Songhu: Never Give Up

Chapter 293: Head-on Confrontation (1)

North City, Guerrilla Column Defense Line

The shrill anti-aircraft whistle broke the tranquility of the battlefield, and groups of khaki figures drilled into the anti-artillery holes in a tense and orderly manner;

These anti-artillery holes are scattered all over the place, and most of the entrances are on the reverse slopes of hills and mountains. The large ones can accommodate a platoon, and the small ones can accommodate a squad.

The cave roof is more than 2 meters thick, and there are a lot of wooden piles inside as supports, which are very effective in preventing artillery fire. It is difficult to cause actual damage to them unless they are directly hit by heavy bombs.
In order to prevent the Japanese from taking the opportunity to rush to the position, in addition to burying a lot of mines on the front line, a small number of observation posts were also left on the position.

The soldiers had just hidden themselves for a short while when dozens of planes swooped over with murderous intent, forming a dark mass that was enough to cover the sky and the sun.

When the Japanese planes reached the sky above the defenders' positions, rows of bombs weighing more than 100 kilograms dropped from the sky, and a series of explosions instantly engulfed the positions;
A large number of trenches were flattened, observation posts were sacrificed from time to time, and occasionally anti-artillery holes were hit, causing the soldiers in the holes to have buzzing heads, and some even vomited blood.

Fortunately, the enemy's aerial bombs were all small 100-kilogram bombs, which were very different from the 500-pound aerial bombs of the Americans. Otherwise, we would have been either blown to death or shaken to death.
As soon as the Japanese aerial bombing ended, heavy artillery shells flew over again, wave after wave, without end.

The heavy artillery brigade used 150mm howitzers and 105mm howitzers. The 105mm shells were better, but the 150mm shells were terrifying. If you directly defend the gun holes, there would be few survivors inside, and they would all be shaken to death.

The Japanese heavy artillery fire lasted for more than an hour, and the Third Detachment and the Independent Detachment defending the front suffered hundreds of casualties.

The situation of the supplementary detachment on the flank was much better. The focus of the Japanese attack was still on the front, and the supplementary detachment suffered almost no casualties.

The Japs were clearly determined to kill us, using up almost 6% of their artillery shells. This was the rhythm of a general attack.
Duan Yulin, Wang Jianfei and Liao Jianping were also prepared for a desperate fight. As long as they could withstand the three attacks of the Japanese, their fighting spirit would be exhausted and the time for counterattack would be ripe.

Sacrifices before this were inevitable, and they had assembled all their reserve troops, ready to support front-line operations at any time.

At 10 a.m., artillery fire began to spread. Experienced commanders knew from the sound of the artillery that the Japanese were about to launch a general offensive on the ground battlefield.
The Japs' air strikes and artillery preparations were all solo performances by them, and the independent column did not fight back. The heavy firepower of both sides was not at the same level, and fighting back would only result in the loss of all their hard-earned belongings.

As soon as the artillery fire extended, the Japanese infantry launched an attack. There were thousands of them in dense crowds. This was the rhythm of the first battle being the decisive battle.
This is easy to understand. After dropping a huge amount of artillery shells/bombs, you can't send hundreds of people to the battlefield. That would be a waste of firepower. Only the wealthy Americans can do such a thing. They can't do it if they live a frugal life.

Seeing the densely packed Japanese troops rushing over, the surviving observation post on the position quickly blew a shrill whistle;

Rows of soldiers rushed into the positions at the urging of their officers. Although the trenches had been blown to pieces, they were still much better than nothing. They could provide them with good protection and block more than 80% of the blasting fragments.

"Boom boom boom..."

"Boom boom boom..."

When the Japanese infantry were still several hundred meters away, the defending artillery opened fire. Rows of mountain artillery shells or mortar shells smashed into the uncovered group of Japanese soldiers, and each shell would knock down several Japanese soldiers. In field combat, shrapnel is much more lethal to soldiers than bullets. This is because the Eastern battlefield lacked artillery. If it were replaced with Western firepower, those who played group charges like the Japanese would have died miserably in the end. The difference in firepower between the Eastern and Western battlefields was too great.

Although the artillery fire of the defenders caused a lot of casualties to the Japanese, it was not enough to scare off the Japanese compared to the army of several thousand people;

A few minutes later, the Japanese artillery began to fight back, and soon the defenders' firepower was suppressed, or it might have been transferred. The Japanese commanders didn't care about that, what they wanted was to suppress it.

Under the escort of artillery, the Japanese skirmish line advanced to within 200 meters, which was the optimal killing range for machine gun fire. The commander of the defending army naturally would not let it go and decisively gave the order to open fire.

Hundreds of light and heavy machine guns immediately opened fire at the Japanese infantry group. Tongues of fire devoured the lives of the Japanese and swept down rows of them. Casualties soared, and the road was littered with Japanese corpses. Every step forward came at the cost of blood.

"Bagayalu, fire and blow them to death!"

Watching his soldiers being slaughtered by the Chinese, Colonel Kawanami lost his composure and ordered the regiment's artillery to fire at the defenders' machine gun positions, using artillery shells to speak their mind.

With the addition of the Japanese artillery, the defenders' machine guns suffered. From time to time, firing points were destroyed by artillery fire, casualties increased significantly, and firepower was gradually suppressed.
This is war. It is never a one-man show. Everyone shows off their skills and suffers casualties, unless one side has no firepower to fight back.

Duan Yulin, the commander of the independent detachment, saw the Japanese artillery rampaging, and immediately ordered the artillery battalion directly under the detachment to open fire on the Japanese artillery positions;
They had no way to deal with the heavy artillery brigade's artillery with a range of more than ten kilometers, but they had no problem dealing with the Japanese regiment artillery and could suppress it.

Although the detachment's direct artillery battalion is not as good as the column's artillery battalion, they also have 12 75mm mountain guns and 16 mortars, as well as 8 infantry guns, and their firepower is stronger than that of the 6th Regiment.

The artillery battalion had long been dissatisfied with the Japanese artillery positions, and upon receiving the order, they immediately ordered the Japanese artillery positions to fire six rapid rounds;

Hundreds of shells hit the Japanese artillery positions within a minute. The painful Colonel Kawanami kept shouting "Ah, Meh, Die", which sounded very much like the screams in Japanese action movies, except that it was a man, which made it a bit awkward.

After being bombed, Colonel Kawanami remembered that the guerrilla column was not like other Chinese people. They had captured a large number of artillery pieces, and if they were used well, they would be able to destroy his artillery.
What made Colonel Kawanami even more crazy was that after the defenders destroyed their regimental artillery, they started attacking their infantry. This time the firepower was even more powerful, and the Japanese were blown to the ground.

Colonel Kawanami felt his nose sore instantly, and tears began to fall from his eyes. He wailed:
"Baka, the Chinese are using artillery to bomb infantry, that's a lack of martial ethics!
Hurry up and call for heavy artillery support. We must uproot them completely—quickly!"

Seeing that the regiment commander was a little stunned by the explosion, Major Dobashi didn't dare to say anything more and turned to call for heavy artillery support, but based on his experience, he judged that the effect would not be too great;
The heavy artillery brigade took too long to react, and by the time they launched their bombardment, the Chinese artillery had already escaped.

More than ten minutes later, the Japanese heavy artillery group covered the defenders' artillery positions, but unfortunately there were no artillery guns on them, only some flowers and plants.

(End of this chapter)