Chapter 245: All-out attack on Panama
If Latin America is the backyard of the United States, then Panama is the gate of the backyard of the United States.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, when the United States stole Panama and dug the Panama Canal, the United States has stationed heavy troops in Panama.
After the outbreak of World War II, in order to strengthen the security of the back door, the United States strengthened its military presence in Panama, and the troops stationed in the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Sea were added to form the Caribbean Command.
Caribbean Command has eight important military bases in Panama with a total garrison of 30,000 troops, and is responsible for military operations in the Western Hemisphere on the U.S. mainland.
Of these eight military bases, close to the main ones in the Pacific Ocean, there are Fort Clayton Army Base, Fort Amador Army Base, Rodman Naval Base, Howard Air Force Base, and Alblake Air Force Base.
The US military base in the Panama River area, which has not yet installed radar in time, has no idea that a huge fleet of aircraft will appear in the night sky.
The group of bombers that took off directly from the Isabela Islands arrived in the Panama River area on time, and everyone was sleeping soundly in the US air bases.
Panama is very quiet at night, and if there is no fighting, it will be a quiet and peaceful night.
In the air, less than a kilometer above the ground, the roar of bombers broke the silence on the ground.
The American soldier in his sleep quickly got up because the sirens had sounded.
The only two airbases on the hilltops on either side could be seen with two radar stations under construction, but it was too late, and a huge roar came, and huge aerial bombs fell.
Breaking the silence of the night, dense explosions exploded in two air bases, and many planes parked at the airfields and hangars were detonated.
Fragmentation bombs, ruthlessly killing and injuring ground personnel, dense shrapnel flew indiscriminately under the explosion, and many US soldiers who had not had time to put on their clothes were annihilated in the explosion.
The flames that rose to the sky lit up the entire camp, and there was a mess everywhere.
A large number of bombers were dispatched to carry out intensive bombing of the two air bases, and the duration of the bombing lasted more than half an hour, and when the last bomb fell, the two US air bases were all covered in a sea of fire.
At the same time, at the beginning of the bombing, the soldiers of the two paratrooper battalions also quickly parachuted nearby.
This was also something that the Americans did not expect, and the paratroopers who landed in the nearby jungle completed the assembly within half an hour, surrounded the two air bases, and the defeated American soldiers who had just escaped from the two air bases were disarmed one after another.
The few who resisted were quickly killed, and most of them raised their hands helplessly, because they had no weapons and equipment in their hands to resist, and some of them ran out of the air camp without even putting on their clothes.
The two air bases, together with almost six thousand people, did not even have time for an anti-aircraft artillery counterattack, and they had already fallen.
Intensive carpet bombing, which covered the entire air base in an instant, was a new mode of warfare that the Americans had never seen before.
When the fire completely engulfed the two air bases, the total number of American soldiers who escaped was less than 1,000.
On the other side, at the Rodman Naval Base on the edge of Panama City, two cruisers and several destroyers of the U.S. Navy, as well as some patrolling gunboats, were almost completely wiped out.
An amphibious strike group fleet led by a dreadnought second class battleship surrounded the Rodman Naval Base, and the U.S. warships patrolling the periphery were all killed by submarines.
After the bombers blew the horn of attack, the fleet, which quietly surrounded it, also shelled the Rodman naval base.
Dense artillery shells fell on the US military base.
This naval base is the first US naval base in Latin America, and because Hawaii was captured, all the recruits of the Marine Corps were sent to this naval base to receive military training.
In fact, there are thousands of Navy recruits who arrive in Panama by train from the continental United States today.
In addition to the original two battalions of marines in this naval base, there are also more than 3,000 recruits, plus a large number of naval personnel, and the personnel in this naval base alone are already more than 10,000.
The United States is using all the forces at its disposal to train more troops.
There are also people in the United States who realize that Panama may become the target of attack, but the Pentagon's main focus is now on the Pacific and Europe, and it is unable to send a major force to Panama.
Therefore, a large number of recruits were sent to Panama for training by the local garrison, and after forming combat effectiveness, the military strength of the Panamanian region was naturally strengthened.
Although the Panama region is not the most important, the United States does not really relax on the other side.
According to the Pentagon's plan, a total of 70,000 recruits will be sent to Panama, and the United States will prepare 100,000 troops in Panama.
The radar station that is being built and the air base that is already being prepared to be expanded are the best proof of this.
However, the Red Guard Corps moved too fast, and the Americans, despite their rapid preparation, were a step slower.
Especially the recruits in the various military bases, some of the recruits have just put on their military uniforms and have not even touched their guns.
However, the enemy will not show mercy to this, the war is cruel in nature, and no enemy will stop attacking because you are not prepared.
The heavy artillery fire of the amphibious strike group, although the coverage is not as strong as that of the bombers, but it is endless.
The dense artillery almost immediately destroyed the US warships docked in the harbor of the naval base, and the large-caliber shells flew towards the soldiers' barracks in the naval base.
The piercing sirens sounded, and the American soldiers who were in a hurry and panicked became a mess, not to mention new recruits, even veterans were at a loss.
The American soldiers of this period had no combat experience at all, and they did not need to do anything in such a situation, so they could only instinctively pick up their weapons, run out of the barracks, and then listen to the screams and cries, and could not find the enemy.
The recruits' barracks, a 406 mm shell fell, an astonishing explosion on the flat ground, the three surrounding wooden barracks were instantly destroyed by the shock wave of the explosion, debris flew wildly, part of the panicked crowd was directly annihilated by the explosion, and the people on the side flew out more than ten meters away like leaves.
The unsuspecting US soldiers, the human body, could not stop the power of this huge explosion, the power of the shock wave and the oscillation, easily made the internal organs bleed, and the US soldiers who fell to the ground, only the people outside the explosion could barely be rescued, and the people who got closer were already dead after the end.
More and more shells covered the camp of the American army, the dust and smoke from the explosion, the fire that rose to the sky everywhere, the red light mixed with the smoke of gunpowder, and everywhere was a scene of apocalypse.
Many of the recruits who were still alive were stunned when they looked at the corpses all over the ground, and the Air Force spread in their hearts, and many people broke down and screamed.
And the shelling fire, which had not stopped, and the Americans, who were completely defenseless and unprepared, collapsed.
When the four start-up landing craft of the amphibious strike group arrived at the beachhead and landed, they met no resistance.
Eight tanks rushed directly into the US naval base, and behind the tanks, the helicopters hovered, and one after another the Marines descended from the helicopter cable.
Every Marine in the Red Guard Corps, heavily armed and armed with assault rifles, followed the tanks into the camp.
Inside the U.S. naval base, where there was little resistance, gunfire was sparse and soon fell silent.
In the entire naval base, there were only screaming Americans, which made the Red Alert soldiers quite speechless.
Originally, I thought that after the forced landing, there would be a bloody battle, but the result was a complete overestimation of the quality of the American soldiers at this moment.
In fact, if there weren't too many recruits, the U.S. soldiers in the original naval base did have the ability to resist, but the defeat was like a mountain, and with no one to command, the result was already doomed.
The few who resisted were all veterans of the U.S. military, but with their abilities, they couldn't resist at all.
In just two hours, the battle was completely over, thousands of American soldiers were taken prisoner, and Rodman Naval Base fell.
The 3rd Marine Division, with a quick landing, captured the Pacific Ocean entrance and exit of the Panama Canal.
The Panamanian army, which rushed away after hearing the news, did not even fire a single shot, and withdrew directly.
The shrewd Panamanians, who do not have any good feelings for the United States, just put on a show and tell the American government that we did not watch the show and sent troops to support the American army, but the enemy is too strong, and before we arrived, the military base of the American army has been completely captured, and we have no choice.
Seeing the actions of the Panamanian army, the Red Guard Corps did not attack the Panamanian army, but began to strengthen the landing grounds, because there would be more troops to land in Panama in the future.
While the horn of attack was sounded, two US army bases in Panama were also attacked on an unprecedented scale at the same time.
The two army bases are the main military forces of the US military in Panama, and each military base is home to tens of thousands of US soldiers, and with the recent addition of a large number of new recruits, the total number of US soldiers in the two army bases has exceeded 40,000.
The surprise attack of the Red Guard Regiment was something that the Americans never expected, and the intensity and intensity of the attack were also unprecedented.
Dense bombers also arrived over the two army bases as they bombed the air base and the naval base.
Dense aerial bombs rained down like raindrops, washing over the entire naval base, and multiple aircraft flew over the US military base in formation, and the aerial bombs in the bomb compartments fell in dense numbers.
The bombers in the bomber could clearly see the flames on the ground, quickly covering the entire US Army base.
And the flight of bombers in rows did not stop the work of dropping aerial bombs, even if the fire was already raging below.
In order to bomb accurately, the bombers lowered their altitude to only about a kilometer above the ground, and the dense aerial bombs were all small bombs weighing 25 kilograms.
At the distance between Isabela and Panama, all bombers can carry a full load of ammunition, and a bomber can carry a full fifteen tons of bombs, easily allowing the target to be completely covered by a sea of fire.
Such a rich level of attack was a luxury that no country could have in the early and middle stages of World War II.
The entire U.S. Army military base was completely covered by a sea of fire, and the buildings that originally belonged to the military base could no longer be seen.
In the sky, along with the bombers appeared a series of giant spirit transport planes, not far from the US Army base on a flat river beach, more than 20 kilometers long, one after another giant spirit god transport planes, flying at an altitude of less than five meters close to the ground, the tail hatch opened, the hatch directly attached to the ground. Wipe.
In the cabin, a multi-purpose infantry battlefield taxied directly out of the airport, followed by the second multi-purpose infantry fighting vehicle, and after unloading the two infantry fighting vehicles, the transport plane quickly pulled up and left.
Flying close to the ground and unloading the paratrooper heavy tank on board is a super dangerous skill that requires the pilot's superb driving skills, as well as his familiarity with the terrain, and great courage, otherwise the plane will be destroyed and killed.
And dozens of transport planes, all of which made the same flight close to the ground, and hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles appeared on the battlefield, still at night time, which is simply the behavior of madmen.
The infantry fighting vehicle had just fallen, and the power system of the combat vehicle, the combat vehicle, was full of heavily armed paratroopers, and they quickly rushed towards the target direction.
In the sky, dense umbrella flowers fell, and one by one the heavily armed paratroopers quickly landed on the ground, and according to the signal guidance, they converged with the infantry fighting vehicles.
A large number of paratroopers began to surround the US Army base, and the flames and movements of the explosion could be heard from kilometers away in time.
Inside the army base, there were quite a few US Army soldiers, all of whom rushed out of the camp covered by fire and explosions.
When the paratroopers appeared, the battle inevitably broke out.
Several U.S. M2 tanks that rushed out of the flames quickly joined the battlefield, and the U.S. soldiers who escaped from the base set up a defensive line in the recruit training camp built outside the base.
Dense firepower was in the exchange, accompanied by the paratroopers attacking with multi-purpose infantry fighting vehicles, quickly approaching the American defense line.
The US defense line in the reflection of the firelight can be clearly seen that the US Army, which has been fighting in a broken boat, has also burst out with a stubborn will to fight, and the US non-commissioned officers at the grassroots level have constantly boosted morale, cheered up the soldiers, and raised their rifles to prepare for a counterattack.
An American M2 tank, which had just arrived at the front of the defensive line, had not stopped, and a shell flew in the darkness, which blew up the tank in an instant.
The assault gun of a multifunctional infantry fighting vehicle, which was used against the tanks of this era, was more than enough.
However, just as the Red Guard paratroopers were about to attack, a 406-mm partner flew in the distance, blowing up more than a dozen paratroopers.