After observing the new armored vehicles, Edel, accompanied by Major Hoffman, inspected the 'Armored Experimental Battalion', the seed of the armored force that was still being formed.
The camp of this army is just outside the wilderness called Polk, eight kilometers outside Constanta, and less than ten kilometers away from the Volkswagen factory. It used to be the station of a cavalry regiment and was later transferred.
However, the camp is still maintained. When Major Hoffman chose the camp, he was interested in the large area (the cavalry regiment camp is of course large). There are few people nearby, which makes it easier for him to experiment with various tactics, and it is not far from the city for convenient living, so he put the armor experiment here.
The camp’s location is selected here.
“The staff was well prepared.”
Edel looked at the more than 300 officers and soldiers of the Armored Experimental Battalion lined up neatly in front of him, and said to Hoffman during his inspection.
"Your Highness, they are all elite soldiers transferred from the motor transport regiment and the cavalry unit."
Major Hoffman praised his soldiers.
In fact, the situation was far from being as good as he said. After Major Hoffman took the crown prince's order to form an armored experimental battalion, Major Hoffman happily went to the cavalry unit and motor transport regiment where he had been before to select
Personnel. Although the two chief officers faced with Hoffman's poaching would not disobey the Crown Prince's orders, they also gave Major Hoffman a lot of trouble in private.
Especially in the cavalry unit, its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stokely, privately told his soldiers that the unit formed by Hoffman would only stay in the city, because his armored vehicles could only operate when there were good roads.
Combat. This caused many soldiers and officers who were favored by Major Hoffman to reject his invitation. At first, Hoffman did not understand this situation, but later he saw that a large number of officers and soldiers who were invited by him rejected his invitation.
After the invitation, I came back to my senses.
After Major Hoffman learned that the man behind his inability to recruit people was Lieutenant Colonel Stokely, he went to Lieutenant Colonel Stokely to discuss the matter. After friendly negotiation between the two, Stokely
Lieutenant Colonel Lee no longer prevented Hoffman from recruiting cavalry troops, and Hoffman could not specifically recruit the backbone of the cavalry troops, but could only choose from ordinary soldiers and officers.
The recruitment situation of the Motor Transport Corps is much better. First of all, this is a logistics unit and its status is not as good as the combat troops of World War I. Moreover, the lessons Major Hoffman received from Lieutenant Colonel Stokely made him smarter.
When he came to the car transport group to select people, he no longer only focused on the best soldiers and officers of the other side, which also saved him a lot of trouble. But after Major Hoffman selected people, the leader of the transport group also
My heart ached for a while because he took away a company of maintenance personnel.
In addition, Hoffman recruited several good military students from the school by virtue of his connections at the military academy.
"I hope you can complete the training as soon as possible."
After inspecting the soldiers and officers of the armored battalion, Edel continued to inspect the soldiers' living conditions and talked with these soldiers.
"Soldier, what's your name?"
Edel asked concernedly to a soldier in front of him.
"Your Highness, my name is Sanders, and I come from Huobeike Village."
The soldier named Sanders, who was asked by the crown prince, replied excitedly.
His words caused the shoulders of the soldiers around him to rise and fall. It seemed that they were enduring a lot of hardship.
"Sanders, are you used to living here?"
Edel did not change his attitude because of the soldier's funny answer, and still asked with a smile. The palace etiquette that Edel has learned over the years prevented his expression from changing due to the changes, unless this man named Sanders
The soldiers suddenly sang Dongfanghong.
In fact, the soldier regretted what he said and wanted to find a hole in the ground to crawl into. However, after the crown prince continued to ask questions to help him resolve the embarrassment, he felt much better. At least he knew how to answer. "Your Highness, I lived in the army.
I’m very accustomed to it, and my squad leader Dosk helped me the most.”
Edel saw one of the noncommissioned officers smiling happily, probably the squad leader Dosk he was talking about. He continued to chat with the soldier for a few words and continued to patrol the entire camp.
"It seems like you haven't finished renovating this camp yet."
After his inspection, Edel told Major Hoffman, who had been following him, about the situation after his inspection. While inspecting the military camp, Edel saw too many shadows of the cavalry station. A large number of stables had not yet been dismantled.
Broken horseshoes could still be seen in the corner, and he also saw large stacks of hay in the corner of the military camp.
After hearing the Crown Prince's inquiry, Hoffman explained. "Yes, Your Highness, there are still many traces of cavalry in our military camp. The main reason is that the time is too short. The soldiers in front of us only resisted five days ago at the latest. The main thing now is
In order to organize them into an army, I plan to arrange manpower to transform the camp as soon as possible after they are all familiar with each other."
After hearing Major Hoffman's explanation, Edel did not answer whether it was good or not, but continued to care about how Hoffman would train this unit. "At present, European armies do not have centralized training of armored vehicles. Regarding this,
What do you think of this new force?"
Hoffman knew that what the crown prince said was true. Armored vehicles in other European armies are now dispersed. They are generally allocated to group armies for use, but there are only about a dozen of them, because currently no country knows how to use them.
This thing is expensive and not very easy to use.
For example, Russia, which had worked hardest to develop armored vehicles in the past, in 1905, Nakasi designed Russia's first armored vehicle and named it the "Nakasi" armored vehicle. Russia subsequently purchased 10 such armored vehicles and placed them on
St. Petersburg is used as a defensive force. Although the United Kingdom, which was the first to develop armored vehicles, used armored vehicles in the Boer War, the United Kingdom is now doing the same thing as Russia. They purchase a small amount and put them in the War Department as expensive novelties.
"Your Highness, I plan to purchase 24 armored vehicles from Volkswagen and organize them into two companies (currently one has 84 people and one has 81 people), plus a maintenance company (currently 74 people) and a logistics company (currently 74 people)
87 people), that’s the staff I’m currently preparing.”
Hoffman expressed the plan he had thought about for a long time.
Edel heard that he was going to train four companies, and after thinking about it, he asked, "So how many people do you plan to have after the training is completed?"
"I calculated that a total of 497 people will be needed to prepare the armored experimental battalion."
Edel heard Major Hoffman's answer and said to him, "Just go ahead and do it."
After Edel completed his inspection in the military camp, he took a train back to the capital Bucharest, where the Chief of General Staff, General Priest, had already prepared a plan to train two more divisions and was waiting for the crown prince's consent.
