The government's additional funding has finally allowed the struggling army to be more comfortable.

Of course, the army, which gets the money, of course, needs to make good use of this money. And for the current first person in the army, General Simeone, how to spend this money more worthwhile is what he is most concerned about.

That's right, at present, General Simeone is the first person in the army, because the Minister of the Army, Field Marshal Cadorna, has been recuperating in the past few years, and he no longer cares much about the affairs of the army.

And with the increase in funding, Simeone was really struggling with how to spend the money. Speaking of which, as soon as the money was obtained, the General Staff gave two plans for additional funding.

The first plan is very simple, that is, to increase the strength of the troops, and to expand the number of divisions that are currently seriously understaffed. According to the plan of the General Staff, this additional 60 million lira will allow the army to expand its strength by at least 20,000 or 40,000.

Of course, this fund will certainly not be spent in this way, and it would be good if half of it could be used to expand the troops, and the rest of the money can also be used to purchase some new weapons and reequip the troops. After all, at present, new and old weapons coexist in the Italian army, and it is necessary to update the equipment of the troops.

Compared with the steady first plan, the second plan is a bit aggressive. In this plan, the divisions that are currently seriously lacking in personnel are not intended to be replenished, but the additional funds will be used for two purposes, on the one hand, to upgrade weapons, and on the other hand, to use the funds to continue to expand the divisional establishment.

That's right, to increase the infantry divisions that are currently so badly understaffed in Italy.

However, although it seems that the number of such an Italian division is small, only eight or nine thousand, the equipment is not much different from that of a full division. Taking the Sixth Division of the Army as an example, it is equipped with 18 105mm howitzers, 54 76mm mountain artillery, more than 100 light and heavy machine guns, as well as various guns, vehicles, radio stations, field telephone lines, and other materials, and its total equipment procurement cost is as high as more than 16 million lire.

In addition to the cost of purchasing equipment, it is also necessary to compile and train it, and the daily training cost is also a lot. With the 60 million lira in Simeone's hands, he could only form three such missing divisions a year.

So in his office, Simeone looked at the two options and fell into deep thought. When I don't have money, I want to spend more on the military, but when the military spending increases, how to choose is also a problem.

But just as he was pondering, he heard the secretary's voice coming from outside the door. "Admiral, Admiral Dalkion, Director of Education, has arrived."

"Admiral Dalkion is invited to come in."

"Haha, Dalkion is so free to come to me today?"

For Simeone, the first person in the army, to make such an enthusiastic gesture, on the one hand, the relationship between the two is good, and on the other hand, this is also a high position.

Since Prussia's defeat of France, its advanced military system has been emulated by other countries. The Italian Army, too, carried out a large wave of plagiarism of the Germans. What kind of mobilization system, general warfare, etc., Italy has copied it very similarly. And as the triumvirate of the German Army (Minister of the Army, Chief of the General Staff, Director of Education), Italy has the same. And functionally similar to Germany. Therefore, how can Admiral Dalquion, who is in charge of the training and education of the Italian Army, not be considered a high authority.

And the Italian Army's director of education said to Simone with a smile as soon as he entered the door. "Simeone, I heard you're struggling with how to spend that money?"

Although Simone was tempted to ask how you know, he held back, because he knew that this must be not an easy visit, so he confessed. "Yes, I do have a headache with spending this money."

Faced with Simeone's confession, Dalkion smiled and spoke. "Actually, I don't think those two options are the best options, remember the preparation problem we talked about before?"

Dalquion's words made Simeone come back to his senses immediately, of course he knew what to talk about with Dalquion. At that time, the two of them were talking about the fact that with the increase of new equipment one after another, and the number of division-level personnel was getting bigger and bigger with the increase, both of them felt that something was not right, so they talked about their respective views.

"You mean, you want to make changes to the troop formation?"

Simeone asked, a little uncertain.

Grain

In response to Simeone's inquiry, Dalkion nodded in reply. "Yes, I came to you for this."

"Remember the drill you did before?"

"I remember ......"

Simeone, of course, remembered that the larger and larger divisional units were being conducted during the exercises, and many problems arose during the exercises. Of course, in addition to military exercises, the Russo-Japanese War in the Far East also gave Italy sufficient reference value.

For this war, the Italian Army conducted an in-depth study. And the results of the study show that the more bloated the size of the troops, the less conducive to their mobility. At present, although the actual number of a division in Italy is small, the establishment is very large.

According to the latest standards of the Italian War Department, a full-fledged army division should have two brigades, four regiments, and 12 battalions of infantry (one battalion consists of four companies of 254 people, plus a machine gun company composed of 6 Maxim and 12 Reveri machine guns), plus artillery, engineer battalions, cavalry battalions, baggage regiments and other troops, and a full-fledged division has more than 19,000 people.

Such a large number of troops made the army's top brass feel very bloated and not conducive to wartime command.

One may ask, as is the case in other European countries, why do you Italy feel bloated with troops?

That's a good question, because the national conditions of each country are different, so the national defense requirements are also different. Compared to its powers, Italy had to defend mainly mountainous areas, and the mountainous terrain determined that small elite troops were more suitable for this terrain. Therefore, it is reasonable that Italy feels that the large divisional force is not suitable for its needs compared to other countries.

"But how to change it now is a difficult problem, whether to change it from above or from below, it is difficult to judge. After all, it is not a trivial matter to change the establishment, and it is common sense to be cautious. Dalkion looked at Simeone and spoke.

However, in the face of Dalquion's words, Simone did not believe it. "Don't look at me like that, I know you must have an idea, take it out and refer to it."

"I don't really have any thoughts, just a little thought."

"It's okay, it's okay to think about it, it's always right to refer to it."

In the face of Simeone's forced questioning, Dalkion really had no choice but to speak. "Then I'll give you a little bit of my opinion. First of all, the problem of the large size of the troops, it is actually very simple to slim down, but it is a bit difficult to ensure combat effectiveness as much as possible. ”

Simeone, of course, knew what Dalquion said, otherwise he wouldn't have been embarrassed by it.

"But I think that if you want to slim down the army, then you should first start from the top, and at the brigade level, I think you can change it first. In addition, whether the number of companies at the battalion level is too large, and whether it is appropriate to cancel an infantry company. And then the current four-four establishment at the level of the class platoon, has there also been some changes? And if the number of infantry is drastically reduced, should the firepower supported by a large number also be slimmed down to a certain extent? In view of the large-scale slimming of China's divisions, considering the possibility of war in the future, does the army level also need to be supplemented to a certain extent, such as letting the army have three divisions under its jurisdiction, or increasing the technical arms such as military artillery? ”

Dalkion uttered his thoughts, and Simone was a little dumbfounded.

"Looks like you have a good idea, so let's sit down and talk slowly."

Simeone then talked with Dalkion late into the night, and the conversation resumed the next day. After three days of talking, and then after combining the views of the two sides, the two decided on the establishment of the new Italian infantry division, and for the sake of conservatism, the two decided not to move the establishment below the company level for the sake of conservatism.

According to the idea of the two, a new Italian infantry division consisted of three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment. The units directly under the division were not changed, and the brigade rank of the infantry division was directly abolished. In addition to major changes at the brigade level, there are also major changes at the battalion level. First of all, the four infantry companies were directly cut into three, and secondly, the machine gun company under the command of the battalion, and the two planned to delegate it to the company level to form a machine gun platoon to increase the firepower of the company level.

After such changes, the total strength of the new infantry division will be reduced to more than 14,000 men. It's much smaller than before. As for the discussion at the army level, it is still necessary to wait to see the effect of the changes at the division level, and to decide whether or not to make changes.

Of course, at present, the plan is still the first draft, and it is necessary to carefully demonstrate it next, and after conducting a pilot project, we will finally see how effective it will be before deciding whether to promote it throughout the army.