Shangganling, a small hill in the Five Sacred Mountains, is famous for a large-scale battle fought by battle. Because of the fierce artillery fire of the 43 days of fierce fighting, the "Van Vleet ammunition quantity" was left in military terminology, and because of the cold guns of the Volunteer Army after the battle, it entered the history of the United States and South Korea as "Sniper Ridge".
Huang Jiguang, the special hero of the Battle of Shangganling
Shangganling, the main peak of the Five Holy Mountains, the 597.9 and 537.7 highlands that the two sides fought to the death were the thumbs and index fingers, and on its west side, was the Douliu Peak and the Western Mountains, the three mountains were like lips and teeth, forming a natural defense line, Shangganling as the first line of defense of the Five Holy Mountains, which was very important to the volunteer army, not that Shangganling was lost, and the defense line of the Five Sacred Mountains was shaken, but in the process of fighting and talking, who won the initiative on the battlefield had the initiative in the negotiations, and the Battle of Shangganling was thus launched!
Van Vleet, commander of the US Eighth Army, gave this battle a well-known code name - Operation Showdown! VanVleet always wanted a showdown, but Ridgway did not agree until Ridgway left the Korean battlefield to become nato commander-in-chief. Clark and Van Fleet, who succeeded him, both wanted to make a name for themselves in the Korean battlefield, and together they had 200 war losses, and the battle time was about a week, so it was a good deal! Of course, the consumption of ammunition and weapons is not a war loss for the US military, otherwise there would be no Van Vleet ammunition.
Van Fleet
The Battle of Shangganling was fierce! In the 43 days from October 14 to November 25, 1952, the US military mobilized more than 60,000 troops, more than 300 artillery pieces, more than 170 tanks, and more than 3,000 aircraft, pouring more than 1.9 million shells and more than 5,000 bombs on the positions of two companies of the Volunteer Army of about 3.7 square kilometers. What is the concept of this artillery density? At the height of the artillery fire, six rounds of shells fell in one second! The density of artillery fire has exceeded the highest level of World War II.
War-torn Shangganling
During the battle, the two warring sides repeatedly competed for positions 59 times, and the volunteers repelled more than 900 allied charges. But casualties on both sides were heavy. According to Walter Helms' "U.S. Army in the Korean War (Volume 1)", the "United Nations Army" suffered a total of 9,000 casualties in the Battle of Triangle Hill that lasted 6 weeks, and because the U.S. army could not afford to be wounded, the South Korean Army, which was pulled to the front line as cannon fodder, suffered heavy casualties, but only because it could quickly replenish its troops on the mainland, and the Battle of Shangganling was basically replenished by the end of the Battle of Shangganling, and the Korean 2nd Division, which was pulled to fill the pit, had more than 12,000 people before the war, and more than 10,000 after the war.
The volunteers also suffered heavy losses, and the volunteers counted their casualties as 11,500. Among them, 4838 people were killed and 6691 wounded; a total of 11,500 people, and the casualty rate was more than 25%.
The Battle of Shangganling became one of the worst battles in the Korean battlefield, but this showdown became the laughing stock of history like MacArthur's Christmas Offensive! Years later, the U.S. army still did not pay much attention to this battle, but it was cast by the cold guns and cold guns of the volunteers after the Battle of Shangganling, and they called this place "Sniper Ridge".
Everything must start with a deputy company commander of the volunteer army named Xu Shizhen. Xu Shizhen's 9th Company of the 355th Regiment of the 40th Army, which is known as a company that cannot be provoked, coupled with Xu Shizhen's bold personality, said that one is not different, fought a battle and took the lead, charged ahead, and quite lit up the habit of Li Yunlong in the sword.
Because after the fifth battle, the two sides entered the stage of defensive warfare, position confrontation became a common thing, and no one dared to shoot without orders from above, but the arrogant United Nations army did its best to insult and provoke, peeing in the direction of the PLA position, wearing briefs and sunbathing on the position, and even taking South Korean girls to the position to dance, making the volunteer soldiers in the front position angry.
However, fearing the local firepower, the volunteer army issued a death order not to provoke easily, otherwise it would lead to a fierce artillery attack from the enemy, but after a change of position, everything became different.
This wave of British young masters who took over the US positions, the provocative means were even more aggravated than the American soldiers, which made Xu Shizhen angry, it was intolerable, and he decided to teach these great masters a lesson.
Sixteen days passed, Xu Shizhen seemed relatively calm, in addition to going to the position to watch the death performance of the British soldiers on the other side, less lively than before, and finally on the seventeenth day, Xu Shizhen put these days of holding back the big moves to the British soldiers - harvested 7 British soldier heads with cold guns.
It is reasonable to say that it is a good thing to eliminate the enemy, but if discipline is violated, it may lead to greater consequences, so the cold gun attack on the United Nations army soon reached the volunteer headquarters. Unexpectedly, he turned discipline into meritorious service, and since then he has set off a cold gun and cold gun movement.
The cold gun and cold gun campaign is a long-term campaign and a typical example of cooperating with Chairman Mao's zero-knock candy tactic. On May 27, 1951, when the fifth campaign was not yet over, Mao Zedong first proposed this tactic when he met Chen Geng and Xie Fang, because after the results of the first four battles, it was impossible to annihilate the enemy on a large scale like the initial stage.
On October 24, 1952, Mao Zedong called Peng Dehuai and once again pointed out the necessity of such combat tactics, and the sharpshooters and sharpshooters who had been prepared and trained in the early stage had a place to play.
However, at this time, the Battle of Shangganling was in full swing, and after the battle, the meritorious tunnels and trenches on Shangganling would once again make meritorious contributions, but this time it was not to resist the enemy's artillery fire, but to help the sharpshooters of the volunteer army to kill the enemy at a distance.
Although the cold gun and cold artillery movement has been going on for some time, and the results of the entire PLA defense front are not bad, the climax of this campaign is the climax of this campaign after the Battle of Shangganling and the end of the war.
At this time, a soldier who had been enlisted for more than a year entered Korea and wrote the legend of a sniper on the Shangganling position, he was Zhang Taofang.
Zhang Taofang, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, was born in 1931, served as the leader of the Children's Regiment in 1946, and joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army in March 1951, if it were not for this sudden war, a talented shooter might have been buried, but the long years of fighting and talking gave Zhang Taofang the opportunity to become famous in the Korean battlefield.
Zhang Taofang's story was not learned from him, but from his comrade-in-arms Lü Changqing. Lu Changqing is also an excellent sniper, the record is 178 people, although it is a little worse than Zhang Taofang, because Zhang Taofang's record is really unattainable, 214 people!
In his later years, Lü Changqing and Zhang Taofang were comrades-in-arms
Strictly speaking, The so-called snipers such as Lü Changqing and Zhang Taofang can only be called sharpshooters, because the guns they use are rifles, not real sniper rifles - water beads.
Known as the rifle of the Water Bead, its common name in the world is the M1944 Mosin-Nagant Riding Rifle, with a caliber of 7.62 mm, a barrel length of 520 mm, a curved ruler for the aiming tool, an initial velocity of 820 meters per second, and an effective range of 1000 meters.
This rifle played an amazing power in the hands of volunteer soldiers, although it was more difficult to tame in the early stage, Zhang Taofang had a record of three shots and zero at the beginning, which made Zhang Taofang feel stunned, and she thought about how to tame this Soviet-style sharp gun day and night. When the sharpshooters mastered its temperament, everything was another story.
According to Lü Changqing's recollection, Zhang Taofang and the four of them together guarded position No. 7 at the forefront of The No. 597.9 Heights in Shangganling, which was actually a traffic trench more than 30 meters long, and the nearest shooting platform was more than 50 meters away from the enemy.
On the 18th day of entering the Shangganling position, Zhang Taofang fell on the shooting platform for the first time. But his hard-working shooting skills after "eating three big burnt cakes" still failed, and he forgot that this was in the mountains, which was not the same thing as the usual training. However, Zhang Taofang is worthy of being a natural sniper, as the saying goes, it is the kind that God appreciates rice to eat.
In less than two weeks, Zhang Taofang figured out how to calculate the slope on the mountain, combined with the height, speed, and direction of the moving enemy to adjust the firing angle, and the suffering of the UN troops on the opposite side came!
Zhang Taofang snipes the enemy
On February 10, 1953, Zhang Taofang fired 9 shots, shot 7 enemy troops, surpassed all the old snipers, and by the end of February, he used 247 bullets in 22 days to kill 71 enemies, which had been widely circulated through the 24th Army's "FireWire", which shocked Pi Dingjun and produced a pair of leather boots.
Zhang Taofang's super high sniper skills, let the enemy feel frightened, in addition to the use of artillery retaliation, but also through snipers and artillery fire to try to eliminate Zhang Taofang, but Zhang Taofang although the adventure, but unscathed, Zhang Taofang is even more joked that the US military should not believe in God, God actually blessed him!
Zhang Taofang fought alone for 32 days, killed 214 enemies, set a record for the highest number of cold gun sniper shootings in the Korean battlefield, and there were many excellent shooters like him, and together they let the cold gun movement combine the zero-knock candy tactic proposed by Mao Zedong to show amazing power!
The United Nations army is full of despair, and the troops change their defenses and tell them to be careful of the guns on the opposite side; the veterans tell the recruits to be careful of the guns on the other side, otherwise you will die!
Gun cold artillery movement since 1952, the volunteer army concentrated a large number of snipers and gunners actively combat, on average, every 2 bullets killed and wounded a soldier, every 30 shells destroyed a tank, 25 shells destroyed a car, giving the United Nations army major casualties, by the end of the Korean War cold gun movement killed and wounded 52,000 United Nations troops such as the United States and South Korea, its effect is no less than launching a campaign.
The US military is fighting national strength, and we are fighting wisdom, Chairman Mao
"You hit your atomic bomb, I hit my grenade"
In Shangganling, maybe you have your ammo level here, and I hit my sniper rifle more appropriately!