Show the sword, start from the guerrillas

"Um, deputy captain, come here..." Zhao Danian gestured to Zhu Xingyu, then pulled Li Yuexuan aside. The three of them gathered together and said, "This mortar is good, but I estimate that the headquarters will most likely not launch this product. So, I think we should report it, send a finished product, and then we can leave the rest to us."

"We can't control other troops, but our detachment..." Zhao Danian pointed to several company commanders who were gathered together and said, "I think it is necessary to equip them to make up for the lack of artillery!"

"I support Lao Zhao's opinion! Before you made this mortar, Lao Zhao and I were discussing whether to add a few more mortars to each battalion's mortar company to ensure that each battalion's infantry company has an 82 mortar available, and to ensure that the battalion headquarters has a certain amount of artillery. Now that you have made a 60 mortar, there is no need to increase the number of 82 mortars!" Zhu Xingyu said.

"Since both of you said so, I definitely have no objection. After all, the purpose of imitating this 60 mortar is to use it for all the companies in our detachment!" Li Yuexuan said with a smile: "Then, let's see how many mortars are appropriate for each company? Equipped with one, the company headquarters can command at any time to support the entire battlefield; equipped with three, each platoon can have one; equipped with four, the company headquarters can still keep one, making the entire company's artillery more powerful! Of course, whether it's three or four, just form a light mortar platoon."

"No matter what, the 60mm mortar is only used for artillery support by the company and platoon, and it is a small-caliber artillery on the front line. The 82mm mortar is at the battalion and regiment level, and the 120mm heavy mortar is at the regiment and detachment level!"

"Old Zhu, with our financial resources, how many guns should we equip each company? Let me tell you first, one is definitely not enough, it is too few, we need at least two!" Zhao Danian said.

"With our financial resources, it is no problem to equip each company with four mortars. The problem is that to equip four mortars, we have to add four mortar groups. Even if each mortar group has only six soldiers, we have to increase the staff by 4. The key is that there is also the logistical pressure of carrying the shells, which requires more manpower! Unless, we reduce the number of heavy machine guns, but we still can't have a shortage of heavy machine guns."

"The strength of our current infantry company is maintained at 150 people, and it still seems a little insufficient. If we add mortars, the number of people in the company will reach over 180!" said Zhu Xingyu.

"The more people there are, the better. If we send out a squadron to fight the Japanese alone, our strength will be just on par with the Japanese's! Let's not talk about anything else now. As long as we can feed these soldiers and guarantee their training supplies, that will be enough!" Zhao Danian said after thinking for a while.

"In this case, we can only recruit soldiers and add new soldiers to our detachment to get the whole team up and running!" Zhu Xingyu said.

"Then recruit soldiers and train them! It takes time for the arsenal to build mortars, and it also takes time to select qualified artillery teams from veterans for training. Three months is just the right amount of time to complete it!" Zhao Danian said.

"Okay, then let's calculate how many more troops are needed, and then arrange conscription training and select veterans to form a mortar learning team! Well, should we arrange it according to how many mortars a company has?" Zhu Xingyu said, looking at Li Yuexuan and asked, "Captain Peregrine, what do you think?" "My opinion is to follow the maximum number. After all, it's training, and training more mortar operators won't delay things. Prepare according to the highest number of 4 mortars per company, and then equip in small batches first, and finally fully equip. For example, arrange two artillery groups in a company first, and when they are almost in sync, and we have new mortars, we will continue to increase them! What do you two think?"

"Then do as you say! Okay, now let's talk about which companies should be equipped with 60mm mortars! Let's stop here with the equipping of 82mm mortars. Each battalion, including the main regiment, will have 6 guns, which is the maximum! Our mortar battalion's 27 120mm mortars are also the maximum. So which companies need to be equipped with 60mm mortars?" Zhao Danian looked at Zhu Xingyu, then at the company commanders.

"We don't need a reconnaissance company. What we need is mobility. They don't even have heavy machine guns and have few people, so there's no need to equip them! Also, there's no need for the guard platoons of each brigade to be equipped with mortars. Light machine guns and grenade launchers are enough to defend the safety of the team headquarters! When we really need them to fight, it won't make any difference whether they have mortars or not!" said Zhu Xingyu.

"Well, what I want to say is that the 82 mortar combat group of the special operations team can be replaced. Directly change from two 82 mortar combat groups to three 3 mortar combat groups. And for the quick reaction company, since they want to be fast, the 60 mortars and heavy machine guns can be directly abandoned. In their blocking battle this time, the heavy machine guns actually didn't play such a big role, so the heavy machine guns will be directly mounted on vehicles and no longer accompany the battle!"

"The two 82mm mortar combat groups of the quick reaction company were also split on the spot and turned into three 3mm mortar combat groups. The 60mm mortar shells are light and can carry more shells to fight, which is suitable for them!"

"Okay, since the reconnaissance companies of each battalion don't want it, and the special operations team and quick reaction company need 6 guns, then according to our current organization, there are a total of 6×3+7... That's 25 companies, requiring 100 60mm mortars... Add those 6 guns, and that's 106 60mm mortars? Hiss... isn't this a bit too much?" Zhu Xingyu kept calculating and he became unconfident in his own calculations.

"106 guns? We need to add 100 artillery groups, which means the establishment of 600 people needs to be increased. We also need special transportation personnel, so the establishment of at least 400 people... 1000 people?" Zhao Danian calculated the number of people and was a little scared. Adding 1000 new recruits to the detachment at once, the number of people in the entire detachment would have to be over 7000.

Of course, this is not the key point. The key point is to tell the comrades in other detachments and brigades that our Beishan Detachment has 60 106 mortars in stock... What will other comrades think?
"Hehe, how about we reduce it? Equip two guns first, and then get three guns after a year or two? Don't even think about 3 guns, it's a bit too much!" Zhu Xingyu said.

"You two are a little timid. Aren't they just 106 60mm mortars? We will produce 300 of them first, recruit 1000 soldiers, and train 106 artillery teams. As long as our food and supplies can sustain it, we will follow this standard!"

"106 60 mortars may seem like a lot, but if we spread them out, our base is so large that each company only has 4 mortars. If necessary, a company will need to defend a large area! Besides, we are still fighting the Japanese devils. Who else should we fight after we defeat the Japanese devils? Don't forget that Hu Zongnan's hundreds of thousands of troops are still waiting in Xi'an!" Li Yuexuan said. (End of this chapter)