"Sir, our position was attacked by the Eighth Route Army's heavy artillery, and the troops suffered heavy casualties!" A lieutenant rushed in and reported, with panic on his face.
The captain's brows were already furrowed into a big "Sichuan" sign.
Without the need for his subordinates to report, he could have guessed how tragic the battlefield was.
The power of heavy artillery is so great that reinforced concrete fortifications will be blown into piles of rubble in front of it, not to mention the purely civil fortifications built hastily by the troops.
It must have looked like it was made of paper and was instantly razed to the ground.
Not to mention troops hiding in fortifications or completely exposed on the ground, they will definitely be killed, injured and lose their combat effectiveness in an instant.
"Sir, what should we do? We can't let the soldiers be exposed to artillery fire all the time!" Seeing that the commander of the regiment had not moved for a long time, the adjutant couldn't help but remind him.
"Counterattack immediately!" the commander ordered without thinking.
"Find the Eighth Route Army's heavy artillery positions, concentrate all artillery fire to counterattack, and kill those heavy artillery."
The artillery staff officer shook his head and said in denial: "Sir, we only have four mountain guns and five infantry guns, and the rest are all ordinary mortars. I just calculated that the Eighth Route Army's heavy artillery position is at least four kilometers away from us, and these artillery can't reach them at all.
Artillery position."
The captain cursed angrily: "Bagh Yalu, are you a stupid pig?"
"If artillery can't hit them, won't you contact the aviation force and use planes to blow them up?"
"Contact the headquarters immediately and request aviation reinforcements."
"We were attacked by heavy artillery from the Eighth Route Army. If the planes don't come over quickly, we will be blown up."
The five minutes of artillery preparations ended quickly. In the eyes of the Japanese commander, these five minutes passed extremely long.
As soon as the gunfire stopped, he grabbed his binoculars and rushed out of the headquarters.
Huge craters with a depth of more than two meters can be seen everywhere on the smoke-filled battlefield.
Around the crater, a large number of Imperial Army and Imperial Alliance Army soldiers were lying motionless in various postures.
Not surprisingly, they should all be dead.
The more he looked at the co-captain, the more serious his expression became.
"Da da da... boom boom boom..."
Suddenly, the sound of gunfire started after five minutes of silence.
Looking in the direction from which the sound came, the captain showed a dumbfounded and shocked expression.
The Eighth Route Army attacked the position, and more than a dozen light and heavy machine guns fired at the Imperial Army's blocking position as if bullets were free.
More than a hundred Eighth Route Army troops rushed out of their positions and began to attack. They were like hungry wolves, and their assault speed was very fast.
On the other hand, the imperial army's position only had one heavy machine gun and five light machine guns for counterattack.
As soon as he opened fire, he was targeted by the Eighth Route Army's offensive firepower, and then he was pinned down and unable to continue shooting.
There were more than a hundred infantrymen left, scattered scattered along the nearly 400-meter-long defense line. They used rifles to fight back. The gunshots were sparse and chaotic, and they could not stop the wolf-like Eighth Route Army.
"Boom boom boom..."
Three explosions suddenly sounded in the blocking position, attracting the attention of the commander.
The moment black smoke and flames rose from the ground, soil, gravel... were blown away together.
Immediately afterwards, the soldiers within a radius of more than ten meters around the impact point stopped moving.
All the gunfire stopped, as if all the soldiers in that area were dead, and the counterattack firepower of the entire defense line was instantly reduced by nearly one-third because of the three explosions.
"Sir, it's a heavy mortar, a 150mm caliber mortar!"
The artillery staff officer who was following him shouted, clearing up the doubts in the commander's mind.
The commander of the regiment became anxious, frowned and cursed: "Bagya Road, how can these Eighth Route Army's equipment be so good? They have heavy artillery and heavy mortars, and we don't even have the equipment."
"Order the artillery troops to counterattack immediately. We can't reach the Eighth Route Army's heavy artillery positions, but we can definitely reach the mortar positions."
"Also, contact the headquarters, our reinforcement aircraft must arrive immediately."
"The Eighth Route Army attacking us is so strange. It is completely different from the Eighth Route Army we encountered before. Now it has used heavy artillery and heavy mortars. No one knows what other heavy weapons they have hidden but useless."
"Boom boom boom..."
The surviving artillery pieces of the Japanese army quickly began to fight back, but after only five rounds of shells, a string of mountain artillery shells hit them.
The captain was completely confused.
The adjutant also had a puzzled look on his face: "Sir, the Eighth Route Army attacking us is not only equipped with a large number of light and heavy artillery, but they also have plenty of ammunition. It doesn't look like they are running out of ammunition at all."
"Sir, the eastern defense line has been breached by the Eighth Route Army." A communications officer rushed over and reported, with blood on his body, obviously having rushed all the way from the battlefield.
"Captain Tengzhong is shrinking his defenses and gathering the remaining troops to block the attack, slowing down the Eighth Route Army's attack."
A major captain rushed over and reported: "Sir, the Eighth Route Army's offensive is too fierce. Light and heavy machine guns, mortars, mountain artillery, and heavy mortars are all put into battle together. The warriors can hardly withstand it.
"
"In addition to the artillery preparations just now, all the troops were exposed to the artillery fire and suffered heavy casualties."
"In less than five minutes, at least 1,500 people lost their combat effectiveness."
The captain became even more anxious and scolded with a sullen face: "Bagya Road!"
"In the past, the imperial army used heavy artillery to bomb the Chinese army to demoralize them and suppress them. Unexpectedly, today it was the other way around, and the imperial army became the target of the bombing."
"Now I finally understand why the imperial army is invincible on the battlefield."
"Such good equipment, including heavy artillery and aircraft, will blast the enemy head-first. Even a ragtag group of people can fight against each other under the cover of heavy artillery and aircraft, and kill the enemy to pieces."
"Now is the best proof."
"No matter how powerful the imperial army is in combat, it is no match for heavy artillery."
"Now it seems that the only way left is to stop the Eighth Route Army's attack and turn defeat into victory."
"Deploy aviation, which is more powerful than heavy artillery, to destroy the Eighth Route Army's artillery units and blow them all up."
"Contact the headquarters again. The troops were attacked by a large-scale artillery attack by the Eighth Route Army. They suffered heavy casualties and are in urgent need of aircraft support."
"Order troops to be stationed in all directions, shrink their defenses, concentrate their forces to block the attack at all levels, slow down the Eighth Route Army's attack speed, and buy time for the aircraft to come over."
"As long as the aviation force arrives on the battlefield in time, all the artillery equipped by the Eighth Route Army will turn into a pile of scrap metal, and the initiative on the battlefield will return to our hands again."
In the former enemy headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, the gloom on Commander Yang's face was wiped away, a smile reappeared on his face, and he was in a very good mood.
The moment the heavy artillery battalion opened fire, he knew he had won.
Sure enough, the bombardment ended. Less than ten minutes after the new round of attack began, the Japanese and puppet defense lines were breached, and there were signs of breakthroughs in the other three directions.
"Report to the leader, the independent regiment reported that they have broken through the Japanese defense line!"
