After all, it was the strongest opponent that Yang Zhen had ever encountered. Okamura Neji's hard work was not in vain. Although it was the first time they encountered Matilda II, the armor thickness reached more than 70 millimeters. , even tanks with armored walking gear protection are helpless.
However, its highly targeted tactical cooperation caused serious losses to the 1st Armored Brigade's assault on the Northern Front of the Anti-Japanese War, which was dominated by T-26 tanks. It was also the main reason for the frustration of the 1st Armored Brigade's offensive. Tactical deployment on the Western Front In fact, both sides are doing it intentionally or unintentionally.
Okamura Neiji, who lacked effective intelligence support for the Anti-Japanese Alliance, still based his analysis on the international situation on wishful thinking that the main tank of the Anti-Japanese Alliance would still be the T-26 tank. It was not clear at all. The Anti-Japanese Alliance had already purchased several new tanks with far higher performance New tanks that surpassed the T-26 tanks, and the two types of tanks with the best defensive capabilities were all transferred to the Western Front.
These tanks, which are far more protective than the most powerful Japanese anti-tank artillery, will eventually fall on his North China Front, and it is precisely these two tanks that will bring him the heaviest losses. As for the original target of his overall tactics, it was only part of the huge tank group invested by the Anti-Alliance on the Western Front.
The Anti-Japanese Alliance did not realize that the preparations of the Japanese North China Front Army would be so detailed and that they would put so much effort and determination into tactical preparations. In order to deal with the Anti-Japanese Alliance's tank cluster tactics, two troops were specially mobilized from China and Nanjing all the way. A trophy of the same model, specially used to train anti-tank artillery.
In the tank company that followed the northward assault to support the offensive of the 1st Armored Brigade, four of the ten tanks were hit by Japanese anti-tank guns from the front or the side of the turret and the body joint. Although the Japanese used Anti-tank weapons are generally not very powerful, but once the T-26 tank is hit, it is the most deadly to the tank.
The turrets of two tanks were directly torn off on the spot, and all the crew members in the vehicles were sacrificed. Moreover, the shooting accuracy of the Japanese shooters was enough to make anti-tank artillery around the world feel ashamed. Even if they fired at close range, the tanks Under the condition of movement, it can actually hit such a small place accurately. This shooting accuracy is definitely second to none.
Except for one of the remaining six tanks, which was penetrated by a Japanese rapid-fire gun at a distance of 70 meters, and one of which triggered a heavier anti-tank mine and was lost, each of the remaining tanks was hit on both sides. They were hit by at least three artillery shells. Although they were not hit at the joint between the turret and the car body like their comrades, the most vulnerable parts of the car body were hit.
This tactic of the Japanese army caused serious losses to the anti-alliance troops who used T-26 tanks for assault. After this battle, the first armored brigade had four tank battalions with a total of 120 tanks, plus an independent tank battalion. Two-thirds of one hundred and fifty T-26 tanks were lost in this battle.
In other words, in the frontal assault battle on the Western Front, not counting the six Matilda II infantry tanks lost, more than a hundred T-26 tanks alone were lost, and this number also means that the armored II Basically all the four battalions and 120 tanks under the brigade were lost.
By the afternoon of the 21st, facing the setback in the development of the battle on the northern front, the gap in breakthrough progress on the northern and southern battlefields of Zhengxiangbai Banner was getting wider and wider. Chen Hanzhang, who was worried that the protruding troops on the southern front would be surrounded by the Japanese army, hesitated. After a while, there was no order for the roundabout troops to start operations in advance.
Behind the 26th Division, there was another entire Japanese division. The battle in front was so fierce, but this Japanese division showed no signs of dispatch. The Japanese army mobilized a large number of vehicles in the direction of Chadong. The squadron shows that the mobility of this division is quite strong.
If the roundabout troops are put into the battlefield now, this division can quickly go north to block the breakthrough at any time and block the roundabout troops. Once the roundabout troops are caught in the division's entanglement, then I am afraid that all the previous painstaking efforts of the headquarters will be lost. Down the drain.
Chen Hanzhang, who repeatedly warned himself to be prudent, ordered the troops that had made greater progress on the southern front in Zhengxiangbai Banner to continue their assault. Two more battalions were mobilized from the reserves to strengthen their assault northward to the north of the Zhengxiangbai Banner breach. At the same time, they moved westward. All the flamethrowers of the line cluster were concentrated in this direction, and a 14mm anti-aircraft machine gun company was deployed to reinforce this aspect.
At the same time, an independent tank battalion equipped with Matilda II tanks was withdrawn from the Zhengxiangbai Banner battlefield, and a reinforced infantry regiment was added to form a detachment. It followed the breakthrough that had been opened in Zhengxiangbaiqi and turned northwest to Xianghuangqi. At the junction with the Zhengxiangbai Banner, a shallow and deep detour was carried out to outflank the entire Zhengxiangbai Banner and the flanks and rear of all Japanese troops fighting fiercely in the Sunit Right Banner.
On the northern front, he replaced Liu Changshun with his chief of staff Wang Minggui, and at the same time transferred Chief of Operations Yang Jicai to the northern front to strengthen command. After Wang Minggui and Yang Jicai rushed to the northern front, facing the war situation, after fighting with the 1st Armored Brigade After discussing with the commander of the 17th Division, the brigade commander quickly adjusted the original tactics according to the unfavorable progress of the battle situation, and withdrew all the tank groups from the front-line attack.
Instead of using tanks to cover infantry charges, they only used their mobility and protective power to support infantry operations by accurately firing artillery fire at Japanese machine gun fire points three hundred meters away. In other words, the original tanks opened the attack channel for the infantry, and the infantry used it to do so. Tanks open attack channels.
Divide all the Japanese positions between the Sunit Right Banner and the white flag into four equal parts on the map, concentrate the four infantry battalions each to take charge of one part, and shrink the previously disabled troops into six independent The platoons are assigned to each battalion and use their familiarity with the battlefield conditions to coordinate with the attacking forces in each area.
At the same time, four infantry companies were concentrated, each with a flamethrower and a recoilless gun. Regardless of the Japanese firepower on the flanks, the mobile artillery group was concentrated for cover, and they directly penetrated deeply into the Japanese army, seizing the depth of Butu Yingji's position facing the Japanese army, and doing it. Hua, Hanggai and Haragai are the four commanding heights.
The 76mm cannon battalion of the 17th Division was broken up and assigned to each battalion in the form of platoons. All recoilless rifles and 12mm anti-aircraft machine guns were transferred to the front-line combat companies, and the 76mm cannons were used at long range. Cooperate with tanks to accurately kill Japanese machine gun fire points from a long distance.
Cover the infantry approaching and use small-caliber direct firepower such as recoilless rifles and rocket launchers to destroy the Japanese anti-tank firepower points at close range. Move no less than one platoon of 76mm cannons to Maodubaga deep inside themselves, and use this place The altitude was high, and fire suppression was carried out in depth on the Japanese positions, especially the Japanese positions around the Halagetu Mountain in front of them.
The 14mm machine guns of each regiment and the 23mm anti-aircraft guns of the division were all assigned to each battalion, and the battalion-level support firepower organization was increased. The two 155 howitzer batteries were originally used by Liu Changshun to suppress the Japanese army in depth. , the mission of the 107th Rocket Artillery Battalion directly under the division remains unchanged, taking advantage of its range advantage to continue to suppress the Japanese army in depth.
However, the original mountain artillery battalion and field artillery battalion were strengthened with a 155mm howitzer battery, and were changed to mobile firepower, and the Japanese army's firing range was re-calibrated within 5,000 meters. In other words, these four artillery groups were replaced by the original The large cluster group fire suppression was changed to the tactics of small clusters each responsible for one direction.
At the same time, the two battalions of the 1st Armored Brigade that were crippled on the first day of the battle were combined into one battalion, and four infantry companies were drawn from the reserves of the 17th Division, plus a reinforcement brought by themselves. The infantry of the battalion formed a regiment-level rapid insertion detachment, commanded by Yang Jicai to implement a shallow and deep roundabout insertion to the north.
They forcibly climbed over the not-so-dangerous Wuzhu Rihua Mountain, and after quickly breaking through from the northernmost end of the Japanese defense area in Sunit Right Banner, they forcibly penetrated behind the Japanese defense positions in Sunit Right Banner to find and completely destroy the Japanese army. artillery positions.
Although Yang Jicai's offensive looks far less spectacular than Liu Changshun's original offensive, and the impact is not very strong, it is a small cluster like mercury pouring from the ground, multiple simultaneous attacks, as well as frontal strong attacks and flanking detours. The offensive brought the greatest threat to the Japanese army in front of them.
By the dusk of the 23rd, the stubborn resistance of the Japanese troops in Sunit Right Banner was finally broken down. From the north, the Japanese troops did not even consider that tanks could maneuver around Uzhurihua Mountain, and the mobile troops forcibly moved along the mountains. Pingyuan hit the front line of Ulan Nur in one go, disintegrating the Japanese second-line defense from the side and rear.
At this time, Chen Hanzhang mobilized the troops from the southern front and headed north from the breach, and finally reached the Hanggai front line. The three battalions of the 51st Regiment of the 17th Division merged to separate the Sunit Right Banner and the Japanese troops in the northern part of the Zhengxiangbai Banner. Encirclement, two battalions of the 17th Division and the last complete tank battalion of the 1st Armored Brigade formed a rapid detachment and forcibly penetrated into the territory of Xianghuang Banner.
On the 25th day of the war, this rapid detachment met with the strengthened detachment that had made a frontal breakthrough in the territory of Xianghuang Banner, and met in Bayantala Sumu, within the territory of Xianghuang Banner, to complete the complete division and encirclement of the 26th Division. The two iron pincers protruding from both wings, coupled with the frontal breakthrough troops that had reached the junction of Zhengbaiqi and Huade, meant that the Anti-Japanese Alliance had already taken the initiative in the war on the Western Front.
At this moment, the 110th Division, which was stationed on the front line of Huade and Shangdu, could no longer remain calm. It concentrated a tank regiment reinforced by the front army and formed a detachment with two infantry regiments to launch a counterattack into the Zhengxiangbai Banner territory. At the same time, it concentrated on A regiment, plus two artillery squadrons, launched a full-line counterattack toward the Bayantalasumu line of Xianghuang Banner, trying to open a breakthrough gap for the 26th Division.
The dispatch of these three regiments means that from Shangdu to Huade, including Xinghe to Jining, all the Japanese troops are left is the independent mixed ninth brigade that arrived just before the battle started, and the entire Chadong area It can be said that the Japanese troops on the second line had a large gap before new troops arrived.
An independent mixed brigade, even if it strengthens its artillery configuration, is simply unable to defend such a large combat area. At least after the arrival of new reinforcements, the Japanese army will not be able to cope with Suidong's defense, let alone attack the enemy. To the north, defend the area north of the Yinshan Mountains.
Originally, according to Okamura Neiji's plan, even if the 26th Division was completely wiped out, the 110th Division would not be allowed to leave the front line from Huade to Shangdu. The mission of the 110th Division was to defend the second line of defense in the entire western battlefield. , that is, Chaxi and Suidong areas, ensuring the security of northern Shanxi, Suizhong, and Suixi areas.
However, Okamura Neiji's order was directly revoked by General Hata Shunroku, the commander of the Japanese China Expeditionary Force who arrived in Peiping to supervise the war. As the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, faced with the gradually turning unfavorable war situation in Chadong, General Hata Shunroku had no choice but to Murura Ningji was so calm that he strongly advocated the suggestion of mobilizing the 36th Division of the First Army for nearby reinforcements.