area51novel #273 - Night Fight with the Japs
#273 - Night Fight with the Japs
The Japanese troops intercepting Li Yunlong and his men came from the 148th Division of the Kwantung Army's 30th Army (comprising the 383rd, 384th, and 385th Infantry Regiments, and the 148th Artillery Regiment), led by Lieutenant General Yoshitaka Akiyama; the 149th Division of the 4th Army (comprising the 386th, 387th, and 388th Infantry Regiments, and the 149th Artillery Regiment), led by Lieutenant General Yoshio Nakajima; and the 87th Division (comprising the 204th Infantry Regiment, the 206th Infantry Regiment, the 390th Infantry Regiment, and the 87th Artillery Regiment), led by Lieutenant General Yoshitomi Tamura, forming a force of three divisions.
Lieutenant General Yoshitomi Tamura was the most senior among them, and he temporarily served as the overall commander of this interception group.
According to intelligence relayed by the Japanese army's outposts along the way, Yoshitomi Tamura positioned the interception group in the Yucheng area, with the 87th Division as the spearhead, the 148th Division to its left rear, and the 149th Division to its right rear, forming a triangular formation, with a distance of just over 1 kilometer between them.
If the 87th Division's position at the front was attacked, the 148th and 149th Divisions could quickly outflank from both wings, while the artillery regiment could also provide timely fire support to the front line. The tank regiment assigned to the interception group was also on standby behind the 87th Division. The four specially reinforced squadrons were all equipped with "Type 97" medium tanks. Although the performance of this medium tank was also unsatisfactory and had little effect against the front of M3 tanks, the Japanese army, after painful lessons, had developed a new tactic of two tanks supporting each other, trying to bypass the M3 tanks' flanks to attack.
From a blocking perspective, there was nothing wrong with this formation.
If they followed the tactics of the Nationalist army, openly revealing their cards and engaging in a head-on confrontation, then this Japanese interception group would indeed pose a considerable threat to Li Yunlong and his men. After all, they had pre-set their positions and tightly blocked the Jinpu Railway. Li Yunlong and his men would have to fight a major battle with them to go north.
However, Yoshitomi Tamura overestimated Li Yunlong's integrity. After communicating the intelligence with the leaders of the Jizhong Military Region, both sides decisively decided on a sneak attack.
On the other side, five main regiments of the Jizhong Military Region and the military region's cavalry regiment attacked at the same time, similarly first targeting the positions of the 148th and 149th Divisions' artillery regiments. Although their artillery fire was not as fierce as Ding Wei and Kong Jie's, they had the advantage of numbers. They swarmed up and, taking advantage of the huge advantage after the full conversion of their weapons to the Type 56 family, engaged in close combat, taking down the remaining Japanese artillerymen and the two infantry battalions that followed them in the chaos.
The complete suppression of infantry firepower gave the current company-level units a strong firepower advantage against the Japanese army's battalions and companies. In this kind of close-quarters night attack, the Japanese army's firepower system, mainly based on grenade launchers and light and heavy machine guns, could not withstand the attacks of mortars and rocket launchers. As soon as a light was exposed, it was the end.
By the time the Japanese infantry regiment rushed to rescue, the attack on the artillery regiment had already succeeded. The 107 rockets were just right to start covering the charging Japanese infantry regiment with free artillery fire!
Combined with the infantry battalion and company's 82mm mortars relentlessly raining down shells on the charging Japanese infantry battalions, the attacking Jizhong troops and Ding Wei, Kong Jie and their men really fought a hearty and enjoyable battle.
Except for Li Yunlong, who, because he had attracted the Japanese tank regiment, fought somewhat laboriously in the open field without support.
Fortunately, Ding Wei and Kong Jie made rapid progress. Less than half an hour after the start of the battle, they had resolved the 87th Division's artillery position, which gave Li Yunlong a slight advantage in artillery fire, suppressing the Japanese infantry charge with three mountain gun companies and mortars.
Then, he deployed the RPG rocket launcher teams forward, ambushing them on the ground. Taking advantage of the darkness, it was difficult for the Japanese tanks to detect them. The RPG rocket launcher teams waited until the Japanese tanks approached within about 100 meters before firing!
At this distance, almost all of them were sure hits. The Japanese tanks were set on fire one after another by the rocket launchers!
After losing nearly half of their tanks and finding that they could not break through the Eighth Route Army's rocket launcher interception, the Japanese tank regiment could only retreat in disgrace!
Originally, they had planned to have a one-for-one decisive battle with Li Yunlong and their tanks, but who knew that they had not even seen the shadow of the opponent's tanks and had already suffered more than half of their casualties under the opponent's rocket launchers!
Such a result was unacceptable not only to the tank regiment commander but also to Yoshitomi Tamura, who was observing the scene.
Before the battle started, although he was not optimistic, he had hoped that the tank regiment would create some kind of miracle.
But at least they had to use up all of the opponent's tanks, right? More than 50 "Type 97" medium tanks against the opponent's 30 M3 light tanks, on paper, it was almost two against one. Even if the 57mm tank gun suffered from a caliber disadvantage against the 76mm tank gun, it was not completely without a chance to fight, right?
Who knew that they would encounter an opponent who did not play by the rules and launched a sneak attack at night, not giving the tank regiment any chance for a tank duel, using rocket launchers to sneak attack!
The opponent was really cunning, completely lacking the demeanor of a strongman.
Yoshitomi Tamura watched the tank regiment collapse and retreat, and the infantry regiment was constantly being blown up by the opponent's artillery fire during the charge. He finally understood the despair that the Nationalist army had felt when facing them.
Now that they had lost the artillery regiment and the tank regiment, it was completely impossible to compete with the opponent with just the infantry regiment alone.
"Let the entire army retreat! I, Tamura, will take responsibility for this battle!" Tamura Yoshitomi said despairingly to the operations staff, looking at the sound of artillery explosions echoing everywhere on the battlefield, most of which were fired by the opponent.
Today's night attack has been declared a complete failure, but I don't know how many people can be brought home?
"Addictive! Addictive! This battle today was so addictive!" Kong Guo Yin, who had chased for half the night before stopping to join Ding Wei and Li Yunlong, couldn't help but shout loudly when he saw Li Yunlong and Ding Wei.
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"Stop being addicted, Lao Kong. Let's take advantage of the Japanese army's new defeat and hurry on our way. Our air force probably won't be able to protect us well in this place. It's best to rush to Ande overnight, load up the train and leave, or it will be too easy for the Japanese to bomb along the railway. We won't even be able to hide!" Li Yunlong interrupted Kong Jie unhappily.
"Then shall we go?" Kong Jie suppressed a bellyful of cheerful words and said somewhat blankly.
"Go, leave the battlefield to the comrades in Jizhong to clean up. No one cares about the Japanese army's broken things now." Li Yunlong waved his hand.
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