While the Stalin-Sverdlov coalition was busy giving Trotsky a problem, the battle for the Harakha River entered the second phase, the stalemate. The previous all-out counterattack of the Japanese army did not make any meaningful breakthrough, and under the strict defense of the Red Army, the devils who lacked the ability to attack the fortified encountered great trouble, and once suffered heavy casualties under the superior firepower of the Red Army. If it weren't for the Kwantung Army Command to stop in time, it would have been impossible to figure out that there would be a second "God of War" like Nogi Noshinori in the Japanese army.

After entering the stalemate stage, both the Red Army and the Kwantung Army began to build fortifications, the difference is that the Kwantung Army really can't move, but they feel that they don't want to retreat because they don't want to retreat, so they can only grit their teeth and hold on.

The Red Army, on the other hand, carried out Blyukher's plan, actively amassed forces and prepared for a second breakthrough operation, and the construction of fortifications was only a preparation for another breakthrough operation.

In the following month, the large-scale operations between the two sides almost stopped, not to mention the previous kind of fierce attack of the whole division and the whole army, and there was almost no investment at the regimental scale. The largest battles are at the battalion level, and the vast majority of battles are skirmishes at the level of companies and platoons or even combat detachments.

The most striking feature of such skirmishes is that they are small in scale, occur quite suddenly, and are of short duration. In a sense, it is more of a test of the individual and squad combat skills of the soldiers on both sides. To be honest, the Kwantung Army was indeed a little stronger than the Red Army in this respect, at least in terms of combat intelligence and skill.

For example, the night battles that the Japanese army was particularly good at made the commanders and fighters of the Red Army suffer a lot of losses, and they were even quite unsuitable at first. When the devil uses the night god to infiltrate the outpost through the defense line unknowingly. will be able to hit the Red Army by surprise. Many Red Army soldiers lost their lives in a daze.

And that's just the night battle. And in this kind of confrontation, the effect of cold guns and cold guns has also begun to appear. The devils, who place special emphasis on the accuracy of shooting, have a great advantage in this regard. In sniper and counter-sniper battles, they took advantage.

Let's put it this way, almost half of the casualties of the Red Army in the entire battle of the Haraha River were generated at this stage. The stupid and stupid polar bear is really not good at this kind of meticulous work, and it feels like a bit of a bear embroidery.

Of course, the Red Army did not always suffer losses, as an advanced army much higher than the modernization process of the Kwantung Army, the Red Army had an absolute advantage in firepower! Especially after the stalemate phase, under the orders of Blyukhel. The Red Front of the Far East transferred the subordinate 10th and 11th divisions of independent artillery to the battlefield.

These two artillery divisions are the key construction units of the four artillery regiments under them. Its mission was to serve as a fire strike and support mission in the direction of the Front's breakthrough, and it was equipped with heavy artillery. One of the brigades (two regiments each) is armed with 152-mm howitzers, the other with 130-mm cannons.

This independent artillery division, which was equipped for the front, also had a larger artillery regiment than an ordinary artillery regiment, belonging to a four-battalion unit with 48 guns. That is, one separate artillery division has 192 heavy guns. The total of the two divisions was 384 heavy guns.

Originally, this was very powerful, but you have to pay attention to the fact that the artillery of the Red Army usually had one or two artillery regiments. Among them, the ordinary infantry corps may have only one attached artillery regiment, but the key construction units such as the First Mechanized Army and the First Cavalry Corps must definitely be equipped with two artillery regiments. Moreover, they were still assigned a four-battalion artillery regiment, not an ordinary three-battalion artillery regiment.

That is, counting these four artillery regiments. The Red Army at this stage used 12 artillery regiments (not counting the division level) to support the battle. Its superiority in firepower was almost overwhelming, and it fought in support of these artillery units. Every day, nearly a dozen columns were devoted to supplying it with artillery shells. Let's put it this way, every time the Japanese army fired a shot on the battlefield, it would be counterattacked by the Red Army ten times or twenty times, and the devil artillery was once overwhelmed.

In particular, it is worth mentioning the M-1933 130-mm cannon, which was in fact the M-46 cannon, which was later widely equipped with the Warsaw Pact countries. Li Xiaofeng has always felt that Maozi's M-1931 122-mm cannon is not enough in range and power, and the artillery of the group army and the front army should be equipped with more powerful in-depth strike firepower.

Therefore, starting in 1929, NORINCO invested a huge amount of effort to import technology from Germany and Sweden, and it took nearly five years to succeed in copycat the M-46. In terms of the technical performance of the gun itself, the M-1933 is almost exactly the same as the M-46, and because of the introduction of advanced technology from Germany and Sweden, the life of the gun chamber and the shooting accuracy have been improved to a certain extent. Of course, the price to be paid for this is that the cost of this gun is quite staggering, so to speak, one M-1933130 plus three M-1931122 plus.

Beginning in 1933, the M-1933130 was mass-produced, and by the beginning of 1935, about 200 doors had been produced. Almost all of these two hundred guns were equipped with the Red Banner Front in the Far East, and it can be said that the best suppressive artillery of the Red Army was put into battle at the first time.

And the artillery of the Red Army also reacted very well to the M-1933, in addition to the excessive weight (the total combat weight was close to 9 tons), the gun was quite sharp from range to projectile power. A 33.4-kilogram projectile can be fired at a distance of 27 km (this is the effective range, in fact, the maximum range is 29 km). Not to mention that in the thirties and forties, even in the fifties and sixties, this indicator was also quite good. At that time, the Red Army was overwhelmed by the NATO bloc with the combination of D-20 and M-46. To be honest, using the M-46 to fight devils is really a bit of a knife to kill chickens, and it really is bullying.

This can also be seen from the recollections of the devil artillerymen, according to them, as soon as the ground observers of the Red Army or the observation planes in the air discovered that the Imperial artillery began to fire, soon the heavy artillery fired from the depth of the distance would cover the firing positions of the Imperial Army. The intensity of its firepower is simply devastating.

The devils also tried to destroy the enemy's heavy artillery with counter-battery means, and even did not hesitate to use a large number of infantry as bait, but the result left them dumbfounded. Why? The reason is simple. When the infantry in a dense assault was bombarded to slag by the enemy's heavy artillery. According to ballistic calculations. When he discovered that the enemy's heavy artillery position was 20 kilometers away, the devil was really speechless.

This range is really frustrating, so you will know that the 155mm self-propelled howitzers of the M109 series should be familiar to everyone, but how far is the maximum range of this M109 series from A1 to A3 when using ordinary grenades? 18 km only! The launch of a rocket extended-range grenade is only 24 kilometers. It was not until the 39 times caliber body barrel of the NATO unified standard was changed that the firing of long-range whole-bore grenades reached the level of 24.0 kilometers and the firing of bottom-row shells reached the level of 30 kilometers. Later, the M-46 was updated with new bombs, such as using low-concave bombs, bottom-row bombs or rocket extended-range bombs, and the maximum range of bombs could reach 38 kilometers!!

Let's put it this way. NATO artillery before the eighties didn't have much to do with the M-46, let alone the Japanese army at the level of thirty years. For the devils, the artillery fire of the Red Army is simply a humiliation of its red fruit!

Of course, the M-46 is very powerful, but it is not perfect, as mentioned earlier, this is a big guy with a combat weight of close to nine tons, it needs heavy vehicles to tow, and the layout of the position and the entry and exit will take quite a long time, which is really not good for the artillerymen.

And be careful. This is a 52 times caliber cannon, although the extra-long barrel gives this cannon a terrifying range. But at the same time, it must also be noted that the trajectory of the gun is relatively "straight" and cannot perform the tasks of a howitzer. And this is why the USSR used the D-20152 grenade in conjunction with the M-46. Moreover, there is still a gap between the projectile weight of the gun and the howitzer of the 152 mm class, and the lethality is not enough.

After the end of the conflict on the Haraha River, in accordance with the actual combat requirements of the Red Army artillery, NORINCO immediately began a new round of improvements, the focus of which was to reduce the total weight of the battle, for the artillerymen, the weight of 9 tons was too great! Of course, its way is also ready-made, and the Celestial Empire used the M-46 gun body with the D-74 gun carriage to easily reduce the weight by two tons. Although there is no D-74122 added this year, with the ability of a certain immortal, it is not too difficult for a copycat.

However, the focus here is not on the performance of the artillery, because even if the Red Army did not have a "copycat" M-46, the firepower attached to it in history was enough to make the Japanese army unable to eat and walk. The focus here is on the shelling tactics of the Red Army.

When the devils played the night battle more and more unscrupulously, the Red Army naturally could not stare dryly, and was also actively trying to find a way, in addition to planting a large number of anti-infantry mines on the front line. The most important thing is artillery support.

In accordance with Blyukhel's orders, the Red Army's participating units began to divide the defense zones in detail according to the formation, and directly distributed the support fire of the first line to each defense area. That is, once a certain point is attacked by devils, with just a phone call, the supporting artillery will begin to carry out a covering attack with firepower.

That scene, obediently, first flares, and then anti-explosive bombs fell like rain. After the fierce shelling dispersed the attack of the devils, it was not immediately stopped, but howitzers and cannons in the rear began to bombard the starting positions of the devils and carried out punitive fire.

The intention is very clear, as long as you dare to sneak attack, then Lao Tzu will use absolute superiority of firepower to fight back, the more you sneak attack, the more fierce the artillery hit will be. Often, you can see that the devil who has just succeeded in the sneak attack is blown up by the front-line support fire halfway through the retreat, and it is easy to escape back to the starting position, and then the shells of the heavy artillery fall again. Anyway, the little results of the sneak attack were wiped out in minutes, and even the loss was made.

And as the Red Army's artillery bombardment became more and more unscrupulous, and even when the Red Army's air force joined the battle, constantly strafing or throwing butterfly mines and various time bombs at the positions of the devils, the life of the first-line infantry of the devils was really worse than death.

The devil soldiers could not make a fire to cook, they could not make loud noises, and it was dangerous to even show their heads in front of the mortar and machine-gun fire of the Red Army's superiority, and even when they had to be careful and careful when going to the toilet. The morale of the Kwantung Army really plummeted at a speed that could be seen by the naked eye.

Moreover, after a period of adaptation, the Red Army gradually understood the tactics of the devils, and the ability to fight at night rose under the sparring of the devils, and the days of the devils were not as good as the days of the days.

By the time the battle reached mid-July, Minamijiro repeatedly increased his troops to the front. But there is no sign of opening the picture. Even these forces invested can only make up for the gap in casualties on the front line. In the confrontational shooting of positional warfare. The Kwantung Army was really no match for the Red Army. It's basically a passive beating. And because of the difficulty of supply, the devils lived on the front line, which was a miserable one.

In this case, even Minamijiro knows that if he continues to fight, he may only suffer hardship, so let's make peace!

As a result, the diplomats of the two countries once again began a war of words. However, compared to the previous time, the Japanese are much less arrogant. I no longer dare to ask for any re-demarcation of the borders, nor do I dare to advocate the integration of Manchu and Mongolia into the puppet state of Manchukuo. The devil thinks it's good to be able to maintain the state before the war.

The question is, this is the wishful thinking of the devils, why should the Red Army, which has the advantage on the battlefield, maintain the pre-war state with you? It would be polite to you to use the existing military demarcation line to demarcate the border. Anyway, Litvinov didn't give the Japanese face at all, and all the skills such as cynicism, sarcasm, ridicule and ridicule were opened, and the Japanese were buried, and there was no way to meet people.

"In order to cooperate with the negotiations, in late July, we will launch a second offensive operation."

However, to the surprise of the Japanese, Litvinov's harsh words were simply smoke bombs. Or that was merely Trotsky's meaning. And the Military Commission has no intention of stopping at all, so it must collapse the Kwantung Army. Only after teaching it a lesson honestly can it be stopped, anyway, at least let the First Cavalry Army reap decent results, otherwise there is no need to talk about a truce.

While the negotiations were in progress, Blyukhel was arranging a new round of combat plans: "The 1st and 2nd Tan Divisions will be put into the battlefield for the first wave, opening a breakthrough from the center of the enemy's defensive line, and then the 1st Cavalry Army will quickly enter the battlefield and penetrate in depth, and the 1st Parachute Brigade will also be airborne into the battle when necessary to carry out the task of closing the enemy's escape route......

Judging from his campaign plan, he would at least break the 9th and 19th Divisions in the center of the enemy's front head-on, and even have the intention of eating the 7th Division in one go. If the objectives of the campaign are achieved, then the Japanese army will collapse completely, and the recovery of Arshan or even the capture of Hailar will be possible.

However, it is not easy to realize, especially for the 1st and 2nd tank divisions, which were ordered to open a breakthrough in the first wave of battles, and the task is very difficult. In order to complete the tasks of these two divisions, Blyukhel assigned the 10th and 11th independent artillery divisions to them, and even transferred an air force attack aircraft division to support the battle.

The battle began in the early morning of July 18, when the 152nd and 130th Grenades of the Independent Artillery Division opened fire with full force and engaged in a two-and-a-half-hour fire strike, and the 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions, which had not yet dispersed, decisively entered the battle.

BT-2 and T-26 under the cover of waves of attack aircraft directly attacked the position of the Japanese Ninth Division, in the previous artillery preparations, the first line of the Japanese Ninth Division was almost destroyed: the entire trench was bombarded, the field fortifications were lifted off under the combined bombardment of howitzers, as for the infantry of the first line of the Japanese army, under this round of ultra-long artillery fire, there were heavy casualties, almost no place to stand.

Why did the Japanese army have to be so miserable? There are two fundamental reasons: the first is that the Japanese army has always attached importance to offense and despised defense, and has always believed that defense is the patent of the weak, and the mighty imperial army is naturally not a weakling, so it is enough to pay attention to the offense. In addition, at this time, the two sides were engaged in diplomatic negotiations, and the Japanese were optimistic that an armistice would most likely be achieved, so they were careless.

The second reason is that the logistics of the Japanese army are very problematic, in the battle of Nomenkan in 1939, with the help of the Baiban-Afghanistan Railway, the logistics of the devils are very problematic. Now that the Bai-Afghanistan Railway has not yet been built, life is even more difficult for the Japanese army, which has insufficient cars and can only rely on board cars to transport supplies to the front.

Let's put it this way, the devil can ensure that the front-line troops can eat, and the supply of ammunition is already the limit. As for the building materials necessary for the construction of the fortifications, I really can't control it. Therefore, the fortifications of the Japanese army were relatively weak, at least in the face of the superior firepower of the Red Army. And this time the intensity of the Red Army's firepower was unprecedented, and the natural devils were tragic.

The 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions met hardly much resistance during the offensive, and the only thing that caused them trouble was the shelling of the Red Army. The unprecedented intensity of artillery bombardment gnawed the Japanese positions into potholes, and it was very difficult to walk.

Attacking all the way, the 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions penetrated the three lines of defense of the devils, and advanced a total of nearly 20 kilometers at sunset. Such a speed was very remarkable in those days, and according to the dogma of the Red Army, the upper limit of the speed of a one-day assault of the group army was 20 kilometers. It can be said that the 1st and 2nd tank divisions successfully completed their tasks.

Because the 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions were progressing smoothly, the First Cavalry Army, which was put into battle in the future, was also quite cool.

So much so that Minamijiro almost couldn't believe his ears after receiving the battle report and aerial reconnaissance: "This is impossible, how can the main division of the imperial army be defeated in a cluster, and how can Lucia's ghost beast have such an assault speed, it must be a mistake!" ”

"The intelligence is very reliable, and now the defensive lines of the 9th and 19th Divisions have collapsed, and they are not strong enough to re-close the front. Your Excellency, you must have made a decision! ”

Minamijiro's decision was also very fast: "Let the first and second wings of the chariot and part of the Eighth Division organize a counterattack, and we must drive Lucia's ghost beast back!" (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to Comrade hzwangdd and Comrade Juventus!