frightfiction Chapter 250 The decisive battle of Mandalay (5): Encirclement and annihilation of the Japanese reinf
Chapter 250 The decisive battle of Mandalay (5): Encirclement and annihilation of the Japanese reinf
"Well, according to the new instructions issued by the Japanese this year, a tank regiment is composed of one regiment headquarters, one light tank squadron, three medium tank squadrons, one artillery tank squadron and one maintenance squadron." Zhang Chi said casually while pulling Tan Zhijie to the map.
"According to the calculation that a tank regiment consists of 36 Type 97 modified medium tanks, 18 Type 95 light tanks and 11 Type 1 gun tanks, the Japanese have dispatched more than 100 tanks in one go." Zhang Chi pointed to the map and continued.
"But precisely because this is such a large tank unit, the Japanese will have very few marching routes to choose from." Tan Zhijie followed Zhang Chi's thoughts and took out a red and blue pencil to point to Rangoon on the map.
"They will either take the western highway to Yenangyaung, or take the eastern railway to Naypyidaw and Meiktila." As he spoke, Tan Zhijie marked out two possible routes of the Japanese attack.
"That's right, so as long as we frequently dispatch aerial reconnaissance, the routes these tanks take will soon be exposed." Zhang Chi proudly drew a circle in the area around Yenangyaung and Meiktila with a pencil.
"That old devil Kimura wants to use his armored forces as a spearhead, fighting a decisive armored battle with us to relieve Mandalay, but I won't go along with him. Tell the Air Force that those new armor-piercing warhead rockets have a place to be used."
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The Japanese themselves were also confused about how to use armored forces.
Before the war, the Japanese learned from the army of the Fa country. After all, the Fa country was the victor of the last world war. In the eyes of the Japanese, it was definitely right to learn from the victor.
Therefore, not only did the infantry tactical manual imitate the Fa Jun and use pheasant necks that imitated the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun, but most of the Japanese army's artillery were also imitations of Schneider products.
Even the Japanese copied the military in how to use armored forces, organizing the tank units at the regiment level, and splitting them up and reinforcing them to the infantry divisions as the spearhead of the attack during wartime.
Because the National Army generally lacked anti-tank weapons, even though the Japanese only had bean tanks and Type 89 medium tanks, this tactics still yielded fruitful results in a series of battles such as the Battle of Shanghai and the Battle of Shanxi Province.
However, when the ally, Hans of Europe, used his armored division to quickly defeat the Japanese's good teacher, Faguo, in just 43 days, the Japanese only then discovered that their armored tactics seemed to be too outdated?
When the Japanese were repeatedly defeated by the Red Army's iron torrent at Zhanggufeng and Nomonhan, they realized that not only their armored tactics were ineffective, but even their own tanks were ineffective.
In this way, the Japanese also began to review the past, deeply iterate their tactics, focus on the pain points of the new era's military thinking, and re-empower their tank forces.
After learning from their mistakes, the Japanese developed the Type 97 modified tank equipped with a 47mm anti-tank gun and began to study the flanking breakthrough tactics of the tank division.
However, a series of battles in the Pacific soon gave the Japanese a resounding slap in the face.
The 47mm anti-tank gun could only threaten the sides of the M4 Sherman. The terrain restrictions of the Pacific island war also meant that pure armored forces were of no use at all, not to mention that the White Eagle Navy controlled the sea power.
In Pegu, several tank regiments of the Japanese Southern Army encountered Zhang Chi, who had a cheat, and were beaten by Zhang Chi's mechanized troops one after another and lost their way.
So this time, Heitaro Kimura specially found Colonel Takuma Ishizu, who had returned from Hans and was known as the "mecha warfare expert".
He was given command of the Shijin Detachment, which was formed by merging the remnants of the 17th and 23rd Tank Regiments, plus some trucks, armored vehicles, and cavalry search units.
The purely motorized troops acted as the spearhead of the attack and advanced rapidly, while the infantry guarded the two wings. In Kimura Heitaro's opinion, even in the worst case scenario, this heavy military group at least had the ability to protect itself.
As for the location of the decisive battle, Heitaro Kimura chose it near Meiktila, more than 100 km southwest of Mandalay. It was the Japanese's logistics center before, which was specifically responsible for supporting the logistics of the 15th Army's westward advance to Sindhu.
Although Mutaguchi Renya has now headed for Chittagong on the southeast coast of Sindhu, many logistical facilities in Meiktila are still usable.
In Kimura Heitaro's plan, the army's vanguard, the Ishizu Detachment, needed to quickly move north to Meiktila. Then, using Meiktila as a base, the 6 troops moving north would gradually approach Mandalay to help the 3 Japanese soldiers in the city escape.
Afterwards, nearly 10 Japanese soldiers gathered together and slowly retreated to Rangoon.
As for whether to hold on and wait for help after returning to Yangon, or to head east to Siam to avoid the attack temporarily, or to escape directly by boat, Kimura Heitaro had not yet made up his mind.
But after a series of battles, he came to a surprising conclusion - the Japanese with equal forces might not be a match for the An Min Army. To recapture Pegu, at least 30 Japanese soldiers plus 2 to 3 air divisions would be needed.
Although it was a little late to reach this conclusion, Zhang Chi's series of battles still forced the arrogant Japanese to face up to a reality - if they wanted to take back Pegu, the entire Southern Army had to work together, otherwise there was no chance.
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Kimura Heitaro's plan was good, but Zhang Chi didn't tolerate him at all.
Without air superiority, you still want your armored forces to march forward with impunity? Do you think my planes and bombs are just decorations?
Even Hill knew that when launching the Ardennes Offensive, he had to find a blizzard that would prevent Allied planes from taking off.
In order to lure the enemy deeper into the territory, the Japanese army heading north had a very smooth journey in the first part of the journey. They were only subjected to sporadic bombing and lost only a few hundred Japanese soldiers.
As we approached Meiktila, the air raids became more and more frequent.
火车肯定是没得坐了，安民军空军的P-47、F4U、SB2C-4都是带弹小能手，保底都能携带2颗1000磅（454kg）的重磅炸弹进行俯冲轰炸，炸起鬼子军列来一炸就是一串。
As a result, the 6 Japanese troops could only advance on foot, and they would hide during the day and move at night because there were many planes.
Then they were met with napalm.
B-25 bombers carrying large quantities of napalm bombs continued to fly day and night.
During the day, they carried out blanket bombing on the rainforests and forests on both sides of the roads and railways, burning the Japanese hiding there into roast ducks.
At night, under the guidance of radar machines and P-61 fighter planes, they carried out night bombing on the highway, setting the entire highway on fire.
While the air force was bombing, the Anmin Army's army was also busy.
The leading motorized troops began a large-scale detour using Lynx vehicles.
The infantry troops behind also began to make a detour into the wilderness. Now many new recruits of the Anmin Army finally understood why they had to practice 8km cross-country marches on the training ground even though they usually had trucks and jeeps to ride in - the most reliable thing during the march was the infantry's legs.
Finally, on April 23, a total of 60,000 Japanese soldiers were surrounded in a narrow strip of wilderness 15 km long from Myitkyina to Yangmidin in the north-south distance.