It was not until the evening of the 12th that Tan Renhao received the latest battle report of the Army Expeditionary Force sent by Lei Shaoqing, and learned about the battle that had taken place near Tehuacan the night before. At this time, Tan Renhao's First Fleet and Huang Xiaotian's Third Fleet had already arrived at the scheduled operational standby area, and were waiting for Spruance's Atlantic Fleet to come and fight them.

Through the battle report, which was not a detailed and in-depth introduction, Tan Renhao, a layman, could understand how tragic it was on that defensive position with an area of less than 20 square kilometers at that time. Later, Tan Renhao asked the intelligence staff officer to go to the data room on the battleship to find the relevant information of the US troops participating in the war, and when he learned about the US troops that launched the attack, he was more able to appreciate how tragic the battle of those army officers and soldiers was at that time.

The 12th Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army is one of the elite units of the U.S. Army and is the U.S. Army; One of several armored units with the best equipment, training, and even size among the U.S. Army. At that time, the 12th Division was nominally only a division-level unit, but in fact the total number of officers and men in the division reached 21,000, more than one and a half times that of other US divisions. The division was armed with a total of 368 tanks, including 120 "Pershing" heavy tanks, and the main force was the M4-76 medium tank. And before the 12th Division was sent to Mexico, the U.S. Army was in the process of replacing new tanks, and as a result, the opportunity to change equipment was missed. At that time, the four large ro-ro freighters of the flotilla from New Orleans were carrying 420 new tanks for the 12th Cavalry Division. However, this fleet arrived in Tampico on the 10th, and was unable to deliver the new tanks to the 12th Division in time, which may have been a blessing in misfortune for the officers and men of the 127th and 46th Divisions at that time.

Similarly, the 12th Division, which fought with the 8th Cavalry Division, was also one of the elite units of the U.S. Army. + An infantry regiment of the U.S. Army in the Battle of Lexington, and later participated in the American Civil War and two Mexican-American Wars. and the Spanish-American War, which made outstanding contributions and is recognized as one of the ace units in the U.S. military. In addition, unlike the establishment of the Tang Imperial Army, the United States did not actually have pure infantry units, and most of the infantry divisions were actually mechanized infantry divisions. Somewhat similar to the motorized infantry division of the Tang Imperial Army. The 8th Infantry Division has /.. In addition, each infantry regiment has a cavalry battalion, and the division is equipped with a total of 82 tanks, more than 210 armored fighting vehicles, and more than 2,000 trucks and jeeps. It can be said that this is almost a light cavalry division.

With these two formidable forces, and the hundreds of heavy artillery and rocket artillery that Eisenhower threw in for the counterattack, the 127th Division was able to hold a front more than 10 miles wide for several hours, which was quite good. Then. The 127th Division's /. place to go, and its heaviest weapon is only 80 meters of mortars equipped in the artillery battery of the infantry regiment! The situation with the 46th Division was not much better. At that time, its independent artillery regiment was also transferred to the northern front, although its regimental artillery company was more equipped. But there are only 120-mm mortars. The most important thing is that both infantry divisions are seriously lacking in direct-fire anti-tank firepower, and when the artillery cannot provide strong support and the aviation cannot provide direct fire support at night, the infantry can only rely on a limited number of individual rocket launchers with a range of less than 300 meters to deal with the steel monsters of the US troops, and the situation is naturally not much better.

When the 127th Division retreated, it did not immediately retreat further afield. Instead, they remained behind the positions of the 46th Division. The commander of the 127th Division had already been wounded in battle, and the chief of staff commanded the broken rear troops. The 46th Division did not arrive at the ground position that night, and was commanded by a colonel. The colonel's regimental commander reorganized the scattered ground troops, and first incorporated the formed units into the reserve of the 46th Division. By the time the U.S. offensive was reached, nearly 4,000 officers and men of the 127th Division had been reconstituted, which became +

It was as if the U.S. military also realized that as soon as dawn, the bombers of the Tang Imperial Army Air Corps would completely crush their attack, so when the shelling had just stopped, that is, when the vanguard of the 12th Division had just arrived, the U.S. Army launched an attack on the defensive positions of the 46th Division. It may be that the US commander at that time thought that the retreating troops of the 127th Division had broken the defensive line of the 46th Division, or that the officers and men of the 46th Division were also vulnerable, so they rushed to launch the battle, but this idea was completely wrong.

The battle lasted less than 20 minutes, and after losing more than 10 tanks and hundreds of officers and men, an attacking US infantry battalion had to withdraw and wait for the arrival of a large force. The 46th Division also lost about 150 officers and men in this battle, of which more than 50 were killed.

The second round of the American offensive began half an hour later, at about 3:55 p.m. This time, the US military is not the vanguard, but the main force. This time, the U.S. military dispatched at least one battalion of all tanks, while at least two infantry battalions assisted in its attack. In addition, throughout the offensive, the US military has been violently shelling the defensive positions on the attack points, and in order to improve the density of fire and the flexibility of fire strikes, the US forces have even concentrated all the mortars of several infantry battalions on the front line to provide fixed-point fire strikes for the attacking troops.

A severe test. In the face of the US "Pershing" medium tank, the bazooka in the hands of the infantry could not penetrate the tank's armor from the front, but could only penetrate the tank's side armor and rear armor. This is definitely a fatal challenge for anti-tank fighters. The infantry fighting in tandem with the tanks, as well as the dense machine-gun fire on the tanks, simply did not give the anti-tank men the opportunity to appear on their flanks and in the rear. The defensive position of the 46th Division was actually built on the defensive line built by the US army before, and the serious lack of back-fire points made it even more difficult for the anti-tank men to have enough opportunities to hit the flanks of the tanks.

In this battle, a number of tank masters emerged, and many combat heroes were recorded in the army's war history, and some even became the original form of the protagonist. After the war, there were several films that directly reflected the battle, and they were all very high-grossing films. According to the history of the Army

During the forty-minute battle, anti-tank men were sacrificed in order to be able to repel the attack of the American troops. In addition, more than a dozen infantry launched suicide attacks in the most primitive and fearless way, and perished along with the enemy's tanks.

The battle was fought to this point, which not only reflected the heroic fighting spirit of the infantry, the brutality of the battle, but also exposed the shortcomings of the infantry units of the Imperial Army in some aspects. In the past, the infantry of the Imperial Army mainly relied on artillery fire and bombers to deal with the enemy's tanks, and rarely fought head-on with the enemy's tanks, and when it was necessary to fight with the enemy's tanks with bayonets, it was found that the infantry lacked effective anti-tank weapons, which could not but be said to be a serious mistake of the Imperial Army in the war.

After repelling the second round of the American attack, the officers and men of the 46th Division began before the third round of the army's attack. The U.S. troops did not rescue the wounded at all, let alone clean up the battlefield, but launched a continuous attack, there is no doubt that the U.S. troops are also in a race against time, if they cannot break through the defense line of the 46th Division before dawn, then the counterattack will fail in the shadow of the .>. bombing plane. At this time, the two infantry battalions deployed in the front line of the 46th Division had already suffered more than two-thirds of the casualties, and the reserves that had been replaced had not yet reached the position!

The third round of the American offensive forced the 46th Division to shrink its line and abandon the first line

At this point in the battle, the 46th Division was already feeling a little struggling, but this was only strength. The ground defense area of the 46th Division was two kilometers deep. Moreover, there were sufficient troops at that time, and it was only an hour and a half before dawn. If the U.S. Army did not have better offensive tactics, the 46th Division was more than capable of holding out until dawn. But the problem is that the US military has long adopted new tactics. Just when the American tanks in the third round of attack advanced to the second line of defense of the 46th Division, the flank attack force composed of 80 tanks reached the right flank of the 46th Division's defense line!

The frontal strength of the infantry defensive positions was unusually strong, even when other conditions were unfavorable. As long as the officers and men of the defending force have sufficient will and quality, it will be difficult for the attacking side to quickly break through the frontal line of the infantry position. But in the same way, the flanks of the infantry positions are extremely fragile, and it can even be said that they have no defensive ability, and in the case of a flank attack, the infantry positions can be easily defeated. The U.S. Army understood this, so before the second round of attack, it set off on a roundabout way to the right flank of the 46th Division. Similarly, the 46th Division also understands this. So when the U.S. troops came from the north, the first thing he thought of was "it's over"!

The infantry regiment, which was then located on the right flank of the 46th Division, was quickly routed. There is not even a chance to cause trouble for the US military. Just when the commander of the 46th Division was about to despair, a unit was killed. It blocked the front of the US troops, and at the same time quickly made a detour to the rear of the US troops, preparing to cut off the retreat of the US offensive troops. At this time, the US assault force also felt threatened, if the infantry following the tank was repulsed, then the tank without infantry cover would become a live target for the opposing anti-tank fighters! As a result, the flank attacking forces of the American forces had to switch to dealing with the infantry unit that suddenly came out first, giving the 46th Division time to throw reserves into a new line of defense

This force was the remnants of the 127th Division. Then. These troops were stationed north of the 46th Division's defensive line, when the American troops suddenly came out. The colonel in charge of the command didn't think much about it at all, so he divided his 2,000 officers and soldiers into three groups to launch a counterattack against the American army, and he didn't even have time to report the action to the division headquarters of the 46th Division! It was this brave counterattack that saved the 46th Division. However, at that time, the flank of the 46th Division had actually been exposed, and the commander of the division, in addition to giving the order to counterattack, also sent reserves to the third and final line of defense.

The melee went on at about half past five, and more than half of the officers and men of the 127th and 46th Divisions who participated in the battle suffered casualties. Although the fierce counterattack prevented the American troops from breaking through from the flank, during the same period, the American troops had already made a breakthrough in the frontal attack, and the second line of defense of the 46th Division was actually worth. As a last resort, the officers and men of the 46th Division could only retreat to the next line of defense in an orderly manner, and after that, it was General Gu Xunlei's front-line headquarters!

Similarly, by this time, the U.S. military had also become the end of the crossbow. In three rounds of attacks, the 12th Cavalry Division lost almost 100 tanks, and when breaking through the 127th Division's defenses, the 12th Division also lost more than 40 tanks, and its armored forces lost more than a third. More importantly, the US military has been attacking continuously all night, and many officers and men are exhausted and can hardly display their combat effectiveness. And as the sky is about to get brighter, the situation will soon be reversed.

At 5:40 a.m., the U.S. military launched a fourth round of attacks. It was the last battle of the day. At that time, the commander of the 46th Division received an order from the Front Command, knowing that Gu Xunlei would not leave the Front Command, and if the 46th Division could not hold its position, Gu Xunlei would put his . Come. Under these circumstances, the officers and men of the 46th Division, as well as the 127th Division, which had already participated in the battle at that time, received a death order: not to retreat a single step, even if it is dead, it will die on the position!

The battle reached 6:10 a.m., the fourth attack of the American army was blocked, and after losing more than 30 tanks and nearly 1,000 infantry, the American army had no choice but to withdraw to avoid being hit by the bombers of the Tang Empire. By this time, the 46th Division and the 127th Division had already suffered more than half of the casualties.

Gu Xunlei arrived at the position of the 46th Division in the morning and expressed his condolences to the brave soldiers. In the afternoon of the same day, he learned that in order to block the fierce counterattack of the American army, the two divisions had a total of 3,281 officers and men killed and 12,638 wounded, and 1,183 were always wounded. One of the most costly battles of the Mexican War!