laid an ambush in the surrounding area in advance.

Otherwise, based on his understanding of this general, the other side would never easily allow this heavy armored regiment, which could use ethereal magic to deal with explosive magic, to retreat easily. Instead, it would most likely choose to let it continue to advance, directly into the rear of the Imperial guerrilla forces, and then have the armored regiment deploy in a line to cooperate with the allied forces fighting against the Empire to complete the encirclement and suppression of the guerrilla squad.

As a master of the strategy of forming alliances, Frank's greatest skill was to send a powerful elite force deep into enemy territory, and then rely on the mobility and offensive capabilities of this force to expand the effect of the front line, forcing the enemy to mobilize their forces to try to encircle and block them, thus falling into his pre-arranged traps, and using the pre-set ambush to annihilate the enemy's main force.

Finally, they joined forces with the remaining troops to complete the encirclement and suppression of the remaining enemy forces.

This tactic is quite aggressive on the battlefield and relies heavily on the combat intensity and mobility of elite troops.

When used properly and when the enemy's general's strategy can be predicted in advance, it can be considered unsolvable.

If the Imperial Army were commanded today not by John, who knew him so well, but by any other Imperial commander, in a battle with such a disparate force, they would likely find it difficult to gain the upper hand against this unconventional and charismatic general.

Unfortunately, as John once said...

In this world, no one understands the Allies better than him, a commander who once held the rank of Allied General in the game.

Therefore, John realized that this was a trap after he saw the heavy armored regiment begin to withdraw.

However, due to the opponent's camouflage tactics, he was initially unable to determine exactly what kind of ambush Frank had set up.

While issuing the battle order and organizing the information in his mind, he quickly found two things that were not right based on Martha's previous report on the battle situation.

The first point of doubt is that after encountering the enemy's light dragoon brigade, the 16th and 17th squads were not surrounded and wiped out, but instead successfully escaped the battlefield by using smoke screens and artillery fire.

Secondly, the 8th Guerrilla Squad, in conjunction with the 5th Artillery Group, with a force of less than a hundred men, was able to easily defeat an enemy light dragoon regiment in a short period of time.

Based on the issues revealed by these two intelligence reports, and John's understanding of this philandering general, he was 99% certain that the enemy had most likely sabotaged the light cavalry brigade on the main battlefield.

It's even possible that all personnel from these two brigade-level units could be transferred out and used camouflage tactics to reach the vicinity of the E12 ambush point.

Once he directs his main force to attack the heavy armored regiment, the enemy will directly use this ambush force to launch a surprise attack from behind his main force regiment, and through the anti-armor weapons they may be carrying, completely paralyze his most relied-upon armored artillery regiment.

Therefore, after assessing this possibility, John immediately ordered Samuel to change tactics, using reserved heavy artillery regiments and beam magic cannons to ambush the enemy forces behind them, attempting to annihilate these two highly mobile but poorly defended brigade-level units.

And things unfolded exactly as he had predicted.

"Unfortunately, after this battle, given Frank's personality, he will probably completely abandon the strategy of forming alliances and instead adopt the same guerrilla tactics to fight against me."

"And they will try to use another ambush force and an assassination squad to carry out a strategic assassination of me in Horseshoe City, in order to force me to withdraw from the battlefield command, and then join forces with the ambush force to adopt a spread and encirclement approach to reduce our guerrilla zone and try to end this battle."

Although he had already made arrangements to deal with the enemy's impending assassination squad, he was able to easily defend against them and even gave Major General Leon a pleasant surprise.

But if that's the case, his plan to rely on the high mobility of the armored regiment to launch a breach operation and ultimately win the war will likely have to be abandoned. So, in the end, is that the only option left?
While doing so could indeed ensure victory on the front lines, it would also lead to strategic errors, and overall it wouldn't be very profitable.

If the Allied commander this time wasn't Frank, but some clueless idiot, I wouldn't be in this predicament.

Ugh!
At this moment, John suddenly began to miss the days when he was on the Walden front, outwitting Colonel Bolt all by himself, even though it hadn't been that long.

But now it seems like something from a past life.

All I can say is that life is unpredictable.
Shaking his head to clear his mind of these trivial thoughts, John focused his gaze once more on the real-time battle map in his field of vision.

After seeing Samuel completely annihilate two enemy infantry brigades according to his instructions, and with the assistance of Miles in defeating Barnabo, completely annihilate the enemy's heavy armored regiment within half an hour.

He then directed his troops to the locations where supplies had already been deployed to complete preparations and hand over the wounded who were unable to continue fighting. He instructed the logistics department to send the wounded to pre-designated medical stations in caves or hidden tunnels for appropriate treatment.

After a moment's thought, John gave Samuel a completely new instruction:

"The order is for the armored regiment to be divided into 10 combat unit groups, employing a combined arms operation of infantry, artillery, and tanks, and dispersed to fifty combat locations below the front-line guerrilla zone, awaiting further instructions."

"Once the artillery crews have completed their preparations, they shall immediately proceed to the following 10 operational locations to await orders."

"The Magic Sniper Company will immediately rendezvous with the ground support forces at location A31. After locking onto the enemy's magic technology transport vehicles and facilities, the sniper company will carry out the pinpoint strike."

"After the demolition company is ready, proceed to location B33 and use pre-set explosive magic to bombard the mountain peaks and fill the valley, thus restricting the advance of the enemy's heavy armored regiment."

"..."

Following John's orders, the dense black dots representing their main force began to rapidly differentiate, then split into numerous smaller waves of troops to carry out their respective missions and head to designated locations to rendezvous with friendly forces.

He watched as the enemy, under his command, continued to advance on the map and, as he had anticipated, gradually dispersed their forces, transforming into numerous guerrilla squads that launched attacks against his own troops.

However, they were able to break away from their main force and split into 10 high-intensity guerrilla units.

In conjunction with the existing guerrilla forces to draw fire, the artillery and armored magic gun vehicles hidden in the surrounding area will be deployed.

Under John's micromanagement, the two forces launched near-synchronous attacks on the enemy's guerrilla units, resulting in the loss of nearly 100 guerrilla units.

During the hour-long battle, John, who had simultaneously engaged in fifty regional operations and wiped out at least five thousand enemy troops, issued orders for his own forces to prepare for battle before slowly withdrawing from battlefield control.
But at this moment, despite his splitting headache from the intense execution of minute instructions, he clearly realized...

Next, the Allied commander he had just clashed with yesterday would likely launch an attack on Horseshoe City, where Frank was stationed, under Frank's orders, in an attempt to force him to completely withdraw from battlefield command and leave the Imperial Army leaderless.

Almost the instant this thought formed in his mind, accompanied by the sound of light footsteps, Igonila appeared before him and then delivered the expected news:

"Battalion Commander, according to the scouts, enemy troops, numbering no less than 3000, have appeared three kilometers outside Horseshoe City and are advancing towards it."

……

(End of this chapter)