Chapter 936: Civilian casualties

  Chapter 917 Civilian Casualties

Three days later, a Report on Low Dive Machine Gun Sweeps book appeared in front of Governor Fislav.

Recording the passages on the battlefield and summarizing the gains and losses therein was the fine tradition of the Austrian army, while the Austrian army was unique in this era.

Recording the passage of the war seemed simple, but it was not something that anyone could accomplish. At least not in countries that had not completed compulsory education.

The benefits of doing so are self-evident, perhaps most of the recorded battle experience is repetitive nonsense, but as long as one-thousandth of the content has value, it is all earned.

Especially in the use of new weapons and equipment, new tactics to find out, this information is particularly important.

So while the Army writes reports only for officers, the freshly minted Air Force, it’s everyone who has to write a report.

Low-altitude dive bombing and low-altitude dive machine gunnery are not new terms; similar concepts were proposed more than a decade ago.

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with the great His Majesty Franz. It is not true that Franz is a military buff, but he also knows that although the military concepts of the latter days are good, they are also based on specific conditions.

Take dive bombing as an example, it is not just a matter of flying at low altitude and dropping bombs. Not what kind of aircraft, all have the ability to fly at low altitude dive.

Even if the performance of the aircraft meets, this low altitude flight is specifically how a low altitude method, but also in the actual combat to find out.

At the same time to be able to achieve results, but also as far as possible to ensure the safety of personnel, aircraft, or else it is a replica of the kamikaze brigade.

So take airships to play with the great strategic concept of low altitude dive carpet bombing, not Franz’s masterpiece.

The emergence of this idea in the Austrian army was not for nothing, but was backed up by actual combat cases.

Airships have just been put into military use, the Austrian airship unit in the Ottoman body to try, and achieved significant results.

At that time, this strategic concept also became the world’s mainstream, recommended by many military Vs.

Only with the emergence of anti-aircraft weapons, we found that low-flying airships, is a living target, this theory was soon put on the shelf.

Airships are not applicable does not mean that the aircraft is not applicable, at least at this stage of the countries of anti-aircraft weapons are not a big threat to the aircraft, the theory of low altitude dive became feasible.

Because of the insufficient weight of the airplane, the strategic dive bombing became machine-gun fire, which weakened its power by more than one degree.

With the failure of the dirigible in mind, Admiral Fislav did not rush into a decision, but fell into deep thought.

Whether this was a case or a military concept with long-term development and utilization prospects remained a mystery to this day.

Seeing Fislav hesitant to make up his mind, Air Force Maj. Gen. Andrew McCarthy on the sidelines added fuel to the fire.

“His Excellency the Commander, regardless of whether or not there is any prospect for the development of the swooping airplane impulse strafing, it is only effective for a short period of time.

We have conducted many drills, and the existing anti-aircraft weapons pose very little threat to the aircraft, and the dive strafing is very easy to achieve results.

Even if the French find a weakness in this tactic, it will take time to figure out how to target it. Until then, it doesn’t affect our ability to promote this tactic.”

Major General Andrews was acting so positively, but in essence, he was also forced out. Compared to the army and navy, the air force was a little brother.

If the air force was strong enough, this kind of tactic promotion that did not require the cooperation of the other branches of the military did not need to be reported to the theater commander at all, and it was taken care of by itself.

The military is still to take the war record to speak, the Austrian air force establishment time is too short, simply do not have to take the war record, speak of the waist pole is naturally not hard enough.

If not for Franz’s support, they are now still an army flying unit, simply do not have the ability to become an independent army.

Against this background, the air force is holding its breath, eager to prove its worth on the battlefield.

Therefore, the Air Force had always been the most active in the promotion of new tactics. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to verify its feasibility immediately after receiving a battlefield report.

After pondering for a few moments, Fislav nodded: ”Theoretically it is indeed feasible, but it needs to be backed up by more actual combat cases before it can be promoted to the entire army.

In the next few days, I will allow your air force to strike out on its own to verify, or rather perfect, this set of tactics.”

The development of military technology never goes smoothly. A big country like Austria had enough capital to pay tuition fees for the development of military technology, and the promotion of any new tactic was piled up with countless failures.

This is also the reason why many weaponry and tactical concepts are slow to be adopted after their birth. Without the results of actual combat to back them up, people don’t have a clue in their hearts!

……

After receiving the support of the theater commander, the Austrian Air Force stationed in the Sinai Peninsula took immediate action.

The Egyptian region was “bustling”, not only the positions and fortresses became the hardest hit by the bombing, but also the streets, alleys and fields became the hunting ground of the Austrian air force.

In order to collect more actual combat data, the air force did not care about the cost, no matter where to try a wave.

As for the consequences, this is not in the scope of Major General Andrew’s consideration, anyway, the bullets have hit the enemy’s land, it is only a matter of the size of the battle results.

……

Since the zeppelin force was finished, the skies over Cairo had become the territory of the Austrian Air Force, with a combination of zeppelins + airplanes coming over every day at irregular intervals to clock in and out of work.

For the sake of his life, Governor Jacob had to move his command into the basement. In fact, he initially wanted to find safer bomb shelters.

Unfortunately, the city of Cairo was in the heart of Egypt, and the French never considered external threats, the most recent military threat being the last rebel siege.

The rabble of indigenous rebels had, at most, a few earthen cannons, and the shells could not even hit the governor’s palace. There was no need for artillery defense, so naturally there were no shell holes.

After the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War, Governor Jacob was only thinking about the canal defenses, and never even considered that there would still be a threat from the sky.

When the crisis came, and then want to dig now is naturally too late. After all, to be able to accommodate the French command of the artillery caves, not a large kiln on the line.

“His Excellency the Governor, the enemy’s air force is so rampant that it simply doesn’t have France in its sights, we have to counterattack.”

Those who could say such words naturally would not be French soldiers. Any of the officers present knew that it wasn’t that they didn’t want to counterattack, but that they simply didn’t have the ability to do so.

Looking at the angry middle-aged man, Governor Jacob frowned, and after a half-long effort of silence, he slowly opened his mouth and said, “Senior Officer Abraham, please read the war report, or care about the current news in the country.

Not to mention our side, even the country can’t help the Austrian’s air force, just a week ago Paris was also attacked by enemy air raids.”

Hearing the news of Paris being attacked, the faces of the people in the room changed greatly, and it was obvious that this was the first time everyone had received this news.

Seeing the expressions on the faces of the crowd, Jacob knew that there was a problem with his perception. Before the outbreak of the war, news that happened in Paris would only take a few hours to reach Egypt.

The telegraph business in France was run by capitalists, and the first thing that came to mind was how to maximize profits, and anything strategic or not had to take a back seat.

In this context, it was naturally impossible to lay a specialized undersea cable for telegraphy from mainland France to Egypt.

Instead, it went through the Algerian region to take the land cable channel, passing through the region of Austrian Africa along the way, or in cooperation with the Austrian Telegraph Company.

This is also in line with international practice, the telegraph was able to spread to most parts of the world within a few decades, relying on regional cooperation.

No telegraph company has the capacity to connect globally if it does it alone.

The Continental War broke out suddenly, after only a few months’ gestation, and it was suddenly fought. The French government was briefly confused, not to mention the telegraph companies.

Economy also had to give way to politics, and the Austrian Telegraph Company, which had originally cooperated with them after the outbreak of the war, naturally suspended its business of providing them with information transmission.

Egypt’s contact with the mainland now depended mainly on the transmission of messages by warships traveling to and from the two places. Even the Lord, who used to be the most well-informed, now found it difficult to receive news from home.

After a moment’s pause, the high-ranking Abraham official, who had reacted, exclaimed, “Your Excellency the Governor, are you sure you’re not joking?”

Paris these days has a very sacred status in the minds of the French. Paris was attacked, the news was so appalling that it was not at all comparable to Cairo being bombed every day.

Jacob nodded cautiously, “Your Excellency think that if it hadn’t happened, would I joke about such a thing?”

“However, things are not as serious as you think. The enemy just made a quick pass through Paris and didn’t cause us too much damage.

I’m sure you’ve all realized that the enemy’s air force isn’t that scary. Aside from the fact that it seems to be very loud, the bombing has not caused us much substantial damage.

The country is ready to produce airplanes, and as long as we hold out through this period of time, the enemy’s advantage will cease to exist.

Now we ……”

The bombing was terrible and not terrible. The French air defense forces were garbage, but there was just something, and with their outdated air defense weapons, they still kept the Austrian airships from flying low.

Thousands of meters high altitude to throw bombs down, hit rate that touching, are about to catch up with winning the lottery.

Simply from the lethality, from time to time to come to a swooping strafing aircraft, to bring casualties to the French army, are higher than the efficiency of the airship bombing.

Senior Officer Abraham interrupted, “His Excellency the Governor, a correction here, the losses inflicted on us by the enemy air force are not small.

From the beginning of the enemy bombing, the factories, stores, and entertainment venues …… in the city of Cairo have been unable to operate normally.

The people have been thrown into a panic, and those who have a little bit of family money are desperately trying to run outside. According to incomplete statistics, nearly 15,000 people have left Cairo in the last week.

Not only Cairo’s economy has been hit hard, the rest of Egypt has also suffered varying degrees of damage, especially casualties are shocking.

After analyzing the news coming in from all over the country, the preliminary estimate of the number of civilian casualties due to the enemy’s air force attacks has surpassed the five-digit figure.”

There was no way around it, bombing with even the worst accuracy could always have an effect as long as the bombs were dropped.

The troops had a limited area to move around in and knew how to stay alive under enemy bombardment, so apart from the initial discomfort, the casualties of the army at the back weren’t too great.

The same cannot be said for civilians, these days when they encounter enemy bombing, everyone’s first reaction is to run, and very few people have air defense awareness.

The number of casualties naturally went up as soon as they ran in disarray. Especially after the Austrian airplanes began to shoot at low altitude, the situation became even more serious.

Slamming the table, Governor Jacob said: “The Austrians are really too despicable, how can the war involve civilians!

Senior Officer Abraham, you are responsible for collecting relevant information, we need to expose their atrocities in the international community.”

Receiving this answer, the crowd once again fell silent. Diplomatic protests these days were the last struggles of the weak, and the powers preferred to go straight to threatening tactics.

It was natural that everyone would not have expectations for Jacob’s proposal of utilizing the international community to exert political pressure.

There is no way, in this era than rotten, behind any colonial empire there is a black history that can not be seen. If it was really uncovered, no one should want to feel better.

Compared to that, civilian casualties from wars were nothing at all. Especially since the place of engagement was still in Africa, it had even less impact on the European world.

……

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

(End of chapter)