The expansion of the new machine gun battalion also means that Zhao Dongyun urgently needs a large number of qualified machine gun officers in a short period of time, and this problem is the most difficult problem to solve in the new machine gun battalion.

In order to expand an army, there are three points that must be resolved, that is, officers, soldiers, and ordnance.

The problem of soldiers in these three points is best solved, because it is relatively easy to recruit soldiers in these years, and it does not take long to recruit enough soldiers. The problem of ordnance is not too difficult, as long as you have money, you can buy everything in these years. However, the issue of officers is not easy to solve.

Because what Zhao Dongyun needed was an officer who knew how to machine gun tactics, and the machine gun had just emerged in these years, and it was impossible for Yuan Shikai to transfer officers who knew machine gun combat to Zhao Dongyun from other troops, so Zhao Dongyun could only train it himself.

In order to train qualified machine gun commanders, Zhao Dongyun set up a temporary camp academy and taught classes himself, in addition to several veteran officers of the machine gun team, such as Lin Yongquan and others, also served as auxiliary teachers.

Naturally, there is no official establishment and name for such a camp school, which can only be regarded as a spontaneous and unconventional product of the newly built machine gun battalion, and the trainees are limited to the grassroots officers of the newly built machine gun battalion, and the content of the lecture is relatively simple, mainly explaining machine gun-related tactics.

However, Zhao Dongyun will also explain infantry tactics and today's military theories.

His original intention was only to instill infantry tactics and military theories in the troops to his officers, so as to improve their quality of cooperative operations with the infantry, but what he did not expect was that the infantry tactics he talked about were more attractive than machine gun tactics.

You must know that Zhao Dongyun's original body is a top student who graduated from the Berlin Military Academy, although Zhao Dongyun did not inherit his military talent, but the memory in his mind has been inherited, so there is no problem in explaining the mainstream theories and tactics in today's military circles.

In addition, he also fused some of his own things in his explanation, which were mainly the memory content of Zhao Dongyun's later life, and then added his own imagination, so that some plausible things were fused.

For example, although today's infantry tactics have abandoned the tight formation of the queuing and shooting era to the skirmisher formation, this straggler formation is still very close during combat, and even sometimes the distance between the soldiers is only two to three meters, and the loose interval is only five or six meters.

From the First Sino-Japanese War to the Russo-Japanese War to the early stage of World War I, the armies of various countries used this tactic, until the middle and late stages of World War I, machine guns were rampant, and gradually formed trench positions.

And now, although all countries have recognized the importance of machine guns and are generally equipped with them, neither the great powers nor Yuan Shikai and others have thought that the emergence of machine guns will completely change the mode of warfare.

Therefore, although Yuan Shikai has decided to equip machine guns on a large scale, the infantry tactics of the Beiyang Army are still stuck in the traditional dense charge.

The example that best reflects today's infantry tactics is the Russo-Japanese War, which is particularly evident in the Battle of Arthur, which can be said to fully embody the main points of infantry tactics in this era.

However, as a descendant, even if Zhao Dongyun is not a modern military expert, he knows that this kind of infantry tactics is completely the rhythm of death in the face of machine guns, barbed wire, and trenches.

And when he explained the tactics related to machine guns and infantry, he repeatedly said how machine gun units should kill and injure the enemy with maximum efficiency in the face of dense infantry charges.

At the same time, another question arises, that is, how can the infantry be able to overcome the machine gun fortress position?

In fact, most of the officers in the newly built machine gun battalion were originally infantry officers, and they were only transferred to train machine gun units halfway, so they still regarded themselves as infantry officers in their minds a lot of the time, so they inevitably tried to think about how to overcome the machine gun position if they led the infantry troops.

At this time, the infantry infiltration tactics proposed by Zhao Dongyun attracted their attention, and the infiltration tactics mentioned by Zhao Dongyun were actually small-scale infantry assault tactics, that is, to further strengthen the firepower density of the company-platoon-level troops, such as machine guns that can attack with the infantry, such as small-caliber curved artillery that can follow the attack of company-level troops, and for example, droppable bombs carried by soldiers.

Tong guò strengthens the firepower of small units, moving hundreds of meters away before the battle, and then the rifle combat group, accompanied by the fire support of machine guns and small-caliber artillery, scatters and approaches the enemy position in a low trot such as bending, and throws the bombs that it carries with them after approaching, and then enters the enemy position and engages in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy defenders to seize the position, and in hand-to-hand combat in addition to the traditional bayonet, pistols can also be used.

What Zhao Dongyun said actually has a strong World War II style, because the small-scale troops in his mouth refer to the troops equipped with mortars, grenades, light machine guns, and submachine guns.

However, so far, none of these weapons have appeared, and there may be mortars in the troops of various countries, but they absolutely cannot accompany the company-platoon-level troops in rapid mobile combat, and machine guns are also available, but those heavy machine guns cannot accompany the infantry to launch an attack at all.

Heavy machine guns are used for defense, and light machine guns are used to accompany infantry attacks!

And light machine guns are generally not equipped in various countries, and the famous Madsen light machine guns have not yet been officially put into service.

Grenades don't look very old, but even during the Russo-Japanese War, most of the grenades were spontaneously improvised by soldiers, and mass production of standard grenades did not appear until after the Russo-Japanese War.

Not to mention submachine guns, the Germans who first used submachine guns were not equipped until the end of World War I, and now there is no concept of submachine guns, and in this era, there are only semi-automatic pistols that can barely be regarded as melee automatic weapons.

It can be said that the troops equipped with the above weapons in Zhao Dongyun's mouth can only be regarded as a fantasy now, at least in a short period of time!

However, this line of thinking alone still surprised many of the officers below, so much so that even some officers of the Standing Army heard of this infiltration tactic after it slowly spread.

Although they didn't take this tactic seriously, it also reminded them in time that although Zhao Dongyun is now in charge of machine guns, he is a real infantry officer!

"A few days ago, I heard about the infiltration tactics you mentioned, and I thought it was very interesting, but it is not easy to establish this kind of army!" Duan Qirui said while looking at Zhao Dongyun.

Zhao Dongyun said: "It's not easy, but it's not impossible!" ”

"Along with the infantry machine gun, because the heavy machine gun is too heavy, but I heard that there are people in Denmark who have developed a machine gun that can be carried by individual soldiers, although this machine gun has less sustained firepower, but as a portable support weapon, it is enough to provide fire support for an infantry squad!"

Zhao Dongyun thought that since he had said it, he would simply say more: "As for small-caliber artillery, all countries now also have mortars, but the weight is too heavy, I once envisioned a simple, light-weight curved artillery, the range does not need to be comparable to traditional artillery, as long as it exceeds the range of a rifle." ”

"Oh, and this artillery?" Duan Qirui is interested!

Zhao Dongyun immediately took out a pen and notepad, and then drew a picture of a simple mortar: "This is it!" ”

Duan Qirui looked at this sketch, but shook his head, as an artillery officer, he didn't believe that the artillery in front of him could be designed.

Zhao Dongyun didn't say anything about Duan Qirui's incomprehension, after all, the mortar has not yet appeared, and the application concept is relatively vague, and Zhao Dongyun didn't expect Duan Qirui and Yuan Shikai to jump out and shout Zhao Dongyun as soon as they saw the mortar and shouted Zhao Dongyun, you are really a design genius or something like that.

Although he didn't agree with mortars, Duan Qirui was quite interested in the grenades in Zhao Dongyun's mouth: "If this thing can be mass-produced, it is estimated that it can be used!" ”

Hand grenades are not something difficult to understand, countries have long used grenades made by soldiers in wars, but no one has thought about standard production.

Zhao Dongyun also said: "This thing is used before hand-to-hand combat, and the effect should be not small!" When the Fuyuan machine factory is built, I will let them get some to try! ”

"It's just that, if you follow the infiltration tactics you said, then will it be possible to break through the machine-gun position? During the winter exercises last year, I saw your machine gun team firing, and the crossfire of multiple machine guns firing together was probably something that no infantry could resist! Duan Qirui is still interested in machine guns.

Therefore, most of Zhao Dongyun's conversation with him also revolved around machine guns, and then it involved the coordination between infantry and machine guns, and even talked about the coordination between infantry and artillery.

This was said for more than an hour, Duan Qirui took a sip of tea and said: "I will mention the matter of cooperation training between machine guns and infantry that you said to Du Xian, but it is difficult to say whether it is accurate, after all, it involves two armies, and it is a little troublesome to deploy!" ”

Zhao Dongyun nodded and said: "This shouldn't be, the troops of the Standing Army Zuozhen are next to us, let them cooperate with the training, it is estimated that the problem is not big!" ”

The reason why Zhao Dongyun asked the machine gun unit and the infantry to cooperate in training was mainly because the machine gun and the artillery were different, it was not an independent branch of the army in essence, but only a support weapon for the infantry.

However, in the Beiyang New Army, due to the weakness of the Beiyang Army's family background and Zhao Dongyun's personal manipulation, the few machine gun units that guide zhì are independent of the infantry, and throughout the world, there is no separate unit for the machine gun unit like the Beiyang Army, although this is only temporary, but it still makes the training of the machine gun unit a lot of unnecessary trouble.

That's why Zhao Dongyun asked for mixed training with the infantry!