Descending On France 1780-Chapter 358 - 351 like a tiger dealing with a kitten

March 9th, Anning arrived at Ulm, which was still contested.

Napoleon had been waiting for him early on.

Upon arrival, Anning said, "I didn’t expect that you haven’t taken this city after two days of fighting."

Napoleon immediately showed an expression as if he had eaten dung: "You don’t know how disgusting they are. This city has barricades every few steps, the roads are completely blocked, and every step we take results in heavy casualties!"

Anning: "Barricades?"

"Yes, barricades. Even the Austrian army, which we have bloodily crushed many times, becomes courageous behind barricades. Although we could quickly defeat them by charging and engaging in hand-to-hand combat, there’s another barricade behind each one..."

Anning waved his hand: "Take me to the front lines to have a look."

"Right this way," Napoleon gestured invitingly.

Moments later, Napoleon personally took Anning to the front lines where the French and the coalition forces were clashing. They climbed a captured barricade and then Napoleon pointed to the Austrian barricades at the street corner ahead: "Look! Barricades one after another, endless."

Anning took out his binoculars, observed the enemy’s barricades for a while, then turned to look at the nearby buildings: "What about these buildings, haven’t the enemies entered these buildings to defend?"

"At first, they entered some buildings but after we adopted the tactic of setting the buildings on fire together with the people inside, they no longer entered ordinary buildings, only holding out in solid brick buildings. This city has now become an impregnable fortress, and I have already lost thousands of men."

Anning put away his binoculars, turned to Napoleon and said, "I really didn’t expect that even you could be hindered by past thinking."

Napoleon frowned: "What do you mean?"

Anning shook his head.

As a "veteran," Anning was very familiar with the modern urban meat grinders like Stalingrad, so he clearly understood the fundamental differences between the military of the Stalingrad era and the military of the present.

In the era of Stalingrad, armies could disperse into small squads of just a few men while maintaining battle morale and operational capability.

This would be unimaginable for the current military.

Even the modern French Army couldn’t keep up the fight will or tactical execution if it reduced to just a few-man squads.

For the coalition, if a unit had fewer than thirty people, or if the proportion of non-commissioned officers among thirty people was too low, the unit would disintegrate.

Thus, what the coalition called entering a building was not like modern warfare, where a few soldiers hold a building, but rather, an entire platoon or even a company entering at once.

In this era, it was normal for several hundred people to defend a solid building, and within those hundreds, there had to be a significant number of NCOs and officers; otherwise, they couldn’t maintain the basic fighting spirit and morale.

That’s also why barricades were so effective in this era.

Since the military had to maintain scale and formation, they could only move through streets, especially wider streets.

Real alley fighting was something only elite troops like skirmishers, Leaping Soldiers, and Hunters could do, and even among these troops, the officer ratio couldn’t be too low.

After omitting the future part, Anning briefly explained all the above to Napoleon and then asked him, "What is the biggest difference between our army and the old armies?"

As Anning’s keen student, Napoleon immediately answered: "Our fundamental soldiers are Citizen Soldiers, understanding what they fight for, with the desire to combat, capable of maintaining morale and fighting will even in loose formations."

Anning nodded: "Right, so we need to make the most of this advantage. That Sergeant over there!"

The Sergeant, pointed out by Anning, immediately stood at attention: "I am Sergeant Jean Poole, Commander Sir!"

"You take your squad, enter the alley on the side, climb through the windows across the buildings, and I want you to climb onto the wooden building next to the enemy’s barricade!"

Sergeant turned his head to look at the house Anning was pointing at, then turned back to his soldiers and said, "You all heard what the Commander said! Follow me!"

So, a platoon stood up and under the leadership of the Sergeant and two Junior Sergeants, they dove into the alley beside the avenue.

Sounds of breaking glass came from the alley; it seemed that the troops were entering through the windows.

Anning continued giving orders: "And you, Senior Sergeant! What is your name?"

The addressed Senior Sergeant loudly replied: "My name is Pierre, Your Excellency!"

"Take your platoon, enter this alley, similarly enter through windows—or climb the walls, whatever it takes, just make your way into that building!"

Anning pointed to another new building: "Once there, shoot down from above at the street barricades!"

Anning consecutively issued orders, and platoons under the lead of non-commissioned officers scattered into the alley.

After issuing the orders, Anning turned to Napoleon and said, "You’ll see, the barricades will smoothly fall into our hands! This is called dimensional reduction strike!"

Napoleon: "Dimensional reduction?"

Good grief, Anning’s translation system did not translate this term; perhaps this era truly lacks a suitable term.

Guessing if Anning were to use scientific terms like photons, protons, etc., it would end up the same. Need to be cautious about this in the future.

Anning altered his expression: "It’s like a tiger fighting a cat! As easy as flipping one’s hand!"

**

Sergeant Jean Poole led his troops through several buildings and entered the building Anning had indicated.

The locals on the first floor were so frightened they couldn’t speak, a family huddled in a corner.

Sergeant: "Don’t be afraid, madam, we are here to liberate you."

One of the Junior Sergeants jestingly said, "Sergeant, they don’t understand; this is Hesse territory, only the Nobles understand French, ordinary people speak German."

Sergeant cursed: "Do I need you to tell me that? Move to the second floor! Quickly!"

Some quick soldiers had already reached the second floor, shouting back from the window: "Sergeant, come see, all Austrian heads!"

The Sergeant rushed up three steps to the second floor, peeked out and saw right beneath them was the Austrian street barricade, Austrian soldiers looking up hearing French being spoken.

The Austrian officers were bewildered, having never seen such a situation, unsure what commands to issue.

The Sergeant was overjoyed, lifted his gun and randomly targeted an officer with a Nobles’ insignia plate on his chest, and pulled the trigger. However, because the paper wad that stuffed the bullet and gunpowder was not secured properly, the bullet slipped out the muzzle before firing, spattering down on the Austrian soldiers looking up, along with the gunpowder.

A nearby soldier laughed: "Sergeant, your gun wasn’t loaded properly! Hahaha, you won’t dare discipline us anymore, will you?"

The Sergeant struck the laughing soldier with his rifle butt, cursed, "Idiot! Start shooting at them below now! Quick, shoot!"

The soldiers snapped out of it, leaned out to shoot below, and after a round, pulled back to reload.

Initially, the Sergeant was hurrying them to reload, then he suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

"Wait a moment!" he exclaimed, picked up a stool from the ground and hurled it out the window.

The stool immediately struck an unfortunate soul below, leaving him with a bloodied head.

"This is faster! Start throwing things at them!"