The more veterans are able to fight, the more combat experience an army has, the stronger its combat effectiveness will be. This concept is based on the thinking of an agricultural society. Its premise is that both warring parties are novices, and the organizational level and technical conditions of the armies are not much different. After the industrial society, this idea is very outdated.
Regarding Iron-blooded Prussia , many netizens will think of veterans of all battles, and they will think of jokes about German supermen. However, the French army during the Franco-Prussian War did not think so. In the eyes of the arrogant French army, The Prussian soldiers opposite were all new recruits. The French army called the Prussian army: "an army composed of lawyers and ophthalmologists" because the Prussian army at that time did temporarily throw a large number of middle-class people into the army, and the Prussian army did have many recruits.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the French army was everywhere. The literacy rate of the French army was only 30%. The soldiers were all professional soldiers who had served for about seven years. The shooting and other skills of the French soldiers were also better than those of the French army. The French army also has more combat experience than the Prussian army. After Napoleon came to power, the French army fought fiercely with the Austrian army in Italy, fought fiercely with the Crimean Peninsula and Tsarist Russian armies, and invaded the city of Beijing in the east. , annexed Vietnam , and placed the descendants of the Habsburg family on the throne of Mexico emperor in the Americas. The soldiers of the French Afrika Korps expanded their territory in the deserts and jungles. In terms of actual combat experience, the French army was far away. More than the Prussian army, which had fought only two previous wars.
But the result of the war was that the French army with veterans everywhere was defeated by the Prussian army. The King of Prussia ascended the throne as the German emperor in Versailles , and slapped France hard in the face with the German-style Versailles. Because Moltke really didn't care about military ethics, he used trains to mobilize 450,000 troops three weeks after the war began. However, the French army only mobilized 260,000 of its 400,000 troops to rush to the battlefield in a chaotic manner. In the subsequent war, the Germans also transported 1.3 million people to France, completely shattering the so-called quality advantage of the French army. The French veterans are very good at fighting, but the German artillery is even more powerful. The Krupp 90mm breech gun used by the Prussian army has twice the rate of fire and more than three times the range of the French artillery. It has the dual advantage of numbers and firepower. The brave sword display of the French veterans was meaningless.
Also crushed by the enemy's firepower and mobilization superiority was the Chinese army during the Anti-Japanese War. In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the Chinese army had the most veterans, while the Japanese army had mostly new recruits. Many units of the Chinese army that participated in the Anti-Japanese War had participated in the warlords' melee for more than ten years. There were also many veterans and old troops who had fought the 20-year war. In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, there were at least hundreds of thousands of such veterans and old troops among the 2.2 million Chinese troops. . But facing the Japanese army, it was still useless. The veterans and veterans of the Chinese army suffered heavy losses under the superior firepower of the Japanese army.
This is because the wars that Chinese veterans have participated in for a long time have been wars with low firepower density, and the war experience is all cleared when they move from the novice area to the hell room. In more than 20 years of warlord melee, millions of Chinese troops only used five to six hundred artillery pieces to fight (in 1935, the national army’s artillery always had 567 artillery pieces of various types. After 110 were retired, the national army only had 456 guns). The number of heavy weapons possessed by the Chinese army is less than one percent of that of the German army in World War I. Warlords dispatching hundreds of artillery pieces at a time in a melee is an amazing scene. During the Central Plains War, the Central Army took out 208 mountain cannons . The battle of Pheasant Hill with field artillery was already the worst warlord melee.
When all the artillery of a Japanese first-class permanent division is laid out, there are 12 120mm howitzers, 36 75mm field guns, and 16 75mm mountain guns. The firepower of a division is more than three times that of the reorganized German weapons division ( German weapon division 18 artillery pieces per division), which is the firepower of ten ordinary Chinese infantry divisions. The experience of the Chinese army veterans is naturally cleared when faced with this kind of firepower advantage. The commanders of the Chinese army had no experience in facing opponents with such superior firepower, and insisted on placing artillery at high places. As a result, they were "educated" by the Japanese army who had no actual combat experience.During the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese army had little combat experience and fewer veterans. A large number of divisions had less than one-tenth of the veterans. However, their fierce firepower and highly trained soldiers could naturally defeat the Chinese army with many veterans.
Wars in the industrial age are very different. The experience of colonial warfare, warlord low-intensity warfare, and security and anti-terrorism warfare obviously cannot be used in PK between major powers. The competition between major powers depends on who can mobilize the maximum amount of troops and send more troops to the battlefield in a timely manner. Whoever can better utilize the firepower advantage will gain the advantage. The advantages of industrialization and organizational capabilities are more important than the so-called experience. Much more important.
