November 2nd 1936- Day Three of Hammer 36 Exercises
Suddenly, in the distance, a low throbbing noise could be heard over the rumble of artillery. "That's probably our armored units," Daffadar Singh remarked. Amit Yadit listened for several moments more before replying.
"No, they're not. They're coming from the wrong way, everyone get ready!" he shouted, and all over the improvised headquarters for the Indian Cavalry Brigade covering the right flank of the Green Force advance into Suma the radiomen reached for their grenades and Kanpur 32’s, while next door, the first floor windows flew open and half-clothed troopers spilled out into the streets, clutching their IRF-36 rifles and running for their prepared fighting positions.
Outside the Village
The Japanese grunts marched along the highway, towards the enemy positions, and as they reached the outskirts, they slowed down and crouched down as they observed the black smoke trailing off into the sky from the continuous advance of the Green Forces into Suma, an advance that now is close to a day long. News that the Chinese troops have being pushed into the Japanese Vulture positions and if this attack fails they will be considered defeated inspired the troops to do their best.
As the Noncoms ran through the ranks shouting encouragement to the men, the rough Japanese grunts nervously smoked the cheap cigarettes that they received at each mealtime, and chatted
amongst themselves. Many of them were tired after the long road march to Suma, but the desire to defeat the enemy was strong.
As the Japanese battalions surrounded the village in a crescent pattern, frenzied preparations were
undertaken with the characteristic Japanese devotion towards work, with the promise that once the enemy was defeated, they would rest.
Mortars were dug in and sited, while the Type 11’s and Type 95’s were carried forward to form an initial base of fire while the heavy Type 90’s were brought forward on their sledges.
While the infantry was preparing for the battle to come, the tank battalions attached to this assault rumbled forward, some of the vehicles stopping to cover the advance of the light tanks with their guns blazing in the direction of the enemy.
Brigadier General Hideki Tetsu was responsible for this hastily formed taskforce, and he studied the village carefully as he tried to figure out the best way of assaulting the village and dislodging the Indian troops from the village. Winning this battle was a matter of honor, and more importantly, his own personal career would benefit of a good review of his performance. So far his column has being the only one that had reached the village, their Chinese competitors being detained by partisan activity and the other unit facing the advancing joint Persian-Indian armored units in an attempt to stop them before they reach Suma. (1)
Tetsu tried to make out the Indians' locations with the binoculars; they were damned sturdy, but worthless beyond a certain range. With a sigh, he put down the binoculars. The Indians were in there, hiding between the buildings of the village.
As evidence of this, a couple of what seems as antitank guns began to bark from the village.
Moments later a round hit a tank to his left, causing him to fall straight down into his staff car and order his driver to move as fast as he could.
As blood rushed to his head, he cursed in typical Japanese fashion, noticing the armor of his tanks wasn’t enough to resist the weak Indian antitank rounds at the ranges being fought, so he ordered the infantry battalions to rush forward to support the tanks.
A thousand meters away, Amit raised his rifle and waited for the incoming onslaught. Their tanks have a very flimsy armor, (2) he thought but he knew that it will not be the end of it.
Suddenly, the highway began to fill with explosions as 90mm mortar fire began to rain down from the woods surrounding the village. Yadit dove below
the window right away, so he avoided most of the shrapnel, but a radiomen next to him holding a SMG wasn't so lucky, and he went down to the floor, blood spurting from his arm when pieces of wood from a tree hit by a practice round turned into small needles and hit in. The medic in place for this eventuality immediately began checking the wound but pretty much this trooper was done for the day.
Still the explosions continued. "Shiva's breath, don't the Japs ever run out of ammo?" muttered Daffadar Singh. As Yadit and Singh both crawled along the floor towards the back door of the headquarters, the Type 90s opened up in interlocking fields of fire, raking the buildings with gunfire or at least that was the news from the refs.
Knocking the back door open with the butts of their rifles, both Amit and Singh crawled outside. "You'll have to carry me, Daffadar, I have being declared wounded by the damn refs." lamented Amit.
Nodding, Singh reached out and in one fluid motion, slung Amit over his back, and began to run away from the Headquarters, which was dangerously exposed to the Japanese gunfire. Several minutes later, he reached the medical station, where
everyone was regrouping, and everyone, even the “wounded”, was holding a weapon of some sort.
Lt Colonel Hideki Matsumoto watched as the Indians retreated under the heavy fire of the mortars and Type 90s were pouring into the outskirts of the village. He watched with glee as several of the Indians didn't make it, being rushed to the side after being declared casualties of the Japanese advance.
"Tankers forward!" he shouted on the radio and watched as the infantrymen supporting their advance also ran forward and some grasped the handrails which were welded onto the sides of his Type 90 tanks. (3) He lamented the casualties so far, the armor of the Type 86’s being so terrible that the enemy antitank guns pretty much decimated that part of his force at extreme ranges. But his Type 90’s were still on the fight and to his right the light tank battalion was also advancing at a nice clip but suffering casualties due to their weak armor.
Behind them, the other infantrymen supporting the battalion came forward, forming up in columns behind the Type 90’s, to use them as protection during the advance, and double-checked their Arisaka rifles.
"Banzai!" he shouted, the cry being picked up by the rest of his men, in that primeval chant of the Japanese soldier, and with a cloud of diesel smoke, they were off, advancing under the covering fire of the Type 90’s to their flanks.
As they advanced, Matsumoto noted that the Type 95’s machineguns squads advanced with them, carrying forth their guns and firing from the hip to keep up a base of fire on the Indian strongpoints. Suddenly, from the side of the road, an Indian antitank gun position appeared. Before they could fire, however, they were declared dead by the fire from the supporting light machineguns.
As his tank advanced forward, Matsumoto dropped into the turret to converse by radio with Brigadier General Tetsu several kilometers away, on the progress of the operation; this saved his life when machinegun rounds slammed into the side of the turret, “killing” the infantry riders, but failing to penetrate the Type 90s plating.
Ducking his head out of the cupola just far enough so he could see, Matsumoto spotted the offenders; a bunch of Indian manning a heavy machinegun from a window.
Before he could order his gunner to swing the turret around, the Type 90 behind him had already spoken with its 57mm gun, sending a spray of “canister” down into that area that left behind only “mangled flesh”.
Then all hell broke loose. It seemed that the Indians had been waiting for them in ambush, and that the impatient gunners of that machinegun had jumped the gun, soon the area around the tanks filled with flying lead as troopers were marched to the side as casualties in both sides.
Banzai!
With that traditional Japanese battlecry, Sergeant Atsuma led the troops of his rifle squad as they charged into the fury of the village, Arisakas and Thompsons chattering away at the Indians.
An Indian popped out of a doorway, firing his rifle wildly, and Atsuma “cut him down” with his Thompson, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, and thanking his ancestors that he was carrying a Thompson instead of a bolt action rifle like the majority of his troopers.
As the Indian moved aside after being declared dead, Atsuma charged into the house where the Indian had popped out of, and saw an Indian officer turning on his direction. The officer raised his pistol and was “cut down” by the fire of Atsuma’s Thompson. Them the “dead” officer bowed and informed him that he just “killed” the commander of the 3rd Indian Cavalry Brigade.
Behind him, he heard the rest of his squad entering the house behind him. "Sergeant, what are you standing there for....." their voices trailing off as they saw the Indian talking to Atsuma in perfect Japanese.
“Tell the General the Indian commander is dead!"
Atsuma screamed, the cry passing through the ranks of the Japanese infantry, and as one, they surged forward, to defeat the rest of the cavalrymen, with one of the soldiers running on the opposite direction to give the news to the officer staff.
[The Medical Station]
"They're not stopping, Sir!" screamed one of the young soldiers to Amit while shooting out of the window. Despite the Bhandara 29’s pouring a wall of lead into the oncoming Japanese ranks, not one of them faltered, regardless of themounting “casualties”.
"FALL BACK!" shouted Amit as he “mowed down” a rank of Japs with his Kanpur 32 on full auto, emptying the magazine into the onrushing wall of khaki. The “bodies” piled up, but the Japanese kept on coming, like an elemental force, unstoppable, driven forward by sheer hatred.
And then they were at the Medical station, throwing “grenades” into the windows, and firing their guns into everyone, even the "critically wounded". It was during this one-sided "slaughter" that two Satyakis finally arrived, saving Amit's ever smaller group of cavalrymen from total annihilation with their 15mm machineguns firing straight down the throats of the Japanese.
"Jap tanks down the highway in platoon strength! Medium ones! Cover us while we withdraw!" Amit yelled to the lead Satyaki commander as he was carried past the personnel carriers by Singh, towards several trucks that they had captured from the
Chinese whose engines were already idling. Without a thought, Singh threw Amit into the back of the lead truck, ignoring the young man's cry of pain, while he went back to make sure everyone who could make it had made it.
At that moment, one of the Satyakis was hit by paint and declared destroyed by a 57mm round hit almost at point range, the Japanese tanks now on the
scene. Without waiting to see if the other Satyaki had “survived”, Singh ran back to the lead truck and jumped into the cab of the truck, shouting "S**t, the Japs are here already! Let save what we can! GO!" The driver complied and with the wail of gears being mangled, the truck lurched down the highway. The last truck was not so lucky however, taking a 57mm HE shell just as it was pulling away, “killing” everyone on board.
From the cupola of his tank, Lt. Colonel Matsumoto watched as the last of the trucks disappeared around a curve in the road and deeper into town. “Damnit, some of the Indian had gotten away”, he thought and he knew with his battalion in the shape it was he
couldn't pursue them.
Sighing, he climbed out of the turret and jumped to the ground. The surviving battalion officers and NCOs would be meeting with him soon, right now, cleanup
operations were underway, and from time to time, the rattle of a rifle or submachinegun was heard as the surviving Indian troops were forced to surrender.
[Green Force HQ; 6 hours later]
Colonel K. S. Thimayya sighed as he sat in the small table in his temporary Headquarters, the situation being fluid for the last hours. He had to stop his advance in the direction of the now joined Japanese-Chinese airborne troops to try to stop the attack to his flank by a Japanese force supported by tanks.
"Colonel, the latest reports," said a fresh faced young officer, who was part of the headquarters staff and hand him some pieces of paper. Nodding, Thimayya got the papers and began to shuffle thru them. The news he expected were of the arrival of the armored support, the news of their defeat of the Chinese-Japanese attempt to slow them down already know by everyone. To his great surprise, the news was of the arrival of a new Chinese force (4), a force that now straddles the communication lines with the expected armored troops. "Is this information correct?"
The young officer stood there and nodded. Thimayya got back to the papers, his situation now turning into a desperate one. "According to these reports, there were Chinese tanks, infantry and Marines in our rear, and those tanks are aimed in our direction. Do we have an estimate of how long it will take for General Singh’s force to arrive here?"
The young officer responded. "According to the forward scouts they are already facing the enemy armor but the lack of infantry support is hurting them."
With that, he pushed the papers away from him and made his decision, knowing full well that this signified the end of their attempt to defeat the airborne attack. "Stop any further attempts forward and order the Pushtighabans and surviving cavalry to try to hold off the attacking Japanese. All surviving Satyakis and members of the mechanized cavalry are ordered to attack the rear of the Chinese forces. We are breaking out. After we link up with our armor we will cover the retreat of the Persians. Do you understand my orders?"
"Yes, Colonel!" replied the young man, his face showing the emotion of knowing they lost.
At this time all over the radio it was announced this part of the exercise to be over. The Green Force failed in their attempt to recover the city but inflicting heavy casualties to their enemies. On the other hand the Orange Force achieved their link up but the casualties were indeed heavy and further analysis considered that the Green Force still could have chance to defeat Orange Force if more time would have being allowed.
(1) Colonel Feng’s Column.
(2) Amit has not see the Japanese new medium tanks yet.
(3) Spur of the moment field modification by Matsumoto.
(4) Colonel Feng’s Column again.
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "perdedor99" (Dec 23rd 2008, 7:01pm)