My Italy

The water tank project has made phased progress, which is naturally gratifying.

However, for the Army, the water tank project is just one of many development projects. Although it has the blessing of the king's attention, the Ministry of War has too many things to pay attention to, so when the news came that the project was completed in stages, Benoy, who is the fourth director of the Ministry of War and is in charge of military technology research, General, after seeing the news from Lieutenant Colonel Valoran, he thought about it carefully.

"Well done, please send an encouraging telegram."

This telegram of encouragement was a commendation from the War Department.

Compared with the water tank project, which was somewhat indifferent, the Army Department was much more concerned about another project.

The Garcia Army Training Ground is a large-scale training ground of the Army in the north. It covers an area of ​​hundreds of square kilometers and is a large-scale venue capable of conducting division-level and even corps-level confrontations.

Today, a unique exercise is taking place here.

I saw three airships flying slowly in the sky, and parachutes unfolding appeared behind the airships. The white parachutes slowly fell to the ground like dandelions, and in the distance, a group of officers with general epaulets , holding a telescope and observing its landing intently.

"Your Excellency Minister, what you are seeing right now is the first and second companies of the paratroopers of our airborne regiment who are performing parachute missions. They are responsible for giving priority to airdrops behind enemy lines and carrying out missions to attack bridges, transportation hubs, headquarters, and other strategic and tactical targets. .”

Next to Simone, a colonel was explaining to him the Italian paratroopers who were parachuting.

Yes, paratroopers have already appeared in the Italian Army. This is not a reminder from someone, but a unit developed by the Army itself.

After the airship was successfully developed, the Army purchased several airships. In addition to its initial use as a transportation vehicle, the Army is considering other uses due to its good carrying capacity and its disregard for terrain characteristics. Among them, what excites the Army the most is air-to-ground attacks and air transport of troops behind enemy lines to destroy and seize key points.

For ground attack, I had previously considered mounting artillery on an airship, but found it to be very unreliable. The recoil of the artillery was something the airship couldn't bear. Not many cannons could be fired without damaging the airship's frame. In the end, it was decided to use bombs to attack the ground.

As for the airborne troops bypassing the enemy's defense line and attacking at its weak points, this has to do with the airborne troops in front of them.

This unit was formed a year and a half ago, and is headed by Colonel Higgs, who has the most ideas for airborne landings behind enemy lines in the army.

Colonel Higgs has led the newly formed airborne regiment for a full year and a half of training. The airships in the hands of the Army have been cooperating with his training for most of the time, and now they can finally be brought out to see the world.

I saw the parachuting soldiers gradually landing one by one. These soldiers immediately merged in twos and threes, gradually gathering together like a river. Half of them quickly seized the commanding heights of the surrounding mountains and set up weapons alerts.

The other half was quickly cleared in a flat open space. Stones, small shrubs, and scattered trees were all cleared away with the help of the engineer shovel in the hands of the soldiers. Several soldiers immediately took out white cloth and spread it out in the shape of a cross, as if to guide the air. There are three such crosses, each nearly a hundred meters apart.

After a while, several more airships appeared in front of everyone.

"Minister, the airships arriving so far are carrying the first and second airborne landing companies. They mainly use airborne landings. Of course, if necessary, they can also carry out parachuting."

Admiral Simonyi replied casually to Colonel Higgs's words, but he was still observing the exercise carefully through the telescope.

The airships arrived very quickly, and soon they came to the cleared airdrop site. Three airships were seen slowly landing on the ground. After the airships landed, the hatches were opened, and groups of soldiers were fully armed under the leadership of officers. ran out.

The process is quick, only takes a minute or two. The airship that completed the transportation immediately took off, leaving the landing site for the waiting airship behind.

After the two landing companies landed, except for one company left to defend the landing site, the other three companies quickly attacked and advanced in a Z-shaped formation.

"Well equipped, well trained and organized."

A visiting general praised the airborne regiment's performance.

No one present had any objection to this sentence, because the Airborne Regiment really deserves this sentence.

Well-trained and orderly, that's because the airborne regiment was originally an elite group drawn from various units. And in the past year and a half, the Army has given whatever it wants, and Colonel Higgs is also very capable, so how can it not be elite.

One more thing: in the airborne regiment, the worst soldiers are first class soldiers, but most of them are non-commissioned officers, and the officers are generally high-ranking and low-ranking. The squad platoon leader is a second lieutenant, and there are even two company commanders. Rank of Major.

The current situation is caused, on the one hand, to prepare for the expansion of airborne troops, and on the other hand, it is also closely related to weapons and equipment. Nowadays, airborne troops have more types of weapons and have higher requirements for officers.

So how high is it?

A squad of airborne troops is equipped with 10 m88 Carcano rifles, that's right, lances. Because of the airborne situation, longer rifles are not easy to carry, so shorter lances are used instead.

In addition to 10 lances, a squad of airborne troops also has a Revery light machine gun.

That's right, it's a machine gun!

In this era, no national army assigned machine guns to squads. Nowadays, the equipment is basically at the company level of the equipment battalion, and the equipment is not even equipped to the platoon. The airborne troops are the first in history to use them directly in the squad in one step.

In addition to one light machine gun for each infantry squad, the airborne troops are also equipped with two Maxim heavy machine guns at the company level. Such a luxurious company firepower configuration will not be outdated thirty years from now.

As for the airborne troops equipped with so much machine gun firepower, it is still necessary to consider the characteristics of their troops. When fighting deep behind enemy lines, if the firepower is insufficient, it will be a waste, so sufficient firepower must be strengthened.

In addition to machine guns, there are currently relatively few artillery pieces available to paratroopers. Currently, in addition to newly developed mortars, the largest artillery owned by the airborne regiment is the 75mm mountain cannon.

This is due to the fact that the airship can not choose the location, otherwise their airborne troops would have to use mortars.

The mortar here is the result of the latest development in Italy. It changes the current base-fired model in various countries. It genius adopts the model of integrating propellant and shell, and uses the bottom needle to impact and launch. This changes the current model of mortars in various countries weighing hundreds of kilograms, and directly reduces the mortars to tens of kilograms.

And not only has the weight been reduced, but the range has also been increased. Under the guidance of a certain prophet, mortars using spindle-shaped shells can have a range of 2,100 meters.

It can be said that such a change is a technological revolution, and in the future, countries will inevitably learn from Italy's approach. Cannons weighing several dozen kilograms can be easily moved by manpower. Although the accuracy is not high and it consumes more shells, the advantages of high maneuverability and direct fire are enough.

Italy has currently developed two types of mortars, namely 81 mm and 100 mm. At present, these two mortars are given priority to be equipped with airborne troops. What I like is that it is light and flexible, and has a good range.

In front of the army's top brass, the airborne troops performed very well from landing, raiding the target, and then holding on to wait for reinforcements. The entire exercise was praised, which made Colonel Higgs very happy.

"Well done, the airborne force needs to be expanded. The existing more than a thousand people are too few. I need you to expand it to six thousand people within five years."

Simone's words made Colonel Higgs immediately suppress his inner joy, and he replied loudly. "Please rest assured, Minister, within five years we will definitely train 6,000 paratroopers who are more elite than what we have in front of us."