After the battleships opened fire, cruisers and destroyers also began to fire shè fire. But unlike the thick-skinned battleships, they had a strong defense and could almost ignore the guns on Iwo Jima, so they didn't dare to stop like battleships, or even simply drop the anchor chain and fire, so that although the shè hit jīng was higher, once the opponent returned fire, such targets would also be easier to hit. So, they still maintained a speed of about twelve knots, spitting flames towards their intended target as they sailed.

"General, the enemy's warships are within our shè range, please give the order to open fire on the enemy's warships!" A junior officer said to Kuribayashi Tadamichi.

"No, it's not time yet." Kuribayashi Tadamichi shook his head, as if he was afraid that his subordinates would do their own thing, Kuribayashi Tadamichi added, "Our artillery is not used to fight these warships. For the Americans, damage to warships is nothing, and they do not care about such purely material losses. Their productivity can quickly make up for this loss. For them, the most unbearable loss is the loss of life. Therefore, our mode of warfare must be one that can kill and injure Americans in the most efficient way. We don't have many artillery and we have a limited number of shells, which we have to save for after the enemy has landed to fight the enemy's unprotected infantry. That's the most efficient way to do it. ”

It's not the first time that Kuribayashi Tadamichi has told his subordinate officers about these truths. However, the "offensive mentality" that has been instilled in the military personnel for a long time is not something that can be easily overcome. Most of the officers received this education when they were in the military academy:

"You have a squadron with an enemy division coming in front, what are you going to do?" This is a classic question for instructors.

"Defend first, and then counterattack and defeat the enemy after they show their flaws in the attack!" This answer should be very reasonable, but if you really want to answer like this, the score of this exam is definitely a failure. Because this answer is too offensive to the god of jīng. The answer to get a high score is this: "The soldiers are divided into two ways, one attacking head-on, and the other going behind enemy lines, to prevent the enemy from escaping, and finally surround and annihilate the enemy!" ”

A squadron (that is, a reinforced company) still wants to divide the troops into two fronts and rear to encircle and annihilate a division, such an answer in any country other than rìben will definitely be sent to some kind of hospital to enjoy electric shock treatment, but in rìben, such an answer is an answer that can get high scores, and it is not easy to think normally for rìben officers trained according to such standards. For example, the one who died on Kuah Island felt that he could kill at least 5,000 U.S. Marines supported by heavy weapons with less than a wing of light infantry (1,000 men) in his own hands, and this is how he was trained. This is true not only for junior officers, but also for senior officers. For example, the Mutaguchi Ryoshi who launched the Imphal operation and sent a large number of troops to starve to death in the Savage Mountain is such a thing.

Among the officers mass-produced under such education, Kuribayashi Tadamichi is one of the few outliers who has come to his senses in the face of the facts. In the face of the current situation, Kuribayashi Tadamichi has understood that it is impossible to win in this confrontation with the Americans, and now the question is only how to lose and to what extent.

Kuribayashi Tadamichi knew that as early as 43, the Americans, together with the British and the Shinas, issued a manifesto in Cairo that set out a condition for ending the war that was unacceptable to Rì himself, that is, unconditional surrender. According to this declaration, Rì would have lost Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, Penghu, and all the territories acquired after World War I. This is almost the same as beating Rìmoto back to before the Meiji Restoration. Even, this is not as good as before the Meiji Restoration. Looking at the outcome of Germany's surrender in World War I, Kuribayashi shuddered: the king was expelled, the army was disbanded, and he was saddled with a debt that could never be repaid. Such a result is actually no different from the loss of the country. Nowadays, the only way is to increase the cost of the enemy's conquest with more effective resistance, and then hope that such a high cost will make the Americans feel unbearable, so they have to give the rìben a better terms of surrender. In fact, he was no longer fighting for victory now, he was only fighting for a better condition of surrender. "At least I want to be able to keep the emperor." Kuribayashi Tadamichi thought so.

In order to achieve this goal, Kuribayashi Tadamichi stipulated that no unit was allowed to do the so-called "Banzai Charge", and each soldier had to kill ten American soldiers to be eligible to die. Although he also explained the reasoning and issued orders, Kuribayashi Tadamichi really didn't have a foundation in his heart whether the accumulated habit of "attacking" could be suppressed.

However, for now, at least for now, Kuribayashi's strategy has been adhered to by his subordinates. While the entire island trembled under the fire of the American fleet, the rì troops on the island maintained a terrible silence.

Two seaplanes circled over Iwo Jima. These two seaplanes are the schoolplanes of the shelling fleet, and the weather is good today, and the landing point of the shells can be seen very clearly. With the support of the school's shè aircraft, the shelling of the American fleet was quite satisfactory. Therefore, after a few rounds of shè strikes, the school shè aircraft came to the judgment that all known targets had been destroyed. And this judgment also means that the landing operation is about to begin.

……

In the sea not far from Iwo Jima, the soldiers of the 4th Marine Division are making a transfer. The soldiers descended from the rope nets hanging from the tall transport ships to the landing craft. As in Kuah, the soldiers put condoms over their guns to prevent seawater from entering them. However, unlike then, the guns in the hands of soldiers have changed from the M1903 Springfield rifle to the more advanced M1 semi-automatic rifle.

After descending to the landing craft, Corporal Bill checked his equipment one last time: the M1 rifle was intact, the bridge clip with eight rounds had been pressed into the chamber, the safety was closed, and the muzzle was tied. In his bullet pack, there are also 4 bridge clips that have been pressed, and there are a lot of scattered bullets. The M1911 pistol you brought with you is placed in the holster on the right side, and you can easily pull it out as long as you hang down your right hand. The other two spare magazines were inserted on the outside of the holster. Then there are bayonets, kettles, V-belts...... These things are also ready.

After a final check of his equipment, Corporal Bill looked up and began to examine the equipment of the other soldiers in his squad with critical eyes. And at this time, the landing craft also began to leave the transport ship and lined up a little farther away. However, they were not the first troops to land. The first round of landing was 68 LVT tracked armored landing vehicles. In order to better sail the vehicle, the armor of this tank was so thin that it could only withstand the shè shots of ordinary rifles and machine guns, and not even the shè shots of large-caliber machine guns like the M2. But in a landing battle, it can at least provide the soldiers with a little basic armor force.

The original LVT2 had only a 7.62mm machine gun and a .50 caliber M2 machine gun on it. This firepower is too weak. And, even worse, these machine guns did not even carry a shield, and the machine gunners were directly exposed to enemy fire. Therefore, after the Marine Corps got these equipment, the Ma Runs, who had always been used to being raised as stepmothers, immediately began to transform the fire systems of these chariots in the spirit of doing it themselves. First of all, all machine guns were equipped with anti-shields, and this modification was both simple and practical. Then the M2 machine guns on some cars were removed and replaced with a 37mm gun or a flamethrower. In this way, when encountering enemy bunkers and the like, before the authentic heavy weapons are ashore, this thing can also add a little armor assault ability to the Maruns.

At Iwo Jima, however, the chariots encountered difficulties they had not anticipated at all - the sea of Iwo Jima was not a Saipan-style sandy beach made of coral sand, but a mudflat made of soft volcanic ash. As soon as 68 LVT2s hit the beachhead, they got bogged down in the mud. They sank into the soft mudflats, and the drivers increased their horsepower to try to get them out of the mud, but the faster the tracks turned, the faster the thing sank westward. It took almost only a minute or two for the chassis of this thing to be directly mounted on top of the volcanic mud.

"Hell!" More than one of them cursed, and the soldiers jumped off LVT2 and began to advance on foot. It is extremely dangerous to stay where you are. These LVT2s stuck in the mud have become tempting targets, and if Rì himself had placed straight shè artillery near the beach, these guys would have been beaten to shreds. Moreover, the second wave of landing craft is already heading towards the beachhead, and if they still stay at the beachhead, after a while, when the gang of people on the landing craft come ashore, the density of people on the beachhead will be surprisingly high, and then, rì himself will hit a Qi shè with their remaining cannons, and it is not known how many people will die.

Fortunately, Rì himself did not fire heavily at the beachhead, and even the Marun soldiers who were advancing in depth did not encounter much resistance. At most, they were hit by some small arms. By this time, the landing craft of the second wave were also approaching the coast.

The LVT2s sunken on the beach blocked the way of the landing craft, and the horses on board had to jump into the sea and wade ashore in waist-deep or even chest-deep water. By the time the soldiers landed on land, most of them were exhausted. By this time, the first landing soldiers had advanced to a distance of about two hundred meters from the beach, where the sea line had passed, and under their feet there was no longer a mudflat, but a hard ground overgrown with various plants. The naval fire had begun to shift farther inland, and at this moment, many battle-hardened Marun soldiers suddenly heard an ominous howling sound in the air.