On October 1, 1940, Luo Lei's Fourth Army and Jiao Guangxu's First Mountain Army officially began their offensive against Mandalay.
At 7 o'clock in the morning, the two armies concentrated thousands of cannons with a caliber of 75mm or above. At the same time, the Air Force dispatched three flying groups to take turns to launch air strikes on Mandalay. The Army Aviation Brigade attached to the Northern Burma Front was also ready to attack.
, participating in the battle at any time as the backbone of the siege force.
Under the guidance of the wooden calibration plane, artillery shells of various calibers fell in turn inside and outside Mandalay City. Thick black smoke pillars, accompanied by loud roars, rose from the crisscrossed positions of the Japanese army.
Trembling violently.
As the first strike group flew over Mandalay, countless bombs, with the greetings of death, made sharp whistling sounds, and dense explosions rang out in different directions one after another, on the routes of fighter jets, attack aircraft, and bombers.
Everything was reduced to nothing in the diffuse smoke.
An underground ammunition depot hidden by the Japanese army in the east of Mandalay City was penetrated by a falling aircraft bomb, causing an accidental explosion. The explosion fire ball soared hundreds of meters into the air, and the mushroom cloud was terrifying in the morning light.
The impact blast made buildings within a radius of several kilometers crackle.
In a strong permanent underground fortification in the north of Mandalay City, Lieutenant General Masaro Baba, commander of the Japanese 53rd Division, had a pale face and a slightly trembling body, sitting in a resting room behind the headquarters.
From there you can clearly see the work of the staff outside.
Masahiro Baba is a graduate of the 24th batch of the Army Military Academy and a graduate of the 33rd batch of the Mainland University. He has been an instructor at the Army Cavalry School and the Mainland University for a long time. He was promoted to Army Major General two years ago and served as the commander of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade. Last year, the Japanese army carried out a large-scale expansion.
One big step in one year and he officially became the commander of the 53rd Division Lieutenant General.
Baba Masarou's step-brother is Admiral Kobayashi Nozō and is the current Governor of Taiwan. Baba Masarou's promotion path is closely related to Kobayashi Nozō's strong support.
Due to the unstable current and voltage of diesel, the flickering lights make people feel very depressed. Masahiro Baba frowned and stared straight at the cup of tea placed on the table in front of him. As the sound came from above,
There was an explosion of pears and the tea in the cup was shaking violently.
Although they were mentally prepared, the intensity of the An's army's offensive still far exceeded Masahiro Baba's expectations.
For the Japanese army, in a large-scale battle, it was very luxurious to invest more than two hundred artillery pieces and have twenty or thirty fighter planes to assist the battle. But now the number of artillery pieces used by the opponent has actually reached thousands.
, the number of fighter planes is at least over a hundred, and in order to maintain the ability to sustain sustained strikes, the opponent seems to have an equal number of fighter planes for rotation. It must be said that the opponent's actions are generous and luxurious.
With this violent shelling and bombing, the last bit of luck that came to the head of Baba Masashi disappeared. He knew very well that he was very likely to lead the troops to destruction here, and practiced the "see you at Yasukuni Shrine" when he left Japan.
promise!
No one wants to die. At this time, Baba Masahiro is thinking hard about how to survive.
Unfortunately, the river fleet used to transport supplies has been completely destroyed by the opponent's air force's frequent bombings. Even if it was not destroyed, the opponent has controlled the area below Mandalay on the Irrawaddy River. At the same time, the other side of the river has been occupied by the enemy's mechanized troops crossing the river from Sagaing.
Where can Neng Zhou escape?
The south and east of the city are tightly surrounded, and almost endless artillery shells are being fired from there. Although there are no troops in the north to attack the city, it is completely conceivable that our infantry unit will face the tanks after escaping from the fortified city.
What will be the outcome of an armored vehicle attack?
Since the Anjia Army's artillery bombardment began, Baba Masaro gave all the troops under his jurisdiction the order to stay put and not attack wantonly. Then he went to the underground headquarters to deal with this extremely difficult siege. Here.
some time, via radio bo
, he has received too much bad news. Fortified cities such as Kota Baharu, Jitra, Patna, and Moulmein have been lost one after another. So far, there has been no example of successful defense of the city. Each city is like a
A living coffin in which all the owners are buried.
This huge reinforced concrete bunker was originally the vault of a British bank located in central and northern Myanmar. Above it was a six-story reinforced concrete building. After the Japanese army replaced the British as rulers, they transformed the vault into a
The solid underground command center and various communication lines organically connect the entire Mandalay City together.
Looking at the busy staff in the headquarters, Lieutenant General Masaro Baba steeled himself, got up and walked out of the room, and came to a periscope artillery observer located in the southeast corner of the headquarters. At this time, the ground suddenly shook violently.
Baba Masahiro's lower body was unstable and he hit his head against the wall. A sharp pain came from his forehead, which made him cry.
It turned out that the six-story building above was hit by more than a dozen 500-kilogram aerial bombs, and the entire bank building collapsed. The violent shaking of the walls and foundation caused the underground headquarters to follow suit. At this moment, it was as if it had endured eight
A magnitude 9 earthquake is normal.
The violent shaking slowly stopped after two minutes. The underground headquarters was filled with dust, and coughs were heard everywhere. The electric fan at the vent continued to expel the dust, and the fan at the air inlet also desperately pushed out the smoke-laden air outside.
After breathing it in, it took about a quarter of an hour before the air quality in the underground headquarters improved slightly.
Masahiro Baba stood up while holding on to the wall, rubbed his forehead that had a big lump on it, took a deep breath, put his glasses in front of the artillery sight, held the artillery sight steady with both hands, and began to look around.
I saw flames everywhere outside. Amidst the smoke and the continuous explosions, dense artillery shells and aerial bombs fell like raindrops. Masahiro Baba happened to see a hiding place for soldiers not far away being hit by a large-caliber grenade.
After the hit, countless stumps and broken arms flew into the sky along with the wood fragments, and then fell back to the ground like hailstones.
The smoke-filled Mandalay City was shivering under the fierce artillery fire and fighter bombings of the Anjia Army. The Japanese soldiers who had once been arrogant and clamored for a decisive battle were now pale and trembling all over, desperately huddled in the bunker.
He dared to move and muttered words to pray that bad luck would not befall him.
The explosions were continuous, and the artillery shells and bombs dropped by the Anjia Army's bombers, as if for free, fell on every corner of the Japanese and Burmese troops from the forward positions to the rear cities. During the whole process, the people assigned to the
The 53rd Artillery Regiment of the division has not fired a single round according to the request of the division commander Masaro Baba.
In a phone call to Colonel Umeji Tanaka, the commander of the artillery wing, Baba Masaro said: "Our firepower projection capabilities are simply incomparable with those of our opponents. A hasty counterattack is very likely to cause huge losses. It is better to use them in counterattacks at night. This way
The possibility of being hit will be much smaller, but the results will be greater!"
Colonel Tanaka Ume was convinced of this, so he divided the artillery regiment into small groups for concealment, in order to reduce the huge losses caused by Anjia Army's artillery fire and bombing strikes.
At 9:45 a.m., after nearly three hours of artillery preparations and intensive bombing, the bomber group, already dispatched for the second time, began to throw napalm bombs at the Japanese positions. For a while, raging fire broke out inside and outside Mandalay City.
Fire.
In particular, the forward positions of the Japanese army became the focus of incendiary bombings, and the sky was filled with a sea of fire. As long as the Japanese and the Burmese army were contaminated with a little spark, with the viciousness of napalm and such high temperatures, it would be a miserable life of nine deaths.
ending.
The Japs and Burmese soldiers in the front-line trenches were almost completely destroyed by this wave of napalm bombs. The ones who survived were the Japs and Burmese soldiers who were huddled in the fortifications and were not directly hit by the shells. Originally from ten
After Mandalay City was besieged on the 9th, Masahiro Baba ordered hundreds of fortifications to be blocked with cement on the front line and sent special personnel to transport food and drinking water from the top to the Japanese in these fortifications every day.
In a small space, several defenders plus a Type 92 heavy machine gun and several boxes of ammunition made it difficult for the people inside to turn around. In the stuffy and airtight bunker, these people usually had to take turns sticking to the small space.
They had to breathe at the shooting site, and several people had to deal with everything including urination and defecation in the bunker. You can imagine how bad the environment here was.
However, precisely because of this, the chance of contact with napalm was avoided, and these Japs and Burmese soldiers finally survived. Of course, this was not a good thing for them.
At ten o'clock sharp, An's army officially launched its general attack on Mandalay City.
The Anjia Army's main attack direction is the southeast line. The terrain here is open and flat, which is very conducive to the assault of mechanized troops. Although tanks and armored vehicles cannot cross the trenches, they can still be used as mobile forts to suppress the Japanese firepower at close range. Therefore,
Hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles rumbled into a giant torrent of steel, arriving in front of the heavily defended Japanese trenches.
Between the tanks and armored vehicles, there are more than thirty tanks with strange shapes and huge volumes. In the direction of the coaxial machine gun of the turret, there is a flamethrower. This is the modified spray tank of the Tiger IV tank. It still retains its main features.
gun, the difference from the Tiger I tank is that the caliber of the tank gun is reduced
At 88 mm, the original coaxial machine gun and part of the main gun ammunition were replaced by a fuel tank for fire-breathing. The oil tank can carry 460 liters of fuel. It is controlled by compressed air and can meet the needs of 20 fire-breathing distances.
It can reach up to 160 meters, and it carries a weapon used for murder and arson.
The Japs and Burmese soldiers hiding in the fortifications and bunkers were uneasy. Their minds were full of questions. Why were there not the Anjia Army infantry swarming up as expected? The rocket launchers and flamethrowers who had posed the greatest threat to the bunker in the past were also
Why didn't you see anyone? What went wrong?
When the P-4 tanks began to effectively clear the dense machine gun bunkers and overlapping fortifications built by the Japanese on the other side of the trench, the Japanese and the Burmese soldiers suddenly realized what they were about to suffer.
After frantically firing machine guns with no effect, these Japanese soldiers and the Burmese soldiers cried out and used everything they could use to start smashing the door of the bunker that was sealed with cement.
, use your nails to dig, even if the nails break, you will not feel it, just to get a way to escape.
Unfortunately, the way out has been blocked, and no matter how hard they try, it is of no avail. This almost crazy behavior continues until the high temperature, and the high-heat flame pours in from the shooting port instantly, filling the entire bunker space, and every Japanese soldier
until the soldiers were engulfed in fire.
The fire-breathing tank is no different from the big killer of this era. The armor thickness of the Tiger I tank is enough to withstand the attacks of large-caliber howitzers and can completely ignore the projectiles fired by machine guns, rifles, grenade launchers and mortars. Moreover,
In order to reduce casualties, the Fourth Group Army of the Anjia Army chose the surprise attack
The breach was relatively small and the density of armored troops was so high that a quarter of an hour after the breach was opened, the Japanese commanders at the forward positions were still unable to make the determination to counterattack and could only watch bunkers and fortifications one after another.
It became a living coffin for burying Japanese soldiers and Burmese soldiers.
Seeing that the Anjia Army engineers began to blast the first trench to open up attack channels for tanks and armored vehicles. Once the fire-breathing tanks entered the second trench, the tragedy of the first trench would be repeated. In this case, the Japanese army
The frontline commander had no choice but to open the fire door in the upstream area of the trench. Suddenly, the Irrawaddy
The water from the river poured in along the first trench surrounding the city. In just half an hour, the five or six meter deep trench was filled with water. Although this temporarily stopped the advance of Anjiajun tanks and armored vehicles, it would also
Nearly a thousand Japanese and Burmese soldiers who were not burned to death but could not evacuate drowned alive in bunkers and fortifications.
The Japanese army's reaction was all expected. Soon, the infantrymen holding rafts and rubber boats began to force the crossing. With the support of artillery fire from the rear, they quickly pushed closer to more than 200 meters away from the second trench, and then
They began to use the craters from previous shelling and the abandoned bunkers of the Japanese army to build fortifications, and at the same time fired at the Japanese trenches.
In the rear, one after another engineering vehicles drove to the first trench that had turned into a river, throwing prefabricated components into the gurgling stream, and pontoon bridges for tanks to pass appeared in front of them.
Leopard II tanks and armored vehicles passed by one after another, followed by spray tanks, which arrived in front of the second trench in a mammoth manner, and once again burned the Japanese and Burmese soldiers hiding in the bunker into roast pigs. However, the first
The second trench was not as strict as the first trench. In fear, many Japanese soldiers and Burmese soldiers opened the door of the bunker and fled to the rear frantically. The entire position was in chaos.
At this time, the attack planes and bombers hovering in the air were specifically targeting the retreating enemies. For a time, the entire Japanese position at the breakthrough point was filled with blood and blood, and human limbs and internal organs were scattered everywhere.
, too miserable to look at.
So far, the Japanese anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft machine gun positions have not been exposed. Therefore, Lieutenant General Luo Lei, commander of the Fourth Group Army who commanded the siege battle, did not dare to rashly send Army Aviation helicopters to participate in the battle. But judging from the current situation, if
The Japanese army was unable to crack the Anjia Army's layer-by-layer advancement tactics, and even if the helicopters did not participate in the battle, they would not be able to affect the situation.
The battle lasted from morning to six o'clock in the afternoon, and all three trenches of the Japanese army were breached. What followed was an even more brutal position-stretching battle.
The Japanese army built countless trenches and bunkers on a five-kilometer-deep front. Although nearly half of them suffered devastating blows during previous shelling and bombing, a large number were still preserved. In addition to these trenches and fortifications,
Under many inconspicuous layers of soil, there may not necessarily be a large number of Japanese suicide bombs buried.
Therefore, as night falls, the sounds of gunshots and explosions become more intensive, and the smell of blood in the air becomes stronger.
At nine o'clock in the evening, the Japanese 53rd Artillery Regiment, which had been reduced to pieces and hidden without a trace since the Anjia Army attacked the city, began to intensively bombard the front-line positions at the breakthrough point achieved by the Anjia Army from their respective hiding positions.
Since the Japanese artillery is scattered in all directions of Mandalay City, the current artillery bombardment is only based on rough calculations, and the shooting Zhuyuan has not yet been calibrated. Therefore, after this round of artillery bombardment, most of the artillery shells deviated far away from Anjia in the southeast.
Even more than a dozen grenades fell into their own lines, causing the Japanese soldiers and Burmese soldiers to fall off their feet.
As the artillery fire raged, the Japanese army began to launch a planned counterattack. Many suicide bombers emerged from under the covering soil and rushed towards the tanks and armored vehicles of the Anjia Army.
After nightfall, the Air Force once again threw a large number of napalm bombs at the Japanese positions, so the entire front was bright. From the perspective of light and dark conversion, the Japanese army launched an attack from the light to the dark, so the intention to fight back was exposed early, and no surprise attack was allowed.
Do not turn into a violent attack.
Around those tanks and armored vehicles, the infantry of the Anjia Army built temporary positions to defend them. Therefore, before the Japanese death squads could get closer, they were sieved by general-purpose machine guns and automatic rifles. Occasionally, some fish slipped through the net, and they were also attacked by snipers.
Down, all dead and wounded.
At this time, the armed helicopters of the Army Aviation finally appeared in the sky above Mandalay, attacking the Japanese artillery positions that were spraying artillery shells in the night. As the rocket nests under the short wings opened fire, each rocket flew like an arrow from the string.
Facing the Japanese artillery position, amidst the continuous explosions, the Japanese artillerymen who were caught off guard were like perpetrators suffering in purgatory, writhing and breaking in the sea of fire.
In this era, air defense at night was undoubtedly a problem. The Japanese anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns were forced to roar angrily. However, since there were no artillery sighting tools, they could only shoot blindly, which had little effect on helicopters in the night.
Threatened, but because of the exposure of the firepower point, they were once again hit by rockets from helicopters. For a while, the Japanese were miserable.
Despite losing the support of rear artillery, the Japanese counterattack continued. When they were 400 meters away from the temporary position of the Anjia Army, the Japanese and Burmese soldiers began to form skirmishers under the command of grassroots officers.
slightly bent
waist, holding a 38 cap with a bayonet in his hand, while the Japanese machine gunner rushing at the front of the skirmisher line was holding the newly issued "Guaibao" light machine gun, which is different from the crooked bar machine gun.
This kind of machine gun actually has a bayonet, which is really speechless.
When the Japs and Burmese troops in front approached the Anjia Army's temporary position a hundred meters away, the Japanese heavy machine guns, grenades and mortars were already looking for a suitable shooting position. Ping held a samurai sword and rushed at the end.
The Japanese captains in front shouted orders to charge, and the Japanese and Burmese soldiers began to accelerate their final attack.
The Japanese and Burmese troops moved forward bravely, trying to rush through the distance of more than 100 meters as quickly as possible, but what greeted them was the firing of mortars and tank main guns from behind the position, and then the high-level dual-purpose machine guns on the armored vehicles also began to fire.
Finally, the general machine guns and automatic rifles on the position fired. For a moment, the sky and the earth were filled with traces of tracer bullets, weaving into a curtain of light in the direction facing the position.
The Japs and Burmese light machine gunners who were rushing at the front only trembled and fell to the ground. The deputy shooter on the side continued to pick up the machine gun. After taking a few steps, the deputy shooter also struggled and was shot and fell to the ground. Behind him,
People continue to pick up machine guns!
Amidst the storm of shooting, the Japs and the Burmese army's offensive troops seemed to have hit a steel plate. The Japs and Burmese soldiers who were shouting crazily seemed to be shot instantly on the spot. Most of the Japs and Burmese soldiers were shot.
is running
Those who were shot and fell to the ground on the way. The Japanese and Burmese soldiers who were hit by the powerful high-level dual-purpose machine gun bullets with astonishing power were almost all torn into pieces. A Japanese captain whose knees were struck by a machine gun bullet was lying on the ground holding his severed legs.
Rolling and struggling violently.
In the dense rain of bullets and frequent explosions, no one cared about the casualties of their colleagues. Everyone had only one thought, which was to rush to the [Chinese] people's position and kill them all. The huge casualties had already killed most of them.
The Japanese and the Burmese soldiers lost their minds, and more Japanese and the Burmese soldiers stepped on the corpses of their companions, howling and struggling to attack.
The 105mm 55x caliber cannon on the Leopard II tank is specially designed to clear out the Japanese and Burmese heavy machine guns, grenades and mortars, which are targets that pose a greater threat to the Anjia Army, and the enemy's heavy machine guns.
Under direct fire from tanks, grenades and mortars, together with the shooter's broken body, flew up and down into the night sky one after another. The corpses scattered everywhere and the twisted remains of the machine gun frightened the Japanese and the Burmese army who launched the counterattack.
be terrified.
However, the grenade launchers of the Japanese army are still difficult to detect, especially at a distance of 100 meters. The grenade launchers equipped by the Japanese army have a hit rate of almost 100% when used by experienced veterans.
Due to the dense concentration of Anjia officers and soldiers in the temporary fortification trenches, every grenade that fell into the position could cause casualties of two or three officers and soldiers. The medical soldiers wearing red and white crosses on their heads braved the flying shrapnel in the trenches.
Pass through and evacuate the wounded immediately.
On the contrary, in the face of the intensive firepower of the Anjia Army, the Japanese army, which lacked artillery preparations, continued to resist stubbornly after paying heavy casualties, constantly looking for areas to test on the flanks and joints of the temporary positions.
The brutal battle continued until three o'clock in the morning. Lieutenant General Luo Lei, the commander-in-chief of the siege, stood at the command point, looking at the miniature sand table in the center, and listened to the latest battle report from the staff.
Regarding the counterattack launched by the Japanese army, Luo Lei had already predicted that the advance of the troops during the day was too fierce. He believed that the Japanese must break this passive situation of being beaten by fighting back in order to change the unfavorable strategic situation.
At four o'clock in the morning, the Japanese counterattack launched in the southeast of the city showed signs of weakening. Luo Lei made a prompt decision and immediately ordered the artillery groups of the group army to immediately begin to cover the entire city of Mandalay with indiscriminate artillery fire.
During the Japanese counterattack.
After daybreak, the frontline troops had once again advanced the front four kilometers and successfully reached the southeastern edge of Mandalay City.
Since the line of sight is no longer disturbed by the night light, the accuracy of the Leopard II tank's direct firepower has been greatly improved. The high-level dual-purpose machine gun on the armored vehicle following the cover kept clicking like fried beans.
, the officers and soldiers who accompanied the attack of tanks and armored vehicles were highly concentrated and smashed all the Japanese who tried to get close to pieces. It was almost a luxury for the Japanese death squads to get close to the tanks. The fire-breathing tank once again showed its powerful power, killing the Japanese in the bunker.
Burned into coke one by one.
At ten o'clock in the morning on the 2nd, the Anjia Army's Fourth Group Army, which used the southeast as a breakthrough point, finally broke into Mandalay City.
In the close-range street fighting, the officers and soldiers of the Fourth Group, who had rotated their attack arrows, were in high spirits. Under the cover of approaching tanks and artillery, the strike groups caused great trouble to the Japanese and the Burmese soldiers.
The 75mm recoilless rifle was also used in the siege of Mandalay. This lightweight, easy-to-carry weapon with an armor-piercing thickness of up to 395 mm was almost as accurate against the enemy's barriers as it was with tanks and armored vehicles.
The firepower echoed each other, and the Japanese were like hedgehogs with their thorns removed. They had no choice but to launch a counterattack to break the passive situation of being beaten.
In the chaotic exchange of fire, the powerful firepower of the rocket launchers, automatic rifles, flamethrowers, submachine guns and other individual weapons owned by Anjia officers and soldiers almost suffocated the counterattacking Japanese troops.
The Japanese army had no choice but to fight. They took off their shirts one after another, holding bayonets and shouting wildly.
Lanes, houses, intersections, and even popped up underground. Under the fierce firepower of Anjia army officers and soldiers, the Japanese and Burmese soldiers rushed to the ground one after another. Anjia army soldiers also suffered many casualties in their brave fighting.
As the breach continued to expand, more and more troops were invested. The three divisions of the Fourth Army and the two divisions of the First Mountain Group began to extend from the breach to the two wings. Under the cover of tanks and armored vehicles, attack aircraft in the air
Under the pressure of bombers and helicopters, the counterattacks launched by the Japanese and the Burmese army were crushed again and again.
The brutal battle lasted for four days and three nights. At four o'clock in the afternoon on October 3, the underground headquarters of the bank building, the Japs' command center in Mandalay, was captured. Here, the officers and soldiers found the body of Masaro Baba, who had committed suicide by caesarean section.
There are also the ashes of the burned military flag.
However, the battle did not end there, because the Japanese army and the Burmese army still deployed a large number of troops on Mandalay Mountain in the northeast of the city. After another 23 hours of fighting, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on the 4th, the sound of gunfire in the Mandalay area
Then it gradually stopped.
In this battle, the Anjia Army wiped out more than 25,000 Japanese troops and more than 44,000 Burmese troops. The Anjia Army also paid the price of more than 6,000 casualties.
After the battle, the stone city of Mandalay was almost in ruins.
What awaits the Republic of South China will be arduous post-war reconstruction.
:Well, the siege battle that was originally supposed to be larger in scale and more spectacular in the emperor's writing seemed a bit anticlimactic, mainly because there was not enough time for coding. I'm really sorry!!.