"Okay, everyone, Mao Danmian's Burmese and British Front Army has reinforced two integrated divisions, a heavy artillery brigade, and an independent mixed brigade. Next, our expeditionary force group will face the four divisions of the Japs. Three more brigades are attacking. What do you think about the upcoming battle?" At the Dagon Front Command, General Gao Jian summoned all the senior generals of the expeditionary force cluster.
Ding Wei, Chu Yunfei, Kong Jie, Xu Shida, Zhang Dabiao, Lu Xingguo, Sun Desheng, Lu Fan and Liu Shiqiang.
The commanders of five attack groups and one left-behind attack group, as well as the commanders of the three most powerful arms of the air force, artillery and tanks, were all present.
This is the most organized gathering of the expeditionary force group leaders since the war began in the British territory of Burma.
Looking at two rows of warriors, not only did they not show a trace of fear when they heard that five divisions of soldiers were facing the Japs, but they all looked like they were looking at pieces of fat. Gao Jianwu couldn't help but feel so heroic.
Once upon a time, if the little devils had gathered such a strong force, they would have been pushed all the way in their own country. Even if they faced hundreds of thousands of national troops, they would advance arrogantly and win.
But it has only been a short time now. In less than half a year, Gao Jianwu brought 50,000 empty-handed warriors and gained fame through battle after battle. At the same time, it also made the generals and warriors under his command confident.
"The soldiers are coming to cover up the water and the earth. This time we will eat this big meal." Chu Yunfei was the first to speak, "According to the strength of the little devil's southern army, if we here eat his four divisions in one go Three more brigades, they are already exhausted, now we can consider a strategic counterattack on this peninsula."
Chu Yunfei is worthy of being a top student born in Huangpu, and he has seen things beyond the present.
"Brother Yunfei is right," Ding Wei said. "If we eat up this little Japanese army group, the Southern Army will no longer be able to organize a battle of this scale. There are only two divisions at most in the surrounding colonies, which cannot stop our attack at all. At that time, the choice of attack will be The power is completely in our hands. We can strike wherever we need."
Ding Weiyi pointed out that except for Kong Jie who came to participate in Gao Jianwu's important event and learned about it, Chu Yunfei was the only one who vaguely guessed it.
But these things are great things for the country and the nation, so he ignored them at all and acted as if he didn't know about them. Unknowingly, Chu Yunfei had changed a lot.
The matter between Yu Gong and Chan Bang Wabang has become so big now, Gao Jianwu's mining business is starting to get on the right track, and Chu Yunfei is not blind, so he already understands many things without having to say anything.
"It seems that everyone already knows the significance of what we are going to do. Once this battle is won, we will create a new world. Let's see how we can win this battle." Gao Jianwu took over. Hua Tou.
"We have fought all the way to attack the little devil's territory. We have fought many tough battles. This time we will let the little devil have a taste of our defensive counterattack. Maodanmian is a place where the little devil has been operating for a long time. If the little devil's army is entangled, We are desperately resisting here, but we cannot use our forces, especially the artillery and tanks. If we attack Mao Danmian, we will probably suffer heavy casualties, so we wait for them to attack, and we lay down our pockets."
After General Gao Jianwu proposed his strategy, everyone started a buzzing discussion.
Defensive counterattacks and encirclement and support are all everyone's strengths. As soon as Gao Jianwu explained his idea, everyone began to choose battlefield and tactical methods.
As Gao Jianwu said, this battle requires the full use of the power of artillery, tanks and air force in order to fight beautifully and annihilate the little devils while minimizing casualties.
If it were purely an infantry competition, due to the huge disadvantages in the strength of both sides, it would be difficult for the expeditionary force group to fight and consume.
"The part south of Po Valley and close to the coast is a silted plain. The terrain is soft and not suitable for mechanized troops to fight. Therefore, we must avoid fighting the enemy in this area. The best terrain is to spread out the terrain near Po Valley City. It is mainly hilly and the roads are relatively developed.
Tanks and artillery are also very convenient to maneuver. For the Air Force, it is relatively close to Samana and Dagon, and can be completely covered by the range of Air Force fighter jets.
We deployed a defensive line across the Sidan River in the valley to show weakness, lured the Japs to attack, and then gradually retreated. After luring the Japs' large forces across the river, we used the tank troops and the main air force as our fists, and cooperated with an attack group to raid and intercept their passage. The bridge area of the Xidan River can be surrounded by a large force. If necessary, the bridge of the Sidan River can be blown up. "
Gao Jianwu waited for everyone to discuss for a while, then pointed at the map and said to everyone.
"What we have to do this time is to defeat first and then win. Let the little devils see hope first. After attracting the large troops, we will suddenly cut off their rear, surround them in the trough and eliminate them.
Of course, the enemy we face this time is very powerful, and we must be mentally prepared to fight a tough and vicious battle. According to my preliminary idea: the 1st attack group will try to establish a solid defensive position near the wave trough and attract the enemy to attack.
The second and third attack groups formed two fists to undertake the task of raiding and cutting off the retreat of the little devils.
The fourth and fifth attack groups will form strategic reserves and mobile forces behind the first attack group, ready to fight at any time.
In order to enhance the attack power of each assault group, the 1st Tank Battalion and the 2nd Tank Battalion were strengthened into the First Attack Group.
The 3rd Tank Battalion was strengthened to the Second Attack Group, and the 4th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the Third Attack Group.
The 5th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the Fourth Attack Group, and the 6th Tank Battalion was strengthened to the Fifth Attack Group. The 7th Tank Battalion is deployed in the valley as a reserve force, preparing for mobile operations! "
"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. The 3rd and 4th Heavy Artillery Regiments followed the actions of the 4th and 5th Attack Groups and became counterattack artillery fire Main force.
As for the air force, we strive for the allied air force to deal with the Japs' flying squadrons. The main combat mission of the Air Force is to destroy the Japs' heavy artillery brigade and the artillery wings of each division. Secondly, it is to disperse the Japs' troop buildup. Bombing and providing air fire support to each assault group. "
Gao Jianwu drew a large circle of his idea on the map, and then drew the deployment of troops to form defense points one after another. Among the six attack groups of the expeditionary force cluster, except for the sixth attack group, which was a left-behind force, they were dispersed to In key cities such as Monywa, Mandalay, Sammana, and Dagon, the rest of the strength of Gao Jianwu was directly concentrated in Po Valley, the frontier close to Mao Danmian.
There is no retreat for the little devils in this battle. If they do not attack according to Gao Jianwu's plan, then Gao Jianwu will not provoke them, and everyone will just look at each other across the Xidan River.
Now Gao Jianwu has occupied most of the resources he wants. So he was not in a hurry.
If the battle fails, his troops will continue to train and their combat effectiveness will increase day by day. Especially Tank, Yun and Kong Jun have made very obvious progress. When these two forces mature, their combat effectiveness will be even more amazing.
Now everyone has not yet realized from the bottom of their hearts its decisive role in the Air Force, but Gao Jianwu is different. He is now putting all the essence he can draw from Jin into the construction of the air force.
More than a month later, more than 30 pilots arrived from Jindi to Mandalay. The achievements of Lu Xingguo and the others in the British territory of Burma were the best advertisements for their many former classmates and old friends. The new enthusiastic students set a great example.
Nowadays, more and more enthusiastic young people are defecting to Jin. Everyone wants to join the Second Theater Expeditionary Force Group and make achievements in a foreign country. There are as many as three to four hundred people who are interested in defecting and want to be pilots.
Of course, the number of those who met the requirements was not that high, but more than 100 qualified members were selected to start training. Among them, more than 30 people with flight experience were directly sent to the Mandalay front line, where they fought under the flames of war. Conduct training.
This is especially true for artillery and tanks. Five to six hundred professional members have been transported over one after another to invest in tank and artillery training.
Obviously, if Gao Jianwu achieves new results, then the next round of open war against the Allied Lions will begin again.
Not to mention too much, it should be very reasonable to build two more tank battalions. It is difficult to expand the artillery. After all, artillery logistics are already under great pressure.
The logistics of one heavy artillery are much more complicated than that of one or two companies. The scope of use of current trucks in Myanmar is also very limited. In many places, there are no roads at all for you to walk. For heavy artillery, this is a very troublesome thing.
Therefore, heavy artillery is generally only used in places with highways and near large cities, which greatly limits its combat range.
Fortunately, Gao Jianwu cannot use heavy artillery, and the same goes for the Japs. In many places, Gao Jianwu's large number of mortars in the infantry have played a huge role. Their rapid mobility in mountains is completely fatal to the Japs. blow.
If it is a completely mountainous operation, the number of mortars owned by a main battalion far exceeds the number of artillery pieces of a regiment of the Little Devils. Therefore, even if it has fewer heavy machine guns than a regiment of the Little Devils, it still has mortars and Bazu With the stuck rocket launcher, a main battalion will not be weaker than the Little Devils in terms of firepower.
The only disadvantage is the dependence on logistics, especially the preparation and consumption of ammunition, which is a huge number. Without mechanized logistics support, the continuous combat capability is quite poor.
You must know that the number of artillery shells that each soldier can carry by manpower is very limited. If these mortars do not have artillery shells, they are nothing.
Therefore, Gao Jianwu has always been engaged in internal operations, relying on his own rear logistics support. It was completely different from his erratic fighting style in Shanxi. Every battle he fought in the British-controlled Burma was step-by-step, and he rarely let his troops penetrate the enemy's rear areas to fight on a large scale.
Everyone listened to Gao Jianwu's words very carefully. After all, everyone now knows that Gao Jianwu almost never fails in every battle. This is very telling.
No matter how people outside evaluate Gao Jianwu, no general in the expeditionary force group will ignore Gao Jianwu's every deployment.
Even the arrogant Chu Yunfei is now convinced of Gao Jianwu.
This is the prestige that is truly achieved through achievements.
So after the combat meeting, everyone divided up to make preparations according to Gao Jianwu's deployment. Among them, the most difficult task was Ding Wei's first attack group. They will build a large number of tunnel positions near the wave valley, both as a defensive measure and to attract the enemy. The bait to attack.
If all these tunnels were dug by the first attack group themselves, it would of course be a huge project, but Gao Jianwu would not be so stupid. With a large amount of resource support from the Allies, Gao Jianwu directly recruited local workers for construction.
Dechen Dempei came into play at this time. It took almost no effort to pull together a tunnel construction team of more than 5,000 people. They took the food, salt, sugar and other materials provided by the Allies as wages, and worked in Ding every day. The Wei First Attack Group works under the command and supervision of a professional engineering team for tunnel construction.
Since the threshold is set according to the workload, and wages are settled according to the workload every day, so these builders have no chance to be lazy.
Instead, everyone does their best to earn their own wages. You must know that at this time, grain, salt and sugar are like hard currency.
...
General Kimura and Chief of Staff Shimoda received the information, and the two couldn't help but look at each other. They were obviously a bit unexpected about the expeditionary force group's move.
"Shimoda-kun, is the expeditionary force group preparing to confront us here for a long time?" General Kimura was a little confused.
"Your Excellency, General, this move from the enemy is indeed beyond our expectation. Even though I am humble in my position, I cannot imagine what they want to do?" In the past discussions, Chief of Staff Shimodasaku and General Kimura always thought that the expeditionary force cluster was about to attack Mao Zedong. Danmian launched an attack. After all, their attack power was very sharp, and before reinforcements arrived, their advantage was also very obvious.
But until the reinforcements arrived, the other party showed no signs of attacking Mao Danmian.
As if turning a blind eye to them.
This on-site situation made General Kimura and Shimodasaku very confused.
"What a headache. We were already prepared to be attacked, but they actually gave up. This..." General Kimura sighed. They had built a lot of strong fortifications in Maodanmian.
Maodanmian has been turned into a huge defensive battlefield. They were waiting to bury them here when the expeditionary force group came to attack, but now it seemed that the expeditionary force group had no intention of attacking at all.
It's like taking off one's pants but telling others that today is an inconvenience.
Who can withstand this?
"Hey, General, they can afford to wait, but we can't afford to wait." Chief of Staff Shimodasaku pondered for a while, then sighed and continued, "The Southern Army has mobilized all the military forces it can mobilize. We are here Annan, Malay, and Luzon have mobilized local troops to prepare for this battle, which has now resulted in a lack of troops there. Once something happens, it will be difficult for us to deal with it."
"So the expeditionary force group can wait, but we can't wait!"
"Shimoda-kun, do you mean that we will take the initiative to attack this time?" General Kimura's eyes flickered, and it was obvious that he had thought about this possibility for a long time.
It's just that the past performance of the expeditionary force group was too amazing, and General Kimura simply couldn't make up his mind to attack. In his opinion, if he can lure the opponent to attack his position, then he has a much greater chance of winning. After all, he has been operating in Maodanmian for a long time, not only in terms of defense, but also in mastering the local topography, and even They have great advantages in controlling people's hearts.
Just like a football match, he felt like he was playing at home in Maodan Mianmu Village, while going to Po Valley was obviously an away game.
"I'm afraid we have to do this, General. We can delay it here for a month, two months or even three months, but it will be difficult for us to exceed half a year. Our situation in the Pacific Theater is really bad, almost every day There are bad news coming, and according to this trend, even Luzon Island will be attacked by the Allies in less than half a year."
"The Southern Army Command will never let this force stay in Mao Tammei for a long time. If we cannot make achievements, then this force will retreat back. By that time, it will be obvious that the Burmese and British Front Army will no longer exist. .”
After hearing what Chief of Staff Shimoda said, General Kimura shrank his eyes. Of course he knew what Chief of Staff Shimoda meant. If the Burmese and British Front ceased to exist, then of course it would lose the reason for its existence as the commander-in-chief of the Front.
General Kimura has already experienced the feeling of being the only one with great power, and he will never be willing to lose it so easily.
"Shimoda-kun, if we take the initiative to attack, how do you feel we will have a chance of winning?" General Kimura asked.
"Your Excellency, General, according to my deduction, we can only have a 50% to 60% certainty of victory if we go all out and make every effort." Obviously, Chief of Staff Shimoda had seriously considered the issue of General Kimura before and made careful calculations. Pass.
"Based on my analysis of the previous battle situation and the intelligence information on the other party that I have recently collected, frankly speaking, I personally think that without a 2:1 strength advantage, we simply cannot defeat them because of the configuration of their weapons and equipment in the grassroots troops, battalions and companies. It far exceeds that of our squadrons."
"Their company, which is our squadron level, is equipped with 9 light machine guns, 9 60mm mortars, 3 81mm mortars and 3 bazooka rocket launchers. The weapons are all the same. With Garand Rifles, a company has more than 200 men, and its firepower far exceeds that of one of our squadrons. We need at least two squadrons to have any chance of defeating them."
It seems that after being beaten a lot, the little devil also learned to behave and began to collect military intelligence on the opponent honestly. Military information like this is not too secret in itself. As long as the little devil is willing to inquire, he can find out soon.
"At the battalion level, they have gone beyond the concept of only taking three companies to form an infantry battalion, but are composed of six companies, based on three infantry companies, plus 12 81mm mortars. company, an anti-tank company of 12 37mm combat anti-cannons, 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 evaluated that such a main battalion is no longer something that our brigade can compete with. If we want to attack such an infantry battalion, we must send an infantry brigade, equipped with a mountain artillery squadron and an infantry artillery squadron, and a heavy With the machine gun squadron, we can suppress the opponent in terms of firepower."
General Kimura understood what Chief of Staff Shimodasaku said. According to Shimodasaku's idea, there is no need to pursue too much in terms of the number of infantry, but the firepower equipment must not be weaker than the opponent. However, after a brigade strengthens the heavy firepower of a regiment, , using mountain artillery and 92 infantry artillery to deal with the opponent's 81mm mortars and 37mm anti-tank guns, the chance of winning is still relatively high.
But strengthening the brigade according to Shimodasaku's method is already a unique strengthening in the history of the Little Japanese Army.
In fact, to put it conversely, it means to directly kick out the infantry in the regiment and streamline some of them. In such a battle, the number of pure infantry has lost its meaning.
This is a major change in the organization of the army. It completely subverted Xiaoli's previous combat experience and military regulations.
But after this adaptation, can we defeat the expeditionary force group?
General Kimura expressed doubts that if such a simple change could defeat the expeditionary force cluster, then wouldn't the efforts of the previous divisions be in vain.
But if it doesn’t change, what can we do? General Kimura is very conflicted. Faced with the current situation, he has actually lost his opinion.
In fact, this was a series of failures, which brought him huge psychological pressure, causing him to lose the confidence to win. Even now that he has an army of 100,000 in hand, it has not been able to change his mentality.
Under the current circumstances, he could no longer withstand another defeat. The four reorganized divisions and three brigades he now held in his hands were already the last strategic force of the Southern Army.
If he fails again this time, I am afraid that the entire Southern Army will decline from prosperity to strength in his hands, and General Kimura will become a major sinner in his small days.
Therefore, the two thoughts of retreat and attack were constantly rolling in General Kimura's mind, and it was difficult for him to make a wise decision.
Shimodasaku obviously knew this, so after the receptionist made his suggestions, he remained silent and sat there silently thinking about his own affairs.
Frankly speaking, the current situation was beyond his imagination and control.
From a rational point of view, Shimodasaku would rather choose to retreat to Siam with the entire army at this moment.
After they have thoroughly studied the expeditionary force cluster again, they will conduct a new round of reorganization of the troops and then make plans.
This is the sure way.
