On the battlefield, the Japanese army faced a choice of life or death. At this moment, whether their so-called faith was firm or not was undoubtedly revealed.
If you retreat, you may live or die, but if you move forward, you will undoubtedly die.
Faced with the choice between continuing to breathe and dedicating his life to the faith of the empire, the Japanese troops on the hillside were already ready to move.
Of course it is not an advance, but a retreat.
At least three infantry squad captains have already requested to retreat from the captain commander who is also making a difficult decision. At this point in the battle, failure is doomed, and there is no point in persisting anymore. It is in vain to use the lives of imperial warriors to honor the Chinese military medals.
Adding golden light is a fool's errand.
For the sake of life, the Japanese invaders can also find reasons to be superior. Although they are usually staggeringly rigid, in critical moments, their minds are also very flexible. This should be the so-called wisdom out of urgency.
Lieutenant Colonel Hatori, who was 2,000 meters away, was also making a difficult decision.
When he saw that there were suddenly more mortars on the independent regiment's position, and the gunpowder smoke on his own infantry position was almost covering the sky, the veteran Lieutenant Colonel knew the plan of "Colonel Beast".
He even hid his strength.
After he took out at least four 20mm machine guns and no less than ten mortars, he actually hid several mortars and an unknown number of light and heavy machine guns.
God knows if he still has some trump cards that he has not yet revealed? The strength he displayed in the central position alone was almost as low as the equipment of a division of the Chinese troops he encountered or even more.
Could it be that the intelligence that those stupid intelligence agents gathered about the so-called Liu Lang Independent Regiment belonging to the Chinese local warlord Sichuan Army was a complete joke? The Liu Lang Independent Regiment should be the legendary Chinese idiot generals in the Third Reich.
Support the built German mechanic!
Otherwise, no matter how hard he thought, Lieutenant Commander Hatori couldn't figure out why they had such strong firepower.
Of course, these are no longer important. No matter how powerful Liu Lang's subordinates are, what he wants to do now cannot let Liu Lang succeed.
Liu Lang's purpose in doing this was to kill his two infantry squadrons. The 1st Infantry Brigade only had four infantry squadrons and one heavy machine gun squadron. Now, he had killed at least half of the heavy machine gun squadron.
He actually had his mind set on the infantry squadron again.
This is really "Uncle can bear it, but aunt can't bear it"! A trace of greenness flashed across the face of the old bird aunt, and the anger in her eyes made the staff officer of the brigade on the side feel cold all over. Just like the old bird Lieutenant Colonel once accidentally
Like a gentle slap on his butt.
"Order, the four mountain guns of the artillery squadron directly under the wing, the target, the main position on the top of the Chinese mountain, will be covered with artillery fire in ten minutes." Lieutenant Colonel Hatori's order made the staff officer of the group headquarters feel cold all over.
He even felt that there was something wrong with his ears. It would be crazy to let a direct-aimed artillery gun like an infantry gun fire more than 100 meters from the Chinese position when one's own infantry attacked.
But no one expected that, instead of being the craziest, only crazier, the Lieutenant Colonel would actually order the 75th mountain cannon to fire.
"Your Majesty Lieutenant Colonel..." The staff officer with the rank of lieutenant boldly wanted to remind him.
However, Lieutenant Colonel Hatori suddenly turned his head, with a sinister look on his face that choked all the words he said later, "Notify Captain Hideta in front to take cover. When the bombardment slows down, the entire army will attack immediately and occupy the Chinese position.
The honor of the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 77th Infantry Regiment is entrusted to him."
"At the same time, please be sure to convey my request to the artillery squadron. This artillery attack is related to the lives of more than 300 imperial warriors in our 1st Infantry Group, and is related to the glory of the entire regiment. Please make sure they hit the target accurately. Please."
After issuing two military orders in succession, Lieutenant Colonel Hatori gave a very emotional instruction at the end.
"Hi!" The Japanese staff officer could only lower his head to accept the military order, turned around and left quickly.
Lieutenant Colonel Hatori watched the back of the lieutenant staff go away, picked up the telescope again and stared into the distance, the expression on his face was like steel poured into iron without any emotional changes.
In an extremely critical moment for his subordinates, the Japanese infantry captain actually issued an order to bombard the mountaintop position with mountain artillery. What was even more shocking was that he also made the decision not to retreat and continue the attack.
As a curved cannon, the impact point of mountain cannons is much more difficult to control than that of direct-aimed cannons. The squadron leader was already frightened by the use of infantry cannons to cover infantry attacks that were very close to the target, let alone mountain cannons.
No matter how good a master artilleryman is, there is no guarantee that the mountain artillery can accurately fire this kind of gun with range strike as the core of tactics without accidentally damaging our own infantry more than 200 meters away. That is not to mention that it is still 70 meters in front of the first battalion and first company of the independent regiment.
The struggling team is determined to die.
As long as the four mountain cannons start bombarding, the remaining thirty people will definitely become cannon fodder.
But as the top commander of the Japanese front line, Lieutenant Colonel Hatori, no one dared to refuse to accept orders.
The four mountain guns of the artillery squadron began to adjust their muzzles based on the data sent back by the artillery observers in front of them in an effort to send the shells to the top of the mountain more accurately without sending their own infantry into the sky. At the same time, the signal corps passed the signal flag to Lieutenant Colonel Hatori's order.
Captain Hideta Ohinko, the Japanese frontline commander who struggled under mortar bombing.
At that moment, Hideta Gohiko's face turned gray. He did not expect Lieutenant Colonel Hatori to be so cold-blooded, and even asked him to attack under such a disadvantage. Attack with a hammer, attack with all the elite infantry of the brigade.
Will everyone die in this battle?
Of course, the most terrifying thing was not to let him lead the infantry to continue the attack. The most terrifying thing was that it was already two minutes later when the signal corps passed the complete military order conveyed by the flag message to him.
At this time, those stupid artillerymen who will strictly follow the superior officer's military orders should also adjust their muzzles! Hopefully, they will fire more accurately.
In fact, concealment is no longer that important. In order to avoid the mortar shells that the Chinese are still bombarding desperately, the remaining 200 infantrymen on the hillside are hiding more tightly than ever.
If you can't dodge the mountain cannon shells that may miss, then you can only consider yourself unlucky.
With a "boom", a shell exploded on the slope more than 400 meters behind the Jiuguan position.
Immediately afterwards, the terrifying sound of "咻~~~" grenades pierced the sky from far to near. Several grenades exploded behind the position.
Liu Lang's eyes suddenly shrank in the command post.
"Everyone, take cover, Japanese artillery attack." Without Liu Lang's order, commanders at all levels on the position roared desperately.
In fact, there is no need for the company commanders, platoon commanders, and squad leaders to remind them that at least one-third of the veterans on the battlefield had participated in the Great Wall War. The moment they heard the artillery shells streaking across the sky, they hurriedly held their guns and rushed towards the nearest anti-artillery piece.
Drill into the hole.
The recruits were reminded both during training and before the war that if they learn everything from the veterans, they have a 50% chance of surviving. Only those who have experienced a war and finally survived are qualified to be called veterans.
.
Otherwise, even if many of them have been soldiers for four years, they can only be called new recruits.
At a distance of four thousand meters, it took only five seconds for the artillery shells with a speed of up to 800 meters per second to eject from the chamber and scream to the time when they flew to the Jiuguan position, and the time left for the soldiers of the independent regiment to evade was almost zero, because the artillery shells
Faster than the speed of sound.
However, this was just a test firing. As the Japanese observers reported the effects of the shelling to the artillery in the rear, the real shelling would come soon.
"The devilish Japanese dare to fire artillery, so let me retreat." Liu Jinzuo screamed strangely and ordered all the artillerymen to carry the cannon and the remaining shells and retreat downwards.
Although his artillery position is at the rear of the position, it is not in an absolute blind spot for the howitzers. Moreover, because of the mountainous terrain, the distance between each mortar is not far. There is no need for more. As long as one mountain artillery shell hits this place,
He could finish more than half of them, but he didn't dare to take the risk. That was the 82 mortars that the entire battalion could gather, and they couldn't finish here.
This is just the first real battle against the Japanese invaders. I don’t know how many battles I will have to fight against the Japanese invaders in the future. Every cannon is extremely valuable.
Sure enough, while the officers and soldiers on the position were still digging into the individual artillery defense caves and hidden soldier caves, the Japanese mountain artillery opened fire again. After two rounds of test firing, some artillery shells finally fell on the position.
The 6.5-kilogram projectile exploded with a bang, the ground shook, and a terrifying air wave rolled up hundreds of square meters of dust.
Many of the recruits who have never really been in the baptism of artillery fire have pale faces. This is still the power of the 75mm mountain gun. If it is replaced by a 105mm howitzer, what kind of terrible situation will it be?
On the other hand, the veterans were much more relaxed. Like the old monkey, they even lighted a cigarette leisurely in the hidden soldier cave with a log roof. In his words, if the little devil's shells can't be blocked here, then the position will be unstoppable.
There is no safe place. Damn it, the ball can only be pointed upward. Are you afraid that it will be useless again?
The old monkey, who was injured in his arm but was not worried about his brothers in the squad, finally called for a fight and went to the position again. However, although he could not shoot with his arm hanging, he used practical actions to calm the hearts of the other ten people in an infantry squad. His infantry
Ban, in the previous battle, three people had been killed, two were wounded and one was killed. They were all carried down.
As time goes by, more and more artillery shells fall on the position. The four Type 41 mountain guns with a rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute are undoubtedly terrifying when firing at full speed. They can drop more than 30 artillery shells in one minute.
To this position, which is only 800 meters long and 60 meters wide, covering an area of only 50,000 square meters.
Ten minutes are enough to throw more than 300 artillery shells, and grenades with a killing radius of 10 meters can completely plow this position.
However, compared to the more than 100 officers and soldiers of the first battalion and one company of the independent regiment, which had bomb-proof holes to hide in, the Japanese army's desperate squad located seventy meters below the position looked ashen as death.