novelraw #239 - Tank Battalion Attacks!
#239 - Tank Battalion Attacks!
Night fell.
Outside Guo Fort Village.
The Japanese logistics soldiers had desperately dug out three trenches, each several hundred meters long.
As for the division's search party, they had already dispersed to conduct reconnaissance.
Thus, the main forces among the Japanese in Guo Fort Village were the engineering and logistics regiments, along with support units like the tank battalion and the medical and veterinary unit.
The cavalry regiment was stationed two kilometers north of Guo Fort Village in Jiao Family Village, guarding the flank of the division headquarters and serving as a reserve for the attacking force at Nanguan Village.
With two regiments attacking Nanguan Village, Takamori and Sumita were not at all worried about the safety of their headquarters.
Little did they know that they were about to face a major disaster.
The tank battalion commander of Chen Brigade was called Chen Jie. He was originally one of the instructors transferred from the border region. However, there was a severe shortage of tank commanders. When Li Yunlong and the others graduated and returned, that kid Li Yunlong shamelessly begged Ren Zhong to poach Chen Jie to be the seed battalion commander of the Independent Regiment's tank battalion.
Considering that the brigade commander's side indeed lacked tank commanders, Ren Zhong reluctantly agreed, even compiling a collection of tank warfare books for Chen Jie.
When Taiyue organized the tank unit, Chen Jie naturally took over as the tank battalion commander. Who knew that the brigade commander would steal his thunder in the end? The tank battalion was upgraded to a military region tank battalion, and Chen Jie became the tank battalion commander, taking away the first batch of tank recruits that Li Yunlong had trained.
This caused Li Yunlong to fume for quite a while before calming down.
At this moment, Chen Jie was commanding the tank battalion's seven platoons, arranged in rows of five tanks, slowly advancing towards Guo Fort Village.
Behind them, the soldiers of the 771st and 772nd Regiments were jogging to keep up.
They had emerged from their hiding place in Zhuozi Gully, and the target, Guo Fort Village, was only about six kilometers away. The tanks were moving at a speed of about ten kilometers per hour, allowing the 771st and 772nd Regiments to barely keep up.
Behind the main force was a transport team of over 200 mules and horses, along with a 107mm artillery company and a machine gun company pulled by dozens of horses.
More than half an hour later, the marching column approached Guo Fort Village. The noise of these 30-plus tanks moving naturally couldn't escape the attention of the Japanese outer sentries.
"Corporal Nakamura, listen, what's that sound?" The Japanese sergeant, Kimura Taro, in charge of the eastern sentry post, said to his companion, Nakamura Shochi.
The rumbling sound of the M3 tanks could be heard from one or two kilometers away.
"Corporal Kimura, it sounds like the sound of a large truck moving. Strange, there's no road here, how could there be the sound of a large truck?" Nakamura Shochi said strangely.
As for tanks, they all knew that the tank unit was in the village, and it was impossible for them to be mobilized now.
"Corporal Kimura, should we report this?" Nakamura asked.
"Let's wait and see. If we make a fuss over nothing, the officers will be angry." Kimura listened carefully for a while and replied somewhat uncertainly, finding that the sound was getting closer and closer.
The sound was like a truck, but also like the huge rumble of a tank moving.
However, how could the Eighth Route Army have such powerful weapons like tanks? In Nakamura and Kimura's minds, the Eighth Route Army was still just a bunch of poorly equipped peasants with rifles and machine guns.
So the thought of tanks flashed through their minds, and they didn't realize what they were missing.
It wasn't until the blurry shadows of the dark M3 tanks emerged from the east that Nakamura and Kimura were shocked and fired their guns to signal the alarm!
However, before they could fire their guns to signal the alarm, in the middle of Guo Fort Village, Sasaki, the commander of the tank unit, had already gotten up, anxiously directing his tank unit to urgently get into their vehicles and prepare for battle!
Sasaki was an old devil who had seen M3 tanks before. He was very familiar with the sound of the engine, so even though he couldn't figure out why he would hear the sound of M3 tanks here,
it was clear that this was definitely not his own friendly forces, but enemy tanks launching an attack!
Sasaki knew that the Locust Army in North China and Northeast China would definitely not have any M3 tanks.
Outside the village, Chen Jie poked his head out, took the walkie-talkie, slightly adjusted the formation of the team, directed the tank columns to stagger, and waited for the infantry brigade behind to approach the tanks before Chen Jie closed the hatch.
"Brothers, charge, kill the Japanese devils!" Chen Jie shouted loudly into the communicator, taking the lead and rushing towards the vaguely visible village.
The common people here had already been evacuated, and Chen Jie and the others could fight without any scruples. Anyway, in this chaotic war, the common people were already used to reconstruction work.
The valuable things in the houses had basically been taken away or hidden in the cellars.
Behind the tanks, the panting 771st and 772nd Regiments watched the tank battalion accelerate their charge. The two leading vanguard companies didn't bother to rest, and they all roared and followed.
Although there wasn't much infantry-tank coordination training, at least everyone had a concept of the information provided by Ren Zhong. Behind the tanks, there must be infantry accompanying them to clear out the small fry.
Behind them, the 771st and 772nd fully equipped Type A regiments followed like two torrents.
The tank battalion, like two sharp knives, easily flattened the Japanese defense lines and machine gun fire points they encountered along the way, directly opening a large gap of more than 100 meters in the Japanese outer defense line.
After leveling the 76mm main gun, it aimed directly at the Japanese, who were suspected of clustering together, where there was a flash of fire, and fired a shot, quickly leveling it. The machine gunners aimed at the flashing black shadows in front and kept pulling the trigger to shoot.
The ten tanks in front advanced irresistibly, and nothing could stop them in the slightest.
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Then, the subsequent tanks didn't need to fire their guns. They directly crushed and filled the gaps along the way, pressing the remaining Japanese devils into the soil with their tracks to directly fertilize the fields.
Once the tanks had passed, only a handful of Japanese soldiers remained, each stunned and easily dispatched by the 56 semi-automatic rifles of the assault company following behind. The main force then surged forward, expanding and consolidating their advantage on both sides.
Soon, the tank battalion clashed with the emerging Japanese Type 95 tanks.
At a distance of three to four hundred meters, both sides spotted each other almost simultaneously. Chen Jie ordered the tanks to halt and take aim, feeling no pressure against the Japanese Type 95s.
The M3 Stuart he was driving, although a light tank, had far superior armor compared to the Type 95. Its front gun shield was 51mm thick, the upper front 38mm, the lower front 44mm, the turret 38mm, and the sides and rear of the hull 25mm. The frontal armor could withstand 37mm anti-tank guns at a range of 500 meters.
In contrast, the Japanese Type 95 tank, equipped with a single tank gun, needed to be within 300 meters to penetrate 45mm of armor. Its frontal armor was only 12mm thick, capable of stopping only machine-gun bullets, while other parts were a mere 6mm, an extreme example of cost-cutting. It barely offered protection against ordinary rifle bullets.
Such armor was vulnerable even to 12.7mm heavy machine-gun bullets, let alone 76mm armor-piercing rounds!
Therefore, the first exchange was almost without suspense. The tank battalion's ten tanks hit three Japanese tanks, with one shot each, resulting in immediate explosions.
On the Japanese side, although the hit rate was much higher, the five leading M3 tanks of the tank battalion were hit, but only a flash of fire appeared, leaving a black mark on the gun shield. The tanks shook slightly but were otherwise unharmed.
Chen Jie, seizing a moment, saw that his side had only destroyed three enemy tanks and ordered the following tanks to move up and aim closer. The leading five tanks remained in place, targeting the remaining Japanese Type 95s. He was certain that the Japanese 37mm 'water hoses' could not harm him in this position.
Sasaki, seeing that his side's shells had little effect on the enemy tanks, his eyes turned red. "Banzai! Close-range firing!" The remaining Japanese soldiers once again started their tanks and charged forward, closing the distance by another hundred meters in the blink of an eye.
However, during the charge, Chen Jie's five tanks had already aimed for the second round. This time, with the closer proximity, the hit rate increased significantly, with the five tanks hitting four targets!
In a matter of minutes, most of the twelve Japanese Type 95 tanks were destroyed.
The remaining five tanks tried to stop and fire, but Chen Jie's tanks, both in front and behind him, had already fired first. Under the barrage of more than a dozen shells, these inferior tanks inevitably turned into scrap metal!
The 'bean tanks,' with their poor armor, weak guns, and low speed, were completely annihilated without causing much of a stir.
Chen Jie was not surprised by this victory. He had destroyed several similar Japanese tanks during his time with the Expeditionary Force and felt no pressure against these thin-skinned vehicles.
He continued the charge forward. His mission was not these little beans but to completely destroy Guobao Village and eliminate the Japanese headquarters in one fell swoop!
Having dealt with the Japanese tanks, the village ahead was faintly visible. Chen Jie led the tank battalion to accelerate and charge forward, directly crushing the low houses. These mud-brick walls could not stop the tank's advance.
(Local courtyards, with mud and wood structures)
The Japanese soldiers hiding inside had no time to escape and were buried under the collapsed walls or the tank tracks.
In less than ten minutes, the entire village was flattened by the tanks, and then they charged towards the Japanese outer encampment!
The engineering and logistics units of the Japanese army, who had just been awakened, scattered and fled like a disturbed hornet's nest. Faced with such monsters, these auxiliary soldiers, who had little combat power to begin with, had little courage to fight back and simply fled for their lives, even trampling on each other!
The tank battalion's first strike almost completely breached the rear base of ten thousand Japanese soldiers. With the subsequent cooperation of the 771st and 772nd Regiments, the Japanese rear base was swept clean without much effort.
For the entire night, the 771st and 772nd Regiments were busy collecting spoils of war and clearing out any remaining Japanese soldiers. Due to a shortage of manpower, the 771st and 772nd Regiments did not have time to take prisoners, simply sending any encountered on their way with a bullet, reducing the workload of managing prisoners.
Because the tank battalion's charge was too explosive, no one discovered whether the Japanese commander had been killed in the end. However, for the Brigade Commander, this was irrelevant. After the 771st and 772nd Regiments took the Japanese logistics base and seized the Japanese supplies, the Brigade Commander immediately issued an order for a full-scale counterattack.
Li Yunlong's side had long been impatient. Upon hearing the Brigade Commander's order, he immediately ordered the long-hidden 107 rocket artillery regiment to completely cover the Japanese positions!
For a time, the Japanese-occupied positions in Nanguanzhuang and Kongjiazhuang were filled with flames, and the continuous explosions stretched all the way to the rear support regiment of the Japanese 39th Division. After half an hour of bombardment, the New Third Regiment and the New Fourth Regiment, along with the Independent Regiment who came to help, and several guerrilla detachments who had been ambushing for a long time, launched a full-scale attack almost simultaneously!
The soldiers, like tigers descending from the mountains, relied on the powerful firepower of their 56 semi-automatic rifles to enter the trenches on the positions. In the skirmishes with the Japanese soldiers, who were still dizzy from the bombing and not completely dead, one shot after another was almost always on target.
They neatly sent the Japanese soldiers on the positions on their way, so as not to make them feel treated differently.
After all, a family must leave completely and neatly.
That night, after several hours of bloody fighting, because the Japanese were too stubborn, the number of living prisoners did not exceed 3 digits!
Two Japanese divisions were almost completely annihilated overnight. The Brigade Commander estimated that about several hundred people (on horseback) had fled into the mountains and were still on the run. At the same time, the Brigade Commander issued an order to cut off the Japanese retreat. Kong Jie's New Second Regiment, along with several brother regiments, fully penetrated south of Yuanqu County, directly blocking the remaining Japanese's retreat!
After a night of continuous fierce fighting, the main force was urgently resting and replenishing!
Next, starting from the afternoon of the second day, the New First Regiment, the Independent Regiment, the 771st Regiment, and the 772nd Regiment would fully attack south under the tank battalion's charge, pinning the remaining Japanese brigades to death in the dozens of kilometers of mountains from Yuanqu to Jiangxian!
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