afterglow

Chapter 657 Chapter No retreat! Enemy planes! Enemy planes!

The U.S. State Department's peace proposals starting in the middle of the year were seen by the Ming court as a signal of weakness in seeking peace.

Most people believed that Americans had realized that continuing the war was not worth the cost, and now all they had to do was delay the war until the Americans lost their patience.

The imperial court and the Council of State were anxious but could do nothing about the many unfavorable battle reports sent back from the front lines and the series of new technical and tactical means used by the U.S. military. They just repeatedly emphasized that they must do their utmost to ensure the logistics of the Ming army on Maui Island and must hold on to the end.

During the days of constant artillery fire, Li Mingxuan, a military official, flew from his homeland to the front line as a court commissioner.

The single-engine small seaplane glided into the sky as the sun set, and flew to Maui under the cover of darkness.

When approaching Maalaea Bay, a series of light spots suddenly flashed on the dark and boundless sea in the distance, one string in the east and one in the west, which was particularly dazzling.

"What is that?" Li Mingxuan asked.

"I don't know! It's probably that the enemy and our boats are fighting again! Not surprising!" the pilot replied in a hoarse voice.

Those were the four Xun-shaped torpedo boats belonging to the First Landing Army. They encountered five PT torpedo boats from the US 3rd Torpedo Boat Squadron that came to harass them.

"Will enemy planes come at night?"

"Yes! Usually there will be night planes coming to bomb in the middle of the night!"

It was dark below, and the small plane sent a light signal to the ground, and then the dock powered up the water landing indicator buoy.

Two parallel straight lines of light appeared on the sea surface. Guided by the glowing buoy, the small plane slowly landed in Maalaea Bay.

Not only at the dock, but also along the way, the lighting control is extremely strict. All vehicles are prohibited from turning on the lights. There is an air defense street lamp erected every few dozen steps beside the dirt road. In essence, it is a three-foot-tall street lamp with a special sunshade. Its light cannot be seen at night if it is more than one kilometer away.

After driving around in an off-road vehicle for a long time, Li Mingxuan finally met Zhou Changfeng at the command post on the back slope of a hill.

"You must have come all this way, have you had dinner? I haven't eaten either, let's eat together."

Li Mingxuan swallowed the words that came to his lips as Zhou refused to talk about the reason for their meeting.

A few empty ammunition boxes were placed side by side on the camp bed and covered with a waterproof canvas to make a dining table. He was quite surprised at how simple the dinner was.

Looking at a bowl of rice, a sweet potato, some minced meat, and a dish of pickles, Li Mingxuan asked doubtfully, "No... May I ask, Commander-in-Chief, are the soldiers' food on the island so bad now?"

Zhou Changfeng smiled and explained, "We have to save money. This is the lowered food standard for non-combatants. After all, I'm not on the battlefield."

Li Mingxuan was shocked and pondered for several seconds before muttering, "It's very tiring for generals to worry about military affairs..."

According to the food standards formulated by the Army Department of the Ministry of War, even during war, as long as it is possible to provide hot meals, priority should be given to cooking vegetables and rice. This is called garrison meals, and field rations are something that should only be eaten as a last resort.

The front-line combat units shall apply the first-class food standard, which is that each person shall have 1.2 jin of rice or flour, 5 liang of potatoes or sweet potatoes, 2 liang of meat, 1 jin of vegetables, 15 grams of salt, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of tea, 20 cigarettes or an equivalent amount of tobacco, 500 milliliters of beer or 200 milliliters of wine, 50 grams of eggs or egg powder, 15 grams of condensed milk, and 150 milliliters of soy milk.

But the current situation obviously does not allow maintaining such a high level of food. According to Zhou Changfeng's order, the Lieutenant General of the Medical General Affairs Department and the Lieutenant General of the Logistics General Affairs Department reduced the food intake after discussion - the amount of rice as the staple food was reduced by 2 taels, the amount of wine was reduced by half, the amount of meat was reduced by half, soy milk was completely eliminated, and only the amount of sugar was increased by 10 grams.

This is mainly to reduce protein intake, while using sugar to make up for part of the reduced carbohydrates, considering that front-line combat is mainly physical exertion.

Now only the wounded and sick in the field hospital can enjoy sufficient meat and soy milk, because protein is more important for recuperation, but the wounded and sick have also been reduced by one pound of rice and all alcohol, because lying in bed to recuperate consumes relatively less physical energy.

This is the case for the officers and soldiers on the front line and the wounded and sick, not to mention the food for the second-line personnel, which is more than one-third less.

This standard came into effect in early November, and Zhou Changfeng also required that the supply of ordinary food be reduced and replaced with sugar as much as possible.

Now that the transportation lines are blocked, logistical support is extremely difficult. The only way is to use fast ships to transport at night, but the transportation capacity is very small, so small and high-calorie sugar becomes the only choice.

"We don't have anything good to offer, so let's just get two bottles of that wine."

Zhou Changfeng used cans of Schaefer beer to treat Li Mingxuan. This was seized when the piecemeal tactics were still effective. This brand of beer was created by a German. During the war, it was specifically used to provide low-alcohol beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% to the American military, which strictly prohibited alcohol.

Taking this as a lead, Li Mingxuan said with difficulty: "The court now believes in the strategy of procrastination and does not agree to retreat."

"Why? They must have told you a lot."

"Yes, the court believes that the enemy is making a final attempt, and has made no reservations. All new methods and new troops are deployed." Li Mingxuan was worried that Zhou Changfeng would be angry, so he said carefully: "Withdrawing troops at this time will only encourage the enemy's confidence to fight again, and the enemy's domestic war factions can also use this as an excuse to refute the peace talks."

The latter was silent for a moment, took a sip of wine, and said lightly: "It's not wrong to think so."

"Don't worry, Commander Zhou. The court knows that the situation on the front line is not easy. They guarantee to supply at all costs. This difficulty must be overcome."

Zhou Changfeng then asked back: "Has the court ever thought about the cost of these 40,000 people being tied up here? From the beginning of the year to now, the initiative has been lost."

"The court is discussing this matter, and I am here to ask for your opinion." Li Mingxuan paused and asked, "If the landing troops are withdrawn, can the remaining troops hold on? If not, how many reinforcements should be sent?"

"Nonsense! What are you thinking?" Zhou Changfeng frowned upon hearing this and said, "It will cause resentment. Will we still maintain morale? This is a war on an island, not on the mainland. The morale of the army is much more sensitive and fragile. If the battle fails, there will be nowhere to escape. The only outcome is the annihilation of the entire army."

"But we can't just leave it to its own devices. It's not appropriate for the landing troops to be trapped here, so the court wants to confirm how many more troops should be sent to defend it."

"We don't need a lot. Just replenish the 31st and 38th Divisions with soldiers and equipment, and send two replacement battalions up."

"Hmm?" Li Mingxuan asked in confusion with a suspicious look on his face: "Can this be defended? Doesn't this make the 20,000 troops of the First Landing Army seem dispensable?"

"Defense is defense, attack is attack. Now we need to retain the ability to attack." Zhou Changfeng replied.

Then he added: "But don't expect to launch an attack in this state. According to the supply consumption during the attack, it is not certain whether the current reserves can be used for half a month." "That's true. Then... In this case, the court will probably withdraw the landing troops first."

Zhou Changfeng shook his head. "It's very difficult. Unless we leave all the heavy equipment behind, it will take at least a month to transport it away with this broken wharf that has been damaged and repaired."

Li Mingxuan hesitated for a moment and said, "That's fine. Let's withdraw the people first and then talk about other things."

"In short, let's finalize the strategy. No matter what the court promises, they are all empty promises. Let's find a way to get a batch of speedboats first and then talk about other things. Don't count on air superiority for now."

"Okay." Li Mingxuan expressed his understanding, and then sighed: "How much of the supplies sent from the mainland can be delivered here in the end?"

"Fifty percent, at most." Yao Liangchuan at the side enumerated in a calm tone: "Maritime transportation is much more stable than last year, so we will assume a 10% loss. If the goods are shipped to Oahu for transit and then shipped out, they will be intercepted by enemy speedboats and planes on the way, so the loss will be another 30%. If the goods are not transported to the shore in time, or the storage area is bombed, the loss will be another 10% or 20%. "

There are still 2.1 tons of ammunition and 1.3 tons of other supplies stored on the island. These pre-accumulated materials have bought the Ming army a lot of buffer time.

From a purely military perspective, the Battle of Maui should have been stopped immediately; fighting under such conditions was extremely dangerous.

One of the main objective reasons why Zhou Changfeng agreed to continue to hold on was that he had no way to retreat - his side had escaped unscathed from the Battle of Molokai, and the US military had been slow to notice the retreat, so they might not be so easily fooled this time. Moreover, this time his side did not have air superiority, and the number of troops was far greater than that of Molokai.

If measured by a lower standard, the Ming army on Maui consumed an average of 210 tons of ammunition and 90 tons of other supplies per day. Replenishing 300 tons of supplies every day would ensure that the troops could continue to hold out.

In practice, the Ming Navy found that destroyers were not suitable for this kind of supply operation because unloading was troublesome, especially since several temporary docks in Maalaea Bay were repeatedly attacked by US air strikes. After being bombed during the day, it was dark before the repairs were completed. At this time, the destroyers rushed over but had nowhere to moor.

Both supply operations on November 11 and November 10 were unsatisfactory. The dock was not repaired until midnight, and the supplies unloaded from the destroyer were not moved until after dawn. Half of the supplies were soon bombed into the sky by US military planes.

Therefore, the Ming Navy switched to using Xun-shaped torpedo boats for material transportation. They did not carry torpedoes, but instead carried supplies with a total weight of 3 tons. In order to avoid putting all the eggs in one basket, each torpedo boat carried many types of supplies rather than a single type, usually 1.5 tons of artillery shells, 0.5 tons of bullets, 0.5 tons of blasting equipment, 0.3 tons of food, and 0.2 tons of medicine. On the return journey, they could also carry 5 to 6 seriously injured soldiers and some letters.

Torpedo boats are light and flexible, and their movements are stealthy. The Ming army's torpedo boat units, in particular, like to use extremely dark blue-black paint, making them look like ghosts under the cover of night.

Compared with larger and wider piers, torpedo boats only need a short and simple dock to complete unloading, and several prefabricated pontoons connected by iron chains are enough to meet the needs.

After being bombed for so long, the Ming army was forced to come up with the countermeasure of building an underwater dock.

That is to tie a counterweight next to the pontoon so that the entire dock is submerged one or two feet below the sea surface, making it basically impossible for US military aircraft to detect it. After dark, the counterweight is removed and the dock can float up and be put into use immediately.

There have been similar products in history. For example, the Jinjiang River once had an underwater bridge for people and vehicles to pass through.

Through this method, the naval forces could send out an average of 30 voyages every night, delivering about 90 tons of various supplies to the Ming army on Maui Island, but this was less than one-third of the daily consumption, and the gap was huge. It could only be said that the consumption rate of stockpiled supplies was slowed down.

Because the night harassment activities of the US torpedo boats were also quite frequent and very tricky, the Ming army always had to ensure that there were a similar number of torpedo boats or gunboats to fight against them.

The Ming army deployed a total of three light torpedo teams and one light assault team in the Hawaiian Islands, each with 14 speedboats. The light torpedo team was equipped with Xun-shaped torpedo boats, and the light assault team was equipped with a modified version of the Xun-shaped gunboat. There should be a total of 56 ships, and as of November 11, 11 were in use.

Considering that transporting supplies by speedboat at night is a feasible method at present, Zhou Changfeng requested that some torpedo boats and gunboats be dispatched as soon as possible.

The U.S. military, which has basically mastered air superiority, has never stopped its indiscriminate bombing since the launch of Operation Alternating Current. The U.S. military sequence on Maui now includes the original 27th and 33rd Divisions, followed by the 2nd Marine Division, and now the 151st Division. Together with the other independent units, the total strength is close to 8.

Now the shipping capacity of both sides has been significantly improved compared with the early and middle stages of the war - a large number of merchant ships have been completed and put into use, and the improvement of the anti-submarine escort system has greatly reduced the losses of merchant ships.

This year, Ming Dynasty is expected to build 490 million tons of merchant ships, Britain can build 130 million tons of merchant ships, and the United States can build 1270 million tons of merchant ships.

Historically, Japan only completed 77 tons of merchant ships in 170, and only million tons in . From this point of view, it is impossible for Japan to have an advantage in the vast Pacific battlefield.

The 151st Infantry Division's attack on Hill 266 ended in a disastrous defeat. The division commander, Major General Grover, was very unwilling to accept the defeat in their first battle.

In order to capture this important tactical point in the west, on the morning of November 11, the 12nd Infantry Regiment launched a strong attack on the mountain with the support of five field artillery battalions and a tank company.

The rough and broken terrain restricted the movement of tanks. More than a dozen Sherman tanks ordered to assist the infantry could not move forward and could only stop at the starting position of the attack and serve as fixed artillery positions.

The fierce battle lasted for a whole day, but this infantry division, which was mostly composed of Mexican volunteers, still failed to make a breakthrough and suffered hundreds of casualties throughout the day. The US military's attack once again failed.

The attack on Hill 266 was blocked, and Lieutenant General Simon Buckner believed that such an attack was impractical, so he ordered the 2nd Marine Division to take over the task of attacking the hill, and the 151st Division turned to attack the flat open area in the southeast, thus threatening the flank of the Ming army on Hill 266.

This Mexican unit was obviously treated as a expendable unit similar to cannon fodder. Since the entire division joined the battle, it has suffered more than a thousand casualties but has achieved no results.

Although the US offensive was quite powerful, the entire front line was as solid as a rock. Except for a few positions that the Ming army voluntarily abandoned, the US military made little progress. An armored unit that broke into the junction of the 1st Marine Brigade and the 38th Division's positions was forced to retreat after holding out for a day and a night.

By the evening of a week later, the U.S. military had still not made any effective progress. Zhou Changfeng was more worried that although his side had deliberately saved ammunition, the consumption rate was still higher than expected.

In the armored command vehicle that served as a mobile command center, Zhao Hanfeng took a pencil and drew a circle on the map.

"I feel that the enemy is unlikely to maintain this offensive. The intensity of the artillery bombardment on Hill 266 and Hill 217 has obviously decreased."

Zhou Changfeng nodded and said nonchalantly: "The attacks in the past few days have been quite chaotic, with unclear objectives. The US military can't find a suitable breakthrough point, and then..."

Just as the two were discussing the map, the faint noise of propellers suddenly reached their ears, followed by the shouts of the soldiers.

"Enemy planes are coming!"

"hidden!"

Anti-aircraft searchlights and anti-aircraft guns fired at the starry sky, and dazzling beams of light cut through the dark night!

Several pitch-black A-20 Havoc attack aircraft were vaguely visible. They swept through the sky while firing, dropping more than a dozen 500-pound bombs in succession.

(End of this chapter)