West Line.
There was already heavy artillery fire on the Matou Nao position.
When the war on the Eastern Front was raging, two squadrons of the 38th Infantry Battalion came out of the Mianshan Fortress. The commander of the Mianshan Task Force, Captain Harada Jiro, set up the temporary headquarters on a hilltop 2 miles west of the Matounao position. Go up, far away from Matou Nao.
Chen Quan could see the epaulettes on the little devil even in the telescope.
Although Harada Jiro made bold statements when he set out to annihilate all 8 groups that invaded Wanjia Town, he was quite cautious when actually advancing troops.
Not only were the reconnaissance vanguards deployed in advance, but three large left-wing three-wheelers were sent for advanced reconnaissance, and the formation was kept intact, with the vehicles carrying heavy weapons placed in the middle. This greatly avoided the first wave of losses from a possible sneak attack.
In fact, Shen Quan and the others could not carry out too many concealed modifications to the position in their hurry. Two hours was enough for them to dig a few simple trenches.
So not surprisingly, the Matou Nao position was exposed to the eyes of the Japs' scouts.
After receiving the reward, Harada Jiro quickly changed his formation, deployed an offensive combat formation, placed the 1st Squadron in front, equipped with 3 heavy machine guns of the 1st Machine Gun Team, and began to advance slowly.
At the same time, the artillery team was placed on the side of the headquarters. Two 92 infantry guns and four 94 90mm mortars formed an artillery position.
First, a wave of artillery shells will be fired at the Matou Nao position to clear the ground!
Then one artillery shell after another was fired at the positions of the 5th and 6th infantry detachments. The little Japanese artillerymen also had good eyes. When the battle started, they observed traces of new soil in the trenches above Matou Nao through their binoculars, and specially picked them up. The trenches were bombarded.
So soon after the war began, casualties began to appear on the Matou Nao position.
With such a difficult enemy, Shen Quan had almost nothing to do.
Except for waiting for Wang Xilai to lead the artillery team to create a miracle, the sniper position was silent, as if there was no one there.
At the same time, the Little Japanese's No. 1 Squadron had advanced along the road to about 500m close to the position.
The Little Japanese machine gun team set up their heavy machine guns here and faced the Matou Nao position. Facing the Little Japanese's three heavy machine gun positions, Shen Quan frowned.
In a place like this, if the little devil uses such a move, it will be very difficult for the Dagushan guerrillas to launch a counterattack.
Facing the firepower of three heavy machine guns, there was only one road passable, and even thousands of people couldn't even think of rushing over.
With this move, the little devil killed Shen Quan's chance to counterattack.
"This little devil has something." Shen Quan narrowed his eyes.
The artillery and heavy machine gun firepower was launched one after another, advancing step by step without any rush, trying to weaken the adverse effects of the terrain as much as possible.
Shen Quan did not expect that the battle had just begun and that he would be in such a dangerous situation. Now facing the little devil's attack, he was simply being beaten passively.
Without the mortar team waiting for the opportunity outside, Shen Quan would really be unable to hold on.
However, Shen Quan believed that the Japs' cannonballs were limited and the bombardment would not be endless.
Sure enough, after several rounds of bombing, the bombardment by the little Japanese began to stop.
During the bombardment, Harada Jiro, the little devil, carefully observed the changes in the opponent's position.
The other side was quite calm under the gunfire and remained calm without firing a single shot.
Such a tough opponent also made Harada Jiro feel very troublesome.
His little eyes rolled up, Harada Jiro cursed in a low voice: "Baga, Tubal Road is cunning and cunning."
"Shouda-kun, I'll leave it to you for the first round of probing attacks."
After Harada Jiro finished cursing, he said to Captain Shoda Isshu, the captain of the 2nd Squadron next to him.
"Hey, Harada-kun, please rest assured." Shoda Yixiu did not raise any doubts about Harada Jiro, who was commanding him at the same level.
Although the two of them were on the same level, the captain had appointed Harada Jiro as the task force leader when they set off, so Shoda Yishuu naturally had no choice but to obey his orders.
Although the little devils have always had the tradition of being inferior to superiors, they still have a strict hierarchy on the battlefield.
"Shouda-kun, in the first round of the attack, we only need to test the distribution of firepower on the eight routes. We don't have to worry and order the second squadron to rest on the spot."
"Hiyi!"
Shoda Yixiu followed the order and went out, spreading the second squadron in the open area behind the headquarters to rest and regain blood, so as to relieve the fatigue caused by the rapid march.
He took his deputy and went straight to the first squadron on the front line.
...
At this moment, Wang Xilai led 6 artillery groups, lurking in the withered and yellow bushes on the left hillside 2 miles away from the Xiaojiazi artillery position.
Seeing the Japs' artillery wreaking havoc in the telescope, shelling his comrades, Wang Xilai gritted his teeth and carefully observed and calculated the distance between them.
Wang Xilai followed Gao Jianwu during this period, but he learned a lot. This finger distance measurement was something Wang Xilai had practiced repeatedly after asking Gao Jianwu to calibrate the distance between his eyebrows and the distance between his arms.
Nowadays, his skills are no worse than those of a gunner.
"Jin Laiwang, Xu Jiaming, Cai Tongqing,...the little Japanese artillerymen 1,000 meters away from the front left, each looked for gun positions to measure the range, and after preparing for cross-fire verification, they all fired three rapid rounds to cover the enemy's artillery in one fell swoop! "
"Yes!" The gunners of several artillery groups took the order cleanly.
The mortar position had already been selected.
Wang Xilai followed one of the range-finding groups and set up to bombard Zhu Yuan. "Fire!" As soon as he finished speaking, the ammunition hand stuffed the shell into the mortar muzzle and fired the first shot with a bang.
Then Wang Xilai carefully adjusted the shooting angle and fired another mortar shell.
The sound of two artillery shells whizzing in the air instantly attracted the attention of the little Japanese artillerymen.
At this moment, the little devil's artillery reacted extremely quickly. The artillery squad leader stared at the small black dots of artillery shells flying in the distance, and quickly calculated the source in reverse.
"Everyone spread out! Search for the target on the hillside 2 miles away on the left." The artillery squad leader stared at the small black spot in the sky and howled loudly.
The shell landed more than 10 meters behind the artillery position, followed by a second mortar shell, which landed more than 10 meters in front.
"The artillery moves to the left and right! Quick, quick, quick!"
After observing this situation, the little Japanese artillery squad leader's expression changed.
This is a commonly used straddle-fire check for naval guns. These Tubalu are not like Tubalu, and they actually play like this.
The well-informed squad leader expected that a wave of artillery shells would fall on their position in droves!
If he was not mistaken, the enemy had a group of mortars in concentrated use.
This battle is a bit difficult.
No wonder Captain Harada Jiro was so cautious. The Japanese artillery squad leader was so impressed by Harada Jiro's deployment.
At first he thought it was unnecessary, but who knew it would come in handy in a matter of minutes.
Sure enough, it didn't take long for 18 mortar shells to appear like a circular barrage, completely covering the position where their artillery was just now!
If they hadn't escaped quickly, they would all have turned into a pile of minced meat at this moment!
.....
