Warlord: Red Alert Base, I challenge the whole world alone

Chapter 155: Encirclement and Reinforcement, 1st Marine Division

For this large-scale artillery bombardment against the Tsarist Russia's Manzhouli defense line, Zhao Qi mobilized the Second Artillery Division belonging to their group.

In addition to the 2nd Artillery Division, he also mobilized the armored artillery regiments of the 12th Armored Division and the 13th Mechanized Infantry Division, as well as two artillery regiments of the 13th and 14th Motorized Infantry Divisions.

Excluding the Andlyusa heavy rocket artillery regiment of the artillery division, a total of 8 artillery regiments were assembled.

The total number of barreled artillery pieces of the Second Artillery Division is as high as 256.

The artillery regiments of both the armored division and the mechanized infantry division adopt the 6-battalion system. Excluding the rocket artillery battalion, each regiment is equipped with 90 self-propelled artillery of three models, and the two regiments have a total of 180 vehicles.

This is equivalent to 180 105mm howitzers, 155mm howitzers and 155mm cannons.

The motorized infantry division artillery regiment is smaller in scale because it is a towed artillery.

But each regiment was also equipped with 66 105mm, 155mm and 203mm howitzers of three models.

The two regiments together have 132 guns.

Calculated in this way, the total number of towed artillery and self-propelled artillery of these eight artillery regiments reached an astonishing 8 pieces.

And this does not take into account that the motorized infantry division's infantry regiment is also equipped with an artillery battalion.

If these six artillery battalions are included, the number of barreled artillery pieces with a caliber of 6 mm or above exceeds 105.

However, 568 artillery pieces of various calibers were enough to give the Tsarist Russian army in the direction of Manzhouli a hard time.

No matter how many lines of defense the enemy had, Zhao Qi could just plow through them all with artillery shells.

This time his artillery preparation time was three days.

That is to say, during these three days, he did not plan to launch a ground attack, but just use artillery shells to attack.

In addition to the army's artillery units, the air force units are naturally indispensable.

Not only the First Air Force was responsible for the bombing here, but also the Second Air Force transferred from Qidong Province.

This was also to make up for the shortage of bombers in the First Air Force.

Because the First Air Force not only needs to reinforce the Mengyuan direction, but also needs to reinforce the operations in the Vladislavl direction.

Therefore, the Second Air Force had to be dispatched north to provide reinforcements.

There are a total of 7 bomber brigades.

Four are B-4 heavy bomber aviation brigades and three are B-17 medium bomber aviation brigades.

The seven brigades have a total of more than 7 bombers.

Zhao Qi's determination can be seen from this scale.

As orders were issued to various artillery positions, thousands of cannons roared in unison, shaking the earth.

Dense artillery shells rained down on the first line of defense of Tsarist Russia.

Although the 25th Army of Tsarist Russia was prepared to face the artillery bombardment of the Restoration Army, they never expected the scale of the bombardment to be so large.

Along the defense line that stretched for more than 20 kilometers, artillery shells were whistling down everywhere, causing dense explosions in the positions.

In particular, the 203mm caliber heavy howitzer has a very destructive effect on the position.

Many sturdy fortifications were unreasonably destroyed under the bombardment of 203mm caliber heavy howitzers.

A large number of Tsarist Russian soldiers died in this sudden artillery bombardment.

After a few rounds of artillery fire, thousands of people were killed.

This was still uncalibrated artillery fire.

More than a dozen FW-189 tactical reconnaissance aircraft and double-blade reconnaissance helicopters in the sky are the "eyes" of each artillery position, specifically responsible for guiding the artillery positions to carry out more precise artillery fire.

At this time, all the Tsarist Russian soldiers on the position rushed into the anti-artillery fortifications.

However, for the artillery, their most important task is not to kill a large number of enemies, but to destroy the fortifications on the positions.

If all the defensive fortifications of the position were destroyed, what would these Tsarist Russian soldiers use to stop the attack of the tank troops?

The artillery of the Tsarist Russia's 25th Army also began to counterattack.

They dispersed and camouflaged the artillery behind the defense line.

Since the sky still belongs to the Restoration Army Air Force, their artillery reconnaissance aircraft, artillery balloons, etc. cannot take off.

They could only judge the approximate area of the Renaissance Army's artillery positions by the ballistic dispersion and traces.

So they could only launch vague counterattacks, hoping to slightly suppress the fierce artillery fire of the Restoration Army.

But after their artillery fired, the Renaissance Army's tactical reconnaissance aircraft could easily find their position.

Because as soon as you fire, there will be a very obvious artillery trajectory, and reconnaissance planes hundreds of meters in the air can follow the trajectory to find the exact location of the artillery position.

When the Tsarist Russian artillery positions discovered tactical reconnaissance planes circling in the air, they quickly moved.

At the same time, the anti-aircraft machine guns on the ground also began to drive away these annoying artillery reconnaissance planes.

It took only a minute or two from discovering the exact location to launching the artillery attack.

It takes more than ten minutes just to change the artillery status.

Immediately, several Russian artillery positions were counterattacked by 155mm cannons.

The main task of the cannon is to provide long-range fire suppression, that is, counter-bombardment.

As for the howitzers, they continued to pour shells into the positions.

However, the most effective way to counter artillery is the air force.

Teams of Mustangs, Thunders and Il-10s appeared in the sky one after another.

This is also the current famous Three Musketeers of the Renaissance Army Air Force.

When they appear, they often appear in groups.

These fighter planes roared over the Tsarist Russian artillery positions, dropping bombs and rockets.

The anti-aircraft firepower of Tsarist Russia was also quite fierce.

This also makes it impossible for fighter jets to carry out precise strikes at low altitudes, so the accuracy is much lower.

But the counter-attack effect on their artillery positions is still very obvious.

The Tsarist Russia also lost one-third of its artillery in this counterattack.

As a result, they dared not show their heads during the day.

Faced with such a large-scale artillery bombardment by the Restoration Army, the 25th Army of Tsarist Russia also felt torment and tremendous pressure.

The defense line they set up in Manchuria was destroyed bit by bit by the artillery of the Fuxing Army.

The commander of the 25th Army Group was actually originally opposed to defending Manchuria.

Because the terrain of Manzhouli is composed of low mountains, hills and grasslands.

The height of these hills is often only tens or hundreds of meters.

It was impossible to stop the tank troops' attack.

But whether to defend Manchuria was not decided by him, but by the Far Eastern Front Command.

General Ivanovich said we must defend it, so we must defend it.

So they could only build a defense line in Manchuria.

However, the defense line they painstakingly built could not keep up with the speed of the Fuxing Army's demolition.

In just a few days, most of the surface fortifications on all three lines of defense would be destroyed.

The artillery fire spread throughout Manzhouli and also spread towards Shuangchengzi.

Shuangchengzi is a border city of Tsarist Russia, bordering the eastern part of Mudanjiang City. The railway also passes through here and connects to Vladislavl.

Therefore, this place also became the focus of the attack of the First Army of the Renaissance Army.

However, the terrain here is much more complicated, basically all mountainous.

It is not suitable for the deployment of armored forces at all.

Therefore, Army Commander Jiang Tianming did not deploy armored units along this route.

In the direction of the Shuangchengzi defense line, the First Army only had the First and Second Motorized Infantry Divisions plus the 18th Mountain Division, a total of three divisions.

Among them, the 18th Mountain Infantry Division was the main force of this attack.

After all, when it comes to mountain warfare, the mountain infantry division is the real expert.

But even experts can only take one hill at a time.

It is unknown how long it will take to completely penetrate Shuangchengzi and occupy Shuangchengzi.

Therefore, the combat plan formulated by the General Staff along the way was to encircle the point and attack the reinforcements.

However, the siege was not carried out in Vladislavl, which had a complex terrain and well-developed fortress fortifications.

But it is another city, and this city is Khabarovsk.

Blagoveshchensk is located in the direction of "Ji Guan" on the map of the ancient country, almost touching the "Ji Guan", and facing Dongji County of Heilongjiang Province across the river. It also became the easternmost city of the ancient country.

That’s why it is named Dongji County.

The city of Khabarovsk was built at the confluence of the Ussuri River and the Heijiang River, so it also had a natural advantage in defense.

But this natural advantage is not a big obstacle in the eyes of the Renaissance Army.

The Fuxing Army also experienced many river crossing operations.

Especially when heading south, the long river is an obstacle that cannot be avoided.

Therefore, after the end of the Northern Sai War, Jiang Hua also set about establishing a force specifically for crossing rivers and seas, namely the Marine Corps.

Jiang Hua did not follow the previous model of first establishing a brigade-level force and then organizing a division-level force after gaining experience.

Instead, they went straight to the point and formed a Marine division.

This Marine Division also became the first Marine Corps of the Restoration Army.

This Marine Division was organized based on the American Marine Division during World War II in the original time and space, and was then improved based on existing equipment.

This Marine Division is also very large in size.

It is composed of three amphibious infantry regiments, one amphibious tank regiment, one artillery regiment, one armored engineering battalion, and one engineering battalion.

Together with the communications company, logistics support battalion, amphibious armored reconnaissance company and other affiliated units, the entire division has a total of more than 20,000 people, which is larger than the Marine Division of the United States.

Because this is a semi-mechanized Marine division.

This semi-mechanization is also mainly due to the multi-functional infantry fighting vehicle of the Red Alert base's exclusive unit, which is the infantry fighting vehicle currently in service named BMP-1.

This infantry fighting vehicle not only has strong firepower and can transport troops, but also has amphibious combat capabilities.

So it also became the equipment of the Marine Corps.

Each infantry regiment is equipped with an amphibious armored battalion, which is equipped with 4 companies totaling 52 BMP-1A amphibious infantry fighting vehicles.

This A is the amphibious version of the multi-purpose infantry fighting vehicle.

The three amphibious armored battalions are equipped with a total of 1 BMP-156A infantry fighting vehicles.

The total number of the entire amphibious infantry regiment exceeds 4000, reaching about 4500, which is equivalent to the strength of a brigade.

Then there is the Marine Corps' main force, the Amphibious Tank Regiment.

This tank regiment has four tank battalions under its command, equipped with a total of two types of tanks.

One model is the T-40A amphibious tank, which was not well-known in the original time and space during World War II.

Due to technical limitations, the performance of amphibious tanks during this period was not very good, but they could still be used.

The T-40A amphibious tank has a combat weight of 6.3 tons and is armed with a 20mm machine gun.

Its armor is thin, but it can stop rifle and machine gun bullets.

The maximum speed in water is 6 km/h.

The second model is the Panzer IV H medium tank.

This is also the main tank of the Marine Division.

As for the artillery units, they are equipped with small and medium caliber 75mm and 105mm howitzers.

This is the organization and weapons allocation of the Marine Division.

The attack on Khabarovsk was mainly carried out by the 1st Marine Division, while the 10th Mechanized Infantry Division and the 11th Armored Division were the reinforcements after breaking through the river defense.

Besiege Khabarovsk, attack the reinforcements from Vladislavl, and reduce the troops in Vladislavl. This is the strategy against this fortress city.