Imperial Elite

Chapter 170 The Great Northern War

Fighting on three fronts at once is no easy task for either NATO or Joe.

But it wasn't easy for Joe, and it was even more difficult for the Führer.

With NATO forces launching a major offensive on the southern front, the head of state's achievement of conquering a country in four hours seems less impressive.

The Führer was completely baffled that Old Joe had managed to break through his defenses on the southern front.

I always felt that my defenses were like a public toilet to Old Joe, he could come and go as he pleased.

Faced with Old Joe's unsportsmanlike behavior, all the Führer could do was send out the armored divisions that were in better condition.

Tired? Let's destroy them! Blow them all to ashes with tanks and planes!

As for the attacks on prisoner-of-war camps, the Führer no longer has the energy to pay attention to them.

Because the battle lines are now stretched too thin and have reached a stalemate, the leader is currently communicating with the Russian military government, preparing to launch a major attack on the Revolutionary Alliance once the flood season is over next year.

As for why we have to wait until next year, one reason is that there are only a few days left this year, and the Teutonic army is not in good condition after the Battle of Warsaw.

Although the Teutonic armored forces produced several ace crews who destroyed more than a dozen tanks in World War I during this campaign, and even the top aces have destroyed nearly fifty tanks since the start of the war.

Not to mention the consistently high-performing air force; within a year of the start of the war, the air force's top ace had already racked up nearly eighty kills.

However, even with the active participation of the aces, the troops still suffered heavy losses, especially the Panzer IV tanks, which were the most numerous in the fleet. In this year's battles, it was fully exposed that these tanks, apart from their decent reliability and mobility, were inadequate in terms of firepower and protection.

After studying the People's Revolutionary League tanks captured from the battlefield, even though Erich was now sidelined and idly holding his marshal's baton, he still managed to study them.

The other armored officers also felt that the tanks of the People's Revolutionary Alliance were quite good. They had good protection, firepower, and mobility. Apart from the lack of radio equipment, the fact that the ergonomics were basically a mess, and the production process was somewhat rough, they were good medium and heavy tanks.

So after seeing the toys from other people's houses, these armored officers naturally made the request: "This thing is nice, get me one too."

Of course, it's impossible to completely replicate these things; that wouldn't showcase the Teutonic people's superiority.

Therefore, the ordnance department received a new mandate to design the next generation of better tanks, which must outperform all the enemy's tanks on the battlefield!
Of course, while designing the next generation of better tanks, we must also upgrade existing tanks. Before the offensive begins next year, the troops must have upgraded versions of existing tanks with stronger firepower and better protection.

Therefore, in order to wait for equipment and for the new troops still undergoing training, the earliest time for the Teutonic army to regain its combat effectiveness is when the frost season ends next year.

Before that, the leader must determine where to deploy these troops.

In such circumstances, the Führer would naturally not handle minor matters like prisoner escapes personally, but would instead entrust the task to the Guard, which was theoretically responsible for such internal repression, and let Holtz handle the matter.

They're just some escaped prisoners of war. They couldn't beat us on the battlefield, so you can't handle them now that they've escaped, can you?

Then the Führer turned his attention to the North, where a minor conflict had arisen between him and Old Joe.

Following Norwegia's announcement of its accession to NATO, Old Joe immediately led his troops to Norwegia to fulfill his obligations and support their new ally.

Then Old Joe realized that these Norwegians truly were descendants of the Vikings.

As an Old World nation, Norvegia's army was relatively small, consisting of only six understaffed infantry divisions, totaling approximately 50,000 men.

More than 50,000 men were not even enough to support the consumption of two days in a single battle during the last major war.

These 50,000-plus people were not even in a state of combat readiness when the war began.

When the Teutonic invasion occurred, only four battalions of the six infantry divisions were deployed and ready for combat.

The rest of the troops are still on leave.

Furthermore, the equipment of the Norwegian soldiers was not very good. A platoon of infantry had two to four light machine guns, while the rifles used by the rest of the soldiers were old toys from the late 19th century. These bolt-action rifles could not even be loaded with a stripper clip and had to be reloaded one round at a time.

At the same time, their artillery, ships, and aircraft were basically in a state of having or not having.

If this had happened elsewhere, and the country remained in this state after the start of war, it would have essentially been waiting for its demise.

However, Norwegia, true to their Viking heritage, despite their poor equipment, managed to resolutely resist the Teutonic advance by relying on the rugged mountainous terrain of Norwegia.

At the same time, because most of the area was mountainous, the Teutonic forces' superior armored and air forces could not fully exert their combat power.

So the Norwegians, barely, weren't killed by the Teutons in one blow; they're still hanging on by a thread.

Although he had passed by boat across the Norwegian border many times, this was Old Joe's first time setting foot on Norwegian soil.

Upon setting foot on Norwegian soil, Old Joe realized that it was quite normal for Norwegian countries to have no interest in NATO in the past, because the environment there was simply too terrible.

The mountains are high, the forests are dense, and the weather is cold. Although there are many fjords along the winding coastline, not many of them can be used as ports.

Basically, once you come here, you'll understand why this land could support the Vikings, and why the Vikings were so keen on rowing to the Old World to plunder—it's simply because there's no way to make a living in this land.

However, after switching to an infantry route, Old Joe found that fighting here was incredibly comfortable and exhilarating.

Firstly, the rugged terrain made it difficult for the Teutonic artillery, which they had an advantage in, to be effectively utilized.

Not to mention tank armor, these steep rocky mountains are such that unless the enemy commander is out of his mind, he wouldn't want to send tanks into this kind of terrain.

Furthermore, since the mountains here are mostly rock, it was extremely difficult for the soldiers to build fortifications.

Therefore, the battles between the two sides were basically concentrated in the forest belt area at the foot of the mountains.

But after studying it, Old Joe felt that the terrain was actually quite comfortable and energizing for Wagner.

Before coming, Old Joe was worried that he had only brought some lightly armed mechanized infantry and elite infantry units, which might not be able to defeat the Teutons in this environment.

But now, Old Joe felt he should be able to drive the Teutons out here. He made this judgment because places like this, where traditional heavy weapons were ineffective and the terrain was complex, were perfect for helicopters to unleash their power.

For the purpose of training troops and maintaining research and production lines, Wagner had a helicopter force of about one battalion.

Of course, this kind of rudimentary helicopter is small in size and has insufficient transport capacity.

Things like machine guns definitely can't be mounted on it.

However, the payload capacity was sufficient for them to mount several machine guns on the plane, and then load some unguided rockets.

The reason why Old Joe didn't deploy this equipment in the past was that these helicopters were very vulnerable to fixed-wing aircraft and had almost no chance of fighting back.

The Teutons, however, still possessed some strength in the air.

So Joe had been keeping this unit under his control and not deploying it in combat, but now he felt it was time to put these helicopters into action.

Then Old Joe discovered something else.

That is, although Old Joe felt that the Citibank Ordnance Department's practice of cramming almost everything they could carry onto six-wheeled and eight-wheeled off-road trucks was somewhat absurd.

However, these armed trucks are indeed very useful in this environment. Although they are not as good as tracked vehicles in terms of absolute off-road performance and passability, they are perfectly adequate for the current situation.

In fact, after Old Joe brought Wagner to the battlefield, and the Teutons lost their advantage in armored forces and air power, Wagner's veterans were able to overwhelm the Teutons with their overwhelming firepower.

Meanwhile, since Norwegia's forces were small, after Norwegia joined NATO, Old Joe also began to organize the re-equipment of Norwegia's elite troops.

Although they weren't called mountain infantry, the Norwegian infantry company, which could give the Teutons a good beating in the mountains, was given priority by Old Joe to be equipped with NATO standard assault rifles and squad automatic weapons.

What Old Joe didn't expect was that these Norvegia infantrymen didn't think highly of assault rifles, because they were too heavy, and their firing range was not as good as their bolt-action rifles, and they were not as agile as submachine guns at close range.

Therefore, they don't really like assault rifles, which seem a bit strange to them.

However, regarding the rocket launcher, they all said it was good, that it was excellent.

If it weren't for the limits of human carrying capacity, they would almost want to carry a bunch of rockets like they were carrying rifle bullets, firing one at a crowd, one at a tank, one at a fortification—in short, "YES! RPG!"

However, the Teutons were not very aware that the Norwegian troops had started randomly firing RPGs after being re-equipped.

After all, they had long been used to this when they fought against NATO forces in the past.

Many Teutonic veterans even carried NATO assault rifles. Although bullets were hard to replenish, everyone who had used or been shot by one felt that it was much better than their submachine guns.

What's giving the Teutonic infantry a headache now is that Old Joe has suddenly pulled out a helicopter from his crotch again.

The Teutonic infantry had never seen such a strange aircraft before.

Moreover, this type of aircraft differs from fixed-wing aircraft in that, apart from the more uncomfortable experience of diving to drop bombs, the experience of strafing the ground is not particularly unpleasant.

After all, a fixed-wing dive-bombing attack only lasts a few seconds, and whether someone dies or not is just a matter of a few seconds. If they die, there's no need to worry; if they survive, they can get up and continue the counterattack.

But these helicopters are different. These things can continuously defecate and urinate overhead, and can even launch rockets to destroy fortifications and repeatedly strafe the trenches with machine guns.

They won't leave until they've used up all their bullets or killed everyone.

This put enormous pressure on them.

What's worse, since they had always controlled the air, the Teutonic infantry didn't have much to defend against air attacks.

Using squad automatic weapons to retaliate against these helicopters was somewhat effective, but not very effective.

This flexible firepower platform allows NATO forces to easily occupy key terrain and then launch attacks against them more effectively.

Air force support, which used to seem readily available, no longer feels as rapid.

Often, the helicopter attack has already ended before air support arrives on the battlefield.

After being rendered ineffective by helicopter fire, the Teutonic infantry began mounting 20mm cannons on their half-tracks for field air defense in response to NATO helicopter attacks.

However, at this point, with the large-scale counterattack by NATO forces, the Teutonic troops had been compressed southward to the vicinity of Oslo, and any further retreat south would have meant certain death by drowning.

After Old Joe arrived in Norwegia, he dominated the Teutons for three consecutive weeks, which put immense psychological pressure on them.

We can't always falter when facing Joe, can we?

Seeing that they really couldn't hold on any longer, given Old Joe's multi-dimensional offensive and the dire situation, the Teutonic commander had no choice but to signal to the Germania that they should send in some armored units, including some heavy armored battalions, otherwise they really couldn't hold out.

And Old Joe's helicopters are really useful, could we make some copies?
Just when the Teutons were about to give up, the military observer group that had arrived in Norwegia with Old Joe was also nearly going crazy.

I'm ecstatic.

Although the Citizens' military had a good relationship with Joe, in the past, people's understanding of Joe was mainly focused on armored warfare, and they were not very familiar with other tactics.

When Joe deployed helicopter units and began implementing integrated air-ground offensive operations, he faced a new toy: helicopters.

The Citizens' officers felt much like Americans seeing a tank for the first time back then, excitedly pointing at it and saying, "I want one too!"

Especially after witnessing a standard three-aircraft formation easily and completely destroy and eliminate a Teutonic infantry company's position within ten minutes, the officers of the Citizens Military Observer Group all said they had learned a lot and that their trip had been worthwhile.

Along the way, these observers carried a pistol and a notebook, and then sent telegrams to the Pentagon like snowflakes.

These reports, when summarized, basically boil down to one sentence: 'Steve Jobs, you're awesome! Send me the money!'

(End of this chapter)