In fact, although Hu Weidong had some luck when formulating the plan, he had already prepared for this worst-case scenario. If the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division saw that something was impossible, it could retreat on its own. The big deal would be that it would not be able to completely wipe out the Japanese army.
Just the 12th Division. As long as unnecessary losses are avoided, the Red Fifteenth Army was still very powerful at that time. Even if the two Japanese divisions successfully joined forces, they would not be able to retain the Red Fifteenth Army if they wanted to leave.
However, the performance of the 4th Division was very different from other Japanese troops, which caused the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division to misjudge, and the battle situation also changed that Hu Weidong could not expect...
The Japanese 4th Division was often derogatorily called the "Osaka Wimpy Division" in later legends. Even in serious historical materials, the combat effectiveness of the 4th Division is considered to be one of the lowest among Japan's permanent divisions. However,
If we only talk about the performance, this "Osaka useless division" is not inferior even to the elite divisions of the Japanese army at the same time. Among the many permanent divisions in Japan, the 4th Division is the most mobile.
Of the brain......idu.
However, the officers and soldiers of the 4th Division are too busy thinking and are not as obedient to their superiors as other Japanese troops. Moreover, Osaka is rich and most of the officers and soldiers have a good family background. Therefore, they generally cherish life and their war-weariness is much stronger than that of other Japanese troops.
, and they can always find one or another reason to defend their passiveness in fighting, and even summed up the so-called "don't make unnecessary sacrifices", "don't participate in unreasonable battles", "don't pursue the enemy at the end of the road"
Of course, they would never admit the "three don'ts" principle in front of outsiders, and because there had been no actual combat test for a long time, the 4th Division, which had generally excellent training results, was still regarded by the Japanese military as an elite division at this time.
group......
After receiving the order from the military to go out to fight, the number of patients in the 4th Division suddenly increased sharply. For this reason, the commander of the 4th Division, who was only 1.47 meters tall (historical fact), Takekawa Miji, had to personally take charge of the medical staff.
In the room, the soldiers saw that they could not get through, so they reluctantly went on the road. However, the matter was not over. The soldiers of the Fourth Division played a new trick on the road - "drag". Although the road was a little longer, there was no heavy artillery.
The 4th Division actually arrived several days later than the 12th Division, which had a large number of heavy artillery, which is enough to illustrate the problem...
As soon as these Osaka soldiers exchanged fire with the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division, they found that the other side was brave and well-trained, and its light firepower was extremely powerful. In line with the idea of "don't make unnecessary sacrifices". Although the 4th Division had the superior force,
They withdrew from the battle first. This gave the officers and soldiers of the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division the illusion that the enemy was not strong. The brigade commander and political commissar also decided to act cheaply and did not retreat according to the army commander's instructions, but stayed to block the enemy.
However, although the Osaka soldiers were afraid of death, they did not want to kill the enemy and make meritorious deeds. After retreating to a safe distance, they immediately launched a continuous bombardment of the Red Army's positions with 48 divisional field guns. Although the firepower was far inferior to that of the 12th
division, but the excellent training results of the 4th Division were fully demonstrated in this kind of "safe" battle beyond visual range. At this time, the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division was still digging trenches and was under heavy Japanese artillery fire.
Under the attack, the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division of the 15th Red Army, which lacked protection and cover, suddenly suffered unprecedented losses...
Moreover, the 4th Division does not save ammunition like other Japanese troops. These Osaka vendors are very smart. Their lives are theirs and their money belongs to the country. Why should they sacrifice their lives to help the country save money? Let’s talk about artillery shells.
After they were all fired, they had a reason to retreat, but the commanders and fighters of the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division suffered. The 48 field guns of the 4th Division fired more than 3,000 rounds of artillery shells in just a quarter of an hour.
It caused huge casualties to the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division. The brigade commander and the brigade political commissar realized that they had made a big mistake, and quickly reported the situation to the military commander through the radio and requested instructions...
After Su Yu learned that the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division had suffered more than half of its casualties, his heart sank. However, he did not let the 2nd Brigade retreat. Instead, he categorically ordered the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division to continue to hold on at least until night, because he could use the enemy's left behind.
The crater serves as a natural anti-artillery position (Note 1). From then on, the threat of Japanese artillery fire was not as great as it was at the beginning. If they retreated in broad daylight, once the Japanese pursued them, or even just sent them off with artillery fire, the 2nd Brigade would definitely suffer more losses.
big......
Hu Weidong's most ideal expectation was to seize or destroy the Japanese heavy artillery, and after successfully cutting off the Japanese's retreat, he would then give full play to the artillery superiority of the 15th Red Army to bombard the enemy indiscriminately, until the Japanese resembled the Battle of Nomenkan in history.
That way until it collapses, in order to reduce our own casualties as much as possible. However, now that we are encountering great difficulties in intersecting the troops, the military commander can only choose to invest as many troops as possible to attack the enemy and strive to kill the most enemy troops as quickly as possible.
, to ensure that even if the two divisions finally successfully join forces, the enemy will no longer have the power to pose a major threat to the 15th Red Army. But if fought like this, even with the support of advanced artillery offensive tactics, the casualties will definitely not be small, especially
Now the Japs in the Japanese 12th Division knew that the reinforcements had arrived and their morale was greatly boosted. Almost every Japs position had to be killed before all the enemies could be captured. The brutality of the battle can be imagined.
However, the ones with the most casualties were the 2nd Brigade of the Independent Division, which was attacked from both sides by the Japanese. Although they tenaciously persisted until nightfall, there were only more than 3,000 people left in the brigade at this time, and most of them were injured.
Even the brigade commander died in the battle...
Note 1: Lying in a bomb crater to defend against artillery fire is an experience experienced by veterans of the Civil War and even the Anti-Japanese War. There are two main principles. First, when the density of artillery shells is not high, the probability of two artillery shells hitting the same place is very low;
Second, conventional artillery shells mainly rely on fragmentation to kill people. A person lying in a deep pit is below the horizon. After the artillery shells falling outside the pit explode, the shrapnel will fly over the head and not hurt the person, thus greatly reducing the damage caused by enemy shelling.
The mortality rate. However, in the subsequent war to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, the density of U.S. artillery fire was too high, so this method was not very effective, and the emergence of new types of ammunition such as "air burst bombs" made it completely useless. In addition, it must be explained
Yes, even during the Anti-Japanese War, the anti-artillery effect of craters was not as good as even the simplest trenches. After all, it was just an emergency method when there was no time to build fortifications (but the actual combat effect was still very obvious. After all, during the Anti-Japanese War, our
Many recruits don't even know the basic common sense of lying down to avoid bullets...)...