New World War II Eagle Strikes the Sky

After the battleships fired, the cruisers and destroyers also fired. (You can find this site) But they are not like battleships with thick skin and thick flesh. They have strong defense and can almost see the artillery on Iwo Jima, so they dare not stop like battleships, or even drop their anchor chains altogether. Open fire, so that although the shooting accuracy is higher, once the opponent returns fire, such a target is also easier to hit.Therefore, they still maintained a speed of about twelve knots, and while sailing, they spewed flames towards the intended target.

"General, the enemy's warship is within our range, please order to fire on the enemy's warship!" A major officer said to Kuribayashi Tadao.

"No, it's not yet time." Kuribayashi Tadamichi shook his head, as if he was afraid that his subordinates would act on their own, and Kuribayashi Tadao added, "Our artillery is not used to hit these warships. For Americans, the impact of warships The loss is nothing, and they don't care about this purely material loss. Their productivity can quickly make up for this loss. For them, the most unbearable loss is the loss of life. Therefore, our way of fighting It must be the most efficient method of combat that can kill or injure Americans. We don’t have many cannons, and our guns are limited, and these must be reserved for the enemy’s defensive infantry after they land. This is the most efficient way.”

This is not the first time Kuribayashi Tadamichi has explained these principles to his subordinate officers.However, the "offensive thinking" that the Japanese military academy has instilled in the soldiers for a long time cannot be easily overcome.Most of the Japanese military officers received the following education when they were in the military academy:

"You have a squadron, and an enemy division is coming ahead, what are you going to do?" This is the classic question of the instructor.

"Defend first, wait for the enemy to show their flaws in the attack, then counterattack and defeat them!" This answer should be very reasonable, but if you really want to answer like this, you will definitely fail the exam.Because this answer is too unoffensive.The answer that can get a high score is this: "Divide the troops into two groups, one part will attack the front, and the other part will go around the enemy's rear to prevent the enemy from escaping, and finally encircle and annihilate the enemy!"

A squadron (that is, a strengthened company) wants to divide its troops into two fronts to attack and annihilate a division. In any country other than Japan, such an answer would definitely be sent to some kind of hospital for electroshock treatment, but in In Japan, such an answer is an answer that can get high scores. It is not easy for Japanese military officers trained according to such standards to be normal.For example, the one who died in Guadalcanal felt that he could kill at least 5000 U.S. Marines supported by heavy weapons with less than one regiment of light infantry (thousands of soldiers). This is how he was trained of.This is not only true for junior officers, but also for senior officers.For example, Ren Mutaguchi, who launched the Imphal operation and sent a large number of troops to the Savage Mountain to starve to death, is such a guy.

Among the mass-produced military officers under such education, Kuribayashi Tadamichi is one of the rare outliers who has come to his senses in front of the facts.Facing the current situation, Tadamichi Kuribayashi already understood that it was impossible for Japan to win this confrontation with the Americans. The question now was how to lose and to what extent.

Tadamichi Kuribayashi knew that as early as 43, the Americans, the British and the Chinese issued a declaration in Cairo, setting out a condition that the Japanese could not accept to terminate the war, that is, conditional surrender.According to this declaration, Japan will lose Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, Penghu and all the territories acquired after World War I.This is almost bringing Japan back to before the Meiji Restoration.Even, this is not as good as before the Meiji Restoration.Looking at the results of Germany's surrender in World War I, Kuribayashi Tadamichi shuddered: the king was expelled, the army was disbanded, and he was left with debts that could never be repaid.Such a result is in fact no different from subjugation.Today, the only way is to use more effective resistance to increase the cost of the enemy's conquest of Japan, and then hope that such a high cost will make the Americans feel overwhelmed, so they have to give Japan a better surrender condition.In fact, he was no longer fighting for victory, he was fighting only to obtain better conditions for surrender. "At least we must be able to keep the Emperor." Kuribayashi Tadao thought so. [

In order to achieve this goal, Kuribayashi Chumichi stipulated that no unit is allowed to make the so-called "Long Live Charge", and each soldier must kill ten American soldiers to be eligible to die.Although he has spoken the truth and issued orders, Kuribayashi Tadamichi really has no idea whether the old habit of "offensive" by the Japanese soldiers can be restrained.

However, judging from the present, at least for now, Kuribayashi Tadamichi's strategy has been obeyed by his subordinates.While the entire island trembled under the fire of the American fleet, the Japanese on the island maintained a terrible silence.

Two seaplanes circled over Iwo Jima.These two seaplanes are the firing planes of the bombardment fleet. Today's weather is fine, and the landing point of the guns can be clearly seen.With the support of the school firing aircraft, the bombardment accuracy of the US fleet is quite satisfactory.Therefore, after a few rounds of shooting, the calibration aircraft came to the conclusion that all known targets had been destroyed.And this judgment means that the landing operation is about to begin.

……

On the sea not far from Iwo Jima, soldiers of the 1903th Marine Division were changing trains.Soldiers descended from rope nets hanging from tall transport ships onto landing craft.As in Guadalcanal, soldiers put condoms over the muzzles to prevent seawater from entering the muzzles.However, the difference from that time is that the guns in the hands of the soldiers have changed from the m1 Springfield rifle to the more advanced m[-] semi-automatic rifle.

After disembarking on the landing craft, Corporal Bill checked his equipment for the last time: the m1 rifle was intact, the bridge clip with the eight rounds had been pressed into the chamber, the safety was closed, and the muzzle was fastened.There are still 4 bridge clips that have been pressed in my sub-package, and there are many scattered sub-packs.My own m1911 pistol is placed in the holster on the right, and I can easily pull it out as long as I hang down my right hand.Two additional spare clips are inserted on the outside of the holster.Then there are bayonets, water bottles, triangle belts... these things are also ready.

After a final inspection of his own equipment, Corporal Bill raised his head and began to examine the equipment of other soldiers in his squad with critical eyes.At this time, the landing craft also began to leave the transport ship and formed a queue at a farther place.But they are not the first round of troops to land.The first round of landing was 68 lvt tracked armored landing vehicles.For better navigation performance, the armor of this chariot is very thin, and it can only withstand the shooting of ordinary rifles and machine guns, and it cannot even block the shooting of large-caliber machine guns like m2.But in the landing battle, it can at least provide soldiers with a little basic armor power.

The original lvt2 has only one 762mm machine gun and one 50 caliber m2 machine gun on it.This firepower is really too weak.What's more, these machine guns don't even carry shields, and the machine gunners are directly exposed to the enemy's firepower.Therefore, after the Marine Corps got these equipments, Ma Run, who had always been raised as a stepmother, immediately began to modify the firepower system of these tanks in the spirit of doing it themselves and having enough food and clothing.First of all, all machine guns are equipped with anti-shields. This modification is simple and practical.Then the m2 machine gun on some cars was removed and replaced with a 37mm cannon or a set of flamethrowers.In this way, when encountering the enemy's bunkers and the like, before the authentic heavy weapons have landed, this thing can also add a little armored assault capability to the Ma Runs.

However, on Iwo Jima, these chariots encountered difficulties that they hadn’t expected before—the sea of ​​Iwo Jima is not a Saipan-style beach made of coral sand, but a mudflat made of soft volcanic ash . The 68 lvt2s got stuck in the quagmire as soon as they hit the beach.They sank in the soft mud flats, and the drivers cranked up the horsepower to try to drive them out of the volcanic mud, but the faster the tracks turned, the faster the thing sank westward.It took almost a minute or two, and the chassis of this thing was directly placed on top of the volcanic mud.

"Damn!" More than one person cursed, and then the soldiers jumped off the lvt2 and began to move forward on foot.It is extremely dangerous to stay where you are.These lvt2s stuck in the mud have become tempting targets, and if the Japanese set up direct fire artillery near the beach, these guys will be beaten to pieces.Moreover, the second wave of landing craft is already heading towards the beach. If they still stay on the beach, after a while, when the group of people on the landing craft land on the beach, the density of people on the beach will be astonishingly high. Then, Japan If people fired a volley with their remaining cannons, it would be impossible to know how many people would die.

Fortunately, the Japanese did not fire violently at the beach, and even the Ma Run soldiers who were advancing in depth did not encounter much resistance.At most, it was shot by some light weapons.At this time, the landing craft of the second wave had already approached the coast.

The lvt2s sunk on the beach blocked the way of the landing craft, and the Ma Runs on the boat had to jump into the sea, and then waded ashore in the waist-deep or even chest-deep sea water.By the time these soldiers landed, most of them were exhausted.At this time, the first batch of soldiers who landed had advanced to a place about [-] meters away from the beach, where the tide line had been exceeded, and their feet were no longer mud flats but hard ground covered with various plants. up.The navy's artillery fire has begun to shift further inland, and at this time, many Ma Run soldiers who have experienced many battles suddenly heard an ominous howling sound in the air.