In fact, the Japanese officers and soldiers, who have always been known for their strict discipline and tenacious will, performed no better than the Chinese army, which they had always looked down upon, when faced with a sudden, fierce and powerful fire attack.
This is not the Xiaomi plus rifle used by the Eighteenth Group Army in Guannai when conducting sneak attacks, or at best the absolutely inferior equipment of grenades, but hundreds of real artillery shells.
The Japanese soldiers, who were caught off guard by the sudden blow, immediately exploded their nest and were driven out of the house by the shells. They finally waited until the sound of the gunfire stopped, but soon discovered that the outside of the house had not been reduced to rubble by the shells. How good are those houses?
It was even more dangerous. The dense machine gun bullets fired around the village knocked down the Japanese soldiers who were driven out, regardless of the officers and soldiers. Those Japanese officers and soldiers who tried to resist relying on the ruins of the ruins and their skilled military technology soon found themselves The ruins left by the houses blown up by the enemy's artillery shells that he relied on for hiding became a nightmare for him.
The huge power of the flat-firing 12mm anti-aircraft machine gun and the 20mm small-caliber anti-aircraft gun made it impossible for the Japanese officers and soldiers hiding among the ruins blown up by the shells to escape. The 12.7mm bullets and 20mm anti-aircraft artillery shells Passing through the earthen wall easily, the Japanese officers and soldiers hiding on the other side were easily torn into two pieces.
The Japanese troops who had been driven out of the house by the previous shells were driven back by these sweeping machine guns. But before they could take a breath among the ruins, these two extremely powerful weapons immediately made them feel that they were still safe outside. Some, at least relying on their military literacy, can judge where these life-threatening guys are coming from, or whether they have a chance to hide.
However, the intensive crossfire outside made them soon realize that going out at this time was tantamount to committing suicide. The battle started less than half an hour ago, and they were unable to advance or retreat. They could not even find a safer corner for the Japanese troops at the headquarters of the Sixth Division. The officers and soldiers were polished off bit by bit, and the few Japanese officers and soldiers who were lucky enough to escape the artillery fire and machine gun fire were pinned to the ground, not even daring to raise their heads.
However, this tragic experience of the officers and soldiers of the Sixth Division Regiment Headquarters happened when the sound of artillery sounded, because a room that was temporarily used as a war room was accurately hit in the first round of artillery fire. The combat meeting, which discussed how to get out of the current predicament, included the Chief of Staff of the Fifth Army, Major General Tasaka Senichi, and included almost all the officers of the Sixth Division, including the commander or above, who did not know.
After verifying through the seized documents that the seemingly high-level Japanese military organization that had been destroyed was the Sixth Division Headquarters, Yi Liangpin reported the matter to the column headquarters as soon as possible. After cleaning the battlefield, without stopping too much, he led the troops and continued southward.
For the remnants of the Sixth Division who were still resisting at the front, the death of all senior officers, including the two commanders, was undoubtedly a very heavy blow. And Yi Liangpin, who stabbed the remnants of the Sixth Division in the back, The attack was the most fatal blow to it.
Although the remaining units of the 6th Division, especially the remaining units of the 45th Regiment used as the backbone, fought fiercely under the spontaneous command of their respective commanders, the overall resistance no longer existed.
The only surviving commander-level commander of the Engineer Regiment, Colonel Masuda Masakichi, was obviously incompetent. Instead of being able to reorganize the Japanese army in a state of chaos, his random command exacerbated the chaos.
The remaining troops of the Sixth Division, which could only fight independently on the basis of large groups, created an excellent fighter opportunity for the brigade that launched the frontal assault. The battle lasted until two o'clock in the morning, and the entire defense depth of the Sixth Division in southern Yilan was It has been completely disrupted and divided into groups and even squadrons.
The battle lasted until 4 o'clock in the morning, when the 1st Brigade and the 2nd Regiment of the 5th Brigade and the 5th Brigade and the 2nd Regiment, which attacked from north to east, and the 1st Regiment of the 5th Brigade and the 5th Brigade and the 1st Regiment attacked from east to west respectively met at Majiagou and along the river. The remaining 3,000 people of the Sixth Division in the entire southern Yilan region have been divided into six large and small encirclement circles that are not connected to each other.
These six encirclement circles, with no more than a thousand men in large and a few hundred men in small, were blockaded by the opponent's superior firepower. Although these divided Japanese troops tried to get closer to each other several times, they failed after paying a heavy price. , had to terminate this effort that was not worth the gain.
To the east of Shuguang, the first brigade and one regiment will be assigned to the two heavy artillery regiments left in the southern theater of Yilan among the three heavy artillery regiments of the Sixth Division, and the last eleven remaining 15 guns of an independent heavy artillery brigade. Zero howitzers and 105 cannons were all captured.
The artillery of the Sixth Division was also disabled. The Artillery Regiment directly under the Sixth Division once had twenty-four 120mm howitzers and twenty-four 38 modified field guns. , except for the twelve artillery pieces of a 120 howitzer brigade attached to the Eastward Detachment, there were only three pitiful 120mm howitzers left in the south of Yilan at this time, which had already fired all their shells. .
The other artillery pieces were either blown up in previous artillery battles, or were blown up by their own artillery after seeing their opponents encircle them. Of course, these artillery pieces were either because the artillery bombardment was slower, or because the opponent's movements were excessive. Too late to react, opponents from the north and the south captured several doors.
The 1st Brigade and 1st Regiment and the 1st Regiment of the 2nd Regiment destroyed almost all the artillery of the 6th Division. The other 1st Regiment of the 2nd Regiment and the 1st Regiment of the 5th Brigade also combined three tanks between Xiaoheyan and Zhangjia Youfang. After a day of fierce fighting during the day, nine of the fifteen remaining Type 1 and Type 97 tanks were destroyed and six were captured.
The later-famous Lieutenant General of the 1st Japanese Tank Division, who commanded the twenty-one remaining Japanese tanks who resisted desperately and refused to give up their tanks, was still the fifth Japanese tank regiment at this time. Colonel Hoshino Toshimoto, captain of the Colonel Regiment, was roasted alive in his Type 97 tank which was hit by four rockets, along with the rest of the crew.
At this point, plus a heavy artillery regiment missing in Boli and a tank regiment lost, the Kwantung Army has four tank regiments, three heavy artillery regiments and an independent heavy artillery brigade assigned to the Sixth Division. Total loss.
This loss is almost unforgettable for the Japanese army with weak production capacity and slow replenishment. Four tank regiments, more than 200 tanks, three heavy artillery regiments, forty-eight 150mm howitzers, sixteen All 05 cannons and eight 150 cannons were lost, and these heavy artillery accounted for almost one-third of all the heavy artillery of the Kwantung Army.
These four tank regiments account for more than half of all the tank regiments of the Kwantung Army. You must know that even though the current Kwantung Army is in a priority position in the equipment organization list of the Japanese base camp, it has no production capacity. Insufficient, especially when qualified armored steel is given priority to the navy, the entire Kwantung Army, in addition to the tanks assigned to search regiments of each division, has only seven independent tank regiments.
However, within less than two days of the full launch of this battle, four tank regiments, more than 200 tanks, and 200 well-trained tank crews were lost, especially among them. The First Tank Division, which had just been formed by three tank regiments, was now empty as soon as it opened. This result was unacceptable to both the Tokyo base camp and the Kwantung Army.
After this battle, I received a heavy beating in Nomenhan and understood what modern mechanized corps combat is. I finally changed my overly conservative tactical concept of using tanks and began to organize them into tank troops instead of using them again. As in the past, the Japanese military leaders who assigned tanks to various divisions only saw the problem of poor survivability of tank troops in the face of the opponent's huge number of anti-tank weapons without the cooperation of infantry, but they assigned them to the battle of Nomonhan All the lessons learned were lost.
Its tactical thinking went from one extreme to the other. The first tank division that had just been formed was disbanded after this battle, and the tank troops that had been assembled were redistributed to various field battles. The development speed of divisions and tanks also gradually slowed down.
In addition to vigorously developing various anti-tank guns, they only tinkered with the Type 97 tank and did not develop any new tanks for several years. It was not until the end of the war that they were beaten to death by the armored tactics of Yang Zhen's large corps. It picked up what had been thrown away before, reorganized armored divisions, and began to study new types of tanks to replace the increasingly outdated Type 97 tanks.
It's just that the decision of the Japanese army base camp was somewhat unexpected by Yang Zhen. He never thought that he not only changed the course of history, but also changed the conservative concept that the Japanese army had barely reversed, allowing the Japanese army to go back to the On the old road.
Of course, whether the Kwantung Army and even the Japanese base camp can accept this result is another matter for another day. For the current Sixth Division, life is just like a year, especially after they finally got some supplementary artillery shells in the second half of the night, there was a period of interruption. Under the attack of the opponent's artillery that suddenly became active again, the seemingly fierce resistance of the Sixth Division looked so weak. Although every officer and soldier still alive did not admit it, in fact, the Sixth Division at this time The division is on the eve of collapse.
The opponent simply did not attack them head-on. When encountering stubborn resistance, they mobilized a 107 rocket launcher and fired volleys one after another. The artillery coverage was enough to eliminate the resistance of a Japanese squadron. At this time, Wang Guangyu did not hesitate to use artillery shells. Under the blow, the remaining troops of the Sixth Division had never looked forward to dawn as much as they did now.
After being divided and encircled, the remnants of the Sixth Division, which had been beaten back by shells after several forcible breakthroughs, were rapidly disintegrated under Wang Guangyu's full blow, with a casualty rate of five to six hundred per hour. Then, over there, after Yi Liangpin's sneak attack on the Sixth Division's headquarters, Namada Shigenori, who lost all contact with the Sixth Division, was even more troubled.
For Juichi Namada, he knew very well what consequences the annihilation of the Sixth Division would bring. This was not just a matter of the annihilation of the empire's old standing divisions, but also a matter of completely shaking the frontline battle situation. , and to go a step further, it involves the problem of the black hat on his own head.
If the entire army of the Sixth Division is really destroyed, he, Shigeichi Namada, is determined to add another star to his collar. His goal of becoming a general will never be achieved again, and he will never repeat the mistakes of the former commander of the Kwantung Army. General Kan Ueda Kenkichi's mistakes were punished to the end, and the result of being demoted from general to major general was already an act of mercy by the emperor.