Chapter 521 New Equipment on Wheels
In recent years, the vehicle industry in the Principality of Wesson has developed rapidly under Frederick's great attention. There are now several automobile factories, and the emerging factories are digging deeper into certain areas. The route in one field has brought great pressure to Benz's automobile factory.
Currently, Benz's car factory is still the car factory with the strongest technical strength, so the headquarters gave them orders for military vehicles, but made it clear that starting from next year, public bidding will be used to purchase vehicles.
In the early days of the founding of the army, the Weisen Army had the practice of moving double peashooters onto horse-drawn carriages. Now that there are cars, this tradition naturally continues.
It’s just that the roads in this era were so bad that it was easy to get stuck in the mud during the rainy season. Only after a sufficient four-wheel drive system was developed, military vehicles were officially put on the agenda.
Previously, Eugene accidentally raised the price of lace cloth, which increased the income of the principality. The headquarters assigned his division three more artillery companies.
But Eugene retired the three cannons and replaced them with better things.
Based on the current establishment of the Wesson Army, the division where Eugene is located is the 3rd Division. Outside the division headquarters, there are three main regiments: 31, 32, and 33, as well as division-affiliated guard battalions, artillery battalions, engineer battalions, and transportation There are more than 10,000 regiments and logistics battalions composed of medical soldiers and cooking soldiers.
On the fourth day after the power delta wing was pulled away, Eugene summoned the commanders and chiefs of staff of the three main regiments to the division training ground for an on-site meeting.
The army is not out of touch with society. The orderlies behind all leaders help the leaders hold a thermos cup. The words engraved on it are either meritorious service or the first battle they participated in. Only You Jin's is the first in the military academy.
Most of the division's chief of staff, regiment commander and battalion commander were mercenaries from the Black Forest. They had fought with Frederick all over the place and had qualifications and military exploits. It was not easy for Eugene to convince them.
Eugene’s recipe is very simple, let everyone know that just follow the meat you have to eat.
So he recently retreated three artillery batteries, then grabbed equipment and offended his brother troops. Today is the time to divide the meat.
The open space at the training ground was filled with various vehicles. Engineers from the Springfield Arsenal explained the performance of these vehicles to Eugene and the others.
Due to technical reasons, all vehicles use the same chassis, but the freight model is a bit longer. Theoretically, each vehicle can be built into a new vehicle by disassembling a good part. This is a bit of a mistake. smell.
The standard model of this car is 4 meters long, 1.8 meters wide, and 1.88 meters high including the ceiling. It has a newly developed 50-horsepower implosion engine, adopts front and rear leaf spring non-independent suspension, has a load capacity of 800 kilograms, and a chassis height of 30 centimeters. The tires are much larger and wider than ordinary vehicles.
The cargo model has a longer body and a load capacity of 1.5 tons. It can put two rows of seats in the carriage, 12 people in a class, and a lot of supplies.
I don’t think much about comfort, as long as I have a car to ride in.
The bodies of these cars are made of thin steel plates with reinforced ribs, and they look like wooden boxes without lids, so they are called box cars.
Springfield Arsenal has installed many weapons on the box truck platform, mainly the Big Pea Type I double-mounted 15 mm caliber heavy-duty pea gun. It uses the jet tank originally used for mortars. Incline bullets at the enemy one kilometer away with a rate of fire of 500×2 rounds per minute.
Traditional magazines could not provide sufficient duration of fire at high rates of fire, so the bullet belt appeared.
The bullet chain of this machine gun is made of canvas, with elastic, unclosed metal buckles nailed at regular intervals, and the bullets are fixed in the buckles.
When shooting, the jet tank drives the lever to push the buckle on the other side of the canvas belt to feed the bullet. When the jet tank is reset, the bullet is pushed into the gun chamber from the buckle, and then shooting.
Someone wanted to use this method of feeding ammunition on howitzers, but Frederick and the logistics department teamed up to stop him. They didn’t have that much money.
Nowadays, the caliber of the Cherry II grenade launcher used by Wesson's individual soldiers has dropped from 50mm to 30mm, the grenade charge has changed from granular black powder to angina pectoris medicine, and the fuze has abandoned the more expensive magic fuze and used relatively The much cheaper passivated mercury fulminate impact fuse has improved its power instead of decreasing it, reducing its cost. At the same time, its reliability, range and bomb carrying capacity have also been improved. This kind of cherry cannon is naturally installed on the car, because the car can be used to pull ammunition, all using large 30-round drums, and the firepower sustainability is greatly improved.
Now there is no way to load mortars on vehicles. Artillery soldiers can only take mortars and ammunition in vehicles and get off the vehicles to shoot.
The same is true for rockets. Personnel, launchers and ammunition are loaded on a cargo-type box truck, and they get off when they are to be used.
The standard box truck is equipped with a small rocket and rocket nest, with only 8 rockets, used to deal with fixed targets.
In addition, there are auxiliary vehicles such as patrol cars equipped with searchlights, communication vehicles equipped with communicators, and cooking vehicles.
During the free visit, Eugene was in a daze. What he had seen and heard in the Wesson Army in the past few years made him feel like he was in a different world.
The war is no longer a face-to-face fight, but begins with the pouring of firepower from hundreds or even thousands of meters away. The influence of individual bravery gradually weakens, and it becomes more of an overall collaboration.
After the visit, everyone held a meeting in the compartment of a troop carrier.
Eugene said to William, the leader of the 31st regiment: "William, I have obtained all the equipment I promised you, and then it is up to you."
The man with the same name as the former king of the Rhine League William once commanded a company of twin peashooters and carriages, and had his own views on the future battle model, believing that future armies would all fight on wheels.
However, his status in the army was low and he was not taken seriously. Few people were willing to listen to his voice, so Eugene approached him to realize his dream.
William had already seen the equipment yesterday and was very excited.
He stood up and replied: "I will definitely live up to your expectations!"
Eugene said to him: "This matter is not my fault, it is me who caused trouble in the headquarters. It's too big. Someone from above handed the note left by the principal to the high command, and the high command agreed to allocate all the equipment to us."
"Now that the equipment is available, your regiment is also following you. It was formed according to the requirements of the government. It depends on you how it performs next year.”
William immediately expressed his position: "I will definitely live up to the trust of the principal and division commander!"
Eugene had previously discussed his ideas for building an army with Erwin, the commander of the 32nd Regiment, and Walter, the commander of the 33rd Regiment. People also expected that the largest piece of meat would be eaten by William, and now they waited for their share.
Eugene said to Erwin and Walter: "There are still a number of freight box trucks, and the automobile factory can provide us with many cars next year. I think these cars should be used intensively."
Erwin and Walter immediately became serious. If the cars were sufficient, they would definitely not emphasize centralized use. If each group was divided into points, they would not emphasize so much. It seemed that they were going to rob them.
Eugene winked at division chief of staff Erich, who said: "The military skills assessment of the 32nd Regiment and the 33rd Regiment will begin today. The official order was issued half an hour ago. You guys You can go directly to the training ground without going back to the regiment.”
The 3rd Division is stationed in the south of the Principality of Wesson, and further south is the Principality of Bain. The large comprehensive training ground of the Wesson Army is in the Putz State to the east, which is more than 200 kilometers away.
It is not a simple matter for a regiment to move all members of the regiment for 200 kilometers, especially when the regiment leader is detained and cannot return to command, relying entirely on the officers left behind. This will test the regiment leader's usual work performance.
(End of this chapter)