The sound of hoofbeats on the mountain road was like thunder, and the horses subconsciously followed the pack horses that were the first to panic and ran to both sides of the mountain road.
But the gunfire did not stop because the horses were frightened. The red-eyed horses did not care about their companions who were injured by stray bullets and shrapnel from time to time and fell heavily. They just followed the survival instinct of creatures and ran along the mountain road.
Run wildly and try to get as far away from this terrible place as possible.
A horse weighing hundreds of kilograms, even if it runs wildly, its power can make people's eyes jump, and they just want to stay away from it, let alone hundreds of horses?
Along the way, all obstacles will be smashed away by the surging horses, whether they are people or carts.
The horses roared away, leaving behind a trail of blood and corpses, including horse corpses and human corpses. Even if the Japanese troops were not hiding on the mountain road, but on both sides of the mountain road, many people suffered and were trampled to death by the horses that panicked.
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Some of the more unlucky ones were crushed to death by hundreds of kilograms of horses that were galloping but tripped over rocks and flew across the direction.
It can be said that in these ten minutes, the Japanese army was very tough and tenacious, but their losses were also unexpectedly large. Those who died were killed by bullets and grenades fired from the top of the mountain, as well as mortar shells that fell crazily.
I'm afraid there were only about 200 people, but more than 100 people were killed or injured by the frightened horses running wildly. So that the Japanese commander finally had to give the painful order to turn the guns fired at the Chinese people and shoot at the running horses.
Army horse shooting.
The horses rushed forward one after another, but they could not avoid the machine rifle bullets. It was not until the corpses of Japanese army horses even blocked the entire mountain road, and the frightened army horses could not move forward, that they gradually stopped their crazy collision, but their eyes were still red and their nostrils were spraying.
The anger may break out again at any time.
No Japanese army dared to stay on the mountain road anymore. The trampled corpses reminded them that once those normally docile packhorses went crazy, they would definitely be no less lethal than guns and artillery.
The Japanese artillery brigade also has a thousand people, but these thousands of people are not infantry who can fight the enemy head-on with rifles. Except for the high-tech artillery, most of the others are ammunition soldiers, who transport artillery shells. The entire artillery force
Not to mention that the brigade does not have machine guns, it even has a few rifles. The main thing is the small Southern Fourteen pistol that is easy to jam. Not everyone has it. It is a high-end gadget that can only be equipped with high military ranks. The entire artillery brigade
That's 500 long and short guns.
It's fine without guns. Their main job is to set up cannons and fire artillery. However, the pack horses were frightened and took away all the parts of the mountain cannons. What's the use of just a gun barrel? There are at least 12 artillery squads in three artillery squadrons in the artillery brigade.
Five artillery squads were crying.
In their hands, some only have wheels, some only have gun barrels, and some simply have dozens of people hiding and staring. Well, if there are no guns, there will be no guns, so you can always hide! Find a place to hide or pretend to be
The dead body could be "resurrected" after the battle between the infantry and the Chinese was over. But this wish was extinguished by the "vicious" Chinese.
As if they like to bully the weak and avoid the strong, the Chinese rifle bullets have been aimed at the Japanese artillery who have little ability to resist. The 3rd Battalion of the 771 Regiment was specifically reminded before the war that once the Japanese artillery fires to support the infantry, the casualties will be huge.
Several times. Therefore, even if the Japanese artillery had no cannons, with the mentality that if they could kill one more Japanese artillery, the threat would be reduced, the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the 771 Regiment focused their attacks on the Japanese artillery, even though many of them were still
Empty handed.
Those who had no cannon wanted to cry, and the Japanese soldiers who took the time to unload the cannon were actually in tears. They wanted to quickly load the cannon and blow the daring Chinese into ashes with one shot.
However, the Chinese on the top of the mountain also have to give them time to assemble the cannon! The 540-kilogram mountain cannon is not a field cannon and can be fired by putting it down.
Because they have to fight in the mountains, the mountain artillery is usually broken into 6 large pieces and carried forward by at least 6 pack horses. Well, maybe the Chinese cannot see it in some blind spots, giving them enough time to assemble the cannon, but,
There is no place to fire off the cannon!
Even if the mountain cannon is considered to be petite and exquisite among all kinds of cannons, it still needs at least several square meters of flat ground to set up the cannon! In such a corner of the mountain road, let alone setting up a mountain cannon with a length of 3.3 meters is just a fart.
, everyone in the team can smell it.
Well! The Japanese infantry is not a vegetarian. In order to protect the artillery so that the artillery can mount cannons to support itself, the Japanese infantry squadron was like taking rat poison, braving the rain of bullets and taking advantage of the terrain against the 500 officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the 771st Regiment.
Shooting, the grenade launchers of the grenadiers also posed a great threat to the firepower point on the top of the mountain.
Facing the desperate Japs, the officers and soldiers of the 3rd Battalion had to hide! With such an advantage, they were not willing to compete with the Japs. They still had to grind these Japs to death alive!
The Japanese artillerymen stole some space, found two open spaces, and finally assembled the mountain cannon, and even loaded the shells and prepared to fire.
The performance of the Type 41 mountain gun is very good, and it can reach a distance of more than 6,000 meters. However, its upper and lower shooting range is -8 to +25 degrees. How far can it shoot at the closest distance? In other words, the Type 41 mountain gun is a curved gun, but
It can't adjust the firing range to 80 degrees and hit mortars 50 meters away. It needs a range of several hundred meters at least.
And here, there are mountains everywhere. If they want to hit the Chinese on the mountain ridge, they have to transport the cannon to a position of at least one thousand meters, and adjust the muzzle upward to the maximum shooting range. Maybe that is possible.
But now, even if they want to fight, they will fight against the mountain.
But creatures like the little devil have always been stubborn. Even if they knew that in this environment and angle, they would hit the mountain but not reach the top of the mountain, they still fired at several positions of the 3rd Battalion. I guess that's the same mental state.
If I can't kill you, I'll scare you to death. Anyway, the Imperial Japanese Army dares to fire.
"Boom, boom, boom", several rounds of artillery shells were fired in succession, causing several plumes of thick smoke to explode from the mountain more than 200 meters away, causing rocks to crash and fall.
The mountain artillery shells were clearly audible on the battlefield, which naturally attracted the attention of the mortar positions hidden hundreds of meters away that were attacking the Japanese troops in the encirclement.
Each infantry company has several artillery observers who accompany the infantry and are responsible for providing artillery fire data to the mortars hundreds of meters behind. But here, it is impossible to lay telephone lines, and the radio communication industry has proven that in the mountains, artillery shells will not stop.
It is unreliable in the complex electromagnetic environment of the explosion. If you want to provide the artillery positions required on the front line for artillery positions at least 500 meters away, you can only rely on semaphores.
Just like at Jiuguan, the artillerymen had long drawn this area into a grid, using different numerical codes to replace the shelling areas. The artillery observers in the front used flags of different colors to replace the numerical codes and pass them to the rear.
On the battlefield, you may be hit by bullets even if you lie down, not to mention standing up to signal, which is almost putting yourself under the enemy's gun.
In order to prevent the artillery observers, who are considered high-tech talents, from being injured or killed, Liu Lang ingeniously designed a way to convey the semaphore of the flag. Just like raising the national flag in the future, the artillery observers hiding on the side pulled the rope and raised the various small flags representing the numerical symbols.
The array was raised to a 3-meter-high bamboo flagpole. The rear observer observed with a telescope and quickly reported to the gunners to adjust the muzzle direction and firing range.
Needless to say, this crude method is very useful. The mortar company of the Independent Regiment Artillery Battalion used this method to hit the Japanese infantry hidden in every nook and cranny from hundreds of meters away.
An artillery observer immediately found the approximate location of the Japanese mountain artillery and quickly transmitted the shelling parameters to the rear.
"Reporting to the company commander, the target location is 20105, no, it is 20101..." The artillery observer holding a telescope on the mortar position quickly reported the coordinate data according to the flags of different colors in the field of vision, but the voice gradually
Get down.
"You idiot, how can you see wrong with a telescope? But look carefully, I can't blow up the Japanese cannons. Not only is Battalion Commander Liu of the Bayonet Battalion causing trouble for us, but the Japanese cannons may also fall on us.
On the head." Geng Dazhuang, who had been promoted to the commander of the mortar company of the independent regiment's artillery battalion, angrily cursed the superior soldiers around him in a thick Sichuan accent.
Geng Dazhuang was also a little helpless. If the best observers in the company had not been sent to the front line or gone to Jiuguan, there would be no one left. But it would not be the turn of this three-year soldier who had never been on the battlefield to be an observer.
hand.
Originally, if the artillery battalions were here, the mountain artillery battery, the mortar battery, and the never-used rocket launcher battery would fire together, the little Japs in the encirclement would never be as arrogant as they are now.
However, the regiment has given strict orders that the rocket launcher battery must not be exposed. The mountain artillery company is mainly engaged in the battle at Jiuguan, and most of the mortar company is assigned to support the battle at Jiuguan. He, the mortar company commander, actually only has 6 mortars under his command now.
The mortar platoon, plus 12 bayonet battalion 82nd mortar personnel, were placed under his command during the war.
The 12 60 guns of the bayonet battalion were forced to be under the command of each infantry company. The death battalion was at the forefront and sniped at the brigade headquarters of the 40th brigade. The distance was too far, so all the mortars were used by themselves.
"You cry like a hammer, I didn't scold you or hit you." The helpless Geng Dazhuang suddenly found two lines of tears hanging on the cheeks of the third-year soldier who had put down his telescope, and couldn't help but feel even more helpless.
"Company Commander, that was supposed to be a yellow flag, but I saw it as black. Because..." The observer wiped away tears with his hand, choked with sobs and could no longer speak.
Geng Dazhuang's eyes were serious. He knew that you can say that the psychological quality of an observer who has never been on the battlefield is not up to standard, or that he is nervous, but every observer has been checked and no one is color blind or color weak. Under normal circumstances, he
There is absolutely no chance of seeing the wrong color.
He quickly picked up the telescope and looked at Geng Dazhuang, who had stopped raising the flag and stood still at the halfway position of the flagpole, and his eyes became moist.
The yellow turned to black, not stained with dust, but blood. The bright red blood soaked the entire flag.
That's the blood of the artillery observer.
The fact that the flag stopped rising naturally proves that the person who raised the flag is no longer there.
Yes, the Japanese army is not stupid, but also very smart.
After being hit by mortars for so long, they were also looking for the source of the shells, and found that they were fired from more than a mile away. In such terrain, they were not afraid of shells falling on the ridge where the Chinese were, and they could still
Being able to accurately send artillery shells to the bottom of the valley is absolutely impossible without artillery observers to observe closely and report the coordinates of the artillery strike.
The Japanese artillery observers have their own system for providing artillery coordinates to their own artillery. Front artillery observers are one of them. Another is to fly in a hot air balloon to an altitude of tens of meters to provide data to artillery positions not far away.
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The Chinese don't have hot air balloons, so they can only use frontline artillery observers. This is just a temporary field position, and there will never be a chance to lay a telephone line that can transmit messages hundreds of meters away...
After careful analysis, the Japanese troops soon discovered the flagpole erected on the mountain ridge at a position where their bullets could not reach. The small flags of different colors may contain secrets that they could not understand.
Just because the guns couldn't hit it didn't mean their grenade launchers couldn't hit it. When the artillery observer raised the flag again, at least two grenade launchers fired grenades at the estimated location.
The Japanese grenade team members were all veterans, and they could destroy a machine gun fire point with two rounds from 500 meters away. In order to destroy this flagpole that might bring disaster to them, two grenade launchers fired six rounds of grenades.