** Armed with submachine guns began back in the 1920s. At that time, most of these submachine guns were fancy machine guns, and some were imported Thomson submachine guns, including the Thomson versions of Jin and Chuan.
When the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, the Liu Xiang troops of the Jin Sui Army and the Sichuan Army were the units with a large number of submachine guns. Armies of other systems rely heavily on past stockpiles. As the war continued, the arsenals of Jin and Sichuan no longer produced submachine guns, and the number of overseas imports was limited. Therefore, by the middle of the Anti-Japanese War, the number of submachine guns that ** kept was not much.
In the later stage of the Anti-Japanese War, with the arrival of the United States Aid, submachine guns, as typical American aid equipment, began to be equipped with the first and semi-American weapons units one after another. According to its own statistics, by the first half of 1945, the whole army had been armed with about 24,000 Thomson submachine guns, and this number continued to grow. According to the military establishment table of the US Aid Force at that time, each army was required to issue more than 3,000 submachine guns according to the regulations.
However, just as the distribution of US aid troops was being prepared, Japan suddenly announced its surrender. Subsequently, the national ** did not distribute ** according to the original establishment table**, but took out a part of the ** originally prepared for the US Aid Force and equipped more troops.
For example, the 74th Army was supposed to receive 314 submachine guns, and each division was supposed to issue 1055. However, in the 1945 periodic statistics, only 261 units were distributed to the units directly under the army, 896 were distributed to the 51st Division, 896 to the 57th Division, and 831 to the 58th Division.
After that, although the 74th Army continued to receive some submachine gun equipment, it still failed to reach the level of full equipment. By the time it was reorganized into the 74th Division, although the establishment of three infantry regiments had been reduced in name, the number of infantry regiments had not been greatly reduced in reality, and the strength of the division still exceeded 30,000.
The division received all the ** equipment of the former 74th Army, with a total of 2963 submachine guns. Although the number was not as large as the amount of equipment at the time of the establishment of the US reinforcement force, because of the reduction of three infantry regiments, the actual number of equipment in the existing force exceeded the establishment requirement. These submachine guns were not only armed in infantry units, even some auxiliary units had quite a few submachine guns. As a result, the melee assault capability of the integrated 74th Division has been greatly enhanced.
On this issue, it should be noted that the ** troops are not known for their offensive capabilities, but are more inclined to defensive operations. As for some units with attack power, they are not good at white-knuckle assault, and this area is often more suitable for the troops of the former Northwest Army.
The integrated 74th Division is one of the few elite units with strong attack power, and the American submachine gun has strong firepower in close combat, so when it is assigned to the infantry squad, it greatly improves the assault ability of its infantry. Equipping the 74th Division with nearly 3,000 submachine guns has clearly further enhanced the unit's offensive capabilities. But what about the supply of bullets in addition to **?
The so-called U.S. armament unit is known for consuming a large amount of ammunition, so in addition to personal carrying, there are also transportation units at all levels responsible for supplying ammunition and other materials. At the infantry regiment level, there are transport companies, at the brigade level, there are transport battalions, and at the division level, there are manpower transport regiments, animal force transport battalions, and automobile teams. In addition, in addition to the supplies of the department, the military station is also responsible for the transfer and replenishment. At that time, each submachine gun was equipped with 10 magazines, and the full ammunition of 20 rounds was 200 rounds based on the calculation of 20 magazines.
In the early days of the reorganized 74th Division, the ammunition ration for submachine guns was also roughly based on the standard of 200 rounds per gun. In the actual count of the division at that time, the total number of submachine guns was 2,963, while the number of ammunition for submachine guns was 646185, an average of about 218 rounds per gun, which may have been slightly more than the standard number. In battle, instead of giving all the ammunition to the soldiers at once, the soldiers carry a portion of it, while the spare ammunition is stored at the regimental, brigade and division levels.
Once the ammo of this level is exhausted, supplies are issued step by step. If the division's ammunition is not consumed in time, it will report to the higher authorities and request supplies, and then the corresponding ammunition will be allocated by the military station, and then transported step by step. However, there was a shortage of ammunition for the American machinery** and could not meet the required quantities for the reports of the various units. Therefore, at that time, there were some rearmament situations, such as the rifles of the integrated 11th Division were replaced with domestically produced **, and the integrated 74th Division was also required to be replaced**, but it may not have been completed before, and the unit was annihilated.
Of course, with regard to the replacement of **, submachine guns are not included, because there are no other alternatives to this **. Therefore, at that time, ** ordered to ask the US Aid Force to save ammunition.
However, from another point of view, although the lack of ammunition is often used as an excuse for defeat in battle, not every battle is actually lost because of lack of ammunition.
Taking the defeat of the reorganized 74th Division as an example, the East China Field Army captured more than 2 million rounds of various types of ammunition in this battle. Some netizens may think that these ammunition were captured by Huaye when he conquered Duozhuang and destroyed the logistics base of the integrated 74th Division, but in fact, the 6th Column of the main attack on Duozhuang captured more than 340,000 rounds of bullets after the war, although slightly more than the 1st Column, but did not occupy the main share of the total number of captures.
Other units, in addition to capturing a part of the air-dropped ammunition, also captured a large number of various types of ammunition during the battle. This is because the integrated 74th Division has issued a large amount of ammunition in advance when it is undertaking the attack mission, and the brigade and regimental transport teams and the division's animal force transport battalions have also participated in the battle with the troops, so the amount of ammunition carried by the unit is quite considerable.
However, when the troops went up the mountain, the battle deployment was very hasty and chaotic, and many of the transport troops were in a panic and had to abandon many mules, horses and supplies. These materials and ammunition were eventually captured by the Huaye forces. In the heat of battle, the defenders actually did not receive much ammunition, due to the fact that the transport units were mostly routed, and most of the ammunition dropped by the airdrop fell into our positions. When they used up the ammunition they had with them, the battle could not continue, which was an important reason for the rapid annihilation of the integrated 74th Division.
In the end, in the battle of Menglianggu, Huaye's troops captured as many as 2,482 submachine guns equipped with the integrated 74th Division, and also obtained a large amount of submachine gun ammunition. These ** and ammunition effectively equipped the Huaye troops and were put to good use in the ensuing battles.