The fall of Heights 92 meant that the integrity of the defensive line of Adelson Heights no longer existed, and the Ming army could deploy a variety of weapons to directly threaten Richard's airfield to the north.

Unlike the 1st Marine Regiment, which had been fighting hard for many days, the 2nd Marine Regiment, which had been attacking along the coastline, had been fighting across the river from the 39th Regiment of the US Army on the east bank for several days after advancing to the Lunga River.

"Since the day before yesterday, more than 530 people have been reduced due to illness, half of whom are combatants...... The current situation is good, and the full rate of each team is 70......"

However, as time passed, the problem of supply became more and more apparent, and now it has gradually become a problem facing the 1st Marine Brigade.

It has been about 10 days since the landing, and the consumption of ammunition, food and medicine has been more than expected, of which the consumption of ammunition has exceeded half of the expected amount.

After the Battle of the Kuah-Tulagi Strait, the U.S. military that seized the opportunity to take off carried out an air attack on the Ming landing site at Cape Esparnes, resulting in the loss of nearly 100 tons of supplies.

Later, two airlift detachments were dispatched to the Rabaul base and airdropped more than 30 tons of supplies to the 1st Marine Brigade in two days.

However, the impatient officers and soldiers felt that the remaining supplies were more than enough, enough to take out the American troops trapped on the east side of the Lunga River.

With Zhou Changfeng's permission, the 2nd Marine Regiment launched an offensive on 1 April, and forced its way across the Lunga River with the support of artillery from the brigade's mountain artillery regiment.

The field artillery group fired three and a half base rounds of ammunition in two hours—about 343 rounds of 80mm shells and 252 rounds of 112mm shells—completely suppressing any movement of the American line on the east bank.

Under the cover of artillery fire, the engineer battalion went into battle en masse, braving the sporadic bullets that came in a constant stream of bullets to erect pontoon bridges over the Lunga River, with a total of two light pontoon bridges and one heavy pontoon bridge for tanks or artillery from north to south.

At the end of the offensive a week earlier, some officers and men of the 2nd Marine Regiment who had been fighting vigorously crossed the river lightly on their own initiative, and some of them boldly advanced into depth, and were finally repulsed by the reacting American troops.

But there are also some astute people who choose to dig trenches on the spot and stick to them, becoming nails nailed to the east coast, and they have persevered to this day.

In front of a horseshoe-shaped position in the upper reaches of the Lunga River, the wreckage of four tanks, three M2A4 light tanks and one M2 medium tank, was parked in front of a horseshoe-shaped position.

In addition, in the fan-shaped area with a radius of 300 meters, dozens of decomposed, wriggling maggot corpses were scattered......

These are all proofs of the failure of the 39th regimental combat team in trying to forcibly drive these "nail households" down the river in the past few days.

It was defended by a reinforced platoon of the 5th Battalion of the 2nd Marine Regiment, which was able to hold its position with the full support of the large forces of the West Bank.

At the most critical moment, more than a dozen enemy soldiers rushed to the front of the position, and their eyes could be seen when they were close, but the Americans finally suffered heavy casualties in the face of hundreds of steel balls and short steel rods burst out of directional mines, and returned with hatred.

Chen Shuyu, a name that will be mistaken for a woman at first glance, is indeed good-looking, but he is actually a famous marksman of the 2nd Marine Regiment, as early as the Battle of Darwin, he was awarded the first merit for his outstanding performance, and was awarded the Order of Archery of the Third Class.

During the seven days and nights of fighting on the east bank of the Longa River, he alternately used a Type 35 semi-automatic rifle and a Type 21 bolt-action rifle, and the results were as many as 20 people, and he even used the Type 21 rifle to hit an American engineer at Richard's airfield more than 800 meters away in the early morning of the 27th.

Now, these nails that held out on the east bank have become an excellent fulcrum for the Ming army to force the crossing of the Longa River, and the counterattack of the American army has become impossible.

Someone answers, and no one answers, the degree of difficulty is naturally not the same.

The 2nd Brigade of the 6th Battalion, which was the first to cross the river, launched a tentative attack on the enemy in front of them, and as a result, it impartially ran into the 120th Tank Battalion of the US Army, which was carrying out a counterattack.

Colonel Wadsworth knew that the Lunga River was the only terrain advantage he could rely on at the moment, and if the counterattack failed, there was no hope of defensive success.

Rather than retreat from the rest of the world, it's better to try it out now in a desperate and big fightback.

Sixteen M2A1 medium tanks and 29 M2A2 light tanks, which were still functioning, lined up and pounced on the Lunga River with two infantry companies in the best condition.

This is the most powerful reserve that the 39th Regiment Combat Team can take out right now, and Colonel Wadsworth has an aversion to gambling, but he knows that battlefield decisions will always come when they need to gamble.

More than 40 tanks and more than 270 infantry completed the tactical deployment on a front about 800 meters wide, and in depth, the remaining three 105mm howitzers of the 26th Field Artillery Battalion and nine 75mm howitzers of the 5th Marine Regiment opened fire together.

The momentum of a large number of tanks moving together was a spiritual boost to the demoralized American soldiers.

To be sure, it was really unexpected to be hit with such a massive and powerful counterattack in such a short period of time.

The second team of the 6th Battalion, which bore the brunt of the attack, used two recoilless guns reinforced to resist hard, destroying five tanks in a row, but the huge fire and smoke of the recoilless guns when they opened fire were very easy to expose themselves, so they were quickly destroyed by the concentrated fire of the American troops who had the advantage in numbers.

The second team of the 6th Battalion was repulsed in the space of twenty minutes, but it also bought some time for the follow-up troops to react.

"Keep going! Don't stop, we can do it! The battalion commander, Major Marcus, shouted eagerly.

Since the ground was still wet, dozens of tanks operating together did not have that dusty sense of oppression, which in a sense invisibly weakened the power of a little counterattack.

Although the American tank group rushing forward was brave and fierce, the infantry accompanying the counterattack could not move so sustainably.

As the shells of the Ming army's field artillery group began to fall, the American soldiers had to lie down and look for cover nearby, and the formation suddenly became much thinner.

Not long after crossing the river, the Ming army was not firmly established, but it still used all the anti-tank weapons at hand to deal with the fierce American tanks.

Blasters, anti-tank grenades, bazookas, recoilless guns...... For a while, the sound of shouting and killing on the entire battlefield shook the sky, and the sound of metal collision and engine sound were intertwined.

The Sanqi type combat defense grenade is a large wooden-handled grenade, which is a rarity for the Ming army who are accustomed to oval grenades.

When used, pull out the pin on the projectile, and when it is thrown, the parachute will pop out in the hollow wooden handle, allowing the grenade to hit it at an angle directly facing the target.

The destroyed tank caught fire, and the gasoline fire spread so fast that in the blink of an eye, the entire tank turned into a crackling coffin.

These short-range anti-tank weapons are actually not very efficient, but they are not able to stand everywhere, and they have indeed caused great trouble to the US tanks in the impact.

Seeing that the enemy and us were fighting together, the carrier-based aircraft of the Tianshi Youyuan, which had rushed to help the field, circled several times and did not dare to drop bombs.

The pilots were anxious in their eyes, and it happened that at this time they were hit by the anti-aircraft machine gun fire of the second-line positions of the US army, so everyone poured their anger on these exposed anti-aircraft machine gun positions.

Under the strafing fire of the aviation machine guns, the American soldiers were beaten to the ground!

Subsequently, the 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun was distorted into scrap metal in the light of the bomb explosion, and the entire bunker was covered by rising smoke.

The 1st Marine Brigade's anti-aircraft artillery battalion was to cross the river as a second-echelon unit, so a dozen anti-tank guns were still on standby on the west bank.

Seeing that the battle situation was critical, without waiting for Zhou Changfeng to give an order, the anti-aircraft artillery battalion immediately deployed on the spot, and opened fire across the Longa River at the rampaging American tanks on the east bank.

Unlike the 48mm tank gun, the Type 38 anti-aircraft gun uses 48×192mm ammunition, which is more powerful, and can penetrate vertically placed 60mm thick rolled nickel-manganese armor steel plates at a distance of 500m.

Such power is enough to deal with most tanks at the moment, and the Americans are even more vulnerable to things behind closed doors.

The armor-piercing blaster easily pierced the 51mm thick armor on the front of the M2A1 medium tank's hull, and the fuse at the bottom of the bomb took effect on time after completing the penetration, and the shell exploded inside the hull, killing or injuring six crew members.

The hit tank emitted black smoke from the observation window and the gap in the hatch cover, and still rushed forward for more than a dozen meters before stopping.

Suddenly, fireworks-like flames erupted from the turret seat and the top hatch, and flew out several meters away, nearly two hundred shells and more than a hundred gallons of gasoline exploded together, and the entire tank was turned into a steel coffin with automatic cremation!

The 120th Tank Battalion, which was disconnected from the infantry, suffered heavy losses, and fierce fighting continued until 12:15 p.m., when the tank battalion, destroyed and wounded two-thirds of its tanks, had to retreat.

The two infantry companies that coordinated the counterattack were also unlucky, the artillery bombardment of the Ming army never stopped from beginning to end, and the planes in the sky also dived and strafed from time to time.

They did nothing during the two-hour counterattack, with only 25 recorded results and 111 casualties or missing.

The 2nd Marine Regiment that forcibly crossed the Lunga River also suffered heavy casualties, with 254 casualties, including 72 officers and men, but most of them were caused by brave battles with American tanks.

The design of the American tank is conservative and mediocre, and there are too many machine guns that can be equipped - there are as many as 7 M2A1 medium tanks! This made it very difficult for the Ming infantry to attack them.

It is precisely because of this that the officers and men of the 2nd Marine Regiment have become even more disdainful of the US Army.

The U.S. infantrymen who worked with the tank units were cowardly, clumsy, and sluggish.

If they had been brave and active, I am afraid that today's forced crossing of the Lunga River would have ended in failure.

"In this way, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps can be said to be very different."

Zhao Hanfeng had heard of the bloody battle of the 1st Marine Regiment in Adelson Heights, and Zhou Changfeng had also told him in detail.

However, the performance of the 39th regiment-level combat team of the US army in front of him was so indescribable that Zhao Hanfeng couldn't believe that there would be such a big gap between the armies of the same country.

"This is a proper strong enemy, and according to common sense, such a strong army should be given the best treatment, the most sophisticated weapons, and used as an elite selection striker." Zhu Lishuo was also puzzled, he pointed to the battlefield in the distance where the smoke had just cleared, "These army soldiers and horses all use semi-automatic rifles, how generous, but it is not very useful." ”

"It's a good thing, it's my blessing that the enemy made a mistake or missed." Zhao Hanfeng breathed a long sigh of relief.

The miraculously calm Zhou Changfeng muttered: "In the future, you must be cautious, and if you find out that the opponent is a marine, you must try to ensure superior strength and firepower, otherwise you will definitely suffer a loss." ”

To be honest, everyone has some strange feelings.

The same is the Marine Corps, the Ming Army Marine Corps is subordinate to the Ming Navy, not an independent service, and the treatment they enjoy is one level higher than that of the Army, whether it is weapons and equipment, food and salary, all of which are the envy of the officers and soldiers of the Army.

On the other hand, the most intractable enemy that has been encountered so far at the beginning of the war, the US Marine Corps, as an independent service, has achieved brilliant glory in the European war, and its officers and men have trained hard and have excellent military quality, but they have used backward weapons and equipment.

The next day.

The 42nd T-Squadron was reinforced by two more ammunition supply ships in the past two days, replenishing a batch of ammunition, so that it was finally able to start artillery support on the shore again.

Xiong Zhuguo believes that the U.S. forces on Kuah Island are at the end of their rope and will soon collapse, and they will definitely retreat eastward.

Therefore, he ordered the light cruiser of the Luohe to lead three destroyers to the waters near Dawujiao in the east, and prepare to wait for the rabbit to beat the retreating American troops at that time.

This decision was endorsed by someone Zhou.

The days of fighting had reduced the 1st Marine Brigade's remaining supplies, especially ammunition, to a dangerous level – an average of about two bases for infantry weapons and only one for artillery.

The convoy sailing from Rabaul was ambushed by U.S. submarines, and one merchant ship was sunk, and the convoy would not arrive until the day after tomorrow.

Five of the 14 Type 38 A medium tanks in the brigade fleet were completely destroyed, and three could not be completely repaired due to lack of spare parts, leaving only six ready for battle.

"Again, it's hard for us, it's even more difficult for the enemy, drive them away in one go!"

After summarizing the confessions of the American prisoners, Zhou Changfeng was convinced that the enemy in front of him had no possibility of stubborn resistance, and finally decided to let the tired division persist in the battle and crush the last resistance of the American troops on Kuah Island with a strong crossbow.

At dawn, six Type 38 medium tanks and 15 Type 35 amphibious tanks lined up in the usual right trapezoidal formation, and launched an attack to the east with two battalions of more than 700 Marine infantry.

In order to create momentum, Zhou Changfeng ordered that all powered trolleys with single-cylinder diesel engines be brought to the front line, and the engines were followed by the tanks.

The roar of dozens of trolleys was no less than that of tanks, and the loud thud of single-cylinder diesel engines was especially noticeable.

As the sky darkened, the American soldiers huddled in the foxholes heard far more movement than before, and the sound of engines rushing like a flood was terrifying.

Colonel Wadsworth had ordered a retreat to the east according to the plan, but the partial loss of Edson Heights added great trouble to the retreat, and the Ming army used anti-aircraft guns and recoilless guns on the 92nd Heights to fire at the American troops in the north, seriously disrupting the order of the retreat.

Explosions rang out from the bunkers around Richard's airport, and the flames were flashing as U.S. sappers were blowing up intact planes.

"Sir, sir, bad news!" A second lieutenant rushed to the headquarters in a panic and reported to Wadsworth: "There are Chinese ships on the sea at Dawujiao. ”

(End of chapter)