There were more than 40 casualties, and as soon as the search company touched the entrance of the town, it almost lost its combat effectiveness, and Tao Mingzhang originally did not plan to transfer tanks from the division headquarters, and only used artillery and his own troops to complete the offensive and occupy, but it seemed that it was still not possible.

One company of tanks was put into battle, and the situation was finally stabilized, and now the rest of the company was transferred in to fight. According to the advice of the division, he waited for an hour without moving, placing all kinds of direct fire on the commanding heights before launching another attack. In this effort, the enemy was patient and did not launch a suicidal attack on the tank, only sporadic cold gun and grenadier attacks, and these attacks did not show that the enemy still had command. However, SCP-419 continued to monitor radio activity near the church, with the same content, and reported to the higher authorities that he was ready to crush the jade.

Ready to stop, the troops moved forward again, and the Stuart tanks searched along the streets, the commanders were afraid of bullets and did not dare to show their heads, and the infantry behind them dragged farther away. The tank uses a side-by-side machine gun to point at the houses along the street, ready to shoot at any time, but neither the side-by-side machine gun nor the heading machine gun has a range of fire to deal with the enemy overhead, and in fact the tank has no vision at all in the overhead area, unless the commander sticks his head out to maneuver the top machine gun.

According to Chu Tingchang's assumption, once the tank machine gun fires, the direct fire on the nearby mountains will follow the tracer fire to quickly solve the enemy, but how big is the distance between the reality and the assumption? It is not yet known. The buildings here are not ordinary Indian houses dominated by adobe and timber, but brick and stone British neighborhoods, which are not only sturdy, but also mostly two- or even three-storey, which is probably why the Japanese finally decided to defend it.

In fact, Lieutenant General Mu Tianguchi is also paying attention to this place, he is not ready to rescue here, he hopes to use the defensive battle here to explore an effective way to attack Chu Tingchang's armored forces. His campaign purpose was twofold, one was to slow down the enemy's attack, and Chu Jun's elusive maneuver made his head too big. The second is to wear down the enemy with the help of street fighting, which is the part he needs to focus on.

The Japanese military attachés stationed in Europe had already inspected the experiences of both the offensive and defensive sides of the urban warfare through the Soviet-German battlefield, and these experiences showed that the worst urban warfare that the Japanese army had ever fought in Songhu was still a drop in the bucket compared with the situation there. In the cities of Stalingrad or Kharkiv, which were ploughed by artillery fire, not a single building was intact, and almost the entire city was in ruins, but this did not mean that it was more beneficial to the attacking side, on the contrary, it was easy to hide troops under the ruins, and once properly organized, there was even a chance to swallow up the entire armored force. And in field conditions, it is unthinkable for the side that does not have superiority in firepower.

According to the report, in urban combat, the side with superior mobility and firepower is not necessarily advantageous, but on the contrary, it should be fully understood that the shortcomings of the tank, such as low observation ability and narrow firing range, will be magnified, and the flexibility advantage of the infantry group will be magnified.

These reports were issued by the base camp, and of course they were not taken seriously in those theaters where the Japanese army was still victorious, but Mutaguchi knew that the plan to attack India itself was a bit swollen and fat, and it was essentially a backup plan to make up for the defeat of the Qindujiang River, so he attached great importance to these methods of attacking by defense.

He also knew very well that his fierce rivals Chu Tingchang and Sun Liren had emerged from a bunch of mediocre Chinese generals, and more American equipment was handed over to them, and the war would become more difficult, and the problem of low mobility of the Japanese army would inevitably be highlighted, and the only thing that could be used now was the willpower of the Japanese army.

He deployed an engineer squadron and an infantry squadron here, which were given to the 200th Division to eat, of course, also to see how Chu Tingchang's teeth were doing. As for defensive weapons, he didn't put much effort into it, just prepared a few more * and *. Due to the shortage of gasoline and the lack of many bottles of liquor, his troops did not have time to prepare much*, but Mutaguchi felt that this was harmless, and he ordered the garrison troops to prepare to die with the tanks.

Chu Tingchang had been observing the advance of the troops, and he could see that the infantry behind was a little disjointed, and the cold guns of the Japanese had no psychological constraints on the tankers, but they had a lot of pressure on the infantry. Now this disparity has caused the two sides to become disconnected, which may not seem like the Japanese were intentional, but it has worked.

But how the infantry and tanks should cover and how far to keep them, he didn't know in his mind. Seeing that the tank column seemed to be approaching the church in the center of the town, he thought for a moment that he should let Tao Mingzhang try it according to his own ideas. To be on the safe side, he had another company's tanks outflank the waterworks.

Suddenly, there was a burst of gunfire in the town. Japanese fire fired at the infantry behind the tank from all unexpected directions, cutting off the connection between the tank and the infantry at once. The tank began to turn the turret, but the commanders did not dare to stick their heads out of the tank, so that nothing could be seen from the periscope and the observation gaps.

Several Japanese soldiers rushed out of the rubble and tried to place * on the tank engine, but the cover between the single vehicles remained in a long snake tank company. These attempts were disintegrated by the course machine guns, but the violent explosion caused by the hit* would form smoke and dust that obscured everyone's view. Chu Tingchang couldn't see the situation of the troops below clearly from a distance. The Japanese threw * and * from the second floor of the building, still throwing the rear engine part of the tank, perhaps so written in their anti-tank textbook.

* In addition to creating smoke, the effect was not great, but * immediately worked. I saw that a tank was set on fire and began to burn. The tank attempted to make a turn, only to stop sideways in the middle of the road, and none of the crews escaped alive.

Immediate fire from the hill opened fire on the windows of the second floor, and sure enough, these pre-prepared firepower came faster than the heavier guns, temporarily suppressing the enemy. Protect the tank column from being killed by a roundabout enemy.

Subsequently, a 57-mm six-pounder gun was put into firing. The * fired by these guns shot directly from the window, exploding inside. But the Japanese immediately changed their tactics, taking advantage of the chaos to infiltrate from the ground near the street, but still stuck to a rigid set of tactics - constantly trying to blow up the tank tracks with *. This allowed the weak infantry to move between the tanks, and when they went around the rear of one tank, they had to face the machine guns of the next tank.

Both sides are in a huge chaos, all kinds of recklessness and stupid tricks alternately, of course, as a traverser, Chu Tingchang obviously has more rational understanding, he just still lacks the fire of perceptual understanding, and will run in the correct tactics.

The tank company came to a complete halt in the narrow street, divided by the burning wreckage in the middle, and the front could not retreat, and the rear could not go up.

From a high place, Chu Tingchang saw that the Japanese army began to assemble near the waterworks in the distance, and soon had the size of a small team. Apparently, the enemy still retains some organizational capabilities. Fortunately, he had been prepared to anticipate the possible detour of the enemy's infantry in the open field near the church, and he ordered direct artillery fire to be aimed there, waiting for the enemy to come out. The enemy came out, not with a rifle, but with a strap*. Presumably, to drill the tank chassis for a suicide attack. As they passed, all sorts of fire fired together, instantly detonating the enemy* that was hanging all over them. The chain explosion completely reimbursed this enemy, and Chu Tingchang judged that this should be the enemy's last reserve. Their headquarters is also near the church.

It seems that the enemy has not yet figured out an effective means of defense, has not completed semi-underground fortifications in the town, has not opened passages between buildings, has not prepared too much*, does not have sufficiently effective anti-tank weapons. But even so, it was enough for Chu Tingchang to drink a pot.

He ordered the use of 105 self-propelled guns to bombard the suspicious area where no large Japanese troops were found, and mobilized the Sherman tank company and the machine infantry company to detour back to the south of the town to cut off the enemy's retreat. He vaguely felt that the enemy had the intention to fortress the town, and Tao Mingzhang had already discovered that there were engineer troops in the defenders, which confirmed his suspicion from the side.

The enemy offensive weakened, the destroyed tanks in the middle were pushed away by the tanks behind, and the column advanced again, rushing through the streets in one fell swoop and converging in an open near the church.

The infantry in the back risked their lives to follow under the strict orders of their superiors, and fought house by house between houses, only to find that there were not too many Japanese inside, and if Mutaguchi had left a brigade here, the situation would have been completely different.

"Report to the division, the enemy in the town is compressed into the area of the church and the water plant, there are underground defenses, they use the basement and the cistern to shoot at us, there are many bunkers, we can't find them one by one, our tank guns are not powerful enough, I suggest pushing the direct guns into the city. Blast the bunkers one by one. Tao Mingzhang reported on the radio that he had encountered a new problem.

"How long are you going to fight a broken town, let the troops bring * over and burn them to death in the basement, and you deploy more people on the periphery, be sure not to let one go."

He knew that the battle had to end immediately and let the troops get out of here, and the casualty reports below arrived every ten minutes, each time the numbers were rapidly increasing. In addition to the Sherman tank and the *gun of the 105, he also used the latest * given by the Americans, and this battle can be described as a great one.

Tanks began to fire from 37-mm guns*, blocking the enemy's line of sight within a fortified defense. A * team, which had just returned from training, sneaked up on enemy bunker and fired a stream of flames through the air window.

Flames rampaged through the basement under tremendous pressure, exposing them even through the still-hidden firing ports nearby. The ammunition that the Japanese had piled up underneath was then detonated. The whole church was shrouded in smoke in a great shaking, and although it still stood there, it seemed to be tilted a lot.

"Division, the last group of enemies has taken refuge in the underground storage facility of the water plant." Tao Mingzhang continued to report the situation, "There is a completely concrete reinforced structure, and I am afraid that it will not be able to open without heavy artillery. I suggest that the cannon be pushed into the city and fired directly. ”

Chief Chu hesitated to send sappers to carry out a blast, he was very afraid to send precious heavy firepower to do such a thing.

"Hey, Battalion Commander Tao is still stupid when he goes to college," Zhou Youfu sneered on the side, "If you encounter any problems, you will either ask for instructions on the use of heavy artillery or ask for tanks, without these two things, it seems that there will be no war." He shook his head.

"Don't say weird things, what can you do?" Chu Tingchang knew that Lao Zhou had a ghost idea.

"Since it is a water storage tank of the water plant, it must be connected to the upstream water pipe, let's open the pipe and let them hide underground to be comfortable. How precious are the shells, how can they be messed up? ”

"Yes, it's a solution, you can do it immediately."