Hyperdimensional Player

Chapter 66: Battlefront! Commander in Chief

Arrange troops in formation.

Duncan has never studied military tactics. All his formation skills were accumulated from playing games like Total War in his previous life. If you ask him about some fancy formations, he has no idea what they are. But if you ask whether the formations can be used in battle, he has his own set of theories and practices, and he is even quite fierce in actual combat.

The simplest example is formation 111, which consists of three armies spread out flat on the left, center, and right, with ! marks on the flanks and rear. This is the cavalry unit with the strongest mobility on the battlefield.

In the era of cold weapons, formation was not the decisive factor; the soldiers' combat quality, morale, will and command were the decisive factors.

Taking the three-one flat formation as an example, after the right wing is broken, the central army is in a state of being attacked from both sides. You are standing in the first row to withstand the enemies rushing towards you from the front. You only need to concentrate on blocking and killing the enemies in front of you with your shield. After the right wing is broken, the enemy suddenly comes from the right side, and even goes around to the back to besiege you and cut off your retreat. Suddenly, you are in a situation of being attacked from both sides.

In this case, unless your troops are very strong, under the same strength, the morale of the soldiers will definitely be shaken and casualties will increase greatly.

As the saying goes, two fists are no match for four hands. In cold weapon combat, most of the people involved are in the front row, so two hundred people can attack four hundred to five hundred people. After the casualties in the first row increase greatly, the fighting will of the soldiers will be shaken. They don't know how many enemies there are, they only know that many of them were besieged and died.

In this situation, if there are no fresh troops to take over and form a new two-sided defensive formation, then the collapse of the front row is only a matter of time.

Duncan's understanding is very simple. The so-called formation is to form a situation of having more people against fewer people on the local battlefield. It is best to make the enemy be attacked from both sides and cause chaos, while you only need to concentrate on killing the enemy in front of you.

As for the changes in formation, to be honest, it is very difficult in this era because the command level is too low. The battle becomes a chaos at the end, and a large-scale war can maintain a certain level of command at the end.

There is only one person in history, the Military Genius - Han Xin.

Of course, these are the simplest parts. If cavalry is involved, the formation changes will be much more complicated, and the battlefield timing and enemy weaknesses must be considered. Cavalry pays more attention to on-the-spot performance because mobility is the strongest in the era.

To put it bluntly, Duncan's deployment of troops is from a wild style, focusing on actual combat results, and even following his feelings. It is completely the style of powerful generals such as Xiang Yu and Lu Bu.

As for the real civil commanders, people like Sun Wu, Han Xin, Zhuge Liang, etc., it can be said that they have already thought of countless contingency plans before the battle even starts, and have reserved backup plans for various emergencies. They will not rely entirely on on-the-spot performance like Duncan, or even use personal force to create strategic loopholes in the enemy.

But a random punch can kill a master.

In terms of grand strategic depth and layout, a literary commander is definitely more powerful. However, in local wars, there are too many variables for a general like Duncan. Even a military saint or a military immortal may be killed by his random punches, or he may be directly attacked and hacked to death by a wave of cavalry.

If you say that Duncan's leadership ability is not strong, that's a joke. His set of skills has a bit of a posture of returning all methods to the origin, but the prerequisites are very harsh.

That is the strategic map from a God's perspective.

On the battlefield.

After seeing the Hun commander place the Alans' vassal troops in the front of the army, Duncan realized that the enemy intended to use the vassal troops to deplete their own fighting strength. The Hun army was different from other armies. They were not afraid of having their center penetrated. If the center of other forces was penetrated, they would basically be completely defeated.

But it didn't matter to the Huns. Their main force was cavalry, mostly deployed on the two wings. It didn't matter if the central army was defeated, because they could still use circular cavalry archery formations to encircle the Huns on both sides.

Therefore, their tactics are sometimes very similar to those of the Mongolian army, with the vassal troops placed in the front row as cannon fodder.

If they encountered a powerful Hun general, they could deliberately abandon the central army, pretend to be defeated and flee, and then launch a surprise attack, taking advantage of the chaos in the enemy's pursuit formation to counterattack and defeat the enemy.

The Mongolian army also used this tactic, but it required maintaining a minimum level of morale, as well as training and command. Otherwise, the feigned defeat would turn into a complete defeat and rout.

Throughout history, only elite soldiers could feign defeat and then seize the enemy's weakness to launch a direct counterattack.

"British Legion, two hundred paces forward."

Duncan could not lead his troops to charge directly at this time, as the enemy's army was obviously larger. He deployed the cavalry on both wings to provide cover, and led the general's guards on the battlefield. Messengers followed closely behind, most of whom were light cavalry, and there were also flag bearers to convey orders.

Battlefield command is a very complex system. The British Legion mostly used the imperial method, commanding with whistles, bugles, drums, and flags. However, when casualties occurred later in the battle, the command could only become "follow me".

At the decisive moment, the enemy and us were caught in a chaotic fight, and in the end it basically depended on where the flag was.

The front row of archers began to move forward. They were light infantry and could retreat at any time.

The sound of galloping horses rang out.

The Huns' cavalry and archery units began to move. As the cavalry approached from both wings, the infantry in the center also pressed towards Duncan. They mainly cooperated with the cavalry in the battle, looking for opportunities for the cavalry to win the decisive battle, and at the same time consumed the enemy's strength. With the advantage in manpower, the Huns basically took the initiative to attack.

"Shield array!"

Duncan shouted loudly, and the British legion in the front row began to gather together and directly formed a shield formation. The square shields of the Imperial Legion became round shields. If they still used square shields, they could directly form a tortoise shell formation. This formation was not afraid of the archer troops at all.

On the right wing of the British Legion, the Gallic warriors were ready to move, with a very eye-catching sign saying "May charge without authorization".

But it's okay.

Because it wasn't just them. The enemy army's elite Hun cavalry, Ostrogoth heavy axemen, Gepid heavy infantry, etc. all had a "may charge without authorization" mark on their heads.

Any nation that values personal bravery will like to charge into battle.

"Shoot at a forty-five-degree angle!" Duncan was not at all panicked when facing the approaching Hun cavalry archers. He put an arrow on his bow, rode forward, and shot an arrow. The arrow whistled through the air, and a one-star silver-gray elite Hun cavalry archer in the distance fell off his horse instantly. This scene scared the nearby enemies so much that they all showed signs of "horrified" and "encountered a strong enemy".

Infantry archers are never afraid of facing off against horse archers.

This is because the war bows used by horsemen are less powerful, and they move at high speeds, making it difficult to aim, while infantry archers do not move much and are more likely to be hit by the enemy.

A rain of arrows fell, and both sides suffered casualties.

Duncan fired Norden's bow and killed five or six people directly, all of whom were Hun commanders with one-star marks.

"This person is so powerful!?"

On the right wing of the Hun army, Chalgan's expression was extremely solemn. He had thought that Duncan's martial power was amazing, but he didn't expect it to be so amazing!

Chalgan is the legendary Hun hero who shoots the eagle, and his archery skills are also top-notch at that time.

But he could never shoot with both hands like Duncan, and shoot like a storm, almost hitting the target every time. He could only hit seven or eight out of ten arrows when he was riding a horse, and sometimes he had to rely on luck. Only when he shot on foot could he hit the target every time.

As for shooting left and right continuously, Chalgan simply doesn't have the physical strength to do it. If he shoots like this, he won't be able to pick up the knife and chop people next time.

A wave of temptation.

The enemy only suffered a few casualties, while seven or eight of our commanders were killed, causing chaos among the hundreds of Hun nomads. I don’t know how the enemy generals discovered the commanders. Did they observe them through their equipment?
As long as anyone with better equipment showed up, Duncan would shoot them.

He's not in a hurry.

Duncan shot slowly, without using the continuous arrow method, and slowly recovered his strength. If the enemy did not attack fiercely, he could shoot and kill all the enemy combat units marked with asterisks.

The war started with Duncan's personal show of force.

Although the enemy outnumbered us, the morale of the British Legion was extremely high and they did not look weak at all. Some barbarian berserkers were even ready to kill a few Hun soldiers to make a name for themselves.

The British Legion's equipment is poor, and they have only recently changed into some leather armor, but fortunately they have a lot of shields. Since they can't afford to wear armor, everyone just carries a shield.

After several waves of arrows, Chalgan found that his own casualties were greater!

What a hell.

He could understand that the enemy general was incredibly powerful, after all, he was famous for it, but why were the British archers also so powerful?
The Huns were famous for their archery skills, so where did the Britons get their strong archers?

Ok.

Of course there are.

The predecessor of the English longbowmen, the current Welsh archers. If Duncan had not failed to develop the longbow technology tree, he could have organized a small team of English longbowmen.

The entire British Isles, especially the Welsh area, may have poor mountains and bad waters and produce unruly people, and the soldiers recruited are all very strong in combat.

Duncan has only seen one-star archers in Wales.

“This is a tough nut to crack!”

Chalgan found that he could not continue the shooting battle. It was simply not worth it. The nomads' bows were not strong enough and they were at a disadvantage when shooting at them. If he sent the elite Hun cavalry archers, they would be killed by Duncan. Moreover, it would be a huge loss to use British archers instead.

The warriors on the grassland who can ride, shoot and fight in close combat were forcibly replaced by some British archers. If Attila, the Scourge of God, knew about this, he would whip him to death.

"Let the vassal troops push forward." Chalgan gave the order decisively.

First consume the enemy's physical strength, wait for a flaw to appear in their formation, and then lead the cavalry to break through in one fell swoop. This is their old tactic, and it is quite effective every time.

"Prepare for battle!" roared the British centurion in the front row.

At the front of the formation, the Huns' vassal legions had begun preparing to charge, while the first-tier British legions picked up javelins. The early empire used heavy javelins, and there were two to four of them. Later, they became light javelins, usually only one to two, with a range of about fifty meters.

Throw!

The British regiments in the first three rows threw their javelins with all their might.

Puff, plop.

There were continuous screams coming from the front. The first wave of javelins had great lethality. If the shield was not blocked, anyone who was hit would be either dead or seriously injured. The large number of javelins thrown down would definitely severely damage the enemy in the front.

………………

(End of this chapter)