Although the sneak attack of the American ski unit was only 40,000 men, it was the most elite unit carefully selected by the New Virginia Legion, and it was also the killer weapon of Burnside.

However, in such a large-scale battle of 300,000 people, it is impossible for Burnside to put Baodu on this partial division, in the final analysis, to win the war, he still has to rely on his own hard power.

In other words, the purpose of the 40,000-strong sneak attack force is to contain the Chinese, and it is of course the best if it can succeed, and it does not matter if it cannot succeed, as long as it can contain the Chinese's firepower and let the three attack clusters on the frontal battlefield attack, it is enough.

In fact, these 40,000 sneak attack troops did a good job, they not only successfully entered the camp of the expeditionary force, but also knocked out the artillery positions of the expeditionary force, although they were later destroyed by naval guns, and could not continue to use the Chinese artillery to serve the Americans, but just like this, it was already a super-level performance.

Sure enough, just when Li Yongji was fighting to defeat the sneak attack of this unit, he learned that the frontal battlefield in front was also very hard, and in addition to the second line of defense in the west, the second line of defense in the east and south had already collapsed and began to enter the third line of defense to resist the Americans' sea of soldiers.

Although he had expected it, after hearing the news, Li Yongji still clenched his fists, knowing that now was not the time to be angry, but how to bring back this unfavorable situation.

Maybe to say, the expeditionary force doesn't all use modern weapons, so many rapid-fire weapons, 56 punches, machine guns, grenades, barbed wire and the like, even if there is no artillery support, it will not be overwhelmed by a group of American soldiers in the 19th century, this is obviously abnormal, no matter how many Americans there are, it is impossible to rush up under this kind of firepower?

The reason is simple, real combat is not playing games. There are many numbers that need to be referenced, in addition to firepower and troops, the right time and place, the morale of both sides, and psychological elements are also very important correction elements.

It is true that the Chinese have an absolute advantage in firepower, but first, they are too few in number, and second, they have always been accustomed to fighting with the wind, and are used to fighting with armored forces and artillery support, and this time they left artillery support and had no motor vehicles. The sense of security is greatly diminished.

At this time, let them face the endless sea of soldiers, and anyone will have a sense of fatigue that they can't kill and fight, plus they are very sorry for their lives, and after giving a lot of kills, it is inevitable to retreat in time.

In other words, inflicting a large number of casualties on the enemy and then retreating in time is already the fighting style and tradition of this army that goes deep into the bone marrow. This was the idea when they had motor vehicles before, and now that they don't have motor vehicles, it's the same idea.

So, lose two lines of defense in a row. That's not a strange thing, after all, strictly speaking, the Chinese don't lose much, they are all after feeling that something can't be done. Only then did they voluntarily abandon the defensive line, but before that, they had already inflicted extremely heavy casualties on the attacking Americans. It's just that it's dark and snowing, so I can't count it in detail.

On the other hand, although the Americans are completely inferior in terms of firepower, they are not at the same level as the Chinese, but they have an absolute numerical superiority and high morale, and they still take advantage of the night and heavy snow to attack, which greatly limits the Chinese's firepower.

More importantly, the 40,000 ski units that attacked made heavy progress, the most crucial of which was to temporarily knock out the Chinese artillery positions, so that the sharpest artillery units of the Chinese could not provide fire support to the front-line troops, and the most terrifying artillery interception of the attacking Americans.

Moreover, this unit also contained the Chinese warships, forcing the main warships of the task force to first repel the ship-grabbing troops charging from the ice in order to protect themselves, and then bombard the ice, avoid the harbor, and hide in the middle of the river, which made it impossible for the task force to support the front-line defense of the expeditionary force with naval guns, and unable to intercept the attacking American soldiers with naval guns.

That is to say, the artillery interception that the Chinese rely on the most has disappeared, and simply using those submachine guns and machine guns to deal with the swarming American soldiers, and at night and in snowy weather, the shooting accuracy is greatly reduced, and naturally it is impossible to stop the American soldiers who have followed one after another.

Fundamentally speaking, war is a game of exchange ratio, the so-called technological superiority, or firepower superiority, is just a relatively heavy weight, if the opponent's firepower is not as good as yours, but the strength is far superior to you, then as long as you can endure huge sacrifices, and break your firepower advantage before you can bear it, then the other side wins.

On the surface, the defending units of the expeditionary force had strong firepower, almost every man had a 56-punch, a large number of machine guns, grenades, and barbed wire in front.

But the number jù is not so compared, you must know that whether it is an automatic rifle or a machine gun, there is also a problem of hit rate, if it is broad daylight, or the opponent will not dodge, then it is okay, but if the enemy learns how to deal with it, then the situation is very different.

Take this battle as an example, it is a bit like the Battle of Changjin Lake in the Korean War in another time and space, in which the expeditionary force is like the American army, with small numbers and good weapons, from the defensive side, and the American army at this time is like the volunteer army at that time, with a large number of people and poor weapons, but from the attacking side, and surrounded the expeditionary force.

Although the Americans at this time could not be compared with the volunteers at that time in terms of weapons, after all, the volunteers at that time were at least equipped with a lot of automatic weapons, but in fact, because of the severe cold, many automatic weapons could not play their due role, and there was no heavy weapon support, so on the whole, the difference between the volunteers at that time and the American soldiers of the New Virginia Regiment at this time was not too outrageous in terms of weapons.

However, in terms of troops, the difference is relatively large.

In the Battle of Changjin Lake, the defending side's multinational force was only 24,000 people, which was not much different from the current expeditionary force, but in terms of the attacker's strength, the total number of volunteers at that time was only 160,000, while the New Virginia Army had 300,000 people!

In other words, compared with the Battle of Changjin Lake, in this Battle of Smithland, the number of defenders is not much different, but the number of attackers is twice as large!

And in terms of firepower, the weapons of the expeditionary force, albeit good. However, it cannot be compared with the multinational force during the Battle of Changjin Lake, and the soldiers of the expeditionary force are far from being comparable with the soldiers of the multinational force at that time.

Looking at it this way, even if the American soldiers of the New Virginia Regiment at this time were inferior to the volunteers at that time in terms of weapons, the victory rate was higher than that of the volunteers at that time.

There are more than 10,000 people, and there is no boundary, and in reality, a well-trained person with a 56 punch can indeed beat ten people with front-loading smoothbore guns. But when the attackers become a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand, it can't be counted like that.

Once the number of attacking people reaches a point, such as more than 10,000 mark, it will give people a feeling of boundlessness, and this sense of impact will greatly shock the hearts of the defenders. This greatly reduces the efficiency of your own attacks.

You must know that the effective shooting distance of the 56 punch is only 600 meters, but the accuracy of this distance is not high, and in fact, it has to be put into 400 meters to have a higher accuracy. But it's still the opponent's dense formation.

If the opponent is a skirmisher charge, and then learn to crawl forward, jump attack and other dodge methods, the efficiency will be greatly reduced.

The Americans of the New Virginia Regiment were like that. Perhaps they were stupid at the beginning, commanding a stubborn charge that could attack for seven days in a row. They have long learned how to attack in the lessons of blood.

Perhaps these Americans were not as skilled as the volunteers in the Korean War, but at least they knew how to lie down when artillery fire came and crawl forward when machine gun fire suppressed them.

In addition, although the smoothbore guns of the New Virginia Legion soldiers are not very accurate, the shooting distance is not close, and the power of large-caliber lead bullets is also quite good.

Although the Americans on the attacking side actually brought very few casualties to the Chinese, don't forget that the soldiers in the expeditionary force, after being nurtured by Li Yongji, have a very small ability to bear casualties, and once the casualties are a little more, they are somewhat unbearable, and they begin to waver in the hearts of the army.

In addition, the Chinese of the expeditionary force are accustomed to shooting and killing from a distance, once they feel that the other party is too close to themselves, or feel that their own firepower cannot stop the other party's continuous approach, then the first thing they think about is not to hold back, or even to hedge with the other party, but first want to retreat, distance themselves from the other side, and continue to use long-range fire to kill and injure the enemy.

Although this idea is correct, the blow to morale of continuous retreat is very heavy, especially on such a brutal battlefield, so continuous retreat actually does more harm than good.

It is precisely because of the continuous retreat that the soldiers of the expeditionary force of the third line of defense have also begun to waver, although because of the increase in the number of soldiers and the strengthening of the firepower density of the third line of defense, if the morale has been low, after all, it will not be able to stop those American soldiers who seem to be crazy.

After hearing this news, Li Yongji, regardless of the tactical victory he had just obtained, directly used the highest authority of the commander to send a public announcement to the whole army, that is to say, Li Yongji's announcement, all walkie-talkies can hear his voice, which is equivalent to a one-way broadcast with the highest authority.

In this all-army circular, Li Yongji told all the officers and men that we had no way to retreat, either victory or death!

Moreover, no matter whether this battle is won or lost, all the cowards who do not obey the order and retreat without permission will not only be shot immediately, but also the three clans, that is, the three generations of the direct family, will be implicated in your actions, and they may not die, but they will all be imprisoned with their families, regardless of their status!

That is to say, once you retreat, not only if you die, you will be fine, but also trace back to your family, your immediate three generations of relatives, that is, grandparents, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, will be raided, all property will be confiscated, and then you will have to become a prisoner to serve the sentence.

This decree seems very barbaric and unreasonable, but not to mention, this method of engaging in strains is still quite useful, especially for the Chinese at this time.

At this time, it doesn't matter if many Chinese die by themselves, if they know that the three generations of their direct family will be unlucky, almost full of beheading, then the deterrent effect will be much greater.

After issuing this army-wide notice, Li Yongji once again contacted Mo Haiwen, commander of the task force, and inquired about the situation of the fleet.

When he learned that only four supply ships were slightly damaged and that the other warships were all unharmed, Li Yongji ordered them to immediately reload the main guns, especially the ship-based rocket artillery, and gave several firing parameters.

According to Li Yongji, the expeditionary force's counteroffensive is about to begin, and they must be ready at any time to provide maximum fire support for the upcoming counteroffensive operations.

After Mo Haiwen made a guarantee, Li Yongji called Bai Yunfei, who was presiding over the defense in front.

"No matter what method you use, you must defend the third line of defense for me!" Li Yongji's tone was calm, "We can't let the Americans break through the third line of defense, if we do, then we won't have to play!" ”

"Commander, rest assured!" Bai Yunfei's hoarse voice came over the phone, "After your announcement was issued, I sent out all the pro-soldiers and gendarmes, and organized a battlefield law enforcement team, all equipped with machine guns, and if anyone retreats, they will all be killed!" ”

"Good."

"But Commander, the Americans have too many soldiers, do you think you want to send me another reinforcement? Even if it's a battalion, it's really not okay to give some artillery support, didn't you say that the back road has been cleared? The land artillery is gone, and the naval artillery can always be used. ”

"There won't be any reinforcements, and there won't be any artillery support!" Li Yongji said coldly, "To tell you the truth, I am ready to concentrate all the available mobile forces, and then launch a counter-attack on the Americans, completely crushing the American attack, and all the naval artillery fire must serve this counter-attack!"

Therefore, in order to paralyze the enemy army and provide maximum damage for this counter-attack, we will not give you any reinforcements at this time, and we will not give you artillery support in advance!

Your task is to continue to defend, contain the attack of the Americans, and keep bleeding them, provided that the defense line cannot be shaken and not overwhelmed by them. ”

"Don't worry, Commander." Bai Yunfei immediately said, "With me, there will definitely be no problem here!" ”

"Excellent! I believe you! ”

After hanging up the phone, Li Yongji looked up at the sky that was completely lit up although he still couldn't see the sun, and then looked at the light snow that had changed from goose feathers to sparse snow, and smiled coldly at the corner of his mouth.

"Damn the Americans, while I'm unprepared, it's a night battle and a sneak attack, and it's a lot of fun, right? No problem, even if you are ruthless enough, I admit it! But alas, it's dawn now, and it's my turn to attack! (To be continued......)