In the following days of meetings, the General Staff Department reviewed and summarized the entire Torch Operation based on Asha's retrospectives and the search results from the ruins of Taqila. Reports were delivered to Roland's desk almost daily, piling up to nearly half his height.

More and more details became clear.

For example, the giant godstones that appeared in both the Battle of Hopebreak Ridge and the siege of Taqila came from the godstone veins in the ruins. At the bottom of the mine, the Detective Team found the missing parts corresponding to the ore clusters—both godstone pillars had been cut in half, the cross-sections were very smooth, as if they had been cut by a sharp instrument.

Although the retrospective ability could not be used near the godstones, from a global perspective, it was likely related to the giant skeleton. In fact, the latter was not only a means of transportation, but also had the function of a small obelisk, capable of regenerating the Red Mist, as evidenced by the corroded land around the ruins. However, compared to the obelisks that could cover hundreds of kilometers, its coverage was only one or two hundred meters, and it could not create something from nothing, still requiring the Red Line to maintain it.

As a freely movable "sentry point," its strategic significance was self-evident. The General Staff Department concluded that, like the Spider Demons, this oversized carrier was probably also a rare species for the devils, otherwise it could completely replace the outposts and occupy the entire Fertile Plains before humans could react.

In addition, most of the passages located behind Taqila were excavated by Spider Demons—their digging ability was far inferior to that of the Devouring Worms, but it was much better than that of the Frenzied Demons. These passages all started from the godstone mine, and the depth from the ground obviously took into account the threshold of observation abilities, plus ample preparation time, making it not easy to discover.

Since Celine and Agatha both tended to regard the giant skeleton and the Spider Demon as the same type of devil, Roland also gave it a new name: Aberrant Beast, to distinguish carrier-type enemies from other devils, and then add a specific prefix to quickly name similar devils that had not yet been discovered.

Currently, these two carriers are named "Fortress-type Aberrant Beast" and "Spider-type Aberrant Beast" respectively. The latter is further divided into Type I, which throws stone needles, and Type II, which throws personnel. Accurate names are not only conducive to combat deduction and order issuance, but also facilitate post-war statistics and records.

In addition to detailed battle analysis, another focus of Roland's attention was the shortcomings and areas for improvement listed by the General Staff Department based on the results.

Edith's personal report, which also ranked first among many problems, was still the weakness of reconnaissance ability.

Leaving aside the sky, in the history of human warfare, tunnel warfare has always been just a trick, not a regular tactical means, due to the limitations of excavation tools and cost-effectiveness. However, this rule is no longer applicable in the face of the Devouring Worms and Spider-type Aberrant Beasts—as long as enough carriers are gathered, the enemy may even be able to excavate an underground passage for the army to pass through in a short period of time, so the land underfoot has become a dangerous area that must be defended.

There is no doubt that Sylvie alone is not only unable to manage it, but also extremely uneconomical. The magic eye consumes a lot of magic when penetrating obstacles to see things. Under the condition of fixed total magic power, monitoring targets more than ten kilometers away on the surface for a whole day, if it is used to scan the stratum, it is only the size of one or two football fields, and a shallow layer of three or four meters deep.

What's more, in addition to transcendents, all witches' abilities have a threshold. When a certain condition is exceeded, magic consumption will exponentially increase. In this case, any non-emergency behavior is a waste of magic.

This warning work must be undertaken by the First Army itself.

Roland vaguely remembered that in history, both sides in a war had used underground listening methods to guard against each other's digging tunnels and raiding positions. The principle was the same as that of a stethoscope, using the characteristic that sound attenuates less when propagating in solids than when propagating in air, so as to capture the opponent's digging movements more clearly.

However, this method is only limited to tunnels being excavated near the position. Traps like Taqila, which were arranged early, cannot solve all problems by listening alone.

After thinking about it again and again, he came up with a feasible method—rod sounding.

This is a detection method widely used in the civil engineering industry. As one of the two engineering dogs, he often heard his roommates in the civil engineering school mention it. Simply put, it is to vertically drive a steel bar into the ground, and judge the hardness of the soil layer according to the distance the bar is hammered in each time. Test points are generally distributed in a quincunx pattern with intervals of several meters. As long as a probe is equipped, several people can complete a large-area inspection. When the steel bar sinking data suddenly increases, there is a high possibility that there is a cavity below.

The combination of listening and probing can basically ensure that threats from the ground are detected without the aid of witch abilities.

As for the reconnaissance of air enemy situations, the only way to get rid of the dependence on Lightning and Maggie is to develop an air force.

And when this part can be supplemented depends on Tilly.

In addition, there were many conclusions in the report such as "relying too much on positions" and "lack of rapid support capabilities", which made Roland sigh at the rapid improvement of the General Staff Department's level, but also quite helpless—it was not that he was not aware of these problems, but limited by the population of Neverwinter, it was difficult for him to make up for the shortcomings in a short period of time.

Finally, among many reports, one opinion caught his attention. It was a report from the grassroots of the army, submitted by a logistics officer. The report stated that under high-intensity combat, the performance of the Mark I machine gun was unstable. After the decisive battle, many soldiers in the machine gun squads complained that the time they spent changing barrels was more than the time they spent firing, which also caused a considerable burden on logistics. If possible, it is hoped that the Engineering Department can improve it.

This was also the first time Roland received direct feedback from front-line soldiers after the establishment of the feedback mechanism—as the personal users of weapons, they were the group of people who knew the advantages and disadvantages of weapons best.

In fact, as early as when the Taqila No. 1 station was attacked, he noticed an abnormal increase in the number of scrapped gun barrels, but since these parts could be recycled and recast, he didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Now that he thinks about it, it should be due to the lack of experience of the shooters and the sudden increase in the pressure from the enemy. Soldiers are more nervous during night battles, and it is difficult to confirm the results of the battle, so they almost hold down the trigger and won't let go. The air-cooled barrel itself is not as durable as the water-cooled barrel. The previous combat intensity was basically manageable, but now the heat dissipation is a bit unable to keep up after a long shooting time.

This also gave Roland a sense of alertness. The reason why he initially adopted gas-operated and air-cooled barrels was purely to use one gun for multiple purposes. If designed according to Maxim, it would not conform to the idea of "universal", but the actual effect was not as ideal as he expected. Although the production of tracer bullets and the increase in night combat experience can alleviate this situation, the enemy's forces invested in the Western Front are only a small group. If it really comes to the decisive battle of the main force, the impact of the heavy machine gun misfiring will be fatal.

Fortunately, this report made him realize his mistake.

The solution is to separate the two. The heavy machine gun specifically used to suppress the enemy is replaced with a longer barrel with heat dissipation fins, and the issue of multi-purpose is no longer considered. The universal machine gun that can be hand-held for assault and is suitable for vehicles is redesigned with the Mark I as the basis to make it lighter and meet the needs of future wars.