The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 83 Position
The position of the first battalion and first sentry of Liu Changfa's artillery regiment was deployed on the beach of a small river four kilometers north of Xigu, only more than one thousand meters away from the position of Liu Yuzhi's regiment.

Teng Yuzao, along with Wu Peifu, Li Jinyu, Xue Zhiqian, Su Xilin and others, rushed to the first artillery position to check the situation.

The positions of the First Battalion of the Artillery Regiment were still under intensive construction, but Teng Yuzhao only saw that the first post was equipped with artillery. He did not see the positions of the other two artillery posts along the way. Standing on the river beach, he could not see the shadows of the two artillery posts as far as he could see.

The vanguard army's artillery configuration is six guns per sentry.

It's not that Teng Yuzhao didn't want to deploy more artillery. For example, he wanted to emulate the Western powers of that era and deploy 72 artillery pieces in one regiment, reaching a terrifying number of 12 cannons in one company.

However, hope is beautiful and reality is cruel. Teng Yuzhao is now powerless. He cannot learn even if he wants to. The reason is actually because of the roads and horses in the country.

You should know that the Krupp 75mm field gun weighs more than one and a half tons, and its operation depends entirely on two iron wheels. Such iron wheels do not have too many problems in passing on the roads of Western Europe, because the road systems of Western powers are relatively complete, the road surfaces are more standardized and solid, and the Western pack horses are all huge in size, so one horse can pull a one and a half ton artillery smoothly.

But this is not the case in China. The main roads in a few areas are still better and the artillery carts can move without any problem, but they still need two horses to pull them. The Mongolian horses in China are much weaker than European horses.

Most of the roads in the country are not friendly to heavy artillery carts. The narrow iron wheels often sink into the mud, and it is even more difficult to walk after rain. Especially in the Jiangnan region, it is common for artillery carts to sink into the mud and water, and soldiers are needed to push the cannons at this time.

Moreover, at the beginning of the establishment of the artillery regiment, Teng Yuzhao taught Liu Changfa many artillery combat skills. Among them, Teng Yuzhao had a special requirement for Liu Changfa, that is, at least two artillery positions must be built in each place. Under normal circumstances, or in other words, the standard requirement of the artillery regiment is that in every position that may be subjected to enemy artillery counterattacks, the artillery position must be moved after firing six rounds.

The reason for doing this is to prevent the enemy from calculating the artillery position and destroying one's own artillery position, causing heavy losses.

The reason why six rounds were fired instead of three was mainly because at that time, not to mention the lack of modern reconnaissance means such as gun-aiming radar, even the scientific calculation method of ballistics was not as perfect as that of later generations. The time to calculate the opponent's artillery position based on ballistics was greatly reduced.

In particular, quick-reaction mortars had not yet appeared, and it was still safe to fire six shells at a gun position and then move to another position.

Liu Changfa did not understand at first that they were worried that the enemy would reversely calculate their artillery positions and change positions after firing a few shots. He had been trained by German instructors, and the common practice of the German army and even the Western powers was not to change positions. It all depended on who discovered whose artillery position first.

Moreover, during the bombardment, even if you find that the enemy has locked onto your artillery position, you will still fight back under the fire. It all depends on who calculates more accurately and whose artillery shells are more accurate.

It can be said that at this time and even until World War I, the artillery of the Western powers had to possess extremely strong courage and boldness. Artillery battles were almost equivalent to bayonet battles between the cannons of both sides, or to be more precise, it was equivalent to a duel between cannons.

However, Liu Changfa quickly understood without Teng Yuzao's explanation that Teng Yuzao's method could not only reduce the casualties of the gunners, but also better protect the cannons. As long as the position was moved in time, not only would they not suffer losses, but they could also blow up the opponent's cannons into the sky.

The problem is that such a transfer of positions would still require a large amount of manpower to help during the transfer process. And if the movement is long-distance, according to Teng Yuzao's requirements, the cannons must be completely disassembled for transportation and then reassembled when used. This is actually the practice of the mountain infantry of Western powers, and their ordinary armies would not do this.

Separating the transport parts would also require increasing the number of pack horses.

If the vanguard army also needs to be equipped with artillery like the great powers, then Liu Changfa's regiment will have to add a large number of soldiers and horses, which will cause a series of problems such as increasing the number of artillery shells and horse fodder carried, which will make an artillery regiment very large.

After comprehensive consideration, Teng Yuzao decided to adopt the configuration of the later Beiyang Army artillery, that is, only equipping each post with six artillery pieces.

Upon receiving the news, Liu Changfa hurried over and took Teng Yuzhao to inspect the position while reporting to Teng Yuzhao on the setup of his artillery position.

Taking into account the limited time left for their artillery regiment to build positions, each artillery position only built one backup position, but the positions of the three artillery posts were not in the same place. Only one post was used to suppress the enemy infantry attack, and the other two posts, one was ready for battle, and the other was responsible for suppressing the enemy artillery.

Only in an emergency, such as when the enemy was about to break through a regiment's position, would he respond to Liu Yuzhi's request and use all his artillery fire to intercept the attacking enemy.

The baggage sentry carrying ammunition shall find another sheltered location, no less than 500 meters away from the artillery position.

Liu Changfa's arrangement was actually a waste of firepower, but considering that Seymour would not carry too many cannons, as long as he launched an artillery attack before the attack, the artillery post hidden by Liu Changfa would soon make Seymour's artillery suffer.

Moreover, as long as the coalition forces did not change their offensive method, Teng Yuzhao was not worried that the coalition forces would break through Liu Yuzhi's defense line. Six cannons on one sentry post would be enough to blow up the coalition forces' offensive formation.

Liu Changfa also told Teng Yuzhao that the artillery positions of the Second Battalion, which cooperated with Li Xianze's Second Regiment, were arranged in the same way.

Teng Yuzao, who was also very familiar with the artillery profession, was very satisfied with Liu Changfa's arrangement. It was both orthodox and innovative, which made Teng Yuzao praise Liu Changfa a lot. Liu Changfa's face was shining with joy.

Liu Yuzhi's position was basically arranged according to the position that Teng Yuzao had fought in the great victory of "Beiyang Military Academy", except that Liu Yuzhi now had more Maxim heavy machine guns and more personnel, so the position was naturally more tightly defended than the position arranged by Teng Yuzao, and the firepower density of the battalion's twenty-one Maxim heavy machine guns was also strong enough.

In such a position, as long as the heavy machine gun firepower point cannot be effectively destroyed, even Teng Yuzhao would not dare to command the troops to launch a rash attack.

Thanks: 160719143404526 book friend for the reward!
Thanks: 20210101172928180, Laogui Wu Ge, Nianhua Yixiao, Ai Qiaojo, Qingdaojian and other book friends for their strong support!
Your support is the driving force of Zuima!


(End of this chapter)