Chapter 353: The Stalemate on the Iron Won Battlefield
Faced with the request made by the United States, Yang Zhen agreed to the request of the U.S. Army after urgent discussions with the central government. However, Yang Zhen firmly disagreed with the Americans' idea of only sending out ships to the Anti-Japanese War and letting the Americans take over the war.
It was resolutely required that the ships participating in the war must be piloted and operated by Anti-Union personnel.
Faced with Yang Zhen's tough attitude, the anxious Americans finally agreed to Yang Zhen's request. Then they sent more than 20 ships to Lushun, towed the anti-Union gunboat group to the waters of Iwo Jima, and sent a fleet to repair it.
The ship comes with maintenance support.
Although these small gunboats are flexible, they can only operate in coastal waters. Because their tonnage is too small, they do not have the ability to sail long distances. Without the towing of large ships, they cannot reach the waters of Iwo Jima by relying on their own capabilities. The Americans also know this.
, so ships were dispatched to Lushun Port to respond.
And Yang Zhen also consciously took this rare opportunity to train his small fleet. He basically transferred all the ships that could carry out combat. Even the river gunboats that had been withdrawn from the Songhua River
, and all of them were sent out to participate in the war.
These small gunboats are just a drop in the bucket against the large and medium-sized Japanese navy ships. But they are quite effective against the Japanese suicide speedboats that have a huge number. These small gunboats and gunboats sent by the Anti-Japanese Alliance just make up for Iwo Jima.
The US military fleet lacks mobile and flexible small ships, and the temporarily modified landing craft are not efficient due to poor seakeeping.
Although the Anti-Union gunboat fleet and small gunboats could only undertake combat defense in one direction due to their number, they also greatly reduced the pressure on the US military. In this bloody battle that lasted for one and a half months, the Anti-Union gunboats
Although the team only participated in the second half of the mission, they sank more than a hundred Japanese suicide speedboats, effectively ensuring the safety of the US fleet.
Although I also lost several gunboats and a gunboat to the attacks of Japanese Kaitian torpedoes, Zhenyang suicide speedboats and suicide planes. However, through this battle, I trained my troops and learned a lot of experience.
Yang Zhen thinks the price is worth it.
This small fleet of gunboats and five gunboats did not return to Port Arthur immediately after the Battle of Iwo Jima. During this battle, the admiral of the U.S. Navy's Third Fleet was overwhelmed by the Japanese's extremely large number of suicide speedboats.
Commander, we will not let this small anti-alliance fleet, which is mainly composed of small gunboats, return.
The Americans refused to release them, and Yang Zhen was not in a hurry to move the fleet back. This small fleet, to be precise, was a gunboat fleet. It followed the US military to participate in the Battle of Okinawa before returning at Yang Zhen's repeated request.
Port Arthur. When the small fleet returned, the American admiral also generously presented five LCM landing craft and two LCT landing craft to the Anti-Japanese Alliance as compensation for the loss of several gunboats by the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
In addition to sending his only fleet to participate in the battle, Yang Zhen basically sat on the mountain and watched the battle between tigers and tigers during the entire battle of Iwo Jima. It was not until March that the Battle of Iwo Jima came to an end, and it was a foregone conclusion that Iwo Jima would fall into the hands of the US military.
Only then did he approve Du Kaishan's offensive on the front lines of Jinhua and Tieyuan.
Although Yang Zhen pushed back the launch of the campaign to almost a full month, Du Kaishan and Ma Chunsheng organized forward troops and conducted detailed reconnaissance of the enemy situation in the planned combat area many times. They also conducted detailed reconnaissance on the Five Sacred Mountains
On the front line, many tough attack drills were conducted.
However, after the Jinhua and Tieyuan fronts were fully launched, the progress was not as smooth as Du Kaishan had originally imagined. Du Kaishan's overall deployment was to take Tieyuan as the core and deploy a regiment of troops on both sides of Tieyuan.
Gaotai Mountain, Jinhe Mountain, and the highlands in the north of Wenhuili are the main points of contention.
If the war progresses smoothly, the two regiments will continue to attack southward and strive to push the front southward to the Imjin River. With an attached tank battalion and an infantry battalion, they will launch intersecting operations along the Gyeonggi Railway toward Yeoncheon.
Cut off the connection between the Japanese troops in front of them and the enemy troops in the area west of the Gyeonggi-Yi Railway.
Deploy a regiment's force to the west of Jinhua, equipped with one howitzer and one heavy mortar. Conduct company and platoon-level point operations in the hilly areas north of Jinhua. Use the strength of one regiment as the total reserve force, and
The front line between Jinhua and Tieyuan was monitored. The troops on both wings simultaneously launched a diversionary attack on Shuoning and the line from Heituyunling to Dacheng Mountain east of Jinhua.
For this battle, Du Kaishan moved the headquarters from Pyongyang to Pingkang. Ma Chunsheng, who was in charge of front-line command, placed the headquarters in Dongmu-ri, north of Cheorwon, only a stone's throw away from the battlefield.
These two men almost took a step-by-step approach to direct this battle.
But to the surprise of both of them, after figuring out the offensive strength of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, the North Korean army did not hastily increase its troops. Instead, it only relied on the 137th Division on the Cheorwon battlefield and fought repeatedly with the Anti-Japanese Alliance.
In the direction of Jinhua, we only relied on the original deployment of the independent 133rd Brigade, relying on the mountains outside Jinhua to defend Jinhua.
The only adjustment was to allocate four infantry squadrons from each of the four regiments of the 150th Division, which was originally between Pocheon and Seoul, to attach most of the division's rapid-fire artillery team, as well as a part of the Japanese army's latest weapon rocket launcher team.
Combined with two squadrons of the heavy artillery regiment of the 58th Army, they moved to the area north of Pocheon to take over the in-depth defense of the 137th Division.
So that the 137th Division can free up its hands and go all out to deal with the anti-alliance offensive in the direction of Cheorwon. However, the main force of the 150th Division still sticks to the line from Imjin River to Kaesong. However, the North Korean army is in Cheorwon, Jinhua
After the battle started, the defenses around Seoul were significantly strengthened.
As for the Japanese 137th Division deployed south of Cheorwon, in addition to retaining the two infantry brigades of the 376th Regiment as mobile forces and reserves, most of the troops are organized into squadrons and squads, spread out.
We arrived at the hilly area south of Cheorwon and on both sides of the Hantan River.
On every highland south of Cheorwon, a squadron with enhanced firepower was deployed. Around these highlands, on every major hilltop, a squadron with similarly enhanced firepower was deployed. And according to the characteristics of the entire Cheorwon battlefield
, a certain amount of mobile troops are also deployed between the first-line and second-line troops, and between the second-line and third-line troops.
At the same time, the 137th Division did not compete with the Anti-Japanese Alliance for the Cheorwon City area where the terrain was unfavorable and conducive to exerting heavy firepower. Instead, with the support of deep artillery, the 137th Division led the line from point to point, relying on the surrounding areas of Cheorwon and the south.
In mountainous areas, there are existing fortifications to resist point by point, and it can be said that every inch of land must be fought for.
Every hilltop in the entire Cheorwon battlefield had to be fought over and over again before the ownership was finally determined. Cheorwon, a small town in the mountainous area, was completely razed to the ground on the first day of the battle. With Cheorwon as the core, the area was more than ten kilometers wide from north to south.
On a battlefield that is more than 20 kilometers long from east to west, both sides fire an average of tens of thousands of artillery shells every day.
However, in this battle, although the Japanese army invested only a limited number of troops against the Anti-Japanese Alliance, although no major adjustments were made, the firepower was greatly strengthened. Not only did all the artillery of the 137th Division be invested,
and half of the artillery of the 150th Division.
As the battle progressed, nearly one-third of the North Korean army's direct artillery and more than twenty large-caliber howitzers were successively deployed. The latest four-type 203mm rocket launcher was also dispatched for the first time.
And the Type 5 150mm rocket launcher.
Especially during the battle on Iwo Jima, it was combined with the 240mm howitzer, which posed a serious threat to the US military on the beach. Although the range was somewhat short, the launcher was extremely simple, and the four-type 203 rocket launcher could be fired at a different location.
In Tiewon, Du Kaishan's offensive also brought a lot of trouble.
In addition to the latest equipment for the artillery, the infantry included light and heavy machine guns and imitation German Panzerfaust rocket launchers. During the Cheorwon battle, the Japanese army also used the latest four-type weapons in order to deal with the anti-Japanese tanks.
Ninety-millimeter rocket launchers were also used on the Cheorwon battlefield.
This latest anti-tank rocket launcher of the Japanese army is not comparable to the imitation German Panzerfaust rocket launchers originally used by the Japanese army in terms of range and power. These rocket launchers are deployed along the Gyeonggi Railway and along the Cheorwon-Jipori highway.
.Inflicted heavy losses on a tank battalion deployed in Du Kaishan.
The tank troops deployed by Du Kaishan only advanced less than ten kilometers south along the Gyeonggi Line. Under the intensive anti-tank fire of the Japanese army and a large number of rocket launchers, nearly half of the tanks were lost. One of the tanks who served as cover
The infantry battalion also suffered heavy casualties under the crossfire of the Japanese troops in the mountains on both sides and had to retreat to the starting point.
At the same time, during the forward attack operations, Ma Chunsheng organized many small-scale roundabout operations, but most of them ended in failure despite the tight defense of the Japanese army. The 137th Division in front of them had obviously carefully studied
During the Anti-Japanese War in Southern Manchuria, they adopted the tactics of fighting on the eastern battlefield of Kaiyuan and adopted targeted deployments.
The advance preparations of the 137th Division caused Ma Chunsheng to fail in almost all of his interspersed operations, and he could only push forward bit by bit from the front. However, the continuous mountains to the south of Cheorwon made Ma Chunsheng's frontal attack progress extremely slowly.
After three days of fierce fighting, the attacking troops on the Cheorwon front line failed to complete the planned operational objectives of seizing Gaodaishan and Munhyeri.
The attacking troops paid a heavy price and only captured a few highlands south of Cheorwon and Jizang Peak. In the area east of the Hantan River, they only captured the highlands north of Munhye-ri. In the Jinhua battlefield, although they captured
They reached the front line of Shaguli, but when they advanced to the front line of Fugui Mountain, they encountered extremely stubborn resistance.
The continuous attacks paid a heavy price, but the progress was extremely slow, which made Du Kaishan quite dissatisfied. But he was dissatisfied, but within three days, he tried to penetrate several times and failed, which made him obviously a little impatient after repeatedly trying to stabilize himself.
Ma Chunsheng was in a mood. Considering that the losses of the participating troops were heavy after the three-day attack, Du Kaishan was quickly transferred as a regiment of the 10th Division of the General Reserve Team in the Central Korean Battlefield and arrived north of Cheorwon to stand by.
After gritting his teeth, Du Kaishan also mobilized the artillery reserves, trying to concentrate the artillery group to shoot down the Japanese rocket launchers with a short range but great power. At the same time, Du Kaishan asked the covering troops on both wings to change to a feint attack.
Act on the attack and increase the intensity of the attack.
For Du Kaishan, who was obviously a little impatient, Yang Zhen repeatedly called him back and asked him to stay calm. The general reserve team in hand was easily not allowed to be transferred up. At the same time, Yang Zhen resolutely stopped Du Kaishan. Among the troops who were being reorganized in the rear from the Korean Independence Army,
Deploy another brigade to the central front, and transfer an armored unit to reinforce the request in the direction of Cheorwon.
Although he was also surprised by the new tactics adopted by the Japanese army, Yang Zhen, after careful consideration, responded to Du Kaishan's repeated requests: "Attack with the existing forces and find ways to deal with the new tactics of the Japanese army during the battle."
Tactical approach. Don't be too impatient, be sure to stabilize your emotions. Pay attention to the new tactics adopted by the Japanese army, and make more local adjustments in the specific deployment of front-line troops."