Great time travel

Chapter 72、Winter in Melbourne

A few hours later, the town of Broadford, on the northern outskirts of Melbourne, ushered in the dawn of a new day amidst gunpowder smoke and tremors.

The once deafening shouts, gunfire and explosions gradually faded away, only the blazing fire still reflected half of the sky red.

The town of Broadford, which was already dilapidated, was completely razed to the ground by cannon fodder.The Stars and Stripes flag representing the U.S. military and the blue flag representing the Southern Cross star representing the Commonwealth of Australia landed quietly in the smoke and flames.Instead, it is the eye-catching Japanese sun flag...

The few Allied prisoners of war hung their heads down and were taken away on trucks in dejection, while the victorious Japanese army began to clean up the battlefield.A young Japanese soldier kicked away scattered limbs and arms, bypassed the still burning wreckage of enemy cars and artillery, held a bayonet-mounted rifle, and searched for surviving enemy soldiers and trophies that could be recovered .All around him was a devastated neighborhood.Not to mention that you can't see a complete building, even the soil here has been overturned dozens of times by various shells, and the huge craters left on the ground are particularly shocking.

——Because of the recent acquisition of a large number of field artillery, tanks, machine guns and ammunition from the "native land", the Australian Japanese army, which had been suffering from insufficient long-range firepower and difficulty in ammunition supply, can finally pour bullets on the enemy happily this time , Blow down and flatten everything that gets in the way!

Generally speaking, cleaning the battlefield is a very troublesome thing, especially in this kind of place that has been baptized by shells, there is almost no intact corpse, and there is not much equipment that is still intact, and there are stumps everywhere. The arm is full of scrap copper and iron, and there is almost nothing of value to be found.If there are undead enemies hiding in the pile of corpses or among the wreckage, there will be various dangers such as being shot in the face... I saw that he noticed the gold ring on the corpse of an Australian officer not far away, and he couldn't help feeling greedy. He got up and was about to go up to touch the corpse, but unexpectedly his foot slipped and he was about to fall into a bomb crater.

Fortunately, just when he was about to fall, he was caught by a strong arm.The soldier looked back gratefully, and found that it was an officer wearing a steel helmet and a pistol on his waist. He was wearing a military coat without any markings. At first glance, he didn't know what his rank was.

"...be careful next time, and pay attention to your surroundings when you walk." The officer scolded, then turned around and left.

"...Yes, thank you, sir!" The young Japanese soldier hurriedly saluted, unaware that he had just passed a general.

At the same time, a group of land attack bombers with the Rising Sun military emblem painted on their wings roared past them and flew to the south where Melbourne was located.

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Ten minutes later, Lieutenant General Masanobu Tsuji, the new head of the 152nd Division, who was covered in dust and dirt, returned to his headquarters with a relaxed mood after inspecting the battlefield in Broadford Town.On the map table in the headquarters tent, the staff officers had already marked the progress of each unit.

From the map, four thick arrows have launched a centripetal attack on the Allied forces in Melbourne from the four directions of southeast, north and south.

On the northern line, the 152nd Division under his own command had just captured the town of Broadford, only about [-] kilometers away from the center of Melbourne.

On the eastern front, the commander-in-chief of the Australian Japanese army, General Yamashita Fengwen, personally commanded five divisions. A few hours ago, he also captured the traffic town of Rex Enklens sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, and successfully poured into the east of Melbourne. The plains of the city—from there to the city of Melbourne, the Allies were no longer in danger.

On the western front, the [-]nd Division of the Marine Corps, which was originally stationed in Perth, cooperated with the [-]th Tank Brigade and a Task Force Infantry Brigade, and was still slowly advancing along the coastal road in southeastern Australia. Cape Kinnard seemed a little bland, but at least it contained the enemy's new force.

On the southern line, the advance fleet of the Japanese Navy has also circled to the southernmost part of the Australian mainland, successfully broke into the Bass Strait, blocked the last sea route between Melbourne and the outside world, and cut off the link between Melbourne and Tasmania. traffic between.

In this impenetrable encirclement, the Allied forces only had [-] U.S. troops, [-] New Zealand troops, and the last [-] Australian soldiers, at most [-] aircraft, and the few remaining old warships of the Australian Federation. Incomplete organization, extremely exhausted——Obviously, under the attack of the Japanese army from all directions, the more than [-] Allied troops who are now besieged in Melbourne have completely become a turtle in the urn, and it seems that they are about to be destroyed.

——During the attack on Melbourne this time, the Japanese army's offensive tactics were extremely simple and rough, that is, to bombard them violently with overwhelming long-range artillery fire, and then let the infantry attack under the cover of tanks.If the attack is frustrated, the infantry will be withdrawn and the next wave of bombardment will continue... It is equivalent to replacing the cavalry with tanks in the classic trilogy of "artillery bombardment-cavalry assault-infantry occupation" in the Napoleonic War era.

At the same time, the Japanese army continued to send planes to bomb the rear of the Allied forces, destroying bridges and roads, interfering with and hindering the mobilization and reinforcement of the Allied reserves.

Although this tactic is very simple, it is difficult for the Allied forces to effectively deal with it. Taking advantage of the ideological confusion brought about by the Tokyo nuclear explosion and the collapse of the old Japanese Empire, the Allied forces in Melbourne launched a vigorous attack a few months ago. A big counter-offensive, despite the heavy losses immediately under the city of Canberra.However, the Allied forces still expanded the controlled area to about [-] square kilometers (equivalent to a Zhejiang Province), and almost recovered half of Victoria State.

——It is gratifying for the Allied forces to be able to repel the Japanese army and recover a large area of ​​land. However, when there is no new force to join, but some troops have to be withdrawn and transferred to other battlefields, the Australian Allied Forces control The sudden expansion of the area means a sudden elongation of the front line and a sharp drop in troop density.It is equivalent to changing from a clenched fist to an open palm, and the ability to resist blows is naturally greatly weakened.Not to mention that as the front line moved forward, the Allied forces had to leave the strong fortifications they had built for two years and be exposed to the unobstructed wilderness... As a result, the Australian Allied forces who failed in the counterattack had not had time to regroup. A line of defense was built, and the Japanese army who had successfully recovered their blood turned around aggressively.

On the other hand, although the strength of the Japanese army in Australia has not increased much, the logistics has been greatly enriched. All kinds of artillery, machine guns, ammunition, tanks, trucks, planes, and fodder are being transported to Sydney, Brisbane and other ports controlled by the Japanese army do not know where the base camp got so many munitions.The Japanese soldiers on the front line ate canned "Yamato boiled" beef every day, and they almost vomited.

This is even more obvious in actual battles. In the outpost attack against Broadford last night alone, Lieutenant General Masanobu Tsuji's 152nd Division used more than 200 heavy artillery pieces. The artillery fired at least [-] shells, which was a luxury never imagined in the past... and on the eastern and western fronts where there were more attacking troops, the long-range firepower invested by the Japanese army was much stronger than that on the northern front.

Faced with such overwhelming bombardment, the Allied forces, which had been seriously thinned out and had no time to build permanent fortifications, were naturally defeated.Coupled with the fact that the Japanese army still holds the command of the sea and the air on the battlefield, the fierce attack all the way is naturally invincible.

However, this easy situation of sweeping thousands of troops like a sweep is coming to an end: as the commander of the northern front, Masanobu Tsuji knows very well that although the town of Broadford under his feet is only [-] kilometers away from downtown Melbourne, But it is not easy to complete this section of the road - unlike the loosely guarded and poorly fortified outposts like Broadford Town, as long as you advance a few steps, the attacking Japanese army will bump into the "American and British Ghost Animals" "After working hard for several years, defending the core positions in downtown Melbourne, that is the time to really test these Japanese soldiers.

In the repeated tug-of-war over the past few years, at the cost of countless corpses, the Allied forces have gradually built a tight defense line of more than 200 kilometers in the suburbs of Melbourne, relying on hills and rivers, including minefields, Barbed wire, anti-tank trenches, reinforced concrete bunkers and underground tunnels extending in all directions, equipped with countless machine guns and artillery.It looks like the trenches on the Western Front of World War I and the fortifications of Lushun during the Russo-Japanese War.

Prior to this, General Fengfumi Yamashita and Marshal MacArthur had been fighting around this line of defense for two full years, with all kinds of tricks, but the Japanese army still failed to break through this line of defense and entered the urban area of ​​Melbourne.And if they attacked head-on without hesitation, I am afraid that the loss of troops would be too much to bear.

Therefore, when the vulnerable fat and marshmallows on the periphery have been digested, the Japanese army will once again gnaw on this familiar hard bone.

And even now, Tsuji Masanobu can't think of any ingenious schemes that can easily win - the Japanese army and the Allied forces have been fighting on this battlefield for too long, and they know this land and their respective enemies well. There are too many, and the mere tricks are just laughable.

"...In the end, we can only rely on our strength to break the trick, relying on artillery fire and human lives?" After studying the map again, Tsuji Masanobu shook his head helplessly, and then called a staff officer on duty, "... Where are the imitation German missiles aided by the Soviets going now?"

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PS: The world is really lively these days. Germany and France take turns to have terrorist attacks every day, snatching news headlines, and throat-cutting bombs and shootings.Even Japan is not willing to be lonely, and a murderer broke out.As for the terrorist attack at the international airport in Somalia that killed twelve people, it was not paid attention at all.

Then the Democratic Party of the United States held the most failed conference since World War II. From beginning to end, it was booing and scandalizing Hillary, and some people carried the coffin to protest Hillary.The pro-Hillary spokesmen are full of illegal immigrants, gays, blacks, and disabled people, and they seem to be dominated by abnormal human beings.The funniest thing is that Michelle, the wife of the president of Oregon, stood up for Hillary, and then a child said that Michelle is the best first lady he has ever seen-the problem is that he is only seven years old...

Taiwan is also engaged in a mind-cleaning. Some critics scolded President Ma for being fine for eight years, and scolded Xiao Cai before his website was blocked within a month.