Chapter 46 Infiltration Tactics

The expansion of the new machine gun battalion also means that Zhao Dongyun urgently needs a large number of qualified machine gun army officers in a short period of time, and this problem is the most difficult problem to solve in the new machine gun battalion.

To expand an army, there are three points that must be solved, that is, officers, soldiers and ordnance.

The problem of soldiers in these three points is best solved, because it is relatively easy to recruit soldiers these days, and it won't take long to recruit enough soldiers. The problem of ordnance is not too difficult. As long as you have money, you can buy anything these days. However, the officer problem is not easy to solve.

Because Zhao Dongyun needs officers who know machine gun tactics, and machine guns have just emerged these days, it is impossible for Yuan Shikai to transfer officers who know machine gun warfare from other troops to Zhao Dongyun. In this way, Zhao Dongyun can only train them by himself.

In order to train qualified machine gun commanders, Zhao Dongyun set up a temporary camp school to teach himself. In addition, several old officers of the machine gun team, such as Lin Yongquan and others, also served as auxiliary teaching.

Naturally, there is no formal establishment or name of such a camp school. It can only be regarded as a spontaneous and unconventional product of the newly built machine gun battalion, and the trainees are also limited to the grassroots officers of the newly built machine gun battalion. The lecture content is also relatively simple, mainly explaining machine gun-related tactics.

However, Zhao Dongyun will also explain infantry tactics and today's military theory.

His original intention was to instill infantry tactics and military theory in his officers in order to improve their quality of cooperative combat with infantry, but what he did not expect was that his infantry tactics were more attractive than machine gun tactics.

You should know that Zhao Dongyun's original body is a top student graduated from the Berlin Military Academy. Although Zhao Dongyun did not inherit his military talent, the memory in his mind was actually inherited, so there is no problem in explaining the mainstream theory and tactics of today's military.

In addition, he also integrated some of his own things in his explanation, which were mainly the memory content of Zhao Dongyun's later generations, and then added his own imagination, so he merged some paradoxical things.

For example, although today's infantry tactics have abandoned the close formation of the era of queuing for shooting and changing it to a loose soldier formation, this kind of scattered formation is still very close in combat, and sometimes the interval between soldiers is only two to three meters, and the loose distance is only five or six meters.

From the First Sino-Japanese War to the Russo War and the beginning of World War I, the armies of various countries used this tactic until the middle and late World War I when machine guns were rampant, and gradually formed a trench position. After the war, Germany began to use the infiltration tactics of small-scale troops to bring submachine guns and other weapons on the war stage. .

Now, although countries have considered the importance of machine guns and are generally equipped, neither the major powers nor Yuan Shikai nor others have thought that the emergence of machine guns would completely change the war mode.

So although Yuan Shikai has decided to equip machine guns on a large scale, the infantry tactics of the Beiyang Army are still on the traditional intensive charge.

The example that best reflects today's infantry tactics is the Russo-Japanese War, which is particularly obvious in the Battle of Lushun, which can be said to fully reflect the key points of infantry tactics in this era.

However, as a latecomer, even if Zhao Dongyun is not a modern military expert, he also knows that this infantry tactics are completely the rhythm of death when facing machine guns, barbed wire and trenches.

When he explained the tactics related to machine guns and infantry, he repeatedly said how machine gun troops should kill the enemy with maximum efficiency in the face of intensive infantry charges.

At the same time, another question extends, that is, how can the infantry capture the machine gun fortress position?

In fact, most of the officers in the newly built machine gun battalion used to be infantry officers. They were just transferred to train machine gun troops halfway, so they still regard themselves as infantry officers in their minds, so they inevitably try to consider what to do if they lead the infantry troops. How to conquer the machine gun position?

At this time, the infantry infiltration tactics proposed by Zhao Dongyun attracted their attention. The infiltration tactics mentioned by Zhao Dongyun are actually small-scale infantry assault tactics, that is, to further strengthen the firepower density of company platoon troops, such as machine guns that can attack with infantry, for example, they can follow the company headquarters. The small-caliber curved artillery of the team's attack, such as the throwing bombs carried by soldiers.

By strengthening the firepower of small-scale troops, they moved hundreds of meters away before the war, and then the rifle combat team, accompanied by the firepower support of machine guns and small-caliber artillery, bent down and trotted away to approach the enemy positions, threw bombs with them, and then entered the enemy positions to fight with the enemy defenders. Capture the position, and in addition to the traditional bayonet, you can also choose a pistol.

What Zhao Dongyun said actually has a strong World War II style, because the small-scale troops he mentioned refer to troops equipped with mortars, *, light machine guns and submachine guns.

However, these weapons have not appeared so far. There may be mortars in the troops of various countries, but they will never be able to carry out rapid mobile operations with company-level troops, and machine guns are also available, but those heavy machine guns cannot be accompanied by infantry at all.

The heavy machine gun is used for defense, and the light machine gun used to accompany the infantry attack!

And light machine guns are generally not equipped in all countries, and the famous Madsen light machine guns are not officially put into service yet.

*Although he is very old, even during the Russo-Japanese War, * was mostly made by soldiers spontaneously and temporarily, and the mass production system * did not appear until after the Russo-Japanese War.

Not to mention submachine guns. The Germans who first used submachine guns were only equipped in the late World War I. Now they don't even have the concept of submachine guns. In this era, they are barely melee automatic weapons, and there are only semi-automatic pistols.

It can be said that the troops equipped with the above weapons in Zhao Dongyun's mouth can only be regarded as a fantasy now, at least in a short period of time!

However, this idea still surprised many of the officers below, so that even some officers of the standing army heard about this infiltration tactics after it slowly spread.

Although they didn't take this tactic seriously, it also reminded them in time that Zhao Dongyun is now a barrel machine gun, but he is a real infantry officer!

"A few days ago, I heard about the infiltration tactics you mentioned, and I think it's very interesting, but I'm afraid it's not easy to build such a force!" Duan Qirui said while looking at Zhao Dongyun.

Zhao Dongyun said, "It's not easy, but it's not impossible!"

"With the infantry machine gun, because the heavy machine gun is too heavy, I heard that someone in Denmark has developed a machine gun that can be carried by individual soldiers. Although the firepower of this machine gun is less sustainable, as a support weapon for individual soldiers, it is enough to provide fire support for an infantry squad!"

Zhao Dongyun thought that since he said it, he simply said more: "For small-caliber artillery, now there are mortars in various countries, but the weight is too heavy. I once imagined a simple and light-weight curved artillery, which does not need to be comparable to traditional artillery in range, as long as it exceeds the range of rifles."

"Oh, is there this kind of artillery?" Duan Qirui is interested!

Zhao Dongyun immediately took out his pen and notepad, and then drew a picture of a simple mortar: "That's it!"

Duan Qirui looked at the sketch, but shook his head. As an artillery officer, he did not believe that the gun in front of him could be designed.

Zhao Dongyun didn't understand Duan Qirui and said anything. After all, the mortar has not yet appeared, and the application concept is relatively vague. Zhao Dongyun did not expect Duan Qirui and Yuan Shikai to jump out and shout Zhao Dongyun that you are really a design genius as soon as they see the mortar.

Although he does not agree with the mortar, Duan Qirui is very interested in the * in Zhao Dongyun's mouth: "If this thing can be mass-produced, it is estimated that it can be used!"

* is not something difficult to understand. There has been a spontaneous use of * by soldiers in wars in various countries, but no one has been thinking about standard production.

Zhao Dongyun also said, "This thing should be used before hand-to-hand combat, and it should be very useful!" When the Fuyuan machine factory is built, I will ask them to get some to try!"

"However, if you follow the penetration tactics you said, can you break through the machine gun position? During the winter exercise last year, I saw your machine gun team fire, and many machine guns fired together. I'm afraid no infantry can resist it!" Duan Qirui is still interested in machine guns.

So most of the conversations between Zhao Dongyun and him also revolved around machine guns, and then involved the coordination between infantry and machine guns, and even talked about the coordination between infantry and artillery.

After more than an hour, Duan Qirui took a sip of tea and said, "I will mention the cooperation and training between the machine gun and the infantry you mentioned to the governor, but it's hard to say. After all, it involves the two armies, and it's a little troublesome to allocate!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded and said, "I don't think so. The troops of Zuozhen of the Standing Army are right next to us. It's not a big problem for them to cooperate with the training!"

Zhao Dongyun asked machine gun troops and infantry to cooperate in training mainly because machine guns and artillery are different. It is not an independent arm in nature, but a support weapon for infantry. In fact, except for the Beiyang New Army, machine guns of other countries are organized in infantry units, which is natural. There is no problem of cooperation with infantry.

However, in the Beiyang New Army, due to the weakness of the Beiyang Army and Zhao Dongyun's personal behavior, the few machine gun troops are independent of the infantry. Throughout the world, there is no such a single unit of the Beiyang Army, although This is only temporary, but it still causes many unnecessary troubles in the training of machine gun troops.

That's why Zhao Dongyun asked for mixed training with infantry!