Although Major General Tian Qinyun no longer likes his superiors treating his 18th Division as guinea pigs for various tests, the mission is the mission and there is no escaping it.
So he specifically asked the Indian Affairs Office if there had been any unrest in the indigenous kingdoms recently, and the person from the Indian Affairs Office replied:
Now that the situation is calm, the many military actions the empire continued to launch in the first half of the year have completely brought the entire Indian Peninsula to its knees.
Although these indigenous kingdoms will inevitably fight among themselves, this has nothing to do with the Tang Empire.
The Tang Empire was a benevolent and righteous empire, and would not interfere in the internal wars among the indigenous people. In other words, the Empire was too lazy to care, and was even happy to see them fighting among themselves.
In the end, Tian Qinyun had no choice but to conduct a drill or something to test one or two first, and then take it to the battlefield to test one or two when he got the chance.
As a result, Tian Qinyun was stunned by this exercise!
He was not surprised by the 65mm light howitzer. Although this thing is also very easy to use, it is very light in weight and has good skills and power. It can be used directly by infantry battalions in mobile combat. The accuracy is not bad. Two thousand five hundred
Within the effective range of meters, the accuracy is better than that of the 75mm howitzer.
However, if this is the case, Tian Qinyun is only giving a qualified standard.
What really shocked him were those 80mm rapid-fire mortars!
More than ten artillery shells were fired in this minute, and the power of the shell explosion was not small, which surprised Major General Tian Qinyun.
What surprised him even more was that during the exercise, he did not pay much attention to the issue of ammunition supply. He only ordered the troops to test the performance of this rapid-fire mortar as much as possible.
As a result, the artillery crew members transferred from the divisional artillery regiment directly carried out the artillery bombardment according to the traditional artillery bombardment preparations in the past, preparing for a twenty-minute artillery bombardment.
But it turned out that I only played for more than ten minutes!
Why?
Because it only took more than ten minutes to fire all the 1,000 rounds of artillery shells that were shipped here for testing!
A mere twelve rapid-fire mortars for testing fired thousands of shells in more than ten minutes. The explosions on the testing ground continued to sound like firecrackers.
Major General Tian Qinyun was stunned when he saw it, and the head of the baggage regiment beside him turned pale!
When Tian Qinyun saw this scene, he thought of the enemy army being enveloped by the explosion. When the leader of the baggage regiment saw this scene, he thought of how he had worked so hard to transport thousands of artillery shells to the frontline troops, but the result was casual.
Let's imagine a scene where a rapid-fire mortar battery is all fired out within a few dozen minutes.
The governor of Gohe Prefecture, a subordinate of the Indian Affairs Yamen, who came over to watch the exercise out of boredom, this usually affable and amiable official, just muttered: "You losers in the army, the empire's wealth will be sacrificed to you."
Totally defeated!"
A thousand rounds of test artillery shells, no matter how cheap they are, cost more than 10 constant yuan per shot. These 1,000 rounds are more than 10,000 constant yuan. It only lasted more than ten minutes and was gone.
No wonder the empire’s annual fiscal revenue of four to five billion is not enough. Where does the money go?
They were all wasted by bastards like the Army!
After the test, many people in the military were still in shock, but the governor of Gehe Prefecture was already very unhappy and left first. On the way back, he was already thinking about how to write a report.
Why write the excerpt? Of course it is to impeach those losers in the Army!
People in the civil service system worked hard to develop the local economy and collect taxes, but as a result, these bastards in the military did nothing and just spent money in various ways.
This kind of thing is simply intolerable!
Must spray, spray hard!
In other words, in the Tang Empire, it was politically correct for civilian officials to criticize the military. The more harshly they criticized the military, the more their superiors appreciated it. This would be even more true if they became high-ranking officials in the empire.
Because in the Tang Empire, the separation of military and political affairs was the most basic political principle. A civil servant who colluded with the military would never be able to climb up the ladder.
The ultra-high rate of fire displayed by the rapid-fire mortar surprised many people. Major General Tian Qinyun was also one of them. He saw its huge tactical value and immediately wanted to suggest that his superiors should equip their superiors with such equipment on a large scale.
artillery.
But after talking to the leader of his baggage regiment, this attitude changed!
The leader of his baggage regiment told him clearly that their baggage regiment couldn't afford it, let alone dozens or hundreds of pieces of equipment. Even if there were only a dozen or so pieces per company, their baggage regiment couldn't afford it!
Their Army's 18th Division is deployed overseas, and every bullet and artillery shell used has to be transported thousands of miles from the mainland. Even if we leave aside the long sea transportation, the transportation conditions in overseas territories are extremely poor.
It is also very difficult to transport baggage.
Even if it is the current ordinary breech-loaded artillery, because the rapid fire rate is far greater than that of the front-loaded artillery, this has already made the Army's logistics department quite overwhelmed, not to mention that there is now a large-scale replacement of the Joint Type II rifle.
The gadget will also consume a lot of logistical resources.
If there is another artillery piece with more than ten rounds per minute, and it is prepared to be assigned to the infantry battalion, then the logistics department will not have to work.
Even when we said this, we did not take into account the issue of military expenditures, but simply considered the issue of logistics and supply.
Finally, Major General Tian Qinyun said in the test report that this rapid-fire mortar is indeed a good thing, but it consumes too many shells and may be difficult to supply overseas.
At the same time, he gave great praise to the 65mm light howitzer, although this thing seems to be mediocre in many aspects.
The key thing is that this thing is suitable for use by the army, especially the army stationed overseas.
It weighs more than 200 kilograms. Without disassembly, it can be pulled by any horse. It can also be pulled by humans if it is not possible.
When necessary, it can be disassembled and carried separately by horses or even carried by multiple soldiers.
This maneuverability is the most powerful among all barrel artillery currently equipped by the Army.
The previous 60mm howitzer was not good, and the 75mm howitzer was even less effective.
Moreover, the power of this thing is not small, and the explosive power is no less than that of a 75mm howitzer.
Although the range is only 2,500 meters, it is more than enough for the natives, and the accuracy is not bad. One cannonball can solve the problem.
For this reason, he directly suggested using this light howitzer equipment and replacing the old 60mm howitzer as battalion-level support firepower.
Not only did Major General Tian Qinyun send back the report, but the Navy was also paying attention to these two weapons.
But unlike the Army and the Guards, whose choices were more extreme, either rapid-fire mortars or 65-mm light howitzers, the Marine Corps generals believed that these two weapons could be equipped and used at the same time.
Anyway, the Marine Corps of the Navy will basically not go deep into the interior, which means that the Marine Corps can obtain logistical supplies from supply ships at any time.
In addition, the size of the Marine Corps is not large, and equipping some of the rapid-fire mortars will not cost too much military expenditure.
Of course, even so, you can't equip too much, just a small amount of equipment. If the main battalion supports artillery, it must be a 65mm light howitzer.
However, even so, the Marine Corps actually doesn't care too much, because the Marine Corps' artillery power has always been very strong.
The current largest organization of the Marine Corps is the Marine Regiment, which does not even have a Marine Brigade, let alone a division.
However, the marine regiments of the Marine Corps are generally large in size and are paired with artillery battalions.
More importantly, according to the tradition of the Navy, naval guns are the largest support artillery of the Marine Corps.
In order to better support the Marine Corps in combat, the Navy built a large number of shallow water gunboats. These shallow water gunboats are not used to fight against the enemy's wooden sails, but go deep into the empire's offshore waters, inland rivers, and lakes to support ground operations.
of.
In recent years, the Tang Navy, which has become completely invincible in the global waters and feels deeply lonely, has embarked on a "forward strategy".
The core of the entire forward strategy is to take advantage of the strategic advantage of the Tang Dynasty Navy's global invincibility and access to sea areas around the world to establish forward bases along the coast of some key sea areas. Through flexible and mobile deployment, the fleet can reach hot spots as soon as possible and then strike.
enemy.
Under this core strategy, the Navy has established countless naval bases around the world, deployed fleets in almost all sea areas, and even deployed main fleets in hot spots.
At the same time, we studied and built a large number of shallow water gunboats to reach offshore, inland rivers and other sea areas for operations.
With the absolute superiority of naval gun firepower, the Marine Corps was sent to land and control the battle situation.
This 'forward strategy' is different from the concepts of many naval powers in later generations.
The biggest difference is the battle for sea control.
For many naval powers in history, their core has always been the struggle for sea control, with control of a certain sea area as the core strategic basis.
For example, in modern times, a certain European country has implemented a green water strategy, focusing on the development of small and medium-sized offshore ships. It seems to be the same as the Tang Dynasty Navy, which built a large number of small and medium-sized ships, but the nature of the two is completely different.
The core purpose of green water strategy in developing small and medium-sized warships is offshore defense. The fundamental purpose of small and medium-sized warships is to fight the enemy navy.
However, these small and medium-sized shallow-water gunboats of the Tang Navy were not used to fight the enemy's navy, but to fight the enemy's land defense forces.
How should I put it? One squats at the door of the house to play defensive operations, and the other runs to the door of the victim's house to play offensive operations. There is a big difference between the two.
The main reason for this result is that the Datang Navy was too powerful. The globally invincible Datang Navy did not have any issues such as offshore defense and competition for sea control.