readx; In 1915, the war in Europe continued, and more brutal than the second half of last year, in the first half of the year, the German army sent the main force to the Eastern Front, and the Austro-Hungarian army advanced hundreds of kilometers to the Eastern Front, Russia was under great military pressure, in order to relieve the huge pressure of this important ally of Russia, the British and French forces launched a large-scale counteroffensive on the Western Front, and launched a large-scale offensive in July and August, which caused a total of up to one million casualties on both sides, The machine guns of both sides of the war were fully exerted in this well-prepared battle on both sides, constantly refreshing the single casualty records of both sides of the enemy, and the British and French troops reached more than 50,000 casualties on the highest day, and the German casualties were not small, because the German army at that time implemented an active defense policy, that is, to compete with the British and French forces for every inch of land, every line of defense, and after a certain line of defense was lost, the German army would quickly organize troops to counterattack, However, when the Germans carried out a counteroffensive, they also enjoyed the baptism of heavy machine guns during the previous Anglo-French attack. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

This is a battle in which both the attacker and the defender suffered heavy casualties, and the Anglo-French casualties can be said to be out of the need to take the initiative to attack, but the heavy casualties of the German army are entirely due to his rigid active defensive policy.

In order to change the huge casualties and rigid tactics of the front line, the Germans began to adopt infiltration tactics, that is, suddenly concentrated large-scale artillery fire and poison gas bombardment in the gap between enemy forces and weak defensive areas, and then a small number of elite lightly armed troops raided the weak areas in the middle of the enemy army, bypassed the enemy's fire support points, broke through the enemy's depth and cut off the enemy's communications and support. At this time, heavily armed units armed with flamethrowers, light infantry guns and a large number of machine guns began to attack head-on, creating an opportunity to break through the enemy's defenses.

After suffering heavy casualties in several counteroffensive operations, the British and French forces also began to reflect on how to break through the German defense line more effectively.

At this time, the mortars pioneered and equipped by the national army also began to equip the armies of various countries one after another, and only the Russian army was equipped with a small number of mortars imported from China in European countries at the beginning, and these mortars did not bring much advantage to the Russian army to be honest, because the eastern front did not form a positional war like the western front, but still a traditional movement war. However, after the Germans captured some of the mortars equipped by the Russian army, their officers found that these mortars were better than their 37mm light infantry guns developed specifically for positional warfare on the Western Front, that is, they were very interested in mortars, and sent these captured 60mm mortars to the Western Front for actual combat tests, and found that the actual combat effect was excellent, so that in just one month, the German arsenal provided hundreds of mortars for the German army on the front line, and it was in the needs of German infantry tactics, The German army redesigned a 50mm mortar on the basis of the Chinese 60mm mortar, which is in Germany's strong military industry design and manufacturing capabilities, this 50mm light mortar can be better than the Chinese 60mm mortar in all aspects, and the weight is greatly less, so that this 50mm mortar can really accompany the infantry on the front line for mobile combat.

During the war, the opponent appeared any new equipment and tactics are worthy of attention, the German army's infiltration tactics in a short period of time on the north and south British and French forces copied and used, the same German army began to equip a large number of mortars on the Western Front, the British and French forces also began to equip a large number of mortars, and directly re-established their own mortars with China's 60 mm mortars, of which the British [***] team was equipped with 57 mm mortars, and the French army directly imitated the caliber of China's 60 mm mortars.

After the appearance of mortars on the Western Front in Europe, countries redesigned their infantry tactics. What is even more noteworthy is that unlike the large number of 60 and 80 mm mortars that are equipped at the same time, the vast majority of the countries on the Western Front are equipped with 60 mm light mortars, and there are only a very small number of larger-caliber mortars such as 80 or even 120 mm. This is inseparable from the battlefield environment of the Western Front, the artillery in the Western Front is too concentrated, and now it is a positional war, there is no movement war at all, and those infantry units that are rarely moved for most of the year can get a large number of intensive heavy artillery support at any time, what they lack is light artillery that can accompany the infantry in mobile combat, for which various countries have developed small-caliber infantry guns before, such as Germany's 37 mm infantry gun is this kind of product. However, because the coverage rate of artillery fire in the Asian battlefield is far inferior to that of the European battlefield, and the geographical environment of positional warfare has not been formed on the Chinese battlefield, movement warfare is still the main theme, so it needs 80 mm and 120 mm of medium and large-caliber mortar fire support.

In 1915, the belligerent countries suffered great casualties, in addition to the loss of personnel, more economic losses, after more than a year of domestic support, even the industrial capacity of Britain, France and Germany also felt that they could not cope with the increasingly huge demand for materials, Britain and France have increased the purchase of foreign materials, in addition to the United States, this part of the country also in Asia and China to carry out a large number of military material purchases. Russia, which has the weakest industrial capacity among the participating countries, has begun to have a serious shortage of ordnance, and its own insufficient production can only rely on imports, while the ordnance of China, the most neighboring country, has entered service in the Russian army in large quantities, and the M1897 rifles imitated by the Nanjing Light Weapons Arsenal specially for the export of the Russian army have begun to be supplied to the Russian army in large quantities, with a monthly supply of nearly 10,000 pieces.

The new light machine gun developed by the Nanjing Light Weapons Arsenal itself has begun to be exported to the Russian army in batches even when it is not equipped with the [***] team, this light machine gun is a light machine gun redeveloped and designed by the Nanjing Light Weapons Arsenal with reference to its own equipment Madsen light machine gun and many light machine guns on the European battlefield, and the design goal is to provide machine gun fire support for the team.

There are several versions of this 1915 light machine gun, with a caliber of 7.92 mm, as well as the standard caliber of 7.62 of the Russian army, as well as the 6.5 mm caliber of the Japanese army and the standard caliber of 6.8 mm stipulated by the army at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The reason why so many calibers appeared in this newly designed light machine gun, except for the 7.62 mm caliber, which was specially designed to supply the Russian army, the other calibers were the product of the Chinese Army's hesitation about the future caliber.

This kind of thing is not only manifested in the 1915 light machine gun, but also in the army's choice of the next generation of rifles, because the Chinese army is equipped with a large number of 1888 committee rifles, Hanyang-made and 1912 rifles and 'Ben 30-year-old, 38-year-old rifles, except for the 38-year-old rifle, the others are old and outdated products, and the combination of a variety of main rifles at the same time makes the logistics system of the [***] team multiply. The military has long wanted to unify the rifles of the army, and was preparing to unify the armament of the 1912 rifle, but because the 1912 rifle was outdated and backward, the military just gave up this idea, began to choose other candidate rifles and began to design new rifles on its own.

From the end of 1914 to the second half of 1915, after a large number of tests, the army finally selected the 6.8 mm caliber as the standard caliber of China's next-generation rifle, and the rifle decided to redesign the German Mauser 98K rifle based on the German Mauser 98K rifle after referring to some of the advantages of several other rifles, and then designed a 6.8 mm rifle on this basis.

Compared with rifles, the design of rifle cartridges is more important, and the Army's Ordnance Bureau has successively tested 7.92*57 rifle cartridges, 7.62*57 rifle cartridges, 7.62*54 rifle cartridges, 7.62*47 rifle cartridges, 6.8*54 rifle cartridges, 6.8*50 rifle cartridges, 6.5*5.4 rifle cartridges, 6.5*50 rifle cartridges and many other types of ammunition; Among these calibers, 7.92 mm is the caliber of the German army, and it is also the standard caliber of a large number of 1888, Hanyang-made and 1912 rifles in the Chinese [***] team, 7.62 mm is the standard caliber of the United States and Russia, and 6.8 mm rifle cartridges are the standard caliber of Chile and other countries, and the late Qing Dynasty originally positioned 6.8 as the standard caliber, but after the Xinhai Revolution, it was gone. As for the 6.5 mm, there are more countries that use it, such as the Arisaka 6.5x50 mm bullet, the Italian 6.5x52 mm M1891 bullet, the Dutch/Romanian Manlisa bullet, the Greek Manlisya-Schönauel bullet and the Swedish 6.5x55mm Mauser bullet.

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Generally speaking, these calibers are used by the country's army, and which one is the most suitable for China, which is not just a casual talk, but needs to go through a lot of tests to get relevant results. In a large number of test results, 7.92 * 57 bullets were first excluded, the reason is very simple, that is, the caliber is too large, the recoil is too large for the physical use of Chinese, and 7.62 * 54 rifle bullets also have similar problems, and 6.5 mm of many rifle bullets, although the recoil is small, but some surnames can make the military not very satisfied, of course, this is also related to the military's intention not to use a unified caliber bullet, which is purely a psychological factor, Emotionally, the military is not very acceptable.

After such a selection, the military chose to use the 6.8*50 rifle cartridge and designed the 1916 rifle with this rifle cartridge, which has been in small trial production and delivered to the military for a large number of training experiments, in order to find and solve all the problems before the large-scale production of a full-scale replacement of the rifle in service.

After choosing 6.8 * 50 as the standard rifle cartridge, the 1915 type light machine gun developed as a supporting Oh also officially stipulated the caliber as 6.8 mm, and the rifle and light machine gun used 6.8 * 50 rifle cartridges in a unified manner, when the 6.8 * 50 rifle cartridge was tested for heavy machine guns, it was found that the power and ballistics were too poor, and the 1916 type heavy machine gun improved from the MG08 heavy machine gun was not powerful enough when using 6.8 * 50 rifle cartridges, and the poor trajectory made the military seriously dissatisfied.

The Army's attempts to unify rifle and light machine gun and heavy machine gun cartridges ultimately failed, and the Army finally chose a compromise solution, which was to use a new generation of 6.8 x 50 rifle cartridges for rifles and light machine guns, while heavy machine guns continued to use 7.92 x 57 heavy cartridges. This is mainly a heavy machine gun and does not need to consider the problem of recoil, the power of the bullet is what needs to be considered, in addition, the rifle cartridge and machine gun cartridge of the national army were not universal before, Although the 1912 rifle and the MG08 heavy machine gun use 7.92 mm bullets, the bullets of the two are not the same, the rifle uses a light tip bullet, and the heavy machine gun uses a heavy tip bullet, although the two can be used at critical moments, but it will seriously affect the ballistics surname energy, and it is generally not universal until the critical moment, and because the shape of the bullet is almost the same, it often leads to the mistake of light tip bullet and heavy tip bullet. This time, in order to have the advantage of rifles and heavy machine guns, the army simply used two different bullets.

In fact, from the beginning of World War I to modern times, the armies of various countries are trying to generalize bullets, but although the caliber can be unified, it has always been unbearable, for example, in history, it is said that "Ben's light and heavy machine guns also used 6.5mm rifle cartridges in the early days, but later said" I couldn't bear it myself, so I developed 7.7mm rifle cartridges and used them on light and heavy machine guns. Although the U.S. military is 7.62 caliber, it also has several 7.62 mm arrogance of different lengths, just like the German army's 7.92 rifle cartridges are also divided into ordinary rifle cartridges and machine gun cartridges, in fact, the rifle and machine gun bullets of various countries have never really been universalized, and this is still the case in modern times!

Shen Gang and other military bigwigs do not have an urgent need for generalized bullets, the army needs rifles and light machine guns that can be advanced and suitable for Chinese physiques, and at the same time needs heavy machine guns with enough power, and whether the bullets of the two can be universal is not too much demand, of course, continue to use 7.92*57 bullets as machine gun bullets, but also and Zhong [***] The party reserves a large number of 7.92 mm bullets and is equipped with a large number of MG08 heavy machine guns, those rifles are retired, but those tall thousands of yuan a heavy machine gun is not who can retire can be retired, you must know that the MG08 heavy machine gun equipped by the [***] side, the heavy machine gun numbered in the 1916 type of heavy machine gun in the army has been as high as more than 1,000, which to be retired and re-equipped with other calibers of heavy machine guns, the military needs to spend up to 10 million reloading costs, This is unacceptable to the military.

While the Chinese Army is carrying out a plan to reorganize up to 59 infantry divisions, it is also making the surrounding countries, especially the Army, feel a certain threat, although the military still does not have a high evaluation of the combat effectiveness of the Chinese Army, but in the face of the fact that China has maintained the size of an army of more than one million in peacetime, and will expand to several times at any time in wartime, at this moment there are only 19 divisions and regiments, and the Army feels the shortage of troops, and has repeatedly demanded an increase in the army's military spending. The plan to expand the army from 19 divisions to 25 divisions and expand the army by six divisions has actually been proposed since the outbreak of the civil war in China in Xinhai year, but due to the financial pressure in the country, it has not been approved, and although the financial situation has greatly improved in the past year because of the outbreak in Europe, it has been followed by more military spending proposed by the navy. Stimulated by the contradictions between Britain, France, and the United States on the island of New Guinea in the South Pacific, Ben added two new battleships to the construction program, and this alone would have required an additional $70 million in construction funds beyond the normal naval budget.

At a time when the total budget of the Navy was as high as 50 percent of the total budget of the Navy, it was very difficult for the Army to expand its armed forces under the dual pressure of the Navy faction such as Yamamoto and other naval factions and political officials.

However, because the reorganization plan of the Chinese army is really huge, the navy and the political axe have no choice but to temporarily approve the limited expansion plan of the army, to increase the number of brigades and regiments of the New Guinean garrison, and to allocate tens of millions of yuan for special equipment to purchase machine guns, planes, and other weapons that will be in the limelight in the European war.

He said: "The increase in the strength of the army is limited, but the number of equipment of its troops, especially the number of machine guns, has increased by a large margin, and the number of heavy machine guns in a division and regiment has gradually increased from 24 before the war to more than 50, and it is also preparing to be equipped with a large number of light machine guns.

In the Far East, the military competition between the two countries has never ceased, but the scale is not as great as that between other powers.

However, after China and China entered the war one after another, Britain and France also began to plan to use the military strength of China and France, first asking the navy to send a large number of ships to the Mediterranean Sea to escort the convoy, and then negotiating with China, which also declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary, but did not join the Entente, and invited China to send troops to Europe to participate in the war!

Chen Jingyun's mentality is similar to that of the Americans, and it has nothing to do with him if the Europeans fight or die, what he wants to do is to get rich in the process, he doesn't want to send hundreds of thousands of Chinese [***] people to the meat grinder on the Western Front of Europe.

In order to mobilize troops to fill the front line, Britain and France, especially France, almost sent their young people of school age to the battlefield, and in this case, the factories of these two countries also lack a large number of young laborers, and based on China's abundant human resources, Britain and France proposed a plan to introduce Chinese labor.

It is planned to bring in up to a million laborers to work in factories in Europe, so as to free up more young people from Britain and France to go to the battlefield.

For this Chen Jingyun agreed very cheerfully, as long as these laborers are not sent to the battlefield and only work in the rear factories, there is no big problem, of course, the more important thing is that Britain and France will pay a lot of money for this, and now China can buy everything in order to earn gold and foreign exchange, from ordnance to various strategic materials, so the transportation of labor is also within the acceptable range.

As the price of China's political axe organization up to millions of people to work in Europe, Britain and France, in addition to paying a lot of money to this group of labor, also agreed to China's proposed tariff increases on most of the goods, the most important of which are cotton cloth and some light industrial products, and promised to completely return China's tariff autonomy in the next five years, and at the same time, in order to show sincerity, Britain also gave up some of its concessions in China, including those in Wuhan and Tianjin. At the same time, it was proposed that the port of Weihaiwei could be jointly managed by both parties.

At this time, that is, in January 1916, China formally signed a mutual defense treaty with Britain against Germany, completely joined the camp of the Entente, and stopped all commercial trade with Germany according to the needs of Britain and France.

However, in fact, this effect is not great, thinking that due to the blockade of the British and French navies, Germany's foreign trade is generally carried out through neutral countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland, and the same is true for China's foreign trade.

After 1916, the war in Europe continued, and the war money of China and the United States continued to be made, and in 1917, Russia finally triggered a large-scale rebellion due to the severe shortage of domestic materials and the disgust with the war that lasted for several years!

At this time, Chen Jingyun, who has been paying attention to the situation in Europe and Russia, quickly responded, and immediately after getting the outbreak of chaos in Russia, he ordered the whole army to raise its combat readiness level, although the reason was to prevent the Russian turmoil from affecting China, but Chen Jingyun's desire to take advantage of the turmoil in Russia and rob is no secret in the eyes of many high-level Chinese politicians, because as early as last year, the Chinese side has organized several large-scale exercises. The content of the exercise is to assume that there is a killing and chaos in Russia, and China sends troops to protect overseas Chinese, to put it bluntly, it wants to take the opportunity to seize back the land occupied by Russia!

The world situation finally changed dramatically in 1917! The Russian unrest not only affected the war in Europe, but also caused turmoil and disputes in the Far East.