The motive of the Cheetah heavy tank roared towards the Japanese position, and there was another burst of artillery fire on the Japanese position, and shells from the 37-caliber guns flew towards Chinese the tank again. The accuracy of the Japanese gunners was really good, and several shells hit the tank body. As soon as several tanks stopped, the Japanese thought that the tanks were damaged and stopped.

Just when the Japanese troops on the position were excited, the 1oo mm caliber tank guns on several tank vehicles were powerful at the same time, and several shells instantly fell on the 37-caliber artillery positions of the Japanese positions. At the same time, the heavy machine guns on the heavy armored vehicles behind the tank body and the 2o mm caliber on-board machine guns also hit the Japanese positions.

By the time the Japanese were in trouble, the shells had exploded on the position, and several large-caliber heavy machine guns had also smashed the exposed Japanese soldiers into minced meat. Several 37-caliber guns flew into the sky along with the artillery. That is, the elite of the Japanese army such as the 18th Division, although it was heavily damaged, the remaining Japanese troops still relied on simple fortifications to block the squadron.

The Cheetah tanks didn't even care about the 75 caliber howitzers, so how could they care about the bullets flying from the position, these Cheetah tanks and several heavy armored vehicles behind them ignored the jingling bullets on their bodies, and continued to drive forward while returning fire with vehicle-mounted guns and machine guns. When there were still about 100 meters from the Japanese position, ten tanks lined up, and a battalion of infantry behind them used the tanks as cover to join the attack on the Japanese position.

The Japanese army was not a fuel-efficient lamp, relying on the advantage of the terrain and not retreating, these Japanese soldiers had good marksmanship, and the grenadiers and mortars were also very accurate. The Japanese had no way to take the chariots, bullets and shells came at the infantry behind the chariots, and the soldiers who followed the chariots would be hit if they were not careful. The battle lasted for more than half an hour, and there were casualties on both sides, and neither could bear the other.

When Wei Bin, the commander of the 460th Brigade, arrived with a large force, the battle had not yet been decided. Wei Bin looked at the situation, the Japanese army was deliberately delaying time, and what he lacked most was time, and the battle could not be fought like this. Wei Bin immediately ordered the field artillery battalion of two regiments to be concentrated to cover the army position with artillery fire, and ordered the 871st Regiment to charge the Japanese army as soon as the shelling stopped.

Two field artillery battalions with 36 75-caliber field guns, plus 36 12O-caliber heavy mortars, and dozens of large and small caliber mortars of the 871st Regiment, this intensity of artillery shelling is indeed covered by artillery fire. I saw that the flames on the Japanese positions were soaring into the sky during the explosions, and from time to time soldiers and weapons flew into the air and then fell, and the smoke and dust of gunpowder enveloped the Japanese positions in their entirety.

Ten minutes later, the artillery fire extended, and the officers and men of the 871st Regiment, who had already been prepared, under the leadership of regiment commander Wei Shaofeng, almost stepped on the landing point of the artillery shells and rushed towards the Japanese position. An infantry brigade of more than 1,000 men on the Japanese position suffered 200 to 300 casualties under the blow of the tank, and then another part was killed and wounded in the fire with a battalion of soldiers. This time the artillery cover gave them a fatal blow.

The Japanese captain and two squadron leaders were all dead in the artillery fire, and the soldiers were almost dead. The 871st Regiment rushed to the Japanese position with only a slight resistance, and after some desperate fighting, the Japanese infantry brigade was almost completely wiped out, and only 30 or 40 soldiers who were behind the position escaped and ran to Misha City to report the news.

The 460th Brigade was delayed for several hours in this battle, and by the time it arrived in front of the Japanese front north of Misha City, it was already three o'clock in the afternoon. Soon after, the 90th and 93rd Divisions arrived and surrounded the city. Tang Yikuan and Li Yuanhong saw that it was getting late, so they did not prepare to attack, but ordered the soldiers to build positions to prevent the Japanese from breaking through overnight.

Early the next morning, Wang Haitao also took General Stilwell and General Du Yuming to Misha City. The three of them went to the top of a hillside with a slight height, raised their binoculars and observed the Japanese troops in the encirclement. General Stilwell was very excited, in his heart the best defense is to attack, to be able to surround the two divisions of the Mu Army here, if he can really destroy these two Japanese divisions in one go, it will completely change the form of the Burma battlefield, and even affect the entire war situation in Southeast Asia. If so, then his name will forever be recorded in the annals of World War II.

After the three of them returned to the temporary headquarters after seeing the enemy's situation, Wang Haitao called the three division commanders and several brigade commanders for a meeting. At the meeting, General Stilwell strongly demanded that the Japanese troops in the encirclement be attacked immediately, and he was eager to eat the more than 20,000 Japanese troops at once. Wang Haitao did not express his position on General Stilwell's request, but asked for the opinions of his subordinates.

The three division commanders were very calm, there were nearly 20,000 Japanese troops in the encirclement, and about 15,000 elite members of the 18th Division, it was not so easy to eat them. After discussing for a long time, Wang Haitao made a decision to use the powerful artillery fire of the 90th Army to compress the Japanese defense line layer by layer and wipe out the Japanese troops on the positions outside the city as much as possible.

At the meeting, Wang Haitao once again stressed the matter of air defense: Once the Japanese army is attacked, it will certainly ask for air support, and air defense must be done well so that the heavy artillery brigade, artillery battalion, and armored brigade will not suffer losses in the Japanese air raids. Wang Haitao put all the anti-aircraft weapons to use, and in addition to ensuring the air defense needs of several important troops, he laid several anti-aircraft fire nets in the direction of Yangon.

The 90th Army's anti-aircraft weapons were really not small, and there were nearly 100 German-made anti-aircraft guns alone, plus 50 37-mm twin anti-aircraft guns brought back from warehouses. Although more than 20 German-made twin self-propelled anti-aircraft guns of the 210th Division were blown up in the previous battle, there were still 140 anti-aircraft guns. In addition, 15 12.7 mm caliber Gao Ping 2-purpose twin heavy machine guns, and hundreds of heavy machine guns with anti-aircraft gun mounts, the anti-aircraft firepower was still sufficient.

After the meeting was adjourned, the three division commanders and the brigade commanders returned to their units, and at the sound of an order, artillery positions were built in several directions. The Type 59-1 13O mm cannon and Type 66 152 mm howitzer of the Heavy Artillery Brigade were only used as strategic reserves because of the difficulty in supplying artillery shells, and they would only be used when necessary. Even so, the three divisions of artillery with a caliber of more than 75 mm combined were several hundred, which was enough to destroy the Japanese field fortifications.

The 210th Division, which had the most intense artillery fire among the three divisions, had not only 30 German-made 1O5 caliber self-propelled howitzers, but also 30 German-made 15O-mm heavy howitzers. The heavy artillery regiments of the other two divisions had only 18 85-mm howitzers and 24 imitation German-style 75-mm field guns, and their firepower was somewhat inferior.

However, Wang Haitao transferred the 122-caliber howitzer regiment of the heavy artillery brigade to the 90th Division, and the German-made 1o5-caliber howitzer regiment to the 93rd Division to strengthen the firepower of the two divisions. The 210th Division had its own armored regiment, and there was no need for Wang Haitao to worry, and the armored brigade under the army was also transferred by Wang Haitao to the 90th Division and the 93rd Division respectively to use it as an assault force.

Everything was ready, at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, Wang Haitao gave an order, all the artillery positions were ready, and countless shells flew to the outside of the Japanese city. In the explosion of the shells, the earth began to tremble, and the fortifications, soldiers, and weapons of the Japanese positions continued to fly into the air. This level of shelling made Shinichi Tanaka Shinichi in the Japanese headquarters in Misha City surprised that the pencil in his hand fell to the ground, and Dubian Pifu was shocked.

The artillery bombardment lasted for half an hour before it gradually stopped, and all three divisions attacked the Japanese positions with heavy tanks as sharp knives and infantry. The Japanese position had just been ravaged by a large number of artillery, and before the surviving soldiers could recover their senses, they saw a huge chariot rushing towards the position. The 18th Division was also the elite of the Japanese army, and in this case there was still a commander who commanded the surviving soldiers to resist.

Tanaka Shinichi in the Japanese command did not expect the 90th Army to have such a strong strength, and when he heard the report of his subordinates, the Shina people used huge chariots to attack the position, and they couldn't help but worry about whether the position outside the city could block the attack of the Shina army. Shinichi Tanaka sent reinforcements to the positions outside the castle and asked Commander Iida for aircraft support.

The number of Japanese troops was there, and the shelling just now caused the Japanese army to suffer a lot of losses, but it was not to the point of breaking the muscles and bones. When the tank assaulted more than a hundred meters in front of the Japanese position, the Japanese reinforcements rushed to the position. Although tanks and heavy armored vehicles were not afraid of small artillery and bullets on the position, the infantry behind them was stopped by the Japanese.

Without the cover of the infantry, the chariot did not dare to easily break through the Japanese position, even the Cheetah heavy tank was weak, and it would be destroyed by the Japanese without protection. At the time of the fierce exchange of fire between the two sides, Japanese reinforcements arrived over the battlefield. As soon as the three division commanders saw that the Japanese planes had arrived, they ordered air defense on the one hand and the tanks to retreat on the other.

This time, the Japanese reinforcements came with a large fleet of dozens of aircraft. What was different from the previous bombing was that during the previous bombings by Japanese planes, the fighters hid in air-raid shelters, and there were only anti-aircraft weapons on their positions, and the Japanese planes had very few bombing targets. And now the fighters are on the offensive, plus artillery positions, tank units, etc., and some of the Japanese planes are bombing targets.

The 90 th Army had a lot of anti-aircraft weapons, but it was impossible to protect all the troops, and after the Japanese planes broke through the anti-aircraft fire network, they began to selectively drop bombs on the targets. An hour passed, more than 20 Japanese planes were shot down, and the rest were dropped and headed back, and the losses of the 90 th Army on the ground were not small; not only several hundred officers and men were killed under the bombs, but also four heavy armored vehicles, six light armored vehicles, 22 antiaircraft guns, and dozens of antiaircraft machine guns were blown up; the artillery regiment positions of the 93 rd Division were also hit by several aerial bombs, 10 howitzers were blown up, and dozens of artillery soldiers were killed.