Chapter 335 The Machine Gun Immortal of the Eighth Route Army

Datong North Suburb, between the first and second lines of defense.

The Japanese soldiers were not completely sitting ducks. When a series of Hotchkiss heavy machine guns killed the comrades in the front row, the remaining people chose to lie down on the spot at the first time.

At this moment, the craters left by the artillery regiment on the battlefield have become their life-saving straw.

"Major, please make a decision!"

"The shameless Eighth Route Army has set up a minefield in front. The enemy must want to kill us here. How should our brigade attack next?"

Upon hearing this, all the Japanese infantrymen nestling in the craters cast their eyes on their captains, expecting the other party to come up with a scientific way to break the deadlock.

Faced with the sudden pressure, the Japanese captain wiped the broken meat on his face and stared at the squadron leader beside him and said indignantly.

"Baga!"

"With our current conditions! What good ideas can I come up with!"

The combination of fire and barriers is a defensive tactic that emerged during World War I.

Although Japan did not experience the baptism of the European battlefield in the First World War, they fully included the cracking methods of various countries in the textbooks of the Army Academy.

In theory, every grassroots officer of the Japanese army should not be at a loss when facing the minefield + barbed wire.

They can learn the tactics of the second German, and temporarily form a special assault team similar to the Storm Commando with elite infantry, and quickly approach the defense line of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region with limited artillery support.

Next, it is to cut off the barbed wire under the barrage and complete the mine clearance work.

As long as the military quality of the special team is high enough, the devils will even have the opportunity to rush into the trenches in front and have a hearty close combat with the Eighth Route Army soldiers.

If you don't like the second German's fighting style, you can also learn the current third German tactics.

When facing a minefield, Aryan Superman will call for close ground support aircraft and artillery at the army and division level, and then match minesweepers and armored forces to quickly open up an offensive channel.

After all, the combination of fire and barriers can only stop infantry or light armor units, and can only delay for some time when facing a rich army.

After thinking for a while, the Japanese captain faced the expectant eyes of everyone and ordered:

"It takes a thousand days to raise soldiers, but only one day to use them! Call the precious Fourth Division over. It is the honor of these vassal armies to open the way for the samurai of the Great Japanese brother country!"

"Anyone who helps the locust army to successfully overcome difficulties will be promoted by one level."

"If anyone dares to disobey orders and attempts to leave the battlefield without authorization, he will be killed on the spot!"

Between breaking through the barriers with cleverness and breaking the law with force, the Japanese captain chose to use the vassal army's mine-walking.

Almost every member of the Storm Commando is a veteran who has won the Iron Cross Medal. Everyone can be called a humanoid Gundam on the battlefield, and their combat effectiveness can be imagined.

Although the 110th Division is known as the strongest Type B, the strength of the Type B Division is still limited after all. Even with the Type A and regular foundation, it is impossible to gather a group of elite soldiers who have fought for hundreds of battles.

Don't even think about using cleverness to break through.

As for breaking the law with force, that's even more impossible.

As a famous poor guy in the three major axes, the Japanese Army's Type B Division does not have the conditions to open the way with firepower. It is possible to replace it with the Sendai Screaming Division.

What's more, the artillery regiment of the 110th Division has just suffered a devastating blow from the Eighth Route Army Air Force, and its current strength is even less than one tenth of it.

Large-scale minelaying + barbed wire may not seem to have much technical difficulty, but it is a sure kill for the devils who don't break through quickly.

Fifteen minutes later, the Fourth Division of the Puppet Mongolian Army was half-coerced to gather at the attack position.

Compared with the first day of attacking Datong, Baoguiting's troops had already suffered heavy losses, and only 600 people were left in one division. These traitors were almost all injured and looked listless.

He looked around at the few remaining regiment and battalion commanders, and then said in an encouraging tone:

"Brothers, the opportunity for revenge and meritorious service has come!"

"As long as we can charge forward one thousand meters, the locust army will not let us participate in the subsequent battles. After the Datong battle, everyone will be promoted one level!"

Hearing the "generous" reward, the terrified traitors became bold again.

If it was only one thousand meters, there might be a chance to complete the task issued by the masters. And there must be a lot of weapons left by the Eighth Route Army in the city, and they can make a fortune at that time.

These days, as long as you have weapons in your hands, recruiting soldiers is easy.

It's a pity that their masters concealed the existence of the minefield. The simple-minded traitors didn't think about why an infantry battalion captain promised rewards.

"Charge! Kill an Eighth Route Army and get a reward of ten dollars! If it's an officer, the reward will be doubled!"

In order to motivate his subordinates, Baogui Ting even used his own treasury. He led the puppet soldiers to the front line, waving the tortoise box in his hand, shouting for his brothers to go first.

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The second line of defense, the machine gun position of the Shanxi-Hebei Column.

"Squad leader, it's been almost 20 minutes, why haven't the little devils made any moves? Could it be that they have given up the attack?"

"In order to prepare for the current position, it took us more than an hour just to move the ammunition. If the enemy is scared, I don't know where to cry."

"How about we call the artillery to bomb the position just now?"

The heavy machine gun is one of the classic combinations of fire and barrier.

In order to deal with the attack of the devils, the first column of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region set up multiple machine gun positions on the front line.

Each position is manned by a reinforced machine gun squad, equipped with four Hotchkiss heavy machine guns and 46,000 rounds of ammunition.

The reason why there are four guns is that the air-cooled heavy machine gun has a slightly weak continuous shooting capability and may have insufficient firepower when facing the Japanese onboard charges.

Two units firing on defense and two units on reserve can perfectly solve the problem.

After hearing what his soldier said, Squad Leader Wang shook his head helplessly. With the personality of the Japanese, they would definitely not think of giving up the attack.

Now, it's the calm before the storm.

"Don't worry, the enemy should be thinking of countermeasures now. When they start charging, you will be busy."

"Remember what I said, use short bursts of fire before the Japanese break through the minefield. Wait until they are five hundred meters away from the position, then switch to strafing mode."

As soon as he finished speaking, the soldier responsible for observation noticed something strange on the battlefield.

Hundreds of sneaky enemies are advancing from the limit of their field of vision. Judging from his attire, he must be a traitor from the Puppet Mongolian Army.

"Bang!"

After only moving fifty meters, a landmine completed its mission and exploded in the crowd of two Japanese soldiers.

Looking at the panicked enemy, Squad Leader Wang had a sneer on his face. He held the heavy machine gun in front of him with both hands and ordered:

"Inform the squad deputy and ask them not to open fire in a hurry."

"The enemy who managed to crawl out must not be scared back."

Da da da

The short burst of fire started, and deadly bullets flew towards the enemy in an indomitable direction. Where several heavy machine guns focused their fire, dozens of Japanese soldiers fell down one after another, their whole bodies almost beaten into pieces.

Under their feet, the relatively dense bullets raised pieces of soil.

The puppet Mongolian army, which was already frightened by the mine explosion, was instantly beaten to the point of losing all morale.

The Japanese soldiers fled in panic, hurriedly looking for bunkers to avoid the barrage, and the unformed skirmisher line was completely in chaos.

"Teacher! We have encountered a problem!"

"Why don't we withdraw first and think about it in the long term? Anyway, the attack won't take much longer."

Encountering a short-burst heavy machine gun on the battlefield basically means encountering a ruthless person. This simple truth is naturally understood by the Fourth Division, which has been following the Japanese raids for a long time.

After hearing the advisor's suggestion, Guigui nodded without hesitation.

At this juncture, he had already figured out the Japanese's purpose. It's okay to let them go through mines, but at least they have to be given some tools to clear mines and cut barbed wire.

"withdraw!"

"Go back and get the tools, and then look for an angle of attack!"

As soon as these words came out, the traitors who had long been unwilling to fight immediately swarmed backwards, not caring about the heavy machine gun positions watching from behind.

But just as they were about to return to the attack position, two rows of bullets fired from crooked handles stopped the Japs.

When Gui Guiting raised his head, he saw the cold eyes of the Japanese captain. There was no sound here, and he understood what the other party meant in an instant.

He who retreats will die.

Fortunately, the Japanese did not want to kill them all. After all, they still needed the fourth division to come to the mine.

After a while, nearly a hundred Japanese infantry jumped out of the trenches. These people held engineer shovels and blasting tubes in their hands and followed the precious troops forward.

At the same time, machine guns were also set up one after another, and they began to search for the location of the Eighth Route Army machine guns, and tried to suppress the fire.

"What a black card! Onboard!"

Following the squadron leader's order, the Japanese took advantage of the puppet Mongolian army and began to charge.

They maintained a formation of 15 to 20 people to start clearing mines, otherwise they would become live targets for heavy machine guns due to the large number of people or the concentration of targets.

The explosion of landmines kept ringing on the battlefield, and every time the people in front died, the next group would take over.

At the beginning, the Japanese soldiers would also use the tools in their hands to clear mines and cut barbed wire fences.

After discovering that following the steps would only make them a target, they would directly pick up the remains of their companions or puppet soldiers, carry them in front of them to demine or lay them directly on the barbed wire fence.

If there are extra corpses, pile them on the attack channel to serve as a charging cover for the following infantry.

Faced with the enemy who was gradually going crazy and starting a jade-breaking attack, the heavy machine gun positions also became red-eyed. At first, Lao Wang could keep firing in short bursts, but after five minutes he turned to mechanically pulling the trigger.

The effective range of the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun is 2,400 meters, which is the length of the minefield.

Thousands of puppet soldiers and Japanese soldiers fell to the ground one after another like stubble, and the whole process was as orderly as the flow of work in a slaughterhouse.

For a time, the sound of big bolts shooting and the sound of pig killing after the sudden burst of machine guns resounded on the battlefield, and the north of Datong City had become a large open-air pig killing farm.

If this battlefield can continue for a few more days, it is estimated that more than a dozen machine gun immortals will appear in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region. By then, when John Basilone comes to North China, he will have to knock two before leaving.

"Ammunition! Bring a few more boxes of bullet-proof boards!"

"Notify the squad deputy and ask them to move to the backup position, which is more suitable for crossfire!"

Considering the intensity of this battle, Hotchkiss on the heavy machine gun position did not use the upgraded canvas belt to feed ammunition, but chose a traditional bullet retaining plate.

In just a few breaths, Squad Leader Wang finished shooting the current bullets and casually commanded the soldiers in the squad while waiting for the bullets to be changed.

Suddenly, a Type 97 mortar shell landed near their position.

Although the shells and shrapnel did not harm the soldiers, the shock wave caused by the explosion overturned the heavy machine gun.

In this situation, squad leader Wang subconsciously used his hand to support the weapon. The hot barrel instantly burned through the work gloves and burned his left hand.

"Squad leader!"

Faced with the concern of his comrades, the murderous old squad leader gritted his teeth and said nothing. He first moved the heavy machine gun to the spare position on the side with everyone, and then held the handle and continued to pull the trigger!

"Fire!"

"Keep firing! Don't stop shooting!"

"We can't let the enemy demining comfortably. This two-kilometer-long minefield is the graveyard of the devils! Go notify the artillery platoon and ask them to help bombard two rounds. There are a lot of devils in our direction."

The fierce battle lasted until nine o'clock in the evening.

In twelve hours of fighting, the most powerful machine gun position even killed three hundred enemies.

In order to prevent night attacks, the soldiers of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region specially hung iron sheets on the wire mesh. As long as there is light jumping in any direction, a shuttle will definitely be swept down.

According to the Japanese infantry drill manual, flares must be fired before night battles.

The brightness, combined with the ointment flags and white cloth strips on their foreheads, made the hit rate of each machine gun position even higher.

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Datong County, battle command post.

"Boss, the casualty statistics of each column have been sent over. The specific figures are similar to our pre-war estimates, only about half a percent more."

"This battle is really interesting. The weaker ones with fewer shells are attacking, and the stronger ones with more shells are defending. Looking back at all the years I have been a staff officer, this is the first time I have encountered such a strange thing."

At this time, the tiger in the forest had left Datong, and only the army reorganization experts and many staff officers were left in the combat meeting room.

Looking at the lines of numbers in his hand, he rubbed his brows in annoyance, and then ordered the communicator waiting on the side:

"Notify all columns and let the artillery make some big noise tonight to create the illusion that we are going to counterattack the devils. Take this opportunity to have everyone withdraw and prepare for street fighting"

"Nishihara Issaku, Shitino Otosaburo and Iinuma Mamoru have gone crazy. I don't want to fight them outside the city!" (End of this chapter)