At three o'clock in the morning, all artillery units got up silently and began the final preparations.<
These preparations include final inspections of equipment and preparation of shells.
Of course, the preparations for the infantry had already begun, and by this time they had even sneaked into the forefront of the Vietnamese army's positions.
This is why infantry is said to be hard and dangerous... In fact, this battle was not bad. If it were a small-scale battle, because the terrain in Laoshan is relatively complicated, it would take five or six hours to go up and down the mountain.
longer.
So there will be a problem here, that is, if you want to fight at night, then the troops will go down the mountain in the dark and arrive at the front of the Vietnamese army position at dawn. Then there will not be much time to launch an attack on the Vietnamese army position, and once it gets daybreak,
, a small number of people attacking the enemy's defense line without a large amount of artillery support is tantamount to seeking death.
Therefore, our army had to adopt such a method... let the troops bring enough dry food, spend one night going down the mountain and lurk at or near the front of the Vietnamese army's position, and then wait for more than ten hours without moving, that is, until the next day.
At night, at this time, they launched an attack on the Vietnamese army positions.
It is conceivable that this kind of long-term lurking and then high-intensity combat will be a kind of torture to people's will and physical strength.
The reason why we say that the battle in front of us is pretty good for the infantry is because we have scheduled this battle during the day. This means that the infantry no longer has to lurk at the front of the position for a whole day as before.
In comparison, the artillery is much easier. At least they don't need to bear as much pressure as the infantry, and they don't have to directly face the enemy's firepower.
The hour hand moves slowly. Everything is going very smoothly... The reason why I know this is because the nearby area is still quiet until now. This shows that the Vietnamese army has not noticed our army's preparations at all, including
Infantry lurking at the front of their position.
What I didn't know was that there were actually two accidents.
An accident was that the lurking infantry accidentally hit a mine... This is a normal thing. Just like we have encountered before, the enemy has a good way of laying mines. They not only bury the mines underground, but also
Hanging them on trees or pressing them under rocks, etc. This makes it difficult for infantrymen advancing in the dark to guard against them. When there are more people lurking, it is inevitable that a few soldiers will hit mines.
However, the infantrymen have actually considered this point a long time ago, so they were strictly ordered not to make any sounds even if they were injured by landmines, so as not to prematurely expose the troops' combat intentions.
To be honest, it is very difficult to do this... Just kidding, even if we are suddenly pricked by a needle, we can't help but scream, let alone if our legs or hands are blown off by landmines.
However, the first attacking force just did it. Neither of the two soldiers in the two accidents made any cry... Later I learned that one of them bled to death because the Vietnamese army continued to use flares and did not receive timely treatment.
.
Although the troops responsible for the first attack are sharp-edged troops from each division and regiment, honestly speaking, this is not something ordinary people can do.
The trick of being silent is indeed very effective for two reasons:
One, of course, is that the Vietnamese army did not believe that the Chinese people could remain silent despite being injured by landmines. To be precise, it cannot be said that they did not believe it. In fact, during the Sino-Vietnamese border war, many soldiers were injured and remained silent.
There are countless examples of howling, including Chinese and Japanese soldiers. There are also many Vietnamese soldiers. But under normal circumstances, no one can endure this kind of pain.
Another reason is also because of the method of laying mines by the Japanese.
As mentioned before, the Vietnamese not only bury landmines in the ground, but also hang them on trees or wrap tripwires in the grass. This will indeed make our soldiers unable to guard against it. But similarly, sometimes a gust of wind
Scratching or crawling by a few mice may trigger landmines.
In other words, these Vietnamese Japs are usually used to listening to the sound of landmines exploding one by one. At most, they just use a flashlight, a searchlight, or a few flares to take a look. If they don't find any problems, there will be no problem.
Take it seriously.
Another surprise I didn't expect was that because it was dark and the road was slippery, the two regiments that were the first to attack were the 119th Regiment on the left, responsible for attacking Songmaoling 662.6 Highlands, and the 118th Regiment on the right, responsible for attacking the 1072 Highlands, the main peak of Laoshan.
, nearly one-fifth of the fighters failed to keep up.
Although I had not expected this situation before, I still feel that it is excusable... We ourselves have fought in terrains like Yunnan, and we know that this place has deep forests and dense grass, and it is possible to fall behind even if we march in broad daylight.
What's more, these troops marched secretly at night.
The so-called secret march means that you are not allowed to shout loudly to look for teammates when you are separated. This undoubtedly increases the chance of falling behind.
But what makes me feel gratified is that at dawn the next day, these separated troops successfully found their own troops from all directions and went into battle. According to later statistics, except for one soldier who was killed by a bamboo stick on the road.
Even though their feet were punctured and they couldn't reach it, no one was left behind.
This illustrates two points:
First, the military quality of soldiers has generally improved.
You must know that if this was during the battle in 1979, let alone a soldier, the company commander would be so confused when encountering this situation that he didn't know where to go... he couldn't read the map and couldn't tell the direction!
But now, there are so many scattered soldiers but they can all find their own troops in time, which at least shows that they have mastered the ability to find things by looking at pictures.
Another is that the fighting will of the troops has not only not decreased but has been greatly improved compared to 1979.
Although most of the soldiers in 1979 were good soldiers, there were also a lot of bad soldiers... This is actually normal. There were too many of them, and a lot of them were engaged in production and construction and lacked training. They would naturally pay attention when they went to the battlefield.
There is a timid mentality. Among them, there is a small number of quite "smart" soldiers who deliberately got lost during the battle and came back after the battle was over.
Nowadays, these soldiers who are responsible for the main attack mission and are separated in the dark, as long as they have a little negative thinking, not to mention intentionally not being able to find the troops, as long as they delay a little time to find the troops, they will probably not have to rush to the first place.
It's online.
But none of them did this.
You must know that they are risking their lives, so the consciousness of these soldiers is really admirable.
In fact, what I don't know is that these separated troops not only have no such mentality of desertion, but are also always worried about affecting the combat effectiveness of the troops because they can't catch up!
"Report the weather conditions!" I shouted to Zhao Jingping, who was not far away.
"The weather conditions are good!" Zhao Jingping replied: "There is only some mist in the main peak area!"
"Yeah!" I nodded.
According to our testing of gun sighting radar during this period, the performance of this device in rainy and foggy days was unsatisfactory. According to Chen Weihua, this is because rain and fog will make it difficult for electromagnetic waves to penetrate, so the detection range will be shortened to a great extent.
Thinking about it, I think this statement makes sense. This is also the reason why sonar is used to control and detect submarines in the sea instead of electromagnetic waves... Electromagnetic waves do not propagate far in the water, so they will naturally be affected in rainy and foggy days.
Little by little, I watched the second hand turn directly upward, and then three red flares slowly rose in the sky.
"beat!"
As soon as I gave the order, the correspondent who had been prepared shouted into the microphone: "Fire!"
In an instant, the artillery in the direction of our army sprayed out tongues of flame, and the artillery shells dragged their tails like lightning and went straight to the direction of the Vietnamese army, followed by a loud "boom" sound.
, the entire Vietnamese army camp was blown up.
Of course, these firing cannons are only part of our army's artillery fire.
Our army's artillery distribution is as follows: two howitzer regiments and a rocket launcher regiment of the Fourth Artillery Division. Their task is to destroy the minefields and obstacles at the front of the Vietnamese army's position, which Commander Jiang asked me to perform. This task is relatively
It is relatively easy. As long as we use the artillery sighting radar to correct the coordinates of the Fourth Artillery Division and quickly guide its artillery into the designated area, the next thing is that they only need to gradually extend the artillery fire forward, that is
Blast all the front lines of the Vietnamese army's positions.
As for the three artillery regiments in Commander Jiang's hands, namely the 14th Army Artillery Regiment, the 40th Division Artillery Regiment and the 41st Division Artillery Regiment that were not assigned to me, their mission is to bomb the important military targets of the Vietnamese army.
For example, the Vietnamese army headquarters, highway bridges, ammunition depots or blocked roads were first detected by our military.
Of course, I don't need to consider these. In fact, Commander Jiang was right in not assigning this task to me, because there are too many targets. For example, there are fifteen road sections that need to be blocked with artillery fire... If this
It is better to let the artillery sighting radar cooperate, I am afraid that the artillery sighting radar will be too busy at this moment.
After all, the artillery sighting radar has a more important task, which is to prepare to attack the Japanese artillery.
In other words, six artillery regiments were firing at this time, and the artillery shells were pouring towards the enemy position like sea water. At first, the sound of "boom" could be heard, and within a few minutes, the sound of "boom" was heard.
There was such a "rumbling" sound that it was impossible to tell whether it was the sound of cannon fire or the explosion of artillery shells.
As you can imagine, the Vietnamese army was thrown into chaos by this sudden blow.
And I can also judge that several artillery regiments commanded by Commander Jiang fired accurately, because through the telescope I can clearly see the flames erupting from the secondary explosion of two Vietnamese ammunition depots. It seems that their artillery reconnaissance
Soldiers and scouts have also worked hard in this regard.
The only one who didn't take action was the artillery battalion of our combined battalion.
We are waiting, waiting for the enemy's artillery shells... (To be continued...)