Chapter 363: Mobile Corps
Although the Boers have fewer troops, they can mobilize tens of thousands of cavalry. (Including militia forces) It is reasonable to say that it is not a problem to break through these nodes, and the logistical supply pressure of the troops is not too large. After all, ordinary infantry units of the Boers have enough horses for transportation, and the cavalry units are more one person and two horses. One is for riding, the other is for carrying ammunition and supplies.
The biggest problem is the casualties! In short, the Boers can't afford to die! This inability to die is not only reflected in the almost disproportionate population gap between the two sides, but also in the difficulty of tackling tough problems. After experiencing the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Calypume clearly realized that a simple cavalry could not have much advantage when facing infantry. The saber used by the cavalry can only be an auxiliary weapon, and the spear should be thrown into the garbage dump of history. In fact, the mounted infantry has more combat effectiveness than the cavalry, and the advantage of the cavalry is reflected in the strategic maneuverability, rather than hacking with a saber.
"I am very optimistic about the impact of guerrilla warfare on the British in the usual sense. I am very familiar with the fighting methods of the Boer knights. They generally choose unprotected transport teams and undefended villages and towns to start. It is more like a battle than a battle. This kind of plundering. This is the correct choice for small troops with dozens or even a dozen. But when our cavalry becomes large, even with a divisional scale, this choice tends to be The effect is wrong!" When facing Pershing and Kruger, Calypte spoke out his worries very frankly.
Small-scale guerrilla warfare is piecemeal, focusing on self-protection. It is of a harassing nature. But if you mobilize a large number of troops, and the entire Boer army has paid a lot of war costs for such a mobile force, you still focus on fragmentation, it is a waste! It can even be regarded as a crime. Imagine that thousands of cavalry are running in the wilderness, and the daily feed consumption is tens of tons! Thousands of military horses and livestock no less than this number are used to transport supplies. If a certain strategic goal cannot be achieved, such consumption will obviously outweigh the gain!
So what is it worth? Calypte gave two answers: The first answer is to destroy the British cavalry corps! The second is a transportation hub that can destroy the British, such as a station! The former is a consumption of the British mobile corps. The British are not stupid. The Boers know that they use hussars to harass their opponent's rear, and the British naturally understand it.
The reason why the British harassment has not yet become popular is that, on the one hand, the number of British cavalry is still relatively limited, the supply is difficult, and the frontal battlefield cannot meet the demand, let alone support the cavalry to run at long distances. On the other hand, the British fundamentalist melee cavalry can't beat the Boer's horseback infantry... Boer cavalry equipped with mortars and semi-automatic rifles easily defeated their opponents in several small-scale battles.
The second point is to completely paralyze the logistics of the British. At that time, the main mode of transportation was by railway, so the focus of the attack was naturally railway. The easiest way is to lift the rails directly, and if you are more dedicated, destroy part of the land base, but this is useless for the British! This kind of damage is done quickly, and the repair is also fast. You can just pile up the land base, and then the rails are laid up. What if you damage the rails and pull them out? If you can't take it away, you can only bury it on the spot... The British can dig it out a little bit harder.
How to paralyze a railway the fastest, history tells people the answer is marshalling station and station! These hubs are not only a place for vehicles to replenish boiler water and coal, but also a place for people to rest. More importantly, they are a hub that arranges vehicle operation! They are the nerves and brains of the railway line. Destroying a station is much more powerful than pulling out a railway of tens of kilometers!
But for now, it is difficult for the Boer's cavalry to accomplish these two tasks. The root cause is also the casualties. If the cavalry fights, the Boers may indeed have a certain tactical advantage. The exchange ratio will be better, but this exchange ratio will be swallowed by the huge number of British cavalry. The result is that the more you fight, the weaker. Chronic suicide, even more so when attacking train stations. The British who are good at learning have deployed machine guns, artillery, barbed wire and minefields around important nodes. If you are unlucky enough, you can still run into an armored train...
Faced with such a stronghold that combines fixed bunker fortifications and mobile defensive forces, wouldn't you use cavalry to fight for death? Perhaps each stronghold has not many troops, but relying on machine guns and a large number of fortifications, the defender can bring terrible damage to the attacker! From the point of view of losses, the gains outweigh the losses.
And now, Caliput's task is to build a cavalry force that can complete these two combat tasks! A unit that can completely crush the British cavalry in normal combat, and a cavalry (cavalry infantry unit) with the ability to attack tough. This is the most challenging job in Caliput's career as an officer.
As a veteran oilman, Calypte worked as a cavalry, as an infantry, and accompanied his old boss, Prince Leopold, in artillery ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ and finally to the Bavarian General Staff. Both actual combat experience and theoretical experience are very rich. He is very familiar with the operation of the cavalry and knows the restriction points. Although the cavalry has a much higher maneuvering speed than the infantry, the speed of the cavalry is at least double the speed of the infantry of the large regiment which is only 30 kilometers per day. But on the whole, the speed of the cavalry is still much lower than that of their old predecessors, let alone compared with the nomads of that period.
The fundamental reason is that the weight of the equipment carried has increased. On this plane, the powers who have seen the power of rapid-fire artillery and machine guns have equipped their troops with these equipment. The cavalry is no exception. The British cavalry is equipped with some artillery and machine guns. . The same goes for the Boers. Although it is a 57mm gun or a 37mm gun, these guns and ammunition themselves are a big burden.
Coupled with the relatively difficult supply, most of the cavalry in a day's maneuvering is slow forwarding or even dismounting and walking, and galloping horses rarely occurs, unless it is a charge or pursuit. If the large corps carries a small amount of artillery and ammunition, the movement speed will be slower.
Of course, some people have put forward the idea of raising war through war, but the problem is that in the entire British southern Africa, there are only more than 4 million blacks and far fewer whites than this number. This is the case for millions of square kilometers of land. Order people, and most of them are in the city. How can there be so many things for you to grab?
