Chapter 690: The Battle of Hengyang [3]
The 39th Division and the 68th Division were preparing to attack the Chinese army this time, and they did not have to hold on to it, nor did they bother to build fortifications. At this time, he was forced to switch to defense because of the failure of the attack, which caught Lieutenant General Tsukita Laishiro, the division commander, off guard.
Lieutenant General Sumita Laishiro thought for a moment and said to Kikuo Asami: "The battle plan of the headquarters cannot fail because of the retreat of our division, and it is difficult for you and me to shoulder this responsibility. Besides, it's not time to retreat yet, let's see if Gu Wu'anzheng can block the attack of the Zhina. You send the scouts out right away, and I'm going to know the battle ahead as soon as possible. ”
Asami Kihisao Dazuo turned around in response, and to the surprise of the two, the two infantry wings led by Gu Bujian Osaku were completely defeated after only holding out for three hours. Without the threat of artillery fire, dozens of tanks rushed into the ranks of the Japanese army, and the tanks unstoppably ignored the bombardment of those machine-gun fire points and small cannons, and just broke through a gap.
As the chariots drove deep into the Japanese ranks, the infantry behind them were busy widening the gap and slashing out with the Japanese in front of them. There were no fortifications or bunkers to fight for, not even trenches, and on this flat land, the two sides were fighting to the death, without any mercy at all, and some were just bloody battles to the death.
The total strength of the two infantry wings of the Japanese army was about 8,000 people, and after removing the previous battle losses, it exceeded 7,000 people. The 463rd Brigade had only two regiments of 5,000 men, and there were still more than 4,000 people left after deducting the battle losses, and the Japanese army had an absolute advantage in terms of strength. In the face of nearly twice the size of the Japanese army, the two regiments of the 463rd Brigade were fearless, giving full play to their superiority in firepower, coupled with the skillful tactical cooperation between the combat groups, and they were inseparable from the Japanese army.
The two sides unconsciously fought for nearly an hour, and the 463rd Brigade was slightly defeated, after all, there were too many Japanese troops, and after killing a batch of them, they rushed up again. Wei Erxi was in his eyes, anxious in his heart, at this time, even the guard battalion around him was dispatched, and he really had no soldiers to send in his hands. Suddenly, there was dust behind him, and a scout came quickly to report that the 882nd Regiment and the 879th Regiment had come up.
Wei Erxi was overjoyed immediately, and immediately contacted Su Guoping, the commander of the 882nd Regiment who led the team, and ordered him to immediately lead the two regiments into battle. Soon the two regiments pulled away and pounced on the battlefield in which they were in a group. The situation that was originally equal was changed by the fact that these two regiments entered the battlefield. Standing on the top of a mound and watching the battlefield with full attention, the Japanese army began to occupy a little advantage, which also made him feel reassured.
Gu Wu Yasumasa had already fantasized that he could defeat the Chinese army in front of him, and then led his warriors to pursue the remnants of the fleeing army with all his might, and then crush the main force of the Chinese army, and establish a great feat. Just when he was still in his fantasy, a captain next to him woke him up, and Gu Wu'an Zheng Dazuo looked in the direction of the staff officer's finger with an unhappy expression, and his face suddenly changed greatly.
He saw in the distance another large number of Chinese troops into the battlefield, and after they entered the battlefield, the morale of the Chinese army was greatly boosted, and his troops were defeated and retreated. Guwu Yasuma Shodazuo gritted his teeth and pulled out his command knife, and ordered the officers around him to go up to stabilize the troops and block the attack of the Chinese army. However, in the face of strength, these officers are destined to do useless work.
Half an hour passed, and the Japanese army in front could no longer withstand the offensive of the Chinese army, and there was a tendency to rout. Seeing that the Chinese army was getting closer and closer to the mound where he was, Guwu Yasusho Dazuo also became nervous. Several officers around him were already trying to persuade him to evacuate first. Just when Guwu Yasumasa was still insisting on holding on here, the Japanese army in front finally couldn't stand it anymore and began to retreat backwards.
The officers beside Guwu Anzheng Dazuo no longer paid attention to his insistence, and retreated back after holding him. Soon the entire Japanese army began to retreat, and soon the retreat turned into a rout. However, he didn't escape far, but he was met with bullets flying like a storm, and the Japanese troops who fled first fell one by one on the spot. It turned out that it was a tank unit that penetrated the Japanese army, lined up behind the Japanese army, and cut off the retreat of the Japanese army.
The defeated Japanese army already had no formation, and now it was hit head-on by the ferocious fire of dozens of chariots, and it was even more defeated. Gu Wu An Zheng Dazuo didn't look good, and wanted to organize the troops around him to attack the chariot, but as soon as he organized a few hundred soldiers, the artillery on the chariot was hit by a burst of artillery fire.
Two shells also fell beside Gu Wu An Zheng Dazuo, and the scene was filled with gunpowder smoke in the sound of the explosion, and when the gunpowder smoke dissipated, Gu Wu An Zheng Dazuo was gone. Without the command of Guwu Yasumasadasa, the Japanese army was even more chaotic, like a swarm of headless flies scurrying around the battlefield. The frontal attack of a few dozen tanks must have been limited, and although most of the Japanese retreat was blocked, some Japanese troops escaped from both flanks.
After the Japanese army began to rout, the officers and men of the 463rd Brigade launched a pursuit of the Japanese army, and the main force of the pursuit was the two regiments led by Su Guoping who went to the battlefield after killing, while the 880th Regiment and the 881st Regiment fought fiercely with the Japanese army for more than an hour, not to mention the casualties of the officers and men, and their physical strength also reached the limit. As soon as the Japanese army was defeated, the officers and soldiers suddenly slackened their strength and lost their physical strength to pursue.
Under the front and rear attack of the chariots and the soldiers of the two regiments, only more than 1,000 Japanese troops of the two infantry wings escaped, and the rest of the Japanese troops, including the commander Kotake Yasumasa Daisa, were wiped out on the battlefield. After Su Guoping and the chariot troops joined forces, he handed over the battlefield to Wei Lixuan's two regiments to clean up, reorganized with the chariots, and continued to attack Yunpan Mountain.
When Su Guoping approached Yunpan Mountain with his troops, he found that the 39th Division of the Japanese Army under Yunpan Mountain had been evacuated, and there were only traces of stationing at the foot of the mountain, indicating that the Japanese army had existed. Su Guoping immediately reported the situation to Wei Erxi, and Wei Erxi reported it upwards until it was reported to Wang Haitao. Soon, the order to withdraw troops reached Su Guoping layer by layer.
At the same time that the 39th Division was attacked, the 68th Division of the Japanese Army was also attacked by the 210th Division. The strength of the 68th Division was not as good as that of the 39th Division, and when it encountered the attack of the 210th Division, a mechanized division, the rout was faster and more complete. The 68th Division was followed by four independent infantry brigades, one independent mortar brigade, and one independent machine gun brigade led by Major General Ada, commander of the 58th Infantry Brigade, with nearly 7,000 troops, which was also the main force of the 68th Division.
But this time they encountered the 210th Division, and the first thing they bore the brunt of was the attack of nearly 100 combat vehicles of various types of two armored regiments. Although the armored regiment to which the 210th Division belonged did not have heavy tanks, there were 10 light tanks, and 35 light and heavy armored vehicles were not easily dealt with by the Japanese infantry. This, coupled with a mixed armored regiment assigned to them, made it even more difficult for the Japanese to contend with.
After discovering that the Chinese army was rushing ahead with nearly 100 chariots of various types, Major General Ota Sadamasa's eyes widened in surprise. It was hard for him to believe that there was such a large tank force in the Chinese army. But the facts are right in front of you, and you have to accept it even if it's hard to believe. Major General Ota Sadamasa first ordered the mortar brigade to open fire, and then telegraphed the division commander to support it with artillery fire from the artillery wing.
The 68th Division had only one mountain artillery wing, with 48 old-fashioned mountain artillery, which was very mobile, but its power was much worse than that of field artillery.
Although the 210th Division did not have a self-propelled howitzer and artillery regiment like the 211th Division, its divisional artillery regiment had German-made 105-caliber howitzers, 24 artillery guns, and 32 75-caliber field guns, and the intensity of such artillery fire far exceeded that of the 68th Division, and there was also a 152 heavy howitzer and artillery regiment of the Heavy Artillery Brigade behind them.
As soon as the Japanese mountain artillery wing opened fire, Tang Hongming immediately ordered the artillery to counterattack, and the two artillery regiments opened fire one after another, not only suppressing the Japanese artillery wing, but also destroying all the dozens of mountain guns of the Japanese artillery wing with covering artillery fire in a short time. The two armored regiments were already attacking forward under Japanese artillery fire, and after losing more than a dozen armored vehicles, they finally approached the Japanese position.
However, the infantry behind them was at a distance from the chariot due to the interception of artillery fire. Just as the tanks were breaking through the Japanese positions, the two heavy artillery regiments also worked together to destroy the Japanese mountain artillery and turned their fire to the infantry. Major General Ota Sadamasa saw that his infantry had no artillery support, but had to face the artillery attack of the Chinese army, and dozens of chariots broke into the position in front, and a large number of Chinese troops were following up behind the battlecar, knowing that it would be difficult to block the attack of the Chinese army with the troops in his hands, he immediately ordered two infantry brigades to be left to block the attack of the Chinese army, and the remaining troops immediately retreated.
The infantry of the 210th Division also rushed to the Japanese position, and was met with the desperate resistance of two infantry brigades, and when they and the combat vehicles completely annihilated the two infantry brigades, they found that the remaining Japanese troops had retreated for half a day. Liu Mingde, commander of the 461st Brigade, was ordered to lead the whole brigade to pursue it together with the division's armored regiment. It didn't take long for him to catch up and encounter an attack from an infantry brigade of the Japanese army.
The 461st Brigade simply annihilated this infantry brigade on the spot, but it was difficult to catch up with the Japanese army if it wanted to pursue the Japanese army. After reporting the situation to his superiors, Liu Mingde also received an order to collect his troops. When the 210th Division returned to the headquarters, the battle of the 211th Division was not over. When the 211th Division also returned to the headquarters after the battle, the Japanese army's plan to attack on three sides was completely bankrupt.