Munitions Empire

In such a macro environment, Bolton felt that the best course of action for Dorne Kingdom was to seek peace with the Laines Empire. By standing back to back, they could withstand the pressure, at least saving half their ammunition and half their troop strength!

Unfortunately, this idea was dead before it could take off: the Laines Empire actually formed an alliance with Gobur Kingdom, intent on a two-front attack to divide and conquer Dorne.

Today's battlefield was absent of the roar of artillery, everything seemed eerily calm. But every Dorne commander knew that such calm often signaled the beginning of a bloodbath on the battlefield.

Sure enough, the brief tranquility of the battlefield was suddenly shattered by the boom of cannons—Gobur's bombardment had begun.

Unlike the leisurely, sporadic cannon fire from previous days, this time Gobur's artillery was so dense it could only be described as terrifying.

The first volley alone consisted of hundreds of rounds, almost instantly engulfing Dorne Kingdom's front line defenses in a cloud of black smoke and flying debris.

The Dorne garrison troops, still unclear about what had happened, were immediately subjected to the second round of artillery fire.

The soldiers in the trenches were nearly buried alive by the dirt thrown up by the exploding shells, with the deafening blasts of large-caliber artillery shells all around and the ground beneath their feet continually shaking and trembling as if the end of the world had arrived.

"Damn it! Are the Gobur not planning to live any longer? Can they transport so many shells to the front line in a month? Are they not going to fight next month?" Watching the smoke columns rising in the distance, a Dorne division commander complained, confused as he looked through his binoculars.

The officer standing beside him was also somewhat in disbelief, staring at their positions, which seemed to be getting swallowed up, and shook his head, "It seems they've taken out at least a month's reserve of ammunition and fired it all at once, really sparing no expense."

"That means the enemy will soon launch an attack... and it will be unprecedented in scale, a costly offensive..." the division commander continued, peering through his binoculars at the distant positions as if talking to himself.

Without looking back, he then commanded, "Send a message to General Bolton, request support from the reserve forces... prepare the 3rd regiment behind us for battle... the front line defenses are likely to be untenable."

"Yes! Understood!" The officer who received the command immediately cranked the telephone beside him, asking the operator to connect him to the headquarters.

This complex telephone system was naturally not cheap, and also quite cumbersome to use. Nevertheless, even so, it was the most advanced telephone system Great Tang Group had available for sale.

And this one had been miniaturized for military use, with improved design and enhanced reliability—the "select" model.

Meanwhile, at this very moment at Gobur Kingdom's positions, where the trench gap had been surreptitiously filled earlier, a colossal steel behemoth was slowly advancing towards the distance.

Following this gigantic object was another immense war machine with a pointed front, which looked like a ship traversing on land.

The Shireck Model 1 Tank was a war weapon developed by Shireck Corporation's engineers themselves, and this time they could confidently guarantee that it did not rely on Great Tang Group's technology.

Shireck, groping its way across the river by feeling the stones, had modeled its first tank after the style of the A7V (a German World War I tank).
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They hadn't produced a full track design and basically hadn't considered such a design. Another reason they used a short-track design was that tracks were not cheap to make.

What was finally settled upon was something of an oddity—it couldn't be said to be entirely like an A7V, yet it wasn't completely different either.

This thing was equipped with two gasoline engines, had machine gun ports on all sides, but was outfitted with only one cannon, mounted on top of the tank, adopting the most appropriate single-turret layout!

The Shireck designers' approach was to... copy the turret design of the new battleships, allowing the cannon to adjust its firing angle flexibly. To copy it even more thoroughly, the tank's body was shaped like a ship.

The cannon on the top was designed for breaching and destroying enemy bunkers, so it was simply a short-barreled 70 mm caliber gun, equipped with basic sighting equipment.

According to the plan, tanks were designed to approach very close to enemy positions and fire directly at them, so aiming devices were deemed unnecessary.

The weapons intended for combating enemy soldiers were the six machine guns mounted on this land cruiser: one in the front, one in the back, and two on each side, strategically distributed.

In essence, this contraption was like the water tanks of World War I, filled with imagination and sporting a more steampunk appearance.

Upon seeing their secret weapon emerge on the battlefield, all the Gobur soldiers began to cheer wildly.

Instinctively, the diminutive humans were filled with fantasies and admiration for these gigantic war machines made of steel.

Amidst the cheering, the frantic artillery barrage that had nearly depleted their reserves finally began to subside, and these tanks, or rather, war vehicles, slowly made their way through the mud towards the smoky horizon.

At first, there were one or two, but then the number grew to five, then ten. Unlike previous armored vehicles, these things possessed quite impressive off-road capabilities.

At least they would not get stuck in soft mud, nor would they lose their basic mobility if a wheel was hit.

Of course, tank tracks are not invincible; they're simply immune to the strikes of light weapons like machine guns.

But this was already a significant advancement, especially since Shireck's model of tank had a relatively small exposed area of tracks, so the chances of being hit were quite slim.

Encased within one-centimeter-thick steel plates, or even several centimeters thick, soldiers could use their machine guns to attack the enemy with impunity. The enclosed and cold environment gave them the courage to challenge the dense firepower of the enemy.

Thus, amid the rattling and shaking, these steel monsters approached the trenches of the Dorne Kingdom, marking the beginning of the Armored Corps' first assault on trench defense lines.

Initially, the Dorne soldiers who had just clawed their way out of the loose soil could only see these "armored vehicles" from afar.

As before, they thought these things were just a nuisance to themselves. Under normal circumstances, without their intervention, these heavy contraptions would break down on the battlefield and then be targeted and destroyed by weapons like mortars.

Just by looking at the remnants of armored vehicles scattered across the battlefield, one could tell that using such things to attack enemy positions was as unreliable as performance art.

However, as the targets drew nearer, everyone began to panic: they could clearly see that these behemoths were not as cumbersome as they had imagined.

These armored monsters rolled over craters, broke tree trunks, and not even the barbed wire could halt their advance.

When the soldiers began firing frantically at these armored giants with their weapons, they found their bullets seemingly useless.

No matter where they shot, they could only see sparks flying, while the dense machine gun fire from above suppressed everyone, leaving no one able to raise their heads.

"Quick! Call for support! We can't hold them back!" As a hidden concrete bunker was blasted to pieces, the commander of the Dorne Kingdom's forces on the front line finally realized that his soldiers would have a hard time securing an easy victory as they had in the past.

When a Shireck tank rolled over the first trench of the Dorne Kingdom, the Dorne soldiers inside the trench collapsed.

Like a dark cloud descending, the tank's body obscured the sky above them, and the rolling tracks kicked up dirt, leaving them in such shock that it was overwhelming.

Consequently, the Dorne soldiers began to retreat, forced to abandon a trench over two meters deep that they had defended for more than a month without giving up a single step!