Chapter 145 How to solve the problem of "keeping"

In mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare, the Chinese army has rich experience and is a specialty. However, the Chinese army rarely does positional warfare. Even if there is an occasional position defense, it is mostly at the tactical level, a "point" defense for the overall and overall success. Why? Because the Chinese Communist Party's army has not had the physical conditions to fight positional warfare since its birth, and has always been the weak side. In front of other people's cannons and tanks, it is not an opponent at all. After the fifth battle, the battle was stalemate near the 38th parallel.

Can you keep it?This issue began to rise to become a strategic issue for the generals of the Volunteer Army, the head of the People's Liberation Army, and even Mao Zedong. At first, the Chinese army seemed to be able to defend it with a strong spirit, but it was barely able to defend it.Because, in the face of the tens and hundreds of times the powerful firepower advantage of the US army, although it can hold it, it also caused heavy losses to the volunteer troops guarding the forward field positions. In other words, even if you can hold on, you will suffer a lot. Suffering a loss is rare in the history of the Chinese Communist Party's army.

The characteristics of the Chinese Communist Party's army are: fight if you win, and flee if you don't win. Anyway, there is no disadvantage. This is how to do? The issue of guarding has troubled the generals of the Volunteer Army. "It is better to attack three mountains than defend one mountain" has become a true portrayal of the psychology of volunteer soldiers. The US military is good at firepower, and the Chinese military is good at sports. It's easy to fight sports.In positional warfare, you are on the ground, how do you exercise?Where to exercise? Let's see how the US military fights first.

According to estimates, during the position defense battle of Yang Dezhi's 19th Corps, the United Nations Army threw a total of 7.78 million shells at them. 7.78 million rounds of shells can only be loaded with 51,000 cars or 4,400 trains. 51,000 cars, oh my! Yu Zhen, the combat section chief of Yang Dezhi's Corps, climbed to a position called Laotushan, marked a 1 square foot area, and picked out 287 pieces of large and small shrapnel. With such a killing density, not to mention humans, it is difficult for ants to survive. With such a strong firepower, the positions of the Volunteer Army troops were not only barren of grass and living things could not survive, even the hard granite rocks were blown into sand-like powder that was knee-deep.

The soldiers walked on the ground, the soft scorched earth sank to the ankles and calves. Yang Dezhi recalled: "It is best to recognize our positions. Whichever hill or high ground is bare, that is our position." Then how to defend? The firepower of the U.S. Army, which is hundreds of times that of the Volunteer Army, has posed a huge problem for the always wise volunteer soldiers. At the beginning, in order to avoid the overwhelming artillery fire of the U.S. Army, volunteer soldiers dug individual anti-aircraft holes in the positions. These holes are shaped like cat ears and are called "cat ear holes".

Due to the fierce artillery fire of the US army, the volunteer soldiers dug the hole very deep. By digging left and right in this way, the adjacent holes are connected to form a horseshoe-shaped tunnel. These simple tunnels are actually not new. During the Liberation War, when the People's Liberation Army fought against the Kuomintang, they did it. However, compared with the powerful firepower of the United States, the defense capabilities of these tunnels are obviously not strong enough. They are often bombed and collapsed, and the death rate is high. At this time, a senior general of the Volunteer Army saw the way.This person is Yang Dezhi, a senior general of the Volunteer Army and one of the "Three Yangs".

Yang Dezhi, then Deputy Commander of the Volunteer Army and Commander of the 19th Corps. This Yang Dezhi is the highest military officer who commanded the 1979 Yunnan self-defense counterattack against Vietnam. At that time, the 65th Army under the 19th Corps was defending the Jishuili area south of Kaesong. Under the shelling of the United Nations Army, it suffered heavy casualties.Other troops have reported similar problems. In this way, Yang Dezhi and political commissar Li Zhimin inspected the positions of the 65th Army under fire.At the frontline headquarters of the 65th Army, while listening to the report, Yang Dezhi said to Xiao Yingtang, the commander of the 65th Army: "Now it is not a question of fighting, but a question of finding a way not to be attacked by the enemy."

The 65th Army is a meritorious unit of Marshal Nie Rongzhen's North China Field Army. Many cadres participated in the Shijiazhuang Battle in the War of Liberation.The Battle of Shijiazhuang was the first time the People's Liberation Army fought a big city battle. Yang Dezhi: "I remember that when we attacked Shijiazhuang, we did not attack blindly, but first built offensive fortifications, hoarded troops in trenches and tunnels that the enemy had not discovered, and raided the enemy, and achieved very good results." Li Zhimin: "During the war against Little Japan, tunnel warfare was carried out in central Hebei."

Commander Xiao Yingtang: "Our soldiers dug a lot of anti-cannon holes in the back of the position for anti-cannon, and the effect is good." Yang Dezhi: "Seeing is better than hearing a hundred times, go to the front line!" He raised his eyebrows and patted the table excitedly. These senior generals of the Volunteer Army stooped to the forward position. In the forward position, they watched the trenches dug by a company as deep as one person, and there were artillery holes. Company commander: "When the American devils fired artillery, we hid in the artillery holes; as soon as the artillery stopped, we went to the trenches to prepare for the battle."

Listen, listen, the wise Commander Yang laughed out loud, he has a solution. Soon, the 65th Army received an order from the headquarters: all soldiers of the army will dig holes together! Moreover, the hole is still standard, much deeper and stronger than usual. As a result, the soldiers of the Volunteer Army began to dig holes and trenches, and connected the holes and trenches to form huge tunnels. The tunnels were built far beyond ordinary defensive trenches, very deep and very strong. The enemy fired artillery, and the soldiers went into the cave to hide, so they couldn't be bombed;

The enemy infantry charged, and the soldiers rushed out to kill the enemy. As a result, troop casualties dropped sharply. As soon as the issue of being beaten was resolved, the soldiers became more emotional. Yang Dezhi reported the experience of the 65th Army's tunnel fortifications to the Volunteer Army Command. Commander Peng Dehuai is also worried about this matter.He learned that a company of the 64th Army, using a horseshoe-shaped tunnel, not only withstood 30,000 rounds of artillery shells and hundreds of bombs from the U.S. Army in one day, but also repelled 22 attacks by enemy infantry, killing and wounding more than 700 U.S. and South Korean troops. , I only suffered 21 casualties, an average of only one casualty per repelled attack. Before he finished listening to the introduction, Peng Dehuai raised his eyebrows.He realized that the Volunteer Army had found a way to deal with the powerful firepower of the American army. He realized that the problem of whether he could keep it was solved.