Munitions Empire

"Boom!" A grenade landed in the position of the Northern Dwarf Empire's troops, raising a cloud of dust that eclipsed the sun.

On the edge of the explosion, a soldier was struck in the head by shrapnel and fell, his face covered in blood. Further away, soldiers were knocked askew by the blast.

The troops of the Northern Dwarf Empire had actually never fought such a battle before; they were suppressed by the enemy's artillery fire and couldn't lift their heads, yet they couldn't see the enemy's artillery troops at all.

The traditional tactic of lined-up battle formations had clearly become outdated, and engaging in such tactics was now no different from courting death.

Tactics had fundamentally changed because of the advancement of weapons. Nowadays, an attacking formation in line was met with one outcome, that was being effortlessly annihilated by the opposition's machine guns.

The Northern Dwarf Empire had no experience with such modern tactics, which is why they suffered a great loss in that decisive frontal confrontation.

100,000 troops were heavily decimated in that decisive battle, which directly led to the present situation where the Northern Dwarf Empire could not send more elite forces to participate in the Furnace Fortress battle.

The Northern Dwarf Empire also didn't have time to ponder over new tactics, so they could only think of some clumsy methods to solve the problems they faced.

On one hand, they abandoned the tactic of square formations, allowing their troops to take cover on the spot, thus avoiding concentrated attacks of artillery and machine guns.

However, this tactic was primitive; they had no contact with things like trenches, so there was almost no digging operation.

Therefore, on the outskirts of the defensive line around Furnace Fortress, there were, in fact, no sturdy defensive positions like trenches to stop the advance of the Ice Cold Kingdom's troops, only some hastily constructed breastworks.

These constructs provided basically no defense against the attack of 75mm caliber grenade launchers.

Moreover, the Ice Cold Kingdom, in addition to 75mm field artillery, also carried a large number of lightweight, easily portable mortars.

These mortars were truly divine when it came to attacking enemy targets around 2 kilometers away.

Due to higher charges, greater power, the 80mm mortars were superior in force and not inferior to the 75mm field artillery, and their response was more timely.

After all, for the most part, the dwarfs assigned these mortars to their own battalion-level combat units, and coordinating these guns was much easier than requesting indirect support from 75mm caliber grenade launchers.

In such circumstances, the advance of the Ice Cold Kingdom's troops was naturally very rapid, not because they were too strong, but because their opponents were too weak.

If such a war were to take place in an area closer to the Leite Kingdom, both sides would dig trenches for deployment to reduce troop losses.

Even though the effectiveness of trenches might not be significant, at least there would be such arrangements, which would delay the enemy advance, lessen their own losses, and make the defense appear more dignified.

The poor Northern Dwarf Empire had not studied such matters at all; their tactics were, in Tang Mo's words, still stuck in the last century.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

The state-of-the-art weapons from the Great Tang Group had changed the wars of this world, and it hadn't been a long time. In such a short time span, many countries hadn't even heard of tactical measures like trenches, let alone the appearance of new countermeasures like hand grenades against trenches.

Now, the commanders of the Dwarf Empire to the north were certainly brave and tenacious, but their soldiers didn't even have a single steel helmet among them.

There was no helping it; after all, the theory that steel helmets could effectively prevent shrapnel injuries and significantly reduce troop casualties was something they had never even heard of.

In fact, even if they had heard of it, finding a seller capable of supplying 100,000 steel helmets at a moment's notice was not an easy task.

Even the more powerful military of the Ice Cold Kingdom hadn't equipped steel helmets; they had reserved their limited transport capacity for more precious strategic resources.

For the Ice Cold Kingdom, the lives of warriors were secondary; what mattered were machine guns and machine gun bullets!

People didn't need to be shipped from overseas, but bullets, shells, even cars, and the gasoline those cars needed had to be loaded onto ships in Brunas, then transported across the ocean to Eternal Winter Port.

"How can they be so strong... Didn't the Ice Cold Kingdom just sell Eternal Winter Port because they were too poor?" lamented a commander of the Dwarf Empire to the north, putting down his monocular after peering out from behind a low wall where he was hiding.

In just 15 minutes, it seemed that his battalion could no longer hold on—the assault methods of the enemy were something he had never seen before, so he couldn't think of any countermeasures.

Those Dwarves from the Ice Cold Kingdom, the officers often had Left-Wheel Handguns, which to the defenders at Furnace Fortress appeared to be divine artifacts beyond comprehension.

The enemy's weapons could fire 6 rounds consecutively, whereas his own side could barely fire off one shot after ages; this wasn't a fair war at all, was it?

And many of the veteran soldiers of the Ice Cold Kingdom were equipped with lever-action rifles purchased from the Great Tang Group, which made them more efficient in combat and posed an even greater threat to the Dwarf Troops of the north.

Your journey continues at empire

"My lord! The frontline looks like it can't hold on much longer!" a Dwarf wrapped in bandages stumbled over, clearly putting on a pitiful front.

"I see it! You don't need to tell me again!" the Dwarf commander responsible for this sector of the battlefield shouted in frustration: "500 men! You couldn't hold out for even 20 minutes before being crushed by the enemy!"

"My lord! We did our best! They don't even show their heads! We have no way of returning fire!" pleaded the battalion commander, his voice laced with a whining tone.

In truth, he had no good counters, for the Ice Cold Kingdom's military used updated tactics from the Great Tang Group when they attacked.

After crushing the enemy's morale and destroying their frontline defenses, the Dwarf Troops of the Ice Cold Kingdom would do everything they could to approach the enemy's defensive lines.

Then, they would determine the enemy's defensive layout, and immediately bring up the mortars and heavy machine guns—this was why the early heavy machine guns often came with shields and wheels.

In early siege warfare, heavy machine guns played a role similar to that of infantry support. Before the advent of assault guns and infantry fighting vehicles, they were the most reliable pillar of fire support for the infantry.

When the gunners risked enemy sniper shots to push the heavy machine guns close enough to the enemy's attacking position, the battle was usually already over.

The countermeasure to this type of machine gun advance tactic was actually very simple: prepare heavy machine guns on one's own position as well.

(Please forgive Dragon Spirit's lack of talent in creating names; it's Furnace Fortress till the end.)