OBS Chapter 290: 1st time with zero casualties
Chapter 290: 1st time with zero casualties
This air battle can be said to be an induced annihilation operation conducted by Kawabe Masamitsu and Xu Le. The goal of both sides was to lure out the other side's air force and then eat it up in one bite.
Theoretically speaking, if the fighter jets of Xu's air force were also propeller fighters, it would be easy to wipe out Xu's air force given that Masamitsu Hebe sacrificed the 6th Division and the 15th Mixed Brigade, as well as more than 300 fighter jets.
But the result was that even though Kawabe Masamitsu had made great sacrifices, he still underestimated the crushing power of jet planes over propeller planes.
Both Xu Le and Kawabe Masamitsu's luring plans were successful, and Xu Le also took the opportunity to perfectly test the air combat performance of the Q-5 and J-5 and made a comparison.
The air force of Xu's army had completely retreated. The remaining 5-odd fighter planes of the Japanese 200th Flying Division attacked deep into northern Myanmar as planned. It was too easy to find a fully mechanized force of tens of thousands of people in the air. This was Kawabe Masamitsu's ultimate goal.
Then more than 200 fighter jets carried nearly 500 60-kilogram aerial bombs. Although they could not completely wipe out Xu's army, they could at least cause a fatal blow to it.
But he didn't know Xu Le's plan, so the more than 200 Japanese fighter planes eventually embarked on a path of no return!
25 kilometers north of Guigai, the 176th Armored Division, the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, the 1st Artillery Brigade, and the First Army Headquarters, with a total of several thousand tanks, armored vehicles and trucks, were all clearly distributed in several areas without any disguise!
The Japanese fighter planes were flying at an altitude of less than 2000 meters and instantly discovered this "big fat sheep".
Just as they were lowering their altitude again and preparing to carry out ground firing and bombing, hundreds of towering anti-aircraft gun barrels and machine gun barrels came into their sight.
Faced with this horrifying scene, even a fool would understand that they had fallen into a trap. The cooked duck had jumped onto the dining table.
Boom boom boom....
Da da da.....
Dong Dong Dong...
无论是72式85毫米高射炮，还是74式双管37毫米高射机关炮，或者是装甲师的88式双管37毫米自行高射炮，全部朝空中密密麻麻的鬼子战斗机开火。
Two divisions plus a brigade, all anti-aircraft weapons, regardless of caliber, were used.
In just a moment, dozens of Japanese fighter planes were hit and immediately fell in flames.
Not to mention the 85mm shells, the 37mm shells are all semi-incendiary armor-piercing shells, and one shell can send an airplane to hell.
Escape? Impossible. The automatic tracking and shooting under the fire control system is not a vegetarian. Under the cross-dimensional attack, all propeller planes are ready to eat.
"What a magnificent fireworks display! I guess I can only see it once in my lifetime. After this lesson, the enemy planes won't dare to fly in groups to unknown airspace anymore!"
Looking at the Japanese fighter planes that kept falling, Xu Le put down the telescope and let out a sigh.
It was spectacular, really spectacular, even more spectacular than the cluster bombardment on the ground.
"Marshal, can I say you are a devil?"
Wei Junjun, who was always calm and composed, couldn't help but wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. There were many air battles larger than this one, and even the European air battles involved thousands of aircraft.
But which air battle could be like this? Almost one plane was shot down every second.
Two minutes later, the Japanese formation was disrupted by groups of artillery shells, or rather, it was broken up and no longer as dense as before.
Because more than 100 fighter jets fell to the ground, the pilots and the fighter jets died together.
"Retreat, everyone retreat, retreat at all costs!" The leading Japanese colonel commander kept shouting, but they had no radio, and only a few planes close to him saw his hand gestures.
The Japanese fighters and bombers would make plans in advance before carrying out their missions, and then return at the agreed time. There was almost no way for the planes to communicate with each other during the journey.
But as several fighter planes broke out of the anti-aircraft fire circle and escaped, the remaining fighter planes finally learned the retreat order, and they all flew towards the periphery without caring about their lives.
From the initial appearance to the last fighter escaping, the entire process took less than 5 minutes, and only about 20 fighters escaped.
Although several fighter planes were determined to die and wanted to drive their fighter planes directly into ground targets, they exploded and broke into pieces at an altitude of several hundred meters under the lock of the 37mm machine guns.
"The artillery has already fired about 1 shells, nearly 500 tons of shells. Even if the Guigang devils were an iron wall, they would have been punched with several big holes!"
Xu Le looked at Xu Dadao, who was both a guard and a messenger beside him, and said, "Let the 176th Division and the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division go, and make a quick decision. Don't waste time! I was planning to stay in the city tonight. We have been living in the wild for more than half a month. It's really hard!"
Five minutes later, the 5st Armored Regiment, which had always served as the vanguard, launched the charge under the personal leadership of Zhu Zhaolan, followed by the 1nd Armored Regiment and the 2st Mechanized Infantry Regiment, and then the 1st Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment.
The mission of the self-propelled artillery regiment is to provide 24-hour fire suppression for the mobile forces. The self-propelled artillery will stop and fire a few shots after driving a certain distance, then drive another distance and fire a few more shots!
In this way, even if the enemy knew the position of the self-propelled artillery regiment, when they were preparing to counterattack, the artillery regiment had already moved to the next location, and they would not be able to fight at all.
Far away at the 6th Division headquarters in Kikai, when Kanda Masatane saw that there were less than 20 fighter planes returning from the sky, he knew that he had failed, especially since there were two fighter planes with tails of smoke, which obviously meant they had been hit. As for whether they could survive to Mandalay Airport, it depended on luck.
"More than 200 planes went over, but only 20 came back. What on earth did they go through in those few minutes?"
Although these fighter jets were not his, Kanda Masatane wanted to cry because this meant that they had lost air superiority in the vicinity and would definitely face a fierce attack from Xu's army next.
"Your Excellency, the Air Force has suffered a disastrous defeat. The headquarters will definitely not dare to send any more fighter planes. The enemy's artillery fire has already shown a tendency to extend. Let's retreat quickly!"
The division's colonel chief of staff spoke anxiously, saying that there was no way to save the current situation, and if they stayed in Guigai, they would only end up dead!
Kanda Masatane said calmly: "What about our losses?"
"More than 3000 soldiers in our division were killed in the battle, and nearly 15 trucks were lost. The infantry regiment of the 1000th Mixed Brigade also lost more than soldiers. But we were fighting a defensive battle, so the tanks were hidden in the rear, so there were almost no losses!"
"Notify all troops to quickly withdraw from their positions and move towards Xingwei!"
About half an hour later, the 1st Armored Regiment rushed into Guigai first, but what about the Japanese? Because the order was issued hastily, some squadrons were stunned by the previous bombardment and had not yet received the order to retreat.
So the remaining Japanese soldiers became stepping stones for the tanks, and it was the first time that Zhu Zhaolan truly managed to run the tanks over the bodies of the Japanese soldiers, literally running them over alive.
Zhu Zhaolan did not feel it was cruel. In fact, if he had not been chasing the fleeing Japanese soldiers, he would have wanted to crush them repeatedly.
Following closely were the hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Regiment. The soldiers did not need to get out of the vehicles. They shot at the remaining Japanese invaders in all directions through the shooting holes in the vehicles!
Until 11 o'clock in the morning, Xu's army completely occupied Guigai Town, and no Japanese soldier saw the figure of Xu's army soldiers.
This is true mechanized warfare, where all soldiers are fully protected while being able to maximize their output.
This was also the first battle with zero casualties since Xu's army went out of Kang to fight two years ago. Only the tracks of one infantry fighting vehicle were broken by the Japanese bomb.
The reason why it is said that the army had zero casualties is that one pilot of the Air Force was sacrificed. He was the pilot of the first Q-5 who died together with the Japanese fighter plane.
The pilot had already parachuted at the critical moment. According to international conventions, a parachuting pilot has lost his combat capability and is not allowed to be attacked.
But the devils did not carry out this agreement, but used the pilot as a living target...