I want to be emperor

Chapter 1141 First Motorized Brigade

In the private market, Sanbengzi is very popular and has quickly become the largest car category in terms of production and sales.

Similarly, in military applications, tricycles have quickly become important military motor vehicles. After the summer of Chengshun 53, the army further accelerated the mechanization process.

And this time, the largest number of vehicles in the mechanization process were not armored vehicles or trucks, but tricycles.

The Army has ordered tens of thousands of tricycles of different specifications from many different manufacturers... This amount is nothing to the entire automobile industry, just a fraction of a fraction, but for military motor vehicles it is a Huge progress.

This means that in addition to using tractors to tow heavy artillery and 1-5 trucks to tow conventional field artillery, the military has begun to use tricycles to tow 70mm infantry artillery, use tricycles to transport heavy machine guns and other supplies, and even personnel, and use side tricycles at the same time. Used for carrying heavy machine guns or rapid maneuvering of personnel.

The application of tricycles is no longer limited to a few experimental mechanized troops in the past, but has begun to spread to all first-class troops.

This time, there are several types of tricycles purchased in this large-scale purchase.

There are conventional single-cylinder engine tricycles. Because the power of this conventional single-cylinder engine tricycle is relatively small, in order to control costs, and to ensure terrain adaptability, off-road performance, etc., the weight of this tricycle and The size is relatively small and the cost is low.

This kind of regular three-wheeled vehicle is mainly used to replace front-line field troops in the proposed positioning. It is mainly used to replace various logistics four-wheeled and two-wheeled carriages equipped in large quantities in battalion and regiment-level troops. It is used for conventional material transportation and towing seven-wheeled vehicles. Ten mm infantry cannon and other transportation purposes.

Whether it is the regular army in the Chu army or the foreign legion, in addition to the large-scale carriages equipped by the baggage regiment directly belonging to the division, the combat troops actually have special baggage supply organizations at the subordinate regiment level and even battalions and companies.

Each infantry platoon of the Class A troops in the Chu Army is equipped with a standard military light four-wheel field carriage pulled by two horses as standard. During daily marches, the soldiers only carry personal weapons and personal backpacks, while other supplies This carriage is used to transport tents, food supplies, ammunition supplies, and other materials and tools.

After the troops arrive at the front line, the above-mentioned materials will be carried by soldiers or horses, and the carriages will be handed over to the baggage troops of the superior infantry company, which will be responsible for company-level material transportation and logistics supply tasks.

In other words, the carriage rations in the Chu army were directly assigned to the infantry platoons, and then the company, battalion, and regiment levels also had their own baggage units.

This adds up to a very large number of carriages equipped in the Chu army!

A standard first-class division is equipped with more than 5,000 carriages of various types in combat readiness, and the number of draft horses alone is more than 10,000...

Just the amount of supplies consumed by the daily food and drink of these more than 10,000 draft horses is enough to sustain three or four times the daily needs of soldiers. The huge carriages and the number of matching draft horses equipped in the regular army make the army both Love and hate...

No... That really doesn't work. Without so many carriages, it loses the ability to reload and maneuver, which is unacceptable... The artillery cannot be maneuvered, and its tactical value will immediately drop a lot.

An artilleryman who can run is a good artilleryman!

But to maintain such a strong mobility, the cost of mules and horses is also a huge amount... and it has to be spent every year, regardless of whether there is a war or not, a huge amount of money has to be spent.

Why did the Chu army have three-level troops: A-class division, B-class division and C-class division? The earliest reason was that mules and horses cost too much. The Chu army used troop classification to reduce the mules and horses of most troops. Quantity, in order to reduce the consumption of mules and horses.

You must know that whether it is a second-class division or a first-class division, the number of technical troops they are equipped with is almost the same. The first-class division has dozens of 75mm field guns and mountain cannons, and the second-class division also has dozens of 75mm field guns and mountain artillery. A 75mm field gun and mountain gun.

The number of various machine guns, mortars, infantry artillery and other heavy weapons are actually about the same, but their performance is just a generation behind.

The biggest difference between the two is not the difference in the number of combatants, nor the difference in technical weapons... but the difference in the number of mules and horses.

A Class A combat-ready division maintains a state of combat readiness all year round. All its subordinate troops are fully staffed with mules and horses, and the logistics troops are also fully staffed. As long as they receive an order, the entire division can set off at any time and rush quickly to the designated combat area.

As for the B-class standing divisions, they lack enough mules and horses, and they also lack non-combat auxiliary personnel, such as ordinary logistics personnel. They can often only maintain the mobile combat readiness of a small number of troops. If most of the troops want to move, they often need to To temporarily replenish a large number of mules and horses, it is also necessary to replenish thousands of auxiliary troops before they can have mobile combat capabilities.

The difference between the two is the difference in mobility, and the rest is actually not much.

Therefore, when the Chu army fought overseas, they often mobilized second-class divisions and then used them as first-class divisions. After the war, they returned to the status of regular second-class divisions.

The difference between A-class divisions and B-class divisions is the difference in maneuverability... and also the difference in military expenditures. To a certain extent, it is a compromise between the Army's efforts to maintain combat readiness and total military strength as much as possible under the condition of limited military expenditures. .

It can also be seen that the consumption of mules and horses is not small.

This is also the reason why the military has been vigorously promoting mechanization after the automobile appeared and matured... The pressure of raising so many mules and horses is too great, and if they are not raised, the combat effectiveness will not be good... Even if the civilians have enough The horses were called up temporarily.

However, it is actually difficult for horses that are temporarily recruited to serve as ordinary draft horses... They have poor discipline and are easily frightened and lose control on the battlefield.

Horses in the military, even ordinary draft horses and pack horses, need long-term adaptive training before entering official service, at least to adapt to the sound of gunfire.

Otherwise, there would be no need for the enemy to attack. As soon as the Chu army opened fire, all the horses would be gone... That would be a fool's errand.

Therefore, if you want to ensure combat effectiveness, horses serving in the army need to be specially trained.

But doing this would cost a lot of money... Even if it were as powerful as the Chu Empire, it would not be able to equip the entire army with such trained horses with an annual military expenditure of several hundred million.

Therefore, the Chu army could only allocate all horses to the limited A-class troops, and then allocate some backbone horses to the B-class troops, while there were even fewer horses to the C-class troops.

When it is time to go to war, horses are mobilized and recruited in advance for temporary training, and then distributed to the troops.

But... if you replace the carriage with a car, this problem will disappear instantly...

After all, vehicles don’t burn fuel even if they are left alone... at least that’s how it seems to a lot of military generals.

Furthermore, the intentional or unintentional publicity of major automobile companies has also misled military generals to a certain extent, making them think that these cars do not need daily maintenance, and even if they do need maintenance, they can train their own technicians, which does not cost much money...

In fact, the daily maintenance of a car is quite expensive. If you train more frequently, it will cost more...

Cars and carriages have pros and cons, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages under certain circumstances.

In the contemporary Da Chu Empire, the advantages of automobiles are obviously greater... because the Da Chu Empire has a rapidly developing and powerful automobile industry.

The huge automobile industry can bring down the price of cars, the corresponding maintenance costs, and the cost of using cars to a level acceptable to the military.

Especially tricycles! This thing is very cheap, an ordinary tricycle only costs more than a hundred yuan, and the mechanism is simple and easy to maintain.

If you ask the Chu Army to equip tens of thousands or even more trucks with one to five trucks or even better trucks, the Chu Army will not be able to use them... On the contrary, tricycles can be used on a large scale.

In addition to the large-scale distribution of conventional tricycles in various grassroots units, the Army has also purchased a large-scale heavy-duty tricycle equipped with a two-cylinder gasoline engine and more than ten horsepower. It is said to be heavy-duty, but its load capacity is only more than one ton. Point... This kind of twin-cylinder engine tricycle is mainly used for distribution to battalion and regiment level baggage troops and infantry artillery troops. It is used to tow 70mm infantry cannons, transport 80mm mortars, heavy machine guns, and transport Various supplies such as shells, ammunition, and food.

At the division level, the artillery troops and baggage troops mainly use one or five trucks. The artillery troops are used to tow 75mm field guns and mountain cannons; the baggage troops are used to transport ammunition, food and other materials.

As a result, three different levels of automobile transportation systems have been formed in the Class A combat troops: conventional tricycles, heavy tricycles, and one- to five-wheel trucks.

Of course...even if the first-class troops have begun to be equipped with these vehicles, they still have not completely replaced the mules and horses. Not to mention the cavalry troops, even the logistics troops will still retain a considerable number of mules, horses and carriages.

During this period, the Chu army's mobile tools were still a mixture of cars and horse-drawn carriages, and it was impossible to talk about comprehensive motorization/mechanization.

There is still a long way to go before comprehensive motorization is achieved.

This is true even if there is a tricycle.

In addition to regular three-wheeled vehicles, there are also many three-wheeled motorcycles in the Chu army. The three-wheeled motorcycles are mainly used to carry machine guns and also carry people. They are mainly used for reconnaissance troops and a small number of elite infantry units. In addition, during the test , many grassroots officers also like to ride three-wheeled motorcycles with good visibility and relatively comfortable to command troops while marching. Therefore, there are also a small number of such three-wheeled motorcycles in grassroots infantry units in some elite units.

Finally, there are some two-wheeled vehicles, which are motorcycles in the conventional sense. Although this thing was tested early, it has not formed a large-scale equipment trend so far. The Chu army initially defined this thing as a replacement for cavalry. However, it was later found to be unreliable.

The main reason is that the terrain adaptability is too poor. The cavalry is not only able to maneuver on the road, but also has to perform tasks in the wild mountains and forests, and motorcycles obviously cannot do that.

As for running on the road... How should I put it? It can run on roads like two-wheeled motorcycles, small three-wheelers, and side three-wheelers... and it can also pull people and goods.

Therefore, although the current two-wheeled motorcycles are still equipped, the number is very small, and they are still used as experimental motor vehicles... At present, there is no hope.

The intended users, namely the cavalry and the messengers, are all interested in this thing... They would rather have bicycles than this two-wheeled motorcycle.

The Chu army ordered motorcycles of various specifications on a large scale in an attempt to turn the first-class troops into semi-motorized units... and also expanded the scale of its experimental mechanized troops.

The Army officially designated the experimental motorcycle mixed regiment as the Army's First Motorized Brigade, which consists of two motorized infantry regiments as well as fully motorized artillery, logistics and other auxiliary forces, and even reserved The establishment of a tank battalion... The prototype of the tank has already been released, and the later intensive training and testing tasks will be carried out by this tank battalion.

Such a motorized infantry brigade consists of two motorized infantry regiments, a motorized reconnaissance battalion, a motorized artillery battalion, a motorized transport battalion, a motorized engineering battalion, and a tank battalion!

The entire brigade's mobile operations completely abandoned mules and horses, and fully adopted various vehicles.

Inside, you can also see a variety of representative vehicles serving in the contemporary Chu army, such as Hebei 15 trucks, Shaanxi 18-type tricycles, 10-type heavy-duty tricycles, Shaanxi-13 two-wheeled motorcycles, and Wuhan Special Automobile Company's Han -type three-wheeled motorcycle.

Hebei's 320 armored vehicle, 321 heavy armored vehicle and two other light armored vehicles.

At the same time, the towed artillery equipped by this unit is also quite special. It does not use a combination of 75mm field cannon and mountain cannon like other units in the army. Instead, it uses a new long-range 75mm field cannon. One hundred millimeter howitzer pattern.

This 100mm howitzer developed by Jiangnan Weapons Company has no shortcomings except that it is expensive... It is precisely because it is expensive that only the Guards were equipped and used before.

Now the Army has adopted this 100mm howitzer for the first time in this motorcycle brigade, with the obvious intention of increasing firepower.

In the battalion and regiment-level units, the 75mm Mountain was allocated for the first time to be used as regiment-level long-range support firepower.

Seventy-mm infantry guns continued to be used in battalion-level units.

In addition, the unit also liberated mortars from the division and brigade-level artillery units and further decentralized them to battalions, regiments and companies.

The infantry company is equipped with 120mm mortars, the infantry battalion is equipped with mm mortars, and the infantry regiment is directly equipped with mm mortars, instead of the same as the previous Class A troops, mm mortars. Ten-millimeter mortars are directly distributed as heavy artillery to division artillery regiments, and a separate mortar battalion is set up for combat.

All the above-mentioned artillery, including mortars, can be towed or directly transported by cars or tricycles during daily marches.

In addition to the tricycles and trucks used by ordinary infantry and baggage troops, there are also tricycles and armed tricycles used by reconnaissance troops and grassroots officers.

There are also armored vehicles used by armored vehicle companies.

A large number of wheeled vehicle equipment gave this brigade unparalleled rapid maneuverability... During the test exercise, the brigade maneuvered more than 200 kilometers in only three days.

This is a very exaggerated number!

This is not a car. One person traveled 200 kilometers in three days... but an entire mixed brigade, tens of thousands of people, with thousands of various vehicles and dozens of various artillery pieces. , as well as a large amount of ammunition, food supplies and other complete equipment and materials.

He was fully armed and relied on his own transportation to march more than two hundred kilometers, and finally arrived at the predetermined location to join the battle!

This kind of maneuverability was almost unimaginable in the previous era of mules and horses!

Of course, behind this powerful mobility, there are also a lot of problems exposed, such as the supply of fuel, various vehicles breaking down during the march, etc.

Why is it said that it can move more than 200 kilometers in three days? Because after running more than 200 kilometers, the brigade's own logistics and transportation troops could no longer maintain the fuel supply.

Therefore, the top generals of the Chu Army quickly discovered a major flaw in the motorized troops: once the fuel supply from the rear was lost, these iron lumps were useless, and the mobility of the entire unit instantly became zero.

Unlike the previous mule and horse troops, even if the feed supply at the rear is not timely for a while, they can still feed on the enemy... Even if there are no people around, the horses can also be allowed to graze on the barren mountains and fields...

But the car doesn't work...it can't run without oil.

Every drop of oil needs to be refined from refineries in the distant rear territories, and then transported to the front line through long transportation and supply lines.

Just a long-distance maneuvering experiment made some military generals worry: Once a war breaks out, cars are unstable, have high risks to their sustained combat capabilities, and are more expensive than mules and horses!