No one expected that a place where less than a thousand residents could not be found on ordinary maps. Perhaps not many people have heard of it would become the key to the victory or defeat of the Third Battle, or even the entire Second Korean War, and the place where the warring sides fought desperately.

However, after the battle started, the commanders of both sides could only watch and didn't even have the chance to watch.

Before the US assault troops arrived in Xitunli, the Volunteer Army's special forces detonated the first electromagnetic warhead near Xitunli, destroying all electronic equipment within a radius of more than ten kilometers, including short-wave radio stations of the US and the Volunteer Army, as well as electronic instruments on the main combat equipment.

Subsequently, the special forces detonated an electromagnetic warhead every half an hour.

This is definitely not a trivial matter.

Although the coalition command lost contact with the front-line troops after the first electromagnetic warhead was detonated, Botsman was prepared and immediately dispatched unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. As the special forces of the Volunteer Army continued to use electromagnetic warheads, the coalition's unmanned reconnaissance aircraft had no chance to reach the battlefield at all.

For Botsman, he was not very clear about the situation on the battlefield.

This is also a problem facing Huang Zhibo, that is, he cannot contact the troops entering the strike range of electromagnetic warheads, and it is impossible to know whether the US assault forces were blocked.

At that time, both sides of the war could only understand the situation on the battlefield through reconnaissance satellites.

The problem is that reconnaissance satellites are not omnipotent, at least they cannot stay above the battlefield all the time. More importantly, the reconnaissance satellites of both sides are either controlled by intelligence agencies or controlled by the Ministry of National Defense. The battlefield intelligence obtained must be transferred several times before they can be sent to the headquarters.

In addition, using reconnaissance satellites to obtain tactical intelligence is indeed a bit of a waste of time.

It can be said that both sides could only hit with their eyes blindfolded and placed their hopes entirely on the front line commanders.

To put it simply, the performance of the front-line troops directly determines victory or defeat, and the rear command is difficult to play a role.

The first one to stand out was the infantry battalion of the 39th Army.

If the battalion arrived a little later, or did not launch a counterattack in time after arrival, it is probably that the US assault troops could defeat the defenders in Xitunli before the reinforcements arrived.

After arriving in Shitunli before the US assault forces, the battalion commander left only one company responsible for assisting the People's Army in consolidating its defensive positions, and then putting all other troops into counterattacks.

Although in terms of force, two companies are nothing. In the face of the US military's strengthening brigade, a battalion is nothing. However, this counterattack played a crucial role, because through the counterattack, the volunteers forced the US military that was attacking at high speed to launch on the spot.

The encounter was not long, and within an hour, the counterattack troops of the volunteers were defeated by the US military.

It can be said that there is no suspense.

You should know that the US assault forces are pure armored units, with a total of four armored battalions, and are supported by four mechanized infantry battalions. In addition, there is an artillery battalion and a frontline support battalion, that is, the US logistics battalion, which is much stronger than the two infantry companies in all aspects.

The problem is that after the volunteers counterattack, the US military had to launch and re-contract.

After such trouble, the US military delayed at least two and a half hours south of Xitunli.

In order to gain time, the US military sent an armored battalion and an infantry battalion to advance towards Xitunli without fully collecting it.

As a result, after the assault force arrived in Xitunli at around 11:30, it failed to capture Xitunli in time.

When the main force of the US military arrived before 1:00 pm, the second reinforcement force of the 39th Army arrived.

In terms of scale, the reinforcement force that came from Kaicheng was not large in size, with only two battalions of troops, but one of them was the armored battalion.

At that time, these two battalions were the combat reserves of the 39th Army and were always in preparation for war.

After receiving the order, the two battalions immediately set off and rushed to Xitunli as fast as possible. During the march, seven Type 96 main battle tanks were paralyzed due to mechanical failures, but the reinforcements did not stop, but asked the tankers to leave the tanks to repair the tanks, and the other troops continued to advance towards Xitunli.

When we arrived in Shitunli, there were only twenty-five tanks, and they were all Type 96.

Fortunately, these twenty-five Type 96s are enough to pose a fatal threat to the US assault forces, which has to concentrate superior forces before attacking Xitunli to eliminate the reinforcements of the Volunteer Army. To this end, the US military deployed three armored battalions and three infantry battalions to complete the mission as soon as possible.

It must be admitted that in front of m1a2, Type 96 does not have much advantage.

Although the Volunteer Army has equipped all tanks with m1a2 frontal armor, and under the influence of electromagnetic warfare, both sides can only use mechanical sights and it is difficult to open fire two thousand meters away, during the encounter, the reinforced Volunteer Army armored troops gathered on the road and were unable to be deployed in time. The US military launched in advance, and with the absolute advantage of force, it quickly defeated the Volunteer Army's counterattack power and eliminated worries.

The US military has gained enough advantage in this small-scale armored war.

However, for the attack on Xitunli, the US military wasted another very precious two hours.

At around 3 pm, the US military gathered enough troops to launch an attack on Xitunli.

At that time, except for one infantry company of the Volunteer Army, there was only one battalion of the People's Army, and dozens of officers and soldiers from the second batch of reinforcements.

It is definitely a chore to use less than 600 troops to resist about 5,000 US troops.

Without the support of the Volunteer Army, the People's Army is likely to be defeated after the first round of assault by the US military.

Because he fought side by side with the Volunteer Army, the People's Army was very brave.

Strictly speaking, the US military is also very tenacious.

In the first round of attacks, the US military almost broke through the Volunteer Army's defense line, and the assault troops once attacked the town, less than 500 meters away from the defense command.

It was in this case that the US assault troops were attacked by the Volunteer Army and the People's Army.

According to the descriptions of some surviving officers and soldiers, even the wounded picked up weapons when they reached the most difficult time. In order to resist the US tanks and chariots, some People's Army officers and soldiers even rushed up with explosives bags. Even the volunteer officers and soldiers admired their heroic performance.

However, the US military did not give up the attack because of this.

At 5:30 pm, the US military organized a second attack.

Compared with the first attack, the US military invested more troops, especially infantry. From a time perspective, if the US military could not capture Xitunli during this attack, a large number of reinforcements from the Volunteer Army would arrive, and the US military deployed in the suburbs and without building a defensive position would definitely be difficult to deal with.

At this moment, something happened that even the US commander did not expect.

When the US military was attacking Xitunli, the front-line support battalion that remained behind was suddenly hit. A volunteer armoured unit suddenly came out, destroying half of the combat supplies carried by the US military within half an hour, killing and injuring nearly 300 US officers and soldiers.

When the US commander reacted, the Volunteer Armored Force, which had only a few tanks, had been eliminated.

Nothing else, it is the seven Type 96 main battle tanks that fell behind before.

Without infantry cover, the seven tanks launched a suicide charge. After entering the position of the US front-line support battalion, they did not continue to break through, but instead sprinkled artillery fire on US military combat supplies.

This variable has a decisive impact on the subsequent battle.

According to the US military's combat records, the US military rescued less than 30% of the combat materials at that time, and the majority of the materials lost were ammunition.

When it was dark, when the reinforcements of the 24th Army were about to arrive, the US troops invaded Shitunli.

Of the 587 officers and soldiers guarding Xitun, only six survived, five of them were captured after being seriously injured, and only one of them was stunned by shells on the position, and then escaped with the cover of night.

However, it was too late for the US military to capture Xitunli at this time.

Before the US military gained a foothold, the reinforcements of the 24th Army arrived, a reorganized armored brigade with more than 100 main battle tanks.

Faced with the surging armored clusters, the US military did not enter the defensive positions, but instead deployed outside the positions.

In any case, redeployment of defense takes time, and the US armored forces must buy time for the infantry, so they must withstand the impact of the Volunteer Armored Forces.

At this point, the last turning point has arrived.

According to the US military's combat records, front-line commander Colonel Ronald was shot dead by a sniper while commanding the battle, but it was not mentioned who was shot dead.

The one who killed Colonel Ronald was a sniper under Colonel Zhang Baoqiang.

At that time, the sniper was ambushed 1,800 meters away and was always looking for valuable sniping targets. Although the front-line commander of the US military did not wear a erectile squad, Ronald commanded the battle on the front line and had no radio station available, so he would definitely give orders to other officers, which exposed his identity.

Although Ronald was shot dead by one shot in many records, in fact, the sniper fired three shots, the first shot was empty, the second shot hit the guards around Ronald, and the third shot hit Ronald. Ronald did not die immediately, but died four hours later in a house in Shitun due to heavy internal bleeding.

Before he was finished, Ronald did something very important, that is, handing over command.

Half an hour after Ronald was shot, Major Metz, the interim commander of the US military, issued a retreat order, allowing all troops to retreat to Shitunli.

After nine o'clock at night, the reinforcements of the 24th Army surrounded Xitunli and immediately launched a fierce attack.

Relying on a few ammunition and impossible to obtain support, the US military has no hope of defending Shitunli, and can last for a few days at most.

For the Volunteer Army, this is not a big problem.
Chapter completed!