"Okay, everyone, Mao Mian's little devil Burmese British Front has reinforced two integrated divisions and one heavy artillery brigade this time, and an independent mixed brigade. Next, our expeditionary force cluster will face the attack of 4 divisions and 3 brigades of the little devils, what do you think about the next big battle?" Dagon Front Command, General Gao Jianwu and now all the senior generals of the expeditionary force cluster have been gathered.

Ding Wei, Chu Yunfei, Kong Jie, Xu Shida, Zhang Dabiao, Lu Xingguo, Sun Desheng, Lu Fan and Liu Shiqiang.

The commanders of the five attack groups and one left-behind attack group, as well as the commanders of the three powerful arms of the Air Force, artillery, and tanks, all attended.

This was the most neat gathering of the commanders of the expeditionary force since the start of the war in the British territories of Burma.

Looking at the two rows of fierce generals, when they heard that in the face of the little devil, the troops of more than five divisions not only did not show a trace of fear, but their eyes were shining one by one, as if they were seeing pieces of fat. Gao Jianwu couldn't help but be arrogant in his heart.

Once upon a time, if the little devils concentrated such a strong force, they would be all the way to their own country, even in the face of hundreds of thousands of national troops, they would be arrogant and victorious.

But now how long has passed, and in less than half a year, Gao Jianwu has brought 50,000 soldiers who came empty-handed, and has made a name for himself after one big battle, and at the same time, it has also made these generals and soldiers under his command feel confident.

"The soldiers will block the water and cover the earth, and this time we will have a good meal." Chu Yunfei was the first to speak, "According to the strength of the little devil's Southern Army, if we eat his four divisions and three brigades in one go, they will already be injured, and then we can consider a strategic counterattack on this peninsula." ”

Chu Yunfei is worthy of being a high-achieving student born in Huangpu, and he has seen more things than he has seen now.

"Brother Yunfei is right," Ding Wei said. "If we eat this little devil heavy army group, the Southern Army will no longer be able to organize a battle of this scale, and there will be only two divisions at most in the surrounding colonies, which will not be able to stop the attack on our side at all, and the choice of attack will be completely in our hands. It's up to us to hit where we need to. ”

Ding Wei meant something, except for Kong Jie, who came to participate in Gao Jianwu's big event, and learned about it, among the others, only Chu Yunfei vaguely guessed something.

But these things are a great thing for the country and the nation, so he didn't pay attention to it at all, as if he didn't know about this matter, unconsciously, Chu Yunfei had changed a lot.

The scale of the matter between Yu and Chan Bang Wabang is now so large, Gao Jianwu's mining business is starting to get on the right track, and Chu Yunfei's eyes are not blind, and he already understands many things needless to say.

"It's good that everybody already knows what we're going to do. If this battle is successfully fought, we will break new ground. Let's take a look at how we can fight this battle. Gao Jianwu took over.

"We've been attacking the little devil's territory all the way, and we've fought a lot of tough battles, and this time we're going to let the little devils taste our defensive counterattack. If the army of little devils is entangled in this desperate resistance, our forces will not be able to be used, especially the power of artillery and tanks will not be able to be exerted, and the attack on Mao Mian will probably cause heavy casualties, so we will wait for them to attack, and we will lay out our pockets. ”

After Gao Jianwu put forward his strategy, everyone began a buzzing discussion.

Defensive counterattacks and encirclement points are everyone's forte. As soon as Gao Jianwu said this idea, everyone began to choose battlefield and tactical methods.

As Gao Jianwu said, this battle needs to give full play to the strength of artillery, tanks and air force, so that it can be fought beautifully, and the little devils will be annihilated with minimal casualties.

If it is purely an infantry competition, due to the huge disadvantage of the forces of both sides, it is difficult for the expeditionary force cluster to fight and consume.

"To the south of the valley, the part near the coast is a silted plain. The terrain is soft and unsuitable for mechanized troops, so we must avoid fighting the enemy in this area. The best terrain is in the vicinity of Valley Castle, which is mainly hilly and relatively well-developed on the roads.

Tanks and artillery are also easy to maneuver, and for the Air Force, it is relatively close to Shanmana and Dagon, and can be completely covered by the range of Air Force fighters.

We deployed a defensive line across the Sidan River in the valley to show weakness, lured the little devils to attack, and then gradually retreated, lured the large forces of the devils across the river, and then used the main force of the tank troops and the air force as a fist, and cooperated with an attack group to raid and cut off the area of the bridge where they crossed the river, so as to make a big encirclement, and if necessary, blow up the bridge of the Sidan River. ”

Gao Jianwu waited for everyone to discuss for a while, then pointed to the map and said to everyone.

"What we want to do this time is to defeat first and then win, let the little devils see hope first, attract the big army over, and then we will suddenly cut off their backs, surround them and destroy them in the valley area.

Of course, this time we are facing a very strong enemy, and we must be mentally prepared to fight a tough battle and a vicious war. According to my preliminary assumptions: the 1st Strike Group would try to establish a solid defensive position near the trough and attract enemy forces to attack.

The second and third attack groups form two fists to undertake the task of raiding and cutting off the retreat of the little devils.

The Fourth and Fifth Strike Groups will form strategic reserves and mobile forces behind the First Strike Group, ready to fight at any time.

In order to strengthen the attack force of the individual assault groups, the 1st Tank Battalion and the 2nd Tank Battalion were reinforced to the 1st Attack Group.

The 3rd Tank Battalion was strengthened to the 2nd Attack Group, and the 4th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the 3rd Attack Group.

The 5th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the 4th Attack Group, and the 6th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the 5th Attack Group. The 7th Tank Battalion is deployed as a reserve in the trough of the po, ready to maneuver! ”

"In terms of artillery, the 1st and 2nd Heavy Artillery Regiments were deployed near Po Valley City to provide long-range artillery fire support for the defensive positions of the 1st Attack Group, and the 3rd and 4th Heavy Artillery Regiments followed the actions of the 4th and 5th Attack Groups and became the main force of counterattack artillery fire.

The main combat mission of the Air Force is to destroy the heavy firepower of the Little Devil's heavy artillery brigade and the artillery wings of various divisions and regiments, and secondly, to carry out dispersed bombing of the gathering of the Little Devil's forces and to provide air fire support for various assault groups. ”

Gao Jianwu drew a big circle of his ideas on the map, and then drew the deployment of troops to form one defense point after another, among the six attack groups of the expeditionary force, except for the sixth attack group as a left-behind force, scattered to the key cities of Monywa, Mandalay, Shanmana, and Dagon, and the rest of the strength Gao Jianwu was directly concentrated in the valley, which was close to the frontier of Mao Mian.

In this battle, the little devils have no way out, if they don't attack according to Gao Jianwu's plan, then Gao Jianwu won't provoke them, and everyone will look at each other across the Xidan River.

Now Gao Jianwu has occupied most of the resources he wants. So he wasn't in a hurry at all.

If the battle could not be fought, his troops would be increasing in combat effectiveness in constant training. Especially the tank, Yun and Kong armies, the progress is very obvious, and when these two forces mature, then their combat effectiveness will be even more amazing.

At present, everyone has not yet realized the decisive role of the Air Force from the bottom of their hearts, but Gao Jianwu is different. He is now putting all the essence that can be drawn out from Jindi on the construction of the air force.

More than a month later, more than 30 pilots were sent from Jindi to Mandalay, and Lu Xingguo's achievements in the British territories of Burma were the best advertisement, which played a very important role as an example for many of their former classmates and new enthusiastic students.

Now there are more and more enthusiastic young people who have defected to Jindi, and all of them want to join the Second Theater Expeditionary Force cluster to make contributions in foreign countries, and there are as many as three or four hundred people who intend to defect and want to become pilots.

Of course, the number of qualified members among these people is not that high, but more than 100 qualified members were selected to start training, and more than 30 of them who had flying experience were sent directly to the front line in Mandalay to train in the midst of the war.

This is especially true of artillery and tanks, and five or six hundred professional members have been transported one after another to devote themselves to the training of tanks and artillery.

Obviously, if Gao Jianwu achieves new results, then the next round of opening his mouth to the allied lion will start again.

Not to mention more, it should be reasonable to build two more tank battalions. It is difficult to expand the artillery again, after all, the pressure on artillery logistics is already very great.

A heavy artillery piece is much more complicated than the logistics of a company or two. The current use of trucks in Myanmar is also very limited, and there are no roads for you to walk in many places, which is a very troublesome thing for heavy artillery.

Therefore, heavy artillery is generally only used in places with roads and near large cities, which greatly limits its combat range.

Fortunately, Gao Jianwu can't use heavy artillery, and the same is true for the little devils, in many places, Gao Jianwu's mortars equipped with a large number of infantry have played a huge role, and their ability to quickly maneuver in the mountains is completely a fatal blow to the little devils.

If it is a completely mountain operation, a main battalion has mortars, far more than the number of artillery in a wing of the little devils, so even if it is less than a wing of the little devils in terms of heavy machine guns, but there are mortars and bazookas, and a main battalion will not be weaker than the little devil wing in terms of firepower.

The only disadvantage is the dependence on logistics, especially the preparation and consumption of ammunition is a huge number, and if there is no mechanized logistics support, the sustained combat capability is quite poor.

You must know that there is a very limited number of shells that each soldier can carry on his back, and if these mortars do not have shells, they are nothing.

Therefore, Gao Jianwu has been doing internal operations all along, relying on his own rear logistics support. In contrast to his wandering and wandering methods of warfare in the Jin region, he did everything in every battle in the Burmese and British territories, and rarely allowed his troops to penetrate the enemy's rear on a large scale.

Everyone listened to Gao Jianwu very carefully, after all, everyone now knows that Gao Jianwu almost never misses every battle. That's very telling.

No matter what people outside say about Gao Jianwu, in the expeditionary force cluster, no general will ignore Gao Jianwu's every deployment.

Even Chu Yunfei, who is arrogant, is now convinced by Gao Jianwu.

This is the prestige that has really been achieved with a record of achievements.

Therefore, after the end of the combat meeting, everyone divided up to make preparations according to Gao Jianwu's deployment, and the most arduous task was Ding Wei's first attack group, which would build a large number of tunnel positions near the trough, not only as a defensive measure, but also as a bait to attract the enemy to attack.

If all these tunnels were dug by the First Attack Group itself, of course it would be a huge project, but Gao Jianwu would not be so stupid. With the support of a large number of resources from the allies, Gao Jianwu directly recruited local workers to carry out the construction.

Dechen Dengpei played a role at this time, and it took almost no effort to pull up a tunnel construction team of more than 5,000 people, who took the grain, salt, sugar, and other materials provided by the allies as wages, and worked every day under the command and supervision of Ding Wei's first attack group of professional tunnel construction engineers.

Since the threshold is set according to the workload, and the settlement of wages is settled according to the workload every day, it is said that these builders have no chance to be lazy.

It's everyone who does their best to earn their own wages, knowing that at this time, grain, salt and sugar are hard currency.

......

When General Kimura and Chief of Staff Shimoda received the information, the two couldn't help but look at each other, obviously a little surprised by the move of the expeditionary force to come in groups.

"Shimoda-kun, are the expeditionary forces preparing to confront us here for a long time?" General Kimura was a little confused.

"Your Excellency, the enemy's move is indeed unexpected. I can't think of what they want to do for the time being. "In the past discussions, Chief of Staff Shimoda and Senior General Kimura have always thought that the expeditionary force group is about to launch an attack on Mao Yumian, after all, their attack power is very sharp, and before the reinforcements arrive, the advantage is also very obvious.

But until the reinforcements came up, the other party did not find any signs of wanting to attack Mao Yumian.

As if turning a blind eye to them.

This kind of on-site situation made General Kimura and Shimoda very confused.

"What a headache, we were ready to be attacked, but they gave up, this..."General Kimura sighed, they had built a lot of strong fortifications in Mao Yumian.

It has turned Mao Mian into a huge defensive battlefield. They were buried here when the expeditionary force group came to attack, but now it seems that the expeditionary force group has no intention of attacking at all.

It's like a person who takes off his pants but tells someone that it's inconvenient today.

Who can withstand this?

"Alas, Your Excellency, they can afford to wait, we can't afford to wait." After pondering for a while, Chief of Staff Shimoda sighed and continued, "The Southern Army has mobilized all the military forces that can be mobilized. We have drawn local troops from Annam, Malay, and Luzon to prepare for this battle, and now we have created an empty force there, and it will be difficult for us to cope with any changes. ”

"So the expeditionary force cluster can wait, we can't afford to wait!"

"Shimoda-kun, you mean that this time we will take the initiative to attack?" Admiral Kimura's eyes flickered, and it was obvious that he had been thinking about this possibility for a long time.

It's just that the past achievements of the expeditionary force are too amazing, and General Kimura can't make up his mind to attack at all. In his opinion, if he can lure the other party to attack his position, then his chances of victory are much greater, after all, he has been operating in Mao Mian for a long time, not only in terms of defense, but also in terms of local terrain and landform, and even the control of people's hearts.

Just like a football match, he felt like he was playing at home, and going to Pogu was obviously an away game.

"I'm afraid we'll have to do this, Your Excellency, we can drag on here for a month, two months, or even three months, but it's hard for us to go beyond half a year. Our situation in the Pacific theater is so bad that bad news comes in almost every day, and according to this trend, I am afraid that even Luzon will be attacked by the Allies in less than half a year. ”

"The Southern Army Command will definitely not let this force stay in Mao Mian for a long time, if we can't make a contribution, then this force will retreat. By that time, apparently, the Burmese and British Front had ceased to exist. ”

After listening to Chief of Staff Shimoda's words, General Kimura's eyes shrank, of course he knew what Chief of Staff Shimoda meant, if the Burmese and British front ceased to exist, then of course, the commander-in-chief of the front army would lose his reason for existence.

The feeling of being in charge of power alone, General Kimura has already experienced, and he will never be willing to lose it easily.

"Shimoda-kun, if we take the initiative to attack, how do you feel that we will have a chance of winning?" Admiral Kimura asked.

"Your Excellency, General, according to my deduction, only if we go all out and make a desperate bet, will we have a fifty or sixty percent chance of victory." Obviously, Chief of Staff Shimoda had also seriously considered the issue of General Kimura before, and had carefully calculated it.

"According to my analysis of the previous battle situation and the intelligence information I have recently collected from the other side, frankly speaking, I personally think that without a 2:1 superiority in troops, we will not be able to defeat them at all, because they far surpass our squadron in terms of the configuration of weapons and equipment of the battalions and companies of the grassroots troops."

"One of their companies, that is, our squadron level, is equipped with 9 light machine guns, 9 60-mm mortars, 3 81-mm mortars and 3 Bazooka rocket launchers, and all the weapons are Garand rifles, and the number of people in one company is also more than 200 people, and the firepower far exceeds that of one of our squadrons, at least two squadrons have to be used to have the possibility of victory."

It seems that he has been beaten a lot, and the little devil has also learned to be a man and began to honestly collect military intelligence on the other side. Military intelligence like this is not too secret in itself, as long as the little devil is willing to inquire, he will soon be able to find out.

"At the battalion level, it has gone beyond the concept of only three companies to form an infantry battalion, but consists of six companies, based on three infantry companies, plus a mortar company with 12 81mm mortars, an anti-tank company with 12 37mm anti-aircraft guns, and a machine gun company composed of 12 heavy machine guns, and has the ability to call for artillery support and air support."

"I have assessed that such a main battalion is no longer something that one of our brigades can compete with. If you want to attack such an infantry battalion. We had to send an infantry brigade with a squadron of mountain artillery, a squadron of infantry artillery, and a squadron of heavy machine guns so that we could suppress each other in terms of firepower. ”

Senior General Kimura understood what Shimoda Saku said and according to Shimoda's idea, there was no need to pursue the number of infantry excessively, but he must not be weaker than his opponent in terms of firepower, but after a brigade strengthened the heavy firepower of a wing, the odds of victory against the opponent's 81-mm mortars and 37-mm anti-aircraft guns were still relatively large with mountain artillery and 92 infantry guns.

But according to Shimoda's method to strengthen the brigade, this is already a unique strengthening in the history of the Little Devil Army.

In fact, on the other hand, it is to directly kick out the infantry in the wing and streamline it, and in such a battle, the number of simple infantry has lost its meaning.

This is a major move in the formation of the troops. It completely subverted the previous combat experience and military regulations of the small days.

But after such an adaptation, will it be able to win the expeditionary force cluster?

Admiral Kimura expressed doubts that if such a simple change could defeat the expeditionary force cluster, then the jade fragments of the divisions in front of them would not be in vain.

But what if you don't change? General Kimura is very contradictory, and in the face of the current situation, he has actually lost his opinion.

In fact, this is already a series of failures, which has brought him huge psychological pressure, causing him to lose confidence in victory, even if he now has an army of 100,000 in his hands, he has not been able to change his mentality.

Under the current circumstances, he could no longer afford another defeat, and the four integrated divisions and three brigades in his hands were already the last strategic forces of the Southern Army.

If he fails again this time, I am afraid that the entire Southern Army will rise and fall in his hands, and he Kimura will become a big sinner in Xiaori.

Therefore, the two thoughts of retreat and attack kept rolling in the mind of General Kimura, and it was difficult for him to come up with a wise decision.

Shimoda Sakura obviously knew this, so after the reception made the suggestion, he was silent, but sat there silently thinking about his own affairs.

Frankly, the current situation is beyond his imagination and control.

From a rational point of view, Shimoda would rather choose to retreat to Siam with the whole army at this moment.

After they re-study the expeditionary force cluster, they will carry out a new round of reorganization of the troops, and then make plans.

That's the way to go.