The battle on the Tonggu front was fierce, as the Yangon airfield was attacked by the Sino-American joint air force, and the Japanese air force was severely damaged. Air supremacy on the battlefield in Burma is basically controlled by the Sino-US Joint Air Force.

The Japanese troops, deprived of air cover, began to struggle more and more, especially the besieged 18th Division of Dagon, which was counting on air support.

Air support cannot be counted on, and only a breakthrough can survive.

The commander of the 18th Division, Mutaguchi Ryoya, made eight consecutive phone calls to Tu Meihao, the commander of the Tu Mei detachment, in one day, asking about the progress of the front, and Tu Meihao promised on the phone that the gap would be opened within three days.

The reason why Tu Meihao is so confident is because of his experience in the first few attacks. Although the 3rd Regiment is also an elite unit, it is not a unit that is good at positional warfare, and their large number of armored vehicles have lost their usefulness here, and they are not advantageous in numbers, the Tumei detachment has more than 8,000 people, and the 3rd Regiment is now less than 3,000 people, plus there are no strong fortifications in this area where they are stationed, and they have not had time to dig trenches before they have time to fight, so it is naturally difficult to defend.

To be able to resist the attack for two days, it is already considered that the brothers of the 3rd regiment are working hard, and if it is an ordinary army, I am afraid that it will be difficult to withstand even a day.

Zhang Lin took over Liu Fangwu's 3rd Regiment with the Teaching Brigade, and the front of the position had been bombarded by the Japanese army, and the firepower of the Tumei detachment was very fierce, and the entire detachment was equipped with a large number of weapons such as 75 mountain guns and 37 rapid-fire guns, and was able to get the fire support of a heavy artillery brigade belonging to the 18th Division, and the firepower was even higher than that of the 3rd Regiment, which had a high degree of armor.

Their attacks were often carried out in accordance with the usual practice, first heavy artillery and the artillery of the expeditionary force fired at each other, and then they used 75 mountain guns and 37 rapid-fire guns to bombard the positions in turn.

This trick has been tried and tested, and the positions of the 3rd regiment are constantly retreating, but fortunately, the defensive circle is still there, and they are not allowed to tear a hole.

After seeing Zhang Lin, Liu Fangwu, the "cowboy leader" who had galloped in Ren'anqiang, took off the jungle hat on his head, he wiped the sweat on his head, and couldn't stop shaking his head and said: "I won't tell you, if you don't come, we really don't know if we can survive tonight, the enemy's offensive is too fierce." ”

Zhang Lin naturally respected this senior very much, he patted him on the shoulder and said, "You have worked the front line, go down and have a good rest, I and the brothers will bear it." ”

Liu Fangwu glanced at the immature faces behind Zhang Lin, and said with some worry in his heart: "Brigade Commander Zhang, how many people have you brought?" ”

Zhang Lin's index finger and middle finger pinned together and raised, "The entire teaching brigade has been brought here, seven thousand brothers!" ”

Liu Fangwu nodded, "That's it, I'll stay and be a staff officer for you, anyway, there is no specific task to retreat and repair." ”

When he said this, he was actually worried that something would happen to the young brigade commander. The teaching brigade is a unit that has never seen blood, and the officers and soldiers are either wearing glasses or having a circle of fluff on their mouths, compared with the group of killers in the Tumei detachment, I don't know if they will be stunned?

Zhang Lin knew that this was Liu Fangwu's good intentions, not to mention that an experienced officer following him would also help him make a correct judgment, so he nodded and said, "Okay, then please trouble Regiment Commander Liu for you to stay for a few more days." ”

As he spoke, he beckoned people to have a drink. The orderly brought a few bottles of opened Coke, which was a little different from what Liu Fangwu usually drank, as if it had just been taken out of the refrigerator, and there were dewdrops on it.

"Commander Liu, I see that the terrain here is also flat, can you bring tanks up?" Zhang Lin's unit has a tank battalion, equipped with more than a dozen American-made Sherman tanks, this guy is compared to the small tank of the Japanese devil, it is simply a tank grandfather and a tank grandson, Zhang Lin has always been prepared to use it as a fist unit.

Hearing his words, Liu Fangwu shook his head and said, "I don't know if the tank will work, but my team's armored vehicles can't be used." It's raining these days, and the roads are too muddy, let alone ordinary vehicles, and it's hard for armored vehicles to climb up when they get in. ”

"So, are your armored vehicles mostly wheeled?" Zhang Lin knew that Liu Fangwu's troops had a high degree of armor, but most of them were British goods captured from the Japanese in Ren'anqiang, and some of these armored vehicles were wheeled, so it was naturally difficult to walk on muddy roads.

"It's not, our armored vehicles also have a lot of tracked vehicles, but the road is too muddy because of the rain during this time, and it was destroyed by the Japanese devils, so it is naturally not easy to walk." Liu Fangwu said.

Zhang Lin frowned, the road was so muddy, it seemed that the tank might not be able to get by.

"But you can build roads." Liu Fangwu slapped his thigh and said something enlightening.

"Build roads?" Zhang Lin was interested.

"Yes, build roads. Some of our roads have been vandalized, and the damaged sections are not long, but we have few people, so we really can't spare people to repair them. There are more than 7,000 people in one of your brigades, and you can completely spare four or five hundred people and a dozen vehicles to repair them. ”

Liu Fangwu also said, "There are many forests in the mountains, so if you directly cut down some trees and lay them on the muddy road, won't tanks and armored vehicles come over?" ”

Zhang Lin was interested when he heard it, if he could really pave the way, then a large number of heavy equipment could reach the front line, and then the chances of victory would be great.

"Without further ado, let's go check it out now." With that, Liu Fangwu and Zhang Lin drove out.

On the same day, Zhang Lin transferred a battalion of officers and men to the forest to cut down trees and pave the damaged section of the road, and 500 officers and men plus more than a dozen vehicles paved several kilometers of the road in less than a day.

After the road was paved, the tank units behind drove directly to the front line. In the evening, Zhang Lin and Liu Fangwu personally went to the front line, and the tank battalion and the large army were already ready to go to the front line.

Liu Fangwu frowned after looking at it, and he couldn't help asking, "Brigade Commander Zhang, why didn't you see your brothers digging trenches?" ”

Zhang Lin smiled: "No need, now that the road is repaired, the trenches will be useless." ”

Liu Fangwu didn't know why, Zhang Lin smiled and said, "You'll know in a while." ”

About half an hour later, the Japanese attacked as if they had agreed. This group of Japanese troops appeared to be the same as the troops attacking during the day, and they began the attack as usual, under the cover of mountain artillery and rapid-fire guns.

A large number of Japanese soldiers lined up in a straggler line, and let out an overwhelming scream, and in the night, these Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle like ghosts.

"Fire the flares!" Zhang Lin waved his hand, and fired artillery into the sky next to the position, and one after another flares rose in the air, illuminating the sky as if it were day, and the Japanese army, who was originally counting on a sneak attack, suddenly had nowhere to hide, so they had to roar and rush towards the position of the Chinese army.

"Head Liu, now you can see what I just said by taking a look." As soon as Zhang Lin's words fell, he saw dozens of Sherman tanks and priest self-propelled guns rushing out from all around.

Liu Fangwu is well-informed, and he is also very slippery with mechanized equipment, but he still has never seen such a big guy in front of him who looks like a tank and artillery.

He pointed to the big guy next to Sherman and asked, "What's that?" ”

Zhang Lin said with a smile: "The British in Africa call this self-propelled gun 'pastor', which means 'with God'. Today we are also going to 'be with God' and kill all the little devils!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the tanks and self-propelled guns opened fire on the swarming Japanese troops. The 12.7-caliber Browning heavy machine gun on the vehicle spat out tongues of fire, and the bullet casings fell like rain, and the ground was covered with hot bullet casings.

A tight network of fire composed of heavy machine guns harvested the lives of Japanese soldiers like a scythe of death, and the swarming Japanese soldiers were splashed with flesh and blood by dozens of such large-caliber machine guns, and Rao could not resist such a cruel battle no matter how much he had the will to fight.

Only then did Liu Fangwu understand why Zhang Lin didn't dig trenches and set up machine gun nests, daring to love these dozens of tanks and self-propelled guns as their firepower points, which are better than machine gun nests, not only steel fortresses, but also able to move at any time.

The fire network composed of dozens of such heavy machine guns can be smashed even by stones, not to mention those flesh-and-blood Japanese soldiers.

In less than half an hour, this wave of Japanese attacks was crushed, and those small-caliber 75 mountain guns and 37 rapid-fire guns were simply not enough to see in the face of this huge torrent of steel. After the machine gun fired, the 105* gun on the priest* gun opened fire on the Japanese artillery position, and immediately blew up the small-caliber mountain artillery rapid-fire guns, and the iron wheels on the mountain guns rolled down far away.

Immediately afterwards, tanks and armored vehicles began to cover the infantry forward attack, and this time the Japanese broke through not only did not achieve the desired effect, but lost their previous positions, and the place became smaller and smaller.

Zhang Lin took out a pack of camel brand cigarettes from his pocket, handed one to Liu Fangwu, and said without modesty: "Before we were equipped with all the American equipment, our equipment could be similar to the firepower of the Japanese, and then we were equipped with some tanks and armored vehicles, so we think it is very good." In fact, it's a lot worse than the firepower of the American equipment. ”

Although Liu Fangwu didn't like this very much, but what he said was indeed true, he really saw the battle just now, his brothers worked hard, but he didn't expect that in the hands of the teaching brigade, it would only take one day to recapture all the positions that were lost before.

Firepower is really a crucial factor on the battlefield. Liu Fangwu put down the binoculars and said, "With this thing, no wonder it is said to be 'with God'." ”