Steel Soviet Union

While possessing nearly 300 tanks, the newly expanded and upgraded Leader Division has also been greatly enhanced in other aspects. read

The firepower of the four-battalion divisional self-propelled artillery regiment has been almost doubled and upgraded. The firepower of a single battalion, which was originally barely interesting, has been increased to 36 Katyusha ISU152ISU152A per battalion.

As for the traditional towed artillery, it is still the same as before. Malashenko, who pursues the reaction speed and mobility of the troops, does not want this thing. He wants a highly mobile self-propelled artillery force that can stop and fire at any time.

With the level of mechanization and assault speed of the leader division, traditional towed artillery is just a burden even if it is needed.

By the time the towed artillery positions are deployed, the tank clusters may have traveled more than ten or twenty kilometers. Your artillery position has just been set up, but the tank soldiers have already hit you out of range and you can't cover it. You said your artillery is still holding strong, but it is really a lonely and cold yellow flower. You don't even get a share of the food.

One battalion's latest ISU152A was picked up by Malashenko, and the other battalion's old-fashioned ISU152 was an old veteran unit.

The situation in Katyusha is similar, with one battalion of old troops plus one battalion of newly formed troops.

Calculating the four battalions together, Malashenko has 72 ISU152ISU152A at his disposal, as well as an equal number of 72 Katyusha rocket launchers. The two together add up to a total of 144 firepower units.

In addition, Kulbalov and Varosha each hold two artillery battalions. The equipment configuration is the same as that of the subordinate battalions of the division artillery regiment. The old ISU152 and Katyusha each have one battalion, both of which are 36 vehicles, a total of 72 vehicles per brigade.

Therefore, if calculated based on the artillery firepower of the entire division, the total of all artillery firepower units of the Leader Division reaches an astonishing number of 288, and they are all large-caliber heavy artillery.

Such a strong artillery force is naturally the result of Malashenko's request. In the past, Malashenko was often limited by insufficient artillery firepower and had to wait for friendly artillery units to be in place to support him in order to keep up with the battle plan. He was fed up with this lame approach. taste.

The purpose of synthesis is to greatly improve the independent combat capability of the leader division and fully demonstrate the true combat power of the leader division. Therefore, supplementing artillery firepower is naturally necessary. In fact, Malashenko even wanted to add an artillery battalion to each of Kulbalov and Varosha, and the three battalions could join together for the entire artillery regiment.

However, the production of the new ISU152A has not yet been fully ramped up. It is in the late transition stage from the old ISU152 to the new ISU152A. At this time, it may not be realistic to quickly obtain the new equipment for two battalions.

As for the old ISU152, Malashenko honestly doesn’t really want it.

Let’s not talk about the performance. The main reason is that it will have to be replaced within a few months. What Malashenko really wants is the ISU152A. This will not change. After thinking about it, I will come back again and again. It's not enough trouble.

The infantry regiment has not changed much. It is basically a regiment copied and pasted according to the original Valosha Infantry Regiment. The equipment configuration and the organization of the subordinate troops are exactly the same. The only difference is the tacit understanding of the troops. Have combat experience.

The new infantry regiment is also equipped with a combat engineer battalion that has played a major role in infantry battles in the past, which is exactly the same as the old unit led by Varosha.

Therefore, after total calculation, the leader division after the completion of the synthetic reorganization will have a total of two heavy synthetic brigades, a total of four tank regiments, two infantry regiments, four brigade-level artillery battalions, and a division-level artillery regiment's main combat force establishment. .

In addition to the division's guard tank company, guard infantry company, and Karamov's logistics maintenance support brigade, which has also been expanded and upgraded, there are a lot of attached and non-combat troops. The leader division, which carries the title of division level on its head, currently has an actual total strength of 30,000 troops, which is quite astonishing.

The strength of the main combat troops down to the regiment level is far greater than that of ordinary troops of the same level. This is the main reason why the total strength of the leader division is so huge. After all, the newly expanded regiment is also directly copied and pasted according to the original establishment of the old regiment, while the other One reason that cannot be ignored is the special situation of the logistics support and maintenance troops.

With such a high degree of mechanization, the leader division is heavily dependent on logistical support and field maintenance. If this aspect is not done well, the leader division will be nothing more than a showpiece that looks good on the surface but is actually too small. .

Therefore, this resulted in the total number of the logistics maintenance support brigade under Karamov being seriously overstaffed compared to the same level of logistics maintenance support troops. The four regiments have a total of nearly 5,000 people. They have to take care of all the heavy equipment and personnel of the division, as well as food, drink, and daily life. Although there may seem to be a lot of people, the pressure is indeed not small.

That is to say, Karamov, who has shown extraordinary ability in overall management and has been working under Malashenko since 41 years, can be entrusted with such an important task by Malashenko. If you were someone else, Comrade Lao Ma might not be trustworthy enough to entrust such an important lifeline of the entire division.

The leader's division, which was already "seriously overstretched" in terms of strength, was now more like an inflated balloon, quite inflated.

In fact, Comrade Lao Ma, who was sitting in the division headquarters and chatting privately with the political commissar, was also wondering about one thing. He really wanted to know the answer to a question that puzzled him. There was no need to be hypocritical or cover up in front of the political commissar. .

"I don't quite understand. When our division was first formed, we could still explain it as the hasty formation because of the division number. But now that another round of expansion and upgrading has been completed, the superiors have not changed our name. Now I’m still called a teacher, why do you think that’s the case?”

This problem has been bothering Malashenko for a long time. Malashenko thought that maybe it was because he was too lazy to change his name? Anyway, I can't think of any reasonable explanation, but the next reaction from Comrade Political Commissar is somewhat interesting.

"I'm not too sure about this question. I think if you really want to find out the answer, you should find an opportunity to ask Comrade Commander. He will definitely know better than you and I."

"But the last time I went to the front army headquarters for a meeting, less than a week ago, you happened to be away. I heard Comrade Chief of Staff casually say something about this. It seemed to be to confuse the enemy and conceal intelligence? The leader of the division has been We have always been the focus of the enemy's attention, so that even the British and Americans can collect a lot of second-hand intelligence about us through the Germans."

"That's probably what it means. We were talking about other things at the time. The main thing was not this, and I didn't think too much about it. But now that I think about it, this may be the only possible explanation."