African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 754 - 58: The Killing Machine "Maxim

In the past opponents in East Africa, apart from those students from the "Heixinggen Military Academy" who participated in the Prussia War, had basically not encountered line infantry tactics.

The Portuguese had the capability, but during the last East-Portuguese War, Portugal wished they had two soldiers for every one, with too few colonial troops, and the Black servant army didn't have such capabilities.

Line infantry tactics are not something every army can play; firstly, the army needs strong coordination, and secondly, extraordinary courage.

And neither of these traits were present in the Black servant army hastily organized by the Portuguese; instead, during previous conflicts between East Africa and the Ndebele Kingdom, the Ndebele people used a "semi-finished" line infantry tactic.

Although the Ndebele people have become history, it cannot be denied that their organization skills were quite strong. Unfortunately, their contact with firearms was too short; otherwise, they might have been able to reenact the line infantry tactics.

...

Faced with this "novel" tactic that the East Africa Defense Army had basically never seen, some soldiers from the Ninth Brigade were indeed somewhat confused, especially those new recruits from the Far East Empire who couldn't understand at all.

"These 'British', why are they lined up so neatly? Are they preparing to die directly?"

"Idiot, those aren't British, but Indians from the British colonies. You see their Black skin, only slightly lighter than East African Blacks. Those white-skinned commanders are the British ones."

"As for why they form such neat lines, it's because you lack knowledge. This tactic is actually very common in Europe. If you had participated in foreign wars with the Far East Empire, you might have had the opportunity to see the British and French use this tactic, but that was decades ago. Judging by your age, you certainly haven't experienced it."

The last time the British and French jointly invaded the Far East Empire was in 1856, which was over thirty years ago and even before East Africa existed. Therefore, apart from a few early immigrants to East Africa, later immigrants had never seen it.

"If that's the case, why hasn't the Defense Army used this tactic? Isn't this the mainstream European tactic?"

"The Defense Army used to use it, but back then, it was not called the Defense Army; it was the colonial army. We had a period of colonial history. Later, after establishing the kingdom and upgrading firearms, this tactic became obsolete. The British never excelled at land armies. Countries like Germany and France would probably also phase out the line tactics. We usually refer to this tactic as line infantry tactics, so you're not wrong to say it's a way to get killed."

Line infantry tactics are formally called "line infantry tactics," but even the Germans prefer the term "line infantry tactics" because traditionally, in the eyes of German civilians, war was inherently going to get people killed.

If not for the Prussian army reforms, Prussia likely would still have been the European army with the most deserters, making it hard to achieve the great unification of the small German territories.

And before the military reforms, the Prussian Army's desertion rate also reflected the Prussian civilians' fear of war under line infantry tactics, after all with such tactics, it's either the enemy falls, or you do, more like "exchange of pieces," and whoever runs out of pieces first loses the war. Those officers didn't care about soldier lives, but the common soldiers cherished theirs very much.

So line infantry tactics are the greatest test of "morale" among lower-rank soldiers, and many soldiers were conscripts, so naturally, they would break ranks with little resistance.

The Indian soldiers in front look quite impressive, but it's unknown how much they've learned from the British Lobster Soldiers. The term "Lobster Soldiers" is just a teasing phrase; the courage of the British in battle was still commendable, or else Britain wouldn't have captured such a large territory.

At this point, Indian soldiers were actually more puzzled than East Africans. In their eyes, the British enemies were also "Europeans," but why was there such a big difference from the British?

Some soldiers in East Africa don't understand, but there are veterans and knowledgeable soldiers to explain to them. However, the Indian soldiers don't have this opportunity, as it's impossible to ask the white officers questions! They wouldn't get answers and might even get a beating. It's best to just obediently follow white people's orders.

Just like now, this line infantry tactic, it's the British lords instructing them, forming neat lines, and then shooting at the enemy. This tactic was trained extensively in India, so the Indian troops' performance was quite model-like.

Rost was very satisfied with the Indian soldiers' performance and said, "It seems we wronged the Indians before, the Tugela River indeed hindered our army's advance; fighting on land suits us better."

"Yes, General, when we were in India, the training for these Indians was very strict, following our army's standards completely. The situation at the Tugela River was just an accident."

At the Tugela River front, given the existence of the Tugela River, line infantry tactics couldn't be deployed because it's impossible to "line up" in the water. But now on land, the British army could finally use their ancestral secret techniques.

"Attack!" Having gained much confidence, Rost commanded.

The East African troop strength was already clear; whether a brigade or not, even with reinforcements, they couldn't outnumber our forces. This time, the British army, the Portuguese forces, and the Transvaal people attacked from multiple fronts, so the East Africans couldn't draw too many troops to support the East African army in front of them.

Even if East Africa had surplus troops, time wouldn't allow it. From the moment the British crossed the river, Rost understood this very well, after all, East Africa wouldn't easily abandon the advantages of a position like the Tugela River, even if they had extra troops.

The Indian troops, amidst the majestic music of the military band, began to move boldly towards the "rudimentary" positions of East Africa.

At this moment, East Africa's machine gunners had been ready long since.

Because of the British "delay," the Ninth Brigade of East Africa managed to assemble completely, so the number of machine guns was fully equipped, totaling sixty-three machine guns in the Ninth Brigade.

The British delay was actually East Africa's "inertia" error; the calculated British marching speed was based on East African speeds, which led to the Ninth Brigade estimating the British arrival time as "four hours" earlier.

In fact, until now, the British army hadn't fully gathered; the heavy artillery units were still far behind on the opposite bank of the Tugela River. Those big pieces are not easily movable, especially since the temporary floating bridges over the Tugela River couldn't support them at all.

Therefore, the British only carried light artillery, and not many in number. At this point, the British firepower was actually far inferior to East Africa's.

And East African light artillery had long been hidden on the so-called "heights", while Alydot had gathered all the machine guns of the brigade, ready to verify the power of the machine guns.

"Open fire!" ordered Alydot.

East African machine gunners began sweeping the line at the British Indian troops.

Bullets flew towards the British army like rain, and soon large plumes of white vapor steamed up at the exhaust ports in front of the Maxim machine guns, which is the water-cooling structure cooling the gun body.

And the Indians opposite fell like corn stalks under a harvester, fear quickly spreading among the Indians, but the East African machine guns kept "reaping" their lives like demons.

In past lives, the first large-scale combat use of Maxim machine guns was by the British in 1893 against the Ndebele people, with the British eliminating over fifteen hundred natives at the cost of just four fatalities, and at the time, the British only had five Maxim machine guns.

And now the British fighting against the East Africans were also equipped with machine guns, but they were still using Gatling guns. Even in original history, the British only equipped their first batch of Maxim machine guns in October 1888.

So this time, in terms of machine gun weaponry, the British army was actually lagging behind East Africa, and this is the condition of the British land forces. With troops like the Indians, they probably hadn't even been equipped with the "temporarily lagging" Gatling guns.