Chapter 13: The Footsteps of Military Industry (Part 2)
In addition, the universality of bullets in this era was very poor. Even if the bullets for rifles, light machine guns and heavy machine guns were exactly the same, they often couldn't be used universally due to different feeding methods. In order to ensure the firepower of the machine gun, the arsenal had to assign personnel to manually load rifle bullets one by one into empty magazines and ammunition belts, which wasted even more labor than reloading bullets...
Helpless, Hu Weidong had to ask the machine gunners to be as frugal as possible and not use long bursts when short ones would do. In addition, those grassroots commanders who basically didn't need more than twenty rounds of continuous fire could only envy the handgun squad members and assault team members (equipped with a shotgun, a single-shot pistol, and a large knife; the shotgun's magazine was compatible with the twenty-round one) who monopolized all the original Mauser pistol bullets...
Anyway, the bullet can be reloaded, which is not a bad thing. In addition to the captured equipment and materials, there are many surplus, and after the main force of the Red Army left, more than a dozen original Guangzhou Arsenal technicians who survived the guerrilla warfare came to join, greatly strengthening the technical strength of the arsenal. Therefore, Hu Weidong quickly developed several new products with relatively simple production processes in addition to bayonets and reloaded bullets, namely wooden-handled hand grenades, explosive tubes, mortar shells, and landmines...
The structure of the wooden-handled grenade is similar to that of the most commonly used grenades during the War of Resistance, but its power is slightly inferior due to the use of cheaper ammonium nitrate explosives. However, under Hu Weidong's extreme emphasis and strict management system, the quality of the grenades produced by the arsenal was always reliable, with a fuse ignition time error of no more than 0.2 seconds (2.8-3.2 seconds), allowing soldiers to wait boldly for two or three seconds before throwing them out, making the grenade explode in mid-air as much as possible, greatly enhancing its lethality against enemy forces. In actual combat, it performed even better than the grenades produced by other arsenals. After the main explosive was changed to more powerful explosives like TNT, the advantage became even greater.
The explosive tube was basically eliminated in later generations, but until the Korean War, it was a very practical weapon. In design thinking, Hu Weidong drew on the 98-style explosive tube used by the Japanese army during the Anti-Japanese War, which can not only be used by explosive hands but also as a 60mm mortar shell (in order to increase its power, even hand grenades or explosive tubes can be hung outside, with a very surprising lethality, although the range and accuracy are somewhat poor, but it has a remarkable effect on dense enemy groups and enemies hiding in fortifications), with 3 kilograms of explosives, an all-steel structure, and an explosive force greater than that of a 75mm shell, only due to insufficient steel production, it cannot be mass-produced for the time being.
The technical content and material requirements of the mortar shell are not high, and with the talents and equipment of the ordnance factory, plus Hu Weidong's guidance, it is not difficult to produce. However, the production speed is still frustrating. But Hu Weidong's flat-shooting modification of a mortar made Liu Hai admire him endlessly. With the flat-shooting cannon, the difficulty of attacking fortifications will be much smaller for the militia battalion in the future. Moreover, the artillerymen of the militia battalion have not only conventional mortar shells but also explosive tubes with greater power than ordinary mortar shells. In theory, as long as it is not a reinforced concrete permanent fortification that can withstand heavy artillery fire, the militia battalion can easily destroy it...
The production of landmines was even simpler, as long as there were enough materials, even a manual workshop could produce them in large quantities. However, Hu Weidong did not plan to have the ordnance factory produce many, because the troops were mainly on the offensive at present, and besides, there were various makeshift mines made from hand grenades, explosive tubes, and even rifle bullets that could be used.
In order to start technical reserves as soon as possible, the types of landmines produced by the ordnance factory were very comprehensive, including tripwires, treadle mines, anti-personnel mines, anti-tank (vehicle) mines, delayed-action mines, stone mines (including those with ceramic jars and other civilian containers as shells), Hu Weidong himself didn't know how to use them, he just made an early demonstration for the future base army...
By the end of January 1935, the militia regiment had controlled more than 80% of the villages and nearly 30% of the towns in Xingguo County, with a population of over 60,000 people. They captured a large number of weapons and ammunition, and gained a large number of soldiers from the controlled villages and rescued miners. More importantly, dozens of Red Army soldiers and party members who had escaped from the enemy's capture and were hiding in various villages came to join them one after another. This was undoubtedly a timely help for Hu Weidong, who was short of talents. It was with the addition of these backbone personnel and the large number of weapons and ammunition captured that Hu Weidong's troops, although wildly expanding, did not decrease but increase their combat effectiveness. In just one month, they grew from an original regiment to a division...
Relying on the spoils of war, the militia regiment now has 1236 rifles (including 1184 German-made 7.92mm caliber rifles such as the Hanyang Type 88), 3 heavy machine guns, 10 light machine guns, 22 submachine guns, 99 twenty-rounds, and 104 single-shot pistols. There are over 500,000 rounds of rifle ammunition, over 100,000 rounds of pistol ammunition, over 100 hand grenades, and 356 bayonets. The regiment has 2549 people on its roster, with an additional 156 wounded soldiers recovering and 127 captured enemy soldiers requiring ideological education. The arsenal is also expanding in scale, with a total of 132 cadres and workers...
Although Hu Weidong had not yet revealed the banner of the Red Army, the land in Xingguo County was almost all occupied. If the old men in the county seat were still unaware, they would be too slow to react. However, Hu Weidong's strategy of hiding his strength and biding his time had achieved its effect. The commander of the Security Regiment, who thought that the militia team was just a bandit armed force with limited numbers, was worried that the deputy commander of the Special Task Force would take advantage of the situation to thoroughly sideline him, and only agreed to send one regiment to follow Hu Weidong to the countryside to suppress the bandits. The deputy commander was somewhat dissatisfied, but he thought that with more than 400 well-trained and well-equipped special task force members, as well as a security team of over 1,000 people, plus some submachine guns, machine guns, and mortars, their combat effectiveness was stronger than that of a regular army regiment. Even if the bandits were very powerful, they should still be able to easily deal with them.
However, the expansion of the militia's control area not only represents an increase in income and troops but also means a larger and denser intelligence network. Especially now that the militia has captured some horses, it is even faster and more convenient to pass on messages between villages and towns. Therefore, as soon as the national army's reinforcement team entered the militia's control zone, Hu Weidong received the news and leisurely set up an ambush circle...
