A hill about 2,800 meters away from the 772nd Regiment position!
"Does this madman Wang have any organizational discipline? He actually bypassed the brigade headquarters and directly commanded the artillery battalion. Brigadier, at the post-war summary meeting, we can't easily let this guy admit his mistake without any pain.
Forget it." Brigadier Cheng just sat down at the temporary headquarters and looked at the map when he received a complaint from the brigade chief of staff.
"The little devil dispatched more than 20 tanks to directly attack my position? Haha, you are really bullying me. The 683rd Brigade has never fought a large-scale position battle with them, okay! Let's have a collision with them and see whose fist is stronger!"
Brigadier Cheng Da took the message handed over by the chief of staff, and his focus was obviously different from that of his own chief of staff.
"Brigadier, the artillery battalion is still waiting for orders from the brigade headquarters!" The chief of staff couldn't help but become a little anxious when he saw that Brigadier Cheng was still commenting unhurriedly.
It is one thing to verbally criticize Wang Xiaoqiang, but the 772nd Regiment is recognized as the most capable of the four main regiments of the 683rd Brigade. The Japanese tanks are coming, and there is no room for any delay.
"You see, you old Li is a talkative man with a soft heart. While he is saying that he will severely punish Madman Wang for ignoring organizational discipline, he is also worried that the artillery battalion will be slow to provide him with support." Brigadier Cheng laughed.
"Don't worry, you don't know what kind of person Crazy Wang is. He is a leader who cannot afford to suffer. Not to mention directly commanding the artillery battalion. I'm afraid he also sent a telegram to the Si Xing Regiment and asked Tang Dao to give it to him.
Fire support.
Once the 20 or so big guys that the Four Elements Group hides in the mountains are taken out, the little devils will have a good drink."
"Yes, Madman Wang and Commander Tang have a very good relationship in private. How about saying hello to the artillery camp and saving some energy for us?" Chief of Staff Li couldn't relax at this time.
Young man, he couldn't help but make a joke.
"Don't talk nonsense. This is the first time since the Anti-Japanese War that our 683 brigade has shown its chariots and horses to fight with half the division. How can we hide it? If we don't fight, it will be enough. If we want to fight, we have to beat the Japanese to tears and make them cry."
You know, as long as I have the equipment of the 80th Group Army, no nonsense First Division can be used. The reason why we use our swords this time is not just to show off the prestige of our 80th Group Army, but to tell the Japanese North China Front Army, to tell the whole of China, North China,
It has never been truly occupied!" Brigadier Cheng waved his hands, his usually gentle face full of determination, and his eyes even more murderous.
Obviously, in this battle of Zishan, the 80th Army Headquarters is willing to cooperate with Tang Dao to use the 683 Brigade, which has been fully redressed.
, the more important meaning is to make your own voice in North China.
Yamashiro had always been extremely wary of the 80th Army, and smeared it for actively carrying out guerrilla warfare in the battlefield behind enemy lines to expand base areas and involving the strength of the Japanese North China Front Army, and labeled it "roving without attacking". This led to many citizens in the south who did not know the truth to evaluate the 80th Army.
move lower and surround the Fourth Army in the Jiangnan area with heavy troops.
In the past, Anxian officials were wary of the united front, considering the grand strategy of jointly resisting Japan, and were unwilling to break up with that person, but now it is different. With the injection of magical fresh blood like Tang Dao, the oil field in the northwest can
Producing considerable economic value, many of the army's equipment are already self-sufficient.
Even driven by a mysterious force in the United States, many overseas Chinese made donations and specified that the Eightyth Army would personally receive them when donating money and materials. The economic situation improved greatly in 1939.
With enough confidence, the Eightyth Army decided to show its sword and let the whole of China see that the Eightyth Army also had the courage and strength to fight the Japanese army on a large scale.
Therefore, this battle can only be won, not lost!
Compared with Brigadier Cheng, who shoulders the mission of the power of faith, Tang Dao does not have so many scruples. After receiving the telegram with a 'threatening' tone from the madman general, he just smiled slightly: "Now that madman Wang has spoken,
No matter what, we have to give this face, order Pang Hai, and the mountain artillery company to give full support, and all gun positions should be based on a base number of one and a half!"
"Haha! After the war, Madman Wang must treat you to a big drink with the regiment commander. Chief of Staff Shangguan and I can have a shameless meal. It's not easy to drink from Madman Wang's wine. His comrades and I are very
I only had two meals a year." Ye Chenghuan had a bright smile on his face.
"Regiment seat, Brigadier Cheng knows that we have 150 howitzers and only use 75 mountain guns to support friendly forces. Isn't it a bit stingy?" Shangguan Yun, who had just returned to the regiment headquarters from the front line for a long time, raised a question.
"Chief of Staff Shangguan doesn't know. It's not that the regiment commander is stingy about not using heavy artillery, but that the reserve of heavy artillery shells is already slightly insufficient. Moreover, the reconnaissance company Mingxin sent a message that a Japanese heavy artillery squadron has been observed taking action.
That thing poses a great threat to our army. However, our heavy artillery positions are mostly concealed four or five kilometers away from the front line. The Japanese army is also cunning enough. The heavy artillery positions are generally outside the range of our heavy artillery. It is not easy to wait until they take the initiative to walk into us.
With the range of heavy artillery, we can't easily let them go. What the regiment leader meant was to use good steel on the blade and focus the fire to kill several Japanese heavy artillery pieces." Ye Chenghuan instead took the initiative to explain.
The 150mm howitzer is a good thing, but its shells are too big and heavy. One shell exceeds 40 kilograms. A lot of the inventory is still unshipped from Fengfeng Coal Mine.
In order to sufficiently deter the Japanese army in the early stage, a round of artillery fire was basically more than a hundred rounds, and in order to give the Japanese army the illusion that we were not short of artillery shells, Tang Dao basically responded to the frontline commander's call for heavy artillery fire support and artillery retaliation, and the five-day battle
At the end of the day, there were only less than 300 rounds of heavy artillery shells stored in the entire Zishan area.
Although it can be supported for another week, if the Japanese are determined to start a tug-of-war and continue to increase their troops, after one week there will be no heavy artillery available.
Whether for tactical purposes or strategic deterrence, the 28 150-mm howitzers have to start retaining force.
"Besides, the thin-skinned and overstuffed scum tanks like the Little Devils need heavy artillery. The artillery battalion of the 683rd Brigade and the 36 mountain artillery guns of our mountain artillery company are already very humiliating to them." Ye Chenghuan is now
More or less, I have the same "stinky problem" of the Four Elements Group, and I am full of self-confidence.
However, Tang Dao ignored the conversation between the two deputies and kept looking at the map. The 683rd Brigade had arrived according to the pre-war agreement. The battle situation in Zishan had entered a turning point. It was no longer just about the enemy attacking and we defending, but also a stage of attacking and defending.
.
The First Division has no intention of withdrawing its troops yet. It should be that Saburo Okabe believes that the tens of thousands of troops under his command are enough to resist the 683rd Brigade's attack on the plains while continuing to attack the Zishan defense line. This serious misjudgment may become the basis for this former
The Japanese Chief of Staff of the North China Front suffered another Waterloo.
If the 772nd Regiment can catch the Japanese by surprise in this battle, maybe this turn of events can overwhelm the First Division.
"Call to Leng Feng, I will deploy the 1st Battalion, 1st Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Company, and the 1st Battalion escort company to the northwest defense line. He will be under unified command. If the 683rd Brigade can break through the Japanese rear flank defense line, he will look for opportunities to counterattack and strive to move the northwest direction upward.
The Japanese soldiers were stuck and held back by me. They could fight when they wanted and leave when they wanted. Saburo Okabe really wanted to be more beautiful than he was. I will tell him with the life of a Japanese that it is already 1940, not 1937.
Come on!" Tang Dao ordered.
"Yes!" Shangguan Yun and Ye Chenghuan looked at each other in surprise, and immediately turned around to convey Tang Dao's military order.
Both officers were veterans who had fought with the Japanese army countless times on the battlefield, but their most common experience before that was not only when the Japanese came to attack, but they and their officers and soldiers risked their lives to defend, as well as many victories.
The Japanese army couldn't attack for a long time and had no choice but to retreat. But that's not exactly what Tang Dao said just now. The Japanese can fight if they want to fight and withdraw if they don't want to fight. They have complete initiative. That is frustrating for any soldier.
!
Now, we can finally use guns and cannons to tell the Japanese that when they come, they will be left as fertilizer for me with peace of mind. I may not allow you to leave. Who would be unhappy instead?
But who is the most high-spirited man on the battlefield now, Wang She Wang Xiaoqiang?
How does it feel to be able to mobilize 36 mountain guns and more than a dozen mortars? Wang Xiaoqiang can tell you with a gray face: It’s so cool! It’s so good!
The truth lies within the range of the cannon! This sentence is applicable in any era.
When the 36 mountain guns from several directions raised their muzzles, and the artillery squad leader waved the red flag and let out heart-rending roars, there was more than ten seconds of silence on the battlefield northwest of Zishan.
Because soldiers from both China and Japan were lying in the trenches, trying to determine where the sudden scream in the air would fly and how many seconds they would have until they landed.
This kind of thing happened countless times every day in these five or six days. No matter how stupid the soldier was, he learned the parabolic algorithm that he couldn't learn no matter how hard he learned it in the math class. Those who didn't learn it had a higher mortality rate under artillery fire.
will be as high as ninety percent.
Then, a series of "boom-boom-boom" muffled sounds came from the sky.
The artillery shells did not fall on the Zishan battlefield, but on the plains farther away.
The Chinese and Japanese soldiers in the Zishan War Zone were slightly relieved, no matter where the shells landed, as long as they were not on their heads.
But Major General Hattori Akitaro was in an extremely bad mood!
Dazzling fireballs rose up in an area less than 1,000 meters away from him, and the ground seemed to be shaking. Even if he stood in a fortification that could withstand 105 grenade, Hattori Xiaotaro's face was still pale.
If the first round of more than 10 artillery shells fell on that vast plain, Hattori Xiaotaro still had a bit of luck. The power of more than a dozen mountain cannons was not enough to cause damage to his position that stretched for more than 3,000 meters and was 1,000 meters deep.
Too much of a threat.
But as one shell after another hit hard, and finally like a continuous rainstorm, when the entire front line of the position was submerged in smoke and dust, all the luck of Hattori Xiaotaro was wiped out.
That was the bombardment of more than 40 artillery pieces. Every second, his soldiers would be attacked by three artillery shells. With such a firepower density, even a division and the entire artillery regiment would have to be dispatched.
But compared to the crazy artillery of the Chinese, what made the Japanese major general even more frustrated was that just 3 minutes ago, he sent out a squadron of tanks and 800 infantry.
These people were all exposed in the wilderness and were within the coverage of Chinese artillery fire.
It was he, the major general brigade commander, who pushed these imperial officers and soldiers into the abyss.
Yes, under such fierce artillery fire, let alone people, even the 15-ton Type 97 medium tank was like a ship in the sea, shaking violently in the air waves caused by the explosion of the shells, and shrapnel hit the steel plate.
The sound was like rain hitting banana trees.
The clanking sound was the sound of death to the Japanese armored soldiers in the tanks.
It is true that shrapnel cannot penetrate a steel plate of more than ten millimeters or even twenty millimeters, but what if a shell happens to hit the tank?
In terms of caliber, the fragile top of the tank is no different from armor-piercing projectiles and grenades. Whether it is a 150-meter heavy gun or a 75-meter mountain gun, they all have the energy to destroy a tank.
The smoke and dust stirred up by the shells made the visibility of the Japanese tank observation ports extremely low. There were only two ways in front of these Japanese tank soldiers, either to move forward or to retreat!
If you move forward, you may be attacked by more artillery fire, but if you retreat, you have to turn and avoid the infantry following closely behind, which means you have to stay in the area covered by artillery fire for a longer time.
Kamiya Haosen, then commander of the 1st Tank Squadron of the 1st Division, made an extremely heroic decision and picked up the radio: "Brave Imperial Knights, follow me and advance at full speed! Long live the Empire!"
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Long live the Empire!" came the heroic slogan of the Japanese armored soldiers from the wireless intercom.
Except for two of the 22 tanks, the Type 97 light tank, whose tracks were damaged and unable to move due to the explosion of artillery shells on the sides of the vehicle, the remaining 20 tanks continued to move forward at full speed amid the violent storm of artillery fire.
That scene happened to be seen by a Japanese reporter who was accompanying the army. He wrote this paragraph with tears in his eyes: The enemy's artillery fire was so fierce that even though I was thousands of meters away, I could feel the heat wave coming towards my face, but...
In such a purgatory, the empire's more than 20 tanks were still firing at full power, killing the Chinese positions like sharp arrows.
They are like the sword in the hand of His Majesty the Emperor, which can cut through the darkness and pierce the sky; they are lightning and the glory of the empire!
Just barely, the lyrics of the song "You are electricity, you are light, you are the only myth" that will be sung in future classics were released in advance by this emotional Japanese military reporter.
However, when this tearful man was praising the heroic and fearless Imperial Steel Knights with all his strength, he may not have noticed that Major General Hattori not far away from him also had tears in his eyes at this moment.
It's just that I cried because of my heartache.
Tanks have steel frames. As long as they are not unlucky enough to be hit by a shell, the probability of survival is still very high. But what can those Japanese infantry who can only lie on the ground do to resist the artillery fire?
Relying on the dirt accumulated from not bathing for a long time? Relying on the protection of the unpredictable Amaterasu?
In the end, we can only rely on our lives!
But it doesn't depend on luck, but as long as you die enough, the reaper will be full of rewards. He will always miss a few kittens and puppies, right?
According to Hattori Kotaro's estimate, 30% of the infantrymen in the area covered by artillery fire would eventually survive, which made him chuckle even in his dreams.
The prerequisite for having such a high survival rate is that his subordinates must be agile enough to hide in a crater not far from them before the next shell kills them.
Hiding in bomb craters was the only chance for Japanese infantry to survive, but that also meant that no infantry could kill the enemy positions with sparks and lightning like the heroic Japanese armored soldiers.
The only outcome of running under gunfire is to be torn into pieces by the gunfire.
Obviously, the "conspicuous packs" who braved the artillery fire and bravely moved forward completely lost the protection of the infantry after running wildly for one minute and finally escaped from the area covered by the artillery fire.
Tanks are indeed very powerful weapons on the battlefield, especially if there are not enough anti-tank weapons, they are simply invincible to the infantry.
Heavy machine gun fortification, a tank with a tank gun can shoot it into the sky with one shot, and the machine gun carried by the tank itself can immediately rush to the next life if the infantry dares to provoke it.
But there is a premise for this, no one can get close to the tank...
In World War II, the famous German general "Gu Bu Shuai"'s blitzkrieg defeated the Western world. He was never just a group of steel monsters rampaging on the battlefield. He also had the most advanced infantry-tank coordination tactics in the world during this period.
That is, the infantry moves forward with the tank as the center. The tank clears the way for the infantry and blocks enemy fire attacks. The infantry needs to observe the surrounding environment at all times to prevent enemy infantry from raiding the tank, clear anti-tank mines on the road, etc., and provide space for the tank.
safety protection.
The tank has always played the role of pioneer, and the infantry is an extension of the tank's firepower, responsible for expanding the results of the battle. This is a bit like the relationship between the queen bee and the worker bee, the only difference is that the tank does not create infantry.
The Japanese rely on 20 tanks to rush in front of nearly 4,000 elite infantry, and they are also in front of 4,000 elite infantrymen who also have 37mm anti-tank guns.
All I can say is that there is no other word to describe them except silly.
"The Japanese tanks are quite strong! They just rushed over like this?" Some infantrymen were still marveling at how strong the Japanese tanks were.
"Squad leader, what can we do about this?" Some recruits who have interacted with tanks expressed panic every time.
"I'm afraid, haven't you been specially trained on how to fight tanks? Wait for the order." The squad leaders basically remained calm.
"Each demolition team used gunpowder smoke and terrain cover to avoid machine gun fire, and used explosive packets and Molotov cocktails to kill the devil." The battalion and company-level commanders who were hiding in the trenches were still looking serious.
But he couldn't hide his excitement.
They are all veterans who have been on the battlefield for many years. The shortest service time is more than 6 years. They have never seen any kind of battlefield. They watched these 20 or so conspicuous vehicles dragging thick black smoke towards them. Behind them,
If you don't see a Japanese soldier, you won't be able to find a fighter immediately.
It was really not that the lunatic general was reluctant to use the 37mm combat anti-aircraft gun to shoot at the armored clusters of the Japanese army that was rumbling over. Instead, he used infantry to throw incendiary bottles and explosive packs which were more cost-effective.
Tanks without infantry protection are just a bunch of giant turtles. What else do they have besides a harder shell?
This chapter has been completed!