Li Han's artillery position was discovered by the Japanese army entirely due to accidental factors.
Just when the Japanese planes were flying over Lengkou Pass for reconnaissance and bombing, the Japanese squadron leader Hirota Masatomo received news from the rear that the artillery position had been shelled by Chinese heavy artillery.
During the air raid on Lengkou Pass a few days ago, Hirota Masatomo, although his plane was damaged, still relied on his excellent flying skills to fly the plane out of the war zone with its tail rudder damaged and its wings smoldering and on fire.
Later, about 100 kilometers away from Chengde Airport, just before the plane was about to crash, Hirota Masato led his crew members to parachute to the ground safely. They also became the only crew members in the entire squadron to keep their personnel intact. The crew members of the other three aircraft
They were either dead or injured, and even the squadron leader who was leading the team lost his temper.
However, because two of the four Mitsubishi Type 93 light bombers in their squadron were destroyed, the two aircraft that could barely fly back were also seriously damaged and had to be sent back to Shenyang for overhaul by train. It can be said that the entire squadron was completely lost.
combat effectiveness.
At the repeated request of the 6th Division, the 3rd Air Wing of the Kwantung Army, which was temporarily stationed at the Chengde airstrip, suffered from a shortage of aircraft, so it could only use the Mitsubishi Type 92 reconnaissance aircraft with even worse performance to make up the numbers.
Some people may ask, since it is a large-scale battle involving the main force of the Kwantung Army, why don't the little devils dispatch more aircraft from the rear to participate in the battle?
Here we have to talk about the embarrassment of the Army Aviation Corps.
We have talked about the battle between the Japanese army on land and sea before. The Japanese army, which has an absolute disadvantage in resources and military expenditures, actually does not have many army aviation aircraft.
Although the Kwantung Army during this period established an aviation command, it only consisted of three poorly organized aviation wings with a total of about 100 aircraft.
Two of the regiments will also be deployed in Heilongjiang and North Korea to defend against the Soviet Union, and only one 3rd regiment will be used in the direction of Jehol and the Great Wall.
According to the full strength of an aviation wing of the Japanese army, there should be one group each of fighter jets, light bombers and medium bombers. Each group has 3 squadrons, each squadron has 4 aircraft. In addition, there is a reconnaissance squadron directly under the wing.
and a transport aircraft squadron, totaling 44 aircraft of various types.
However, due to the lag in funding and aircraft research and development, the 3rd Air Wing currently only has one squadron of fighter jets and one squadron of light bombers, one squadron of reconnaissance aircraft, and one squadron of transport aircraft deployed at Chengde and Jinzhou airports. The legendary medium bombers are still there.
Factory R&D was not born.
Moreover, of the 12 Mitsubishi Type 93 light bombers in the Bomber Group, two were grounded due to mechanical failures in the previous Battle of Jehol, and one was destroyed or damaged by the Chinese army during the bombing of Gubeikou. In fact, there are only eight of them.
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Since Gubeikou is the main battlefield that the Kwantung Army attaches great importance to, the bombers of the 3rd Air Wing were previously mainly used for bombing Gubeikou. At the strong request of Masaemon Sakamoto, the Kwantung Army headquarters could only allocate one squadron for bombing.
Lengkou's bombing was almost wiped out by two machine gun companies of the mercenary regiment during his first bombing mission.
Therefore, now the little devils no longer have any extra bombers to carry out bombing missions, so they can only cobble together two Type 92 reconnaissance aircraft and two Type 92 fighter jets to form a reconnaissance bombing squadron.
Bomb racks, each hung with a 50kg bomb to act as a bomber.
Hirota Masatomo, who led the crew back to the base unscathed, was promoted to the squadron leader of this temporary squadron.
Fortunately, Hirota Masatomo's Type 92 reconnaissance aircraft had a radio, so he immediately received the order to find the Chinese artillery positions. If the original Type 93 light bomber had no radio communication equipment at all, it would be difficult to receive new information.
The order can only be learned after returning to the base after blowing up Lengkou.
You know, the stingy little devil did not equip all the aircraft of the Army Aviation with radio communication equipment until the outbreak of the all-out Anti-Japanese War a few years later. In this regard, it was not even a little bit worse than the Japanese Naval Aviation.
Otherwise, by the time the Japanese planes fly back and fly back again, the Japanese heavy artillery positions may have long been turned into ruins, and it is impossible for any artillery to be preserved.
Now it was a mistake. Masato Hirota got the new order immediately.
But even though Masato Hirota had asked observers to constantly observe the situation on the ground with high-power telescopes, they could not find any Chinese artillery positions after flying around Phoenix Mountain for several weeks.
You must know that Li Han's howitzer positions are set up very secretly. The gun positions are basically in the woods, with only two barrels sticking out. There are also camouflage nets and other camouflage means. It is also very difficult to detect the specific location from the air.
It is a pity that the officers and soldiers of the heavy machine gun company of the model brigade responsible for air defense missions were really inexperienced. When they saw the Japanese aircraft continuously lowering their altitude and the two fighter jets began to shoot exploratory shots at the ground, they thought that the artillery position had been exposed, so they rashly attacked the Japanese
The plane started shooting.
This not only exposed the location of the air defense position, but also finally discovered Li Han's artillery position as the Japanese continued to narrow the scope of observation.
At this time, Li Han didn't even care about scolding his mother. He didn't dare to expose the gun positions to the sight of Japanese aircraft for a long time, so he hurriedly ordered a retreat.
Fortunately, Hirota Masato's planes were not bombers, and they did not even have the most basic bombing sights. They could only rely on the pilot's experience and predictions to drop bombs, and they had to brave the crazy firepower of ground anti-aircraft fire.
The Maxim heavy machine gun of the Model Brigade Machine Gun Company does not have any special anti-aircraft mount. It just mounts the machine gun on a tree branch or piled high sandbags to shoot. The shooting range is greatly limited, but the continuous shooting of 10 machine guns will still
Most of the routes bombed by the Japanese were blocked.
Therefore, the effect of bombing is naturally impossible to be accurate.
Although the bombs were not delivered accurately, the machine guns on their planes still caused some damage to the artillery.
In just a few minutes when the artillery was dragged out of the emplacement by a car, the two howitzers of the artillery platoon were unscathed, but the artillerymen were killed by Japanese aircraft machine guns, killing two people and wounding three others, which made Li Han heartbroken.
And I don’t know if Zhou Wen will be held accountable later.
He knew the thoughts and pride of his commander. Maybe he didn't feel bad if the artillery was destroyed, but the casualties of the artillery would be serious, and he might not be able to get the position of commander of the artillery company to be formed in the future.
At this time, the howitzer platoon of the mercenary regiment only fired 10 rounds of salvos.
I have to say that the little devil's reaction was very quick.