Chapter 1514: Fight Again!

"On July 3, the Chinese attacked the field hospital of the 116th Division of our 11th Army. Although our army suffered heavy losses, it can also be seen that the Chinese have run out of tricks and can only risk their lives to sneak out of the defense line and use suicide attacks to counterattack our army.

Now, the 3rd Division and the 27th Division have arrived. The total force of our army to encircle Hengyang has reached 100,000. Hengyang is a small place, and our army can easily break it!" Yokoyama Isamu said in a telegram sent to the four lieutenant generals of the Hengyang front.

The reason why Yokoyama Isamu could send such a confident telegram after repeated setbacks is that he has enough strength.

At this time, the 3rd Division was stationed in the east and north of Hengyang City, and the 27th Division joined the 116th Division, which had a strength of 20,000 soldiers and returned to the 20,000-man strength, to attack the south of Hengyang City. The 68th Division, which was located in the west of the city and had replenished more than 7,000 soldiers, also welcomed its new division commander, Lieutenant General Mitsuko Tsutsumi.

There are also two independent mixed brigades as reserve forces and for the outer defense of Hengyang, stationed 15 kilometers away from Hengyang.

In addition, the Japanese army finally achieved results by paving roads with two divisions. Not only a large amount of supplies were transported to Hengyang through the roads that had been repaired, but a heavy artillery brigade equipped with 32 150 heavy artillery guns had also arrived in the south of the city, and a part of the 3rd Tank Division specially dispatched by the China Expeditionary Army Command to support it.

The sharpest sword prepared by Yokoyama Yong for the Hengyang defenders was in place.

The difference between the 3rd Tank Division and the 3rd Division is that there is an extra word "tank" in front, but the two are completely different things.

The World War has entered its third year, and mechanized troops are no longer a new term for the Western world, but this new thing is extremely rare in the East, whether in China or Japan.

The 3rd Tank Division is one of the extremely rare mechanized troops of Japan on the Chinese battlefield.

The division is organized under the 5th and 6th tank brigades, and each tank brigade has two tank regiments.

Take the 13th tank regiment that came to Hengyang this time as an example. The tank regiment has 1 light tank squadron equipped with Type 95 light tanks; 3 tank squadrons equipped with Type 97 modified medium tanks; and 1 artillery tank squadron.

The 13th tank regiment has a total of 14 combat light tanks, 57 medium tanks, 27 vehicles, and 1,071 regiment personnel.

The Type 95 light tank is easy to understand. This is an upgraded version of the so-called Xiaodouding Type 94, but it has an additional 37mm rapid-fire gun. The armor protection is still the same, with an armor thickness of 6~~12mm. Not to mention encountering a big guy like an anti-tank gun, even the 12.7mm heavy machine gun equipped by the Fourth Regiment can tear its armor at a direct shooting distance of 300 meters.

The Type 97 medium tank is quite rare. According to the Japanese self-test, the Type 97 medium tank's protective armor can withstand the direct fire of the Type 94 rapid-fire gun at a distance of 150 meters, but it cannot withstand the German 37mm anti-tank gun used by China at the same distance. However, its attack capability is not weak. It has a 47mm rapid-fire gun that can penetrate 45mm thick steel armor at a shooting distance of 400 meters.

These two tanks are not comparable to the ultra-light tanks currently equipped by the Four-Line Regiment!

In addition to the 13th Tank Regiment, the 3rd Tank Division also sent the 3rd Mobile Infantry Regiment, the 3rd Mobile Artillery Regiment, the Division Search Team and other combat units to Hengyang.

The 3rd Mobile Infantry Regiment is one of the few mechanized units in the Japanese Army that has both tanks and automobile transportation for infantry. In addition to a light armored vehicle squadron at the headquarters, the regiment has 3 infantry battalions, a regiment artillery squadron, and a maintenance squadron, with a total of 25 tanks, 15 armored personnel carriers, about 90 cars, and a total of 4,000 combat personnel.

The 3rd Mobile Artillery Regiment has 3 artillery battalions, the 1st Battalion has 12 Type 90 field guns towed by cars, and the 2nd and 3rd Battalions have 12 Type 91 105mm howitzers towed by cars.

The division search team has 4 squadrons, of which the 1st and 2nd squadrons are light tank squadrons, each with 15 Type 95 light tanks, and the 4th squadron is a Type 97 medium tank squadron with 12 tanks. The 3rd squadron is a vehicle-mounted infantry squadron. The search team has a total of more than 800 personnel.

Although the 3rd Tank Division transferred from Henan Province has only about 6,000 troops, it has hundreds of tanks of various types and nearly 30 artillery pieces, and its combat capability is even stronger than that of a Type B division.

This has been vividly demonstrated in the battle of Henan Province not long ago!

After capturing Xuchang, the Japanese North China Front Army, with the 3rd Tank Division as the core, launched a lightning offensive against the flank areas, Shanxian County, Linru and other places where General Tang's troops were assembled at the time. In less than three days, it attacked Linru, an important town behind General Tang's troops.

So far, the 12th Army, the main force of the Japanese army in Henan Province, has completely succeeded in the encirclement of General Tang's troops. The three core troops of General Tang, the 13th, 29th and 85th Armies, were all besieged. General Tang had to command his troops to break out of the mountainous areas around Song County, and the entire Henan Province battle was doomed to fail.

Although the 3rd Tank Division succeeded in the field battle, it was not so smooth in the battle to attack the city defense, especially in the first attack on Luoyang City, the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Regiment suffered 215 casualties, and many Japanese tanks were destroyed by the anti-tank guns of the Chinese 94th Division under Luoyang City.

The regiment also suffered heavy losses in the entire "Henan Province Operation", with nearly a thousand casualties.

This also shows that the so-called mechanized division of the Japanese army is just a pseudo-mechanization. Its artillery attack capability and self-defense capability are far from the real mechanized division.

However, on the Chinese battlefield, it is enough!

The Chinese side also admitted in the summary report of the Henan Campaign that the participation of the Japanese armored forces "was as strong as the wind, resulting in a complete defeat of the battle, which was very sad."

So far, the total strength of the Japanese infantry besieging Hengyang City reached 90,000, with more than 100 tanks of various types and nearly 200 artillery of various calibers, including 32 150-caliber heavy artillery and 24 105-caliber howitzers.

Just looking at the number of people and equipment, it seems that there is no need to fight, and the numbers alone can crush Hengyang City.

To be precise, except for the 10th Army of Japan besieging the small city of Songjiang with 100,000 troops in 1937, the Japanese army has never attacked a city held by the Chinese with such a crushing advantage.

Judging from the number of heavy equipment deployed by the Japanese army, the pressure faced by Hengyang City this time was far greater than that of Songjiang in the past.

After all, the 30,000 defenders of Songjiang that day were ordered to defend the city for three days and nights to buy time for the army to evacuate.

But Hengyang at this time had no way to retreat.

Yokoyama Yong even gave up the siege principle of "surrounding three and leaving one" and surrounded Hengyang tightly.

It is definitely a bit exaggerated to say that not even a fly can fly out of Hengyang City. It is possible for one or two people or even dozens of people to sneak out of the encirclement at night, but it is impossible to think about hundreds of people leaving Hengyang.

On July 8, as the 4th Regiment of the Japanese Independent Logistics Corps transported artillery shells to the suburbs of Hengyang, Yokoyama Yong believed that the time was ripe for the second full-scale attack on Hengyang.

The deafening explosion sounded again in Hengyang City, which had been silent for 20 days.

It is said that the thick smoke rising from the direction of Hengyang could be seen clearly even 30 kilometers away.

The Japanese attack routine was still the trilogy of "aircraft bombing, artillery bombing, and infantry charge". However, compared with the first round of attacks, this round of Japanese heavy firepower, especially the coordinated attack of the air force and artillery, was doubled compared with the previous attack.

In the air, although the Japanese 5th Air Corps lost precious bombers and had no time to replenish them, with the full support of the Japanese Army Headquarters, more than 100 Zero fighters and 97 bombers were reinforced again.

The morale of the 5th Air Corps, which received huge reinforcements, was high, and it took the initiative to carry out air strikes on Zhishan Airport and several important airports in Guilin and Liuzhou. China and the United States dispatched hundreds of fighters to respond.

On this day, China and Japan transferred the air battle from Hengyang to various places in Guangxi Province. On July 9 alone, 29 Chinese pilots died and 39 fighters were lost, while 12 American pilots died and 28 fighters were lost.

The Japanese side even broke the record of 87 fighter planes shot down. Only 6 Japanese pilots who were shot down parachuted and were captured, and the rest were all killed in the battle, setting a record for the number of fighter planes lost by both China and Japan since the war began!

In terms of the number of lost fighter planes, China and the United States should have won a small victory, but several important runways were destroyed by crazy Japanese fighter planes in the form of crashing into the ground, causing the number of take-offs and landings at several important airports to be greatly reduced in the next few days.

This was a tragic victory. At least in the next week, the air support for Hengyang was greatly weakened.

This also led to the fact that on the day of July 9, there was no Chinese fighter plane over Hengyang. Instead, the Japanese army dispatched the last 32 fighter planes to bomb the urban area of ​​HY and the hilltop positions in the south and west of the city.

Although the anti-aircraft battalion of the Sihang Regiment fought back vigorously, the bombers were fighters, and they dropped bombs at an altitude of 3,000 meters. Only 40mm anti-aircraft guns could threaten Japanese planes, and only shot down 3 Japanese planes, but the bombs of Japanese planes still fell on the Chinese positions.

In addition, the Japanese army concentrated all artillery to bombard the south and west of the city, especially the 32 150mm heavy artillery, which posed a particularly great threat to the Chinese positions.

The artificial cliff of Zhangjiashan 221 Highland collapsed completely after 4 hours of continuous bombardment by 150mm heavy artillery, becoming a slope that could be rushed up as long as you ran hard.

The deep trench in front, which was ten meters deep, was also collapsed by the terrible artillery fire, and even the machine gun stronghold hidden in the deep trench was blown into ruins.

Even the 16 soldiers of a machine gun squad hiding in the hidden cave behind it were killed in it.

But the Japanese army was still not satisfied. They launched artillery fire from 8 am to 6 pm, a full 10 hours, creating the highest artillery preparation of the Japanese army on the battlefield.

According to statistics after the war, the Japanese army consumed 26,000 rounds of various artillery shells, including grenades, armor-piercing shells, and poison gas shells, in the artillery fire on that day alone. If calculated based on 10 hours and 36,000 seconds, an average of nearly one artillery shell fell on the Chinese position every second.

This intensity may not be comparable to the intensity of the 300,000 rounds of artillery fire that the Americans fired at China in one day during the Five Sacred Mountains Battle on the northern ice field in the next few years, but it is already top-notch on the Chinese battlefield.

At dusk, the Japanese army launched a mountain-wide charge towards Hengyang!

North of the city!

The west of the city, which was defended by the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division and included Duxian Temple, Yanglin Temple, Qingshan Street, and the County Middle School, had lost more than 500 soldiers that day after being continuously bombarded by 105mm howitzers and poison gas bombs, with nearly 300 killed on the spot!

Even with sufficiently complete fortifications, the battle damage was still 25%, which is enough to prove the terrifying nature of Japanese artillery fire.

But after suffering under artillery fire that lasted all day, they had to face the attack of the 68th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Division.

The 68th Infantry Regiment, which served as the main offensive force in the north of the city, directly dispatched its three infantry brigades. Under the cover of infantry artillery and heavy machine guns, they launched a charge against the six main positions defended by the 7th Regiment.

There were even 8 Type 97 tanks belonging to the 13th Tank Regiment accompanying the infantry in the charge!

The 47mm rapid-fire gun equipped on the tank is enough to penetrate any heavy machine gun bunker that dares to fire despite remaining in the artillery fire.

The 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division only had 2 combat anti-aircraft guns assigned to them. It was really insufficient to deal with the 8 Type 97 tanks that stayed 400 meters away and fired to cover the infantry charge.

Regardless of the strength or firepower, the 7th Regiment is far inferior to the Japanese army!

In normal times, the Chinese position with only 1,500 people remaining would have an 80% chance of being breached by the Japanese army's costly charge.

However, the Chinese officers and soldiers who have experienced a month of bloody battles and have been constantly inspired during these more than 20 days are extremely determined!

Moreover, in the past twenty days, they did not wait for the Japanese army to attack. They had already connected the 1,800-meter-wide defense line with deep trenches.

Not to mention that the Japanese were dizzy after entering the criss-crossing trenches, even the Chinese officers and soldiers who entered them did not know which infantry company the position belonged to without looking at the signboards with road signs.

In the past 20 days, the 7th Regiment has stocked the most not with bullets, but with grenades. On average, each officer and soldier has been allocated up to 30 grenades!

The tactics they adopted were very simple. They did not brave the rain of bullets fired from the Japanese heavy machine gun positions to suppress the fire. Instead, they allowed the Japanese troops to get close to a distance of forty or fifty meters. In the desperate roar of the observers, "Grenade, throw it." !”

Hundreds of grenades exploded in front of the position, forming a barrage and blasting the Japanese soldiers who were bending over and charging into pieces.

"cast!"

"cast!"

Accompanied by roars, within 20 minutes, the 7th Regiment dropped nearly 10,000 grenades from various positions, consuming 40,000 rounds of various bullets.

This was the amount of consumption that originally took an infantry brigade a whole day to complete. The 7th Regiment completed it in only 20 minutes. It would have been unthinkable before.

The massive firepower coverage also achieved fruitful results. There were more than 400 Japanese corpses in front of each position, and the wails of the wounded soldiers even overwhelmed the rumbling explosions several times.

The Chinese side did not remain silent either, there were also roars and howls of pain.

Some wounded soldiers had their arms blown off and some of their intestines leaked out. They had to take off their military uniforms and wrap them around them to prevent them from coming out of the body.

Under that kind of extreme pain, even an iron man made of steel can't help but cry out to relieve his pain!

"Hold on, brothers, hold on for me, I'll fight with the stupid devils!"

Not to mention ordinary soldiers, even the colonel commander of the regiment had a nearly six centimeter gash on his face caused by shrapnel. The flesh was turned up on both sides and opened and closed slightly as the army colonel continued to roar. , like a baby's mouth.

It was caused by many crazy Japanese troops breaking through the grenade bombs made by the Chinese and brazenly throwing grenades at the Chinese trenches dozens of meters away.

The Chinese officers and soldiers in the trenches faced the melon mine that fell into the trenches. They also had no room to hide. They could only stare with blood-red eyes, throw the grenades in their hands fiercely, and then crawl deep in the trenches to wait for the judgment of fate.

If you die, you can only die!

Those who are not dead shake their groggy heads, shake off the dirt from their bodies, and rejoin the battle!

If you can't hide, then don't hide. If you can't retreat, then stay where you are. Compared with the Japanese in the wild, they still have endless trenches to avoid.

This should be regarded as a relatively rare case in the history of war between China and Japan in which grenades were used to kill each other face to face.

The 68th Infantry Regiment was forced to retreat, and its position in the north of the city stood still.

However, in this wave of crazy shooting and grenades, the 7th Regiment once again suffered more than 100 casualties.

Due to the injuries caused by the explosion, many soldiers could not wait to be carried to the rear and bled excessively before taking their last breath.

In fact, even if these wounded soldiers were carried to the field hospital in the city, the probability of death would be higher than 70%.

It's not that they will die from wound infection, but the massive blood loss will not give them a chance to wait for wound infection.

In this wave of battles of the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division, the number of soldiers killed in battle almost filled up an infantry battalion.

However, they had no time to cry. In the afterglow of the sunset, the second wave of Japanese charges came.

The commander of the 11th Army, Yokoyama Isamu, ordered that after a day-long artillery preparation, the infantry would attack until the early morning of the next day.

Waiting for the 7th Regiment, there are at least four waves of attacks.

But the intensity of the Japanese attack faced by the 7th Regiment, looking at the entire Hengyang battlefield, is not even among the top five!

Huangchaling and Zhangjiashan were the two most important positions attacked by the Japanese army this time.

Seeing the Japanese troops covering the mountains and plains like locusts, attacking from three directions, even the 3rd Battalion Commander Li Jiujin, who was well-informed and had practiced calmness everywhere, couldn't help but shrink his pupils!

Ochiai Jinjiurō, the commander of the 27th Division of the Japanese Army in charge of the Huangchaling battlefield, stood in the field command bunker only 1,200 meters away from Huangchaling, looking at the Chinese positions with a telescope, which had been destroyed by countless cliffs, with a grim expression.

This battle will definitely be a success!