The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 58 Infantry Tactics: Origins

It is not difficult to build a slanted position for a platoon to fight. Under the cover of smoke, he led the whole platoon to complete the position in one hour. Building the slanted position was the first thing he had to do. The second thing is to adjust the formation and tactics of the infantry squad.

After covering the constructed position with wooden planks and floating soil to make it concealed, He Wei took his men back to the main position and ordered them to set up the defense. After quickly summoning the squad leaders of each squad to discuss the matter, this matter was also related to the success or failure of the battle. A question with a long history.

The formation of infantry squads and tactics are closely related. He Wei also understood the infantry tactics of this era after receiving the memory of the original owner.

In fact, the earliest infantry tactics accepted by the Chinese army are the skirmisher line tactics widely used during World War I. This tactic still retains the legacy of queuing to kill in the line infantry era.

Its combat form is that the infantry uses the company as the basic combat unit. During the battle, the infantry under the infantry company lines up in one or two horizontal lines in platoons, with a certain distance between each soldier. When the order is given to advance and fire, it is not a free fire, but a collective fire in units of platoons or even companies according to the firing order, which is the so-called platoon shooting. The firing of rows constitutes a line of fire to kill the enemy.

The attack method of this tactic is also very simple. When attacking the enemy's position, the entire regiment and entire battalion are often arranged into skirmish lines one after another to carry out continuous charges. During the battle, volleys of rifles are used to fire Suppress the enemy's position, cover the skirmisher line and continuously assault forward. When they finally approach the enemy's position, they collectively put on their bayonets and carry out a group hand-to-hand charge. One line after another, they charge wave after wave. One wave is repulsed, and the next wave is repulsed. The wave continued to charge, and one row of people was killed. The next row continued to advance with all its strength, charging and attacking like a wave with overwhelming momentum until it broke into the enemy's position.

However, this tactic was based on the insufficient automatic firepower at the time. The firepower output of the troops in the skirmish line charge era was rifles, and there were no light or heavy machine guns. The same was true for the defenders.

In an era when both the attacking and defensive sides lacked firepower, and the only firearms used to attack each other were rifles, this dense formation and wave-like charge were extremely intimidating. Thousands of people charged with bayonets. That scene , not an ordinary shock!The effect of the actual attack is also immediate!
Starting from the Beiyang Army, China mostly learned Japanese tactics. The model orders used in daily education in the army and military academies (i.e., infantry drills, shooting instructions and important orders in formation) were the basis for military academies and army training operations and daily business operations at that time. , which is also a military tutorial that every officer must master, referred to as the Model Order) was also mainly Japanese style. The Japanese army also adopted skirmish line tactics at that time.

Therefore, from the Beiyang period, to the Northern Expedition, to the Central Plains War, and even during the [-]th Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese army has always used skirmishing line tactics.

War is the best weapon to catalyze tactical progress. During World War I, a large number of heavy machine gun equipment, as well as the lightweighting of heavy machine guns and the birth of mortars, doubled the firepower in the hands of infantry. Facing the tide, The defenders squatting in the trenches do not need to be afraid of the skirmisher line of the general attack. The crossfire of heavy machine guns and the fierce shooting of mortars are enough to make the skirmisher line attack bloody.

Instead, skirmishing tactics are used. Compared with skirmishing line tactics, the key point of skirmishing tactics is to completely break up the infantry company, which was originally the smallest combat unit, and use the infantry squad as the smallest combat unit. With the advancement of military technology, With progress, many lightweight machine guns with excellent performance, such as ZB26, Killali ke7, Browning bar, Hotchkiss m1922, etc. have emerged, creating material conditions for the sinking of machine guns into grassroots infantry squads.

Under skirmisher tactics, each squad is equipped with a light machine gun. The infantry squad can be divided into several groups according to equipment and tasks. During the battle, these groups cover each other and advance, completely reviving the old skirmish line tactics.The Chinese army, actually starting from Beiyang, has been using skirmisher line tactics of drawing skirmishers and releasing platoon guns. Although new weapons such as light machine guns, which are crucial to skirmisher group tactics, have long been introduced into China, these weapons It did not bring the Chinese army to the threshold of skirmishing. Many armies simply introduced light machine guns, but there was no tactical innovation at all. For example, the Northeast Army, which was the first to buy light machine guns, had deep pockets and imported a large number of zb26 light machine guns directly from the Czech Republic. Equipped with troops, the firepower is fierce.

The elite Northeastern Army National Defense Brigade has twelve Czech light machine guns in an infantry company, because the Northeastern Army is organized into a company with three platoons, and each platoon is organized into four squads, so each squad is equipped with one.

However, the tactics of the Northeast Army infantry are still skirmishing lines, except that each squad has a light machine gun. If we used to use rifle volleys to form the fire line, now we just add light machine guns to the volley fire line. It's just firepower output.

For example, the Central Army also introduced many Swiss-made Kirari light machine guns, but they were called automatic rifles at the time. From this name, it can also be seen that the tactical positioning of light machine guns at that time was not clear.

The 88th Division and the 87th Division, which participated in the 88th Anti-Japanese War, were also equipped with this Kirali "automatic rifle". However, due to positioning problems, the organization was even more strange. At that time, each platoon of the 87th Division and the [-]th Division had six. Three infantry squads, three of which are all equipped with rifles, are called shock squads, and the other three squads are equipped with rifles and Kirari automatic rifles, called automatic rifle squads. This huge freak formation Not only did it fail to popularize the skirmishing tactics of infantry squads with light machine guns as the core, but also failed to achieve one light machine gun for each squad, but instead made the infantry platoon organization bloated.

It was difficult for a platoon leader to command as many as six infantry squads at the same time. In the end, in addition to the officer platoon leader, each platoon had to add a sergeant to strengthen command, called a "half platoon leader." This was embarrassing. Solved the problem of bloated command.

There is no mention of implementing advanced skirmish tactics!

In the 88th Anti-Japanese War in 87, the [-]th and [-]th Divisions, which adopted this organization, faced the Japanese army that had fully adopted skirmishing tactics. The crazy Japanese not only assigned light machine guns to the infantry squads, but also We also created a grenade launcher, a monster similar to a simple version of a light mortar.

Faced with this kind of Japanese army, the Chinese army in the [-]th Songhu Anti-Japanese War naturally had an extremely difficult time. After that, they were severely damaged by the Japanese army again after the Great Wall Anti-Japanese War. Only then did they catch up and began to introduce a large number of German consultants and German tactics. There was a qualitative change.

(End of this chapter)