The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 432: Artillery Doctrine

"One, two, hi!"

"One, two, hi!"

In the early morning of the next day, when the sky was slightly bright, the officers and soldiers of the artillery battalion of the assault corps shouted slogans at the artillery position on the top of half of the mountain, which was shrouded in continuous water vapor and fog brought by days of heavy rain. Some of the officers and soldiers dragged the ropes tied to the artillery, while others pushed the wheels of the artillery hard, slowly pushing the artillery to their respective designated positions.

The wooden iron-clad wheel rims sank deeply into the ground near the artillery positions, leaving dense wheel tracks. In the slightly chaotic artillery-dragging formation, many officers and soldiers were carrying large numbers of dark green ammunition boxes and various artillery observation and communication equipment on their backs, and were rushing to various artillery firing positions.

He Wei asked the artillery battalion commander Chen Xinsheng to prepare the Japanese artillery captured by the assault corps in previous battles. Naturally, they wanted to use the artillery to deal a heavy blow to the Japanese army on the other side.

Given the current enemy situation, it is obviously unrealistic and there is no time to attack the Japanese army that is besieging Tianjia Town across the Yangtze River and to cross the river to fight the Japanese army.

Therefore, He Wei naturally chose artillery strikes as the entry point. To be precise, He Wei wanted to seize the opportunity to use artillery firepower before the assault corps retreated, through artillery surprise attacks and rapid artillery attacks to inflict heavy casualties on the Japanese troops who were besieging Tianjia Town, while also providing strong firepower support to the friendly forces guarding Tianjia Town.

However, since the assault corps was about to withdraw, it would not be "satisfying" to just use the artillery battalion of the assault corps and the artillery units on Banbi Mountain to beat up the Japanese.

After all, this was a parting gift left by the Assault Corps to the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army on the other side of the strait, so it couldn't be too "stingy". Naturally, He Wei wanted to make it big.

Therefore, in addition to the heavy artillery and naval artillery assigned to the Assault Corps and Banbi Mountain, He Wei was not satisfied and set his sights on the captured Japanese artillery stored in the Assault Corps. If these artillery pieces were properly repaired and put in, the firepower intensity of the parting gift to the Japanese army would obviously be taken to a higher level.

Chen Xinsheng, commander of the artillery battalion of the assault corps, was also quite excited when he learned of He Wei's idea, so he organized people overnight and began to prepare and process the Japanese artillery seized by the assault corps. After more than a day of repair and processing, Chen Xinsheng and the officers and soldiers of the artillery battalion successfully prepared the Japanese artillery stored in the warehouse of the assault corps according to He Wei's requirements.

此前的诸次作战中，突击总队一共缴获了16门完好的日军的94式75毫米山炮和6门完好的41式75毫米山炮，这些没有损坏的火炮自是当仁不让的要使用上。

In addition, Chen Xinsheng also carefully inspected and repaired the damaged artillery pieces one by one. Most of these artillery pieces had damaged parts or missing small components, and the degree of damage was not serious. Some artillery pieces had the level bubble on the sight broken, some had the breech block damaged, and some had the elevation or steering mechanism damaged. Basically, their shooting combat capabilities could be restored by replacing or repairing parts.

所以，陈信生对这些损坏的火炮采取了零件互换，拆掉一两门火炮用以改换其它火炮损坏零件的整备修理方式，又成功整出了3门可用的94式75毫米山炮和2门41式75毫米山炮。

总之，经过加点加班的收拾与整备，陈信生一共收拾出了19门完好可用的94式75毫米山炮与8门41式山炮，如果加上突击总队炮兵营下属两个山炮连装备的6门苏俄造76毫米山炮和6门94式75毫米山炮，那陈信生所能指挥的火炮数量，便一下子膨胀到了25门94式75毫米山炮，8门41式75毫米山炮和6门苏俄造76毫米山炮，合计39门各型山炮。

In terms of the number of artillery pieces, calculated according to the general scale of artillery units, it has exceeded the scale and strength of an artillery regiment.

In order to clean up and prepare these artillery pieces, build artillery positions for them and equip them with temporary artillery groups that can fire, not only did the artillery battalion of the assault corps dispatch a large number of officers and soldiers to prepare and use the captured Japanese artillery pieces while ensuring the firing capabilities of its two mountain artillery companies, but the officers and soldiers of the mortar companies under the three infantry battalions of the assault corps were also dispatched to the mountains to participate in the preparation and use of these artillery pieces and the construction of fortifications.

Of course, even so, the officers and soldiers at Chen Xinsheng's disposal were still slightly insufficient. It was He Wei who negotiated with the naval artillery team and the 150mm heavy artillery battalion to transfer a group of personnel, and only then was it possible to gather enough gunners and command officers for these newly-captured artillery pieces captured from the Japanese army.

After all this, the artillery battalion under He Wei seemed to have the posture of an artillery regiment. However, He Wei was still not satisfied with 39 mountain cannons. The 150mm heavy artillery battalion and the artillery of the naval artillery team that were also stationed on Banbi Mountain were also incorporated into the artillery sequence of this sudden artillery attack on the Japanese army in the direction of Tianjia Town.

突击总队方面的39门75毫米，76毫米口径的山炮，海军炮队的1门大倍径120毫米大倍径舰炮，150毫米重炮营的8门150毫米榴弹炮，这些火炮是何炜手头可用的全部山炮和榴弹炮。

He Wei was going to integrate these artillery pieces together before leaving. He wanted to use this artillery group consisting of 48 mountain cannons, howitzers and naval guns of various calibers to present a parting gift to the Japanese troops in Tianjia Town on the opposite bank.

Previously, when providing fire support to Tianjia Town, He Wei seldom used the mountain artillery of the assault corps' artillery battalion due to considerations of range, shooting command, and artillery power. He basically used the heavy artillery battalion's 150mm heavy artillery and naval guns to provide fire support for the defenders of the Tianjia Town fortress.

This time He Wei used all the available artillery in one go, creating a battery of 48 artillery pieces. With the number of artillery pieces in this battery, it is conceivable that when such a large battery of artillery opened fire and the fierce firepower formed by the bombardment hit the Japanese army's heads, the Japanese army would probably be very "happy".

At the same time, He Wei also ordered the Bofors 75mm anti-aircraft artillery company, which was currently under his command, to set up an anti-aircraft artillery firing position at the artillery position on the top of Banbi Mountain. He also transferred the general-purpose machine gun squads of each infantry platoon of the three infantry battalions of the assault corps to Banbi Mountain. He used 27 MG34 general-purpose machine guns equipped with anti-aircraft tripods and the 4 Bofors 75mm anti-aircraft guns of the anti-aircraft artillery company to form an anti-aircraft firepower network to protect the artillery group deployed on Banbi Mountain.

He Wei also believed in the principle of artillery doctrine and the supremacy of artillery firepower. He also attached great importance to the artillery combat capability of the assault corps. The importance of the God of War in the army's ground combat in this era is needless to say.

Therefore, after coordinating with friendly forces such as the 150mm heavy artillery battalion and the naval artillery team, He Wei handed over the command of this artillery group to Chen Xinsheng, the artillery battalion commander of the assault corps.

In artillery combat, hardware is certainly important, and without excellent artillery command officers, the combat effectiveness of the artillery unit cannot be brought into play to its full potential. In He Wei's envisioned future development plan for the Assault Corps, the artillery unit is also an extremely important part. Chen Xinsheng, the artillery battalion commander of the Assault Corps, and the officers and soldiers of the artillery battalion are naturally also the objects of He Wei's key training and exercise.

The assault corps used a large-scale artillery group to launch a fierce artillery surprise attack before leaving. It was not only to inflict heavy damage on the Japanese army, but also to train the large-scale artillery combat capabilities of the assault corps' artillery units! "Hurry up, speed up, enter your respective designated firing positions, put up sandbags, shelters, and reinforcements!"

Chen Xinsheng hurriedly shuttled among the artillery positions on the top of a mountain, unable to hide his excitement as he organized the artillery on the top of the mountain to prepare for firing, and continuously issued orders one after another.

From the deployment of artillery positions, the designation of temporary commanders of captured artillery, the inspection and debugging of observation and communication equipment during artillery firing, the deployment of the artillery position communication network, the selection of ammunition reserves, the transportation process and route of replenishment of ammunition, and communication with friendly 150mm heavy artillery battalions and naval artillery teams, Chen Xinsheng personally arranged all the detailed tasks one by one to ensure that every detail and every key point was correct.

Although he had hardly slept in the past two days and was extremely busy, he did not feel tired at all.

The excitement of being able to command 48 artillery pieces in combat completely overwhelmed Chen Xinsheng's fatigue. In the current Chinese army, few artillery officers have the opportunity to command 48 real barreled artillery pieces in combat.

A fully-strength artillery regiment (mountain artillery, field artillery) of the National Army's artillery force was composed of three artillery battalions with 3 guns each, for a total of 12 guns. The artillery regiment of the Japanese Army's field division was fully-strengthened with 36 guns, including four artillery battalions equipped with 48 guns each.

Chen Xinsheng, the artillery battalion commander, was now on par with the artillery regiment commander of the Japanese army, and was even more powerful than the regiment commander of the national army's artillery unit.

Although Chen Xinsheng had commanded an artillery group during the previous battle to defend the Big and Small Bear Mountains, the vast majority of the artillery in that group were 81mm and 82mm mortars. There were not many genuine mountain artillery, field artillery, howitzers and other barreled artillery. The value of these artillery pieces was incomparable to the artillery group commanded by Chen Xinsheng at this time.

This was a rare opportunity, so Chen Xinsheng was extremely excited. He vowed not to let He Wei down and commanded this artillery group to deal a heavy blow to the Japanese army.

Amid the chaos, the two mountain artillery companies of the assault corps' artillery battalion and the captured artillery that were temporarily pulled up the mountain entered the firing positions one after another and basically completed the preparations for firing.

As for the 150mm heavy artillery battalion of the friendly forces and the 120mm large-caliber naval gun of the naval artillery deployed in the permanent firing fortifications, Chen Xinsheng did not need to worry about it at all. They had been firing at the Japanese troops on the opposite bank recently and had already made preparations for firing. Even the first round of shells for the artillery had been loaded.

While Chen Xinsheng was carefully checking the artillery pieces on the temporary artillery positions one by one, He Wei also came to the artillery position on the top of Banbi Mountain with several staff officers.

However, compared with Chen Xinsheng's carefulness and caution, He Wei seemed extremely relaxed. After arriving at the artillery position, he randomly found a fortification for storing artillery shells, pulled two empty ammunition boxes and sat down, eating biscuits while waiting calmly.

"Captain!"

Chen Xinsheng ran over and when he saw He Wei, his eyes immediately fell on the rolled-up battle map in He Wei's hand. Then he saluted He Wei with some excitement on his face.

Although Chen Xinsheng was busy as hell and had gained command of a 48-piece artillery group, it was not enough to just organize the artillery group. After all, this artillery attack on the Japanese army was firing across the Yangtze River at the vicinity of the Tianjia Town Fortress on the opposite bank. In essence, it could be said to be assisting friendly forces in combat and coordination with friendly forces was necessary. The shooting targets were undoubtedly still the many high ground near the core fortress of Tianjia Town.

It is also a complex and very important issue how to determine which specific high ground the artillery group should attack based on the performance of the artillery on Banbi Mountain, the characteristics of the various high ground outside the Tianjia Town Fortress and the needs of the friendly forces guarding Tianjia Town, as well as how to communicate with friendly forces when opening fire and properly coordinate and cooperate.

This job must and can only be done by He Wei, the highest commander of the assault corps.

However, when Chen Xinsheng saw He Wei so relaxed and confident, and also brought a battle map with him, Chen Xinsheng knew that the firing target of the artillery group he commanded must have been determined. Guessing that his artillery group had determined the firing target and was about to start firing, Chen Xinsheng was naturally a little excited.

"Come, look at the picture!"

He Wei stood up, wolfed down the biscuits in his hand, pulled Chen Xinsheng over, unfolded the battle map on the ammunition box and said, "This high ground is your target. I have already contacted the friendly forces on the other side. The high ground is about 5,000 meters away from your artillery group's firing position, which is just within the range of the Type 41 mountain cannon with the shortest range in your artillery group. You can use your artillery group to exert its full firepower."

Chen Xinsheng looked at the high ground marked with a red pencil on the battle map, with an altitude of 201, and said, "Captain, it seems that our artillery support shooting in the direction of Tianjia Town has not hit this high ground during this period."

"That's right. We didn't fight before because the Japanese didn't attack fiercely. But I spoke with the commander of the 9th Division on the other side last night. The troops of the 9th Division are guarding this high ground. According to the report of the defenders on the high ground, the Japanese army changed their normal behavior in the past two days and began to launch small-scale tentative attacks on this high ground. Moreover, the Japanese army seemed to be mobilizing troops near this high ground at night. The 9th Division believes that the Japanese army is likely to have changed its attack target because of repeated failures in attacking other high grounds, and is preparing to attack this high ground. Therefore, the 9th Division hopes that our troops can provide artillery support for this high ground today."

Chen Xinsheng stared at Hill 201 on the battle map and nodded slightly, then listened to He Wei continue: "For the command of the artillery attack, I will contact the th Division of the friendly army, and you will contact me directly. I will only give you orders that the artillery group can open fire and must cease fire. I will not care about the specific shooting tactics and methods in the battle. I will leave it all to you. Unless there are special circumstances, I will not interfere with your shooting command. Regarding the specific situation of this hill, let these staff officers meet with you. Time is tight, you should familiarize yourself as soon as possible."

Chen Xinsheng turned his eyes away from the red-marked high ground, rolled up the battle map and shook it, and said firmly: "Don't worry, Captain. As long as we can fight today, our artillery group will bomb the enemies attacking the high ground into slag and make them never return!"

(End of this chapter)