"The sun sets and the clouds walk, and the rain is in the middle of the night." Tao Zhenyu looked at the sun that was about to go down, and couldn't help but think of a saying in his hometown. That seems to be a good sign, at least tomorrow morning the visibility will not be very high. It seems that the forecast of the meteorological department is relatively accurate. However, if it rains heavily in the middle of the night, it will definitely have a big impact on the uppercut battle group, which is not good for the night march. Rain can reduce the efficiency of infrared headlights, which in turn can affect night vision, and too much mud and rain can be a challenge for delicate night vision devices.

"No matter, the troops are ready to go!" The arrow had to be fired, Tao Zhenyu gave the order to set off and got into his command tank. Then, with the roar of the engine, the hook battle group left the starting position where they had stayed for nearly half a month and began to rush towards the positional battlefield.

At the same time as Tao Zhenyu set off, the German army and the Chinese troops on the front line were resting. The real battle finally began on the main line of defense in China. The Chinese, who had not much depth to retreat, and the victorious, German troops, fought on this line for two whole days! In this engagement, the two sides can be said to be elite, and the combat effectiveness of the Chinese front-line troops with full firepower is indeed terrifying, even if the Germans have air support, they still have broken teeth! Even the large deep trapezoidal phalanx, which began to be invincible in the battle of the previous days, no longer worked so well!

Let's rewind the footage two days ago and see what it was like on the battlefield at that time. The Germans still had a high opinion of the defensive war in China, and as the attacker, Krueger did almost the best, and he did not rush to attack the line of defense in front of him. Instead, the preparations were carried out patiently, and most of the heavy artillery left the starting position and moved forward more than 10 kilometers. IN ORDER TO ALLOW THE 170MM HEAVY ARTILLERY TO COVER 12 KILOMETERS BEHIND THE OPPONENT'S DEFENSIVE LINE. This distance is almost close to the maximum range of howitzer fire, if Huaxia deploys artillery here. The Germans' suppression artillery could greatly reduce the density of the enemy's strikes.

In order to ensure sufficient fire continuity, the Germans spent a day stockpiling ammunition, each howitzer had at least 3 base shells, and mortars up to 4.5 bases. In order to prevent a possible flank detour from the Chinese, the Germans also strengthened the defenses on both flanks. The number of frontal tanks has increased to about 100, and the width of the frontal attack is about 1,500 meters. Such a density of troops and firepower was also the first for the German Army! But even so, the German attack was unusually difficult!

Along with the advance of the German armored forces, the artillery in the rear gradually came into play, and all points of fire were quickly activated. They carried out non-stop attacks on the entire line of defense according to the guidance of the front-line observation posts and artillery schools. In addition to the German tanks successfully breaking the first trench defense, the infantry also began to dismount, jumping into the trench to clear the remnants of the enemy under the cover of various light and heavy weapons, and the huge German army cut into the Chinese defense line like a sharp father. As the armored forces moved forward, the enemy's follow-up support fire also began to move, and they entered the next launch position according to the previous plan, advancing forward one by one under alternate cover.

The offensive has been fought so far, although the losses of tanks and infantry are somewhat larger. But overall, it's still in the plan. And then with the arrival of the Stone Tea Falcon and Flying Bat fighters that appeared from the southwest, the situation began to change! The German fighters, which were hovering at low altitude and searching for their prey, were almost defenseless in the face of the fighter units whizzing down from the sky, and the Huaxia aircraft group, which had entered the battlefield with their backs to the sun, successfully launched a sneak attack under the cover of sunlight and clouds, and several JU90 and JU88 bombers were destroyed by dense cannons before they could react. There were not many planes sent by Huaxia, but they managed to disperse the German bomber group and artillery school aircraft! Just to drive away temporarily, it is enough to counterattack Huaxia!

View from the air. It can be clearly seen that behind the main position in Huaxia, as if suddenly out of the ground, a large number of wheeled rocket launchers appeared. These rocket launchers are equipped with 24 hail rocket launchers, and they have become the only firepower in Huaxia's hands that can overwhelm the opponent in a medium-range artillery battle! The Germans, with their weaker armored forces, relied entirely on mortars and howitzers to pile up the density of fire. So if you can completely destroy this pillar of fire. That would undoubtedly be tantamount to breaking the backbone of the German attacking forces, although German long-range firepower could suppress rocket artillery at range. But the firing time of the rocket artillery itself is very short, and it is still a mobile artillery, and the German artillery school aircraft can not work effectively, in this case, it is really unknown how effective the hastily suppressed long-range artillery can be, anyway, the cost of these rocket artillery is also cheap, much lower than the barrel artillery, and the loss of a few is not a big deal. Since there is no advantage in range, Huaxia decides to suppress the opponent with explosive firepower!

This is the largest attack in China since it was equipped with rocket artillery, Peng Yi concentrated more than half of the rocket artillery of the three divisions into this counterattack, as many as more than 80 rockets of various kinds of artillery in less than 10 minutes according to the pre-calibrated reference to cover the entire battlefield, the first round of salvo more than 1,500 rockets is just the beginning, hundreds of rockets at the same time The spectacular scene instantly shocked the troops on both sides on the battlefield, and countless rockets dragged the flames into the sky, According to the words of a Chinese pilot, even if we do not suppress the opposing air force, it will not be so easy for the Germans to attack the Chinese rocket artillery covered by a sandstorm. The rockets that rose into the sky made a graceful arc in the air, and then smashed like a meteor shower into the German support artillery and infantry groups in the rear of the trapezoidal formation!

Dropping thousands of shells in a matter of minutes is absolutely catastrophic for a unit without adequate armor protection! Because of the smooth sailing of the previous battle, the few firepower countermeasures of China were overwhelmed by the German artillery and the air force. So there are some carries for prevention work. Artillery spacing is too small, ammunition storage points and artillery are too close to each other, and some problems abound. These mistakes directly increased the strike efficiency of the Huaxia artillery units!

"This shelling can be described as overwhelming, and when you look from the air, you will see huge explosions and columns of smoke moving forward like a tsunami! In a minute. Hundreds or even hundreds of explosion points appeared on the ground one after another, and the explosions of each and the other turned the position into a sea of fire. Many of them produced some very violent explosions, and I saw a huge column of smoke rise nearly 100 meters into the air. Then it turned into a huge mushroom cloud, which was supposed to be a munition storage place was hit, and after the shelling, the whole land turned black, and there were various metal fragments scattered in it. The infantry seemed to have evaporated, and the rear half of the German position was almost like purgatory, full of flames and death. One pilot wrote in his diary about the spectacle of the time. In just ten minutes, the supporting artillery and infantry units of the German attacking forces were heavily damaged!

Immediately afterward, Huaxia's rocket artillery unit used its precious time to fire a second round of shooting. Because the rockets were somewhat heavy and could face German countermeasures at any moment, the intensity of the fire in this shelling was weaker than in the first wave, and this attack was mainly aimed at the German attacking forces on the front line of the attack. When the German tank troops and infantry thought that they had been lucky to avoid the first wave of the opponent's attack, the whistling rockets made the German troops who had been wedged into the Chinese position instantly turn on their backs.

The first to bear the brunt are infantry and lightly armored vehicles. The shock wave generated by the explosion of the rocket swept across the battlefield with shrapnel, like a metal storm hanging on the battlefield, and the high-speed shrapnel tore through the armor from time to time to shoot the fighters inside, or destroy the vulnerable parts such as the suspension, and the infantry was even more miserable. Violent explosions can kill people even by sound waves or vibrations alone. The German infantry kept their bodies close to the ground, looking for any shelter from the shelling. But often these bunkers end up as graves where they are buried, or crushed to death by collapsed bunkers, or entrailed by ultra-high air pressure. There is also suffocation due to lack of oxygen. In this round of artillery bombardment, about thirty percent of the attacking German infantry were killed!

The situation with tank units is better, as long as it is not a direct hit. Fatal damage is generally not caused, except for a few unlucky tanks that are hit in the engine or have their suspension destroyed. The other tanks took advantage of the situation and retreated. Of course, there are also cases where a few infantry are accidentally crushed to death or fall directly into the pit when hanging the reverse gear, but in the case of an overall rout. It's impossible to pull it out, just throw a grenade in the car and pull it off!

ALTHOUGH IT WAS CONFUSED BY THE ROCKET ARTILLERY AT THE BEGINNING, BUT THEN THE GERMAN'S LONG-RANGE SUPPRESSION WAS STILL VERY FAST, THE RETALIATORY SHELLING OF THE 150MM AND 170MM LONG-RANGE CANNONS TURNED SOME SELF-PROPELLED GUNS THAT HAD NOT HAD TIME TO EVACUATE INTO A PILE OF SCRAP METAL, THESE GUNS WITH TRUCKS AS CHASSIS HAD NO ARMOR PROTECTION AT ALL, AND THEY COULD BE DESTROYED WITH JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF SHRAPNEL. The continuous attacks also deterred the counterattack of the Chinese troops. So that the remaining German troops could retreat in one piece.

To say that the losses caused by this wave of artillery bombardment are indeed not small, but they are not painful for the German army, which has 6 divisions. After receiving the news that the attack on the front line had been frustrated, Kruger had no choice but to readjust his tactics. At this time, the German forces were in a stalemate, the lack of armored forces needed to be compensated for by the density of firepower, and the German heavy artillery, although it had an advantage, was not sufficient enough to overwhelm the opponent's Cheng dù with cannon alone. Howitzers and heavy mortars are necessary, and these guns have a short range, and if you want to have a dense fire, you have to concentrate them, and if they are concentrated, they can be covered. Moreover, the appearance of the Huaxia Air Force this time seems to mean the revival of the opponent's air force. That's not a good sign!

After the failure of the offensive on the first day, the Germans did not arrange an offensive on the second day, but withdrew the front-line troops and replaced them with new ones. This process lasted a whole day, but the progress can only be described as slow, not that the German troops were inefficient, but due to the traffic situation, most of the damaged vehicles or artillery needed to be taken to the rear by half-track repair vehicles, and the speed of movement was not fast, and many of the support units were made up of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, the former was a multi-ethnic country, and the latter could only be described as very few German-speaking troops. The compensation for communication and the heavy rotation of tasks left the Confederate officers in charge of channeling at the front at a loss. And what was even more depressing was that the next night, before the Germans had finished changing their guards, it suddenly rained!

There is a weather forecast in China, there is a German forecast, and even the Germans know that there will be rain in the near future. Considering that the weather is reciprocal for both sides. Although the German air force could hardly be expected to play a role, it was obviously unrealistic to imagine the Chinese Army attacking in such weather. However, the Germans were still prepared and increased their defensive forces on the front and on both flanks. However, what Kruger didn't expect was that Huaxia would take advantage of the bad weather to bypass the big circle and attack his rear!

While the Germans were reeling from traffic jams, the uppercuts themselves were struggling in muddy water. Meng Yan looked at his teammates in front of him in the infrared night vision device, and then carefully guided the vehicle forward, just now, the night vision device used by the driver failed, and now only he can see the situation outside, but unfortunately the field of vision is very small, and the ground is not clear at all. "A little to the left, yes, to the left!" Meng Yan observed as he spoke, and suddenly the body of the car sank violently! The Type 29 tank he was in went straight into the ditch!

"Report it, just say we need help, leave two vehicles to help pull it out!" Meng Yan opened the hatch, looked at the heavy rain outside and said, just as he was observing the surrounding situation, the rain had already flowed in along the hatch, making the colleagues below complain. Soon, Tao Zhenyu, who received a report from his subordinates, ordered the troops to continue the operation, and told Meng Yan and others that they had the right to move freely, but if they wanted to abandon the vehicle, don't forget to destroy the night vision equipment! In this way, Tao Zhenyu once again "lost" a tank and two infantry fighting vehicles due to bad weather and road conditions. It had rained for less than two hours, and the entire battle group had already thrown away nearly six tanks and other vehicles. "Battle damage" cannot be said to be small! However, Tao Zhenyu didn't dare to stay any longer, he had to arrive at the designated attack position at dawn to attack, because the rain would not last long, and there would be a gap in the middle of the rain. He can't guarantee that he will be able to avoid the detection of his opponents!

"Although we have made a lot of preparations for this operation and formulated corresponding plans, it is a pity that we still underestimated the difficulties, not only the vehicle breakdown rate is very high, but also at dawn, we found that we actually deviated more than ten kilometers from the intended location!" Tao Zhenyu later wrote in the report.

Thanks to book friends zhouyu1976, hukaikaka for the reward~~~, and book friends I kill my monthly pass support ~~~. There is still no recommendation this week, and the side position can only be asked by everyone-! (To be continued......)