Chapter 105 Bloody Han River

According to the deployment, the Volunteer Army used two armies (the 50th Army and a part of the 38th Army) on the western front to conduct more than 50 days of defensive battles in the north and south of the Han River, blocking the US 1st Army attacking Seoul. This battle is a battle that the Chinese army is least willing to fight, and is also least accustomed to fighting. Because, in addition to passive combat, this is also a defensive battle and a positional battle. The tragic defense of the Han River began. This positional battle was the first large-scale defensive battle in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.Its intensity and the key role of weapons and equipment in it made the Chinese People's Volunteers truly feel the difference between fighting the U.S. Army and the Kuomintang. They really learned what modern warfare is, and realized the characteristics, status and power of modern warfare, thus deepening their understanding of the war. An objective judgment on the direction of the Korean War.

At that time, in the face of the modern offensive of the United Nations Army, the weapons and equipment of the Volunteer Army were still inferior to the times. First, we did not have solid fortifications, second, we did not have defensive combat experience, and third, we did not have strong defensive equipment. The United Nations Army is not the case. First, they have the world's most advanced modern weapons and equipment; second, they have a powerful frontal attack capability. Comprehensive and three-dimensional modern offensive warfare; Third, it has rich experience in attacking with modern weapons.This is beyond our reach.

At 12 o'clock on the night of February 4, Zhou Enlai called back to the Volunteer Army Command in the name of the Central Military Commission, fully agreeing with Peng Dehuai's deployment of defensive operations.In just one week after the Central Military Commission and Mao Zedong sent the telegram on January 28, they changed the original strategic assumptions according to the changing situation, showing a high degree of strategic flexibility. This telegram came very timely. On the Korean battlefield, the generals of the Chinese Communist Army are concentric and highly consistent in politics and military affairs, which is in stark contrast to the situation in which the American president cannot command the commander and the commander blindly commands his subordinates.This is also an important factor for the Volunteer Army Headquarters, where Peng Dehuai is the commander, to be able to let go of its hands and feet, not stick to the stereotypes, and win battles.

"After three battles, everyone has the idea of ​​underestimating the enemy, underestimating the enemy, and thinking that the enemy can't counterattack me so quickly." Begin to realize that past estimates of the U.S. military have been woefully underestimated. On February 4th, Kim Il Sung came to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army and discussed with Peng Dehuai on the fourth campaign, unified their understanding and formulated a strategy to face the United Nations Army. On January 25, the defensive operations on the south bank of the Han River started. As soon as the defensive battle began, the Volunteers experienced the strength of the US military:

One is artillery fire.The United Nations military used long-range, medium-range, and short-range artillery to vent the depression and humiliation of the first three battles to the volunteer positions, almost without stopping all day long.The three-dimensional artillery fire that plowed the ground made the defensive positions of a regiment of the Volunteer Army bear tens of thousands of shells every day, and the front positions were scorched by the artillery fire of the United Nations Army.In this case, let alone people, it is almost very difficult for even stones to survive intact on the battlefield.

The second is aircraft bombing.The carpet bombing by U.S. aircraft made it impossible for the volunteers to hide.In the carpet bombing, the U.S. military also used the artillery correction machine (this thing, China did not start to equip the army on a large scale until the 1990s), and it was very accurate to use this thing to command the launch.Moreover, the planes of the United Nations Army continued to bomb the connection and support channels between the volunteers' deep and forward positions, cutting off the connection between the volunteers' forward positions and the rear. At that time, the ground was freezing and cold, and it was very difficult for the Volunteers to build defensive positions, and the shallow defensive positions could not defend against enemy shells and bombs at all, and the Volunteers had not yet found an effective way to defend against the modern artillery fire of the United Nations Army.The whole one was beaten.

Looking at the firepower of the Volunteer Army, it is less than a tenth of that of the United Nations Army. It is really too difficult to deal with the modern United Nations Army with only a few traditional equipment such as mortars, rifles, and machine guns. Tradition and modernity collide head-on, just like an egg colliding with a rock. This is a truth proven by many wars. In the Iraq War, the multinational coalition forces led by the United States beat the Iraqi army with hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of tanks, and thousands of artillery pieces at the cost of hundreds of deaths, and they were defeated across the board, like herding sheep.

In fact, how can the Volunteer Army compare with the equipment of the Iraqi Army? They are too primitive.