April 1918
In terms of military organization there developed an argument over what should have been done, which had been probably a long time coming. This things had happened before, and they were likely to happen again. First and foremost was that while the ETS was capable of evaluating new units in the small scale the resources of spare parts simply weren't available, nor were there sufficient numbers of armored cars and trucks to mechanize a large infantry formation. "If we lose any of those trucks its gonna be a pain in the ass."
"Yep," Allen agreed simply as he made another mark on the paper. There was no sense contesting that, "But Cole is out best option for instilling some sort of civil order in Bazhong if Hongkui is intent on holding the city." Which certainly seemed to be his intent. That had potential repercussions if they acted like a garrisoning army, so the Gendarmes needed to be there.
"You say that, but we'll be lucky if we start getting new trucks in a year and a half." He was referring to a notification that the war production act, and the board Wilson had put together was allocating priority for exports and that that had the potential to delay orders for the sake of the European war. It was one more reason to get their foot in the door with Ford as soon as the fighting was done, and set up domestic manufacturing... and also to get as many people out of war ravaged Europe for that matter. They'd need to encourage immigration, of the permanent sort, as well as shorter term contracting gig work for the company. "And by that point demand is going to be high as a Georgia kite."
He glanced at Dawes, "I figure you're leading somewhere with this?"
"Changes to the brigades, once the cutting in Europe is done." The initial proposal was to take guns that had previously been under Phillip. Phillip had of course not taken 2
nd Brigade with him, that would have almost certainly been a good way to lose the guns to someone else one way or another. The idea though was to turn 2
nd Brigade into a combined arms element of its own, which called for a distinction in doctrine usage versus how normal Rifle Infantry Officers were calling for the Mechanized force to be used.
"Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves."
"I'm not, I'm just going to say that, while Lewis's gun is useful for a lot of things. It has limits, but we do need to replace our existing Maxims as well whatever we do. " The idea was that while the Vickers did work, and had worked well, that they would be better off swapping to the M1917 and building that for their 200gr Mausers.
"Why?"
"We need a new machine gun, and we need a new heavy machine gun in particular. Also to be honest the gun is licensed for the war we can leverage state for production of it without a problem... and from what I understand most of the people trying to produce are having trouble standing to."
"You think we could undercut them?"
"I think so, but really we do just need a new gun." The war would ultimately end before Dawes's scheme to do what they had done for the Lewis gun could be initialized, but by 1920 the 8mm version of the M1917 Belt Fed Heavy Machine gun had to the consternation of Minister Reinsch and Sir John Jordan had reached ten thousand.
The guns wouldn't be in service and useful until after the war, because state had provided the license during the war, before the armistice and certainly before the May Fourth fiasco the arms embargo never touched the production. So that when Ford's engineers came to build the first assembly line automobile factory in China it didn't take a rocket scientist or very long at all that Ford armored Cars started rolling off the line a few years down the road. Production of trucks would lead to production of heavier tractor engines, V8s that could be used domestically in other things, and export as well as domestic consumption.
The production of automobile, truck, tractor, and all the other things the engine could go into spawned from the war, or at least was made possible by the economic growth of the war. Its take off would insure new growth in supporting industries, and while the Ford V8 lineage lead to other things it also contributed to the manufacturing side of production for other engines.
--
Spring had come, but there was little time to enjoy it. Duan had come back into the premiership while they'd been having the spring conference... but frankly it changed so little there was no point on mentioning at the time. The truth was they had other things to contend with. The 2
nd and 5
th Infantry Regiments both apart of 2
nd Division had been placed on the border with Szechwan, the last of the division's infantry regiments was formally standing up its garrison at Ankang... but that was just as much to keep certain people on their side of the fence from starting trouble.
Shan had actually refused a promotion to division command of 2
nd wanting instead to wait for a slot in either a volunteer brigade or as commander of 3
rd which was currently held by Bill's XO. Now General Lee was presently at Urumqi with his divisional headquarters alongside the 3
rd Rifle Regiment. The 3
rd Regiment, 3
rd Division of theirs, had taken up headquarters at the railhead at Urumqi and was being supplemented by additional Kansu troops. The Ma Clique had expanded Hui troops to account for an estimated eleven thousand men. That had been a surprise. Hongkui's Independent Brigade still formed the bulk of that force but it was a cordon of extra bodies stretching west... and in theory it might keep fighting across the border limited to attacks into Szechwan.
The gears turning in Percy's head were almost audible. "And these are at strength?"
They were, he acknowledged. In 1898 the US Army had expanded from a meagre twenty seven thousand men, to a high just short of 210 thousand. Admittedly the growth and rapid reduction in the army had continued annually but it had never returned to that pre war with Spain low. With three divisions in the field Xian was not likely to drop below that number either. Not when the entire point of posting the 5
th Infantry Regiment in the Bashan Defensive Cordon was to insure they had some experience... but Percy would have done well to understand that this was not the United States, if that was his thinking, and that manpower was more abundant relative to actual demand. Of course 5
th division was also planned to be posted to Zhili and Shansi with Regiments drawn from western Zhili and Yan Xishan's province as part of collective security. As such the 4
th and 5
th Divisions were planned to be modelled on 2
nd Division.
... and if it came to it, then well they'd decide what to do from there, but there were arguments about whether or not 8
th and 9
th Regiments 1
st and 3
rd Divisions respectively shouldn't be looked at as the future cores of Rifle Divisions of the same number.
"I don't believe I've met your General Lee, is he from Virginia?"
Allen glanced up from his papers, "He's from Zhili," Though only because his father had been posted to the capital in the last years of the Qing dynasty, and that was complicated. Lee's presence in the company had originally been for railway development. When the shooting had started in Shijiazhuang and the family loyalty to Yuan Shikai as political patron... it hadn't been much of a stretch to go to the RPF and then to forces arrayed against Bai Lang. "We needed someone to command 3
rd, he was up for rotation." Then after a moment in which he weighed the remark, "I suppose I could have pulled Klein from the training rotation and let him have the rifles."
"Yes, ha ha, very funny."
It wasn't. Percy's distrust of the West Texas German community had created tensions over the last two years, and while none of them sat on the cadre... barring occasional proxy seating even so they had other ways of complaining ... almost nearly as much as the Irish-American gallery and that had been bad after the Easter rising, though some of that had boiled off. "No you're right even if Klein was in the rotation there's too much else going on. I assume you're here about the rail line." He got up and walked over to the tray at the end of the desk. Percy looked at him, and Allen collected the papers, "Well?"
"Actually... Nakamichi's request, for Lewis guns?"
"Yeah?" He replied.
"Its been passed up to the cabinet," He almost immediately asked if that meant John Jordan had a problem with it... "There is support for it."
He shrugged, "I wasn't aware the war-"
"No-," he bit down at the outburst, "Yes, we are coordinating what I meant was this is coming from the Japanese Cabinet, from the Army Minister, and Prime Minister Terauchi."
"Yamagata, makes sense with Iseburo involved as well." What would follow was the problem of the war in general... feeding all the different rifle sorts. The British had as a decision had to compromise on who received 303 rifles in the standard cartridge. The French, and the Russians each had their own cartridges... the states had 30 Government and the Japanese who while not fielding land forces up to this point had supplied rifles in their own service cartridge. The limits on machine gun production had meant most sides had ended up buying from outside manufacturing concerns. The French arsenals simply hadn't been able to keep up production. BSA had tried but had fallen behind. The story was the same, especially as air power had taken a more prominent role.
War planners had expected a rehash of the Russo Japanese war, a quick war. They hadn't expected airplanes to take off, no pun intended, or for them to need machine guns of their owns.
"The Prime Minister, the King's Prime Minister and the munitions board wants to insure that the ANZAC units are competently equipped."
He didn't immediately show overt interest, and flipped through the in tray. Some one had slipped a mention that Duan was talking about holding parliamentary elections to the Legation in Tietsin... that was interesting, but, "Alright, so competently equipped what are they needing?"
The idea was to keep the Eastern front open of course. In 1918 the idea was not to wage a war against the Bolsheviks. Lloyd George would come around too late to that idea, and there simply wasn't support in the cabinet for that while contending with the situation in the west, but there were other factors within the small coalition cabinet managing the British Empire that were in play.
"Machine guns principally. Lewis Guns, Vickers, mortars yes, it would be a continuation of the orders you were filling for the troops operating in the Middle East. An expansion we don't need to worry overly much about anything, just, you know an accommodation."
He wished Percy hadn't brought up the Middle East... they'd known about the backroom deal between the French and English before hand, but the 'Bolshies', as Percy had taken to calling them throwing it out into the public papers that had caused a headache all around.
