Volume 23 Springboard for Progress Section 39 Correction by Evil

As young generals, Tan Renhao and Gu Xunlei had many similarities in command, many of which were common characteristics of young generals who were the main force of the Tang Empire's army and navy at that time. These generals have two very obvious characteristics, one is that they are very adventurous, and the other is that they often know to learn and sum up lessons after they have suffered defeats on the battlefield. For young generals, these two "shortcomings" are actually understandable.

In the history of the empire's army and navy, there has never been a shortage of outstanding generals, and most of the famous generals have already performed beyond ordinary people at a very young age, otherwise, the phrase "heroes come out of youth" would not have come from the Tang Empire. Without exception, any young general needs to be lucky enough if he wants to get a chance. In addition to the luck provided by others, there are also opportunities that you can seize on the battlefield. In addition, young generals, because of their lack of foundation, are more eager to win, and it is a crucial, decisive victory. As a result, young generals are more aggressive on the battlefield, less steady, more adventurous, and often use unusual means to achieve victory. In addition, after a basic victory, young generals also preferred to extend their gains rather than consolidate them. There are good and bad things, and if they are lucky, judged correctly, and acted decisively, the victories of young generals can often play a crucial role, and the meaning of the victory is increased by expanding the victory. On the contrary, if you are unlucky enough and your judgment is wrong, add a slight delay. Then the land suffered was also an absolutely painful failure.

It is precisely because young generals are adventurous, or because they are in a position that makes them have to take risks to win, that there are only a few young generals who can really achieve great things in their lives. During the war, countless young generals and officers were promoted by the imperial army and navy, but how many of them can really go down in history? The vast majority are the losers in this huge gamble, and they don't lose a battle, or a battle. And the future of their lives. There is no doubt that Tan Renhao and Gu Xunlei are not among the losers.

Any young general will eventually grow into a good and mature general after accumulating enough actual combat experience. It's only when they take that step, and when they change substantially, that they become truly pillars. Tan Renhao belongs to the young generals who have already taken this step, and he is now a backbone general in the navy. And what made Tan Renhao make this change was several painful failures. Or rather, a tragic loss. This also proves that it is the battlefield that really cultivates generals, not talent, and no matter how talented a person is, if he has not experienced the test of war, he cannot become a generation of famous generals, but just a useless person who talks on paper.

Gu Xunlei is not without actual combat experience, but has rich practical combat experience. As a young general promoted during the war, Gu Xunlei was given a lot of opportunities, and he seized them. The biggest difference with Tan Renhao is. Gu Xunlei had never suffered a crushing defeat, and it was from the promotion of their young generals. The Imperial Army reversed its passivity and gradually moved towards final victory. Other words. The experience gained by Gu Xunlei is the experience of victory, and in his record, there is a lack of a painful defeat, an unforgettable defeat that can make him change in essence. It is precisely because Gu Xunlei has not undergone a fundamental transformation that he is still a young general in the army and still pursues adventurous tactics. It is inevitable that they will fall into the hands of some enemy.

Playing this role is none other than Eisenhower, who is in trouble in the first battle. There were also setbacks in the early stages of the second campaign, which not only dealt a blow to Gu Xunlei, but also affected his command style. It can be said that when Gu Xunlei decided to rearrange the heavy armored troops to the front, his command style changed. When he relaunched the offensive on the 11th, he was no longer pursuing a quick breakthrough, but a steady attack. And this is one of the obvious differences between young generals and mature generals. At the beginning, Tan Renhao encountered a lot of troubles and setbacks when he experienced this transformation, and there is no doubt that Gu Xunlei will also experience the same setbacks and pains.

After the change from assault to assault, the pace of the troops' offensive was much slower, and on the day of the 11th, the 12th Tank Division advanced only three miles, and lost more than 20 Type 27 medium tanks and eight Type 24 heavy tanks in the battle. Compared with offensive operations on other battlefields, the width of the attack was less than 5 miles and the advance distance was less than 3 kilometers, and the losses were serious. Instead of reproaching the two division commanders who commanded the attack, Gu Xunlei promised to replenish the lost equipment and troops for them as soon as possible, and repeatedly asked them not to rush forward, but to attack under the condition of ensuring that they had a firm foothold and could withstand the enemy's counterattack at any time. Because of this, by about half past five in the afternoon, the 12th Tank Division and the 89th Cavalry Division stopped the offensive and began to prepare for a night defense.

Gu Xunlei's order played a key role. On the night of the 11th, the U.S. Army launched a fierce attack on the defensive positions of the 12th Tank Division and the 89th Hussar Division, but as a result, the officers and men of the two divisions not only withstood the attack of the U.S. Army, but also killed and captured more than 3,000 U.S. troops with less than 30 casualties~|counterattack.

On the battlefield of the Southern Front, Gu Xunlei's judgment was still correct. At that time, Eisenhower believed that Gu Xunlei would attack the more fragile southern defense line, so he withdrew half of the American troops on the defense line ten days ago, and deployed a pocket formation behind the defense line, waiting for Gu Xunlei to attack. By the afternoon of the 11th, the 5321st Tank Regiment and the 99th Hussar Division had just arrived at the entrance of this pocket formation. Not only did Eisenhower's trap not succeed, but he was forced to send some of the reserves that remained behind that night to fill the holes in the defensive line, weakening the counterattack on the northern defensive line.

That night, the fiercest fighting was in the middle of the front, that is, on the frontal battlefield, where the officers and men of the 127th and 46th Divisions experienced the worst night in the history of these two divisions.

At that time, Eisenhower was planning a larger counterattack when he was organizing a counterattack on the northern front. In fact, Eisenhower had been planning a counterattack the other day. As Gu Xunlei analyzed, Tehuacan will be the last line of defense outside of Mexico City, and if he can't hold Tehuacan, then it will be difficult to hold Puebla, and he won't be able to hold it

City. In addition, Eisenhower is not only a master of defense, but his ability is definitely not much worse, and his offensive ability is even stronger. Previously, Eisenhower had always been passively commanding defensive operations, and when there was an opportunity to counterattack, he would definitely not let go of the opportunity to counterattack! At that time, in the face of the attack of more than 200,000 troops of the Tang Imperial Army, the most effective defense was naturally a surprise counterattack.

Prior to the second round of the Thunderbolt attack, Eisenhower had reorganized the four U.S. divisions in Twakan, adding the remaining officers and men of the 26th Division, which had previously been primarily responsible for defense and had suffered heavy casualties, into three other divisions, and a reserve of three infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and an engineering battalion. At the same time, Eisenhower transferred two infantry divisions that remained in Puebla. In this way, the American army in Twakan at that time reached the size of five divisions, two of which were deployed on the defensive line, another division behind the defensive line, and two divisions in reserve.

In addition to this part of the U.S. army, there were about four divisions of Mexican rebels in Tehuacán at the time. The Mexican rebels were even less combative. Compared to the Mexican army, the rebels are demoralized and poorly trained and equipped. When the U.S. military attacked the Mexican presidential palace and then instigated some warlords who were originally dissatisfied with the president to form a provisional government, the remaining officers were quite limited, and most of the officers of the former Mexican government army went to the areas controlled by the Tang Empire through various channels. And joined the reconstituted government army. More importantly, at that time, the U.S. military could only provide training support for the rebels, and the weapons and equipment that the rebels needed most were quite limited, mainly because the U.S. military itself was also carrying out a large-scale military expansion, and many of the weapons and equipment that were mothballed after World War I were reused, how could they still have the ability to arm the Mexican rebels? On the contrary, the reconstituted Mexican government army was not only supported by the Tang Imperial Army in terms of training, but also the Imperial Army had a large number of obsolete equipment. There are also large quantities of weapons and equipment from other countries captured on the battlefield, almost all of which were sent to Mexico free of charge.

Compared to Gu Xunlei's offensive strength of twelve divisions, Tehuakan's defensive force was not strong, and if it were not for the fact that the U.S. Army had built a large number of permanent fortifications in advance and was quite proactive in defensive operations, its defense line would have been breached long ago. That is, in this case. Eisenhower was still planning a counterattack, and you can imagine how difficult it was at that time. Had it not been for his excellent command skills and bold decision-making ability, Eisenhower would not have been able to launch a counterattack in such an extremely unfavorable situation. Similarly, because of the serious shortage of troops, Eisenhower was quite cautious in planning a counterattack.

Judging from the fact that he set up pocket formations on the southern front, Eisenhower at that time was very hopeful that he would fight a war of annihilation on the southern front, which would not only change the balance of forces but also delay the opponent's attack. It is also able to cause the opponent's chain of command to focus on the southern front in the short term, thus providing him with an opportunity to launch counterattacks in other directions. But the problem is. In the end, Gu Xunlei not only did not fall for it, but also focused on the northern front. Eisenhower's first plan was not a success. On the contrary, the tide of battle became extremely unfavorable to him during the day on the 11th. But that didn't make Eisenhower give up.

During the day on 11 July, Eisenhower urgently adjusted the deployment of the campaign. That night, the U.S. forces launched a decisive counterattack on the northern front, but they crashed headlong into an impregnable wall composed of armored combat vehicles of the 12th Division/89th Division, as well as dense ground machine fire. That night, 3,000 officers and men of the 14th Division of the U.S. Army, which launched a counterattack on the defensive line, were killed or captured, and more than 5,000 were wounded. The division was reduced by more than half!

It was when the 14th Infantry Division launched a counterattack that Eisenhower threw two divisions in the middle <. This included the 21st Cavalry Division, which had only been transferred from the rear. It was also the first U.S. armored unit to enter the war in Mexico. In addition, Eisenhower concentrated three artillery divisions, plus five separate artillery battalions, for a total of nearly 800 heavy artillery to clear the way for the 21st Cavalry Division and the 8th Cavalry Division. I know how much pressure the ground positions of the 127th Division, which was responsible for frontal defense at that time, would be under pressure.

The battle began at half past eight in the evening, and the ground line of the 127th Division was under great pressure at the beginning, and by eleven o'clock in the evening it almost collapsed. The 46th Infantry Division sent reinforcements at half past ten, and if it had not been for the rapid arrival of the support troops, I am afraid that the 127th Division would have been routed that night, and the 46th Division would have had difficulty holding out until dawn. Even so, the first line of defense only held out until the early morning of the 12th.

By the time the 127th Division received the order to retreat, it had already suffered more than 3,000 casualties. The retreat was carried out under the cover of artillery fire, and at that time Gu Xunlei could only provide limited artillery cover for the 127th Division, after all, the main forces of artillery were deployed to the north and south of the battle line, and the central front was not a key theater in the first place, and it was impossible to quickly transfer artillery at night. For two hours, the officers and men of the 127th Division withdrew intermittently, and finally returned to the defensive line of the 46th Division. At this time, Gu Xunlei placed the 46th Division behind the 127th Division, and the significance of forming a second line of defense became apparent.

At half past two in the morning, the U.S. military began shelling the defensive positions of the 46th Division, and for 30 minutes, thousands of shells smashed the defensive positions of the 46th Division to thousands ~ The soldiers could only hide in the anti-artillery holes to avoid this thrilling half an hour. In the past, it was always the artillery of the Imperial Army that attacked the enemy, but this time, the officers and men of the Imperial Army also experienced the power of the enemy's artillery fire.

Compared with the 127th Division, the quality of officers and men of the 46th Division is much better, and the 46th Division is a high-level infantry division, with a larger establishment than the 127th Division, two more independent infantry battalions, and each infantry regiment is also equipped with an additional heavy mortar company, which is also much more powerful. The same problem existed with the 127th Division, when the infantry units of the Imperial Army were severely lacking in direct-fire anti-tank firepower, and had to rely on artillery and aviation to support enemy tanks except for individual rocket launchers, anti-tank mines, and anti-tank grenades that were too poor to use. It is precisely because of this that in the face of the attack of the 21st Cavalry Division of the US Army, the defensive battle of the 46th Division was also extremely difficult. Sea Soul Volume 23 Springboard for Progress Section 39 Correction by Evil