As a man with quite a strategic vision and not as arrogant as the Japanese generals, Okamura Neiji has always attached great importance to his opponents no matter who they are. He is also used to fighting many times during battles. Be prepared with both hands, instead of being like other Japanese generals who not only ignored their opponents, but also often went all the way to the end.
The reason why he did this was not only to be fully prepared according to his judgment, but also to conceal many things if he didn't want to. In fact, in his heart, he also hoped that the Anti-Japanese Alliance could change the direction of the main attack after detecting these situations. , the original target of Suidong was changed to enter the Pingjin area via Chanan.
In this way, he can completely use the layered mountains of Dama Mountain, Yan Mountain, and Jundu Mountain between Cha'nan and Pingjin to the north, and between the inner and outer Great Walls, to consume the effective forces of the Anti-Japanese Alliance in the endless attack one after another. In mountain warfare, it would be much easier for the North China Front than resisting the impact of the Anti-Union armored group on the grasslands and Gobi landscapes of Chadong.
Although the mountains in Chanan have been called the gateway to Pingjin since ancient times and are crucial to the North China Front, Okamura Neiji believes that if the opponent's firepower and equipment are very strong, if the Anti-Japanese Alliance can be dragged into Among the mountains in Chanan, it is the most beneficial to the North China Front.
In addition to tactical considerations, the strategic risks of placing the main force on the Chadong front line are also something Okamura Neiji must consider. Although he thinks his judgment is not wrong, for him, the commander of the North China Front, That said, it is necessary to make more preparations.
In addition to two divisions and an independent mixed brigade, he did not dare to put too many troops in Chadong. His defense focus, to a certain extent, was actually Chanan, which is the gateway to the North China Plain and the Pingjin area. , he is the commander of the North China Front Army, not the commander of the Mongolian garrison.
He placed an entire field division on the front line of Zhangjiakou, which was used as a mobile force. Once the main attack direction of the Anti-Japanese Alliance was Suidong according to his own judgment, this division could match the troops dispatched in northern Shanxi, as well as the original The defenders cooperated with the anti-alliance attacking troops.
If your judgment is wrong and the Anti-Japanese Alliance's westward direction is just a feint, and its real main attack direction is Chanan, then the division deployed on the front line of Zhangjiakou can form an independent second brigade deployed to the north to coordinate with each other. Use mountains and terrain to block attacks and buy time for the front army to mobilize reinforcements.
So as long as the defenders in the Zhangjiakou area can buy a certain amount of time for the front army to mobilize troops, the front army can use the Pingzhang Railway and the large number of concentrated cars to transfer the second-line troops deployed in the Pingjin area and even along the Jinpu Road as quickly as possible. Join the battle on the front lines.
Okamura Neiji believed that his deployment actually killed two birds with one stone, and could adapt to changes in the war situation. If the main target of the Anti-Japanese Alliance was not Suidong, he would have a contingency measure in his hands, and if his judgment was accurate, the deployment The troops on the front line in Zhangjiakou can also be used as mobile forces.
If your own deterrence strategy works and can attract the main force of the Anti-Japanese Alliance from Suidong to Cha'nan, then such a deployment can form a three-sided encirclement and annihilate the main offensive force of the Anti-Japanese Alliance in the Cha'nan Mountains. Of course, the prerequisite It can attract the main force and real target of the Anti-Japanese Alliance to the Chanan front line.
Although this is for Okamura Neiji, the commander of the North China Front, he is very aware of the risks involved, and he is even more aware of what will happen if Chanan, which is the gateway to Pingjin and North China, is lost and the opponent is allowed to enter the North China Plain. as a result of.
Not only will the Communist Army in North China rely on the equipment provided by the Anti-Japanese Alliance to recover in a short period of time, and North China, which has become stable after many brutal raids, will fall back into the situation last year, but more importantly, it may Throw away the Japanese troops in the North China Plain, the most important grain and cotton production base in China.
The Anti-Japanese Alliance is not a communist army with poor equipment. They have aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery. Beyond the line between Beijing and Tianjin is the endless and undefeable North China Plain. This terrain is very conducive to the rapid breakthrough of their armored groups, but it is extremely unsafe. Good for defense.
At that time, the Imperial Army did not take advantage of mechanization to rampage across the North China Plain and capture most of Hebei in a short period of time. Judging from this battle, the Anti-Japanese Army was obviously better than the Japanese army in fighting against tank groups. Research deeper.
Once it enters the North China Plain, as long as there is sufficient fuel, their tank cluster can rush to the edge of the Yellow River in one go, or even cross the Yellow River into the Huanghuai Plain. The North China Plain is the main base for grain and other agricultural products, especially cotton and oil, for the Japanese invaders. , is urgently needed by Japan to maintain the war. Once the Anti-Japanese Alliance breaks into this place, it will be a heavy blow to Japan's overall strategy.
Although the risk of doing so is very high, the layers of mountains north of Pingjin have become the best barrier for the Japanese army at this moment. The mountainous terrain is also the best battlefield to block the anti-alliance tank clusters. Okamura Neji's purpose , not only to defend his own territory, but also to annihilate the anti-alliance attack forces in the Chanan Mountains, it would be a great achievement for him.
But before the battle started and before the main attack direction of the Anti-Japanese Alliance could be truly determined, Okamura Neiji did not dare to place all his hopes on his own intuition, so the obvious focus of his troop deployment was Chadong was actually still in Chanan, but its troop deployment in Chanan was placed in a very favorable position. After all, it was an opponent that Yang Zhen valued very much, and it was also the most important enemy that Yang Zhen encountered during the entire Anti-Japanese War. A strong opponent, Okamura Neji's intuition was quite accurate and he was quite well prepared. This series of adjustments brought considerable battle damage to the upcoming offensive of the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
The price paid by the Anti-Japanese Alliance in this battle exceeded the price paid by the previous battles with the Kwantung Army, and ultimately led to the heavy losses of the T-26 tanks with the worst protection that the Anti-Japanese Alliance participated in this battle. After this battle, all It can be withdrawn from front-line combat and converted to training use, or modified for other uses.
Although the battle was finally won, it also paid an extremely heavy price. The entire army rested for nearly a year before Yang Zhen regained his strength. After the war, Yang Zhen's evaluation of Okamura Neiji was far higher than that of General Yoshijiro Umezu, the commander of the Kwantung Army. Above, he believed that this was the strongest opponent he had encountered since his re-emergence in the Anti-League.
It is also the toughest opponent that the Anti-Japanese Alliance will encounter when the entire army moves south in the future. This victory, in addition to being too heavy a loss for the Anti-Japanese Alliance, also has some luck factors in Yang Zhen's opinion. If the opponent had not misjudged the number and performance of the anti-alliance tanks, and had used the T-26 tanks that the Japanese army was familiar with as the main equipment of the anti-alliance forces, while ignoring the new tanks that the anti-alliance forces might equip, in this battle, who would win in the end? I really can't say for sure.
Although there were only ninety T-34 tanks equipped by the Anti-Japanese Alliance that participated in the war, the protective power of these ninety tanks far exceeded the expectations of the T-34 tanks of the Japanese Anti-Japanese Alliance main battle tanks. Relying on their protective power and fairly good The maneuverability played a decisive role in breaking through the Japanese blocking line.
Coupled with the more than one hundred Matilda II infantry tanks that were eventually deployed in the direction of Chadong, relying on their own protective capabilities, the Japanese anti-tank firepower was helpless and broke through the dense Japanese anti-tank defense line from the front. Without this With two types of tanks, the anti-alliance armored group is likely to exhaust its own blood in front of the fire hedgehog-like anti-tank firepower deployed by Okamura Neiji.
The shields made by the British army themselves were ultimately unable to stop the spears and two-pound anti-tank guns they made. It was almost useless against the T-34 tanks at the beginning and the Matilda II infantry tanks later invested. With any effect, although many T-26 tanks were destroyed, it was still unable to penetrate the armor of the two main tanks of the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
Although the British and Japanese field guns that lack special armor-piercing ammunition have large calibers, the high-explosive grenades they use are almost useless against these two tanks. Although they also pose some threats, they are nothing more than It is just a threat. Although the Type 38 field artillery uses Type 95 armor-piercing grenades on the battlefield, the weak armor-piercing ability of this shell and its too scarce quantity pose no threat to these two tanks.
Before the war, Okamura Neiji proposed to the base camp to produce some armor-piercing bullets for the Japanese-made Seventy-Five Field Gun to meet battlefield needs. In the end, it was because the use of armor-piercing bullets for ordinary field guns would reduce the service life of the barrel, and he was rejected by the Navy. Army officials competing for steel resources refused.
For the top brass of the Army who are at a disadvantage in the competition with the Navy for steel resources, this method of reducing the life of artillery is not cost-effective. The Army has only a few steel resources and must be careful in producing armaments. And these artillery are very important to the Army. It is still quite important.
At present, the Army's powerful Type 96 150mm howitzers have all been discontinued. They are still willing to take the risk of greatly reducing the life of the artillery barrels to waste these active artillery pieces that are now quite valuable to the Army. , when the Japanese woke up after this battle, it was already too late.
If the Japanese base camp was more generous before the war and produced some armor-piercing shells for the most powerful British twenty-five-pound field guns or the 38-type field guns, so that these field guns could truly take on the heavy burden of anti-tank, they would be able to Destroyed the two toughest and thickest tanks of the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
Judging from the number of artillery deployed by Okamura Neji and the intensity of anti-tank firepower points, the outcome of this battle may have to be rewritten. At least Yang Zhen's armored assault tactics will cause much greater losses, and even the armor of the Anti-League The troops are likely to be severely injured.
Even so, the loss of the armored forces of the Anti-Japanese Alliance in this battle was quite huge compared to the overall number of tanks before the Anti-Japanese War. If the Soviets had not provided a batch of captured German tanks, the Kwantung Army would not have If the tactics of the North China Front are adopted, then at the end of this battle, judging from the number of losses on the battlefield, the armored forces of the Anti-Union Alliance will be at least half disabled.
Therefore, during the post-war review, Yang Zhen believed that the victory of the Anti-Japanese Alliance in this battle was somewhat due to luck. If the Japanese army had obtained information about the two new tanks of the Anti-Japanese Alliance before the war and adopted countermeasures, this battle would have been based on Okamura's instructions. With Neji's deployment, I'm afraid the Resistance Alliance will suffer a big loss.
Because of the alliance between the Japanese and the Germans, the Japanese are not very unfamiliar with these two main opponents that the Germans encountered in the North African battlefield and the Soviet-German battlefield. And with the industrial strength of the Japanese, once they learn about this resistance The Alliance is also equipped with these two types of tanks and will be fully prepared.
Although it is too late to develop new anti-tank weapons, they can produce a batch of armor-piercing projectiles for a large number of field guns, and at the same time speed up the production of new anti-tank guns. In this way, the armor of the Anti-Union Alliance The threat to the troops was much greater. It can be said that the Japanese lost this battle not on strategy and tactics, but ultimately on their own stinginess.