The Japanese had reason to "panic"; they never expected that the Eighth Route Army would attack their encirclement from the rear.
This is also one of the characteristics of mechanized force operations.
If it is an ordinary army, because its breakthrough speed and marching speed are not fast...
The two actually affect each other:
A slow breakthrough will cause more and more enemy reinforcements to arrive, making the breakthrough more and more difficult, thus affecting the marching speed.
If the marching speed is not fast, the enemy's rear will have more time to prepare, which will affect the speed of the troops' breakthrough into the enemy's depth.
In the end, the mutual influence between the two will enter a vicious cycle and easily plunge the intervening troops into a quagmire.
The mechanized troops, because of their strong firepower, sufficient ammunition and fast speed, avoid these shortcomings and enter a virtuous circle: strong firepower can quickly break through the enemy's defense line and save time, thus increasing the marching speed, and the fast marching speed will in turn give the enemy no time to react.
, which will reduce the difficulty for the troops to continue to break through in depth, and even capture a lot of supplies and ammunition to supplement the troops.
For example, at this time, it was impossible for the fourth battalion of the Hong Cheng Army to appear behind Shibu Yata without him noticing. At least the troops under attack by the Japanese would report the information and then pass it on to Shibu Yata.
But the mechanized troops were able to do just that. The rapid penetration of Hong Chengjun prevented the Japanese intelligence agencies from responding in time... The Japanese intelligence agencies responded so slowly. Part of the reason was that it was difficult to find out the situation after dark.
Part of the reason is that most of the puppet troops deployed in the hinterland were slow to respond and surrendered in large numbers. Those who survived deliberately exaggerated the Eighth Route Army in order to shirk responsibility. As a result, the Japanese intelligence information was in confusion and it was impossible to distinguish which ones were.
Which ones are true and which ones are false.
As a result, an extremely rare scene occurred in the history of the Anti-Japanese War: the Eighth Route Army troops ran into the Japanese who were ambushing from behind.
The battle commanded by Hong Chengjun was fought more smoothly than the battle of the First Battalion.
The reason was that the Fourth Battalion hit the Japs from the rear. The Japs' defense front was to the north, and the firepower of heavy equipment such as tanks and armored vehicles was directed at the back. The rear was all vulnerable.
However, the fourth battalion of Hong Cheng's army drove tanks and half-track vehicles in the front, and a small number of shoulder straps were placed in the rear for mobile operations.
If you plunge this headfirst, the Japanese will immediately be in chaos.
Although the well-trained Japs immediately organized a counterattack in one second... the decision to counterattack at this time was correct, because the Japs were in a reverse fan-shaped formation with the muzzle facing north. This formation was fundamental to enemies coming from behind.
Unable to respond to the battle and even unable to deploy its troops, only by launching a counterattack can it be possible to buy some preparation time for other troops.
Therefore, the Japanese immediately abandoned their baggage and launched an attack on the mechanized troops of the Eighth Route Army with pure infantry.
However, how can a pure infantry attack withstand the impact of mechanized troops?
Although Hong Chengjun didn't know much about the situation before him, he also knew that this was not the time to hesitate. Regardless of whether there was a wolf or a tiger in front of him, he should go in and take a look, otherwise he might miss the opportunity.
Therefore, when the enemy launched a counterattack, Hong Chengjun ordered without hesitation: "Attack and drive the Japanese back!"
"yes!"
"yes!"
…
As a result, the Eighth Route Army launched an attack on the Japanese amidst the roar of tanks and half-track motors.
On the plain, the two armies surged towards each other like a tide.
But the Japanese troops are truly indomitable...
The mechanized troops of the Eighth Route Army continued to shoot in the direction of the enemy as they advanced.
Mortars, anti-infantry rocket launchers, machine guns, and even directional mines.
The use of directional mines in combat is a characteristic of the Fourth Battalion. This is what Hong Chengjun found out during training.
Hong Chengjun came up with this tactic when the infantry and tanks were coordinating.
Wang Xuexin said during the training: "One of the key points of infantry-tank coordination is that the infantry cannot let enemy infantry get close to our tanks. Once they get close to our tanks, due to their many blind spots in firepower and easy accidental damage, the tanks are basically unable to fight back.
You can only wait for death. You must pay special attention to this when fighting in the dark!"
Hong Chengjun could understand what Wang Xuexin said, but after thinking about it, he felt uncomfortable.
This sounds easy to say but very difficult to implement in practice.
What if the Japanese infantry pretended to be dead?
What if I were hiding in a pit or under a dead body?
They just need to wait for the Eighth Route Army tanks or half-tracks to drive up and light the fuse!
Hong Chengjun had no doubt that the Japanese would do this. They had done this on the battlefield, and sometimes even rushed into the Eighth Route Army's trenches with explosive bags.
If we fight like this, does that mean that what the mechanized troops need to worry about most is not the Japanese's shoulder straps, not the Japanese's armored vehicles, nor the Japanese's tanks, but the Japanese infantry?
To solve this problem, should we slow down the mechanized troops and let the infantry check whether the enemy is dead one by one?!
Finally, Hong Chengjun came up with a solution: directional mines.
Our troops are all on half-tracks anyway, right? The half-tracks are armored on the front, rear, left and right. Even if the front tire bursts, it will not have much impact on combat... The half-track vehicle mainly relies on crawler drive, and it can still fight if the tire bursts.
, but the speed is slower.
Then why not hit him with steel balls?
So Hong Chengjun used directional mines in training.
This tactic is mainly used to kill enemy infantry in batches to prevent them from getting close to our tanks and half-track armored vehicles, and it comes in handy at this time.
I saw the soldiers of the fourth battalion using machine guns and mortars to kill the Japanese, and at the same time they continued to throw directional mines forward.
Once the directional mine explodes in the front, thousands of steel balls will jump up and "baptize" the surrounding living and dead indiscriminately. Each explosion will always set off a burst of screams from the Japanese like crying for father and mother.
The Japanese infantry could hardly even effectively "block" under such an attack. When Hong Cheng's army rushed to the hinterland of the Japanese defense line, they found that the Japanese tanks and armored vehicles were making a difficult U-turn.
At that moment, Hong Chengjun understood that he had rushed into the Japanese ambush from behind by accident.
How could Hong Chengjun be polite to the Japanese? He immediately ordered: "Everyone is here! Keep fighting forward. No one is allowed to stop until the fight reaches the end!"
Hong Chengjun knew that if he broke through the enemy's ambush circle from the other side, it meant that there were enemies in other directions.
At this time, most enemies from other directions have already sent reinforcements here.
According to the Japanese's usual fighting method, most of their reinforcements would be outflanked.
In other words, once the mechanized troops stop, they will easily fall into the enemy's encirclement.