Chapter 57: Cannon Fire

"Avoid his sharpness and attack his lazy return."

This is a sentence in Sun Tzu's Art of War. People usually understand it as avoiding the momentum and edge of the enemy when there is a strong enemy attack, and then hit hard when the enemy is tired. But I think this sentence means more than that.

For example, now, the US military has built solid fortifications on the front and made sufficient preparations. This is the enemy's sharpness, but their backscene is usually used to rest and camp, which is their weakness. So now, I prefer to understand the phrase "avoid their sharpness and attack their lazyness" as bypassing the enemy's sharpness and attacking their weakness.

In fact, such battle examples can be said to be countless on the battlefield. The most famous battle examples and are also very similar to our current situation is the Maginot Line of Defense built by France during World War II.

After the end of World War I, France spent ten years to defend against the invasion of Germany and Italy, spending 5 billion francs (digits in 1940) to build a line of defense of about 700 kilometers on the border between France and Germany and France. This line of defense gathers almost all the advanced technology, manpower and material resources of France, making it a line of defense that is said to be "unbreakable". The artillery in the line of defense can even execute the orders of superiors to fire shells in three meters thick cement fortifications, which is the safest line of defense.

However, such a defense line did not play its due role, because the German army did not face its breakthrough from the front, but raided Belgium, crossed the Ardennes, and directly inserted into the back of the Maginot Line of Defense to the city of Paris. In just six weeks, France's military power fell apart, and France also surrendered. The Maginot Line of Defense, such a huge, advanced and unprecedented fortification, fell into the hands of the German army without wasting a shot and a gun.

The situation I am facing now seems to be similar to the Maginot defense line in history, so after careful study by Commander Pang and Political Commissar Cai finally agreed to my combat plan.

Indeed, my plan still has great risks. Because if our tank troops and the 538th Regiment that broke into the enemy's defense line cannot quickly end the battle and take down the enemy's positions, we will actually be surrounded by the enemy. The ending will be at least heavy casualties, and at worst, the entire army will be wiped out.

But as the saying goes, wealth and honor are in danger, and if you want to achieve great success, you must take greater risks. So after getting the approval of Commander Pang, I used the little time left to devote myself to the exercise of the war that will come to the future.

The content of the exercise is actually very simple, mainly two items. One is that infantry and tanks advance in concert. Whether the infantry can quickly penetrate to a designated position under the cover of tanks and quickly capture the predetermined target at their weak back before the enemy responds. This is the key to whether the battle can be won. Judging from the effect of the Maliangshan Infantry and Tank coordination in the last time, this is also a big problem. During combat, it is at night. It is difficult for the tank hands to take into account the speed of the infantry behind them in the roaring tank. They often leave the infantry behind and advance alone without catching it.

The second is the coordinated combat between infantry and tanks. However, the battle situation we face after we penetrated into the rear of the enemy's positions is obvious. On the one hand, we have to block the attack of enemy reinforcements. There are generally tanks in the enemy reinforcements. If there are no tanks, we can only cook for us. On the other hand, we must quickly launch an attack on the enemy's highlands. Therefore, there is the problem of how infantry cooperates with tank troops to fight with the enemy's infantry and tanks in the army, and the problem of tanks providing firepower to infantry to attack the enemy's highlands.

Although the content of the drill is simple, it is not easy to do. It is mainly because the soldiers have no experience in the coordination of intra-tank. Most of the soldiers of the 538th Regiment are veterans who have fought for more than ten years, but it is also because of veterans who have fought for so many years that it is harder to accept this new way of combat. Long-term combat has given them their own set of laws of survival and combat habits on the battlefield. Over time, these laws and habits have solidified in their minds. Whenever there is a war, they almost subconsciously do it according to their own habits. Therefore, when practicing, they often fight tanks and infantry, and it seems that they can't mix them into an organic whole.

Fortunately, I have a capable assistant like Liu Shunyi, so I let him deal with all this. I believe that in a few days, he will be able to make the soldiers look like this.

So all the soldiers were practicing nervously behind, and I was the only one who was very free in the regiment headquarters facing a large number of documents on the table and didn't know what to do. After formulating the combat plan, the information in front of me seemed useless.

"Captain Cui!" Just when I was bored, Jiang Chunzeng lifted the black cloth at the entrance of the tunnel and walked in. When he saw me, he couldn't help but ask in confusion: "Captain, I see that the soldiers spend most of their time practicing to advance together with the tank troops. Is this...is it a bit inconsistent with the combat plan?"

Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but say in my heart, "I'm finally here."

In order to keep the operation confidential, only Commander Pang, Political Commissar Cai and several regiment commanders knew that the others were not aware of the deputy regiment commander, Chief of Staff, etc. If we follow the original combat plan and our army launches an attack from the enemy's position head-on after the artillery preparation, the infantry and tanks do not need to advance much, so they do not need to spend much time and energy to train the soldiers' stairs and tanks to advance together. Jiang Chunzeng is a smart man, and of course he will see the inappropriateness of this.

"Chief of Staff Jiang!" Hearing this, I took out the excuse I had already thought of and said to Jiang Chunzeng: "This is what Commander Pang means. I heard... this is the suggestion made by some Soviet tank experts! It is said that only in this way can the infantry and tanks be coordinated better! Just like... we let the soldiers walk in a straight stance and stand in a military posture, not to make them walk in a good way, but to train them to follow the orders. Now training the steps and tanks to move forward together is another kind of straight stance!"

"Oh, so that's it!" Jiang Chunzeng had never organized Bu Tan's coordination and had little knowledge of this. Moreover, I brought out the Soviet tank experts, and what I said seemed to make sense, so he stopped asking more questions.

"Captain Cui!" After hesitating for a while, Jiang Chunzeng finally spoke again: "Captain! Let's really fight like this? Isn't it... Is it considered again!"

I knew that this old staff officer was worried about the casualties of the 538th Regiment. I couldn't help but feel the urge to tell him all about his plan, but in the end I ended up ending it.

Just kidding! This is a death order from Commander Pang, and no one is allowed to reveal the changes in the combat plan. But I didn’t want to continue lying to this respectable old staff officer, so I patted Jiang Chunzeng on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry! Chief of Staff Jiang, we have never seen any storms and waves. When assisting the People’s Army on the Western Front and fighting the ace troops of the United Army in Maliangshan, there were not many enemies than we are now. We still beat them all over the ground to look for teeth! We can do it this time too!”

"It's good that you have confidence!" Jiang Chunzeng seemed to see something and nodded at me with a smile: "I don't believe in this combat plan, but I believe in you."

I couldn't help but smile bitterly, thinking that Jiang Chunzeng's eyes were really poisonous, as if he could see that I was still in the back. But thinking about it, I was really not good at filming. I was as sad as them when facing this problem before, but now I acted so relaxed and confident. If Jiang Chunzeng still couldn't see it, then don't be the chief of staff.

Five days were not long, and in the blink of an eye it was the day to launch a tactical counterattack.

I and the soldiers were divided into several teams and hid in the valley behind our defense line, quietly waiting for the moment when the attack order was initiated.

I don’t know if the US military got the news in advance or what was going on. That night, there was silence around, with no cannons or gunshots. Only a few searchlights swaying weakly could prove that there were still a few living creatures on the enemy’s position.

Our position is very close to the enemy position, only a distance of more than 100 meters, so there is no need for us to lurk in front of the enemy position to launch an attack. Moreover, such a close distance does not seem to be suitable for lurking, one is because the space in front of the enemy position is not enough to lurk in large units, and the other is because if we lurk, our artillery fire may accidentally injure our people.

This also saves us from the pain of lurking in the snow. It is really not a pleasing thing to lurk in such a low temperature. If we want to lurk, maybe a soldier from our regiment lurks for a day and when we get up again, not even half of them arrive.

My mind still shows the surprised expression on the soldiers' faces after I just finished talking about the change in the meeting, and even Jiang Chunzeng, who had already noticed it, was no exception. Because inserting behind the enemy and launching an attack on the target from the rear, this may be unprecedented in our military history. And anyone will know the danger of this combat plan. The location we inserted was a valley surrounded by US highlands. This practice is like jumping into the enemy's encirclement. Once we cannot quickly capture the position, or it is dawn, it means that we will have to bear firepower from all directions, and the consequences are unimaginable.

I can see that many soldiers did not agree with the dangers of this plan. However, this plan cannot be changed, and there is no time to change, so the soldiers had to lead the troops into the positions according to the order.

In order to conceal the intention to prevent enemy artillery fire from attacking, we received orders from our superiors, and after all the troops entered the position, people, vehicles, and horses were prohibited from moving on exposed terrain, and lights and fireworks were strictly controlled. Frontier teams and division observation centers strengthened the observation of the enemy's situation in person, closely monitored the enemy's movements, and reported to the superiors every ten minutes through walkie-talkies.

When the battle was about to be launched, I gathered Li Guoqiang, Hu Biao, Zhong Chaoyang and other battalions together for the last time, followed the map and observed and determined the offensive routes and directions of each battalion again, and determined their respective tasks again, which made them return their own troops separately.

我不得不小心行事,因为我知道,这一仗的时间也许不会很长,但却是一场不是你死就是我活的战役.我们这样插进去后,要么就是那几个高地被我们顺利拿下,要么就是我军全军覆没,没有其它的可能.

Time passed by minute by minute, and I couldn't help but nervously took out my pocket watch to check the time. At 7:50, there were still ten minutes left to play.

It was only a blink of an eye for ten minutes, but for some reason, the ten minutes at this time became so long that I took out my pocket watch and looked at it three times during this period. I was wondering if something was wrong with my pocket watch.

The soldiers beside them had loaded the bullets and opened the grenade cover; the blasting tube and explosive bag were held in their hands, and some soldiers were carrying recoilless cannons and holding anti-tank grenades. No need to think about it, just seeing these equipment, I knew that this unit was responsible for fighting enemy reinforcements. The enemy reinforcements were likely to be mixed with infantry and tanks, so they had to cooperate with our tanks to fight against the enemy tanks.

With its white faces and wide eyes, the soldiers were all waiting quietly, waiting, waiting for that moment to arrive.

At about eight o'clock, as several red signal flares rose into the air with a roar, the sound of cannons finally sounded, and the door to hell opened. From the company's mortars to the division's artillery battalion to the Katyusha rocket launchers and howitzers of the military artillery regiments, all kinds of cannons opened their blood-red muzzles. In an instant, thousands of cannons fired together, the earth shook, and the rumbling sound of cannons woke up the frozen land of North Korea, and half of the sky was red.

The deafening sound of cannons quickly made my ears buzz, making me unable to help but cover my ears with my hands. When I looked up, I found that the large and small cannonballs in the sky flew from all directions to the enemy's positions like fire locusts.

At this time, I remembered what Pang Shi said, there were 23 troops participating in this battle. I don’t know what the 23 troops were thinking. I only know how spectacular and terrible the scene of the 23 troops being fired from north to south, and pouring all the shells stored in the United Nations forces on the positions of the United Nations. Because the density is too high, the flames emitted by the shells in the sky were actually connected into a sparkling ribbon. If you stand at a high place or look down on the plane, you will definitely be surprised to find that this "ribbon" has been connected from the west coast of North Korea to the east coast.

The US military's artillery fire was obviously also fighting back. Although I couldn't hear it, because there was already a rumbling area around me, I could see that when the US military's artillery fire counterattacked, the shells on both sides collided in the dark night sky, flashing with spotted lights, as spectacular as festival fireworks.

The artillery's rapid fire poured the hot iron into the enemy's position like heavy rain. In the direction of the US position, balls of flames soared into the air on the US position. We can clearly see the bloody corpse being thrown into the sky and then falling back to the burning earth. The wire, trees, and rocks became empty in this moment, and even the thick snow on the high ground began to melt.

Thirty minutes later, three red signal flares rose again in the sky, artillery fire began to extend towards the enemy, and infantry began to attack.

The first thing they set out was the tanks. They turned on the dazzling headlights and drove out of the tunnel, and then drove ahead to lead the way for the soldiers.

After five days of exercise, the soldiers knew exactly what they should do, so they followed the tanks in groups without any orders, and rushed towards the U.S. troops through the smoke of artillery fire.

Fortunately, this is the case. At this time, I couldn't help but secretly glad that if the soldiers had to hear orders before moving forward, we might soon be in chaos. Because after the half-hour of artillery fire preparation, I couldn't even hear the sound of the tanks that had just passed by me.

I never thought that our army's artillery fire would be so fierce, and I finally saw it today.

Looking at the soldiers passing by me one after another, I didn't dare to think too much. I fought Xu Yongwei and Zhang Mingxue behind me, and followed with my m1 rifle.

The soldiers ran very fast and orderly.

The usual drills are reflected at this time. The tanks are driving in front just at the right speed, neither fast nor slow, just enough for the soldiers to catch up. The entire army is like a sharp knife, and under the cover of the tank, heading straight into the valley on the left side of the US Highland 222.9 under the cover of the tank.

At the same time, the soldiers of the 539th Regiment and the 540th Regiment were also divided into three parts and followed the extended artillery fire, rushing towards the US Highlands 222.9, 158.6, and 490.1 of the Highlands. In an instant, in the artillery fire, in the light, there were figures of volunteer soldiers running forward with guns. I don’t know if there was any sound, because I still couldn’t hear any sound at this time.
Chapter completed!