If we look closely, we will find that the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Shangganling have many similarities. Before the war, the U.S. military planned to take the position in 5 days, and as a result, both battles were fought for more than a month. Moreover, in the course of the campaign, the US military was faced with the situation of tunnel operations, and the US casualties were more than the garrison troops. In the Battle of Iwo Jima, the American casualties exceeded 28,000 and the Japanese suffered 24,000 casualties; the Sino-US and South Korean forces suffered more than 25,000 casualties and more than 12,000 volunteer casualties in the Battle of Shangganling.
Another similarity between the two battles is that the firepower of the American army is overwhelmingly superior, and neither the Japanese on Iwo Jima nor the volunteers in the Battle of Shangganling have no navy and air cover. However, the outcomes of these two battles were very different, the Battle of Iwo Jima was completely destroyed by the Japanese army, and the Battle of Shangganling ended in the defeat of the American army. You must know that the volunteers in the Battle of Shangganling were much fiercer than the Japanese on Iwo Jima, during the Battle of Iwo Jima, the US army fired a total of 300,000 shells, and in the Battle of Shangganling, the US army fired a total of 1.9 million shells at our garrison, which was more than 6 times that of the Battle of Iwo Jima!
So the question is, also in the face of tunnel combat, why was the U.S. army able to win the Battle of Iwo Jima, but lost to the volunteer army in the Battle of Shangganling? I think there are three main reasons. First of all, the terrain of Iwo Jima and Shangganling is different. Iwo Jima is an island on which U.S. tanks and armored vehicles can easily move, and U.S. tanks often aim their guns at Japanese bunkers or tunnels and shoot directly at them, posing a great threat to the Japanese. In order to deal with the Japanese troops hidden in the tunnel, the US army even used bulldozers to directly seal the mouth of the tunnel, so that the Japanese troops inside suffocated. Shangganling is a high mountain of nearly 600 meters, the mechanized troops of the US army can not be deployed at all, and the tank can only be used as a fixed fire point, and the power is greatly reduced.
Secondly, the tactics of the Japanese army are too rigid, just blindly passively beaten. The scale of the Iwo Jima tunnel was much larger than that of Shangganling, and the Japanese army almost hollowed out the entire mountain. However, after the US army landed on the island, the Japanese army's tactics were too rigid, just blindly passively beaten. During the entire Battle of Iwo Jima, the Japanese army launched only one counterattack, in this counterattack, the Japanese army dispatched more than 1,000 people, concentrated on the U.S. army, the result was completely annihilated, and the Japanese army has not counterattacked the U.S. army since then. In the Battle of Shangganling, our army's tactics were much more flexible than those of the Japanese army; whenever night fell, the volunteer army's tunnel troops formed a combat group of three or four people and launched night attacks on the US troops in many ways.
Finally, the Japanese on Iwo Jima were an abandoned and lone army, while our tunnel troops in the Battle of Shangganling were replenished with food ammunition and personnel. When the Battle of Iwo Jima broke out, Japan had already been defeated in the Pacific Theater, the navy and air force had been annihilated, and they were unable to break through the Blockade of the Us Army to supply the defenders on Iwo Jima, and the end of the total annihilation of the Japanese army was already doomed from the beginning of the battle. In the Battle of Shangganling, although the artillery blockade of the US army was more fierce, the logistics department of our army was still able to deliver food and ammunition to the hands of the tunnel troops, so the garrison units were always able to maintain a strong continuous combat capability.
Unlike the desperate Japanese troops on Iwo Jima, my Shangganling Tunnel troops always maintained high morale, and one soldier wrote in his diary: "In addition to fighting, we are laughing and entertaining, talking about our victory, talking about the greatness of the motherland, and singing songs." Our mood is always pleasant, without the slightest fear of being blocked and destroyed by the enemy, because we know the importance of the task, we know the meaning of the battle, and we firmly believe that we will be able to win! "I think this is also an important factor for the volunteer army to achieve the final victory in the Battle of Shangganling."