The year is 1920, and you have been hired as a military advisor to a Chinese warlord. He commands a modest force of 8,000 soldiers. Those that aren't lacking arms are wielding Gewehr 88 copies in 8mm Mauser. He has no cavalry to speak of, but does possess ~100 working Model T trucks. He has given you a considerable sum of money to purchase weaponry (and potentially hire personnel) that will give him an edge over his rivals. What do you furnish his army with, and why?
a Bad Piggies tier plane, duh
>As his position in Shandong was threatened to be overrun, Zhang requested a resident German technician named Franz Oster to build more aircraft for his air force to counter the advancing KMT. Oster constructed a plane, but when it was shipped to Zhang's headquarters, it was found to be so badly designed that it could not even get off the ground.
zhang zongchang's wikipedia page is one of my favourite webpages of all time btw. every time i think i've read about every bat shit thing about this fricking guy i go back and catch something else ridiculous i didn't see the last time
>he found out one of his officers was having sex with a concubine of his.
>when he confronted them, he found out they loved each other and let them marry.
wholesome
Honestly, apart from being a batshit crazy opium-fueled warlord, he sounds like a nice guy
>didn't have enough medals to give out to everyone so he had them made of cigarette foil instead of just promoting less people
>gave an actress the funds to start a film company
>took his mother with him everywhere he went
>cared enough about the peasantry that he fired artillery at the rain god during a drought (and it worked)
>took his mother with him everywhere he went
I love ma Momma
>Time magazine dubbed him China's "basest warlord"
based
I put the soldiers in the trucks, send them to the front line and keep all the money myself.
I would just chase the meta and invest the money into poppy fields to turn it into more money. We’re going to get raped by KMT, IJA or CCP anyways so might as well just sink into a drug induced haze because things are only going to get worse for the next 60 years.
I would buy try to buy shit from the Japanese (primarily artillery) and see if that can be used to make inroads for an alliance and collaboration, hopefully it will save us and any territories given to us from being raped.
1920?
Steal/buy as much as possible from russian warlords (the c**try is full of it and in chaos), German stocks (they have to get rid of most of it because of the Versailles Treaty anyway) and potential French and British politicians and industrialists (by proving them it is in their interest to support my boss).
Ideally, I would end up with German and russian rifles, grenades and uniforms and French and British tanks and planes. Gunboats for rivers would be nice too.
Don't know how much the Japanese would be ready/able to help and what kind of equipment they could provide, but they can be an interesting source of gear too.
Forgot about artillery. Anyone could provide that, but it would be best to get it from one country (maybe the Germans), so as to not complicate the supply situation too much
The first thing I do is hire as many out of work German enlisted vets as I can get my hands on to train troops. If I can convince a dozen or so majors and a handfull of colonels to come along even better, to train officers and act as a sort of command staff. After a few months of training evolutions, we have a large full force evaluation consisting of series of written exams and field problems. I then issue promotions and demotions based of the results of this exercise and structure my forces into 10 slightly undersized batallion, mixing the good, decent, and not great troops as best I can so that the bad can learn from the good, besides 2 crack batallions of stormtroopers. Also I steal as many technically proficiant people away from line units as possible for an arty battalion and a supply/maintenence unit.
I issue as standard Mauser 98s and Maxim guns chambered in 8mm and continue equipping units until the 88s can be delegated to interior security usage. I then issue a standardized test to all males age 15-60 in the territories I hold to find the most mechanically inclined while poaching DWM, Krupp, Mauser etc, engineers facing hard times thanks to Versailles and demilitarization with massive oriental corruption-tier salaries that will be impossible to resist. Mating these hopefully hundred or so Western engineers to the "skilled" labor pool I've raised with the standardized testing should allow me to set up at least rudimentary production lines for things like rifles, ammunition, spare arty and machine gun barrels, etc. I especially court people involved with the MP18 and attempt to reproduce it as well as setting up a production line for magazines and 9mm ammunition.
Also I'm talking 500 or so foreign advisors altogether including civilians and one or two production lines for each type of necessary war supply not huge armies of mercenaries and factory cities. Should be more than possible woth a significant, but finite budget. Spend leftovers on roads/bridges.
> I then issue a standardized test to all males age 15-60 in the territories I hold to find the most mechanically inclined while poaching DWM, Krupp, Mauser etc, engineers facing hard times thanks to Versailles and demilitarization with massive oriental corruption-tier salaries that will be impossible to resist. Mating these hopefully hundred or so Western engineers to the "skilled" labor pool I've raised with the standardized testing should allow me to set up at least rudimentary production lines for things like rifles, ammunition, spare arty and machine gun barrels, etc.
Nobody will pass your exam and be able to efficiently manufacture your guns. There is no such thing as a mechanically inclined Chinese unless you go to the cities and try and poach the educated.
Also bear in mind that the prize for being the best Chinese warlord is IJA bayonet rape until 1945. The meta is to be the second best like Mao.
>the prize for being the best Chinese warlord is IJA bayonet rape until 1945
all you need to do is be better than the hilariously corrupt Kuomintang and you get American gibs for the civil war
What Mao did was ridiculously lucky, not "meta"
It's one of the most unlikely and impactful things that happened in the 20th century imo
Ironically, some of the most capable warlords who made it that far ended up ultimately siding with Mao.
I kill my lord, take all the men and resources I can manage, and go underground. 8,000 men and no backing just isn't enough to survive in this era, no matter how well equipped and well trained they might be. We'll be much more likely to survive as a semi-criminal secret society spread out across the chinese diaspora. It worked for the White Lotus Society, the Queen Mother of the West protects her own.
>German surplus gpmgs, T-gewehrs and light artillery
>any surplus grenades, set up local production, every soldier gets ten of them as basic load, also locally source grenade launcher attachments for the rifles
>some commercial levergats and annihilators
>nagant revolvers for the officers
>locally source the uniforms, maybe get the burgers to set up the industry for it, make it imposing but green+brown + high, laced boots
>get more american trucks and pioneer thunderruns
>if I still have money, buy any aircraft, blimp and dirigible available until sufficient recon and light ground attack capability is achieved (see also: grenade spam)
squad setup would be
>leader: smg + nagant
>2nd in command: smg + mg belts
>machinegunner (no grenades)
>2×submachinegunner (dozen grenades)
>5×riflemen (ten grenades, grenade cup)
no real need for tanks if the infantry is confident, mobile and have squad-level light mortar capability, platoon level T-gewehr and company level light AT
should chew up everything soft in cqc with the sheer volume of fire, good platoon level doctrine can carry them in long-range engagements
squad assault tactic
>leader and submachinegunners do the clearing
>assistant leader stays behind with machinegunner so he doesn't die
>riflemen provide cover fire and grenade spam until contact, or flank a bit or whatever
platoon setup
>platoon is made up of three squads as described above, and a HQ squad
>HQ squad has a light mortar, two mgs, the T-gewehr and two snipers besides commander&co. with rifles or smgs of their choice
>all outfitted with T-models and carriages as needed and available
company is made up of three platoons, a command unit and a battery's worth of misc light guns and howitzers, some 150 men
Outfit all of the troops with Gewehr 88s.
100 Maxim guns with 25 mounted on the trucks and 24x 60mm mortars 12x mounted on the trucks as well.
12 trucks dedicated for ammo mule duties and one command truck. This 1920. Radio is in its infancy so you’ll be using semaphore and runners for C3.
You now have a maneuver element with a stand-off capacity. You can have a dozen gun trucks and a six tube battery to pin an opponent. While te other half maneuvers.
Model T trucks could carry about 6-8 men, so you now have about 3-400 Motorized infantry for the remaining trucks.
You didn’t specify WHERE in China this warlord is at, (that kind of matters), so I’m presuming you’re going to operating in the western mountain river valleys or the coastal plains.
China’s big, so there will be a lot of road work involved, lots of towns and cities to either reduce or bypass.
Any questions?
I use money to bribe Japan to take me as a vassal. Maybe marry Japanese minor princess to secure Imperial support. Once done, I will ostensibly fight for Japan's Co Prosperity Sphere.
>1920
Head for Mongolia and join up with Baron Ungern.
All the money will go towards outbidding Chile for the Almirante Latorre.
>What are you possibly hoping to accomplish with-
Frick you, my warlord has a battleship and yours doesn't.
The T in Model T is gonna mean Technical real fricking soon if I have my way
hire as many white russians as I can
they have their own kit, have plenty of experience, are disciplined and don't get involved in warlord scheming
Mortars medium and light for fire support and , surplus German mg 08 machine guns for ammo compatibility and perhaps some 7.7 cm FK 96 and a few spotter biplanes that could drop mortar rounds . Couple of gunboats with similar armaments. Change structure to one platoon of weapons support with mg and mortar per three platoons infantry , four platoons a company, two fireteams weapons and command which encompasses medical and signals and company intel . intelligence should flow from company to battalion to regiment tiers as should signals and medical
4 x platoon in a company 120 men
2x fire team 1x weapons(mortals and mg)
1 x command
4 x company in a battalion 480 men
2 x assault
1 x command/intelligence/medical
1 x artillery/logistics/engineering
4 x battalions in a regiment 2000 including additional specialist resources such as sabotage
2 x assault
1 x command/logistics/engineering/sabotage
1 x naval/marine/air/signals/intelligence
4 regiments in the Army
3 x assault
1 x command and staff/training.
Roughly. You can put some of these men on horses or in lorries as well. Ideally everything is mechanised and they have AT LEAST one armoured car per company with command but you can't have everything
In this setup signals goes with intelligence
This setup allows the implementation of a corps like structure capable of independent combined arms operations based on suppression and manoeuvre but also sufficient structure for larger tactical operations and sustained operations