The turret was purely a tool to bully China too backward, who said that China at that time declined to the extreme, and even a few heavy weapons could not be pulled out? But then again, where are the "not very useful" gun towers in the European battlefield? The artillery towers in Europe are much more arrogant than those in Japan, don't worry, see what Lao Wang says.
Above. Pengjia Building in Yunyang, Chongqing, a bunker-style building built during the Qing Dynasty
The reason why the Japanese army made such a thing as a gun tower at that time was inspired by some landowners in Shanxi and Hebei, who liked to build a building called "ZhuangZhai" or "Wu Fort", which was both a residence and a defensive fortress, which was quite strong. In "My Regiment Leader My Regiment", the dragon sang "Lover Fan" lyrics in "Your courtyard wall is high, and there are gun emplacements in the four corners~" it probably belongs to the landlord's defense building.
The history of this kind of architecture can be traced back to the New Dynasty of the Western Han Dynasty, when Wang Mang usurped the government, the world was in chaos, and the landlords used the official city-building method to strengthen their manors in order to protect themselves in the chaotic world, and then built a small military fortress, which is the earliest Dock Fort, also known as "Wubi".
Later, during the Eastern Han Dynasty, this strategy of building Wu Fort and defending itself became the basis for the landlord class to settle down, they were both the grass-roots ruling class and the powerful and powerful who wanted to move on the one side, and the "Wu Fort" not only defended against the rampant bandits and displaced people, but also guarded against the rebellion of zhuang Ding tenants and the black hands from other Wu Forts. At that time, the more famous Dock Fort was the "Guowu" built by Dong Zhuo on the Wei River in Mei County, Shaanxi Province, which is said to be "seven meters high and thick, and the rest of the week is more than enough", which is simply a small city, known as "Long Live the Dock".
During the Jin Dynasty, the big northern families who crossed the south in their clothes and left their hometowns also brought this way to the south, forming a unique living fortress such as hakka tulou.
Above. A series of "Diaolou Villages" in Guangdong, do you remember Huang Silang's home in "Let the Bullets Fly"?
Then there are the "watchtowers" along the southeast coast, which are mostly built by the Chinese who returned to their hometowns in the lower Nanyang and upper Jinshan Mountains, and the concept actually comes from the Dock Fort, which can guard the field and defend against mountain bandits.
Above. The towering watchtowers in the Ganzi area once suffered heavy losses on this
The same thing we can also find in the Sichuan-Tibet area, can only say that the repair of bunkers, the erection of artillery towers, has become a popular folk custom in China in the past, the landlord class in order to protect their own interests, created a highly similar to the European castle lords of the architectural ecology. (In fact, many castles are not smaller than the average castle)
Above. During the Chongzhen period, the "Heshan Tower" built by the three brothers of the Chen clan in Shanxi could accommodate a thousand people and avoid the flow of Kou
"Wu Fort" has long existed in China, in the countryside that can not be controlled by the Yamen, they are the most effective tools of rule, to help the landlord class maintain the right to rule, many modern Dock Fort specially employ or raise nursing homes private army, they have a variety of good and uneven guns and even artillery, coupled with the Layers of Protection and Terrain Construction of the Dock Fort, the ordinary light weapons army in the past really did not necessarily gnaw.
In fact, the Red Army, the Eighth Route Army, the National Revolutionary Army, and the Japanese Kou all suffered losses in front of the Fort Fortress to varying degrees, and in the absence of heavy weapons, it was difficult to capture the Fort without paying any price, even if it was a modern army. The dock forts are designed to take the road of defending against danger and resisting to the end, otherwise they would have been destroyed in the tide of displaced people again and again in the long history.
How strong was the dock fort of the landowners at that time? In order to rob some Zhuangzi in Hebei and Shanxi, the Japanese devils even dispatched infantry artillery and aircraft to deal with them, although they could eventually attack and kill them, but the losses suffered were enough to make the Japanese Kou, who claimed to be a modern strong army, have a toothache. Therefore, when the situation eased, the Japanese Kou no longer attacked these difficult landlord bunkers, first, they were too stubborn, and second, the feudal landlord class was a good helper to devour China, and through them they could better rule the Chinese.
There are so many Forts in Shanxi, many of which are still famous today, such as the Rose Church of our Lady of Zezhou, shijiagou in Fenxi, Qinshui Xiangyu Ancient Fort, Liujia Fort of Liu Zongyuan's family, iron walls and copper walls, etc., Pingyao is all over these things, they all have a considerable history, China's landlord castle.
In some of the remaining records of Japanese atrocities, we can also find only a few words about the devils attacking the Dock Fort, such as the invasion of the Japanese Datong Kuroda Division corresponding to the county "Shimosha Twelve Forts", after the defeat of Yan Xishan's troops, the Japanese army used tanks to open the gates of these fortresses, and then massacred them, even the monks did not let go.
Of course, the Japanese army also learned from the landlords - since this kind of fortress-like stronghold of civil construction is such a headache, why not improve it and control the Chinese countryside in a way that resembles feudal rule? The Japanese army can completely divide and suppress the Chinese countryside by building similar small fortress groups, and hoop the Chinese like an iron barrel! Thus, the Japanese army began the history of overhauling artillery towers, which was a strategy, and its greatest advantage was that it could control the Chinese countryside to the greatest extent with the least number of troops, and then free up troops for the Pacific War.
It should be known that at that time, the main force of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression had shifted from the Nationalist Government to the direction of fighting behind enemy lines, and the Red Army, under the guidance of the principle of encircling the cities in the countryside, quickly completed the strategic problems from guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare, blossomed everywhere in the vast front behind enemy lines, created a large number of base areas behind enemy lines, mobilized thousands of masses, and ripped the front of the Japanese army into rags. As a result, the Japanese army began a crazy sweep and public security war, and how to limit the resistance forces behind enemy lines such as the Eighth Route Army became a first-class major event, which directly gave birth to the emergence of "artillery towers".
So a strange scene appeared on the Battlefield in China, the Japanese army began to desperately build "artillery towers", they relied on this fortification to establish a stronghold of different sizes, and then the strongholds were connected to each other, and even connected by telephone lines. Where there are many artillery towers, there are several fortifications on a mountain beam, which can look at each other, and a "traffic express" has been established to facilitate mutual support, and once a stronghold is attacked, other strongholds will immediately provide support.
Later, the development of the Japanese artillery towers became different, some large strongholds were equipped with radios, electric lights, telephones, and various warehouses, garages, grain depots and logistics units, and the garrison was also quite large, and the construction of the artillery tower also used a large number of cement and steel bars, which were quite tall and strong. The artillery towers of those small strongholds are uneven, some of them do not even use much cement, and they are completely using Chinese labor and adopting earthen brick buildings, which are really similar to the landlords' villages. There were not many garrisons, and some only left a few puppet troops or Japanese troops below the rank of commander.
Above. The Eighth Route Army is studying the artillery tower
However, what is irrefutable is that the blockade of the artillery towers has indeed played a considerable role in containing the Chinese battlefield, and the base areas have been divided layer by layer, becoming a backwater that is difficult to flow to each other, while the Japanese army has used the communication lines between the grids of the artillery towers to come and go freely, launching sweeps such as "iron wall encirclement" and "strengthening public security" everywhere, so that the battlefield behind China's enemy lines has fallen into a dangerous situation for a while.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the weapons of the Chinese military and civilians in the battlefield behind the enemy lines were extremely backward, and the "single strike one", the cast shell black powder grenade, the stone mine, the reloaded bullet and the red tassel gun, and the large blade almost became synonymous with persisting in the War of Resistance. The Japanese Kou knew quite well that as long as the superiority of weapons was contained and there was no foreign aid, the Eighth Route Army, which relied solely on capture, would become weaker and weaker, and the army, which even had a rare door cannon, would have no way to deal with the turret.
Above. The Eighth Route Army's armed engineering team is in the pickpocketing building
Therefore, such a scene has repeatedly occurred in the battlefield behind china's enemy lines -- the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army have repeatedly launched a protracted activity with the Japanese army to open up a certain key point, and military sub-districts and unit organizations at all levels attach great importance to the Japanese artillery towers, and always want to pick them up quickly, because this bears the smooth progress of the protracted war strategy, and compared with cities with strong troops, it is easier to destroy the enemy of the artillery towers that are often left alone, and if it is carried out for a long time, it can play the effect of knocking on the candy.
Above. Many of the Japanese artillery towers were just ordinary brick buildings
If the battlefield is placed in Europe, then the devil's turret obviously does not work, because the industrial countries that pull out of the European battlefield, even Italy, which is called the "sixth strongest", have far more military industry than the decaying Republic of China. In a battlefield where aircraft artillery and tanks are everywhere, the Japanese artillery towers are not even the specifications of ordinary military bunkers, and many of the turrets are simply converted from the landlord dock forts they occupy, where they can withstand the attack of the right artillery.
Above. From the gun emplacements that were blown up, the Japanese army at least folded a "corporal officer"
The fact is so cruel, most of the Japanese artillery towers can be wiped out by a 200-kilogram aerial bomb, a 76mm gun can blow it up in the sky, even if there is a 37mm anti-aircraft gun is enough for them to drink a pot, but where do the Chinese anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians go to change these things? Xiao Yongyin, deputy commander of the Wuhan Military Region, handed over the Menshan cannon that year, and was happier than the New Year, and as a result, he just pulled the cannon back and vomited blood. In fact, when the Eighth Route Army only changed the mortar to flat fire, many Japanese artillery towers could not stand up and collapsed.
In the later period, the Eighth Route Army played out its experience and ability, and the Japanese army also lost its sharpness and morale, and the artillery tower became more and more formal. Some of the well-known "ruthless people" in the troops even dared to run to the puppet artillery tower to ask for wine and food, and the feared Japanese army only dared to shrink in the building and not come out, allowing the Eighth Route Army to shuttle from downstairs, waiting in horror for the moment of destruction.
The European battlefield is not without turrets, but their turrets are mainly based on air defense and sea defense, such as the high iron towers that britain set up on the coastline at that time, which were inserted into the coast at that time, not only bearing the work of early air defense and early warning, but also playing a considerable role in preventing the infiltration of ships at sea.
Germany also had similar turrets, in fact, they built large reinforced concrete forts in places such as the "Atlantic Barrier" and the "Siegfried Line", which were far larger than the scale of the Japanese brick small broken buildings, just like the shore fortifications on Omaha Beach at the time of the Normandy landings, which brought heavy damage to the US army, while the damage caused by naval guns and bombing was average. Their purpose was to defend against artillery rather than "lookout and blockade" like the Japanese turrets, and the natural structure was huge bunker-like.
As for the French "Maginot Line", which has hollowed out the mountains and turned them into a huge fortress, what more can it say?
Similar things also appeared in the Soviet Union and Belgium, where the Belgian Army was known as "a country built on the mountains" because it liked to build various forts, turrets, pillboxes and fortresses on the mountains, but most of these fortresses were finished before the surging German army had time to perform. However, during the First World War, the Fortress of Liège and other places carried out tenacious defensive battles, and finally the Belgian fortified city was crushed by the German artillery, which also announced the end of the fortress era.
The Soviets also fought against the Germans through large-scale fortress groups during World War II, and in the famous Sevastopol Fortress Offensive and Defensive Battle, the Soviet Fortress Fortress Group fought the Germans to the last moment. In this battle, the Germans and Soviets used giant cannons to bombard, the Soviet batteries had a number of 305mm cannons, and the Germans directly transported the 800mm "Gustav", which was a real shore cannon duel in human history.
In addition, the Germans also had "anti-aircraft batteries" built in the city, which were the conscience of the times, and the Germans used the best reinforced concrete to create a huge multi-faceted battery, and then placed a huge 128mm double anti-aircraft gun on it. These batteries not only inflicted heavy casualties on Soviet and Allied fighters, but also performed prominently in successive battles, and in the Battle of Berlin, the turrets set up next to the Congress almost single-handedly withstood the local offensive of the Soviet army.
Until many years after the war, people were still trying to deal with these Nazi artillery towers, and blowing them up was a rather difficult task, which became the reason for the survival of many anti-aircraft gun towers. What do you think? Compared with the "little tricks" of the Japanese army that only want to engage in blockade, are these artillery towers in Europe more in line with modern warfare?