Imperial Elite

Chapter 179 The US Deploys Troops
Originally, in Old Joe's plan, his actions in Northern Europe and the Balkans were essentially a delaying tactic.

NATO's plate may look big, but there's not much food in it.

Faced with a million-strong army from the Teutons and the Lucia military government, Old Joe felt he had already exceeded expectations in managing to turn the situation into what it was today.

If the People's Revolutionary League hadn't suddenly chosen to help him, Old Joe was actually prepared to continue leading his men in guerrilla warfare in Bohemia.

So after finally catching his breath, Old Joe, realizing that his troops could not withstand a full-scale war, adopted a different offensive and defensive approach than before.

Unlike in the last great war, when they led their troops to kick down the Teutons' gates, they now, after the front lines have temporarily stabilized, seek trouble with the Teutons in any way that might displease them.

The decision to temporarily turn to the Balkans was made by Joe after assessing that the Balkan people were more powerful than the Italians. What Joe didn't realize was that he knew the Balkan people were powerful.
But what Old Joe didn't expect was that the Balkans were too assertive.

Due to the strong suppression by the Russian military government in the past, the Balkan resistance organizations naturally became mainly scattered in the mountains and forests.

After all, for an organization like the Luscan military government that uses machine guns to express its opposition, as long as the guerrillas dare to enter any settlement larger than a village, the Luscan military government dares to express its opposition to them with machine guns and armored vehicles.

Therefore, when the uprising began, these guerrillas mainly attacked small cities with only tens of thousands of people.

However, as Old Joe's troops arrived in the Balkans and began to provide them with support, these guerrillas, now supported, instantly rallied.

They were no longer satisfied with attacking small cities with only tens of thousands of people, but began to attack the major cities. Old Joe even suspected that if he sent more men, they would dare to attack Constantinople.

Although these guys made a big show of it, Old Joe knew that the Teutons were like springs.

The more arrogant these guerrillas act now, the more ferocious the Teutonic retaliation will be later.

So, to prevent these Balkan guerrillas from being wiped out by the Teutons, Old Joe gathered some more troops and then personally led them to parachute into the Balkans.

Hopefully, we can gain as much of an advantage as possible before things get out of control.

However, what Old Joe didn't expect was that when they learned of his arrival, the Balkans' fervor was almost indistinguishable from that of the American volunteers who brought their own equipment and pay to fight.

As a former Habsburg territory, the Balkans were considered a desolate wasteland by the Bunitas and Gauls, especially after the Lucia military government occupied the area.

Their view of this place is almost on par with that of the Dark Continent.

But this place is not actually a barren land; there are things like movie theaters here.

So, just like in other parts of the world, Balkan people also choose to relax by watching movies when they are feeling down.

So what movies were most famous during the painful 1930s?
Naturally, one cannot escape Steve Jobs' "Governors of the Planet" series.

Although as Balkan people they had no affection for the Empire, they could only laugh when they heard the phrase "for the Empire".

But Joe, being a filmmaker, naturally filmed everything, including the bizarre state of the empire he had witnessed over the past two centuries.

Then the Balkans were very pleased with this, especially the Lucias who now ruled them, who were able to find allusions to it.

So, in the eyes of the Balkan people, Old Joe was one of their own!

In particular, Old Joe's invincible reputation made these Balkan people see him as the hope for their national liberation.

So when Old Joe arrived, these Balkan people became even more fanatical. Before, they only wanted to attack Constantinople, but now they even wanted to attack Germania.

After discovering that these guerrillas were in high spirits and numerous.

Old Joe also felt that he might have been a little too conservative before coming here. Perhaps he could carve out a guerrilla zone and a directly controlled area in the mountains near the sea.

But as Joe started causing trouble, no matter how much the head of state and the president of the Lucia military government didn't want to do it, they still had to react to Joe's actions.

After all, if we leave this kind of thing unchecked, who knows what Old Joe might do?

So, just as Old Joe had initially thought, the Teutons reduced their supplies to the northern front and the Dark Continent Legion.

An armored division originally intended to reinforce the Dark Continent Legion is now forced to go to the Balkans with a group of newly mobilized Italian Blackshirts to help the Lucia military government's security task force put out a fire.

With the Dark Continent Legion's supplies reduced, the Buntanians, who had just managed to scrape together a considerable number of troops, suddenly had new ideas.

However, because Erwin, who had just been promoted to field marshal, was too arrogant, this time Buntania, having learned its lesson, did not launch an offensive rashly. Instead, it sent the action plan of the Eighth Army stationed in Cairo to Old Joe for review.

They inquired whether the Charles, who had spent the entire winter incorporating the Gallic colonies, could now lead his troops north, so that they could attack from both sides and advance from the east and west, giving the Teutons and Italians a major victory.

The reason it's described as incorporating the Gallic colonies is because Charles, who was prepared for a bloody battle on the Dark Continent, discovered upon arriving there that the situation was completely different from what he had imagined.

In Charles's mind, since these colonies had not yet responded to his Declaration of Free Gaul, they must be preparing to submit to Parisian rule, so he would inevitably have to fight against his own compatriots here.

However, what Charles did not expect was that although these colonies did not react to his Declaration of Free Gaul, when Charles arrived with his troops, these colonies had only one attitude towards him.

Your Majesty, why are you so late!

The attitude of most colonies toward the arrival of the Charles was much like that of the Gauls who saw the Emperor return home in 1815.

Apart from a few die-hards loyal to Paris who argued that Marshal Henry's path was correct and that their actions constituted an armed rebellion that was brutally suppressed, there were no other dissidents.

Most of the time, the Charles's Free Gallic troops were essentially engaged in armed demonstrations.

While the colonial forces were not as numerous as those on the mainland, the Free Gallic Army had grown to a considerable size after recruiting a significant number of local Black men.

The only problem is that most of these troops are still using equipment left over from the last war, and the consequences of using such equipment to fight the Teutons are pretty predictable.

The previous Gallic Wars had already demonstrated that if squad firepower was insufficient, the battlefield would be unstable. Therefore, the troops needed to undergo equipment replacement, at least to replace the submachine guns and light machine guns that were lacking in squads.

Therefore, even the most optimistic estimate in the original plan.

The Free Gauls' forces will not be fully combat-ready until the second half of this year.

But time waits for no one, and as an armored commander, Sharl was acutely aware of the importance of seizing opportunities. Troops are always deployed to war when needed, not when prepared.

Therefore, faced with the fact that neither the Teutons nor the Italians had any opportunity to provide support to the Dark Continent Legion, Charles resolutely responded to the Bunitania's proposal and prepared to lead his troops north to give the Teutons a severe blow.

Just as Charles was preparing to take action, the American military, which had been waiting impatiently for a long time, could no longer wait any longer.

George and his hawkish faction in the military have always believed that while training is crucial, real combat experience is also very important.

Therefore, instead of training the army, especially its armored forces, domestically, it would be better to take the troops to the Dark Continent and have a go at the Teutons.

After all, compared to other battlefields, the intensity of the Northern Dark Continent should be relatively low.

Moreover, for actual combat training, you don't need too many troops; four or five divisions with six or seven thousand men would be enough.

Because the number of troops mobilized was small, and because His Excellency the President also wanted to know what level of force the US Army was at.

They thus agreed to the military's request to send troops to the Dark Continent.

Since His Excellency the President agreed to send troops, the military did not hesitate to send an armored division and four infantry divisions to the Northern Dark Continent.

Of course, if army troops are to be deployed, air power cannot be left behind.

So the Army Aviation Corps immediately deployed its 12th Air Army, which was rapidly formed after deciding to send troops to the Dark Continent, to cooperate in the operation.

This combat unit, which belongs to the Army Aviation Corps, doesn't have many personnel, only a mere 70,000 people and a little over 1,100 aircraft of various types.

Of course, due to transportation issues, the Army Aviation Corps expects these troops to be deployed within three months.

Of course, with the army making such a large investment, the newly established air force was not going to stand idly by.

After all, with Harrison and his team creating the Future Legion, the Air Force's toys have undergone a slight change.

In short, it involves a general upgrade of existing aircraft, including the addition of self-sealing fuel tanks, enhanced armor protection in key locations and structures, and the addition of more firepower output points.

This modification naturally had some impact on the aircraft's range, but the Air Force held a positive view of these upgraded "big toys."

Because they not only received the modified new toys, but also learned how to use them.

The core idea of ​​the "box defense" formation is not to avoid enemy fire, but to rely on the machine gun fire of each aircraft in the formation to cover each other, forming a heavy firepower "three-dimensional net" so that fighter jets must face extremely dense head-on fire if they want to attack, thereby reducing the risk of being shot down.

After all, unlike most other bombers, Citizen's heavy bomber was basically a hedgehog covered in 12.7mm heavy machine guns.

In fact, if it weren't for a minor problem in the development of the machine gun, which resulted in its reliability and firepower output being inferior to these heavy machine guns, Harrison and his men would have actually wanted to equip these bombers with machine guns.

Now that there are new toys and new tactics, the Air Force has naturally formed the First Air Expeditionary Force, preparing to take 600 heavy bombers to conduct a live-fire test.

Because the air force was too large, the Americans planned to divide these troops into two parts and deploy them to the battlefield in the Northern Dark Continent.

The 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division will be deployed to Cairo to form the spearhead with the Bunitania armored forces and kick down the Teutonic gates.

The remaining three infantry divisions, after being resupplyed and joining up with the Free Gauls, would head north to attack the Teutons.

Old Joe hadn't expected that his mere actions in the Balkans would lead to the North Dark Continent campaign escalating into a decisive battle.

Given how things have developed, all Old Joe can do is slightly change his plans and prepare to launch a large-scale operation in the Balkans to support the battlefield in the Northern Dark Continent.

This prevented the Teutons from providing support to the Dark Continent Legion.

Even more surprised than Old Joe were the Gauls and the Bunitas.

As the American troops arrived on the battlefield, the Gauls and Bunitas discovered that the American troops were not a normal force; their equipment was somewhat...luxurious.

While reinforcements are always welcome, for the Buntanians stationed in Cairo, facing the onslaught of the Mintons, the arrival of only two divisions from the Americans was somewhat insufficient.

The Buntanians stationed in Cairo believed that if the Teutonic Dark Continent Legion had not been lacking in support, they would have already stormed Cairo.

The idea that the Americans only sent two divisions, and that it would be better to send them more equipment and supplies, only lasted until the Americans arrived and the heavy equipment began to be unloaded.

Then, looking at the Indomitable Off-Road Vehicles scattered all over the ground and the troops running around in armored vehicles, the Bunitas asked with some confusion, "Did the Americans make a mistake? Why are there two armored divisions here?"
The Americans were also puzzled by the question about the Bunitanias. Yes, it was an armored division and an infantry division that came.

After a brief exchange, the Bunitas' envy of the American troops practically spilled from their mouths.

Although the American infantry divisions are called infantry divisions, the only difference between them and armored divisions is that they do not have tanks, and they also have slightly fewer self-propelled artillery and other such equipment.

In addition, just like the armored forces, the ground was covered with various types of six-wheeled or eight-wheeled armored vehicles.

Vehicles like the Unyielding, high-end equipment that were only issued to elite troops and officers in Brittany, were basically on par with bicycles in the eyes of Americans.

You can often see one or two soldiers driving around in an Indomitable, trying to pick up local girls in Cairo with chocolates and canned goods.

However, this envy was limited to the light armored vehicles of the American people.

Although the armored forces of Britannia had a lot of complaints about their tanks, they couldn't help but laugh when they saw the tanks of the Americans.

Seemingly influenced by those armored vehicles, the American ordnance department basically went all out in designing tanks that were tall and imposing.

Therefore, the Citizen tank has a very tall hull.

However, the Americans were very poor in artillery, so on the huge vehicle, there was only a small turret and a small cannon.

This led the Buntanians who saw the tank to describe it as a cake with a cherry on top.

(End of this chapter)