It's just that these officers who were born in the formal classes of the Army Officer Academy are not without their faults, that is, they are too old-fashioned, or they only know what is taught in the military academy.
Therefore, when they lead troops to fight, they rarely have to make changes. They fight according to what the instructors in school teach them.
Watching them lead troops to fight is like watching a big retard leading a group of dull little retards. Sometimes you will be pissed to death...
This point has been said by many senior generals, and even reflected on Luo Zhixue's side, saying that it would at least increase the number of teachers in the military academy and teach more tactics...
However, these seemingly rigid officers are disliked by some senior generals in the existing main force. However, in the Second Guards Division and the newly formed 10th Division, their performance far exceeds that of ordinary officers.
On November 3, Luo Zhixue watched the live-fire exercise organized by the 10th Division of the original temporary fifth mixed battalion, which had just arrived in Jinling City by boat.
During the drill, the officers who were leading the drill and came from formal classes all looked old-fashioned and stiff. They even had to tidy up their uniforms and appearance before getting on the horse...
The commanding movements of wielding the sword are also exactly the same, highly consistent!
The most important thing is that the soldiers they lead are like this!
When the soldiers under their command perform various tactical actions, they are like robots. They seem to be uniform, but they always feel very stiff...
How should I put it, they don't look like humans... they look like a group of robots.
Especially when they continued to advance in formation, there happened to be a water-filled ditch in front of one of the infantry posts blocking their way.
But they still foolishly lined up and continued to move forward, ignoring the waterlogged trench in front of them. No soldier hesitated at all and stepped directly in, crossing the waterlogged trench and continuing to advance as a team.
Seeing this scene, Luo Zhixue stood up directly and stared at the queue in front!
These robot-like soldiers are the line infantry in his mind!
What makes the best line infantry?
Develop an instinct for obeying orders.
And under orders, he can ignore everything in the outside world and still execute his tactical actions mechanically and rigidly.
Luo Zhixue didn't know how soldiers were trained in later modern wars, or what specific requirements were placed on soldiers.
However, Luo Zhixue gained some experience of his own after several years of experience in leading troops in war.
In his opinion, when the armies of both sides are fighting, the individual combat skills of the soldiers are not very important, because when fighting in large-scale formations, the individual soldiers' stronger or weaker morale does not have much impact.
What really matters is the formation.
An army cannot be formed without formations. This is true for cold-weapon armies. It is also true for the Chu Army's current army that mixes firearms and cold weapons. It is even more true for a new army like the Tenth Division that uses Suifu rifles.
Because the formation of the new army is thinner, there are often only three rows or simply two rows.
Once the formation is disturbed, loopholes will appear and lead to the collapse of the entire battle line.
In order to form a formation and have the soldiers change the formation according to the orders of the officers, in addition to familiarizing the soldiers with the formation, it is more important to make the soldiers resolutely obey the orders.
If you are asked to take one step forward, you must not take two steps forward.
If you take two steps back, you will never stay where you are.
Only in this way can we maintain timely changes in formation on the battlefield and still maintain a complete formation.
This is very important.
Being able to change formations in time and maintain the integrity of the formation means that you can flexibly maneuver and change formations according to the situation on the battlefield to avoid your own weaknesses being caught by the enemy, especially the enemy cavalry.
You must know that in the many battles of the Ming army in the wild before the Chu army, many times it was because their own cavalry maneuvered and forced the Ming army to change formations. The Ming army did not change formations in time and responded improperly. In the end, loopholes appeared and the Chu army was The cavalry seized the opportunity and attacked fiercely, which eventually caused a loophole in the entire formation. They were crushed by the main infantry of the Chu army and completely defeated.
In addition to this, soldiers are also required to be able to maintain their formation when attacked by various long-range firepower from the enemy.
If one person is killed or wounded in the front, then those in the back row must make up for it in time. If the comrades in the front who are killed or wounded are still wailing in pain, they must turn a blind eye and directly go up to fill their place.
And this requires very high discipline on the soldiers.
If discipline is slightly poor, it will easily stop the soldiers from moving forward, eventually leading to the collapse of the formation.
Previously, the Chu Army emphasized discipline when training new recruits, but there were not many Chu Army troops who could do this.
Let’s not talk about the garrison. Although the morale of the garrison in the Chu army is higher than that of the Ming army, it does not mean that their discipline will be much better. If the casualties are slightly higher, those who should collapse will still have to collapse.
It can only be said that their ability to withstand casualties is stronger than that of the Ming army, but their strength is limited.
In the main force, each unit is different, and the gap is relatively large.
The powerful 1st Division is much better, but other units are slightly worse. Some of the newly trained units are not even that much better than the garrison. For example, the 8th Division fighting on the front line in Hefei performs poorly. Not very good.
The First Division can become the number one ace unit in the Chu Army, and its combat effectiveness even exceeds that of the First Guards Division. That is not just because their equipment is better, the soldiers have better physical fitness, etc., but because the soldiers in the First Division Having received longer training and experienced more battles, they have better discipline and are more capable of withstanding casualties.
Let's put it this way, the 1st Division and the 8th Division squared off to fight.
The casualties of both sides in the early stage must be similar, because both sides have similar weapons and equipment, and their killing capabilities can also be similar.
But when the casualties reach a certain level, it will definitely be the Eighth Division that collapses first, not the First Division.
When the formation of the Eighth Division collapses, the First Division will quickly expand its results and eventually win the entire battle, and the final casualty ratio will be exaggerated.
And now, Luo Zhixue was looking at hundreds of soldiers who had been temporarily designated as the Fifth Mixed Battalion not long ago, but had now been renamed the Tenth Division.
Luo Zhixue saw in them the shadow of the elite soldiers of the First Division.
No, not just a shadow, even better in discipline.
Although these soldiers may not seem as elite as the soldiers in the First Division, and their personal combat skills and courage are somewhat inferior, they are even better than the soldiers in the First Division in terms of discipline.
And this is enough!
Luo Zhixue stood up at this time, and several other senior army and navy generals who accompanied him to watch the exercise also saw the clue.
This temporary fifth mixed battalion, no, the soldiers of the 10th Division have something special.
Finally, everyone, including Luo Zhixue, turned their attention to Brigadier General Ji Baolin, the former commander of the 5th Mixed Battalion and now the deputy commander of the 10th Division.
Luo Zhixue spoke first: "Ji Aiqing, this soldier is well trained. It seems that you have worked hard. Thank you for your hard work."
Hearing Luo Zhixue's compliments in person, Ji Baolin immediately stepped forward to perform a military salute, then bowed his head and said respectfully: "It is the duty of a humble minister to share your worries with you. It's not hard work!"
Luo Zhixue chuckled: "I have personally trained soldiers before. How come it's not hard to stay at the training ground every day?"
"Okay, don't say any more polite words. Later, you can write down your training experience for everyone else to take a look at!"
Then he said to Xu Zhixian next to him: "You can organize a discussion later and conduct a special discussion on the training methods of this fifth mixed battalion!"
With that said, Luo Zhixue glanced at the other generals before continuing: "What are we discussing? Obey the order!"
"There is no army without formations, and formations come from discipline. Since ancient times, a strong army has always been an army with excellent military discipline!"
"And where does discipline come from? It is absolute obedience to orders!"
"Obedience to orders is a soldier's bounden duty. It is the most basic and core point!"
After Luo Zhixue gave a brief speech on the spot, he once again emphasized the importance of obeying orders. The generals below, even the navy generals, lowered their heads and listened quietly.
People with flexible minds have already begun to think about how to make achievements in this and gain Luo Zhixue's approval.
After all, His Majesty brought these things up seriously on this occasion today. This is tantamount to directly telling a group of military generals that this is a shortcut to promotion and wealth. As long as the results are achieved, then His Majesty will treat everyone The attitude of a hero is definitely of great benefit.
Ji Baolin also knew this very well, so on the surface he looked like he was listening respectfully, but in fact he was laughing inside.
He never thought that a group of rigid recruits he had trained by mistake would attract such great attention from His Majesty.
In fact, it was not his original intention to train these soldiers to look dull.
In the first half of the year, he was ordered to serve as the battalion commander of the fifth mixed battalion, exploring various tactics using Suifa rifles.
At that time, in order to better explore the operation methods and new tactics of flintlock guns, the soldiers were prevented from using some of the customary movements of using matchlock guns.
The soldiers in the fifth mixed battalion are all newly selected recruits, and the officers, especially the sentry officers, deputy sentry officers, captains and other officers responsible for the grassroots level are all graduates assigned from the officer academy.
To put it bluntly, they are just a group of new recruits plus a group of novice officers.
These novice officers have not yet experienced real-life combat, and their training is very rigid. They basically follow the training from the book, and they are executed very well.
The distance when the company lines up, the angle of raising the legs, the specific distance of one step, the number of steps to take when hearing a certain slogan, etc. are all specified in detail.
In short, many rules and regulations are formulated according to the book, and even the time required for soldiers to eat and bathe is stipulated...
Then with practice, these soldiers gradually became what they are now: they obey orders, but they have no operational autonomy.
Once there is no officer to command, the soldiers will fall into extreme confusion. It is impossible for them to do what they want to do next, and they will not even be able to escape...
If you ask him why he didn't run away, he will say: I didn't receive the order to escape...
To put it simply, a group of elm-headed people full of taken-for-granted ideas have trained a group of soldiers who only know orders, and have even developed an instinct for obeying orders, and have lost their autonomy in combat.
