Chapter 191 New Tactics and Light Machine Gun

On November 4, the capital was full of the desolation of late autumn. The dead branches and leaves and scraps of paper floated on the streets of the capital, and then were trampled under the feet of the soldiers who rushed by.

The sound of cannons could be faintly heard in the overall and hurried footsteps of the soldiers, and the sound of shells fired by the northern rebels outside the capital.

In the Army Department, Wang Shizhen and Feng Guozhang sit opposite each other!

"Since Zhao Dongyun's third town launched an attack on our Tongzhou three days ago, the pressure on the western front has been increasing. Brother Feng, do you think we should transfer another camp, otherwise the pressure in Tongzhou is too great!" Wang Shizhen looked sad since Zhao Dongyun led the third town to arrive in Tongzhou in late October.

The coalition forces of Wang Duan and Zhao finally launched a formal attack on the capital division. According to Wang Duan and Zhao's previous telegrams and discussion, Wang Duan and Zhao were responsible for a joint attack on the capital division on each front.

Among them, the first town under the command of Wang Yingkai is responsible for rushing from the southwest and attacking the area of Changxindian, while the fourth town under the command of Duan Qirui continues to attack north along the railway, mainly in the direction of attack is Nanyuan. As for Zhao Dongyun, because he came late and there were a large number of cavalry in his troops, his third town was mainly responsible for attacking from Tongzhou, while the cavalry troops wandered around the periphery, mainly to ensure the safety of the third town's own back road, and also shouldered the heavy responsibility of guarding foreign troops in the Tianjin concession area.

In the face of the attack of Wang Duan and Zhao's coalition forces, Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen fully learned from the experience in the Russo-Japanese War and dug up trenches to try to carry out a defensive battle.

However, this tactic is relatively effective for the southwest line and the south line, but it does not have the effect it should be on the Tongzhou line!

"I always thought that those cannons were useless, but I didn't expect that these cannons were used to deal with our heavy machine guns. Zhao Dongyun is really different from ordinary people!" Feng Guozhang also sighed and was also full of worries!

The mortar is actually not unfamiliar to the Beiyang Army. As early as two years ago, when Zhao Dongyun first began to equip this mortar in the third town, Yuan Shikai and Duan Qirui also noticed the mortar, but they found that although the mortar was light and fast enough, its range was really It's too close, especially those 60mm cannons. If you want to hit the enemy, it is estimated that you have to move within 500 to 600 meters, which is the effective suppression range of heavy machine guns.

At the same time, the fast rate of fire also means that the ammunition consumption will be very high, which must be used by a guy who weighs more than a machine gun and swallows money!

In addition, after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in the past two years and the trench theory made by Zhao Dongyun has been valued by the world's armies, not only the international airspace has paid more attention to heavy machine guns, but also the Beiyang Army has paid further attention to the tactical use of heavy machine guns. Under the effective military expenditure, other new armies in China are generally Choose to equip more than a few heavy machine guns. As for the mortar, a close-range infantry support artillery with many obvious defects in the eyes of many contemporary generals, the huge cost is not directly proportional to the expected effect.

After all, not every warlord leader can make a fortune by doing business with Japan and Russia like Zhao Dongyun. There are a large number of small vaults to purchase additional ordnance. The annual military expenditure of other Beiyang towns is only so fixed. If you purchase mortars, you will have no money to buy heavy. Machine guns or other traditional artillery. In this era when heavy machine guns can't wait to be as much as they want, several other Beiyang warlords naturally abandoned mortars and chose heavy machine guns.

But what they don't know is that since Zhao Dongyun came up with the trench theory and brought the application tactics of heavy machine guns to this era in advance, he has been thinking about this question, that is, how to deal with trench warfare? Well, to be precise, how to deal with the trench defense system on the Far East battlefield.

On the Far East battlefield, whether it is the Three War of Japan, Russia and China, or the Northern Civil War, in fact, their trench system and artillery strength are not at all compared with the Western European Front of the First World War. In other words, the artillery density on the Far East battlefield is far worse than that of the Western Front of World War I. In this case, the front It will inevitably be much thinner, and heavy machine guns will become the main support point of the front.

In this way, if you want to break through the enemy's defense line, the most important thing is to remove the enemy's heavy machine gun. Once the enemy's heavy machine gun is removed, the subsequent attack will be much easier!

In the anti-heavy machine gun battle in the third town, in addition to the inherent long-range shelling and heavy machine gun suppression and the precise long-range sniper machine gun shooter of the rifleman, its 60mm mortar shelling has also become a crucial part.

Due to its light mass and rapid maneuver, the 60mm mortar is of course, the rapid fire is also fast enough. Although it is still slightly lacking in accuracy, it can effectively destroy the enemy's unprotected machine gun position by rapid fire.

In contemporary field warfare, whether it is the enemy or yourself, in fact, the heavy machine gun positions are unprotected, or there are only simple civil works. In modern times, except for fortresses such as Lushun, there are few machine gun fortresses built with cement and rocks.

Therefore, it is completely feasible to use 60mm mortars to fight against heavy machine guns in the field.

However, this tactic has quite high requirements for mortar shooters. After all, in order to remove the fire point of the machine gun, the shell must accurately fall into the enemy's heavy machine gun position, which requires quite high accuracy.

However, the third town has been equipped with mortars for many years, and these mortar shooters are veterans. As long as they have a chance to fire, they don't need much. Three rapid shots can remove an enemy's heavy machine gun position. No matter how bad it is, they can't force the enemy's heavy machine guns to be transferred, thus reducing the pressure of their own infantry. Force.

In this attack on Tongzhou, many infantry tactics used in the third town can be called a new tactic compared with several others. Although on the surface, everyone is digging trenches and using similar infantry tactics, the large number of mortars still makes the third town fight. France is far different from other troops.

"It's not unusual for Zhao Dongyun to fight. We have expected this situation before, but although Tongzhou is a little nervous, it can still be supported for the time being!" Feng Guozhang continued, "Now we don't have many reserves at hand, and we still need to save it!"

Although Wang Shizhen was slightly dissatisfied, he did not say anything. After all, he also knew that there were only two towns on his side to deal with the attack of Wang Duan Zhao's three towns. It is certain that there were difficulties. Now he hopes to use defensive tactics to cause Wang Duan Zhao and the attacking three. A large number of casualties forced them to negotiate an armistice with themselves.

"The three of them are not all of the same heart!" Feng Guozhang continued: "None of them can accept too many casualties, so as long as we persist, Wang Duan and Zhao's allied forces will not last long, and then they will have to stop talking about it!"

Feng Guozhang's words are still very insightful. Although Wang Duan and Zhao have military advantages, these three people have their own small calculations. This seems to be quite similar to the fight, but in fact, so far everyone has not been desperate.

Outside Tongzhou, Zhao Dongyun stood up and looked at the detailed map of Beijing on the wall after listening to today's war report. At the same time, Chen Guangyuan, who was beside him, said, "Their fourth town obviously did not contribute. Three days have passed and they have not taken a Lihezhuang. If it goes on like this and wait for them to take down Nanyuan, they won't go next year!"

Gu Lanyu, the new commander of the Sixth Association, also said, "Then Wang Yingkai is not a good bird. It's linger. If I had taken down the Changxin store with the attack of the first town, why would I still take it outside!"

Fang Biyong muttered in his heart: Everyone is half a catty and eight taels. Saying that others have not contributed, we have not shown our real skills. In the previous battle, only two standard rotations were sent, and there was not a single charge battle. If our third town had come out its real ability, it would have been estimated that Tongzhou would have been Take it down.

So Wang Duan and Zhao's three coalition, let alone anyone's are not. They all have Xiao Jiujiu and are unwilling to contribute.

But this can't be said!

Zhao Dongyun said at this time, "Naturally, there are first and fourth towns on the other two sides to solve the problem. We don't have to worry about how they fight. On our side, although the early fight is relatively smooth, the effect is still not obvious!"

"The officers on the front line are still too conservative. They should broaden their minds and not always hold on to the old tactics of the Franco-Prussian War. Japan and Russia have experimented with new tactics for us. Now what we need to do is to learn lessons and further improve the new offensive tactics! Isn't this front-line heavy machine gun performing well? Then you have to let the subordinates learn more about how to use the 60mm mortar to achieve better results, and how the 80mm mortar can achieve the effect of suppressing the enemy on a large scale, which need to be discussed and tested one by one!"

After saying that, Zhao Dongyun said, "In addition, the 100 Madsen light machine guns we ordered in the first half of the year have also arrived. It's time to form a light machine gun force."

At this time, Fang Biyong said, "I have been in contact with this light machine gun before. Although the firepower continues to be worse, it is better than the light weight. I think it should be able to act as an infantry to accompany the firepower!" However, I'm afraid it's not easy to divide if the number is too small now, and our army has not been equipped with light machine guns before. How can this be used? Is it directly assigned to the infantry shed or to be stored in the infantry company as mentioned before?

With that, Fang Biyong looked at Zhao Dongyun again: "Commander, what do you think about the formation of this light machine gun?"