mesbooks Chapter 253: The Battle of Mandalay (8) Tank vs. Tank
Chapter 253: The Battle of Mandalay (8) Tank vs. Tank
"The 90th has completed its bombing run. All squadrons are free to hunt. Repeat. Free attack permitted."
The Japs fled in all directions, and countless P-47s swooped down, firing air-to-air rockets at them.
Large areas of rainforest were burning and countless devils were wailing.
Some devils were shouting "Oka-san" (Mom), some were praying to Aunt Amaterasu, and some were shouting that they would be loyal to His Majesty the Emperor.
When Colonel Takuma Ishizu, who was knocked unconscious by the shock wave of the bomb, woke up, what he saw and heard was this doomsday scene.
In a clearing in the rainforest, the staff officer saw Ishizu Takuma wake up and his face immediately showed joy:
"Great! Your Excellency the Colonel, you are awake. Please give the order immediately!"
Ishizu Takuma had a mournful look on his face and muttered, "Give an order? What order?"
He was like General Pavlov during Operation Barbarossa, who had just learned that Hans had launched an attack and had successfully advanced hundreds of kilometers. He lost all his strength in an instant.
Hundreds of thousands of Pavlov's Western Front troops were wiped out by Hans almost like herding sheep, and his armored forces under Takuma Ishizu suffered heavy losses without even seeing the appearance of the enemy's armored forces.
Now that things have come to this, is there any better way than committing seppuku?
It’s true—Lieutenant Colonel Li Mingcheng is here.
After learning from the scouts that a large number of enemy troops appeared in the distance, Ishizu Takuma immediately cheered up. As the setting sun began to sneak into the horizon, he began to regroup his troops under the planes in the sky.
"Charge the entire army! As long as we get close enough to the enemy troops, the planes in the sky will definitely not dare to attack!"
After all, Takuma Ishizu had more fighting spirit than Pavlov. He got back on his Shiki-style fighter plane, determined to launch a final charge.
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On the other hand, as a time traveler, Zhang Chi certainly knew that except for the Gulf War, almost no war in history was won entirely by the air force. In the final analysis, if you want to completely destroy the enemy, you have to dispatch the army.
So he immediately asked Lieutenant Colonel Li Mingcheng's armored combat group to move forward and completely wipe out these devils.
After all, the Japanese's retreat, the railway bridge over the Madeya River, had been blown up. There was no reason to miss such a good opportunity and let the tiger go back to the mountain.
As for the Gulf War, the performance of the White Eagle Air Force in the Graveyard of Empires and the Middle East has once again proved that it was a special case. Air power is important, but a well-trained army with excellent fighting will is equally important.
Li Mingcheng, who was urged to hurry, finally arrived at the battlefield before the sun completely set.
He pulled up the hatch, protected his chest, and raised the telescope to observe the situation on the opposite side.
"There are still quite a few remaining Type 97 modified Japanese weapons."
Because the Type 97 modified tank was repeatedly defeated in confrontations with the armored shells of the Anmin Army, the Japanese in this time and space mass-produced the Type 1 tank in advance.
However, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' level of development is only in Asia. After some modifications, the Type 1 tank, which was improved on the basis of the Type 97 Kai, is still the same in essence.
The main gun is still the 47mm Type 1 tank gun, the front armor has been thickened to 50mm, and the engine horsepower has been slightly improved, but it is still basically the Type 97.
This also caused Li Mingcheng to mistake the Type 1 tank, whose front projection had not changed much, for the Type 97 modified tank in the field of view of the telescope.
"There aren't many open-top tank destroyers. Were they all destroyed by the air force, or did the Japanese hide them behind the enemy lines?"
The 75mm gun of the Type 1 gun tank poses the greatest threat, but due to its open roof, its survivability under air attacks is also the lowest, whether it is flying bomb fragments, explosion shock waves or rocket fragments.
The open roof means that bombs and rockets do not need to hit directly to kill the crew members.
Reality is not a War Thunder game. If one or two members of a single crew are killed or injured, the entire tank will lose its combat effectiveness. The army will obviously not carry spare crew members when marching to war. The most temporary infantrymen who are put on the vehicle can do is to play the role of Blackman loader.
So Li Mingcheng did not see the Type 1 artillery tank in the field of view of the telescope. It was not because Ishizu Takuma ambushed it and prepared to ambush Li Mingcheng, but simply because the Type 1 artillery tank had been almost completely lost.
"The Sherman Company will press forward on the highway, while the Light Tank Company will coordinate with the armed Lynx vehicles to attack from the flank."
It’s like the saying in e-sports games, “Once you’ve learned my operation, you just need to A in.”
Li Mingcheng did not use any overly complicated tactics, but instead used the common tactics of the armored forces of Western countries at present - heavy units breaking through the middle and light units encircling on both wings.
This tactic was used from the classical Alexander era to World War II. It was upright and without any fancy moves, but it just lived up to the old saying of "victory through righteousness".
装备了105mm榴弹炮的M4A3（105）和装备了75mm主炮的M4A1两款谢尔曼凭借着厚实的前装甲，自然担任了中路突前的角色。
The engines roared, the tracks creaked, and more than 20 Sherman tanks pressed forward relentlessly.
On both sides, a large number of M5A1 'Stuart' and M24 'Chaffee' light tanks drove off the road and began to maneuver in the fields.
A large number of infantrymen accompanied these light tanks in the attack, riding on Lynx assault vehicles equipped with 105mm vehicle-mounted recoilless guns.
The armored forces were deployed with great momentum, and the attack of hundreds of vehicles had the momentum of thousands of troops.
Li Mingcheng raised the telescope again and looked across.
On the opposite side, Takuma Ishizu also launched a charge without hesitation, and the remaining less than 60 Type 97 medium tanks, Type 1 medium tanks, and Type 95 light tanks came up to meet him.
For a moment, this section of road and the surrounding nameless wilderness and rainforest turned into a small "Kursk", and nearly 200 tanks from both sides engaged in a fierce battle on a front of several kilometers.
Under the setting sun, the main guns of both sides fired at each other, and shells streaked across the battlefield.
In order to prevent the Japanese from using the technology of "tank main gun firing armor-piercing shells" in advance under the pressure of the Anmin Army, the Sherman tanks under Li Mingcheng's command were all equipped with "additional armor" such as wire mesh, sandbags, and logs on the front.
In Europe, these fragmented weapons were naturally useless against the Tiger tank's 88mm main gun, leading to the Sherman earning the reputation of "Lonson Lighter".
However, in Southeast Asia, even if the Japanese developed armor-piercing shells for their 37mm and 47mm main guns, their fuses would be triggered in advance by these fragments, causing the metal jet to be unable to directly act on the armor and the penetration depth to be sharply reduced.
As a time traveler, Zhang Chi has naturally been developing explosive reactive armor to deal with armor-piercing shells, but that is for future use against Western powers. To deal with the Japanese armor-piercing shells and "dung-pulling treasures", wire mesh, sandbags and logs are enough.
So Li Mingcheng saw that the 37mm and 47mm armor-piercing bullets fired by the Japanese tanks were completely unable to do anything to the upper armor of his Sherman tanks.
Occasionally, one or two shells with explosive effects, similar to high-explosive armor-piercing shells, only blew away the extra sandbags added to the front of the Sherman.
The crew's report over the radio indicated that they were all safe.
On the contrary, the armor-piercing shells fired by the 105mm main gun and the capped armor-piercing shells fired by the 75mm main gun could not be blocked by the fragile front armor of the Japanese tanks.
Even though the Japanese tanks had sandbags installed on the front for defense, the high-explosive armor-piercing shells fired from the 105mm main gun contained nearly 4kg of TNT.
Li Mingcheng witnessed with his own eyes that the violent explosion directly shattered a Type 95 light tank into pieces.
"Riveted armor is unreliable."