blood of vietnam war

Chapter 140 Two Minefields

Our company was in combat position around eleven o'clock that night.

"Get into combat position" is easy to say, but it takes a lot of trouble to do it.

The reason why it took a lot of trouble is because our army wanted to launch a surprise attack on the positions of the Vietnamese army to achieve the suddenness of the entire battle.

However, the battlefield is like this, where there is offense, there must be defense.The troops on both sides are fighting with their lives. Of course, the enemy is not alive enough and has earned a long life. He can casually make our surprise attack a success. Such things are usually only easily done in movies or TV.

Especially our opponents... The 316a Division of the Vietnamese Army is still a veteran who has been on the battlefield for decades, and they have a set of methods to prevent the enemy from raiding.

The method of the Vietnamese army is the combination of landmines and observation posts.

Needless to say, landmines, just like we would use landmines to seal off positions when we sleep at night, the Yue Devils would also plant landmines around the forward positions.This thing will not only kill people or slow down the enemy's marching speed, but more importantly, it will remind the Vietnamese army to prepare in advance.

But this is not bad. The artillery and engineering soldiers of our army have not been idle for the past two days. They either used artillery fire to clear the way, or used engineers to clear the mines at night, so it didn't take long to finally open up a relatively safe road.

But this is just a small road leading to the forward positions of the Vietnamese army.

Even more difficult to deal with is the forward observation post of the Vietnamese army.

Having fought so many battles with the Yue Devils, I also know something about the forward observation posts of the Vietnamese Army, and I know that it is not just as simple as a sentinel.

It has three main features:

First of all, it is mainly distributed in important directions, especially in certain areas, frontiers and shallow depths that are directly confronted with the enemy. They are set up overlapping and overlapping with each other to overcome the influence of terrain cover, so as to facilitate the enemy's front and two wings. and rear observation.

Secondly, these outposts of the Vietnamese army usually choose commanding heights that are easy to observe, but avoid obvious protrusions and azimuths, and focus on all camouflaged fortifications and hidden roads.

Thirdly, these outposts generally have walkie-talkies and radio stations, and arrange for Vietnamese troops to take turns to observe continuously, registering and reporting the enemy's frontier military targets, active personnel, military vehicles and related signs on a daily basis.

To put it simply, in the short ten miles between our army and Sabah, there are dozens of highlands, large and small, and even near our army camps, there are observation posts of the Vietnamese army.These observation posts are all camouflaged and concealed... As long as our army makes a slight move, they will report to the headquarters through walkie-talkie or radio.

Of course, under our army's policy of strengthening the walls and clearing the field, the observation posts near the camp no longer exist, but we still cannot solve the observation posts that are far away.

The way the superiors deal with them is scouts.

Just as our army was preparing for the battle, several companies of scouts had been dispatched to a highland and suppress them latently...

The best way to deal with lurking is lurking. Our army scouts often sneak up in the dark on the high ground suspected of having an observation post of the Vietnamese army, and wait for the observation post of the Vietnamese army to come out to observe or use a walkie-talkie to report to their superiors. When reporting the exposed position, fight again to defeat the enemy.

However, even so, our army's scouts can't guarantee that all observation posts will be wiped out by them.

So... In order to hide the eyes of Yue Guizi, the first batch of troops of our regiment only sent out one battalion that night, and this battalion was divided into three groups to enter the battle position at different times through the same path that was considered relatively safe in advance.

The so-called relative safety here means that the landmines have been cleared, and the observation posts have also been cleared.

Some people might say that the observation post of the Yue Devils was cleared... wouldn't they report back to the headquarters?Isn't that the same as telling the Vietnamese army that we are going to attack?

The problem is... our army's clearing of the Vietnamese observation posts has been going on, and even our operation of fortifying the wall and clearing the field is also clearing the observation posts.At the same time, the Vietnamese army has always known that our army will attack Sabah, but they don't know the exact time.In addition, when our scouts cleared the Vietnamese observation sentries, they often sent a few translators who could speak Vietnamese to pretend to report back.

Of course, after getting the password from Yue Guizi, as for how the scouts did it... that's not what I need to care about.

The goal of our battalion is the 119.7 heights in front of me.

The height of this highland is not high. The reason why it can become the main target of our army is that it is long and wide. It is like a bolt across the front of several highlands behind it. We can't move forward without occupying it... ...so without further ado, this plateau is our first target.

The deployment of our army is like this, the first company is on the left wing, the second company is on the right wing, the third company owes one platoon to attack the front, and one platoon serves as a reserve.

Some people may wonder why there are fewer troops on the front?

Anyone who has fought with the Yue Devils knows that the Vietnam Army generally deploys its troops on the reverse slope in order to avoid our army's artillery fire.Moreover, a large number of firepower points of the Vietnamese army are aimed at the front of the high ground, so it is very difficult to attack from the front. If you want to take the Vietnamese army's position as quickly as possible and kill its vital forces, you have to feign a frontal attack and launch a surprise attack from the flanks.

This arrangement is of course correct, but the ensuing problem is... Of course, the Vietnamese army also knew that the flanks would be their weak spots, so they planted a large number of mines in the blind spots of the artillery on the two wings.

"How's the situation?" I cautiously climbed a few steps forward and asked beside the company commander.

"The situation is not good!" The company commander shook his head, and replied in a low and hoarse voice: "The engineering unit is clearing mines, but the Yue Guizi planted too many mines, and the speed of clearing mines is very slow... Only ten meters per hour!"

"What? You can only line up ten meters in an hour?" Hearing this, I couldn't help frowning.

But this seems to be a normal thing. It is not an easy task to clear mines in the dark, not to mention that they have to be very careful not to let the Vietnamese sentry find out...

"How long is Yue Guizi's minefield?" I asked again.

"Not very clear!" Company Commander Luo shook his head: "But according to Comrade Engineer's estimate... there are at least seventy meters left!"

I couldn't help but sweat when I heard that, that means...at least seven more hours!

I looked at my watch, it's already 11:30, I'm afraid it will be dawn after more than seven hours... We are lurking in the thatched field around this highland, although it seems to be fine, but there is a battalion of people There are so many... our troops will not be like Yue Guizi, even if they are injured, they will not make a sound. As long as anyone in this battalion moves and grabs... that means that our entire army will be killed. Exposed to the gunfire of Yue Guizi!

So the problem we are facing now is to either launch a charge without clearing the mines, or give up the attack and go home...

It's just that these two options don't seem to have any good results.

Initiate a charge without clearing a mine?

That means that we have to pay quite a lot of casualties... In fact, the casualties are second, and the lethality of the landmines is still not great. If you step on it, it usually blows up a leg and hurts people... This is not to say that the landmine equipment It's not that many explosives kill people, but it's intentionally designed like this.

It's designed to be this way... a wounded man is often more trouble than a dead man on the battlefield.

If a soldier dies, the others can completely leave him alone, no one will blame them, at most they just dragged the corpse after the battle.However, one soldier was injured... Others also left him alone, let alone other things, such a thing is enough to affect the morale of an army.Because the soldiers in the whole army will think: If I am injured next time, will my comrades leave me alone?

Therefore, landmines are designed to blow up people so that they can only injure but not die, aiming at this weakness of human nature.To injure a soldier, two soldiers must carry him... This not only slows down the troops, but also directly prevents the other two soldiers from participating in the battle.

However, these are still secondary, and more importantly, a considerable part of our company is recruits. I can't guarantee that they will continue to charge forward knowing that there are mines ahead... In fact, even veterans, I don't know. Dare to guarantee.

If they don't charge... that means that the Vietnamese army can shoot at us freely on the other side of the minefield, then the outcome of this battle can be imagined.

Are you heading back home?

That's even more impossible, not to mention that this will affect the morale of the soldiers, and the superiors will not allow us to do this!They will definitely say: "How can anyone survive in a war? If everyone retreats when they see danger or difficulty, then what a fart!"

However, the reality is... there is only one and a half hours before the scheduled start of the war, and it will take seven hours to clear the mines.

"Can you use a mortar?" I said.

The advantage of the mortar is that there is basically no dead angle. Its ballistic trajectory is a parabola with a large curvature. As long as the gunner shoots accurately, even a trench can be hit directly.And we now have a battalion mortar company, isn't it just right at this time?

Company Commander Luo raised his binoculars to look at it, then quickly shook his head: "The surface of the bullet is too small, I'm afraid it won't be of much use!"

I raised the binoculars to take a closer look, and only then did I know what Company Commander Luo was talking about. The ridge facing us on this high ground was as sharp as a blade. From our direction, we could only see a small piece of the minefield... ...That is to say, the target of the mortar is only so small. Unless the gunners of the mortar company are all sharp gunners with perfect shots, it is basically impossible to cover that area with artillery fire...

So Company Commander Luo and I were once again in a state of anxiety. We didn't expect... This was the first battle to attack Sabah, and it put us in a dilemma. (To be continued.)