"Let me guess what General Nie brought me this time. If I guess correctly, it should be the result of the barrier exercise?" Xu Jie said with interest. "What's the result? Tell me."

"The result is very bad. Without the support of heavy artillery, even if one of the artillery numbers is 50% higher than the other, when both sides have trenches and artillery bunkers, the party with the advantage of fire cannot effectively suppress the opponent's artillery. The 75mm cannon hits too low on low bunkers and trenches, and the weight of 1.5 tons is a bit large, which is inconvenient to move. Even if the opponent's artillery is in a state of suppression, it can still cause a fatal blow to the charge infantry. Our firepower advantage cannot be quickly converted into tactical advantages." Nie Shicheng said a little depressedly.

Because in the upcoming China-Russia War in the future, the front of both sides will be a defensive system composed of trenches and fortresses. Therefore, in order to conquer the defense system built by the Russians, the Chinese Army conducted an exercise with the main goal of conquering the fortress and trenches system. This is the origin of the fortress exercise. In the setting, the attacking party has advantages in military strength and firepower. The most noteworthy of the one is that the attacking party can mobilize more than 1.5 times the number of artillery that the attacking party can mobilize is more than 1.5 times the defense party. Moreover, according to the previous attack experience of the Chinese troops, many rapid-fire guns and mortars that are easy to maneuver have also been included in the attack sequence. These mobile artillery will form the sharpest fist with the elite assault battalion of the Chinese Army to smash a gap in the Russian defense line.

But the result of the situation was surprising! The cunning Blue Army basically built the entire defense system below the horizon! There was no conspicuous fortress, the winding trench system and castle and support points to minimize the power of the ditches shotgun of the flat-fired cannon! Usually, more than one dozen shells can be fired and a semi-buried reinforced machine gun bunker cannot be destroyed! This is not the most tragic. A rapid-fired cannon hidden in the bunker can easily destroy the exposed attacks.

The attacking party's follow-up artillery, although the mortar can destroy some exposed castles, the 120mm mortar is too heavy and cannot be fired horizontally. As a result, the rapid-fire cannon has been destroyed when the flat fire is needed. The mortar and rapid-fire cannon cannot form a complete firepower system to provide protection for the offensive forces. In this case, once the infantry launches a charge, the defensive rapid-fire cannons and grenades with a firing rate of up to one or more than one dozen per minute will become the nightmare for the infantry!

Nie Shicheng and Ma Yukun and others discussed for a long time that larger artillery and more shells were piled up to death! There is no need to mention heavy artillery. The 150mm long-range cannon and 203mm heavy artillery were concentrated. If you focus on an exercise, the pile of weapons could indeed break a bloody road in the direction of the opponent, and the flesh and blood bodies and trenches would eventually be eliminated by heavy artillery that have an absolute advantage! But what if it is actual combat? How can the Chinese Army concentrate the heavy artillery troops that have an overwhelming advantage? Although the Russians are poor, they are also called imperialism after all! It is probably very difficult to defeat the Russians by relying on brute force alone, so the Army must come up with a way of how fast, and how to save money!

After thinking for a long time, I couldn't come up with a reasonable way to strengthen the firepower of the assault troops? The 75mm rapid-fire cannon with a weight of more than 1250kg is already the limit of the attack of the vanguard troops. No matter how heavy the weapon is, it is not even a problem to attack the opponent. As a result, it happened that it was raining heavily during the exercise. The direct result was that even the 75mm cannon could not move smoothly on the battlefield! The result of a cannon falling into the pit was that even a platoon could not pull out!

Mortars look good, but the problem is that heavy mortars are completely transported by manpower and do not have wheels! In fact, it is not very labor-saving, and the range problem cannot cause a fatal blow to the depth of the trench system. In this case, although the mortars are still practical, the effect is much worse!

"Cannon cannons are not easy to use, and mortars are not enough. Have you ever thought about changing into a short-barrel large-caliber howitzer?" Xu Jie raised his eyebrows and asked tentatively. Although Xu Jie was not a military officer, he also understood very well that the real glory of the rapid-fire cannon was that before World War 1, when both artillery and artillery skills were limited, the artillery of both sides advocated concentrating firepower and high-fire speed to eliminate the opponent's artillery, and then covering the infantry to win victory.

But in the first battle, it will be different. Both sides are eager to cover the firepower point as short as possible! In the scope of the rapid-fire gun, you can only see slightly exposed heads! This hit rate plummeted! The large number of 75 rapid-fire guns arranged by the French can indeed effectively block the charge of the German army, but there is a premise, that is, not to be destroyed by various German howitzers. So what are the advantages of howitzers compared to rapid-fire guns?

Howitzers have not high requirements for gun mounts. In 1916, Americans discovered that 3.8-inch howitzers (96 mm) could be installed on 3-inch cannon shells. Similarly, 6-inch howitzers can be installed on 4.7-inch cannon racks. That is to say, at almost the same weight, the caliber of howitzers will be larger than that of cannons.

A larger caliber means that the weight and power of the larger shells! The 3-inch cannon weighs 14 pounds, while the 3.8-inch howitzer weighs 30 pounds! More than twice the weight. The 4.7-inch cannon weighs 60 pounds. The 6-inch howitzer weighs 120 pounds! In other words, basically the same weight cannon has different types, so the weight of the shells can be more than twice as different! Larger explosive shells can hold more explosives and produce more debris, which makes the power of the cannon rise very quickly. Moreover, because it is close range, the low initial velocity and short range of howitzer actually have little impact.

Another advantage of howitzers is ballistics. Facing a semi-buried bunker, rapid-fire can only attack areas on the front, while the howitzers can attack the top of the bunker through a relatively curved ballistic trajectory, which increases the hit rate. Some people have counted that if you attack the same section of trench, the hit rate of howitzers is 2.5 times higher than that of rapid-fire guns! In addition to the powerful shells, howitzers are more suitable than rapid-fire guns in this kind of fortification combat.

"Short howitzer, the troops must now reduce the ratio of 75mm rapid-fire guns. What we need is to attack. If the army still lacks heavy artillery, we can communicate with the Navy to remove some of the heavy artillery from the shore defense of fortresses such as Dalian Lushun and other places, and make them into train guns to support the battle." Xu Jie said.

"In addition to equipment, the command system must also be changed. Artillery requires some artillery below. In addition to the directly equipped heavy artillery of more than 6 inches, 105mm light howitzers, 120-level mortars and 75mm rapid-fire cannons used for front-line assault are handed over to the front-line infantry commanders. Let them be responsible for command."

"This is probably not possible. The infantry commander has limited knowledge of artillery techniques. At most, he knows the direction of the artillery target, how to attack and what conditions are required. He knows very little. You should know that the current artillery commands are more complicated, such as the duration of the barrage, the speed of the barrage advancement, etc. These commands are not something that ordinary infantry commanders can issue." Nie Shicheng thought for a while and said.

"Then we will assign the infantry combat group artillery staff to be responsible for fire support. In short, we cannot see the infantry and artillery two independent troops. We must synthesize them." Xu Jie added.

"Synthetic is a good idea, but now there is a problem with the lack of experienced commanders. The Prime Minister should be very clear that veterans and low-level officers who have participated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and the Russian-Chinese War either left the army for various reasons or were promoted. The remaining new commanders have poor abilities. They rely more on the dogma in the books to command the war, rather than using their own wisdom to command with their own wisdom in combination with the battlefield situation. They have great courage but limited ability. It is difficult to delegate a large number of machine guns and supporting firepower to the squad and platoons to play a corresponding role. Moreover, we are fighting tough battles now, not defensive operations. Concentrating firepower and emphasizing the combat capabilities of the sharp knife troops are the most important, so I think firearms should be concentrated rather than delegated." Nie Shicheng hesitated and expressed his thoughts.

"What do you mean is to use the editor's plan and concentrate the mortars and heavy machine guns of the company-level platoon level at the same time? Instead of fighting with the squad platoon as before?" Xu Jie asked tentatively. Although the result of doing so is that the squad platoon combat effectiveness is directly weakened, if you focus on a larger range, it is not impossible to do so.

First of all, the decline in the quality of officers and soldiers is an indisputable fact. When the squad leader in the battle reduces his or her personnel, it is difficult for the commander to be replaced to have enough ability to command such a large organization and various supporting firepower. The battle is not an offensive battle. A simple strengthening of firepower does not necessarily lead to excellent results. After all, various bunkers and trenches directly limit the use of firepower. More importantly, with the service of a batch of new counterfeit mg machine guns, the boundary between light machine guns and heavy machine guns has been broken, and the subsequent ammunition consumption is definitely not something that the Chinese Army can bear now.

The mg machine gun is called a sprayer. There is absolutely a reason for Hitler's chainsaw. The rate of fire of up to 1,200 rounds per minute is not a joke? It can fire 20 rounds in one second! Inadvertently, it can quickly shoot a 250 round chain! This weapon is a big killer in the hands of veterans, but what about the newbies? Although the counterfeit mg machine gun does not reach a speed of 1,200 rounds, the rate of fire of about 1,000 rounds per minute still makes it an absolute gold-swallowing beast. So to some extent, the most important thing is to concentrate the most sharp weapons in the hands of the most experienced people.

"Then readjust the organization and concentrate part of the supporting firepower from the company and platoon to the battalion level, and at the same time increase the number of engineers and logistics troops. The battalion level serves as the basis for the synthetic combat group." Xu Jie thought for a while and said. "But the most important thing is to get the artillery well for me, and the number of flat-fire guns of all calibers must be reduced. What we need is short howitzers and a large number of heavy guns supported by the process. Coordinate with the military department."
Chapter completed!