As a sniper, Liu Fugui doesn't think that he has played any key role in the morning battle, he doesn't like this kind of close-range street fighting, in this kind of battle, the value of a sniper cannot really be reflected,.

Now, a mountain infantryman sitting next to Liu Fugui is carrying a B1937 semi-automatic rifle, which makes Liu Fugui a little envious, this semi-automatic rifle adopts the principle of gas conduction automatic, the bullet used is the same as the old rifle, the two rifles can be used universally, this semi-automatic rifle is not only highly reliable, but also has a long range and strong firepower, which is very suitable for assault operations.

In this war against the British, the participating army units of the Chinese National Defense Forces have been fully equipped with this semi-automatic rifle, and actual combat has proved that this semi-automatic rifle has been designed very successfully, and it has an all-round advantage in the firepower of the British army, and the firepower of an infantry squad can completely suppress a heavy machine gun of the British army.

Liu Fugui saw that he was itching, ate the noodles in a few bites, broke the silence, asked the comrade-in-arms for the semi-automatic rifle, and began to fiddle with it, but when he was rising, he suddenly heard a long hiss from the sky.

"Shelling! Shelling! ”

Someone shouted at the top of his voice, and before his shout fell, all the officers and soldiers present lay down, and Liu Fugui also lay on the ground with the semi-automatic rifle in his arms.

"Boom! Rumble! ”

Soon, shells landed on nearby streets and ruins, violent explosions tore through the air, deafening noises rang out one after another, and the ground began to shake, shrapnel and rubble flew in the sky, and the air was filled with a pungent smell of gunsmoke.

High-explosive shells and shrapnel were pouring fire on the area, and amid the explosion of artillery shells, the company commander summoned the rear to suppress the artillery fire through the radio station with all his might.

After the Battle of Mandalay began, the British defense was surprisingly stubborn, and the British army also scattered most of the artillery to avoid the air raids of the Chinese air force, so the British artillery fire in the ensuing close combat also sometimes caused some losses to the Chinese army attacking forces.

The shelling was very sudden, and it was completely different from the shelling that Liu Fugui encountered in the offensive battle, not only was the artillery fire extremely fierce, but the duration of the shelling was also very long, and after waiting for five minutes, there was no sign of the artillery fire weakening.

"The British army is going to break through! The British army is going to break through! Give me all back! Give me all back! Reinforcements to the defensive line! Reinforcements to the defensive line! ”

Just when the artillery fire was fierce and shrapnel was flying, a staff officer ran from somewhere, shouting at the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers lying on their stomachs near the field kitchen, but the artillery fire was too fierce, no one dared to raise their heads, and the shouts of the staff officers were also drowned out by the sound of explosions.

Half a minute later, the artillery fire stopped for a while, so the staff officer immediately pulled the team to the front line, Liu Fugui was naturally called, but his sniper rifle did not know when it was blown in two by a grenade shotgun, and it could no longer be used, and now the weapon in his hand was the semi-automatic rifle that no one wanted, and the original owner of this gun was wounded in the shelling just now and was carried down.

Follow the staff to the front line to plug the gap in the defensive line, but not far, the British artillery began again, although the Chinese artillery also began to counterattack with all their might, trying to suppress the British artillery fire, but for the time being there was no effect, far inferior to the close support of the air force.

Intercepted by artillery fire, Liu Fugui's mountain infantry company suffered heavy casualties, and the company commander was also killed, the staff officer hung up the color, but no one retreated, because there was no retreat, there was artillery fire in front and back, left and right, and in all directions, instead of retreating, it was better to continue to advance and rush out of the fire coverage area.

By the time they approached the line, the British in the encirclement had broken through the line and were breaking through the streets to the southeast, with tanks accompanying the infantry.

"Spread out! Disperse! ”

"Tanks! Tank! ”

The people who ran at the front hurriedly turned around and ran back, and loudly reminded the comrades behind them, hearing the shout, all the people immediately hid on the spot, ready to meet the enemy, Liu Fugui also chose a collapsed house wall, poked his head out, and looked north.

It was the barrage of the Chinese mountain infantry, a market completely destroyed by artillery fire and aerial bombs, the ruins of the houses were the best shelter, and a street running through the market, from northwest to southeast, with several wooden bridges over the river, had also been heavily damaged by artillery fire.

By this time, the artillery fire had stopped, but the smoke had not yet dissipated, and the visibility on the streets was poor, and only the sound of "booming" tank engines could be heard.

Hearing the sound of the tank's engine, Liu Fugui knew that the opposite side was the British "Matilda" infantry tank, which is characterized by thick armor, but at the same time, the speed is also very slow, it is a tank that provides fire support for infantry assaults, so it is called an "infantry tank" by the British military, in addition to a "cruiser tank", from this strange tank classification method may be able to see some of the British Army's tactical thinking conservative.

The tank units of the Chinese army also took part in the assault on the city of Mandalay, but there were not many tanks in this direction, because it was close to the Irrawaddy River, there were many small rivers, and the whole area was cut into many small pieces by the river, which was not conducive to tank assault, and it was necessary to wait for the engineer units to build bridges in suitable areas.

On the contrary, the British army was mainly defensive and did not have to think about tank assaults, but now, it seems that the British army also had to use tanks for assault operations.

The anti-tank tasks here are mainly carried out by the Chinese mountain infantry, in addition to the attack aircraft of the Air Force.

"It's the Matilda tank! Prepare anti-tank grenades! Get ready for the bazooka! …… Who has a bazooka there? Who has a bazooka there? ”

Liu Fugui heard someone shouting not far away, who seemed to be an officer, and then heard someone answer.

"I've got a bazooka here! Two rockets! ”

"Just two rockets? Who still has rockets! Who still has rockets! ”

The officer asked a few more questions, but no one answered.

The "bazooka" that the officers are looking for is a secret weapon, developed a few years ago, and the equipment troops have been equipped for two years, but the real participation in the actual combat is the battle of Mandalay, this kind of bazooka launches a caliber of 60 mm anti-tank rockets, using shaped charge armor-piercing warheads, is a very powerful light infantry anti-tank weapon, although the effective range of moving targets is only 150 meters, but it makes the infantry units have the best weapon against tanks, which is much safer than anti-tank grenades. It is also much more effective, and since its entry into the war, it has been very popular with front-line troops.

Liu Fugui touched the two grenades hanging on the armed belt, both were ordinary grenades, and there was no problem in dealing with the infantry, but it couldn't deal with tanks, so he immediately decided to play to his strengths in the next battle.

The semi-automatic rifle in Liu Fugui's hand uses a ten-round bridge clip to quickly load bullets, if there is no bridge clip, you can only load the bullets into the magazine one by one, and the loading speed is very slow, and now, Liu Fugui has no bridge clip in his hand at all, fortunately, there are a few mountain infantry beside him, and after asking a few people for a few bridge clips full of bullets, Liu Fugui put these bridge clips at his feet, and then raised the rifle and aimed at the street to the north.

As the smoke cleared, the British "Matilda" tank appeared in front of me, and the two-pounder gun on the turret could not threaten the medium tanks equipped by the Chinese army, but it was more than enough to deal with the mountain infantry.

"Smack!"

Someone couldn't hold it back, and finally opened fire, so the other mountain infantry also began to use rifles and machine guns to fire fiercely at the British troops two hundred meters away, and the gunfire became dense almost instantly, and in the rain of bullets, the British troops fell, but at the same time, the "Matilda" tank also began to rotate the turret, using tank guns to cover the breakthrough of their own infantry.

This is already the fifth breakthrough operation of the British army, perhaps the British commander has a premonition that the destruction is imminent, so this breakthrough may have used all the strength, the attack is very strong, and the organization and cooperation are quite good, after being intercepted and fired by the Chinese mountain infantry, just a minute later, the British artillery again fiercely shelled this area, trying to tear a gap with artillery fire to cover the British infantry to break through.

In the rain of bullets, Liu Fugui did not lie down, but still half-knelt behind the half-collapsed house wall, and took this opportunity to conduct several rifle test shots to familiarize himself with this relatively unfamiliar semi-automatic rifle.

As a natural sharpshooter, Liu Fugui quickly found the "gun sense", so he quickly chose a more valuable target, and then pulled the trigger.

"Smack!"

After the gunshots, a British major officer standing behind the tank fell, and the steel helmet on his head flew out of the distance.

"Smack!"

Another shot rang out, and another British commander lay down.

During the fire, the British soldiers and officers did not notice where the deadly bullet was coming from, and they were still two hundred meters away, leaning on their bunkers, waiting for the shelling to stop.

A few minutes later, the artillery fire stopped, and by this time the smoke had obscured the position, and Liu Fugui could not aim at the target, so he could only temporarily stop shooting and reload the semi-automatic rifle.

But the British did not give the Chinese mountain infantry a chance to breathe, just after the artillery fire stopped, the British began to advance into the streets to the south, with tanks in front and infantry behind, and it was only then that the Chinese soldiers defending here realized that the British army had more than one tank, in fact, the British troops who broke through from here had at least five tanks, and they were all very heavily armored "Matilda" type infantry tanks, these tanks were very heavy, and they would certainly not be able to cross the river from those wooden bridges, perhaps, It would be wiser to move the blocking position across the river.

"Bazooka ready to shoot! Machine gun crew cover! The others are ready to retreat across the river! ”

An officer shouted, and then Liu Fugui heard the hissing of a rocket being fired.

"Dang!"

Liu Fugui was sure that he heard the sound of a rocket hitting the steel plate of the tank, but the rocket did not explode.

The warhead of this rocket uses a mechanical inertial fuse at the bottom of the bomb, which has some problems with reliability, and does not fire in actual combat, which is related to the angle of impact of the warhead.

"Boom!"

The counterattack of the British tanks soon came, and a shell hit a place not far from Liu Fugui, shattering a section of the house wall.

"Whoosh————"

Another rocket flew over and hit the "Matilda" tank at the front, and this rocket successfully detonated, but the problem was that it hit the wrong place, and the rocket hit the track, and did not cause fatal damage to the tank.

"Prepare to retreat! Prepare to retreat! ”

An officer shouted loudly, but before Liu Fugui and the others could react, a roar of aircraft engines suddenly sounded in the sky.

"Buzz...... Buzz ......"

The plane quickly flew closer, and the Chinese soldiers looked up at the sky and saw that they were several "woodpecker" attack planes of the Chinese Air Force, very close to the ground.

There was a flash of light in the sky, and the attack aircraft launched a fierce fire counterattack against the British attack column, rockets and machine gun bullets poured down, turning the street into an area of bullet rain, and a moment later, another attack plane flew in, this time it threw napalm, but in an instant, the British forward troops that had rushed to Liu Fugui's eyes had fallen into the sea of fire.

Liu Fugui could feel the intense heat wave coming towards him, and the edge of the sea of fire was less than fifty meters away from him, just a little bit, and the napalm would be thrown on his own head.

In the sea of fire, the screams of the British soldiers were terrifying, and all the Chinese mountain infantry on the scene were deeply impressed by this scene.

Seeing this tragic scene, Liu Fugui was also dumbfounded.

……

This was just a small battle on the Mandalay front, in fact, the entire Mandalay battlefield was so miserable, in the face of China's superiority in weapons, the British army suffered heavy casualties, and morale dropped to the extreme.

At seven o'clock that night, the British Supreme Commander of the Field officially sent someone to request surrender to the Supreme Commander of the Chinese Field and received permission, and late that night, the Chinese National Radio released an important news announcing the liberation of Mandalay.

The news that 40,000 British troops laid down their arms and surrendered to the Chinese army also shocked the world, and the London stock market crashed the next day.

The conquest of Mandalay announced the collapse of the Irrawaddy River defense line, the British Indian colony was exposed to the Chinese army, and the liberation of the whole of Burma was just around the corner, in fact, on the day of the liberation of Mandalay.