RPAGF #204 - Army reorganization plan, primary firepower coverage concept
#204 - Army reorganization plan, primary firepower coverage concept
After New Year's Day, Ren Zhong received good news from Brigade Commander and Li Yunlong, and was equally encouraged by their new achievements. He pondered at home how to quickly increase the air defense capabilities of the Brigade Commander and the Independent Regiment, but he couldn't figure it out for the time being. After all, transporting weapons to a place hundreds of kilometers away, guarded by layers of Japanese devils, heavy things like anti-aircraft guns were really not feasible.
Therefore, Ren Zhong was considering vigorously developing hydropower in the newly expanded base area first, and then building a new steel plant in the mountains, using hydropower to drive electric furnaces for steelmaking. As for the rare metal part, since the quantity was not large, it could also be cut into small pieces, so this could be brought over from the border area to get anti-aircraft guns and mountain guns up and running.
This plan had just taken shape in Ren Zhong's mind when Chief of Staff Ye came to visit.
Of course, Chief of Staff Ye was not here for holiday greetings this time, but came to the Dawn Research Institute to communicate with Ren Zhong about the reorganization of the troops.
"Old Brother Ren, after the two battles in Jiuyuan, and a new campaign recently launched in the Taiyue base area, it has been verified that the series of weapons developed under the leadership of Old Brother Ren are fully equipped by the troops, and their combat effectiveness has been completely renewed. They can already be compared with the Japanese devils' field divisions."
Chief of Staff Ye obviously came with a mission, and went straight to the point.
"However, the organization of various troops is now chaotic, and neither the battalions, regiments, nor companies are unified. There have also been some command errors, resulting in unnecessary losses and waste of troops."
In this time and space, due to Ren Zhong's intrusion, some small places in the wheels of history have been changed, that is, the reorganization of the main forces of the Border Region and the Eighth Route Army headquarters is no longer due to lack of food and guns, but to streamline administration. However, it is still very difficult in other base areas. Due to the Japanese devils' blockade and sweep, the base area has shrunk seriously, and the food problem is the most important core issue, and it is basically difficult to support the huge non-productive troops in the early stage.
Although it is said that due to Ren Zhong's suggestion, the second-line forces such as the backbone regiments and reserve regiments of certain military regions have been directly integrated into the local guerrilla forces in the base areas, this is not a unified policy for all base areas.
Therefore, the directly subordinate main forces of the military regions of various base areas are more or less affected. For example, in Central Hebei, except for the Old Eighth Regiment, which has been completely preserved, the remaining local regiments have long been broken up into zero and integrated into the local non-productive guerrillas.
Although the major base areas are also called main regiments and main battalions, the strength of the troops is too obviously uneven.
The super-large regiment monster like the Independent Regiment is the only one in the country! And a battalion is equipped with more 107 heavy weapons than a regiment in other places. In terms of firepower, a regiment is almost not as good as a battalion of the Independent Regiment in most cases.
Although doing so has its advantages and disadvantages, it also makes it difficult for the Japanese devils to figure out our strength, but for our army's command, this is indeed a huge trouble, especially when it is necessary to replace the chief officer of the troops. This situation requires the chief officer to spend more time to understand his troops.
The headquarters is even more unclear about the strength of its subordinate troops.
Even if the Red Star Radio has now been fully popularized to the regimental level, the strength between regiments varies greatly and there is no comparability at all.
Currently, the strongest regiment-level unit is the Independent Regiment of the Taiyue Military Region, one is as good as eight. The second is the standard main regiment of the Border Region, followed by the Taihang main regiment, the Central Hebei main regiment, and the main regiments in other regions.
Obviously, this situation must be changed.
That's why Chief of Staff Ye came to Ren Zhong, because Ren Zhong has always said that he doesn't understand military affairs, but every time his judgment on the situation is very accurate, not to mention that the tactical opinions he has given several times have enabled the troops to win decisive victories.
However, Ren Zhong has really studied this issue seriously. He opened up the several reorganizations of the Eighth Route Army, and compared them with the standardized infantry battalion of later generations. He already had a plan in his mind for the reorganization of the troops.
It's just that the time is not yet fully ripe, so Ren Zhong did not take the initiative to find Chief of Staff Ye to send his opinions up for discussion.
Seeing Chief of Staff Ye come to visit today, he simply took out his ideas to discuss with Chief of Staff Ye.
"My suggestion is that, according to the different personnel and weapon configurations, we can reorganize the non-productive standing troops into three types of regimental establishments with the regiment as the core: A, B, and C."
"Type A regiments are the core main field troops, Type B regiments are field auxiliary troops, and Type C regiments are local garrison standing troops."
After Ren Zhong clearly defined the roles of the three different combat regiments, there were some differences from what Chief of Staff Ye currently understood, but not many. After all, after several rounds of reorganization, the concepts of main regiments, backbone regiments, and the two types of regimental establishments, A and B, have been proposed many times in the troops.
This time, Ren Zhong made the purpose clearer.
"The Type A regiment is under the jurisdiction of a strengthened infantry battalion. The combat troops consist of 3 infantry companies, 1 firepower company, and 1 reconnaissance platoon. Among them, the infantry company consists of 3 infantry platoons, 1 firepower platoon, and the infantry platoon consists of 3 infantry squads and 1 firepower squad;"
"The infantry squad is reduced to 10 people, 1 squad leader, 3 combat teams, of which 1 combat team is a grenade launcher team. The main gunner carries 1 Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, 1 grenade launcher, and 2 deputy gunners carry 6 grenade launcher grenades, 1 Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, and 150 rounds of ammunition. The other two combat teams carry 1 Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, 300 rounds of ammunition, and 4 grenades."
"The firepower squad has 8 people, divided into a machine gun team, equipped with 1 Type 56 machine gun and 1500 rounds of ammunition; a rocket launcher team, equipped with 1 RPG and 30 rockets, and each person has a 20-shot pistol and 80 rounds of ammunition. Plus the platoon leader and the communicator (walkie-talkie/walkie-talkie), a total of 40 people."
The firepower platoon is divided into 4 squads, with 2 machine gun squads each equipped with 2 Type 56 general-purpose machine guns, each with 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and 18 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles, each with 150 rounds of ammunition; 1 mortar squad with 2 81mm mortars, each with 24 rounds of ammunition; 1 RPG squad with 2 rocket launchers, each with 24 rockets, and each soldier equipped with a Type 20 pistol and 80 rounds of ammunition. Including the platoon leader and the communicator (radio/walkie-talkie), there are a total of 42 people.
The company headquarters has 22 people directly under its command, including 4 officers: the company commander, deputy company commander, political instructor, and quartermaster. The rest are soldiers, including 2 communicators, 2 medics, 6 snipers, and 8 cooks. Everyone is equipped with Type 56 semi-automatic rifles (snipers with 4x scopes), and 200 rounds of ammunition.
So, a company like this has 184 people, 5 general-purpose machine guns, 3 grenade launchers, 2 82mm mortars, 5 rocket launchers, 130 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles, and 24 Type 20 pistols. In terms of firepower, it can completely defeat a Japanese infantry company.
The battalion's firepower company has a rocket artillery platoon consisting of 1 107mm rocket launcher with 36 rounds of ammunition, 20 mules and horses, and 22 people; 2 mortar platoons equipped with 6 82mm mortars, with 46 people; and a heavy machine gun platoon with 2 heavy machine guns and 32 people. Including the company headquarters with 20 people, the firepower company has a total of 120 people.
An enhanced battalion consists of 3 infantry companies, plus a firepower company, a reconnaissance platoon, and a medical team, totaling 730 people. Although the number of people is less than a Japanese battalion, it possesses 1 107mm rocket launcher, 2 heavy machine guns, 12 82mm mortars, 15 general-purpose machine guns, 15 rocket launchers, and 9 grenade launchers, completely overwhelming the firepower of a Japanese battalion.
An A-type regiment consists of 3 enhanced infantry battalions, 1 artillery battalion, 1 motor transport company, 1 guard company, 1 reconnaissance company, and 1 medical team, totaling 18 companies. The artillery battalion is divided into 1 4-gun 75mm mountain gun company, 1 4-gun 107mm rocket artillery company, and 1 6-gun anti-aircraft gun company. The number of people is over 3,000, directly crushing a Japanese regiment.
After removing the firepower company, a standard infantry battalion has 610 people.
A B-type regiment consists of 3 standard infantry battalions without the firepower company, plus 1 4-gun 107mm rocket artillery company, 1 mule and horse transport company, 1 guard/reconnaissance company, and a medical team, totaling 12 companies, with over 2,000 people. It can completely defeat a Japanese battalion and can confront a Japanese regiment in the field.
The latest novels are first published on 69shu.com!
A C-type regiment removes the battalion-level organization and consists of 6 standard infantry companies, 1 12-gun 82mm mortar company, 1 mule and horse transport platoon, and 1 reconnaissance platoon, totaling over 1,400 people. It can confront a Japanese battalion in the field. If coordinated with 120mm mortars for defense, relying on local defense measures, it would not be a big problem to withstand an attack from a Japanese regiment for a few days.
Ren Zhong's configuration is basically completely tailored to the Japanese in the *Bright Sword* world. However, the changes in weapons in this timeline are too great. Light weapons have now almost achieved self-sufficiency in the major base areas. At the squad firepower level, the main force is basically being completely replaced with the Type 56. The grassroots firepower completely overwhelms the equivalent Japanese units.
And the original miscellaneous bolt-action rifles, Hanyang rifles, old Mausers, and Arisaka rifles, have basically all been distributed to various guerrilla units. Now, the troops are hidden among the people. In addition to the large number of main force regiments in the border area and headquarters, the main force regiments in other base areas have shrunk a lot.
The Type 55 120mm mortar is a heavy weapon specially customized by Ren Zhong for other base areas. After all, it is difficult for them to manufacture rockets. The chemical manufacturing of rocket propellant is relatively complex and the formula is precious. Ren Zhong cannot spread the technology to very uncontrollable places, so currently only the border area and the Heyuan base are producing 107mm rocket shells. Other base areas cannot popularize them.
The 120mm mortar is relatively less difficult to implement technically, and the shells are also considered mature. Upgrading from 82mm to 120mm does not require a technological leap. Steel made in simple open-hearth furnaces can meet the requirements. The only disadvantage is that it is bulky, weighing over 300 kilograms in combat mode and over 550 kilograms in marching mode!
There is simply no way to accompany the infantry regiment in maneuver under conditions lacking mechanization. However, for positional defense, this is a very good heavy firepower weapon, with a range of 5,500 meters, basically not far from the Japanese regiment's 75mm mountain gun (6,500 meters).
Although it may not have achieved the optimal solution, it has achieved preliminary standardization compared to the current chaotic regimental formations, standardizing the squad, platoon, company, and battalion, so that superiors can naturally understand the troop strength at a glance.
The three types of regimental configurations and the division of enhanced battalions and standard infantry battalions formally standardize the regular army of the Eighth Route Army.
First update of the big chapter.