The Grant tank is a product of confusion in design thinking, simply put, the designer wants to pile all the weapons he can think of on the chassis, so this hedgehog-like monster, with 4 machine guns and 2 guns, a single tank can form a complete fire network; If you have anti-aircraft guns, they are tall, slow, and easy targets to hit, if not...... It's a different story.

The four tanks were pushed into the wall (with the Chu Ting crew in the rear), and they harvested the lives of the combine harvesters like wheat, knocking down the infantry exposed in the wilderness with a dense firepower that the Japanese had rarely encountered so far in the war.

The charging Japanese soldiers were almost powerless to fight back, they only had rifles and bayonets, how to compete with the steel monsters, and most of them were killed and wounded at once. Only about a dozen people were left to flee back into the forest. These deflated tanks in North Africa, southern Burma, and the Philippines are now crisscrossing the battlefield, shooting the howling wounded with machine guns and guns. Chief Chu ordered not to crush the enemy, not out of mercy, but because he was worried that the enemy would detonate* the last fight.

Lin Xiuxuan was reconnoitring at a high place, and the main force of the enemy arrived immediately, bringing some infantry and mortars, in short, there had to be a fierce battle. To his surprise, Chu Tingchang didn't bring all the tanks, maybe he had his own considerations.

Qin Xiaosu had already eavesdropped on the Japanese army's movements in the east, obviously after a period of hesitation and hesitation, the 56th Division still attacked according to the historical context, but the 31st Division was pieced together in advance and appeared here. But it is not yet known how the Allied forces are being mobilized here. It is not difficult for the 56th Division to pass through the secret trail on the Thai-Burmese border, but if the main force of the 74th Army is still in place, it can quickly cross Menghai and Jingdong and enter the Kokang area to intercept the Japanese troops who are bound to be exhausted after a long journey. But now he can't reach it, he doesn't know what's happening 300 kilometers away, and he can't catch it. Of course, everything that should be done has been done, and in the dark, I met Chen Zhiping.

Brooke began to call in U.S. air support to conduct daytime reconnaissance of the Japanese army. The reconnaissance unit of the 10th Air Regiment had already withdrawn to eastern India and began to fly directly from there, taking advantage of the good range of the P38 fighters to conduct reconnaissance over the target. Of course, the Japanese army also marched in the jungle, and it was not easy to find the scale, so the lightning reconnaissance plane deliberately went around a larger area to search the sea surface when it returned, and one of the planes swooped down from the gap in the clouds and saw a sparse Japanese fleet, of which there was only one lone aircraft carrier, which was not large. The pilot bumped into his guts, circled over the Japanese fleet, and made several mock attacks, and did not worry, a large number of Zero fighters intercepted, in fact, he could see that on the cramped flight deck, 3 Zeros took off urgently, and as they slowly climbed, the lightning dodged far away. This was the first attack by the Army Aviation on a Japanese aircraft carrier since the Pacific War. The pilots reported the reconnaissance to their superiors, and the British here heard the message more clearly due to the closer distance to Sittwe, as if there was only a slightly larger cruiser at sea, and a skinny aircraft carrier.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, the Japanese troops who arrived one after another set up their positions and began to attack, although they had some artillery, the firepower was not superior, but the number of troops was very superior. The synthetic battalion could only use firepower to suppress it and wait for backups, and for a while it was a little stretched.

The Kachin Mountain Infantry (members of the future Chindit Force), which was being formed nearby, joined the battle with two companies one after another. These men had not been trained for a long time and were still using old weapons, but they were brave mountain people, and they immediately joined the expeditionary force in the battle for nearby heights, and were able to send several American soldiers with radio stations up the hill to observe and guide Tao Mingzhang's troops to shoot.

For Chu Tingchang, this was a very critical moment, once the Japanese army broke out of the mountain pass, its forces could be deployed, and it was easy to give full play to its numerical superiority, so it had to be blocked.

At noon, the Japanese planes that took off from the Longxiang swarmed and began to drop bombs on his tank and artillery positions. But the weakness of the composite battalion without air defense was exposed.

In the Japanese headquarters in Yangon, Iida Shojiro anxiously waited for the battle situation ahead, he never expected that the enemy would be the first to deploy defenses, and the side that had the initiative in the war could usually use a series of dazzling attacks to defeat the opponent of static defense, such as passive everywhere, and all-encompassing defense did not exist in military theory.

Of course, the advantage is still on the side of the Japanese at the moment, but soon, the expeditionary force will automatically move westward. His aerial reconnaissance had already discovered that the expeditionary force was using the road to move sharply to the west, probably the 200th Division and the 5th Army Artillery Regiment that he feared the most.

The lieutenant general further received a report from the captain of the Tokai Tsuneo wing at the front, complaining about the incompetence of the navy and the repeated failure of the plane bombs. At present, Tokai is in a bad situation, and it is impossible to expand it because it is pinched by the enemy, and it is too late to seize the surrounding high ground, and there are many enemy reconnaissance posts. Those Grant 75mm guns had already suffered a lot of casualties, and the invisible mortar units were also hitting accurately. The bad news is that the last belated brigade of the 31st Division landed on an uninhabited island of Langli Island, south of Sittwe, by small boat, in an attempt to make a feint to distract the enemy, but the operation did not go well; The Japanese army, who had just disembarked last night, made a sudden advance in the swamp in a fearless Japanese way, and as a result, more than 40 people were eaten by crocodiles overnight, and they are still trapped there and have no way forward. Obviously, there is a reason why the British troops are not deployed here.

After thinking about it, Iida said that the key problem was that the support of naval aircraft was unfavorable. It was decided to send a telegram to Ozawa, the commander of the Southern Fleet, hoping that he would see the great significance of the battle for the Imperial Empire, and that he would no longer waste time on conventional attacks, but would use decisive means to help the army win the victory.

When Jizaburo Ozawa received the telegram, he immediately guessed the part that Iida did not say explicitly, and it seemed that he could only use the plane to go to the tama. He asked the pilots about the front line, and the pilots mentioned that several of the enemy's tanks had become the core of the army's firepower, and it was they who used their firepower to block the troops' path. Each of these tanks operated in a small area, with an excellent configuration of firepower around them, and the entire defense of the enemy army was carried out around these tanks. But the Air Force repeatedly dropped bombs, but it was difficult to hit such a small target. The 7.7mm machine gun of the fighter plane could not hurt a single bit. Ozawa asked the captain of the Ryuchamp to gather the pilots who were preparing to attack, and then the captain Xiao took the advantage, hoping that the pilots could voluntarily stand up, and he needed a few warriors to become the decisive weight to break the stalemate. There were 6 pilots on the spot, and they were not willing to complete this mission with no return.

At noon, even Brooke had already carried * into the battle, and the mountain pass wilderness was full of Japanese soldiers who were shot and killed by frantic charges, and under the scorching sun, about 10 million flies were entrenched in the middle of the battlefield on this mountain of corpses for a long time.

These 5 tanks completely became a nightmare blocking the front of the Japanese army, rushing several times, but they could not get close at all. Most of the infantry can only brave a dense net of fire, rush to a distance of 100 to 50 meters, even if they are lucky, and then randomly recognize one* and be swept down, which is simply useless to kill themselves. The low-pressure infantry guns were not able to penetrate the front of these tanks, not to mention the accuracy.

The Chinese army here has gradually adapted to the attack of Japanese planes, which dived down at about 40 degrees to drop bombs, almost like a big hit, and the power is very small. So far, only one tank track and a few load wheels have been blown up, and they have also been repaired.

Taking advantage of the slight retreat of the Japanese army, Tao Mingzhang's anti-aircraft artillery began to fire into the depths. The Japanese soldiers, who were hiding in the forest and did not dare to show their heads, only heard the shells fired from behind the opponent's position and flew past, falling in an extremely shallow arc near the mortar position behind them and exploding. There aren't many enemies in front of you, but there are quite a lot of weapon tricks. In addition to the * guns and cannons on the tanks, there are also mortars and powerful anti-aircraft guns in the invisible places behind the positions, what is the way to go?

There was no other way, so Tokai could only continue to charge with a fully equipped squadron, first using mortars to shoot a barrage, and 140 Japanese soldiers rushed out with shouts.

Osa watched through his binoculars as the troops rushed forward smoothly, and there was no resistance for a while, but he knew that the enemy would not open fire yet, but when the infantry rushed close to the pile of corpses, it was almost time. He ordered the artillery to fire extended, covering the infantry, but the few guns could not make any sense.

Sure enough, when the distance was reached, the Chinese army suddenly opened fire, and the defenders blocked the charge with a net of fire composed of Browning and Czechs, and then those tanks rumbled into the field, and for a time the battlefield was full of fragments and stumps. Since the morning, the captain of the Bird Feeding Wing has lost 4 middle captains and 12 squad leaders.

Chu Tingchang was observing the front, and he found that the Japanese commander actually had no new tricks, just kept hitting his head against the south wall.

The roar of engines sounded in the distance, and those Type 97 fighters of the Japanese Navy came again.

A fighter flew at a low altitude and then turned in the air in a very strange shape, as if it was not a bomb throwing maneuver of a dive at a high angle, but was preparing to land on the grass. When it returned the second time, the Japanese Army's charge failed again, and a squadron was reimbursed for half of its charge. They could only flee and regroup, leaving the wounded on the battlefield wailing and unable to evacuate.

The fighter plane was lowered to the point where the landing gear almost touched the ground, and in front of the eyes of both sides, it crossed the battlefield, giving many people the illusion that it was going to land. Only Chu Tingchang found that something was wrong, and the Japanese came to fight hard. Sure enough, the plane, which was carrying four 25 kg* pieces, crashed directly into the tall side of a Grant, and the huge explosion instantly turned the tank and the plane into fireballs.

"Tao Mingzhang, block enemy planes with machine guns and distract pilots." Chief Chu hurriedly gave an order to Tao Mingzhang. Before, they didn't care much about the aircraft, and the Japanese army did not have a strong attack aircraft like the Il-2, and the anti-tank effectiveness was very low, but they did not expect to come to this hand.

"Brooke, didn't you say that your land aviation was on the way, why haven't you arrived yet?" He shouted.

2 planes came out of the clouds again, not Allied planes, still Japanese Type 96 fighters. Their goal is clear, which is to hit the tank.

Commander Chu ordered all commanders to drill out of the turret and defend themselves with machine guns, and his car could also become a target, so he himself drilled out and used machine guns to strafe those enemy planes circling overhead, looking for opportunities. This kung fu Natokai Daisa began to organize his troops and prepare for the next charge.