Colonel Pitt is indeed planning a counterattack, because if you want to win, you have to regain the initiative through counterattack.

However, the battle situation is not ideal.

After dawn, the volunteer army stopped again and took the initiative to stop the fierce attack on Xianzhou and Wulao Town. The volunteer army combat troops, which were still active at the front of the position half an hour ago, disappeared without a trace like the fog when the sun rose. All the coalition officers and soldiers on the position felt glad.

During the day, it is the world of the coalition forces.

As soon as dawn, the coalition forces launched the first round of aerial strike.

To this end, nearly 300 combat aircraft took off before dawn, and some fighters were hovering behind for half an hour, and immediately entered the battle after receiving the order.

The bombing was very fierce, but the effect was not very good.

The coalition pilots could not understand why the Volunteers could build so many fortifications while attacking fiercely, and even "bury" hundreds of tanks and tanks. Not to mention bombing the main combat equipment of the Volunteers, it would be great to be able to bomb the infantry leaving the air-raid shelter.

This is not entirely due to the Volunteer Army. The military facilities built by the People's Army played a great role in the military facilities built before the war.

For example, in Wulao Town, the combat troops of the Volunteer Army only need to retreat less than 20 kilometers to enter the underground tunnel built by the People's Army. Underground defense fortifications that can accommodate 100,000 troops can not only accommodate more than 20,000 officers and soldiers of the 39th Army, but also store the ammunition and medicine materials transported one after another.

However, it is difficult for these fortifications to stuff heavy equipment such as main battle tanks into them.

To this end, the Volunteer Army attaches great importance to battlefield disguise.

According to standard equipment, each tank has at least three camouflage nets to ensure that it can be hidden on the spot under any circumstances. These camouflage nets are standard equipment of the Chinese army, with "three defenses" functions that protect against visible light, infrared and radar, and are difficult to detect by coalition fighters.

While strengthening the disguise, the volunteer army also set a large number of fake targets.

At that time, the most used inflatable tanks were used. In order to enhance the deceptiveness of the fake targets, the volunteer officers and soldiers also applied a layer of paint mixed with metal powder on the outside of the inflatable tank. The deceptiveness was very ideal. An inflatable tank worth several thousand yuan could offset a precisely guided ammunition worth tens of thousands of dollars.

In some places, the Volunteer Army also made full use of the heavy equipment abandoned by the People's Army.

For example, near Xianzhou, the engineers of the 65th Army managed to repair some T62s of the People's Army, and then welded a few steel plates on the turrets of these tanks to make them look very similar to the Volunteer Army's Type 96, and then placed them on a hidden position that was easier to find. In order to make the US military believe that this was the Volunteer Army's main battle tank, the 65th Army also specially dispatched a group of tank players to drive these tanks out of the position during the bombing gap. If they were closer to the coalition forces, they would still have a few guns for no reason.

It can be said that disguise and deception played a crucial role in this war.

It is precisely because of these disguises and deception methods that the loss rate of the main combat equipment of the Volunteer Army has been reduced by 80%, and the coalition forces have spent more than ten times more ammunition, so it is difficult for them to achieve the purpose of bombing.

This also leads to a huge gap between the results and losses of the war between the two sides.

For example, during the day of September 17, the coalition forces announced that they had destroyed more than 1,300 main combat equipment of the Volunteer Army in the airstrike, and the actual combat loss rate of the Volunteer Army was less than 300, and two-thirds of them were repaired that night and could quickly re-enter the battle.

Obviously, bombing cannot solve the problem.

The Chinese army is not the Iraqi army. In front of the Chinese army, the US military will never think of replacing the "Yatsu" model of ground war with bombing.

Colonel Pitt did not doubt the Air Force's battle report, nor did he doubt the combat effectiveness of the Volunteer Army. For two consecutive nights, the Volunteer Army maintained an extremely high-intensity ground attack, which forced him to believe that the Volunteer Army was indeed a powerful army, and air strikes could not solve the problem.

To win, you must rely on ground troops.

On the afternoon of the seventh, after the 43rd Independent Brigade of the South Korean Army advanced towards Dingping, Colonel Pitt issued an order to the Fourth Infantry Division and the Ninth Armored Division.

But at this time, Pete had not yet decided whether to join the ground troops immediately.

Given the circumstances at that time, Colonel Pitt had no need to rush to make a decision.

Before the start of the battle, the Fourth Infantry Division was stationed in the middle of the battlefield, using Shunchuan as the base, and cooperated with the Korean army to guard the junction of the east and west legions. As a result, the forces of the Fourth Infantry Division were very scattered, and the main force concentrated together was in Shunchuan again. Even if it was mobilized immediately after receiving the order, it would take 24 hours to complete the preparations. It was already two days later that it would take to drive from Shunchuan.

In contrast, the situation of the 9th Armored Division of the South Korean Army was slightly better.

After the arrival of two infantry divisions of the US military, the Ninth Panzer Division retreated. According to Allen's arrangement, the Ninth Panzer Division, as the main counterattack force on the Western Front, was deployed in Kaesong, south of Pyongyang. After receiving the order, the Ninth Panzer Division could be deployed. However, as a heavy unit, the Ninth Panzer Division had very limited uses. If you follow the Fourth Infantry Division, you have to span the mountainous areas in central Korea, and the armored forces are not suitable for combat in mountainous areas. If you act alone, the best choice for the Ninth Panzer Division is to transport it to Wonsan by rail.

After careful consideration, Colonel Pitt decided to let the Ninth Armored Division act alone.

The battlefield near Xianxing is very narrow, and too many combat troops are invested at once, which not only cannot be deployed, but also makes it difficult for the troops to play a role.

But in this way, the Ninth Armored Division could only reach Yuanshan in three days at the fastest.

It doesn’t matter if you are slower, because the 71st Special Mix Fleet is still on the way.

In reality, Colonel Pitt had to pin his hopes on inefficient aerial strikes, that is, before the Fourth Infantry Division and the Ninth Armored Division arrived, the Western Front Corps had to defend their positions and could only get air support during the day. Although Pitt hoped to provide air support to the ground at night, it was immediately rejected by the Air Force because the Volunteers were likely to use electromagnetic weapons at night, and the night bombing effect was even less ideal when the enemy and us were intertwined. What the coalition could do was to block the battlefield at night.

On the night of the 17th, the coalition forces dispatched 800 fighter jets to bomb the logistics supply line of the volunteer army.

Like during the day, night bombing is not efficient.

It was not that the coalition's bombing was ineffective, but that the Volunteers made full use of the favorable terrain, and there were military facilities built by the People's Army along the way. More importantly, at night, the Volunteers' electromagnetic combat strength was significantly increased, and it was mainly used to cover the transportation troops.

On the night of the 17th, the coalition forces lost twenty-seven fighter jets for no reason.

Such a high combat loss rate made the coalition forces lingeringly afraid and did not dare to go deep into areas controlled by the Volunteer Army, so it would be difficult to pose a threat to the Volunteer Army's ground transportation forces.

In fact, even near the front line, the coalition's air superiority was not obvious.

Among the ground forces of the Volunteer Army participating in the attack, there are overequipped air defense forces. For example, there are two air defense brigades in the 39th Army, one of which is also equipped with long-range air defense missiles, so that the coalition fighter jets can only use ammunition outside the defense zone as much as possible.

After fighting to this point, Colonel Pitt finally understood why Allen was so afraid of the volunteer army.

Although the Volunteer Army may not necessarily surpass the coalition forces in terms of equipment performance, the Volunteer Army must have surpassed the coalition forces in terms of tactical flexibility. In addition, the Volunteer Army also made full use of the existing technical equipment in its hands, became more familiar with the geographical environment of North Korea, and used various clever tactics to offset the technical advantages of the coalition forces.

This is definitely not a good thing for the US military who is good at fighting technical wars.

The only thing that made Colonel Pitt feel relieved was that the US military did not perform badly under difficult conditions, and far surpassed the South Korean army that fought side by side.

Especially in Wu Lao Town, the Marines commanded by Colonel Justin completely changed the tradition of the US military's fear of death.

In Xianzhou, the performance of the Second Land Warrior Division was also very eye-catching. If there were no three land war battalions, the volunteers would have won before dawn on the 18th.

During the day, what Pete could do was to mobilize the air force as much as possible, and then hope that the ground forces could create miracles again after dark.

However, the hidden dangers on the battlefield still made him unable to sit or lie down.

The big problem is that the ground troops have no fighting spirit, but that the high-intensity battles prevent the coalition from blocking loopholes in the defense line in time.

The big loophole is in Hamhung.

After two nights of fighting, the pressure was almost entirely concentrated on the Second Land Command. Although the Second Land Command created a miracle, the problems caused by insufficient troops were getting worse and worse. After taking on too many combat tasks, the US troops guarding Hamhung had less than 4,000 people left, including about 600 wounded.

Although Ham-xing was not attacked, who can guarantee that the volunteer army would not bypass the Five Elders and Xianzhou and directly attack Ham-xing?

Even if the Volunteer Army does not do this, the Second Marine Division will have to continuously send reinforcements to Wulao Town and Xianzhou, and the troops guarding Xianxing will become less and less.

It should be fine to stay for one night, but whether you can hold on until dawn on the 20th is an unknown.

According to Pete's deployment, the Fourth Infantry Division can arrive as soon as the afternoon of the 20th, while the Ninth Infantry Division will have to wait until the morning of the 21st, and the 71st Special Mixed Fleet will have to wait until the night of the 21st.

In other words, if the fourth night cannot survive, the coalition forces will collapse on the whole line.

Colonel Pitt could not think of a better way, so he could only urge the Fourth Infantry Division and the Ninth Armored Division, hoping that they could arrive several hours in advance.

In addition, Colonel Pitt did not forget the most important thing: using the supplies that the land combat division urgently needed to drop into Hamhung during the day.

However, when arranging airdrop supplies, the coalition forces made a mistake and did not have airdrop night combat equipment.

Because the Volunteer Army did not conduct full-scale electromagnetic warfare again, the Second Land Warfare Division had obtained airdrop night combat equipment during the day on the 17th, which enabled many main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to restore their night combat capabilities. Therefore, when arranging airdrop materials, the coalition forces paid more attention to extremely large-scale ammunition.

This was just a small mistake, but it directly led to the coalition's defeat on the night of the 18th.

I'm afraid no one would have thought that the mistakes of the quarantine officer would have such a big impact.
Chapter completed!