On one side of the hillside, a few black dots appeared in the shadows. Tsushima looked through a telescope and found that the Sherman tanks that were the most feared were already in a fairly advantageous position, but they were still far away.

Zhao Xiaoli's company hurried and hurried, blocking the side at the cost of losing a platoon. Tsushima gave the order to launch * immediately, blocking the enemy's line of sight. However, he himself stayed in the command car, and the order could not be given immediately.

Not every Japanese tank had a radio, not all of which worked. He gave orders in several squadron channels, and only one squadron leader's tank received the order, and the squadron's tanks began to turn to shooting, but the squadron leader misunderstood the commander's meaning, he thought that his superiors wanted to fight Sherman, and as for firing* it was only to temporarily block the enemy's view and use flexibility to close the distance.

When the 3rd Brigade was in the northeast, its perennial training task was to hone how to deal with the Soviet Army's Special 26 tank, and a year ago, a new opponent, the Special 34 tank, was added as an illusion target. As a result, the tactical points were somewhat changed, emphasizing strong maneuverability and superb marksmanship against this twice as heavy tank.

The Japanese did not really grasp the situation of the T-34, but only emotionally guessed that the 30-ton tank must be clumsy, which was also their basic theory against Sherman. So when a commander hears the launch*, his first thought is not to cover everyone's retreat, but to rush over under the cover of smoke and finish off the opponent within 1.2 km (the commander, still remembering the wrong distance).

A squadron of tanks fired * while scattering in an attempt to outflank the opponent from both flanks, it was a 2-on-9 battle, and it seemed that the outcome was still difficult to say.

Tsushima saw that the command was ridiculous, and it was difficult to stop it, because if the order was changed or added through the bad radio station, it would only make the situation even more chaotic. Now these tanks can only be used to hold back the opponent and cover the retreat of the rest of the troops.

The * fired from the 47 mm caliber gun did not play much role, and the Japanese tanks did not distribute many such special ammunition. The Japanese had a strange idea that this kind of ammunition was too much and could easily breed the tankmen to escape.

The Sherman tank still maintained its speed, passing through the fog barrier filmed by the enemy, and Zhao Xiaoli's tankmen were all veterans. Knowing that this distance is not very powerful for enemy shots. The U.S. military has done firing experiments with Japanese anti-aircraft guns, and the threat distance is within 800 meters, and there is a high probability that it will penetrate about 500 meters. The enemy fired the smoke too early, and before the smoke was formed, the company commander saw the enemy's outflanking movements, so he knew exactly what tricks the enemy was going to play. The company commander gave the order to the tank on the right, with the main gun aimed at 2 o'clock and on the left at 10 o'clock. The 97 may be slightly faster, but they are now uphill and will not be so easily outflanked by 3 o'clock to attack the weaker side armor.

The smoke cleared quickly. From a distance, the Japanese tank was at the predicted distance, and the company commander ordered to stop and fire at the target. Sherman's gunner does not need to think about what angle to shoot at the target, this gun is enough to destroy any Japanese armor, whether it is frontal to the side, or with various angles of inclination, the difficulty is that this gun is not a professional anti-tank gun, the muzzle velocity is insufficient, and it is quite difficult to calculate the amount of advance calculation, of course, in these years, whether it is ranging or angle measurement, wind measurement, there is no technical support, and it is necessary to rely on the gunner's experience.

The gunner estimated the target at a distance of 1.5 kilometers by aiming at the reticle, and needed to calculate the position of the opponent after about 2 seconds, which was estimated to be the length of two hulls.

The first round of shooting, did not hit. The enemy was very amuseful and did not launch a counterattack. They held the 1.2-kilometer threshold tightly and did not fight back in advance. Of course, it was no longer fired *, and the Japanese felt that the time was almost up, and soon they could cross the opponent at 3 o'clock and shoot at the side with the largest projection area and at the same time the thinnest armor.

Sherman's counterattacks were fought at very short intervals, thanks to the hard training and improved nutrition of the soldiers. When these soldiers were in the country, their daily rations were less than nine or two meters, and of course they could not support fast and long-lasting reloading, but in Chu Tingchang's troops, the daily caloric intake exceeded 7,500 kcal, which allowed the loaders to maintain extremely high efficiency all the time.

The Japanese commander spotted the shells of the Chinese army and got closer and closer to himself. They all passed by the side, and they did not go overhead, which was a terrible sign and meant that the enemy's ranging level was very high. It is inevitable that there will be deviations in the calculation of the front or crosswind, but the performance of the gunner's professionalism and basic skills is mainly reflected in the distance measurement.

The Japanese on both flanks still stubbornly turned around and aimed at the enemy with the tank's most powerful frontal armor, a steel plate slightly thicker than the palm of the hand. Soon they will cross the 1.2-kilometer threshold, and the two sides will enter a fair distance of mutual assurance of destruction (at least that's what the Japanese think).

Sherman's first shot from car No. 2 in the third platoon opened the record. At a distance of 1.2 to 1.3 km, he hit the front of the Japanese tank. In order to ensure that the hull with a large area of impact was hit, the gunner lowered a dense position. The cannonball hits the head of the opponent's car. The shell cut into the armor, amputated the driver's legs, and then went through the entire hull, destroying the transmission and engine, and stopped in the engine block.

The 12-cylinder air-cooled diesel engine, which weighs up to 1.2 tons, is obviously the best part of the ballistic performance of the tank, and the thickness of the fins on both sides far exceeds the frontal armor. The diesel engine is not easy to catch fire, so that the tank can survive for a while, but also let the driver with a broken leg continue to suffer in pain.

The second shell again pierced the frontal armor, this time detonating the ammunition.

The Japanese tanks began to counterattack, and they fired in advance by short stops/fire/on-march.

Among the tactics that several instructors of the Xi Zhiye Chariot School, far from actual combat, have figured out on their own, shooting with short stops is the best way to deal with bulky opponents.

This tactic was developed on the basis of several advantages of the Japanese tank - first, its low weight, which led to good maneuverability and difficulty in being hit by the opponent. The second artillery had a small caliber, which led to a high rate of fire, which could provide a high hit rate and density of fire. Thirdly, the engine is inefficient, but it is not easy to catch fire, and after being hit by the enemy, it can still maintain the ability to counterattack, and once the enemy is penetrated, it is easy to catch fire.

Being able to calculate the shortcomings as advantages is the theoretical basis of the whole tactic, of course, the most outrageous of them is the estimated breakdown distance, in order to boost morale, Shangfeng deliberately increased the already exaggerated figure by another 200 meters. In short, the spiritual strength of the Japanese army can make up for the lack of pale on paper.

The Japanese army's short-stop shooting actually achieved good accuracy, and the drills they conducted around various "advantages" were indeed hard work. The Japanese gunners measured the range of the targets in the marching squadron and roughly determined the firing boundaries in the direction of the artillery. When making an emergency stop, quickly shake up and down.

Excellent archery skills ensure that it can complete aiming and shooting in one go within 5 to 6 seconds. The shells whizzed and hit Sherman. The shells of the charge exploded instantly, which for a moment interfered with the observation of both sides. When the smoke cleared, the Japanese gunners found that the opponent showed no signs of damage, but someone had drilled out of the enemy turret. The commander ordered not to start, and was ready to make up for it. He thought that the target had been penetrated by a blow just now, so the enemy wanted to run, but he didn't know that the target commander's observation scope was damaged, and he wanted to climb out and instruct the gunner.

The halt of the Japanese army was devastating. The gun commander watched the opposing artillery fire, and a shell came straight at him. The shell hit the strongest part of the shield on the front of the Japanese tank (25 mm thick), and it also carried a considerable slope. However, it still easily pierces armor, trunnions, gun chambers, and the commander's chest.

The tankmen on the Type 100 tank did not know that they had entered a death distance, at which they could only penetrate the rear armor of the Sherman, but the opponent could penetrate any unit of this 15-ton tank, and double the weight was not fake. With such a huge gap, it is obviously redundant to consider that after the opponent is penetrated, it is easier to catch fire.

The remaining Japanese tanks frantically charged, trying to rush into a distance of 1 km, and the distance was imminent, of course, which led to a rapid increase in the hit rate of both sides, but the Japanese gunners found that the ammunition they fired was still ineffective.

The massacre unfolded simultaneously on both flanks of the outflanked Japanese army. The Chinese tank aimed at a coaxial machine gun with a trajectory close to the shell within a kilometer, which saved time and improved accuracy, and the gunner could see that the fired ammunition was like a drifting point of light, mixed with a dense cluster of machine gun tracer bullets and flew towards the target, and the shell fell faster than the bullet at the end, but still hit the target.

The last wave of Japanese tanks had reached a distance of 600 meters, but still did not penetrate any targets. As the number of Japanese tanks that continued to move decreased on the battlefield, more firepower was concentrated on the few remaining tanks. The squadron leader of the Japanese army, who was still fighting, no longer had the luxury of achieving the goal of completely annihilating the enemy, he only thought about destroying an opponent in the last seconds of his life.

The last Japanese tank on the battlefield came to an abrupt stop, and a few seconds later, the squadron leader opened fire with the same target as the target, also hitting the opponent almost simultaneously. When the Japanese tank exploded, the commander did not see the opponent and still did not penetrate it. The 47-mm gun fired *, but it left a very shallow pit in the frontal armor.

There were more than a dozen Japanese tanks stacked around the Chinese tank unit, and their own losses were zero, but there was no time to celebrate, because the Japanese column below the mountain was slipping away. Tsushima was a man who understood, and he knew that this squadron would inevitably be lost if it was thrown out. So he ordered the rest of the vehicles not to return fire and to flee as fast as possible. Speed is the biggest factor in destroying an enemy's hit rate.

The Sherman tanks lined up and rushed down the hill. At this moment, this tank, with a mediocre design, mediocre armored firepower, and a high center of gravity, which is easy to roll over, became the master of the battlefield. The enemy's psychic power did not bless their flawed weapons with penetrating power, and now they fled in disarray. Until Makino and Kasuga Maru provide them with a new approach, the Japanese army will continue to lack the ability to confront Sherman.