Mountain artillery is a direct-fire artillery, and infantry artillery is a direct-fire artillery. One can kill combatants in the trenches, and the other can carry out devastating blows to enemy fixed fortifications.
The Japanese army's artillery distribution was very scientific.
After twenty minutes of indiscriminate bombing, the No. 1 position was completely devastated. The originally white and neat-looking hill was blown into pieces black and yellow, completely changed beyond recognition.
Sun Yongqin was watching all this with a telescope on the main peak position. The muscles on his face were tight. How could he not be worried? There were nearly 300 of his soldiers on that position! If he hadn't received Liu Lang's military plan
After learning that he was going to take command in person, Cai Dadao and others directed the soldiers to dig a large enough number of artillery-proof holes in various positions. They may not have seen such fierce artillery fire from the Japanese invaders, but just saw the Japanese invaders.
With thousands of troops, Sun Yongqin would order them to abandon this place and retreat into the mountains as before.
Liu Lang's expression next to him was very indifferent. He had expected the fierce Japanese artillery fire. But the Japanese invaders wanted to capture the hilltop position without paying the price with artillery fire. That was really overthinking. If they all changed to 150
The caliber heavy howitzer may be about the same.
What a pity, can they get that thing in?
However, Liu Lang's wish to take advantage of the Japanese artillery unit also failed. The infantry regiment of the Fourth Division obviously learned the lesson from the sneak attack on the artillery unit of the Eighth Division in the Battle of the Great Wall. Two of the artillery units
There are at least two infantry squadrons on the side building field defense positions. It is really difficult to defeat them.
Of course, this is because they bullied Sun Yongqin's department for not having artillery or mountain artillery with a sufficient range. If the two Bofors mountain artillery guns of the Zhao Ergou Artillery Battalion with a range of up to 9,000 meters were here, they would definitely teach this general about the artillery position.
How should the Japanese artillerymen deployed only 2,500 meters away from the front line behave?
The infantry squadron responsible for the attack still adopted the old Japanese infantry attack tactic of one infantry squad for frontal attack, and two infantry squads going around the flanks to contain and look for the enemy's weaknesses.
The volunteers, who have fought no less than ten battles with the Japanese army in the past two years, also know very well that this is a feint attack by the Japanese army. Once the firepower point is exposed, their grenade launchers and approaching infantry artillery will focus on the firepower point.
Strike, and then use heavy firepower to suppress the defensive infantry to cover your own infantry's charge to seize the position.
Although the routine is very simple, it is very practical. Especially for the Chinese army that lacks heavy firepower, it is often at a loss. In the end, it has no choice but to risk the enemy's superior firepower and engage in crossfire. The result is naturally heavy casualties.
Sure enough, when the Japanese infantry team advanced in a skirmish line to about 200 meters away from the mountainside position, with a blast of horns on the main peak, the light and heavy machine guns deployed by the volunteers on the position began to speak.
Skillfully prostrate on the ground, within a minute, several Japanese grenades located more than 200 meters behind them, hiding behind natural bunkers such as mountain cols, began to fire wildly, bombarding the several firepower points that had just opened fire. Several of them had already arrived.
The infantry artillery, which was only 800 meters away from the front line, also fired fiercely, showing a posture that would not stop until the exposed firepower points of the Chinese rebels were destroyed.
Regardless of whether it was really destroyed or not, as soon as our own artillery fired, the firepower of the Chinese rebels on the mountainside position was silenced. Up to four 92 heavy machine guns deployed on the side and rear of the Japanese infantry squad also began to fire, suppressing the defensive positions of the Volunteer Army.
You know, one infantry brigade of the Japanese army only has two machine gun squads equipped with a total of 8 heavy machine guns. For this attack, the infantry brigade responsible for the main attack directly used half of the heavy firepower. Adding this infantry squadron, it has
The fierce firepower of 6 light machine guns and 10 light and heavy machine guns splashed the soil on the Volunteer Army position. Coupled with the continuous shelling, nearly 300 Volunteer Army soldiers on the position were beaten so hard that they could not even lift their heads for a while.
Let alone shoot back.
Observing this situation, the Japanese soldiers who had just been lying on the ground to avoid bullets jumped up and shouted "board" and launched a charge under the loud shout of a Japanese second lieutenant who drew his saber.
The charging ability of the Japanese army is really impressive. In just ten seconds, they actually advanced about forty or fifty meters. A Japanese infantry squadron in the rear as a reserve force also started to move, and there were two more squadrons of more than one hundred meters.
A Japanese army is approaching here.
Obviously, this had turned a feint attack into a real attack, and the Japanese army actually planned to defeat it in a single battle. Watching all this through the telescope, Liu Lang couldn't help but reveal a hint of sarcasm. The Fourth Division took itself too seriously.
Okay, do you really think that the Japanese Army is the best in the world?
"Captain Liu, should you order the brothers in the trenches to fight back, otherwise that group of Japs will rush up." Sun Yongqin put down the telescope in his hand and looked at Liu Lang anxiously.
Before the war, Liu Lang, who took over the command from Sun Yongqin, had already ordered that he would have full command of the No. 1 and No. 2 forward positions, and no one should fire at will to cause unnecessary casualties.
"Don't worry, there are too few little Japs in one team. Not enough. Just wait." Liu Lang shook his head as he looked at the two infantry teams that were gradually accelerating in the field of view of the telescope.
"But..." Sun Yongqin wanted to speak again, but seeing that Liu Lang had no intention of continuing to explain to him, he could only stomp his feet and helplessly pick up the telescope in his hand to look at the battlefield in the distance.
If Liu Lang's two battles two years ago had not left an indelible impression on Sun Yongqin's heart, Sun Yongqin would have argued loudly at this moment. But Liu Tuanzuo's two battles were so amazing, God gave in.
Sun Yongqin handed over the command without hesitation.
Facing such an offensive by the Japanese army, the top commander of the Volunteer Army was so anxious, let alone the soldiers still in the trenches.
At this time, perhaps because the Japanese army was getting closer and closer, the Japanese infantry artillery had ceased firing and the grenade launchers gradually ceased. Only the Japanese light and heavy machine guns were still suppressing fire.
The commander of the third battalion of the 1st Battalion of the Volunteer Army, who was responsible for stationing at Position 1, lay in a bunker reinforced with logs and camouflaged with loess, watching helplessly as the small group of Japanese troops gradually approached the position. He was already anxious.
As a frontline commander, he knew very well what would happen if a small group of more than fifty Japanese troops invaded the trenches. That would cause the two infantry squads on the side to contain his own firepower to start charging, and wait until the following troops were following.
More than a hundred Japanese troops invaded the position, but in the end, the more than 200 brothers under his command were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. That was simply more terrifying than a defeat.
That was the end of the entire army being annihilated.
The Japanese army was already only forty or fifty meters away from the position. The soldiers in the trenches had even seen the big yellow teeth exposed when the Japanese army shouted "board".
"Order position No. 1 to fight back from the front. Except for heavy machine guns, all light machine guns can fire. Pay attention to the grenades of the little devils. The grenades will hit me hard." Liu Lang's military order was also issued in a timely manner at this time.
Since there was no professional communications unit like the Independent Regiment, but at Liu Lang's suggestion, Sun Yongqin's department cleverly used the length of the trumpet sound to establish its own somewhat crude and unique message delivery.
Although the sound transmitted is only a few hundred meters away, it is enough for a battlefield of this level.
The battalion commander who received the counterattack signal from the headquarters roared: "Throw the grenade, fire the light machine gun, and beat back the little devil."
Since there are not enough cannons and it is difficult to transport artillery shells, hand grenades have been the "heavy weapons" that the independent regiment has used most to assist Sun Yongqin's troops in the past two years. However, due to limited conditions, what was shipped was not finished products, but mostly gunpowder, and long wooden handles and
Sun Yongqin and others had to find a way to produce the cast iron cartridge cases themselves. As for how to make them, Liu Lang sent two technicians to Rehe to guide them in production for half a year.
It can be said that in terms of the number of weapons, Sun Yongqin's department now has the largest number not the millions of bullets Liu Lang left them, but the grenades that have been produced continuously for two years. Although the home-made iron-making process is rough, it has unexpectedly caused
The fragmentation rate is extremely high, and the gunpowder provided by Liu Lang is of good quality. The homemade long-handled grenades made by the peasant army are actually very powerful, and are no less powerful than the grenades made by regular domestic military factories used by the national army.
At this time, the Japanese army had entered the area 40 meters in front of the position.
It can only be said that Liu Lang's military order to choose a counterattack was just right. This area is the best distance for throwing grenades from a high position. If the Japanese army's grenades were on the plain, they might be able to throw them more than 30 meters, but in this area
If you ask them to go from bottom to top, they won't be able to throw them so far, even if the slope is not very steep.
The more than 100 soldiers on the front line did not even look at the Japanese troops who had entered the final charge and began to run wildly. They tried their best to throw three or four grenades that had been placed beside them at one go.
This is nearly 500 rounds of grenades, almost equivalent to 500 rounds of mortar shells.
The frontal defense line was no more than 300 meters wide. Almost every four or five meters from the front, rear, left, and right, a grenade exploded. This Japanese team of nearly 60 people who had already started fighting the First World War was unlucky.