Chapter 328 Co-Captain: Habitual thinking hurts people
At one o'clock at noon, the Japanese and puppet troops reached the second blocking position of the assault camp.
Colonel Ando made full use of his artillery advantage, focusing on six large-caliber mountain cannons, six large-caliber mortars, six field guns, and two mountain cannons... and aimed at the blocking position for ten minutes before stopping.
Including the time spent building the artillery position, it took half an hour.
"The offensive troops have begun their assault...the artillery will provide them with artillery cover at any time..." Colonel Ando said with confidence.
In the last blocking battle, I caused a lot of losses to my troops because I underestimated the enemy...
Every step of the way leads to wisdom. In this attack on the blocking position, Colonel Ando used half of his artillery to attack the blocking position.
No matter how tenacious the opponent's fighting will is, he can't withstand the artillery attack just now.
"Sir, the attacking troops have killed and wounded... There seems to be no one in the blocking position!" Seeing that the attacking troops were approaching the trench, but no gunshots were heard from the blocking position, the adjutant made a bold guess.
"Boom boom boom..."
The offensive troops had already begun to throw grenades into the blocking position. As soon as the smoke that filled the position dissipated, they were once again swallowed up by the smoke from the explosion of grenades...
Until this moment, not a single gunshot was heard from the blocking position, not even a grenade was thrown.
The attacking troops instantly became crazy. They all believed that there would be no accidents in the next attack. Every soldier seemed to have been pumped and rushed forward in a swarm, wanting to be the first to rush into the blocking position.
"Da da da……"
Three light machine guns suddenly opened fire at a distance of thirty or forty meters away from them, and a dense rain of bullets swept over them, killing all the dozen or so Japanese and puppet troops in front in an instant...
"Bagheya Road is a bunker... There is a machine gun bunker of the Eighth Route Army in front... Everyone, get down quickly..." The leader of the Jaap squadron shouted an order when he saw three light machine guns gathered together.
Colonel Ando looked surprised. He didn't expect that such fierce artillery fire could not completely destroy the bunker. He was frightened and immediately ordered the artillery to fire...
But the Eighth Route Army a few hundred meters away did not wait for them to fire. As soon as the attacking troops lay down, the gunfire stopped.
If it weren't for the dozens of corpses lying in a circle in front of the bunker, no one would have guessed that a massacre had just occurred here...
Three ordinary mortars, three large-caliber mortars, and two field guns, they fired for a minute and then stopped.
The attacking troops rushed into the blocking position and captured the smoke-filled bunker.
"Regiment commander...report from the offensive force...still no Eighth Route Army was found in the blocking position...not even a body was found!" As soon as the adjutant received the battle report, he ran to Colonel Ando to report.
"We destroyed 70% of the artillery-proof caves built by the Eighth Route Army on their positions... They must be afraid that they would be buried in the artillery-proof caves, so they abandoned their positions and did not dare to stop us here!"
"Where is the Eighth Route Army in the bunker?" Colonel Ando looked very embarrassed and asked with a stern face!
"Ran……"
"Before our bombardment even started, the enemy abandoned the bunker and retreated from the communication ditch!"
Colonel Ando's face became increasingly ugly. He stared at the adjutant and asked in a bad tone: "That means we just wasted hundreds of artillery shells and didn't eliminate even a single Eighth Route Army soldier!"
"No, it should be because I felt lonely..."
"There was not even a single Eighth Route Army soldier on the position, but we dispatched so many artillery pieces and fought for a full ten minutes. If word of this gets out, the entire Ando Regiment will become a laughing stock!"
Three hours later, Colonel Ando was now in front of the third blocking position defended by the assault battalion.
With the help of a telescope, he could see every plant and tree on the surface.
The result was the same as before, apart from the empty trenches, Colonel Ando didn't even see a single figure.
"Captain, why don't we do the same thing as before, use artillery fire for ten minutes, and then attack with infantry!" The adjutant saw Colonel Ando's hesitation and decisively proposed the safest way to fight!
"Although it is a bit of a waste of artillery shells and takes a lot of time... But if the Eighth Route Army is hidden on the position, a single artillery fire can kill 70% of their troops. Compared with the infantry rushing up to fight for their lives, this method of attack is definitely the best.
Cost-effective!"
Colonel Ando did not answer, but asked hesitantly: "What if the Eighth Route Army on the position is like before, afraid that we will cover the position with heavy artillery, and has retreated?"
"Then it would be a waste of hundreds of shells to hold it in..." the adjutant thought in his heart, but did not say this out loud.
Although he is only an adjutant, he also knows some general information about the raids on the troops in the middle!
Although the military department has prepared twenty days of ammunition supplies for them, they are all calculated based on conventional combat needs, and the consumption of artillery shells is not nearly as fast as it is now!
If he continues to fight according to the fighting method he just proposed, and encounters the Eighth Route Army's blocking position, hundreds of artillery shells will hit it regardless of whether there are people on it...
The central mopping up troops will use one to two thousand artillery shells a day.
No matter how much ammunition supplies the troops carry, they cannot afford such squandering.
And this fight has achieved almost no results.
On the frontal battlefield, one or two thousand artillery shells were thrown at the enemy. With proper command, a division could be defeated without any problem.
Ando's unit fired one or two thousand artillery shells here, but they didn't even hit Mao.
No commander would be able to accept this kind of thing.
Now that he had guessed the concerns of the commander, the adjutant would certainly not insist on his previous proposal. He thought about it for a while before answering Colonel Ando's question.
"The captain of the unit is wise. I didn't think carefully about my humble position just now, and I almost missed a big deal!"
"The imperial artillery shells are not picked up. If there is no one on the position, if we come up and cover the blocking position with artillery fire, we will definitely waste a lot of artillery shells!"
"Why don't we send dozens of puppet troops to launch a feint attack first, and then make a decision after investigating clearly the reality of the position!"
Colonel Ando couldn't think of any other way to break the situation, so he could only nod.
After a while, more than twenty puppet troops appeared on the battlefield.
Holding the gun, he very carefully moved toward the blocking position.
Seeing that the probing troops rushed fifty meters in front of the formation without receiving any hits, Colonel Ando felt more and more that the blocking position in front of him had been abandoned by the Eighth Route Army.
"Boom boom boom..."
Dozens of grenades were thrown into the blocking position by the puppet troops, and they took advantage of the situation to speed up the assault, hoping to capture the blocking position in one go.
"Da da da……"
The familiar sound of machine gun fire sounded again. Just like before, three machine guns gathered together and fired at the puppet troops in different directions at the same time...
The puppet army's reaction was much slower than that of the Japanese, and they rushed forward to attack without any precautions.
The three tongues of fire are like three murderous scythes, harvesting a group of people in an instant.
Colonel Ando was not angry when he saw this scene, but was very happy, feeling that he had seen through the Eighth Route Army's arrangement.
The blocking position in front of us is similar to the previous blocking position.
The Eighth Route Army was worried that the artillery holes would be destroyed by heavy artillery, so they voluntarily abandoned their positions.
But they were unwilling to retreat, so they left a few machine gun teams to use bunkers to sneak attack on the attacking troops, then retreated after they were hit, and reaped as much benefit as possible.
Immediately ordered: "The artillery will immediately lock the bunker on the position... destroy it..."
"Arrange another infantry squadron to capture the blocking position!"
The captain of the alliance quickly added: "How about arranging a company of the Imperial Army to coordinate the attack?"
"Shut up..." Colonel Ando cursed angrily.
"The bunker has been destroyed. Do you think there will be any Eighth Route Army alive on the position?"
"This is the credit that is being spoken about. We don't have enough people ourselves, how can we share it with the Imperial Alliance Army..."
"Woooooooooooo...boom..."
The shrieking shells quickly hit the bunker. The moment the explosion sounded, the machine guns went silent. Apart from the explosion of shells, no other sound could be heard in the entire blocking position.
In less than a minute, the mound where the bunker was located was razed to the ground.
The little Japs who reached 70 to 80 meters in front of the formation got up from the ground at the same time, and rushed towards the blocking position with their guns in hand.
In the blink of an eye, they rushed to 40 to 50 meters away. Each one of them looked extremely fierce, fearing that their military exploits would slip away from their mouths.
A series of "rumbling..." explosions suddenly rang in their ears. In the splashing firelight, countless Japanese soldiers were blown away in the explosion like toys, and fell to the ground without any movement.
There were also many soldiers who were directly blown over and fell to the ground screaming...
Explosions, screams, and officers’ shouts and curses soon became audible...
"Rumble..."
The explosion continued, and more and more Japs were killed and injured, but the surviving Japs still gritted their teeth and rushed forward.
They don't know where these grenades come from, but as long as they quickly rush through the grenade interceptor net, they can continue to survive.
"Da da da...dong dong dong..."
The familiar sound of machine gun fire sounded again. In addition to three light machine guns, this time there were two more heavy machine guns firing.
Colonel Ando believed that he had seen through the Eighth Route Army. When the heavy artillery fired, the Eighth Route Army in the bunker would definitely give up their position.
He completely didn't expect that his opponent would come to take him by surprise and hide his troops in bunkers and anti-cannon holes that had not been bombarded.
The five light and heavy machine guns that were strafing were divided into two bunkers and opened fire, creating a cross fire attack on the Japanese attacking troops.
The dozens of soldiers hiding in the position each received three grenades and threw them out as quickly as possible. After throwing them, they quickly retreated under the cover of five light and heavy machine guns.
"Bageya Road, we were fooled!"
As soon as the machine gun fired, Colonel Ando realized that he had been fooled.
Seeing the attacking troops being killed like leeks, my heartache was worse than having a knife stuck in my chest, so I quickly ordered.
"The attacking troops will be withdrawn immediately..."
"All the artillery fires to cover the blocking position. I want to wipe out all the Eighth Route Army on the position..."
"Go faster. If you don't fire, the Eighth Route Army will run away..."
Colonel Ando's reaction was fast enough, but the result waiting for him was still nothing.
The communication trenches connecting the blocking positions are the best way for troops to evacuate the battlefield. Even if there are artillery shells hitting their heads, the blocking troops can still retreat quickly along the communication trenches.
