Chapter 491 Attack south of the Huai River

"Did you hear anything?" Kazuki Higashino stared at the clear sky.

"Thunder! Throughout July, this place is always thundering and raining. Matsumoto yawned and said casually.

"What's that?" Higashino suddenly froze, looking into the distance.

"It's a dark cloud, it's going to rain...... Oh no, yes...... Yes, airplanes! Matsumoto howled wildly and hurried to pull the alarm. And Kazuki Higashino, who was next to him, was still staring blankly at the group of planes that covered half of the sky, rolling closer and closer with the thunder.

"What? Thousands of planes? Shunroku Hatata, whose position as commander-in-chief of the Huaxia Dispatch Army was already crumbling, listened to the report below, and a trace of cold sweat oozed from his forehead.

Huainan and Huainan and other directions have discovered that the large-scale aircraft fleet of the vanguard army is flying overwhelmingly, and the total number is initially estimated to be more than 1,000 planes. This time, the devil, who had been raising his vigilance, delivered the news quickly, and in less than twenty minutes, the call for relevant information had already reached Shunroku Hatata's desk.

Kenji Dohihara, who was standing next to him, was silent, and the dispatch of thousands of planes, and the fact that the Japanese did not get the news, was definitely an intelligence mistake. However, the vanguard army could not penetrate many places, especially near military airfields, and it was difficult for outsiders to get any information.

This attack of the vanguard army, they have already received a little information. After all, this time the vanguard army moved more aggressively. The frequent activities of the garrison on the north bank of the Huai River and the transfer of materials made them embankments long ago. After the 13th Division and other units supported the Kwantung Army, they carried out key protection along the Huai River.

"No bombing? Are they continuing to fly south? Shunroku Hata personally asked for the latest information.

"Are they going to bomb the cities along the Yangtze River?" Shunroku Hata was a little puzzled, the vanguard army would never bomb the city for no reason, this was their own city after all. The devils also pay attention to the close proximity of military camps and other facilities, and even in some remote places, some slums are often built as amulets. Of course, these are not blatant, lest the vanguard army retaliate by bombing the Japanese mainland.

The tacit understanding between the two sides also made it impossible for the devils to do too much slaughter, and the vanguard army generally did not send large formations to bomb.

But this time, where is the plane that obscured the sky going to fly?

"Order all units to prepare for air defense!" Shunroku Hata was not slow to act, and immediately ordered. Needless to say, the reaction of the devils everywhere was not slow, and when they received the air defense alarm, they began to light up all kinds of air defense weapons and aimed them at the sky.

Having suffered a lot of losses under the aircraft of the Vanguard Army, the Japanese intensified their research on anti-aircraft weapons.

After the capture of the German Navy type L44 body barrel 88mm anti-aircraft gun equipped in the early Huaxia equipment, after some improvements, the Type 99 88 mm anti-aircraft gun was produced, the performance was improved compared with the original gun, but not as good as the German Army's L56 body barrel, which was just put into use last year, but the number was small, mainly used for air defense in key areas.

Ordinary field air defense mainly uses Type 88 75-mm anti-aircraft guns, but it is difficult to deal with high-speed aircraft, and the Japanese are slowly eliminating it. However, the overstretched military expenditure made it impossible for them to popularize anti-aircraft artillery on a large scale, and they could only achieve key protection.

At the same time, the main force of the air defense was joined by the Type 98 20-mm anti-aircraft gun. This anti-aircraft gun, which began to enter service in 38, was modeled after the Swiss Erlikong 20-mm anti-aircraft gun, and the overall weight of 373 kg was more suitable for mobile air defense in the field, and its performance was also good, at least much stronger than the Navy's Type 96 25-mm anti-aircraft gun. However, the discord between land and sea made the Navy still not plan to use the same specification with the army, but continued to improve the Type 96.

"Hit!" Takahashi Shunzo clenched his fist hard, and the chain of fire thrown out of the 20-round magazine of the 20-mm anti-aircraft gun they operated just now actually crashed into a Hellcat fighter plane flying over. With a magazine feed and a speed of 300 rounds per minute, the chances of hitting those super-fast planes are slim, and the Hellcat just came out of the billowing smoke over the airport and hit itself.

The Hellcat shook a little, but it didn't fall down as Takahashi and the others expected, and continued to fly in the air.

"I just saw it, and it looks like it hit?" Takahashi watched his first trophy fly away like this, and he was in a daze for a while.

"Be careful!" Suzuki, who was next to him, shouted, but Takahashi, who was a little dazed, didn't have time to dodge before he was told to break into pieces from the machine gun of another Hellcat that swept by.

He did not know until his death that some of the thick-skinned American planes in the late World War II, especially those bombers, even the Navy's 25 mm planes often failed to return. From time to time, there were incidents of planes landing with several 25-mm anti-aircraft gun holes. This time the Hellcat was a little lucky, but it also showed that the Devil's Type 96 20mm anti-aircraft gun was also a little outdated.

Hellcat is to escort the Ju-88s, this aircraft can be ship-borne or land-borne, and it has completely overwhelmed the Devil's Zero.

This allowed the Ju-88 bombers to drop bombs directly on every corner of those airfields.

The first blow of the vanguard army's operation first came from the air, and the air strike first restrained or even destroyed the opponent's air power. As a result, the major airports of the devils have become the focus of the first attack. It was not difficult for the Vanguard Army's air saturation attack, and when Shunroku Hata was arranging air defense orders everywhere, the frontline airfield in Bengbu, which was closest to the front line, had been blown into a sea of fire.

For example, the Ju-88 attacked Hefei, Chaohu, Yangzhou, Yancheng and other places, while the B-17 aircraft raided Nanjing, Anqing, and Jiujiang at high altitude to contain and harass.

Leave the devil's planes at the airfield as much as possible, and when the rest of the planes take off, Thunderbolt and Hellcat immediately surround them and pump them down.

Although the main planes of the devils have begun to shift to the Zero, these Zeros do not have an advantage over the Hellcat at all. Moreover, the fighter pilots of the Vanguard Army are all trained for the Zero, and those weaknesses are explosive at the first hit. And the pilots of the vanguard army, who flew and trained day and night, were no weaker than the level of devil pilots at this time. In addition, there were only more than 600 Zeros deployed in Anhui and northern Jiangsu, and many of them were blown up in a scattered manner, which gave the vanguard army air superiority from the beginning.

"There are too many planes of the Heavenly Vanguard Army, definitely more than a thousand!" Kenji Dohihara received information from all over the place, and news came everywhere, and he saw the planes of the vanguard army flying like dark clouds.

"Where did they get so many planes?" Kenji Dohihara tugged at his neckline, for two years, he still couldn't catch the damn copycat company's passage to Huaxia, and he didn't find the secret processing plant of the copycat company.

He suspected that it was produced in the factory set up by the copycat company in Huaxia, but there were no raw materials, how could they produce it?

Steel production is increasing on the territory of the Vanguard, and two aluminium mills have been built in Shanxi and Henan. The Japanese intelligence agency can find out, and the relevant production is also roughly calculated. But this modest production does not pose a threat to Japan, nor can it support the huge arms production of copycat companies.

But where is the channel between them? North? Or by the sea?

When he estimated that the vanguard army was equipped with two million troops, he was a little tired and disappointed. So many weapons and equipment were delivered to the vanguard army right under their noses, and they remained unaware.

Today, the vanguard army showed so many planes, and it was another thought that made him completely disappointed in it.

"How many planes are there in the Vanguard?" He also guessed more than once, but no one told him the answer. As long as the funds are guaranteed, the aircraft manufacturing of the Vanguard Army has been non-stop. And the limit of the aircraft in service in the vanguard army is only the number of pilots.

The planes of this era were much simpler than those of later generations equipped with complex equipment, and the training of pilots was much simpler. When the big war came, even some pilots who flew less than 100 hours went straight to the battlefield. In the later stages of the war, some people in Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union began to rush to the sky to fight with others after less than three months of training.

And the pilots of the Vanguard Army are undoubtedly much stricter. The minimum standard for a pilot to be qualified is to fly for 300 hours, and he must be able to complete certain maneuvers in order to be considered a pilot. The Pioneer Army, on the other hand, has provided a large number of flight training opportunities because it has enough aircraft, so that more than 4,000 pilots have been trained in the past two years.

And among them, the number of skilled pilots who have flown 1,000 hours has reached more than 2,000.

Flying is all about money. There needs to be enough aircraft, there is need to be enough fuel, there is need to be enough ground crew. And all this, the vanguard army is not lacking, and it quickly has more than 2,000 skilled pilots.

Of course, they are only skilled, and there are less than a thousand people with a record of one aircraft, not to mention elites and aces.

"God and Buddha bless, this time I must hang a star!" Li He put a jade carving of the Jade Emperor, a jade carving of the Buddha, and a silver-white cross in his personal pocket, and muttered a few words before starting his thunderbolt engine. The traces of war on the fuselage that flew back just now have faded a lot.

The hole left by the 20 mm caliber anti-aircraft shell on the plane was inspected by the ground crew, and after replenishing ammunition and fuel, he had to take the initiative to return to the battlefield.

He had only one thought at this time, which was to get rid of the problem of zero records.

"Yes, man. Good luck! The ground crew next to him gave him a thumbs up, and the bullet hole on the plane was like a medal, which attracted attention.

Li He gave a smile back.

Another plane behind him had just been towed out of the repair workshop in the center of the air finger, and the ground crew smiled and turned his head to check. In the repair shop, the aircraft can be restored to optimal condition very quickly. But under normal circumstances, this repair workshop, disguised as a ground service workshop, is only responsible for hanging ammunition and filling up fuel, which saves the ground crew a lot of effort and can easily chat. Only those temporary field airfields will make the ground crew scramble and tired.

At this time, in addition to the more than 5,000 flight cadets in the vanguard army, there were also more than 30,000 ground crews growing. While most of the ground work is replaced by an air command center, it is not possible to count on the base in its entirety. The more than 30,000 ground staff who are still exploring various experiences are already relatively small, and they can only cope with some special situations. It's not enough to deal with so many repairs and maintenance. If it weren't for the light of the golden finger still shining, just a few thousand planes would have made the vanguard army anxious, not to mention that there are still a large number of aircraft that are only stored and not added to active service.

None of this is known to Kenji Dohihara. It is normal for an aircraft to require a dozen ground crews, and sometimes, dozens of people. In his estimates, a thousand aircraft in the vanguard army is already very good. But he never expected that the aircraft that appeared in the vanguard army had exceeded his expectations by a lot. Again, this is a mistake in their intelligence.

Thinking of this, his heart was extremely uncomfortable. The only thing that gave him some comfort was that he was not the only one who was incompetent, the Japanese sent several groups of intelligence officers from other backgrounds, but all of them came back in vain. This is also the reason why he has been staying on the throne of Huaxia intelligence chief.

"A large number of transport aircraft appeared in the Vanguard?" Kenji Dohihara's heart jumped.

"How many?" He had a premonition that something bad was going to happen again.

"A lot!" For the time being, his subordinates can only give such a description. Where can you give an approximate number for a while? But that word is enough to indicate something.

"Paratroopers!" Kenji Dohihara quickly thought of something, "Be careful of the paratroopers of the Vanguard Army. ”

But by the time he gave the reminder, it was too late. White umbrella flowers floated in the sky of Xinghua, Jiangpu and Shucheng.

"It's a pity that I misjudged this trick!" Kenji Dohihara lamented in his heart.

The defense plan of the devils, although the embankment has been carried out to the landing of the paratroopers of the vanguard army. They have repeatedly suffered losses in this trick of the vanguard army, so they naturally put effort into research.

But they don't have enough manpower to defend some county seats, but they are only one squadron, where can they defend everything? Even realizing the might of the paratroopers of the vanguard army, there was a weak heart. Not to mention that many of them have not yet woken up from the invincible frenzy of bayonet tactics in the Russo-Japanese War and have not yet been able to adapt to the rhythm of a blitzkrieg.

The appearance of aircraft is no longer limited to bayonet fights in local areas. It's also normal to fly thousands of miles.

At this time, the paratroopers of the Vanguard Army had reached the level of corps, and there were three paratrooper brigades under it. This time it's all lit up. The German paratroopers in the Netherlands made a sudden landing and suffered heavy losses. This also made Meng Xiangbing more conservative. The paratroopers of the vanguard army did not choose a big city to attack, but chose the counties and cities of the second and third lines for the surprise attack, or the main purpose was to train troops.

Troop training is not only a drill of individual skills and tactics on the battlefield, but also a drill of logistics equipment and the entire combat system. To deal with the devils in Anhui and northern Jiangsu this time, Meng Xiang is still very sure, and he is not too worried, what he needs to do is to let the vanguard army train for half a year to conduct a comprehensive exercise in actual combat. Not only the paratroopers and the air force, but the entire vanguard army system is a big exercise.

"This time, the dispatch of multiple arms, to be honest, is really a bit difficult." Fan Chong complained to Meng Xiang last night, but as soon as the battle started today, he immediately had a cold face and started an all-round command with a slight frown.

In the early morning of 1 August, as the air force opened its way in various places, other units also launched a large-scale attack.

The 56th Army, of which Zhang Lingfu served as deputy commander, launched attacks from Zhengyangguan, Huainan and Bengbu at the same time, making it impossible for the devils to figure out the truth and reality. Together with the attack was the 41 Division.

Sun Liren's new army on the border between Anhui and Henan attacked Lu'an and Huoshan directly. As the arrow of attack was the 18th Division.

A part of Huang Baitao's 57th Army, with the assistance of the Gui army, launched an attack from the Dabie Mountains and took Yuexi directly. And the rest of the army is to put pressure on the devils near Wuhan.

Sun Tongxuan's 12th Army was threatening Huai'an and other places in the lower reaches of the Huai River. And behind him was the mechanized troops of the 50 division.

Near the mouth of the Huai River, the warships of the navy had just sailed by.

The naval fleets brought together from the ports of Lianyungang, Qingdao and Rizhao were only for escort ships. Two Ark Royal were officially unveiled, and they were hovering in the Yellow Sea with the huge Zhenyuan. Outside them are a number of submarines, lurking underwater, ready to deal a fatal blow to the devils who rushed to the rescue. A number of Scott destroyers directly escorted a number of landing ships and landing craft of the Marine Corps towards the coast near Huangjiajian.

Heavily armed Marines will take Salt City from around there.

Rat Yi and their army attacked from Luyang, Xuanzhou and other places to disturb the rear of the devils.

Wei Hanchao's second guerrilla column began to attack frequently on the border between China and North Korea, and Meng Xiang's spies in North Korea also led the outbreak of a large-scale uprising. Only the vanguard armies of Rehe and Shanhaiguan were simply defending, and the continuous mobilization of several armies in the past made the Kwantung Army dare not take it lightly.

Huang Feihu's Third Guerrilla Column in the south also began to carry out frequent activities, hoeing, assassinating, and attacking logistics vehicles, and also tossed for a while. Even the newly occupied North Vietnam, where the Japanese had begun, began to organize and lead the local natives to revolt against the Japanese who were too strong.

Anyway, Meng Xiang is planning to light fires everywhere and let the Japanese take care of one thing and lose the other.

"What a big deal!" Jiang Baili, who had recovered a little, heard about the plan this time, so he had to come and watch it in person.

"This is just the beginning!" Fan Chong said with a smile, "There are still many aspects that need to be adjusted and run-in later. ”

"After more running-in and running-in, after thousands of tempers on the battlefield, it is possible to become a heroic division that can stand the test." Meng Xiang said with a smile.