I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 594 Royal Sand
After receiving reinforcements from Petrograd, the 12th Army led by Vasily was also strengthened. Now Vasily could mobilize a total of 8 divisions and one brigade, with a total strength of 13.

These forces were 6 infantry divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, and an artillery brigade.

In addition, Vasily can also mobilize 11 Romanian divisions to cooperate in the battle, all of which are infantry divisions.

George's mission to Vasily was to cross the Carpathian Mountains, invade the heartland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, occupy Transylvania, and threaten Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary, from the flank.

Most of Transylvania was located within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was primarily inhabited by Romanians.

This region is also the birthplace of the Romanians, and Ferdinand was very enthusiastic about regaining this area, which coincided with George's plan.

This task is actually not difficult. The Kingdom of Hungary is weak and its people are indulging in pleasure. The Romanians in Transylvania are suffering from the double oppression of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. They will cooperate with the coalition's attack with great enthusiasm.

When the airborne troops received the combat order, Vasily had already launched an attack on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

George had already had the example of successfully using bombers in the Balkan War, and Vasily would not ignore the role of bombers.

Before launching the attack, Vasily organized artillery and air force to bombard the Austro-Hungarian defense line.

After four hours of artillery and bombardment, Vasily ordered a probing attack on the Austrian lines.

The decision was opposed by Romania's Chief of General Staff Constantin Cristescu.

Cristescu believed that four hours of shelling and bombing were not enough to destroy the Austrian fortresses. Referring to the current habits of various countries, firepower preparation before launching a large-scale battle would take at least three days.

This is the standard now.

After the Battle of the Somme, this standard was raised to one week to half a month.

This explains why the consumption of artillery shells in various countries is so high.

Although Amur had strong industrial strength, Vasily's tactical guiding ideology was to save as much as possible and avoid unnecessary waste as much as possible.

Due to long-term preparations before the outbreak of the war, the 12th Army's artillery had an average ammunition supply of 1500 rounds, which was similar to the level of the German Army.

The 12th Army's artillery technology is advanced and its firing speed is very fast, so the consumption of artillery shells is naturally very high.

1500 rounds may seem like a lot, but if at least three days of fire preparation were required before each battle, all of them could be used up in one campaign.

Therefore, Vasily's tactic is to combine artillery strikes with infantry attacks, which can reduce consumption more reasonably.

Christkus objected because the attacking force sent by Vasily was Romanian.

As a vassal soldier, Christkus was mentally prepared to make sacrifices.

But such sloppy fire preparation made Christkus feel that his sacrifice was not valued.

Sacrifice is acceptable, but it must be worthwhile.

"Your tactical thinking is outdated. The purpose of the artillery bombardment is not to destroy the enemy's defense line, but to cover the infantry attack."

Vasily entered combat mode, and this kind of consumption was commonplace for him.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Vasily made outstanding military achievements. When Russian newspapers praised Vasily, they never paid attention to the casualty data of the vassal army.

Let’s not talk about the Goryeo troops for now.

The Sakhalin Division, which was mainly composed of Japanese, was beaten to the point of being almost cancelled at least twice during the Russo-Japanese War, but each time it returned to the battlefield after only a short period of replenishment and repair.

As the first batch of East Asian troops to arrive in the Balkans, the Sakhalin Division is currently affiliated with the 11th Army led by Brusinov and is stationed in Bulgaria.

Compared with the Gao Ri Corps, Vasily preferred to use the Romanian army to consume the Austrian army.

It is not impossible to use the Russian army as the main force.

But if that happens, who will own Transylvania?

Vasily did not want to follow the example of previous tsars, who had worked hard to conquer the Balkans, only to serve others in vain and cultivate a bunch of ungrateful people.

"The Kingdom of Romania has never been trained in infantry-artillery coordination, and they are unable to undertake combat missions of this difficulty."

Christkus hoped that Vasily would send the Gao Ri Corps to fight from the perspective of the Kingdom of Romania.

The Romanian army was also mainly composed of Slavs.

"Then let them train in combat."

Vasily is indifferent and will be beaten if he falls behind.

From what Christkus said, it makes sense that he has not received any training in this area!

As part of the coalition forces, if the Romanian army wants to play a full role in the war, it must strive to adapt to the Russian army's way of fighting, rather than making the Russian army adapt to the Romanian army.

Compared with the Gao Ri Corps, the newly mobilized Romanian army was seriously lacking in training and its combat effectiveness was far inferior to that of the Gao Ri Corps.

It was impossible for Vasily to send elite troops as consumables and wait for the Romanian army to grow.

This is also George's style.

The monarchs of the Balkan countries all came from Europe, and they were not very ambitious. They just wanted to be kings comfortably, and they did not have much ambition. Even those who had great ambitions did not have the opportunity to become kings in the Balkans.

The truly ambitious ones were the generals in the Balkans. They dreamed of restoring the largest territory in history, so there were all kinds of "big" claims for each country, so that the originally law-abiding kings gradually turned into ambitious people in this fanatical atmosphere.

Like Bulgaria and Serbia, Romania also wants to establish "Greater Romania".

Dreams are built with blood and sacrifice, and getting something without working is called charity.

After Vasily came to the Kingdom of Romania, he was awarded the title of Marshal of Romania.

Vasily was the only Marshal of the Kingdom of Romania.

Christkus couldn't persuade Vasily, so he went to Ferdinand to complain.

"What do you want Grand Duke Yuriev and Duke Suvorov to do? Use the Cossacks to conquer Transylvania and then give it to us? This is impossible!"

Ferdinand knew George and Vasily well, both of whom were standard royal tsars by Romanian standards.

"I am not afraid of sacrifice, I just hope that the fire preparation will last longer so that our sacrifice can be more valuable."

Christkus let out a long sigh, his plan having failed.

"Compared with Grand Duke Yuriev's army, our equipment is backward and our training is inadequate, but at least we have a strong will and are not afraid of sacrifice."

Ferdinand was determined that the Kingdom of Romania now had no way out and could only follow the Russian Empire to the end.

Four hours of fire preparation was indeed not enough to destroy the Austrian defense line. The attacking force suffered heavy losses and was forced to retreat.

In just 20 minutes, the Romanian Second Army lost a regiment.

This is because due to the terrain, we cannot deploy too many attacking troops, otherwise the losses will be even greater.

When the Second Army attacked, Vasily sent out planes to conduct reconnaissance and search for Austrian artillery positions.

Artillery poses a far greater threat to attacking forces than infantry.

Destroying the Austrian artillery is equivalent to breaking off the Austrian army's sharpest fangs.

The Austrians were also very smart. They did not deploy their artillery in a concentrated manner, but instead dispersed them in strong fortresses.

There was no other way but to grind slowly. The battle was becoming extremely intense.

On September 9, the airborne troops, who had been idle in Crimea, finally received George's combat order.

This time the battle plan was named "Soybean" by George.

The mission of the paratroopers was to parachute behind the Austrian defense line, threaten the Austrian defense line from behind, and cut off the Austrian supply route.

This was the first time that the airborne troops had received a combat mission since their establishment. Commander Colonel Constantine was excited but also under tremendous pressure.

During the Balkan War, George once planned to use paratroopers, but in the end it was the Marines that were dispatched.

This mission was more dangerous because there was a lack of naval gun cover.

The total strength of the airborne troops is only 4000 people, which is already the limit due to the lack of sufficient transport aircraft.

These 4000 people have to be divided into two groups before they can all be delivered to the designated location.

Due to the limitations of delivery conditions, the heavy firepower of the airborne troops is mortars.

Fortunately, although the range of the 90mm mortar is not far enough, its power is still good.

The German army used howitzers with a caliber of up to 420 mm in the process of conquering the Liège fortress in Belgium.

There is actually not much point in overemphasizing caliber. There are 1-meter-caliber artillery pieces in the museum in Petrograd.

In addition to 90mm mortars, the airborne troops are also equipped with heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.

These heavy machine guns are no longer traditional water-cooled heavy machine guns, but air-cooled, which greatly reduces their dependence on the environment.

At this time, the Russian-Romanian coalition's attack had lasted for four days. The Austro-Hungarian Empire's defense line was crumbling under the repeated attacks of the air force and ground forces, and was on its last breath.

At 6 o'clock in the morning, the paratroopers, ready to go, took turns boarding the plane in Bucharest, and Colonel Constantine was in the first group.

Bucharest is very close to the target location, and the transport plane only needs to fly for an hour to reach the target drop-off point.

In order to avoid becoming a target for Austrian shooters, Colonel Constantine wore a steel helmet and field uniform like ordinary soldiers and replaced his command knife with a rifle. This was a requirement of the Amur Military District.

In the ongoing Battle of Galicia, Austrian officers often became targets of Russian precision shooters because of their shiny belts and golden command swords, and many of them were shot in the head.

At 7:15, the transport plane arrived at the designated location, and Colonel Constantine jumped out of the cabin like everyone else.

The entire airborne process went extremely smoothly. Except for one transport plane that was forced to return due to a malfunction during the flight, most of the paratroopers landed safely.

Since paratroopers had never appeared on the battlefield before, the Austrian army was completely unprepared. The landing site was the small town of Victoria, a transportation hub about 30 kilometers behind the Austrian defense line. There was only about one platoon of Austrian troops stationed in this town. They scattered after the paratroopers landed, and their will to resist was even less than that of the town residents and train station staff.

(End of this chapter)