Chapter 34: The Battle of Tongdeng (IV)

Chapter 34: The Battle of Tongdeng (IV)

The cadres all looked at the offensive route I drew on the map, and they all looked at each other without saying a word.

After a long time, Political Commissar Huang said: "Use the forces of the two battalions to attract the firepower of the Vietnamese army on the west and south respectively, and then launch a raid on the relatively weak east to directly seize the Vietnamese artillery position. This kind of attack is not wrong, but how can you ensure that this elite soldier can quickly destroy its artillery position? You must know that this army must have a very strong attack ability and must act quickly. Otherwise, if it is a little slow, it will be annihilation of the entire army!"

"I also find it difficult!" said a cadre: "Although the terrain on the east is relatively flat, with the defense capabilities of the Vietnamese army, even if most of their troops are attracted by us to the west and south, we cannot make a quick breakthrough! So this plan will only be a paper talk!"

"What if you use a tank?" I added a sentence afterwards.

"This..." Battalion Commander Wu couldn't help but answer: "The terrain on the east is flat and there is a highway, which is indeed conducive to tank attacks, but firstly, the enemy is likely to lay a large number of mines, and secondly... all the tanks in my hand are Type 63, so it is difficult to quickly break through the Vietnamese defense line!"

"In terms of mines, we can use artillery fire to open the road, and the tank armor can be changed to break through at night!" I added another sentence.

Actually, I have thought of all the questions they thought of. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have proposed this plan.

"Not tonight!" Battalion Commander Wu shook his head and said, "Although the anti-tank weapons of the Vietnamese army are difficult to play at night,... the night vision equipment of our tanks is not up to standard. First, the road cannot be seen, and second, it is difficult to hit the target!"

I know the night vision equipment of the Type 63 tank. I tried it when I broke through the last time when I sat down with the Type 63 tank. The thing was not clear at all and it was often distorted. The main reason was that the infrared headlights in front of the tank were insufficient and the quality was poor. This made it possible for the infantry outside the tank to lead the way with the butt. When we were moving forward, we had to use the butt stock to lead the way. The butt stock was to go to the left, and the other way was to go to the right...

"It can be solved if you can't see the road!" After thinking about it, I replied: "The infantry used the walkie-talkie to contact the tank's hands to guide the tank forward!"

Battalion Commander Wu thought for a while, nodded and said, "Although this is dangerous, you can attack him unexpectedly and perhaps achieve strategic goals. However, the problem of not being able to hit the target cannot be solved..."

"I didn't ask you to hit the target!" I replied.

The tanks of this era do not have a fire control system, and the night vision instruments are highly distorted, so of course I will not hope to let them hit the target.

"Then Captain Cui wants..." Even Captain Zhang was a little curious now.

"Your tanks can be pressed all the way!" I replied relaxedly: "Let the infantry do the rest!"

"Press it!" Everyone in the tunnel was stunned when he heard this. This method is actually very simple. The tank can not only be hit with cannons! Even if it is a Type 63 light tank, a cannon is pressed by it like this, if it can still be used, it can be called a magic cannon!

"You can give it a try!" After a long silence, Political Commissar Huang expressed his attitude first.

"I agree!"

"I agree too!"

...

"Which unit and tank are used to cooperate?" Political Commissar Huang asked again.

The cadres turned their eyes to me at the same time. I couldn't help but smile bitterly, and unknowingly did another thankless thing.

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The battle that night started at 8 o'clock in the evening. I would choose to start the battle at night, so that the tank could play the role of tearing open the enemy's defense line. Just imagine, if this was in the daytime, with armor like the Type 63 tank, I would be easily killed by several rockets before rushing to the Vietnamese trenches. Not to mention tearing the Vietnamese defense line and taking us infantry to rush over to a "center blossom".

That's right, this is actually the tactic commonly used by the volunteer army on the Korean battlefield. When the volunteer army is fighting, it will always send an elite force to destroy its command system within the enemy. For example, destroying the US command center during the Yunshan Battle, and for example, the surprise attack regiment during the Jincheng Battle... The difference is that the volunteer army disguised itself as an enemy and sneaked into the enemy's troops, but this time I had to break in.

Actually, I don’t want to pretend to be a Vietnamese army and get in. The main reason is that I don’t know how to speak Vietnamese. If a guide who speaks Vietnamese will lead the team, it is very likely that they will be exposed because of their low psychological quality, which is not worth the loss.

That's why I had to use this most direct and primitive method to tear open the defense line of the Vietnamese army and rush in.

It should be said that if we had no tanks, we would not be able to do this at all. After all, when individual weapons have developed highly, it would be difficult for us to rush through the Vietnamese AK47 and grenade guns. But fortunately we have tanks, and tanks can at least block submachine guns and grenades. Anti-tank weapons... I think they are not in a hurry to aim at it. Because we have secretly hidden four tanks at a distance of only 500 meters from the Vietnamese defense line.

It is not easy to do this. In order to cover the sound of the tank's motor, we must fire a few shells at the Vietnamese army from time to time, and the tanks can only move forward bit by bit with the sound of shells. After reaching the hidden point, they immediately use branches and weeds to pretend. Once the war begins, they will rush to the Vietnamese defense line at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour, and it will drive to the Vietnamese army in the smoke of the shells in almost one minute. If the Vietnamese army can react and destroy them within one minute, then I have no choice.

Someone was puzzled by the fact that only four tanks were dispatched. Battalion Commander Wu asked me strangely, they had more than 20 tanks in total, why only four tanks were dispatched? What he didn't know was that the most important thing about this tactic was speed. Although the terrain on the east side of the Vietnamese army was relatively flat, it could only allow four tanks to move forward side by side. In such a narrow terrain, more tanks not only did not play any role, but also hindered the speed of the troops' movement. In addition, due to communication equipment, the coordination of step and tanks at night was a big problem, so I would rather just have four tanks and be successful if I didn't succeed!

Battalion Commander Wu also hid his private parts, and pulled out the four best-in-class tanks from the more than 20 tanks, and assigned the soldiers of the best four vehicles. A team leader of the tank company named Li Degui participated in the battle.

Li Degui, the company commander, was also serious about his work. As soon as he received the order, he overhauled the four tanks several times, checking weapons and instruments, and even removed parts from other tanks to replace the four tanks. In his words, it was necessary to ensure that these four tanks did not fail in battle and went to the battlefield in the best state, otherwise he would live up to the expectations of his superiors and be irresponsible to the infantry comrades.

All of this was handled by Battalion Commander Wu, so I naturally didn’t have to worry about it. But there was one thing that made me very troubled, that was the question of who guided the tank forward and guided the targets for the tank.

The infrared night vision device on the tank does not work and does not dare to turn on the headlights, which will undoubtedly become the best target of the Vietnamese army. In other words, the tank is almost blind in night battles, and infantry must be guided by it. But how to guide it? It is not just that infantry takes a walker phone with a walker phone with a tank driver, because if infantry follows behind the tank, they are likely to be blocked by the tank and see nothing, let alone guide the tank forward.

Therefore, this requires infantry to guide the tank, and because the road is uneven, infantry responsible for guidance tasks are likely to be thrown off the tank. Once the infantry is thrown off the tank, the tank will become a blind man. In other words, infantry responsible for guidance tasks must be tied to the tank. In order to ensure that the tank can drive normally, multiple guides need to be tied...

Before, when we were reinforced by Dongxi, we saw the tragic situation of infantry tied to tanks and being beaten to death by the Vietnamese army. It can be said that they still remember that scene until now. However, now, we ourselves are going to take that old path.

If I could not do this, I would never let the soldiers do this! But this is one thing that is impossible. Who made the equipment we produced poor quality? Who made our factory cut corners? Night vision instruments cannot be used, so we had to fill it with human lives and supplement it with blood!

It is not only the abominable Vietnamese who killed us soldiers, but also the Chinese people who produced these weapons and equipment!

What else can the soldiers do besides hatred? The inferior weapons are held in our hands, and the rough equipment is placed in front of us! But the battle still needs to be fought, so we can only grit our teeth and grit our teeth and use the most dirt and stupidest method to push it up...

I told this situation, and the soldiers were silent at first because they all knew what the consequence would be if they were tied to the tank. But after a while, more than 30 soldiers raised their hands to sign up. This included people from their hometown, Yang Songjian and other cadres, and even the deputy company commander and instructor raised their hands.

They are all good, and know that as cadres, they do not take the lead in carrying out the most dangerous tasks, no one of the soldiers would be willing to do it. But of course I would not let the platoon leader and instructors do such things, and they still have to command wars, right? So in the end, sixteen soldiers were selected from the thirty soldiers and assigned them to four tanks as guides. Each of them was assigned a walkie-talkie, and they communicated with the tankers on their own how to guide the tanks and how to command the tanks to fire. And under the leadership of Li Degui, they also spent several hours of exercise...

Because of the special nature of our company's mission, Commander Zhang specially strengthened three rocket launchers and three recoil-free cannons for our company. In front of him, he used thirty Type 56 submachine guns to replace all the Type 56 rifles in my company. In this way, the individual weapons in the entire company's hands are either submachine guns or machine guns, and their firepower is basically balanced with the Vietnamese army. With the cover of tanks, I believe that if the Vietnamese army is caught off guard, we will have to peel off the skin if we are not knocked down by us.

Everything is ready, but the east wind is not available. All the soldiers lurk in a jungle east of a defense group. Four tanks are in front of them. A company of soldiers lurk in four teams with tanks as the boundary. Finally, an assist team consisting of twenty mortars and ten heavy machine guns. They all got on horseback and loaded their guns and prepared for combat.

Suddenly, three red signal flares rose into the night sky, and the sound of shaking cannons quickly sounded. One round of cannons roared from the artillery positions in the north of our army with a sharp roar, and then balls of fire exploded on the Vietnamese positions.

Almost at the same time, the mortars behind our headquarters also fired rows of shells at the target that had been aimed at. The purpose of this was to use the protection of long-range artillery fire to more accurately and carefully eliminate obstacles such as mines and barbed wire on our army's offensive route. Although the long-range artillery is powerful, there are many shooting dead corners that cannot be taken into account.

Fifteen minutes later, the cannon stopped, replaced by gunfire and shouts of killing from the west and east. But we did not move, and all the soldiers stood quietly waiting for my order.

This is not the time for an attack. First, the Vietnamese army in front of us has not been dispersed yet, and second, the Vietnamese mixed artillery positions have not arrived yet and urgently pulled out of the tunnel...

I don’t know if it was because the Vietnamese Japanese had overslept or the darkness made him slow to move. Originally, the Vietnamese army should have pulled out the cannons to provide firepower assistance to the Vietnamese army on the periphery, but now I haven’t heard the sound of cannons for a long time.

Could it be that our plan leaked the news? There is no reason! For the sake of the secret of the mission, except for us "parties" who are carrying out the mission, no other soldiers know about this plan. And all the soldiers under my command were brought out from China, and it is unlikely that they were Vietnamese agents.

What is the reason?

After waiting for a while, I couldn't see the Vietnamese army. I couldn't help but find out. Later I realized that it was the soldiers in the east who rushed too fast. Before the Vietnamese army could provide artillery fire support, they were twisted together with the enemy, making the Vietnamese artillery fire unable to play a normal role.

Finally, I vaguely heard a few cannons coming from all sides, but I was not sure whether it was our army or the Vietnamese army.

After waiting for a while, I still couldn't hear the sound of the ***. I couldn't help but grit my teeth: No matter whether he uses it or not! When the artillery fire was just over, the enemy always thought it was the safest time. At this time, the Vietnamese army had a high chance of pulling out the cannons and ammunition. If they didn't take action at this time, they wouldn't be sure that they would pull the cannons back into the tunnel again!

Thinking of this, I said to the intercom: "Do it!"

"Do it!"

"Do it!"

...

This is the soldiers conveying my orders. Other soldiers can easily hear my orders, but those tankers are very difficult, so the instructor must pass the orders several times!

"Boom..." The mortars were the first to fire.

This time their purpose was not to blow up landmines, but to raise a cloud of smoke and dust in front of the enemy's positions to cover the sight of the Vietnamese army, and to cover the sound of tank motors with the sound of cannons.

Some experienced Vietnamese troops will prepare anti-tank weapons when they hear the sound of tank motors. Of course, I will not give them such a chance.

Then, with a loud "roaring" sound, four tanks hidden in the grass and the branches rushed towards the Vietnamese positions with enough horsepower. The soldiers also followed in rows of submachine guns and rushed forward.

"Dadadada..." The gunshots quickly rang out. The Vietnamese army's reaction was not slow. After a while, we fired rows of bullets, but as expected, the firepower was not strong, and they did not rush to prepare anti-tank weapons. It should be said that at this time, they just saw a bunch of vague black shadows in the smoke, and then shot at the black shadows.

But these bullets can do nothing except make a few grooves in the armor of the tank.

Tan was very fast, which made us almost run forward with all our might to barely keep up with it. At such a fast speed, we had only more than two minutes to get close to the Vietnamese defense line. However, we still couldn't see the enemy under the darkness and smoke.

But this is better. We cannot see the enemy, which means that the enemy cannot see us either. When they can see us, they suddenly realize that the tank is already in front of us...

"Start up! Keep up with the tank!" I ordered to the intercom, raised my rifle and knocked out two Vietnamese troops who were shooting at our army. Although I still couldn't see anyone, the fire from their muzzles exposed their location.

Although the firepower of today's weapons is strong, they are less concealed than the old rifles in the past. The rifles can also hide in trenches and only expose their eyes to shoot, and they can only shoot at one shot. If you don't pay attention, you can't find any sparks without paying attention. But now, the ak47 is a shuttle, and the sparks are huge, so it's hard not to find it.

"Boom..." An explosion sounded in the front row. I knew that this was the Vietnamese army swaying grenades at us. When the opponent approached the position, swaying grenades was the best choice. But what they did not expect was that this time we were using tanks to take the lead. Not only could those grenades not hurt us at all, but the smoke it swelled also became our best cover...

"Grenades!" With my order, the guides on the tank and the soldiers who were relatively in front threw rows of grenades into the darkness ahead.

The Vietnamese army's grenades will be dropped on us, so of course our grenades will be dropped on the Vietnamese army. But I think the Vietnamese army does not have a few steel tanks in front. And the more grenades explode, the thicker the smoke, and the more hidden we will be. Why not do it?
Chapter completed!