In August of this year, after his immediate boss, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, was transferred and promoted, he was appreciated by his superiors and took over the position of commander of the 3rd Battalion, and his military rank was successfully promoted to Army Major.
And he was able to successfully expand the school-level threshold and become the battalion commander of the third battalion because his superiors felt that he was mature and steady, and he had a complete two-year military school learning experience, and had an internship in the 10th Division of the New Class A Division. , one of the few officers in the Fifth Division who knows how to organize and train new-style troops.
Therefore, the superiors specially made a position for him as battalion commander. After he was promoted, he was asked to lead the third battalion to reorganize and re-equip.
As a result, Gan Xinrong's third battalion became the first battalion-level unit in the Fifth Division to undergo reorganization and re-equipment.
Now, after several months of reorganization and refitting, the Third Battalion is ready. The superiors also want to take this battalion out for a walk. They want to test the actual combat effectiveness of this new infantry battalion through actual combat and prepare for the subsequent reorganization and refitting. Provide more experience.
Then, Gan Xinrong received the task of attacking the Western Ming Army pass.
However, after the top generals of the Fifth Division watched this battle, they began to contact the rear one by one, and even sent personal letters to Jinling City, in order to obtain more flintlock quotas and speed up the reorganization and replacement of the Fifth Division. plan.
At the same time, they also requested more 18-pound light howitzers.
In this battle, the top brass of the Fifth Division, including the deputy division commander and chief of staff, came to the front line to observe the battle and recorded in detail the battle, which lasted only one hour.
The normal battle was actually quite satisfactory, with no eye-catching tactical applications. As the front-line commander, Gan Xinrong fought steadily as always, without using any risky tactics.
The entire offensive scene seemed to be written in a textbook. It started with artillery preparations, then frontal containment, and flanking detours. This process was also accompanied by the rapid fire cover of the 18-pound light howitzer, and then the frontal assault by the grenadiers.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly without any surprises, and then the defenders on the opposite side surrendered in full after suffering more than a hundred casualties.
The third battalion suffered two killed and four wounded.
The number of casualties was only six people!
For a battle in which nearly a thousand people participated in the attack and more than 600 people on the defensive side, this small number of casualties was almost unbelievable.
Even in the Chu army, such a low casualty rate is rare.
Behind such a smooth attack, what is reflected is the intensive firepower of the flintlock gun and the powerful firepower of the 18-pound light howitzer.
At the beginning of the battle, the shelling of several two-and-a-half-pound field guns seemed fierce, but in fact it did not achieve much effect because the terrain was complex and the enemy's fortress was not on the plains, but in the mountains. Lack of open shooting range.
Many past actual battles have also proven that small-caliber artillery such as the two-and-a-half-pound field gun that fires solid shells has very limited actual combat effectiveness in offensive operations, and has almost no ability to destroy thick fortifications.
Whether it is a thick city wall, a temporarily dug trench, an earthen fortress, etc., these solid artillery shells that are only the size of a fist cannot be destroyed.
The solid shells that can pose an effective threat to them must be at least the shells fired by the five-pound field gun. In fact, the solid shells of the five-pound field gun are not very popular, and the nine-pound field gun can have a slightly obvious effect.
And it is best to bring a nine-pound long-barreled cannon or even a fourteen-pound cannon, so that it can have a greater destruction effect on such thick fortifications.
However, in mountainous and dense forest areas like Yunnan, let alone these long-barreled cannons, even the nine-pound field artillery basically cannot be transported in. The most powerful field artillery firepower that the Fifth Division can usually obtain can only be Five pounds of field artillery.
Even so, the Fifth Division had to go through great hardships to drag the five-pound field artillery, which weighed several hundred kilograms, into the mountains to fight... because most of the places didn't even have roads that could pass carriages.
Under such circumstances, the only two-and-a-half kilogram field guns that are used more frequently on a daily basis are lightweight and can be disassembled and assembled for pack transportation when necessary.
However, the ability of this two-and-a-half kilogram field gun to attack tough targets is really bad.
In some cases, high-power field artillery is inconvenient to maneuver, and the two-and-a-half kilogram field artillery is not powerful enough. This is also the main reason why the Chu army was unable to push forward in the Yunnan-Guizhou area...
As for why the Chu army insists on pushing back, instead of engaging in all kinds of messy tactics like many armies, such as interspersing and running attacks, most of the Chu army generals said: In the mountainous area without roads, you can carry Can you show me a five-pound field cannon that's several hundred kilograms larger, or even a nine-pound field cannon that's one or two tons in size?
What, you asked me not to bring artillery, but to directly send infantry to carry out a lightly armed attack...
You are crazy and I am not crazy yet!
I obviously have so many artillery pieces that I don’t need them, so I insist on imitating those paupers who engage in infantry warfare on foot. Isn’t that crazy?
For most Chu army generals, fighting without strong artillery support was unimaginable.
Strong artillery support also requires good roads to provide support. Whether it is the mobility of the artillery itself or the subsequent ammunition supply, roads need to provide support.
Once they encounter a mountainous area with no roads, the Chu army's advancement speed will often drop rapidly. In many cases, in order to attack a place, they have to build a road first... otherwise artillery and carriages transporting baggage will not be able to pass.
By the way, many people in the mountainous areas expressed their gratitude to the Chu army for building roads while fighting. As long as the main force of the Chu army came, even deep mountains and old forests would often leave you with a road large enough for carriages.
Even if this road is just a temporary dirt road, it may be blocked by landslides after the next rainy season and the road will become muddy.
But at least there is a road that can pass carriages, which is much better than those paths that can only be passed on foot.
Generally speaking, when it comes to fighting in mountainous areas, the Chu army prefers to take their time, build a road, and then pull the artillery over to fire.
The enemy won't run away anyway, and they can't be beaten.
As for throwing down the artillery, and then stupidly leading the infantry directly into the mountains, the bows and arrows and various old-style cannons in the hands of the Ximing army and the chieftain soldiers are fake...
Therefore, at the very least, the Chu army will fight with two and a half kilograms of field artillery.
It's just that the two-and-a-half-pound field artillery was not very effective in offensive operations. This shortcoming was once again fully reflected in the offensive operations of the third battalion.
What really provided fire support to the third battalion was the 18-pound light howitzer.
These four 18-pound light howitzers are actually not the fixed artillery of the Fifth Division, but belong to the temporary fifth howitzer battalion under the Yunnan-Guizhou Campaign Command.
This howitzer battalion was also the first time that the Chu Empire Army deployed an 18-pound light howitzer on the Yunnan battlefield.
The Dachu Empire had already formed several 18-pound light howitzer battalions. The previous three were deployed on the northwest battlefield. The fourth howitzer battalion had previously participated in the Sichuan campaign and was currently preparing to move to Guizhou.
The temporary fifth howitzer battalion was the first time the Chu army deployed this new type of artillery in Yunnan and Guizhou. It was split up as soon as it arrived and then transported to the front line to support the operations of the fifth division.
To be precise, this battle was the first time this new type of artillery was used on the battlefield in Yunnan.
Although this new type of artillery has appeared for nearly a year, the battlefield effect of this new type of artillery is too good. As soon as it came out, it became the most valued artillery in the army of the Chu Empire, and was given priority to the northwest and northeastern lines. Wire.
As for the Yunnan-Guizhou battlefield, the Chu army seems to be making slow progress here and the fight is not easy. However, the remnants of the Xi Ming army and the local chieftains here are unable to launch any counterattack and pose any actual threat to the Chu Empire. .
The threat from Ximing here is not as good as the threat from Ximing over in Sichuan. After all, there are thousands of new soldiers there, and the chieftain soldiers under Qin Liangyu are not bad either.
Under such circumstances, it took more than half a year for the Yunnan battlefield to receive support from new howitzers.
The first time it went on the battlefield, this new howitzer produced huge results.
Four 18-pound light howitzers fired more than ten rounds of shelling and basically stunned the defenders on the opposite side.
Taking advantage of the strong fire cover, the 3rd Battalion made a step-by-step detour and successfully occupied the favorable terrain. It used the intensive firepower of the flintlock to carry out a covering rifle fire attack on the enemy infantry.
Faced with such powerful firepower, the remnants of the Ximing Army could not hold on at all, and could not even think of resisting. They once wanted to break out, but the third battalion was intercepted.
So in the end they could only raise the white flag and surrender.
After watching this battle, the top generals of the Fifth Division strengthened their determination to reorganize and refit more infantry battalions. They also wanted to obtain more reinforcements of 18-pound light howitzers.
They believe that this kind of artillery can play a greater role than the five-pound field gun and the nine-pound field gun in mountainous areas with complex terrain, lack of established roads, complex battlefield conditions, and lack of direct aiming environment.
It has excellent maneuverability and can be split for transport when necessary. It has a large-angle curved trajectory, and its accuracy far exceeds that of a mortar, and is only slightly inferior to a field gun. Its rate of fire is equivalent to that of a field gun.
And the 150mm grenade is quite powerful.
All this makes this artillery almost born for mountain combat.
However, the Fifth Division's up and down activities failed to bring them more support from the 18-pound light howitzer.
This artillery is not only valued by the Fifth Division, but also by other friendly forces, especially the frontier troops on the northern front against the Eastern Captives. They value this artillery even more. When the northern battlefield is given priority, the entire southwest battlefield is different. Expect to get too many of these artillery pieces in a short period of time.
However, instead of giving them 18-pound light howitzers, the superiors sent them a batch of 9-pound light howitzers.
