Siege of Vraks - Battles of the Second Defence Line (120.816.M41): After the sudden rush of the breakthrough and the crisis of the 1st Korps, the advancing regiments of the remaining three korps were ordered to halt. Instead of a headlong rush, the Krieg regiments would approach the task at hand like they did the first line, by slow attrition. The leading infantry companies and Atlas Excavators were called forwards, to dig the trenchworks all over again, always forwards, yard by yard they would close in. The enemy lines would be approached slowly, under the cover of artillery fire. Soon the Van Meersland Wastes were criss-crossed with a spidery network of trenches, which, day after day, grew into a labyrinth.At 120816.M41, the 88th Siege Army again committed itself to the offensive. An all-out assault was launched by no less than six entire regiments. After hours of saturation bombardment the Krieg guardsmen would surge forward to attack the enemy's front line, trenches, defence lines or inter-connected bunkers. In most placed the attack was stalled, leaving the dead lying in piles across no-man's land. In some places the assault succeeded and the attackers occupied the defender's positions, only for the attack to then stall under the counter-barrage as the enemy's pre-sighted guns unleashed an accurate storm of fire, isolating the attackers in their new positions. The enemy would then counter-attack before the assault troops could be reinforced, as the artillery storm raged unabated. The sudden riposte would drive the Krieg guardsmen back. The waves of Krieg infantry would crash in, only to be repulsed, like the ebb and flow of the tides. This remorseless cycles of abortive offensives went on, each time the attack would be stalled, and the next day the attack had to be widened, to take in a neighbouring sector and eliminate its flanking fire. Always the gains were negligible. Over the months, hundreds of attacks were made, but there was no breakthrough. Another years passed in stalemate.In the north, the 1st Korps was finally reinforced by an influx of freshly-arrived troops from Krieg. They continued to push their trenchline forwards. The enemy continued to skirmish and harass, but without the protection of their deep bunkers and the reinforced ferrocrete of the defence lines, the Krieg artillery pulverised them. Slowly the ground lost to counter attack was reclaimed, it took almost six months to recover all the ground lost in just a week. By the end of the year hab-zone one had systematically been pulverised by artillery fire, and then captured with barely a fight. After the attack, the hab-zone's prefabricated dwellings had been wiped off the map. The 1st Korps was finally in position against the second defence line, and the Citadel was surrounded by a front of 250 km. During the 88th Siege Army's advance they had overrun many of Vraks' outer storage facilities which had been stripped bare, the war materials plundered to the last round by the rebels. These war materials had been moved closer to the fortress for protection.The tireless, pitiless cycle of war ground on like an insatiable beast, consuming men and equipment daily. The endless artillery duel began again, turning the frontline into a crater field. Another year passed, then another, and the conditions worsened. Wherever the Krieg regiments made any gains, they were soon recaptured by enemy counter-attacks. Both side employed the tactics of constant harassment, which never allowed their opponents across no-man's land a moment of unguarded rest. The result was that for long periods of time, sometimes years, the front was entirely static. The Krieg commanders wanted a big breakthrough, but for the time being, the war of attrition continued.