sjar Chapter 145 Two slices of bread with cheese, crushing the outer defense line
Chapter 145 Two slices of bread with cheese, crushing the outer defense line
Yukinosuke Takae ran and shouted, and with the help of one shell crater after another, he approached the charging Sherman from the side to within a hundred meters.
However, when the smoke and dust from the rear support artillery bombardment cleared, Konosuke saw that there was a soldier standing on the back of the enemy's tall tank, operating a small-caliber machine gun (M2HB was a machine gun in the Japanese definition) mounted on the turret, which was flashing with a cold light.
The soldier on the Sherman apparently also saw Konosuke suddenly emerging from the smoke and immediately turned his gun around.
Facing the black muzzle of a gun, Private Yukinosuke Takae, who had just joined the army for a few months, suddenly recalled the distant afternoon when his fisherman father took him to the dock to see the ice.
If there hadn't been this war, he would have gone fishing with his father, right?
Gunshots were fired.
One after another, palm-length 12.7mm machine gun bullets flew towards Takae Yukinosuke.
The upper body of Yukinosuke Takae flew up due to inertia while running, and then fell heavily to the ground.
Lying on the ground, he tried with all his strength to get closer to the tank, but his body did not move at all.
He looked back in confusion and suddenly found that the pair of legs left on the ground behind him looked familiar.
Isn't that my leg?
This was the last thought in Takae Yukinosuke's mind when he was interrupted.
A soldier from the 1st Column who was guarding the tank rushed over with an M1 carbine and fired several shots at Takae Yukinosuke who was lying on the ground, raising dust on the ground.
Then the soldiers of the 1st Column pried open his arms and pulled out the Type 99 anti-tank mine that he was holding tightly.
"The little devils have evil ambitions, bah..."
The soldier cursed as he removed the fuse from the top of the Type 99 anti-tank mine. In order to prevent the Japanese from picking up these anti-tank weapons and launching further attacks, he carefully put the fuse in his bag.
"Shagen, stop fighting with the devil's corpse and follow me."
"Coming." The soldier holding the M1 carbine responded and ran back to the team.
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Matsuyama Yuzo only deployed one regiment of Japanese soldiers on the outer defense line, and the rest of the trenches were filled by puppet troops under Wengshan.
In his wishful thinking, this regiment of devils had the puppet army cannon fodder as stepping stones. They were armed with anti-tank mines. Even if they exchanged 20 mines for one tank, they could still consume nearly a hundred of Zhang Chi's light and heavy tanks, right?
Once the enemy's tank units have suffered heavy losses, they will have to rest for at least a few days before they can attack again. Wouldn't this buy time for reinforcements?
Therefore, he placed weapons such as anti-tank guns and infantry guns on the second main line of defense, preparing to delay the enemy by relying solely on the lives of the Japanese and puppet troops.
However, Matsuyama Yuzo, who was used to playing against weak opponents, did not realize that times had changed.
The pure infantry Japanese troops had no 75mm anti-tank guns, no anti-tank weapons such as rocket launchers and recoilless rifles, and no large amounts of heavy artillery fire and air force cover. They had no power to fight back when facing the mechanized troops built by Zhang Chi according to the standards of the 1st Cavalry Division of the White Eagle United States.
Do you want to rely entirely on simple Molotov cocktails and anti-tank mines thrown by hand to stop the attacks of the 1st and 2nd columns and the independent tank regiment?
齐泉和白明辉仅仅各出一个团，配上自己纵队坦克营的M5A1轻型坦克和张弛下放的M4A3（105）中型坦克就如同两把尖刀一般，直接扎破了外围防线。
What followed was a textbook breakthrough process. At the breakthrough point of the front line, subsequent troops continued to pour in, and then swept across the entire defense line horizontally and parallely, using submachine guns and shotguns to clear out all the Japanese and puppet troops in the trenches.
As the breakthrough continued to expand, Matsuyama Yuzo also tried to respond tit-for-tat by sending reinforcements from the second-line positions to drive the 1st and 2nd column regiments, which had not yet established a stable foothold, out of the first-line trenches.
However, even if the Japanese still controlled the communication trenches between the two fronts, it would be extremely difficult for them to provide reinforcements under the bombardment of the 155mm artillery of the artillery column and the A-1H attack aircraft carrying 2000-pound bombs in the sky.
The Japanese and puppet troops, lacking reinforcements, suffered heavy losses and were defeated.
Seeing that the outer defense line, which he had high hopes for, was about to be flattened with almost no effect, Matsuyama Yuzo could no longer sit still.
He mobilized the 56th Artillery Regiment (half of it was in Songshan) and the independent 13th Field Heavy Artillery Regiment (the last heavy firepower of the 15th Army) which had been hidden in advance.
As two green flares were fired into the sky from the city of Myitkyina, 24 Type 38 75mm field guns covered with camouflage nets removed their gun covers and camouflage, raised their muzzles, and began shelling the trenches occupied by the 1st and 2nd columns.
与此同时，重炮兵联队的24门三八式105mm野炮和12门九一式105mm野炮（图在章末作者说）则向着测算的炮纵阵地开火，试图压制炮纵的105、155榴弹炮。
The prefix of the Type 38 105mm field gun is "Meiji 38th Year Type", and the current era is Showa. From the name, you can tell that the Type 38 is an old gun.
The Type 91 105mm field gun is a relatively new artillery piece of the Japanese Army. It is an imitation of the French Schneider 105 howitzer (the Japanese Army is a fan of the French, and their machine guns and cannons are all imitations of the French). It has a range of meters and can penetrate 63mm armor at a distance of 1500 meters when using pointed armor-piercing bullets for flat firing.
The sudden opening of fire from this batch of 105 field guns did cause some trouble to the artillery column. The mountain artillery had to order the 155 self-propelled artillery regiment and the 105 howitzer regiment to suspend firing and move their firing positions.
However, even though the artillery's firepower stopped, the 105mm main gun on the M4A3 (105) Sherman and the 37mm rapid-fire gun on the light tanks did not stop. Coupled with the large number of mortars and machine guns in the infantry regiment, the Japanese sent by Matsuyama Yuzo still could not recapture the position.
On the contrary, because the planes of the Independent Air Force were circling in the sky, the smoke and dust left by the Japanese heavy artillery positions quickly attracted attention from the sky.
The A-1H attack aircraft and the escorting F4U-4B first dropped bombs, and then dived and strafed with 20mm machine guns. Even though Matsuyama Yuzo had deployed all his anti-aircraft guns near the artillery positions, he still suffered heavy losses.
The air force directly blew up 17 artillery pieces at the cost of 2 planes shot down and 5 damaged, and also destroyed a Japanese ammunition storage point.
The huge mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of the ammunition point could be clearly seen even in Zhangchi, which was more than 10 kilometers away.
(The Japanese drill manual has requirements for the distance between the artillery position and the ammunition point. The ammunition will not explode even if it explodes. The scene in TV dramas where there are a bunch of shells next to the artillery position and a series of explosions with one shot will only happen when the Japanese artillery is extremely careless)
Seeing that the artillery was about to be destroyed, Matsuyama Yuzo had no choice but to order all the artillerymen to disperse and hide.
Without the support of firepower and reinforcements from the rear, in just one day, the 1st and 2nd columns were like a pair of pliers that split left and right, and they crushed the outer defense line.