Of course, it is impossible for a monk to give up his reconnaissance company and drive a tank.
However, this fellow really hesitated for a moment, and then said to Wang Xuexin in a pleading tone: "Batalion Commander, if not, please let me make a cameo, or give our reconnaissance company a tank so that I can pass."
Enjoyable!”
Wang Xuexin almost laughed out loud at the monk's request.
The commander of the reconnaissance company will serve as a tank driver? Then who will command the reconnaissance company?
Assign a tank? Then the reconnaissance company can also do things like climbing over walls and conducting night raids?
So without even thinking about it, Wang Xuexin rejected it directly.
The reason why Wang Xuexin must find Gangzi is because Wang Xuexin hopes to unify the machine guns of tanks.
The main reason is that Wang Xuexin is not willing to throw away several tanks captured from the Japanese... Just kidding, those are two Type 97s and one Type 95.
The Type 95 tank is not bad, but the Type 97 tank is better than Mao Xiong's T26. How could the Eighth Route Army just throw it away with such conditions?
But if it is not lost, there must be a problem of mixing.
There is not much problem in mixing Type 97 and Type 95 with T26. The reason is that the speed of T26 tank is only 30 kilometers per hour. Type 97 and Type 95 are faster than it and can easily keep up. Sometimes they can even be used as motor vehicles for emergency purposes.
For example, if the T26 formation encounters the Japanese Type 97, they can use the Type 97 to block.
The bigger problem lies in their coordination with the following infantry.
T26 is mixed with Type 97 and Type 95. What kind of machine gun is used?
If each uses a standard machine gun, are the bullets incompatible?
What kind of rifle does the infantry follow, and are the bullets universal?
If the T26 uses Mao Xiong machine guns, Type 97 and Type 95 use Japanese machine guns, and the follow-up infantry uses Springfield rifles, will a tank battalion have three types of bullets?
Once some part, such as the infantry, does not have enough bullets but there are a lot of bullets left on the tank, wouldn't it be impossible to adjust in this mode?
Wang Xuexin thought about it and thought that the tank battalion could only use Japanese machine guns and rifles.
If Mao Xiong's machine gun is used... the Eighth Route Army cannot produce this kind of bullets and must rely on imports from Mao Xiong. This is obviously unrealistic. If Mao Xiong cannot supply it at the critical moment, big problems may occur.
To use the Yingjiang machine gun, first of all, you have to import the machine gun from Yingjiang. Secondly, the tank battalion is basically unable to use the battle capture when fighting the Japanese, and the tank battalion often makes the largest captures on the battlefield.
So after much deliberation, Wang Xuexin thought that all the machine guns on the tanks should be replaced by Japanese machine guns, and the infantry following them would all use 38-guns.
On the one hand, this can simplify the supply of the tank battalion... The more complex the combat units and collaborative units are, the more they require simple supply, otherwise confusion will easily occur and cause unnecessary trouble.
A tank battalion is a complex coordinated unit, so it should be kept simple.
This is also the reason why there is a furry weapon division in the stubborn army, which uses Mao Xiong tanks, so the division exclusively uses furry weapons.
The second is to maximize combat effectiveness.
Thirdly, we can make full use of wartime seizures.
Even if there are no wartime seizures, the Eighth Route Army still has the ability to produce 38-cap bullets, so the supply can be guaranteed. (Note: The bullet production line was exchanged from the Jinsui Army)
What Gangzi wants to solve is the problem of unifying machine guns, and the other is to train tank machine gunners.
The problem of drivers can be easily solved by bringing in all the people in the army who can drive cars.
Those who can drive a car will naturally have the coordination of their hands and feet. In addition, the driver's habit of "seeing all directions and listening to all directions"... these enable them to learn to drive a tank faster.
The most troublesome thing is the gunner.
The Eighth Route Army did not have many cannons, so there were not many soldiers who could fire cannons.
The Independent Regiment does have some gunners, but if they are all transferred here, there will be no one left in the rocket launcher battalion.
After some consideration, Wang Xuexin decided to mainly recruit from the squad and platoon leaders of the army, and then add some shooters from the 50 small artillery.
They were selected from squad and platoon leaders because Wang Xuexin knew that most of Mao Xiong’s tanks had gunners who also served as commanders, so they needed both gunnery and command capabilities... If they didn’t have gunnery skills, they would be fine if they had command skills. At worst, they had to learn some
How to use artillery.
Later, Wang Xuexin learned that not "most" but "all" of these Bear tanks had gunners who also served as commanders.
(Note: Due to the small turret of the early T34, it could only accommodate four crew members, so the commander was also served by the gunner. Compared with the T26, it only had one more loader)
Based on these principles, tank crews were selected one by one from the list of independent regiments.
There are 190 tank crews in the battalion, and Wang Xuexin selected 250 of them.
These 250 people are not only for the purpose of survival of the fittest, but also to prepare backup for tank crews... In case a tank crew is unable to fight due to injury or illness during the battle, backup crews will be needed to maintain combat effectiveness.
Then Wang Xuexin believed that at least three infantry companies and one engineer company were needed.
The infantry company serves as the accompanying infantry, while the engineer company builds roads, bridges and even clears mines in front of the tanks.
At this time, Wang Xuexin was in trouble again. If it were to be like this, the four company commanders said that they would need another 500 people. Including the tank crew, that would be 750 people.
There are only more than 1,700 people in the entire independent group. If you draw like this, you will lose nearly half of them, but you don't have to use up the independent group.
So Wang Xuexin called the headquarters and reported: "Chief of Staff, I don't have enough troops!"
The chief of staff was shocked when he heard that the tank battalion needed more than 700 people.
Although the Chief of Staff graduated from the Mao Xiong Frunze Military Academy, he studied earlier and the Mao Xiong tank tactics were developed later, so he did not know what to do with this tank battalion.
(Note: The Wooly Bear tank tactics developed relatively late. It has always been obsessed with cavalry tactics. It was not until 1932 that the first armored corps was formed, and the chief of staff graduated in 1930)
The chief of staff immediately reported the matter to the chief: "Chief, Xiaodongbei needs three infantry companies and one engineering company to form a tank battalion, and it requires experienced veterans. You see..."
The commander couldn't help but frowned when he heard this. At this time, the Eighth Route Army had just experienced the Hundred Regiment Battle and the flank defense battle, and the veterans had suffered a lot of losses.
At the same time, due to the difficult period of blockade, there were not many new sources of troops.
The troops were already stretched thin, but now they suddenly asked for four companies of veterans... I really didn't know where to recruit them from at the moment.
In fact, it’s not that we don’t know where to mobilize them from. With an army of more than 400,000 people, it’s still possible to mobilize four companies of veterans.
The problem is that many regiment-level establishments now have less than a thousand or even a few hundred people.
If four more companies are transferred from them at this time, this establishment will probably be cancelled.
After thinking about it, the leader said: "The engineer company is easy to handle. Don't there be an engineer battalion in the three stores? The veterans of the three companies... transfer Chen Fujun's guard company over, and let them figure out the rest!"