Wang Zhong put down the phone, and immediately picked it up again: “Connect me to Kubinka.”
Soon, the call connected, and the voice on the other end was Pavlov: “First Mobile Group Army, Chief of Staff Pavlov speaking, please go ahead.”
Wang Zhong: “Order the troops to fully mobilize, prepare for battle.”
Pavlov, startled: “Have the Prussians come near again? So soon?”
Wang Zhong: “No, it’s us who are going to strike them. The Suhayaveli Front Army has requested reinforcements. They have been routed by the enemy’s new tanks, with some divisions already collapsing.”
“Now, immediately organize an advance team, centered on the newly arrived 16th Tank Destroyer Battalion, augment with support troops and elite infantry, as well as eight anti-aircraft guns and the Army Group’s Divine Arrow Battalion, and… See what else you can add, but ensure everything can be loaded onto trains today and head for the front line!”
Pavlov: “How many railcars can we have?”
Wang Zhong: “Depends on how many you can get from General Chekhov.”
“Dumping it on me again?” Pavlov exclaimed.
Wang Zhong: “Cheer up, with my reputation and my relationship with General Chekhov, you’ll certainly be able to get quite a few.”
“Then why don’t you ask for them?” Experience more on empire
Wang Zhong: “I have more things to handle, I need to focus on military affairs.”
Having said that, he didn’t wait for Pavlov to protest and hung up the phone.
No sooner had he hung up than Vasily said with anticipation: “Finally, we’re going to strike. Let’s show those bastards at Ye Fort, we’re not freeloading here!”
Wang Zhong laughed: “They were probably deceived by the ‘battalion’ designation.”
As he talked, the transmigrator who had been on this world for a year reminisced about the time on Earth. There, many of these fake military enthusiasts, half-educated and following conventional thinking, believed that a battalion is smaller than a regiment and a brigade, and numerous content creators thrived on this misconception to attract the flow of these fake enthusiasts.
The most common trick was to claim something like the Sturmtiger armor battalion destroyed two Soviet tank brigades, totaling six battalions and so on.
As a result, these half-learners shouted that Sturmtiger was invincible.
But a real military enthusiast could immediately spot something fishy.
A Sturmtiger battalion was large, a Panzer IV battalion had 96 long-barreled Panzer IVs, Panther battalions varied in size, the smallest being 77 Panthers, the largest could have 96 Panthers. A Tiger battalion, the smallest, also had 45 Tigers.
Russian battalions were smaller, with a Russian tank brigade having only 68 tanks, whereas battalions and regiments mostly had the same level of organization, both with 21 tanks.
My 96 long-barreled Panzer IVs, or 96 Panthers, dealing with your 100+ T-34-76, what’s so strange about that?
Without considering the organizational structure and just talking about unit numbers, it’s mostly the ignorant speaking. Now, those half-learners at Ye Fort are exactly like this.
Seeing that Wang Zhong’s division only had one tank battalion and one tank destroyer battalion, they assumed that this division didn’t have much armored strength.
Because Ante also used small battalions, similar to the Earth-bound Russians, both having 21 tanks per battalion.
But in reality, Wang Zhong’s tank battalion was a large one, each company in the battalion, in addition to 12 T-34W tanks, also had 4 M3 Grant tanks, the reconnaissance platoon had eight Jeeps equipped with M2 heavy machine guns, and then there was an SU-76.
Inside the company, there were also 56 infantrymen; four M3 Grants could stuff eight men each, eight Jeeps could carry 3 men each—actually, it could be increased to 7 men per Jeep, but that would be too much like an Indian arrangement, which Wang Zhong rejected.
Three such companies composed a tank battalion.
Therefore, though called a battalion, Wang Zhong’s tank battalion had 48 tanks, 24 Jeeps, and 4 SU-76s.
Of course, artillery, infantry, and scouts usually stayed within their own arrangements, only training together at times. It was only during wartime that they would “suffer a bit of hardship” in logistics and combine forces.
As for the infantry of the Guard 1st Motor Rifle, the half-learners at Ye Fort, looking at the “regiment” in the unit designation, naturally assumed it had some 3000 men.
But in truth, it was not so at all; this regiment actually had close to 6000 combatants, whereas some new infantry divisions in Ante had only about 8000 men.
Why did this regiment have so many men? That’s because Wang Zhong brought in a whole new concept, stuffing it with plenty of supporting firepower.
Under this regiment, each company was packed with 4 82mm mortars, then there were eight M3 half-track vehicles, plus four M6 wheeled tank destroyers.
Four 82mm mortars, in some poorly equipped infantry divisions, constituted battalion-level firepower. Also, every M3 had an M2 heavy machine gun; eight heavy machine guns per company, where else would you find such lavish equipment in other divisions?
Not to mention the 37mm cannon mounted on the M6 wheeled tank destroyers.
Wang Zhong had actually wanted the M8 Greyhound and the M8 Scott (which are not the same chassis), but they weren’t available yet, so he had to make do with the M6 armed with the 37mm gun.
All those vehicles needed operators, and the mortars needed attendants too, resulting in each company being much larger than the usual infantry company, a completely strengthened company.
At the battalion level, Wang Zhong was even more ruthless.
According to frontline reports, during actual combat, the Prussians would also assign divisional artillery to infantry regiments, and thus a Prussian infantry battalion on the main line of attack would receive support from over 12 infantry guns or even howitzers.
Wang Zhong made this kind of support standard practice.
Of course, he wasn’t merciless to the point of equipping the infantry battalion with howitzers; that would be excessive and unnecessary.
The most important difference between infantry guns and howitzers lies in the barrel; the infantry gun has a very short barrel and a thinner outer wall as, most of the time, it provides close-range support and does not require firing at great distances. The shells do not need that much propellant, so naturally, the chamber pressure isn’t as high.