Chapter Twenty-Five: Conception
Considering China's current state of poverty and backwardness, Hu Weidong believes that for a long time, the Hua Xia army will face enemies who are superior in mechanization, firepower, air power, and sea power. Therefore, he proposes to focus on studying mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare in mountainous, dense forest, swamp, water network, and Qing Sha (as well as all other terrains that can be used for ambush) five special terrains which are unfavorable for mechanized troops and heavy firepower, as well as urban (or pre-set defensive lines) offensive and defensive battles (this part is mainly to take care of the National Army).
Among them, mountain warfare is the most valued by Hu Weidong, because the other three terrains are not only more difficult to overcome, but also have greater restrictions on their own people. It's not unreasonable that Taizu proposed "independent and self-reliant 'mountain guerrilla warfare'" as the main way of fighting against Japan in the history of anti-war. Since mountain warfare is the most skilled combat method for the Red Army, and later the Eighth Route Army and the People's Liberation Army, it is undoubtedly the right approach to make it the best from the details, so that the advantages can be maximized as much as possible. Hu Weidong also had the idea of establishing a professional mountain warfare force from this.
More than two-thirds of China's territory is occupied by mountains and hills, and the road conditions in China at that time were far from comparable to those in Europe. In many places, not only cars but also mules could not pass through, so it was abandoned for heavy artillery with large caliber, even the 75mm field gun which was considered very light, Hu Weidong decided to use mountain guns and howitzers as the main infantry support artillery, if there is a chance to capture the Japanese Type 92 infantry cannon which is famous for its lightness in the future, that would be better. In short, the basic requirement is that it can be carried by manpower without seriously hindering the marching speed.
In this configuration, the lack of suppressive artillery may be a problem, but considering the People's Army is good at guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare, it is not a fatal flaw. Moreover, if we really need to suppress enemy artillery, it must be a large-scale battle, and we can ask for support from friendly forces, rather than having to equip mountain troops with them, which would affect their most important mobility.
The mountain troops' lack of heavy firepower is inevitable, so the firepower of light weapons becomes extremely important. In Hu Weidong's concept, the infantry of the mountain troops should be equipped with as many automatic weapons as possible, including submachine guns, light and heavy machine guns, and future assault rifles and general-purpose machine guns.
During the War of Resistance against Japan, the greatest threat to the Chinese army (especially psychologically) was their aircraft. Therefore, air defense has been highly valued by Hu Weidong from the beginning. The main force troops started from the regimental level, and there must be specialized anti-aircraft troops in the formation.
Due to the special nature of mountain troops, small-caliber high-altitude guns, high-altitude machine guns, and high-plain dual-purpose heavy machine guns became the main weapons for field air defense. Considering that the mountains themselves are at a relatively high altitude and have complex terrain, as long as the troops are well-trained and tactically sound, the efficiency of air defense operations can still be achieved.
But with such a configuration, it would still be troublesome to encounter armored forces, especially tanks. After all, even in mountainous terrain, it's not impossible to encounter tanks. The Korean War later proved that as long as they were used properly, tank troops could also play a miraculous role in mountainous and hilly areas. Therefore, if the independent division's mountain troops had poor anti-tank capabilities, they would inevitably suffer greatly in the future. Although historically, during the Anti-Japanese War period, the tanks and armored vehicles equipped by Japan were thin-skinned and fragile, even high-speed machine guns or heavy machine guns (using steel-core bullets) could easily destroy their armor, but who knows whether Hu Weidong's time-traveling would trigger a butterfly effect? Moreover, Hu Weidong's intended enemy was not just Japan alone...
In addition, mountain troops also need to attack fortifications from time to time, at which point anti-tank weapons will have a miraculous effect. As for this, the flat shooting of mortars is a solution, but after modification, it is impossible to restore the normal state, and the armor-piercing ability of mortar shells is not strong, after all, it is only an emergency measure. Letting blasters use explosive tubes or even cheaper incendiary bottles is also a solution, but the casualties are too great. As for the 37mm infantry support guns equipped by the National Army, they are not heavy, but the caliber is too small, and they are almost as heavy as mountain cannons, Hu Weidong is not very interested in them.
Therefore, the mountain troops obviously still need a portable anti-tank weapon. Before the appearance of anti-tank missiles, the best infantry anti-tank weapon was the rocket launcher. However, with the current capabilities of the arsenal, it is temporarily impossible to produce one. The lack of equipment is one aspect, but the main reason is that the arsenal often needs to relocate, and when developing more complex weapons, efficiency is often extremely low due to repeated interruptions. Therefore, Hu Weidong could only choose a secondary option, opting for the simpler and lower-cost grenade launcher...
With the guidance of Hu Weidong, a genius explosive expert who transcended his time, the development of grenade shells in the arsenal was much smoother than Wu Yunzhong's in history. Later, after the expansion of the arsenal, Hu Weidong not only developed hollow-charge armor-piercing grenade shells (including heavy-duty shaped-charge grenade shells that could destroy brick and stone structures) but also other variants. Even against Western tanks with thicker armor (compared to Japanese tanks), one shot was enough to destroy them. The rocket launchers they later developed were even more unstoppable, capable of penetrating the armor of heavy tanks. Due to Hu Weidong's transcending of this space-time continuum, the balance between spear and shield was disrupted, producing far-reaching consequences that not even Hu Weidong himself had anticipated...
Of course, these are just Hu Weidong's ideas for the time being. Due to insufficient equipment, he can only write this idea in "Cao Dian" for now. It wasn't until later when he had his own large-scale arsenal that Hu Weidong was able to organize a team of mountain tigers according to his ideas...
It must be said that Hu Weidong had the leisure to find Sun Liren to co-author "The Manual of Operations" largely because the independent division has become increasingly powerful, making him feel much more relaxed. One reason for this, which cannot be ignored, is the benefits gained from occupying Pingxiang, which in some sense even exceeded the spoils of war from the battles of Yongfeng and Xin'an.
The population of Pingxiang is as high as several hundred thousand, and the proportion of industrial workers is also high. The mass base is good, and this year's economy is not doing well, so many factories in Pingxiang have started to lay off employees and reduce salaries (historical fact). Being a soldier and eating military rations is better than fleeing from famine, isn't it? Therefore, the expansion of the independent regiment was very smooth. Additionally, Pingxiang did not suffer from long-term war damage like other counties in the Soviet area, so the proportion of young people is high. Hu Weidong also did not plan to develop it into a base area (the transportation is too convenient), so he recruited as many soldiers as possible. Moreover, Hu Weidong was not as honest as Zhu and Mao when they came to Pingxiang to expand the Red Army in the past, relying solely on voluntary enlistment. He just wanted to let qualified young people join, and came up with a lot of tricks. As a result, the independent regiment recruited more than 10,000 people in Pingxiang alone, all of whom were good soldier material...
