In fact, the battle to seize the island of Lemnos was nothing, because the island's will to resist was not very strong. Many Greek officers and soldiers who lost confidence in this, like Lieutenant Madekai, could not bear it and chose to surrender.
To say which island had the most intense fighting during this landing operation, it had to be Chios. The intensity of the fighting far exceeded that of any other island.
The island of Chios is located in the middle of the Aegean Sea. It is a famous frankincense island in Greece. It is said that Homer was born on this island. And from ancient times to the present, the island has been prosperous because of the precious spice of frankincense gum.
In order to guard this wealthy island, Greece has stationed more than 6,000 people on the island, and its commander is also a representative of the hardliners, General Leonidas. This general with the name of the famous Spartan king is like
Like the king, he resisted the Romanian offensive.
The two forces are now fighting behind the beach. An armored battalion of the Marine Corps has followed the soldiers to the beach. However, the Greek army has been relying on its terrain to suppress the Marine soldiers attacking on the beach.
Due to the terrain, these Romanian tanks could not climb up, so they could only use the turret depression angle to attack. Although this method could cause casualties to the Greek defenders, it was still within the tolerance of the defenders.
"Boom~"
The Mircea battleship wandering in the nearby waters used its extremely powerful 380mm caliber cannon to fire at the shore.
Seeing that the attack was not going smoothly, the battleship Mircea, which served as supporting firepower, naturally had to provide sufficient support.
The sound like a train whistle coming from the air made the defenders immediately panic. Because they had already seen the power of this sound, the crater alone was more than ten meters in diameter after one shot, and the diameter of the crater was more than 100 meters.
There was no one alive inside.
The violent explosion caused the ground shaking, making many nearby defenders unable to hold their guns steady. What's even more terrible is that one of the shells exploded more than ten meters near a trench. After the explosion, the Greek trench
None of the soldiers could stand up anymore, and they all looked as if they were fast asleep. However, the horrific sight of bleeding from their seven orifices was enough to make even the timid dare not look directly at them.
As the commander of the garrison, General Leonidas looked at the situation where his troops were hit without changing his expression. He turned around and ordered, "Let the first regiment go up with reinforcements immediately, and then let the second regiment retreat."
rest."
"Yes, General."
Seeing that the officer who conveyed the order was about to leave, Zuo suddenly stopped him. "Wait a minute?"
"Any other orders General?"
"Assign the militia groups we recruited to the second line and let them feel the atmosphere of the battlefield."
"Yes, General."
After issuing the order, General Leonidas began to observe the battlefield again.
In fact, General Leonidas's tactics are very simple, that is, to stand against the beach and use firepower to attack the Romanian troops who landed before they spread out. Although this will cause great harm to himself, it is not as good as the enemy.
It will be more cost-effective to put the Romanian army up.
Moreover, this is the only beach on Chios Island that is suitable for landing. The other places are either cliffs or reefs and cannot be used as landing points at all. As for small groups of troops using small beaches to land on the beach, he is not afraid. He has already prepared a force and is ready to destroy it at any time.
These small groups of enemy troops landed.
Of course, this approach also has limitations, that is, it has strict requirements on the terrain. In addition, if the Romanian army breaks through the position, all its resistance will collapse. This is the bull-butting tactic. Whoever withdraws first will be considered a failure.
In fact, he also knew that his failure was inevitable because he lacked support, the navy did not have an advantage, and the air superiority was not obvious due to the distance between the two parties and other reasons. But even so, he still had to show the fighting spirit of the Greek army.
So he has ended up like the famous Spartan king. Death is not terrible because he has nothing to fear.
Faced with the desperate fighting spirit of General Leonidas and the desperate resistance of the Greek army, Major General Angel, who commanded the Romanian side of the battle, was very anxious. Because he already knew that the battles on other islands were completely different from what he encountered.
It's like an outing.
But he didn't have any other options for this, which was to wait for the support of other naval warships, use the absolutely superior naval guns to continuously bombard the defenders' positions, and open a gap to attack.
However, this most trouble-free and labor-saving result was not what he wanted, because doing so undoubtedly meant declaring that the Marines were unable to capture the island, which also declared that the 1st Marine Division under his command could not fight a tough battle at all.
How could he accept such a result? His face was small, but the loss of face to the Marines was big, so he could only rely on the troops in hand and continue to think of a solution.
The first thing he ruled out was to land small groups of troops from other places to harass. This was because the effect was not obvious, and it could easily put small groups of troops in danger.
The next thing he ruled out was the request for air support. Because the air force currently needed to support the army, and also needed to seize air supremacy, and Chios Island was more than 300 kilometers away from the nearest Romanian airport, and air support was specially requested.
Not too much.
So now there was only one way in front of him, and that was to increase firepower output. Thinking of this, he called a communications staff officer. "Send a report to Captain Costi immediately and ask him to increase support for ground combat."
"Yes, General."
"In addition, when we go up to the reinforcement group, I want to break open the enemy's position and let them see who is stronger."
Major General Angel gritted his teeth at the end, and now he wanted to tear his opponent, General Leonidas, to pieces.
As he issued the order, the roar of the Mircea-class battleship's main guns continued to sound, and several light cruisers and destroyers also cautiously approached the coastline, shelling the enemy's positions non-stop.
Regardless of the caliber of the main guns of these light cruisers and destroyers, they can only be considered small and medium-caliber naval guns among warships, but they are not small at all for the army. Moreover, the number of their guns is enough to support an artillery regiment, and they are also large-caliber heavy guns with outstanding capabilities.
group.
Such a violent shelling immediately made the defenders' positions appear to be crumbling. This greatly boosted the morale of the Marine Corps officers and soldiers who had just received reinforcements. They immediately took advantage of the shelling to attack the enemy positions.
"No, order the militiamen to attack immediately and have the second regiment stand by at the second line. Also, have the third regiment rush over immediately. We only need to leave one battalion in Gilisuo to prevent the enemy from landing from other places."
General Leonidas, who had been observing the battlefield situation, could not tell that this was a new wave of offensive by the Romanian army. At this time, he did not care about the chaos that might be caused by the militiamen coming to the front line, and immediately asked them to replenish the troops.
Moreover, the Second Regiment, which was resting, was also pulled up by him. In order to avoid the problem of not having a reserve team, he planned to ask most of the Third Regiment to come over immediately for support.
Now the commanders of both sides have their own targeted formations, but they cannot replace the soldiers standing in the battle.
As the militiamen joined in, the officers and soldiers of the Greek army's frontline positions gradually stabilized their positions. Although the militiamen appeared a little panicked when they came up, fortunately they had soldiers around them to comfort them and set an example, and they gradually calmed down.
After General Leonidas saw that the battle line was gradually stabilized, his heart finally stabilized. When Major General Angel saw that his rapid attack was about to be blocked by the opponent, he was so angry that he wanted to use the telescope in his hand.
Throw it down.
Just when the commanders of both sides thought that this battle would end like this, a dramatic aspect happened.
The firing from the main gun of the Mircea-class battleship caused several shells to fall near the front-line positions. Such a superb shot not only knocked down the morale of the defenders, but also made General Leonidas' face change drastically.
"How dare they do this? Aren't they afraid of facing a military court?"
The reason why General Leonidas said this is very simple. Because the shooting of warship guns is affected by ocean currents and shaking, it is absolutely impossible to shoot too close to friendly forces. At least a distance of 300 meters needs to be maintained. Because I don’t know what will happen next.
Will a cannonball fall on friendly troops?
The current distance is only more than 100 meters at most, which can be said to accurately exclude Romanian soldiers from the killing range. No navy can do such a shooting. There are only two possibilities. One is that the warship made a miscalculation and missed the target. The other is
The Romanians were red-eyed and completely ignored the casualties.
His estimate was correct, there was indeed a mistake on the battleship side. It was just not a calculation error, but a communication error, and the last digit was incorrectly stated.
For this reason, Captain Costi was so frightened that he urgently stopped the artillery support of the Mircea and comprehensively investigated the problem.
Major General Angel was also shocked, because if the cannon was hit in a slightly off-center position, it would fall directly on top of the attacking troops. This would not only cause huge casualties, but would also severely damage the morale of the army.
.
Such a round of magical artillery frightened all three parties. However, the attacking Marine officers and soldiers did not know the reason. They only knew that the artillery fire was very accurate and knocked down the entire enemy position.
.
Faced with such an entire gap, what else is there to say? Just attack it.
And this shot also destroyed the morale of the defenders. They were frightened by such a precise bombardment. This was a battleship's cannon, and its lethality was directly in front of them. Moreover, the defenders in the entire position were killed, which was also frightening.
.
At this time, the disadvantages of the militia coming in were also revealed. Many militiamen couldn't bear such a big mental blow, so they threw down their weapons and fled. And under the leadership of the militia, many soldiers couldn't stand it either, and threw down their weapons and ran away.
This is how a chain reaction occurs.
The defending officers and soldiers who were fighting bravely one moment became defeated the next moment after the artillery bombardment. But the attacking Marine officers and soldiers now had an easier time. They only had to drive the broken troops to attack the next position.
General Leonidas couldn't bear this result, his face flushed like a heavy date. Suddenly he spurted out a mouthful of blood and fell down. The panicked screams of the officers could still be heard in his ears.
No one expected such a dramatic result.
With the clarification of the battle on Chios Island, the first phase of the Navy's operation has come to an end. In this operation, the Navy captured all the large islands in the North Aegean Sea except Evia Island. As for Evia Island
Because it is too close to the mainland (only 18 kilometers recently) and the island is too large, it is not suitable for the navy to land on the island.
Now the next stage of the navy's landing plan needs to wait for the cooperation of the army. I believe it won't be far away, because the armored corps led by Lieutenant General Hoffman once again became the focus on the Greek battlefield.
