Australian Storm 1876 - Chapter 1090 firepower gap

   Chapter 1090 Firepower Gap

"Since the signing of the German-Russian peace treaty is a high probability event, the Second Army of the Imperial Expedition will be unable to support itself on the Eastern Front battlefield. When necessary, it can return to the Crimea area to wait for fighter planes, and do not make unnecessary sacrifices." Li Fushou said.

He took a sip from the teacup, looked around at everyone, and finally landed on Field Marshal Mo Rufeng, and continued: "Marshal Rufeng, this is just my opinion, mainly because I don't want the 2nd Army to bear too much pressure. , after all, we are here to help, not to fight the main force, and we don’t need to fight with the German army. But how to act depends on the opinions of your army general staff headquarters.”

"Reporting to Your Majesty, the Army General Staff Headquarters, based on the current battlefield situation on the Eastern Front, and the battle plan of General Duan Qixiang, commander of the 2nd Army, still aims to stick to the Kyiv area and does not consider retreating to the Crimean Peninsula for the time being." Marshal Mo Rufeng He stood up, clasped his fists and saluted, and said in a firm tone;

   "The General Staff made such a decision for three reasons;

   First, General Duan Qixiang, commander of the 2nd Army, is an experienced veteran who has always acted cautiously and has a strong desire to fight on behalf of the 2nd Army.

   Retreat without a fight will greatly dampen the morale of the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Group, which is not the best policy.

  Secondly, as the industrial, economic and transportation center of the entire Ukraine region and western Russia, Kyiv is located on the Great Plains of Ukraine. It is very convenient for the rapid assault of the armored corps of the Imperial Expeditionary Force, and it is deeply divided and interspersed to give full play to its combat effectiveness.

  The city of Kyiv has a good defense foundation, and the defensive fortresses are built solidly, which can resist the frontal bombardment of large-caliber artillery. A small number of troops can be dispatched to complete the defense, thus freeing up the hand to organize a mobile corps to attack the invading enemy.

   Third, the 2nd Army received a large number of Russian troops during its garrison in Kyiv, and its officers and soldiers were relatively complete. After supplementing some infantry weapons and artillery, the combat capability can be completely trusted.

  The soldiers of the Tsarist Russian army are not soft-boiled. Subject to the serious shortage of logistical supply, only two people have an old-fashioned rifle and can only eat one meal of black bread a day, and sometimes even such logistical cannot reach it.

   The 2nd Army strengthened its logistical supply after taking in the Tsarist Russian troops. Although it is impossible to say how good the food is, it can still supply two full meals a day, as well as a little cigarette and chocolate for the officers.

   After supplementing the weapons of the Tsarist Russian army, the appearance has been completely new.

   After careful judgment

  The Belarusian army on the western front is relatively elite. Although most of them are illiterate, their combat skills are rough, and their company and platoons have poor ability to cooperate in combat, but this is the reason for training.

  These Belarusian soldiers are strong and brave in battle. They can endure harsh treatment and environment like mules. When the Russian army cannot supply logistics, they can fight for two or three days in a row, which is unimaginable in other troops.

  Admiral Duan Qixiang has the confidence to lead these Russian soldiers and repel any Allied troops entering Western Ukraine. The only condition is to strengthen the logistics supply so that these Russian soldiers will no longer be hungry. "

   "How many Tsarist Russian soldiers are gathered now?"

   "According to the latest report of the 2nd Army; the total number is about 570,000 to 580,000 people. Some of the chaotic stragglers did not collect and sent some food back to the country. Now these Belarusian troops are selected by elites, and their combat effectiveness can be trusted."

   "If the logistical supply is sufficient, how many soldiers can we gather?"

   "If only the elites are selected, there are currently more than 2.6 million Russian troops in Ukraine, and at least hundreds of thousands more can be selected."

"That's no problem, let the 2nd Army gather some more former Russian troops to prepare for the complicated situation on the Eastern Front. In terms of logistics, the supply to the Eastern Front should be strengthened. The General Staff Headquarters should cooperate with the relevant cabinet departments to make appropriate arrangements. "Li Fushou changed his mind.

  Li Fushou's original intention was to preserve his strength. After all, the soldiers were all Chinese children and citizens of the Empire. He was not willing to suffer too much damage on the Eastern Front.

   But the 2nd Army on the Eastern Front was full of fighting spirit and was unwilling to retreat without a fight. This was really unbearable for soldiers who regarded honor as their life.

   And the three reasons stated by the General Staff Headquarters are indeed very reasonable. The Belarusian soldiers gathered by the 2nd Army are excellent cannon fodder. The morale of the army is high, and the geographical conditions are conducive to giving full play to its combat effectiveness.

  Li Fushou followed his good deeds and turned to support the opinion of the Army General Staff Headquarters.

  An industrial power like the Ocean Empire is quite heroic in fighting, with artillery bombardment on the ground, plane bombing in the air, and the flood of iron armor drowning the enemy army, and the fighting method is ahead of the times.

The disadvantage of    is that it costs a lot of money, is highly dependent on logistical supplies, and the level of hand-to-hand combat is not high.

   When the imperial army fought hand-to-hand trench warfare, the standard practice was to first throw a grenade to blast it, then rush over to sweep two shuttle bullets with a Type 03 light machine gun, and finally use a bayonet to deal with the remaining enemies.

  The fighting methods represented by Russia and Japan are much more shabby. Generally, the bullets will be gone after dozens of rounds, and they will charge with bare blades at every turn, and there are thousands of them on a large scale.

   Therefore, in the Russo-Japanese War, hand-to-hand fighting between the two sides was often seen, which was rarely seen in the way of fighting of the Ocean Empire army, and the army did not advocate it.

   This does not mean that the soldiers of the Ocean Empire are not brave enough. It can only be said that the difference in infantry tactical concepts, the difference in strength between industrial countries and agricultural countries, there is not enough supply of shells and bullets, so they can only fill it with human lives.

   has gathered nearly 600,000 Belarusian soldiers, and the 2nd Army has a total force of more than 960,000 soldiers. It is very confident that it will play a glorious role in the Eastern Front battlefield, and will not show signs of being with the Germans.

   Now on the Eastern Front

  Austro-Hungarian Empire, the total number of the Ottoman Empire coalition forces is about 3.1 million, and the German army has between 550,000 and 800,000, and the maximum number is no more than one million.

  Why did the numbers of the German army fluctuate so much?

   This is because Germany is fighting in the inner circle, and can use the developed domestic railway transportation to mobilize the army back and forth. When an offensive campaign is launched on the eastern front, the general reserve on the western battlefield will be mobilized to strengthen the attack force.

After    defeated the Russian army, he used the railway line to quickly transfer it back to make a time difference.

   When the battlefield on the western front was tight, the German troops on the eastern front were mobilized to support, and the fighting method was very flexible.

   Since the outbreak of the war in 2014, the Russian army has mobilized more than 16 million troops in total, and suffered more than 9,347,000 casualties in the war.

   In addition, there is another important reason, that is, the serious shortage of Russian artillery, and the military production capacity is hindered. This is too far from the German army armed to the teeth, so it has been crushed and beaten, and the casualties of the soldiers are huge.

  The Germans have the advantage of weapons and equipment. The Germans and allies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the central battlefield have a total of 14,400 cannons, thousands of heavy artillery pieces of the army, and sufficient ammunition supply.

   In comparison, at the beginning of the war, the Russian army had 959 artillery companies with a total of 7088 guns, of which only 40 were heavy guns. The firepower of the two sides was obviously not at the same level.

for example

In the Battle of Golicce-Tanov on the Eastern Front in May 1915, the Germans set up 1,500 artillery pieces behind the front line, 250 of which were heavy artillery pieces. "Siege guns, as many as 3 million rounds were prepared for these cannons.

   On the other hand, the Russian army was seriously insufficient in artillery equipment, with an average of only 2 artillery pieces per thousand people. This ratio is even less than the ratio of the guns of Napoleon's army a century ago.

  The supply of artillery shells of the Russian army is extremely tight, and the supply of artillery is even more insufficient.

  When attacking the Carpathian Pass, the Russian artillery units were strictly limited to fire only 3 shells per gun per day. If any Russian officer dares to exceed this consumption figure, he will have to engage in military law, and it will be light to lose his head.

On the first day of the Battle of Golicce-Tanov, 1,500 German artillery bombed for 8 hours, destroying all the artillery of the opposite Russian 3rd Army, leaving the 3rd Army without artillery.

   On the second day, the German artillery again showed their might. In 4 hours, they fired 700,000 shells. The intensive artillery fire covered more than 30 square kilometers of the battlefield. .

  The soldiers in the forward positions of the Russian 3rd Army had to withstand the bombardment of more than 10 shells.

   In the attack of the superior German artillery fire, many Russian soldiers were turned into cannon fodder, and some regiment-level combat units were destroyed as organic units.

  The Russian soldiers who survived the heavy artillery fire were also stunned, and basically lost their resistance when facing the rushing German army.

  The Russian 3rd, 8th, and 9th Army Groups were defeated one after another in front of the powerful German army with superior firepower, and Queen Cang withdrew. The 8th Army gave up the Carpathian Pass, the 9th Army gave up Warsaw, and even Poland was lost to the Germans. They were beaten for a thousand miles and suffered heavy casualties.

   In this battle, the Russian army suffered 1.4 million casualties and 1 million prisoners, while the German casualties were only more than 40,000 people.

The German army is well-equipped and well-trained. It is well known to the world that the overwhelming artillery advantage is the magic weapon for the German army to win. On the Eastern Front battlefield, the exchange ratio of 1:10 or even 1:15 is often played (especially for a few battles, the comprehensive exchange ratio is about 1:7.5), overwhelmed the tens of thousands of Russian troops.

   Looking back at the Western Front battlefield, the situation is completely different.

  The artillery fire of the Anglo-French coalition is not inferior to that of the German army, and there are more heavy artillery and more abundant ammunition reserves. Large-scale battles are often bombarded with artillery for five or six days.

   Therefore, on the Western Front, the casualty ratio of the German army to Britain and France is between 1:1.5 and 1:2, and the gap is not too big.

  In the case where the heavy firepower is not much different, this reflects the characteristics of the German army's stronger combat skills, tighter organization, and higher comprehensive combat effectiveness.

   At the end of the Battle of the Somme

The German army had suffered enough from the "air-land battle" of the Ocean Empire. Even if they hid in trenches more than 30 feet deep, they could not avoid the tragic fate of being bombarded indiscriminately. Battle damage ratio.

   The difference is firepower. The German army is good at it, and the Ocean Empire Expeditionary Force is better at it, and it can organically combine air firepower and ground firepower, and cooperate with armored forces to break through the solid defense line, and the Germans are full of heads.

   So, there is nothing shameful about bullying people with firepower, and this is what the Ocean Empire army is good at.

   (end of this chapter)