The Rise of the Empire

The Russian industry is very rubbish, even if they invest desperately in military spending, it will still be the same. With the same money, Germany can do 10 things, Britain and France can do 8 things, and the Russians can only do 4 things. Look at Russia’s military spending in history. It can be understood from the combat effectiveness of the Russian army that everything must be imported. If it cannot be produced by itself, the result will be too high a price and too little equipment.

Therefore, the Germans can play primitive armored forces within certain limits and can add a large number of cars. The French and British can also, but only the Russians cannot. Imported products are expensive, assets are even more expensive, and there are many problems. Not only talking about armored units and cars, Russia before World War 1 couldn't even find artillery. Which major country didn't have a few more NB heavy howitzers or long-range cannons of 6 inches or more? Russia really has nothing but imports...

However, as a fighting nation, the Russians can always maximize their subjective initiative to upgrade their equipment and military power despite their limited conditions. Especially after combining the experiences and lessons of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians also upgraded their equipment system.

First of all, the Russians believe that long-range heavy artillery is very important for improving the Russian army's offensive and field capabilities. During the Russo-Japanese War, the 152MM naval guns that Russia imported from the United States and the domestic naval guns that were converted into land guns performed very well. Therefore, after the war, the Russians have always wanted to purchase a 6-inch L40-level cannon with good performance as a future military Level main force.

If you just build an artillery without considering other issues, it will be easy. The Russians could do it in the 1980s, but the key is that the artillery must be light! It should be easy to transport, and it should have as far a range as possible with as little weight as possible. And that's the problem! By the way, another problem is the cost. It must be cheap, otherwise how can you have so much money for equipment?

At the level of the Russians, it is impossible to produce a heavy artillery like the K16 that weighs only 10 tons but has a range of 22 kilometers. If the weight is enlarged to 15 tons, the range can be achieved, but unfortunately, this thing is difficult to transport.

Therefore, the Russians settled for the next best thing and developed a 152MM intermediate heavy howitzer named M1908. The reason why it is called an intermediate howitzer is because its gun weight and range are almost intermediate... .... The weight of this artillery is 6777KG, which is much heavier than ordinary short-barreled howitzers, but lighter than cannons. The range is also between the 10KM of the howitzer and the 22KM of the cannon, with a range of approximately 14,870 meters. Overall, I feel like the performance is okay.

As for this intermediate version of artillery, the Russians still cannot guarantee the quantity of equipment and transportation, especially the latter. Although this thing does not seem heavy at 6.777 tons, it is still very laborious if you use a horse. In order to ensure the number of their own medium-caliber artillery with a range of more than 10KM, the Russians developed another intermediate-caliber artillery. This artillery is the famous M1907 107MM artillery in history.

Of course, in this plane it becomes the M1908 type. If the M1908 152MM howitzer is considered an intermediate product, then this 107-type artillery can be regarded as a high-quality product. It is also one of the few high-quality products in the Russian arsenal of World War I. However, with a weight of 2200KG, it can pack 17KG shells. It can hit a distance of 12.7 kilometers, completely suppressing the performance of the SFH13 howitzer in German history. This kind of artillery will make up for the shortcomings of the new 6-inch gun and become the military-level firepower of the Russian Army.

The Russians' obsession with 122MM-class artillery has also begun to appear.

The reason is very simple. The 6-inch level firepower is not enough, and the 3-inch artillery is too weak. In order to make up for the weakness of division-level firepower, the Russians can only equip another intermediate-caliber artillery, which is the 122MM howitzer.

The Russians are working very hard to replenish the quantity and quality of their artillery. However, there is no way to supplement the corresponding means of transportation, and if it does not want the already overwhelmed railway system to collapse during mobilization, then Russia can only deploy these large numbers of artillery in Russian Poland, even after the war plan begins On the starting position, this resulted in a considerable number of artillery being deployed on a long but thin front.

The biggest difference between the Russian military system and other participating countries is that it has a large number of cavalry. Think about it, almost all the cavalry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire only had 11 cavalry divisions, while the Russians used 21 cavalry in the first wave. Division, and even later Budyonny once said that Russia had 400,000 cavalry in World War I. Although I don’t know whether this number is reliable, it is an indisputable fact that the Russian army has a large number of cavalry.

And this time, in the Russians' war preparations, as many as 21 cavalry divisions with a total cavalry strength of nearly 100,000 people will also be the sharp sword in the hands of the Russians. The Russians spent a lot of rubles to add machine guns and light artillery to the cavalry. Inspired by the machine gun carriages used by the Bavarian Legion when they fought in North Africa, the Russian Army also began to equip the Russian Army with this type of equipment that looked low-quality, but was indeed very useful. s things.

In order to strengthen their assault force, the Russians decided to continue to expand the armored vehicle force that performed fairly well in the Russo-Japanese War. The Russians planned to increase the number of front-line armored vehicles to about 400 to ensure that each cavalry division can be assigned a squad. They would be used together with the cavalry as a rapid assault force against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yes, the Russians' main target has always been Austria-Hungary. Regarding the German army in East Prussia, the Russians' idea is to give it a try. If it is profitable, then continue to penetrate deeper. As for Bavaria, the Russians' current approach is Prepare to defend.

Generally speaking, the Russians' war plan is still very consistent with their national conditions of poverty and poor technical level. They are based on the existing technology and industrial base and try their best to achieve the best results. Somewhere in the dark, Kuropatkin felt that there were some mistakes in his plan, but he had never figured out what exactly they were.

"If possible, add some heavy machine guns at the battalion level. The firepower of our infantry is far behind that of our opponents. We have very few semi-automatic rifles and not many light machine guns, so we can only add heavy machine guns. ." Kuropatkin added a few more strokes to the plan with a stroke of his pen.

A few years later, when Kuropatkin once again recalled his decision that year, he suddenly realized that his mistake was not at all a matter of firepower and equipment. Of course, it was already a bit late by then. As for what the mistake was, we’ll talk about it then….

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