The news soon spread to Okamura Neji's headquarters.
Okamura Neiji's first reaction was: "This is impossible. How can the Eighth Route Army have tanks? If there are, they are just a few tanks captured from our army. How can it be T26?"
Okamura Neiji counted the tanks captured by the Eighth Route Army, and found that there were only three tanks in total. He did not think that these tanks could play any role in the hands of the Eighth Route Army.
The reason is that tanks are often repaired for dozens of kilometers and repaired for hundreds of kilometers. Maintenance personnel have to follow them with parts. Without strong logistical support, these tanks will be difficult to operate, let alone combat.
Even if they can fight, what can three tanks do? They are just targets for the Empire's aircraft or artillery!
At this time, Yoshio Shinozuka stepped forward and reminded: "General, according to our recent intelligence, the Eighth Route Army has a transaction with Mao Xiong. Could the transaction be..."
Okamura Neji was stunned for a moment, and then he understood.
This is probably the role of the weapons expert named Wang Xuexin from the Eighth Route Army!
If there is anything that can be exchanged for a large number of tanks from Mao Xiong... Okamura Neiji thinks it should be the anti-tank weapon called "bazooka" by the Eighth Route Army!
After all, this is individual anti-tank equipment, and it is unique in the world. At this time, the bear, who is rushing to deal with the Hans tank blitzkrieg, urgently needs this equipment.
It's just that Okamura Neji is a little confused.
Although the rocket launcher is an epoch-making piece of equipment, the rocket launcher can only penetrate 20mm thick armor. What role can Mao Xiong play in purchasing this equipment?
The front armor of Hans's Panzer III tank is 50mm thick. Can a rocket launcher penetrate it?
(Note: The No. 3 J-type front armor is 50mm thick and has been in service for 41 years)
This gave Okamura Neiji a sense of foreboding. If the Eighth Route Army already has a new rocket launcher that can penetrate 50mm armor, then the "Type One Tank" he just transferred from China...
But after thinking about it again, Okamura Neji felt that he was worrying too much.
The reason why Mao Xiong was willing to trade with the Eighth Route Army was probably because he wanted to aid the recalcitrant army, and his purpose was to hold back the imperial army.
Especially at this time, when the imperial army is gathering in Kanto Prefecture to attack Mao Xiong.
Thinking of this, Okamura Neiji believed that it was reasonable for the Eighth Route Army to have tanks and launch an attack at this time.
Okamura Neiji did not hesitate and immediately ordered: "Send a reconnaissance plane immediately to find out the situation of the enemy's tanks!"
This is the normal state of the enemy's combat. As the saying goes, "Know yourself and the enemy and you will never be in danger." Because the enemy has air superiority and the Eighth Route Army has almost no air defense equipment, whenever the enemy encounters a war situation, they will immediately send out reconnaissance planes to conduct reconnaissance. Of course, this time they will not
exception.
The reconnaissance plane took off from Linfen.
This is because the main force of the Japanese military aircraft flew to Kanto Continent to participate in the Kanto exercise, and Okamura Neji only had thirty reconnaissance aircraft at his disposal.
Ten of them are located in Taiyuan, ten are located in Linfen, and the other ten are located at several airports south of Zhongtiao Mountain for reconnaissance and operations against stubborn troops.
Although the reconnaissance aircraft aimed at the recalcitrant army were closer to Yuncheng, these aircraft needed to deal with the recalcitrant army and had their own tasks and were not suitable to be transferred to the Eighth Route Army, so they were recruited from Linfen. Anyway, Linfen is only more than 100 kilometers away from Yuncheng.
It can be reached in less than 20 minutes.
Okamura Neiji was thinking about whether it was necessary for him to organize reconnaissance planes to bomb these tanks if the Eighth Route Army had dozens of tanks.
Therefore, he began to plan the transfer of the plane. It would take some time to transfer the plane from Taiyuan. The straight-line distance was more than 200 kilometers, which would take about forty minutes.
The aircraft south of Zhongtiao Mountain will not be used for the time being. Twenty fighters should be enough to carry out the mission!
Even if the enemy tanks cannot be blown up completely, they can still lose more than half of them and lose their combat capabilities.
But just when Okamura Neiji was about to order the Taiyuan plane to transfer, the staff officer in the communications room suddenly rushed into the headquarters and reported: "Your Excellency, General! Two reconnaissance planes of our army were shot down by the enemy shortly after taking off!"
"What?" Okamura Neji couldn't help being surprised: "Shooted down? Which army? What did they use to shoot them down?"
"It's an anti-aircraft gun!" the staff officer replied: "The specific model is not clear. It was shot down while passing through the Luliang Mountains. It should be the Eighth Route Army!"
Of course this is the Eighth Route Army, and the deployment was made by the Chief of Staff himself.
The 50 anti-aircraft machine guns and 10 anti-aircraft guns donated by Mao Xiong are all under the command of the chief of staff.
The chief of staff had studied at Mao Xiong's military academy and was very familiar with these anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns and knew how to use them.
The anti-aircraft gun is Mao Xiong's 1939-type 52k 85mm anti-aircraft gun. This thing has a range of four kilometers and a rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute. It can easily hit high-altitude aircraft.
(Note: Due to its excellent performance, the main gun of the T34 (85) tank was modified from this anti-aircraft gun)
The chief of staff divided these anti-aircraft artillery batteries into three anti-aircraft artillery batteries and deployed them in the Luliang Mountains. One anti-aircraft artillery battery was deployed near Linfen... Needless to say, what is the purpose of this? The Japanese aircraft are mainly concentrated in Taiyuan and Linfen. These aircraft
If they want to reinforce Yuncheng and fly to the direction of Yuncheng, they will fly over the Luliang Mountains. At that time, it will be the time for anti-aircraft artillery to shoot them down.
The other two anti-aircraft artillery batteries were deployed near Longfengping immediately after the Eighth Route Army broke through the defense line... This area is close to Yuncheng and is a mountainous area. If the Japanese want to reconnoiter or bomb the tank battalion, they will most likely be attacked by these two companies.
Over an anti-aircraft gun battery.
There are also fifty anti-aircraft machine guns.
The anti-aircraft machine gun is a bear-type Deshka, with a range of only one thousand meters.
Needless to say, the chief of staff organized them into a high-speed aircraft battalion and followed the tank battalion as a cover force.
The range of one thousand meters means that it cannot threaten enemy aircraft flying at high altitudes.
But if enemy planes dive bomb or straf at low altitude...that's when these high-altitude aircraft come into play.
Even if these high-altitude aircraft cannot shoot down enemy aircraft, they can also prevent enemy aircraft from conducting low-altitude bombings.
If enemy planes are unable to bomb at low altitudes, it will be even more difficult to hit a moving tank on the ground.
Okamura Neiji was startled, frowned and said: "It seems that the Eighth Route Army received not only tanks from Mao Xiong, but also air defense equipment!"
Yoshio Shinozuka said worriedly: "General, if it were other times, you might not have to worry about this situation, but now, most of our military's main flying forces have been transferred to Kanto Continent, and the Type 98 light explosive is unable to compete with the enemy's anti-aircraft firepower.
confrontation……"
The biggest weakness of the 98-bomb light explosion is that its small carrying capacity can cause very limited damage to the enemy, and its speed is not fast. It has no obvious advantage against anti-aircraft guns and other weapons.
As a result, the Japanese air supremacy was instantly in a dilemma.
But Okamura Neiji shook his head and said: "Don't worry, Shinozuka-kun. If the Eighth Route Army's goal is Yuncheng... I believe they will not succeed!"