In the War of Resistance Against Japan, the artillery of the mainland army was relatively small in scale and the artillery was relatively light.
At that time, the vast majority of artillery equipped in the domestic troops was actually mortars, and the proportion of mountain howitzers was very small; precisely because of the small proportion, artillery such as mountain howitzers were often commonly called "cannons".
Judging from the establishment situation at that time, only a very small number of infantry divisions were equipped with mountain artillery, and even fewer of them could be equipped with mountain artillery battalions; and the vast majority of artillery at that time was organized in independent artillery units, which were deployed according to needs in wartime.
Only some extremely elite corps were equipped with artillery regiments, such as the 74th Army, which was classified as an "attack army".
However, there are actually very few such armies, and it is even rarer for non-central army units to organize an artillery regiment within an army.
And in this rare context, Fu Zuoyi's 35th Army is a special example.
The 35th Army is one of the four army-level numbers retained by the Jin Sui Army after the Central Plains War accepted the unified reorganization of Nanjing, and Fu Zuoyi commanded the army for a long time.
However, in the early and mid-1930s, this army was still in the system of the Jinsui Army, until the end of 1938, after Fu Zuoyi took office as the deputy commander of the 8th Theater of Operations, he brought this army back to Suiyuan, and completely broke away from the Jinsui Army system.
At that time, the Jin Sui Army troops who followed Fu Zuoyi out of Suiyuan had a total of 8 infantry regiments and 1 artillery regiment, of which these 8 infantry regiments were later integrated into the three major infantry divisions of the Fu army - the 101st Division, the New 31st Division and the New 32nd Division, and the artillery regiment turned into the 35th Army, which made this army also have a military artillery regiment, which was a first-class existence in the domestic troops at that time, after all, the so-called attack army had not yet appeared!
The official name of this artillery regiment is the 25th Regiment, which was originally one of the nine artillery regiments officially established by the Jin Sui Army.
According to the establishment of the artillery regiment of the Jin Sui Army at that time, a regiment had three artillery battalions and one battalion had three artillery companies, and theoretically each regiment had about 1,100 troops and 36 artillery pieces. Of course, in order to facilitate the transport of artillery, there were hundreds of mules and horses in an artillery regiment.
After the Battle of Taiyuan in 1937, the infantry and artillery units of the Jin Sui Army suffered heavy losses, especially after the loss of Taiyuan, because of the loss of the artillery manufacturing capacity of the arsenal, the artillery of the Jin Sui Army could not maintain the scale of 9 artillery regiments, but after the cancellation of the establishment of 4 artillery regiments, the remaining 5 regiments were enriched, and the 25th Artillery Regiment was one of them.
Of course, although it was a reinforced artillery regiment, it was not as large as before.
According to the statistics of the establishment of the Jinsui Army Artillery Regiment in 1938, the 25th Regiment actually had three artillery battalions, of which the 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion were all three companies, and the 3rd Battalion had only two companies, and each company was one less squad.
As far as the equipment of artillery is concerned, the 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion have both changed from the original 4 artillery companies to 3 artillery companies, so the number of artillery pieces equipped with an artillery battalion has dropped from 12 to 9; the 3rd Battalion also has 3 artillery companies, but because there are only 2 artillery companies, there are only 6 guns.
As a result, the 1st Battalion of the 25th Artillery Regiment was equipped with 9 guns, the 2nd Battalion was equipped with 9 guns, and the 3rd Battalion was equipped with 6 guns, for a total of 24 guns in the whole regiment, which was only two-thirds of the previous number compared to the original establishment state.
As for the type of artillery equipped, it is the Jin-13 Type 75 mm mountain gun, which is modeled after the Japanese Taisho six-year mountain gun.
The performance of this artillery is not as good as the original, and because of the poor quality control made in Shanxi, the service life, power, and range are poor, but in the domestic troops at that time, it was good to be able to use this level of mountain artillery.
So after this artillery regiment left Suiyuan with Fu Zuoyi, of course, it became the "baby bump" of Fu Zuoyi and the 35th Army.
From the end of 1939 to the beginning of 1940, in the three battles of Baotou, Suixi, and Wuyuan, the 25th Artillery Regiment made many sorties with the synchronized troops, firing a total of more than 2,000 shells and destroying a large number of Japanese troops.
However, in the brutal battle, the 25th Artillery Regiment also paid a considerable price.
According to the detailed reports of the battles of the 8th Theater in Baotou, Suixi, and Wuyuan, the 25th Artillery Regiment suffered a total of 98 killed, 90 wounded, and 58 missing in the three battles.
In terms of artillery losses, 8 mountain guns were lost in the Battle of Baotou, 6 mountain guns in the Battle of Suixi, and 3 mountain guns in the Battle of Wuyuan, for a total of 17 mountain guns.
As mentioned above, the 25th Artillery Regiment was originally equipped with 24 guns, and if this number is calculated, then the number of mountain guns lost by the 25th Artillery Regiment in the three battles accounted for more than 70% of the establishment, basically from the strength of an artillery regiment to the strength of an artillery battalion.
Because Fu Zuoyi's troops had broken away from the Jin Sui army at that time, the weapons and ammunition of the department could no longer be obtained from Shanxi, in fact, Yan Xishan at that time only had a corner of the western part of Jin, and the arsenal withdrawn to the rear could no longer make mountain artillery, even if Yan Xishan was willing, it was impossible to replenish Fu Zuoyi's artillery.
As for Lao Chiang, the artillery at that time was also a hot commodity, and it is not clear whether the follow-up replenished the losses of the Fu artillery.
However, in the Great War of 1940, Fu Zuoyi's infantry troops also suffered heavy losses, which is likely to be an important reason why there were fewer major battles in Suiyuan in the following years.
Of course, because the Japanese invaders experienced the severe blows of the above three battles, they did not dare to easily enter Suixi, and the war of resistance in Suiyuan entered a new stage of struggle.