Chapter 593 Tiger of South Asia (12)

Although I don't understand why the superiors would do this kind of "business" with the navy, from Ikeda's perspective, he wanted as many artillery pieces as possible. He quickly ordered the bombardment to stop, because the artillery observers on the front line sent a message that the Indian troops were retreating, and their tanks and infantry had rushed up to pursue them. If they fired again, they would hit their own people.

As far as the Japanese army's army tactics are concerned, they have always been very rigid - artillery bombardment followed by infantry charge, infantry charge followed by artillery bombardment, and then breakthroughs on both wings and detours in the middle, over and over again. But it was this routine of infantry tactics in World War I that rarely had an opponent in regular battles in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Even after tanks were equipped, they were still routines to support infantry during use, which was nothing more than giving the charging soldiers something to rely on.

Suzuki Sosaku nodded with satisfaction, and while instructing Ikeda to send this batch of long-legged Toms on board, he turned to another heavy artillery battalion to observe the use of the French Schneider artillery. The 75-inch produced by Schneider has always been very famous, and the Japanese army is very familiar with its performance. Although the 75-inch has been completely outdated in the European battlefield, Suzuki Sosaku believes that it will be very suitable for use in India, so he equipped a batch of them.

In fact, the German army also knew that the French artillery was easy to use. In addition to using the captured French artillery, during the gradual reconciliation between France and Germany, the Armament Department was willing to place a large number of artillery orders with France because the quality and supply of artillery shells were guaranteed, especially Schneider's M1 howitzer and M1927/28 howitzer. Although they were developed before the war, their performance was actually slightly better than the 150mm caliber artillery produced by Krupp and Rheinmetall for the German army itself - with the same range, the French artillery was the lightest; with the same power and weight, the French artillery had the longest range. Moreover, French products are not expensive in comparison. With this batch of artillery as a foundation, the Armament Department can allow the domestic arsenals in Germany to free up more time and energy to produce tank guns.

However, the German army was reluctant to give these medium-caliber artillery to the Japanese army. Suzuki Sosaku was going to observe the Schneider M1 field gun. The caliber and power of this old-fashioned gun were completely unused in Europe (basically replaced by 105mm howitzers or 120mm mortars). It was just right to sell all the stocks to the Japanese army, and the latter was like a treasure. They expressed great admiration for this artifact that weighed only 1.8 tons and had a maximum range of over 15,000 meters.

Now the firepower equipment of the Indian Army has become a multinational brand. All kinds of British, French, Soviet, American, German, and Italian weapons can be found. Suzuki Sosaku happily accepted all the weapons and used whatever they had. As for supplies, he never worried about it at all - there were plenty of stocks on Ceylon. In the past, the army still used animal-drawn vehicles to transport ammunition and supplies, and only the most important ones were given a turn to trucks. Now there are more International brand trucks in the warehouse than qualified drivers, not to mention that a group of drivers have to be assigned to drive armored vehicles and tanks. It is completely "not enough to make ends meet". The whole scene is no less than a bitter Haha suddenly won 100 bets of double-color balls, and the whole person is excited about the happy day.

Hearing the infantry report that the Japanese army dispatched Matilda tanks, Brigadier General Memphis felt that things were a bit tricky. As the commander of the armored forces, he knew clearly how difficult Matilda was. These tanks were undoubtedly captured from the battlefields of Europe or North Africa. It seems that the Germans spent a lot of money to support the Japanese army, but since he had just spoken to Lieutenant General Giffard to lead the task of interception, and at the same time, he had to cover the retreat of the infantry as much as possible, he had to bite the bullet and go out.

Sure enough, after hearing the news that the Japanese army broke through the defense line with Matilda tanks, the entire 6th Tank Brigade was furious - being attacked by the Germans was a humiliation, and being attacked by the Japanese, especially the Japanese equipped with British tanks, was simply a humiliation. Everyone was ready to teach the opponent a lesson. Moreover, they had a deep understanding of the Matilda. Although the armor was thick enough and it was a good hand for covering infantry operations, it was not good enough for tank battles. The Sherman tank could easily go around the side of the enemy and break it.

The tanks rumbled and started. The British tank brigade, with Valentine tanks as the spearhead and more mobile Sherman tanks on the left and right wings, rushed towards the Japanese army aggressively. The strategy given by Menzies to the troops was to use Valentine tanks to attract the attention of Matildas from a distance, and take advantage of the enemy's slow movement speed to have Shermans circle and shoot.

The two sides soon encountered each other, but the British officers and soldiers were surprised to find that the intelligence was not accurate. The Japanese used another new tank, not the Matilda. This tank looked very flexible and its defense seemed to be good. At a distance of about 800 yards, Sherman's artillery could not do anything to the enemy.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The two sides began to shoot at each other. In the face of the enemy's flexible and mobile artillery fire, the Shermans were fine, but Valentine next to them suffered. The guy they were facing was too flexible, and the frontal ricochet was very strong. The 2-pound gun shells were always bounced off.

"What is this?" Everyone was suspicious: This was obviously not a British tank, let alone a German tank. They knew both No. 3 and No. 4.

The Japanese troops on the opposite side seemed extremely excited. This unit was the second tank battalion to land in the morning. When they struggled to reach the beach, the British troops above had already been wiped out by the German army. They took a lot of effort to finally rush here, but they didn't get to fight any battles along the way.

Seeing the British tanks rushing over, Captain Takeda Gong shouted excitedly and immediately commanded his troops to fight. Although they were fewer in number, they had been wandering outside for a long time and had no chance to fight. Now they rushed over bravely regardless of everything.

The British tank soldiers were indeed right. These were not Matildas, but the supplies sold by the German army to the Japanese army - T-34/76 tanks. In terms of the level of circling, in the level of more than 20 tons, not to mention Valentine and Matilda are not opponents, even Sherman is inferior. What's more, the 76.2mm tank gun equipped by T-34 is not of bad quality, and it can destroy Sherman.

The armored forces of both sides quickly collided with each other. The number of British tanks was slightly larger, but Valentine was completely a burden in armored warfare; although the performance of Japanese tanks was slightly stronger, the fact that T-34 had no radio restricted their combat capabilities, and large-scale armored warfare quickly turned into small clusters of twos and threes.

As the battle went on, the Japanese army began to show signs of weakness...