Time Slip Reiwa Japan

049 - Manchurian Incident - 2

The clash between the Chinese forces and the US/Frontier Republic forces, initiated by the Chinese Communist Party, started out as a regimental exchange of firepower between the two armies, as both had commanders with no shortage of will to fight and a desire for honor. Both the US and China shared the same aversion to all-out war, so as soon as the two governments received information about the military clash, they issued the same instructions as planned—ordering local troops to stop the fighting from spreading, but by that time it had already developed into a divisional battle.

In order to make up for the lack of ground forces, the US deployed its air force on a large scale. Among them were the AB-17 and AC-47, the most advanced anti-ground attack aircraft. China, on the other hand, decided to send in its armored forces, which had not participated in the exercise to avoid irritating the Americans, and threw an armored brigade with Panzer III Ausf C tanks as its main force into the front line together with German instructors

The first battle between regular forces since the Siberian War of Independence attracted the world's attention.

. . .

United States

The battle itself was dominated by the joint forces of the United States and the Frontier Republic. In the land battle, the 40-ton M24 tank, the heavy tank expected by the US Army, naturally overwhelmed the tanks equipped by the Chinese army, as did the M3 tank, a 30-ton mainstay tank developed based on the M2 tank and reflecting the lessons of the Siberian War of Independence. Panzer III Ausf C was not that inferior to the M2 tank in terms of basic performance such as speed, offense, and defense. However, the organizational combat capability was too different.

The US Army tank corps, which had been thoroughly trained by the Republic of Guam's military in group combat via radio and was capable of controlled combat, was a different level of an opponent to the Chinese Army tank corps, which was only a group of individual tanks. Also, the pride of the Chinese army, the independently developed StuG III Ausf C, had a disastrous first battle.

This was not because of its performance, but because of the way it was operated. The assault gun, which was originally designed to fight mainly in ambush, did exactly what its name implied, it assaulted the American forces aggressively. The StuG III Ausf C unit that attempted the assault was flanked by the American M3 tank unit—a flanking attack that was disrupted by effective movement through mobility and radio coordination.

Infantry artillery also gave the Americans the benefit of effective coordination and communication devices. One US battalion commander even referred to the series of battles as "a real battle, like an exercise." In this way, the Americans achieved extremely high results in the land battles.

The problem was the air force.

Not that there was a problem with air combat. The P-36 fighters that were the mainstay of the US Army Air Corps had an advantage over the German-made Ar 68s that were the mainstay of the Chinese Army Air Corps, and the Japanese F-6 *1 squadron, which had been adopted on a trial basis, was shooting down planes at an impressive rate. The problem was the ground attack and suppression attack aircraft.

In order to counteract the numerical superiority of the Chinese army, which had deployed four infantry divisions, the Americans immediately deployed two types of aircraft, the AB-17 and AC-47 suppression strike aircraft, as soon as they gained air superiority. In particular, the AC-47 took extraordinary damage.

There were two reasons for this. The first was that the AC-47s were originally transports, and their cockpits and engines were not armored. The other problem was caused by the firearms that the AB-17s were equipped with. To be precise, it was the targeting. The suppressor attacked with machine guns to suppress the ground, but if the pilot tried to aim directly with his eyes without mechanical assistance, the plane had to descend to a very low altitude. This made it easy for the ground to counterattack. In the first place, in order to find the enemy to attack, they often descended even lower than the altitude at which they could attack, and were even damaged by infantry rifles.