Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes.

Chapter 142 Start the War (4) Decision or Gamble
Different from the fierce and bloody front of the battlefield, the high-ranking officers of the headquarters behind the mortal legion have always maintained an almost cold inspection of the battlefield.

In the command sequence of the empire, the biggest difference between regiment-level commanders and commanders above the regiment level is whether they can break away from their own perspective and turn the casualties on the battlefield into cold numbers.

This kind of ability is unlikely to be acquired by training, because the cost is too high.In most cases, such officers have already shown their signs at the lieutenant level, so they are promoted after being noticed by senior officers.

This is completely different from the standards of the soldiers at the grassroots level of the imperial army. Of course, the soldiers prefer the "parental" officers who eat and live with them.

In other words, in terms of normal moral standards and spiritual needs of human beings, this is in line with the needs of most events in the long existence of the entire group.

But war is precisely an exception, which has been known as anti-human and anti-human since its inception.All human beings' normal needs in morality are shortcomings here, and all normal behaviors of the human group's existence are flaws.

In a word, the essence of war is anti-humanity.

So when the art of war has been studied and studied by the human race for tens of thousands of years, they clearly know that the logic of the middle and upper layers of warfare is exactly the opposite of the logic of the bottom layer.

The more you care about the continuation of the entire human race, the less you care about the damage of a corner;

The more you want to win a comprehensive victory, the less you can be obsessed with partial costs.

This is the real selection criteria for officers:

For a qualified officer who has escaped from the grassroots front line, his most basic quality requirement is that he must be able to ignore the gains and losses of a city or a place, so as to be able to look at the overall situation.

And right now, the legion commanders deep behind these positions are like this.

"The 42nd Infantry Regiment is out of ammunition! The coordinates of the B9 position need to be replenished!"

"The 33rd Motorized Infantry Regiment has approached the enemy at close range! A heavy armored unit has been found! Coordinates B2, requesting heavy fire support!"

"The 19th Air Defense Armored Regiment encountered a teleportation raid by Tzeentch's demons. The coordinates are C15. The target has been eliminated! But most of the weapons have been damaged. Please change defenses!

The information in the front is like raindrops fed back here from the forward headquarters, and the messengers and the communication room are overloaded with information calling for help from various sources.

"Notify the 42nd regiment that the transport troops of the legion have set off 5 minutes ago, let them hold out for a while!"

"Notify the 12th Heavy Artillery Regiment, coordinate B2 forward progressive shooting, three bases!"

"Notify the 16th Armored Air Defense Regiment to immediately arrive at position C15 to take over the defense! The 19th Regiment is ready on the spot and replenished at any time!"

After seeing the information on the desktop screen, Colonel Eric, the chief of staff, frowned and quickly gave the order, and after finishing writing, he confirmed it with his fingerprint and encrypted it.

After he was busy, he raised his head from his seat and inspected the status of the entire hall:
The staff members are feeding back the latest information all the time, updating the situation of the enemy and the enemy on the holographic map.

The mechanical priests and officers of the Quartermaster Department are also always paying attention to the stock of materials on the front line and the latest consumption index, and are always ready to send out materials from the rear of the second line for support.

In the hall of the entire legion headquarters, the seemingly chaotic information is being sorted out in an orderly manner and handed over to the decision makers for processing.

In contrast to these busy backgrounds, in the dim corner below the holographic map, Major General Horn Chavez, the regiment commander, was wearing a black and gold uniform coat, thinking silently in the clouds with his pipe in his mouth.

Compared with these officers who are busy with specific affairs, the veteran who decides the direction of the entire legion's battle is the one who is under the greatest pressure.

Colonel Kane, chief political commissar of the legion, tried to interrupt his thinking several times, but he raised and lowered his hands and finally chose to remain silent.

The feedback from the part of the front troops close to the enemy was very bad. The position was easily lost within 10 minutes after entering hand-to-hand combat. Although it was later recaptured by the counterattack organized by the political commissar of the regiment, whether it is necessary to enforce battlefield discipline again? He has been struggling with the problem.

Killing is very simple, one bullet will do.But after the chain of command is paralyzed, can the political commissar of the regiment take on complete tactical command responsibility?
After being quick for a while, what about the next battle?Just rely on the regiment-level political commissar to shoot down, organize the team, and follow me?The three tricks?
What do you do next after the swing is over?Bullets are always the most deterrent when they are not fired, and the battlefield discipline of the political commissar is also the same.

As a veteran who has become the political commissar of the legion, this point cannot be more clear.

So the question is, should he trust the commander in front?Or to put it more clearly, should he believe in the ability of the legion commander in front of him?
Colonel Kane decided to wait a little longer. It was true that he had his difficulties, but it was an undeniable fact that the pressure on Horn was greater.

Major General Horn, the head of the legion, is also making a difficult choice. What he is facing now, as Kane knows, is a seemingly stable but rotten mess.

The large forces have already started to meet the enemy, and there is no room for retreat and adjustment.However, the defense line of more than ten kilometers, with 3.2 troops invested in it, is too thin.Fortunately, the pressure from the direction of Nurgle and Slaanesh was not too great, which gave him a chance to breathe.

From the very beginning, this combat mission was beyond the standard. Such a long and narrow defensive front should not have been able to be defended by a mere legion.

However, the battle situation is urgent, and soldiers always have no chance to choose their enemies and battlefields.

Whether it's honor or a sense of mission, as the elite of the advance army, they are duty-bound to such a difficult task.

The super-large front and the number of enemies exceeding the estimate were temporarily informed before the airborne, but they had no choice but to activate the worst plan in the emergency plan:

Minefields were deployed in the first-line positions to delay time, while the existence of the second-line troops was actually prepared for the subsequent counter-attack-based elastic defense.

As for the third-line troops?I'm sorry, Horn doesn't have a third line, and if you take a step back, it's the ruins.

A clever woman can't cook without rice, and this principle is also applicable in the 40K universe.The current situation is really embarrassing for this old man who is over fifty years old.

How to do?How to do?
Major General Horn stood up again and looked at the holographic screen. He examined the canine-toothed red and blue sides on the battlefield situation map.

The 6 infantry regiments in front have already contacted the enemy, and the 5 air defense and armor regiments are too small in number, purely supported by functional equipment.

Then, excluding the departments directly under the legion, Horn only had three reorganized regiments in reserve.

Once he throws it in ahead of time, it's like stud on the gambling table, which means that he leads the entire army to play a game where more loses and less wins.What is the price?What happens if you lose?Horn didn't dare to think about it, and he didn't want to think about it.

The chief of staff and the political commissar were also aware of his actions, and they knew that the decision to be made by the top leader of the legion would affect the fate of the entire legion.

The entire command hall was affected by Major General Horn's upcoming decision. Everyone's eyes followed his figure, and the atmosphere became quiet and anxious.

At this time, on the huge clock on his left, on the countdown scale to the next airborne reinforcements, only 49 minutes had passed.

　Second watch, please vote.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)