The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

The last and most fatal flaw: the artillery and infantry became separated.

This tactic of combining artillery and infantry has a name: Xu Jin's barrage.

The artillery bombardment wasn't static; rather, it was like a moving wall, starting from the front lines of one's own position and advancing a section every few minutes according to a pre-arranged schedule. Infantry would follow the trail of artillery fire, theoretically moving wherever the artillery hit.

The British believed that no one would survive the artillery fire, and that the German troops would have been wiped out long ago. Therefore, they thought the infantry's mission was not to fight, but to march over and occupy that no-man's-land.

The British army's confidence did not come from nowhere.

During the Battle of Neuchâtel, the British bombarded the German positions for thirty-five minutes, followed by an infantry charge. That same day, they broke through the heavily bombarded German front lines, advancing nearly two kilometers. Thirty-five minutes, two kilometers—the staff repeatedly examined these figures and arrived at what they considered an irrefutable conclusion: the larger the scale of the bombardment, the fewer the infantry casualties, and the smoother the advance.

The logic is linear, so the answer is also linear: simply super-double Newcher's pattern.

If thirty-five minutes isn't enough, then bombard for seven days and seven nights. If there aren't enough shells, then prepare 1.5 million rounds. After the shelling ended along the 29-kilometer front, the officers told the soldiers: "No need to run, just walk across with your equipment on your back. There won't be any survivors on the other side, not even a rat will survive."

But the staff officers overlooked one thing in their calculations: time.

Newchalpell was in March 1915, more than a year ago. In that year, the British army was holding meetings, writing reports, and transcribing their thirty-five-minute success into manuals, binding them into booklets, and distributing them. Meanwhile, the German army was digging. They deepened their trenches, poured concrete on their bunkers, thickened their barbed wire, and extended their trenches from a few hundred meters to several kilometers in depth.

Newchalper broke through the German positions from 1915.

But what awaited the British army in the summer of 1916 was something else entirely.

At that time, the artillery will advance its firepower according to the predetermined schedule, regardless of where the infantry has advanced or whether the barbed wire has been breached. When the time comes, they will continue to bombard.

Then the infantrymen crawled out of the trenches, carrying 30 kilograms of equipment, and slowly advanced through the mud. The artillery fire had already crossed the trench in front of them and reached the trench ahead. In the trench in front of the infantrymen, there was no fire support, and the unharmed German machine gunners were crawling up from underground, setting up their guns and aiming.

"Seven days of shelling," Joseph said, "will likely be far less effective than the staff anticipated. The German trench system is very deep, and their bunkers are very deep; seven days of shelling won't penetrate them. Once the shelling stops, the Germans will come out of their bunkers and set up machine guns. Then our infantry will crawl out of the trenches and charge."

He paused for a moment.

"And then?" Wilson's voice was devoid of emotion.

"And then," Joseph said, "it looked terrible."

Wilson looked at Joseph: "So what are you planning to do?"

Joseph lowered his head, picked up the unfinished bulletproof vest on the table, and weighed it in his hand.

"I'll do whatever I can," he said.

*******************

For the rest of February, Joseph completely transformed the bunker into a frenzied workshop.

First, there was the signal flare coding system—or more accurately, an upgraded version.

Joseph had used signal flares before in Newchapel. That was the simplest version, telling the reserves in the rear, "We've taken the left flank, come and support us." The messenger couldn't run through the hail of bullets, and the flag signals were invisible in the smoke, but when that signal flare went up, the rear immediately understood, and artillery support arrived instantly, stabilizing that section of the front.

Now he wants to take this a step further and create a complete system for the Battle of the Somme.

He called in all the infantry and artillery liaison officers in the company, spread out a sketch on the ground, and drew a simple table with charcoal:

A red signal flare indicates "Our forces have advanced; please move the artillery forward."

A green signal flare indicates "the position is secure, shelling ceases";

A white signal flare means "Surrounded, provide immediate support";

The red and white fire indicates "retreat and cover, artillery fires to intercept the rear line".

Artillery liaison officer Corporal Jensen initially frowned, "What's this new gadget...?"

"Newschaperone, are you here?" Joseph asked.

Jason paused for a moment, then said, "I'm here."

"Do you know how long the Second Battalion was stuck? How much time passed between the messenger running back with the message and the reserves going up?"

Jason fell silent. Everyone present knew how many men the Second Battalion had lost or been injured during that period.

“Use signal flares,” Joseph said. “They take off in two seconds, are visible to artillery observers, and don’t matter if the messenger dies from running. I used the simplest version for Newchapel. Now the Somme is a much larger battlefield, so I’ve created four commands covering the main coordination scenarios.” He pushed the sketches in front of Jensen. “So tell me, in the Somme campaign plan, what signal was used for infantry to request artillery extension?”

Jason shut his mouth.

The answer is: a red flag, planted on the advancing position—provided that someone is alive to plant the flag, and that the artillery observer can see it in the smoke.

Jason lowered his eyes, picked up the sketch, and began to examine it carefully.

"Can you see the signal flare?" Joseph asked one last time.

"I can see it." Jason's voice was half an octave lower than when he came in. "...I'll go back and tell the artillerymen."

******************

McDonald helped him set up the mortar sights.

The Stokes mortar was a good thing—lightweight, fast-firing, and operable by one person—but its aiming method was a joke: relying on the naked eye, experience, and intuition. No one had ever seriously counted how many shells hit friendly positions or flew into no man's land.

Joseph added a curved copper plate to the side of the gun barrel, with angle markings engraved on it, and paired it with a level made of thin copper wire. The principle is not complicated; it's just a simplified version of a quadrant, which can be derived from high school physics.

But in northern France in 1916, it was worth a life.

With this, mortar operators no longer need to rely on guesswork to determine elevation angles. They can check tables, verify angles, adjust, and fire. The improvement in accuracy is significant—they can pre-calculate the trajectory and use coordinates on a map to cover the target, instead of firing one shot, checking the impact point, and then correcting, wasting precious time on this primitive trial-and-error process.

The next one is the periscope.

While Joseph was engrossed in modifying the periscope in the bunker, O'Connor finally couldn't hold back any longer.

He stood at the entrance of the shelter, arms crossed, and with the air of a seasoned veteran who had seen it all, examined the thing for a long time before saying:

I have a question for you.

"explain."

"What did you do before?"