A fully loaded armor division of the Japanese army can completely hang more than a dozen divisions, or even dozens of divisions, of the national army! This is not alarmist.
The "division" is the highest military unit of the Japanese army during World War II, divided into four levels: A, B, C and D. The so-called Japanese Army Class A divisions that we often mention are actually 17 standing divisions that were formed before the war.
These Japanese standing divisions were organized under the four-four system, with eight companies, including four infantry companies, and one independent engineer, artillery, cavalry, and transport companies.
Among them, an infantry company of the standing division regiment has a full strength of about 3800 people. If you add non-combatants from divisions and brigade headquarters, a fully staffed standing division can reach about 28,000 troops.
The Standing Division of the Japanese Army is not only large in scale and well-trained in soldiers, but also equipped with powerful and systematic weapons, equipped with more than 7,500 warhorses, 144 grenadiers, more than 340 light and heavy machine guns, and more than 50 light and heavy artillery mountain guns.
Although the level of equipment of the Japanese army was not as good as that of the Western powers such as the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany, which was more mechanized, it could completely defeat the Chinese army at that time. Therefore, a Japanese division of the First Class can completely support a battle in China independently.
You must know that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, China's national defense level was really poor. Not only is there a general shortage of soldiers, equipment is broken, and the staffing is chaotic.
At that time, the nationalist army generally had more than 30,000 people in a single army; sometimes there were more than 8,000 people in a division, and in some places, a division of miscellaneous troops even had only 5,000 or 6,000 people, and there were not even a few decent guns.
Even the Central German Mechanized Division, which claimed to have the strongest combat effectiveness, such as the elite 88th Division, had only 14,000 troops in total, only half of the strength of the Japanese Standing Army.
Therefore, in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a standing division of the Japanese army, with the cooperation of the air force, was often able to hang more than a dozen or even dozens of divisions of the nationalist army; even if it was a company, it could chase after one or two divisions of the nationalist army to fight, and even dared to directly attack the defensive area of a nationalist army.
Let's take a look at the specific actual battle
1. In the Battle of Xinkou, half a division of the Japanese army destroyed more than 30 divisions of the Nationalist army
Typical examples are the Japanese Fifth Division, under the leadership of Itagaki Seishiro, in the Battle of Xinkou, with only half a division left, and then with the cooperation of the two brigades and regiments of the Du 2nd and 15th Du, with a total strength of less than 30,000 troops, directly impacted the front defended by the 200,000 Nationalist army, and crushed more than thirty national army divisions defending, completed the military feat of "half a division and regiment defeating more than thirty divisions of the Nationalist army", and attacked Taiyuan in one fell swoop and swept through Shanxi.
The supreme commanders of the Xinkou Campaign were Yan Xishan and Wei Lihuang, both of whom were very good military generals in China at that time.
2. The great victory of Taierzhuang, the elite of the Nationalist army played six and one, and could only defeat the two Japanese first-class divisions
The great victory of Taierzhuang was widely known as the biggest victory in the frontal battlefield in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. But this so-called victory was actually a crushing victory.
In order to win this war, the national army has made a bloody contribution, using a number of ace troops, a total of nearly 300,000 troops, and even the veteran General's Army of Tombaugh has been dispatched. The command lineup will be even more star-studded, Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Sun Lianzhong, Tang Enbo, Zhang Zizhong, these are all well-known military generals in China.
The Japanese army fighting away only had two Grade A divisions, the 5th and 10th, with a total strength of only 50,000 troops, and the ratio of Chinese and Japanese troops reached 6:1. However, under such a weak force, the Japanese army still annihilated more than 50,000 Nationalist troops at the cost of 20,000 casualties. This is already the best achievement achieved by the Nationalist army in the early stage of the War of Resistance.
From these battles, it is not difficult for us to see the strength of the Japanese First-class divisions. Therefore, in the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, our army fought extremely hard, and almost every battle relied on flesh and blood and strong willpower to support the Japanese aircraft, tanks, and artillery.
Probably during World War II, the only thing that could be equally famous with the Japanese armored division was the German SS armored division, and the Battle of Kharkov on the Eastern Front and the Battle of Kursk could prove the strength of the German SS armored division, which could almost resist more than ten times the Soviet attack when defending. In the Battle of Surinomenhan, the strength of the Soviet Army at that time was only one-third of the strength of the Armored Corps, and the Japanese army invested three divisions of the first and more than the first type (the First Armored Division), and the result was a big defeat, so an early SS Armored Division could sweep through about 10 Japanese armor divisions.