Chapter 10: Mechanization of the Eighth Route Army
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Sasaki was on the verge of hanging himself, watching his two tank battalions being smashed by the enemy's super-heavy tanks like watermelons rolling all over the ground. No commander would feel good about this. Zhang Haodong also fulfilled one of his wishes, finally showing off in front of his girlfriend - using a 12.7mm machine gun to turn two Type 95 light tanks into a pile of scrap metal within a distance of less than 100 meters. At this moment, the Japanese tank commanders all hated that their tanks had not been born with two more tracks. The fact before them was that although the enemy's tanks looked stupid and clumsy, they far exceeded their own tanks in mobility, especially when they were in reverse gear. Moreover, the most important thing was that the Japanese tank drivers had not received collision training - compared to them, the transcenders' situation was much better, after all, they had been playing bumper cars since childhood. In less than five minutes, all the Japanese tanks were overturned and became rolling pumpkins, and the infantry was also rushed into a mess.
Sasaki witnessed his entire armored unit being annihilated, and he immediately began cursing the artillery for not providing fire support. However, just as he had cursed them twice, a messenger arrived to report that the artillery position had been raided by the enemy's armored unit, all the artillerymen were killed, and the cannons were taken away.
Upon hearing this news, Sasaki almost vomited blood - earlier, two large forces had already destroyed his entire armored unit, and now another armored unit had appeared. He wondered how these poorly equipped and disorganized troops could have so many advanced weapons.
Initially, he was skeptical of the message, but after cursing and slapping the messenger twice, he raised his binoculars to look at the artillery position from a distance. As a result, Sasaki almost became disabled, exclaiming, "This time it's even bigger!" If he were from Northeast China, he would have cursed in that dialect, but unfortunately, he was from Kumamoto and only spoke Japanese.
The Eighth Route Army was in a difficult situation, but this time they had finally obtained some heavy equipment to support them. They didn't forget their glorious tradition of fighting against the Japanese, and although the travelers looked down on the enemy's 92 infantry guns, the Eighth Route Army soldiers were overjoyed when they saw these big guns. The two regimental commanders discussed how to get these big guns, which coincided with the travelers' ideas. Although they were arms dealers, they had brought some goods with them, but this time they couldn't use them for a lifetime. They wanted to capture as much as possible, and it would be good if they could hold out for a while longer.
Since their goals were the same, they started discussing specific plans. The two regimental commanders were old hands at fighting, and although the travelers had no combat experience, they had watched many war movies and TV shows, such as "The Garrison" and "Band of Brothers", and had also played computer games since childhood. A very bold plan was formed instantly.
To capture the big guns, all the trucks were covered with several layers of wet blankets, turning them into temporary armored personnel carriers. Although these vehicles had a problem with water leaking from one side while running, they still had good bulletproof effects after testing. The T72, three T55s, and two BTR70 armored cars served as the vanguard meat shield for the assault team, while other vehicles followed closely behind. Each blanket-armored car was equipped with 15 Eighth Route Army soldiers, and to ensure firepower, each vehicle was equipped with 10 automatic firearms - AK, 81, and PK machine guns. Ten boxes of hand grenades were also installed on each vehicle.
As for the Type 99 tank, due to the lack of experienced gunners in the Eighth Route Army, it was driven to a certain high point and hidden, using its laser rangefinder and fire control computer to calculate firing data, which was then transmitted to the mortar team via radio. The problem of the temporary gunners not being able to operate the tank well was also solved under Wei Yuanke's clever idea - as long as you could count numbers, you were fine. After an experienced gunner adjusted the cannon, he would tell Wei Yuanke, who would then convert it into instructions that most gunners could understand: "Left shake 8 circles, up shake 2 circles, load 4 packages!" All the gunners had to do was follow the instructions, shake the cannon well, and load the shells.
It didn't matter if they knew the underlying principles or not; as long as they could hit the enemy's head with the shell, it was considered a success.
At that time, the Japanese artillery had just received orders to disembark, and this Eighth Route Army's modernized mechanized unit was already on the move. Seeing such a unit with super-large tanks leading the way, armored vehicles capable of firing machine guns that could tear people apart, and large trucks covered in red and green blankets, walking while fiercely opening fire and occasionally dropping off blankets, the Japanese army couldn't help but be shocked and disorganized, subconsciously avoiding them. However, they were soon knocked down by the intense automatic firepower from the trucks.
Of course, among the Yamato warriors who had been influenced by the Bushido spirit, there were also fearless and brave individuals. They used all the weapons in their hands - Type 38 rifles, pistols, 92-style heavy machine guns, and 89-style grenade launchers - to crazily shoot at the enemy. However, it was clear that these things either couldn't hit the fast-moving targets or simply couldn't penetrate them.
One brave Japanese sergeant thought of a plan to tie explosives and hand grenades to his body and roll under the trucks. Unfortunately, he forgot that the fuse on the explosives needed 7 seconds to ignite, but he had already pulled the string and jumped out before that. As a result, he was directly hit by a speeding T-72 tank and flew over 10 meters high and 30 meters away. His body exploded in mid-air above a temporary Japanese hiding place, causing over 30 casualties.
If it were just the power of the explosives, it wouldn't have had this effect. Unfortunately, his body was also carrying over a dozen hand grenades, which exploded simultaneously with the explosives, sending shrapnel flying everywhere and hitting everything on the ground. Over a dozen Japanese soldiers were hit by this unexpected disaster, and another 20 or so who had been frightened out of their wits thought they had encountered the legendary "airburst bomb" and rushed out of their hiding place, only to be eliminated one by one by the armored trucks behind them.
None of these people died from gunshot wounds; they all died in traffic accidents. Several people who were run over by the trucks were directly crushed into meat paste because the drivers had subconsciously stepped on the brakes when they saw people in front of them, causing the wheels to reflect back and hit the Japanese soldiers. In this space-time, there wouldn't be any traffic police pursuing them for their traffic accidents - even if there were, it would have been the Japanese traffic police, but unfortunately, they had no jurisdiction over the Eighth Route Army.
Therefore, in an instant, everyone fiercely stepped on the gas pedal and accelerated, leaving behind dozens of meters of bloody tire tracks. Many Japanese soldiers forgot their duties when they saw this scene and lay down like pregnant women, vomiting uncontrollably.
"Tell the back, we're approaching the station, get ready to disembark!" The leading T-72 tank driver Han Peng shouted into the throat microphone. After finishing, he opened the top hatch and grabbed the anti-aircraft machine gun to sweep, amidst the Japanese bullets. It should be said that this was a very brave act, on the condition that there was no 12mm thick steel plate around the anti-aircraft machine gun. Two loyal Japanese artillerymen had just opened the ammunition box when they were cut in half by the intense machine gun fire. The tank then knocked over the cannon, crushing the two upper halves that could still crawl underneath.
The battle on the Japanese artillery position in a small village ended quickly, at close range, the artillery with only a small amount of light weapons was no match for the Eighth Route Army with armored vehicles. Many Japanese soldiers hiding in houses and shooting out were crushed to death by tanks that smashed into the houses - this is also a disadvantage of Chinese rural earth and brick houses. The Japanese troops trying to retake the artillery position from other directions were either suppressed by the artillery or repelled by tanks and armored vehicles. Throughout the battle, all the Japanese made a fatal mistake, directing all their mortar and rocket launcher fire at the few moving tanks and armored vehicles, rather than destroying the artillery's ammunition. The outcome of the mortars and rocket launchers facing off against tanks on the plain was clearly tragic. The rocket launcher operators were calmly shot dead by the 14.5mm machine gunners on the BTR-70 armored vehicle, while the mortars were overturned by the accurate fire from the T72 and T55 - although the tank drivers' skills were not great, among the travelers there were people who had been tank soldiers before, so everyone liked to use tank guns to shoot at stationary targets, thus in this situation the hit rate was still very good.
The devils are in trouble now.
