Chapter 326 The March Begins

Wang Zhong put down the phone and picked it up again immediately: "Connect to Kubinka."

The call was connected soon, and Pavlov was on the other end: "First Mobile Army, this is Chief of Staff Pavlov, go ahead."

Wang Zhong: "Order the troops to mobilize and prepare for battle."

Pavlov was shocked: "Proson is coming nearby again? So soon?"

Wang Zhong: "No, we are going to fight them. The Sukhaveli Front asked for reinforcements. They were defeated by the enemy's new tanks, and some divisions have collapsed.

"You should immediately organize an advance team, with the 16th Tank Destroyer Battalion that has just arrived as the main body, strengthen the support troops and elite infantry, as well as eight anti-aircraft guns and the Army's Arrow Battalion, and... you can choose the right ones. In short, make sure that everyone can get on the train today and drive to the front line!"

Pavlov: "How many carloads can you have?"

Wang Zhong: "See how many carloads you can get from Admiral Chekhov."

"Push it to me again? "Pavlov exclaimed.

Wang Zhong: "Cheer up, now my reputation and relationship with General Chekhov, you can definitely get a lot. "

"Why don't you want it?"

Wang Zhong: "I have a lot of things to do, I have to focus on military affairs."

After saying that, he hung up the phone without waiting for Pavlov to protest.

As soon as he hung up the phone, Vasily said with anticipation: "Finally, we are going to attack, show those bastards in Yebao that we are not just eating empty salaries!"

Wang Zhong smiled: "They should be fooled by the battalion organization. "

While speaking, the time traveler who had traveled through time for a year recalled the time on Earth. On Earth, there are many pseudo-military fans and half-baked people who follow inertial thinking and think that a battalion is smaller than a regiment and a brigade. Countless marketing accounts rely on this to eat up the traffic of pseudo-military fans.

The most common practice is to say that Sandezi's armored battalion destroyed two Soviet tank brigades, a total of six battalions, blah blah.

So half-baked people shouted that Sandezi is invincible.

But real military fans can see where the trick is at a glance.

Sandezi's battalion is large, and the No. 4 battalion has 96 long-tube No. 4 tanks. The leopard battalion has large and small organizations, the smallest is 77 leopards, and the largest has 96 leopards. The tiger battalion is the smallest, but it also has 45 tigers.

The Maozi battalion is small, and the Maozi tank brigade has only 68 tanks. Most of the time, the battalion and the regiment are organized at the same level, both with 21 tanks.

What's wrong with my 96 Panzer IVs or 96 Leopards eating your more than 100 T34-76s? Is there anything strange?

Those who are out of the organization and only use the serial number to talk about things are basically half-baked, and those half-baked people in Yebao are like this now.

They saw that Wang Zhong's division only had one tank battalion and one tank destroyer battalion, so they took it for granted that this division had no armored force.

Because Ante also used a small battalion, just like the Russians on Earth, with 21 tanks in a battalion.

But in fact, Wang Zhong's tank battalion is a large battalion. In addition to 12 T34W tanks, each company of this battalion also has 4 M3 Grant Lee tanks, and the reconnaissance platoon also has eight jeeps with M2 Lao Gan Ma heavy machine guns, and then there is an SU76.

There are also 53 Grant Lees in the company, each with eight, and eight jeeps each with 3 ——In fact, it can be increased to 7 per jeep, but this style is too Indian, and was rejected by Wang Zhong.

Three such companies formed a tank battalion.

So although Wang Zhong's tank battalion is called a battalion, it has 48 tanks, 24 jeeps, and 4 SU76s.

Of course, artillery, infantry, and scouts usually stay in their own organizations, and only train together during training. Only in wartime will they "suffer from logistics" and be combined together.

And the 31st Guards Regiment under the infantry of the Guards 1st Mechanized Infantry, the half-baked people in Yebao took it for granted that this regiment had only 3,000 people based on the "regiment" in the number.

But in fact, this is not the case at all. This regiment actually has nearly 6,000 combatants, and some newly formed infantry divisions in Ant have only 8,000 people.

Why is this regiment so crowded? Because Wang Zhong brought a new concept and stuffed a lot of supporting firepower into it.

Under this regiment, each company was stuffed with 4 82 mortars, and there were also eight M3 half-track vehicles and four M6 wheeled destroyers.

Four 82 mortars were already battalion-level firepower in some poorly equipped infantry divisions. And the eight M3s were equipped with M2 Lao Gan Ma heavy machine guns, with 8 heavy machine guns in a company. Where else could other divisions get such luxurious configurations?

Not to mention the 37mm cannon on the M6 ​​wheeled destroyer.

Wang Zhong actually wanted the M8 Greyhound and M8 Teapot (these two are not on the same chassis), but they are not available yet, so he can only use the M6 ​​that can carry the 37mm cannon to deal with it.

All these vehicles need to be operated by people, and the mortars also need to be served by people. As a result, each company is much larger than the average infantry company, and is a completely reinforced company.

At the battalion level, Wang Zhong became even more crazy.

According to reports from the front, during actual combat, the Prosons would also delegate the divisional artillery to the infantry regiment. At this time, the Proson infantry battalion in the main attack direction would receive support from more than 12 infantry guns or even howitzers.

Wang Zhong directly normalized this kind of decentralized support.

Of course, he was not so crazy as to equip the infantry battalion with howitzers, which would be too much and unnecessary.

The most important difference between infantry guns and howitzers is the barrel. The barrel of infantry guns is very short and the outer wall is relatively thin. After all, most of the time, they are close-range support and do not need to shoot too far. The shells do not need so much propellant, and naturally the chamber pressure is not so high.

In order to obtain a range of more than 15 kilometers, the barrel of the howitzer is long and thick. In order to balance such a heavy barrel and also to prevent it from being blown to the ground by the strong muzzle storm when firing, howitzers generally have very heavy spades.

So even if the caliber is the same, infantry guns are much lighter than howitzers, and they are more convenient to maneuver and can keep up with infantry regiments. For example, Ant's 76mm infantry gun actually uses a gun mount similar to the 45mm anti-tank gun. When the personnel are tight, two people can operate it.

The artillery company of the Ant Army is very small. Generally, one company has two platoons, and each platoon has two guns. The artillery platoon that Wang Zhong created has four guns, and one artillery company has 12 guns, with nearly 300 people.

He stuffed such a company into the infantry battalion, and the logistics department must have cursed.

But he still did it.

Mainly because when he fought in the first battle of Upper Penière, the enemy's artillery did not catch up, only the vehicle-mounted mortars caught up, so there was a fight. Later, the enemy's heavy artillery in Loktov made him suffer enough.

With such an experience, Wang Zhong became crazy.

Why do you have to mince meat when you can blow up the enemy? The infantry is responsible for opening the field of vision for the artillery!

These artillery need people to serve, so the infantry battalion under Wang Zhong's command is terribly large, with infantry and artillery about 2 to 1.

At the level of the infantry regiment, Wang Zhong equipped the regiment with a battalion of M3 vehicle-mounted 75mm howitzers.

Not to mention the armored vehicles, fuel support and other messes, a regiment of more than 6,000 combatants.

Such a regiment is destined to not be packed too much into a division, and the logistics cannot support it.

This is not playing Hearts of Steel. If there are not enough infantry, the organization of the troops will be low. In actual combat, the extent of infantry losses before retreat depends entirely on the fighting will.

Wang Zhong is confident that his infantry's fighting will is strong enough, and he also believes that the night school education that has lasted for more than half a year has greatly improved the subjective initiative of the troops, and even if they are broken up into small units, they can maintain their combat effectiveness.

Then the next choice is a matter of course, to give the infantry enough support units, and then dilute and spread the troops.

In the battle of Orachi, in fact, there were only two infantry battalions in front of his position in the first two days, and they relied on the supporting firepower to withstand the enemy's attack. The remaining troops were reserves, ready to be deployed in times of crisis, but they were not used at all, and the enemy was all wiped out by the supporting firepower.

So Wang Zhong came to a conclusion that as long as the supporting firepower is sufficient, it is not difficult for a battalion with a strong fighting will to defend the defense zone of a regiment.

And the benefits of spreading the troops are obvious-the ability to resist artillery fire is greatly enhanced.

Of course, for Wang Zhong's idea to be realized, the front-line infantry must have enough walkie-talkies, at least the radios must be decentralized to the company.

Wang Zhong's regiment is equipped with much more walkie-talkies than a division, because the ordinary Ante Infantry Division has no radio in the battalion headquarters and can only set up telephone lines.

A considerable part of the walkie-talkies supported by the United States was swallowed up by the First Mobile Army, which resulted in other troops also thinking that walkie-talkies are good things and scrambling for them - although I don't know why they are good things, but what General Rokossov wants must be good things.

Of course, other troops do not have as much supporting firepower as the First Mobile Army, so more walkie-talkies are not that meaningful.

As for the artillery regiment of the First Guards Mechanized Infantry Division, it is even more incredible.

The artillery regiment of the general Ante Infantry Division has 12 152mm guns and 24 122mm guns, a total of 36 guns and less than 2,000 people.

The artillery regiment of the First Guards Mechanized Infantry has 36 152mm guns and 24 122mm guns, a total of 60 heavy guns, and nearly 4,000 people serving. ‘

This is actually a very scary number. Some people who have read too many marketing accounts may think that such a small number of guns is a lie. They may also say that Amei’s divisional artillery regiment has 50 heavy guns! Or San Dezi’s division has 48 heavy guns!

But in fact, Amei’s divisional artillery is three 105 battalions plus one 155 battalion. Although 105 and 155 are both divisional heavy guns, this classification is mainly because the long-barreled 105 is very heavy and requires a large tractor, so they are all placed in the division for easy support.

The real 155 heavy guns in the Dahong First Division only have 12 guns.

The same is true for San Dezi. There are only 12 SHF18 150mm heavy howitzers in a division, and the rest are 105. What is different about San Dezi is that he has 150 heavy infantry guns.

Comparing the firepower of the Guards First Mechanized Infantry with 36 152 and 24 122 guns, it is already very crazy.

The anti-tank artillery battalion of the 1st Guards Mechanized Infantry, in addition to 36 57mm anti-tank guns, also has about 30 ZIS3 self-propelled anti-tank guns, which is very different from the anti-tank artillery battalions of ordinary infantry divisions with 12 guns.

There are also anti-aircraft guns. Ant's anti-aircraft gun battalion usually has 16 37mm anti-aircraft guns, while Wang Zhong's battalion has 36 37mm anti-aircraft guns and eight Crusader self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.

In short, although the 1st Guards Mechanized Infantry has only one infantry regiment, one artillery regiment, and one motor regiment, and the rest are various "battalions", it actually has more than 100 tanks, destroyers and self-propelled artillery, which is equivalent to two tank brigades.

It has more than 70 medium tubes of 75 mm and 60 large tubes of over 122 mm.

It has a total of 66 57mm anti-tank guns (including vehicle-mounted and towed).

It has more than 100 heavy machine guns, more than 200 light machine guns, and a total of more than 1,100 half-track trucks and tractors.

The most excessive thing is the support capability of this division. It is equipped with two maintenance battalions and two rescue companies (split up and assigned to each tank company and tank destroyer company), and can complete moderate repairs of 12 tanks every day.

For comparison, the maintenance capability of Ant's First Assault Army is to complete moderate repairs on 20 tanks per day - yes, a group army is that bad.

With so many things crammed in, the Guards became a local tycoon division with a total strength of more than 20,000 in one move. Then the military blinds in Yebao pointed at the large number of "battalions" in the establishment and said what they must say. Eating free money.

Perhaps thinking of this, Vasily sighed: "There is really no way, it makes no sense to a layman. The key is that you tell these people that you can't just beep at the serial number. You have to count the number of vehicles and pipes. They are lying on the ground. You're cheating and yelling, 'If you don't listen, you're just getting paid.'"

Wang Zhong shrugged: "If I had known this, I would have changed the tank battalions and annihilation battalions into regiments. In this way, if you look at the infantry regiment, the tank regiment, and the annihilation regiment in the division, Yebao's half bucket of water will feel like a division. There are three groups, which is very reasonable.”

Vasily laughed.

Wang Zhong: "Of course, I myself feel from time to time that the number of infantry may be too small... But with such an exaggerated establishment now, logistics has become a curse."

After all, the support units are all logistics gluttons. Adding three infantry regiments to the army organization may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Wang Zhong is still worried that his mobile army has so many 75, 122 and 152 tubes that it will not be enough to feed them, and it will run out of shells.

Vasily: "Hey, in Loktov, we artillery school students are still used as infantry, and we behave very well! Infantry is not a professional branch. Whoever picks up a rifle and lies on the ground to shoot, then That’s the infantry.”

Wang Zhong said: "You are right, the loaders in the artillery regiment are not all big-headed soldiers. Maybe because they are in the artillery unit, they have survived longer, and they are more reliable as infantry than the newly recruited recruits. "

At this time, the phone rang in the room again. Wang Zhong picked up the receiver: "I'm Rokosov."

General Turgenev's voice came from the receiver: "Rokossov, you should have known that the Suhayaveli Front is in emergency, right? I have already informed the logistics department and vacated the carriage as soon as possible. Send your army group to Yarvik on the east bank of Suhayaveli, which is relatively safe at the moment.”

Wang Zhong: "I have ordered the formation of an advance team, which I will personally lead. They can board the train and set off today."

"Very good, this is very good." General Turgenev paused, "I am very much looking forward to the performance of your new army. After all, we have invested so many resources in your army group."

Wang Zhong nodded: "I will work hard."

"Well, good luck to you."

The phone was hung up over there. Wang Zhong put down the receiver and looked at Vasily: "I think it's better to put a pure infantry unit at the group army's military depot. It's just infantry and only needs food. It's also next to the military depot and the supply route is short. That's right. There won’t be too much logistical pressure.”

Vasily: "I remember that Melania came with four more infantry battalions, with only basic weapons. How about turning them into an independent infantry brigade?"

Wang Zhong: "Okay, let Pavlov do the work. When we transport our regular army forward, we will complete the establishment of this brigade and finally send it over."

Vasily muttered sympathetically: "Poor Pavlov."