During the war years, the best equipment of our army mainly relied on capture, and "no guns, no artillery, the enemy made it for us" is a true portrayal of that time.
During the period of the Red Army and the Anti-Japanese War, the most captured by our army were mainly firearms, as well as some artillery. Relying on these captured artillery, our army formed an early artillery unit.
However, limited by the conditions at that time, the scale of the artillery unit was not large, and the artillery equipped with light artillery was also the mainstay, and even sometimes grenadiers and the like were included in the artillery statistics.
In fact, if you simply count mountain howitzers, even if you add mortars, there are not too many.
In terms of the East China troops, which were relatively well equipped in our army, by June 1946, there were only 4 field howitzers in total, which was only enough to form a company; 47 mountain artillery, enough for 4 battalions; There were 466 mortars, which were available in basically every regiment, but there were clearly not many of them.
If you don't make a comparison, you may not have an intuitive experience.
Let's take the ** U.S. Armament as an example, and its standard artillery equipment is counted:
There are 12 American 105-mm howitzers, 36 75-mm mountain guns, 108 81-mm mortars, 72 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, 486 60-mm mortars, and 63 rocket launchers.
Even if the equipment of the US Ordnance Army is not complete, even if the amount of equipment is only half of the above, its artillery types and guns are quite large.
In addition, in addition to the U.S. armament troops, there are also a large number of Japanese armament units, and the configuration standards of artillery are also relatively complete. Even if it was the national armament unit, because it was centrally allocated at that time, there was no shortage of mountain artillery and mortars.
Therefore, in the battle at that time, the gap between the firepower of our army and the enemy was very large, and even several times the strength of the troops could be equal to the enemy's artillery fire.
However, with the super tactical play and the bloody battles of the cadres and soldiers, our army in East China fought a series of beautiful battles in the early stage of the Liberation War, so that it was able to continuously capture artillery.
Especially in the Battle of Lunan, our army in East China annihilated the first fast column and captured a large number of American howitzers and tanks.
In addition, our army in East China also enriched the field column with captured mountain artillery and mortars.
Therefore, when Huaye was established, there were so many field columns in one go, and if there was no equipment base, it would be impossible.
At the beginning of Huaye's construction, ** acted as a "transport brigade" and sent a large wave of **, of which the number of various types of artillery exceeded 400.
This battle is the famous Laiwu Battle, Huaye in just 3 days, that is, the destruction of the enemy's 2 military headquarters (the reorganization of the division headquarters and the majority of another division, in addition to the results of the auxiliary battlefield, the total number of enemies destroyed reached 6More than 60,000 people.
Among them, the number of guns of various types captured, a total of 457, the specific categories are:
5 field artillery, 40 mountain artillery, 9 infantry guns, 5 anti-aircraft guns, 1 mortar gun, 100 mortars, 71 bazookas, 2 machine guns, 60 small guns and 224 small guns.
The number of artillery pieces captured in this battle alone is comparable to the total number of guns equipped by our army in East China less than a year ago, and the quality of the artillery is even better.
Among them, the field artillery is basically a Japanese 75 mm field artillery, the mountain artillery is mainly an American and Japanese 75 mm mountain artillery, the infantry gun is a 92 type 70 mm infantry gun, the battle defense gun is an American 37 mm battle defense gun, the mortar is an 81 or 82 mm mortar, the bazooka is a bazooka, the machine gun is mainly a 20 mm caliber, and the 60 small cannon is a 60 mm mortar.
A large number of the above-mentioned ** are American weapons, the main reason is that the 73rd Army that was annihilated at that time was the American Army, and the integrated 46th Division of the Gui Department was strengthened by American weapons in the Anti-Japanese War, so there were also a lot of American weapons and equipment.
Of course, all the ** in the establishment of these two corps-level units are not only the captured ones.
One of the reasons was the problem of transportation, the logistical burden was large, and the two armies themselves did not bring out all the artillery; Another reason is that in the fierce battles on the battlefield, some artillery pieces were too damaged to be captured.
For example, the 73rd Army originally had a battalion of American-style 105mm howitzers, but due to transportation reasons, the battalion was not delivered to Shandong, so it could not be captured; In addition, when the army went to war, the mountain artillery and battle defense artillery were little or no carrying, and if they were not brought out, they would definitely not be able to capture them.
But even if these can't be captured, the number of guns that have been captured is definitely quite a lot.
According to the equipment standards formulated by the East China Field Army at that time, we might as well roughly calculate how many troops can be equipped with these more than 450 guns captured.
By the standards of Huaye at that time, the field artillery was equipped at the special column level, and one field artillery company was equipped with 3 guns, and the captured 5 field guns could barely be equipped with two field artillery companies.
At the column level, Huaye was equipped with an artillery battalion at that time, equipped with mountain artillery.
According to the standard, it should be 3 4-gun companies, a total of 12 mountain guns for a battalion, and in practice, 3 3-gun companies can also be used, in this case, a battalion is 9 mountain guns.
In the battle of Laiwu, 40 mountain guns were captured, roughly 4 columns directly under the artillery battalion.
Below the column are infantry divisions, and divisions are equipped with anti-artillery companies, but it was not specified at the time how many guns this company was equipped with.
Judging from the actual capture of 5 anti-aircraft guns, it should be possible to allocate at least one company.
At the infantry regiment level, it is equipped with Type 92 infantry guns, and the standard of 1 per regiment is calculated, and the captured 9 infantry guns can meet the equipment needs of 9 infantry regiments.
In addition, there are 6 mortars at the infantry regiment level (referring to 81 82 mm mortars, the same below), and 2 mortars at the infantry battalion level, so that a regiment is 12 mortars; The captured 100 mortars could meet the equipment needs of 8 whole regiments.
In addition, if some infantry battalions are not equipped with 81 82 mm mortars, they can also be equipped with 3 60 guns; 224 guns were captured, and a total of about 75 battalions, or 25 regiments, could be accommodated.
Therefore, the battle of Laiwu greatly strengthened the artillery strength at all levels in Huaye, and laid a considerable material foundation for the victory of the Menglianggu Battle later.