Recently, the movie "Chosin Lake's Water Gate Bridge" is being screened, which has also triggered a lot of discussion.
In the previous article, we mainly focused on the location, significance and surrounding battles of the Watergate Bridge, but it is impossible to cover everything, and some friends still have a lot of questions.
For example, some netizens will find that the volunteers' blasting of the Watergate Bridge is concentrated on the right side of the bridge, and the left side can actually be blasted.
If the left side of the bridge deck is also blown up, then it will inevitably be more difficult for the US military to repair the Watergate Bridge, but why didn't the Volunteers do it? In fact, the most direct reason is the lack of explosives.
In post-war research, the U.S. military believes that the volunteers fighting the 1st Marine Division are not much different from the volunteers on the Western Front in terms of weapons and equipment, and the main difference is that there is an extreme shortage of food and ammunition supplies with the Volunteers on the Eastern Front.
During the operation, the U.S. military found that the Volunteer Army on the Western Front had almost no shortage of ammunition in terms of machine guns and grenades, and it was also possible to see people who were constantly transporting ammunition. The volunteers on the Eastern Front, due to the lack of ammunition, exhausted the ammunition they carried, and because there was no continuous supply, the operational efficiency would soon be lost.
In fact, this point need not be said to be known to everyone, because at that time, the 9th Corps of the Volunteer Army on the Eastern Front was not to say that it was food and ammunition, that is, the basic winter clothes were not complete, and the actual combat effectiveness was greatly affected.
This is not to say that we do not have winter supplies and supplies in our rear, but most importantly, we are limited by the threat of air raids, road conditions and transport forces.
Now some netizens always blame the supply problem on a single reason, but in fact, the supply difficulty of the Eastern Front is the result of the comprehensive action of multiple factors.
For example, the existence of the US military aviation makes it difficult for the volunteers to supply during the day, and at the same time, the road conditions on the eastern front are limited, and the US military aviation troops bomb indiscriminately on the roads, which seriously hinders the transportation of volunteer combat materials.
Moreover, at that time, our vehicles were limited, and the vehicles themselves were also greatly damaged by air raids, and in this case, even if there was food, winter clothing and ammunition in the rear, only a part of them could really be transported to the front.
Therefore, combined with logistical factors, in fact, the biggest restriction on the Volunteer Army on the Eastern Front at that time was actually the Aviation Corps of the US Army.
Now some netizens always say that the volunteer army is 150,000 people fighting 20,000 US troops, and turning a blind eye to the US aircraft carriers and aircraft in the sky at sea.
Therefore, when talking about the Battle of Chosin Lake, when calculating the strength of the US military, do not always stare at the 1st Division, and the huge number of US navy, air force and marine corps aviation strength should also be taken into account.
The direct casualties caused by these aviation units to the Volunteers are on the one hand, and their constraints on the logistics lines of the Volunteers, the artillery movement, and, conversely, their own supplies to the U.S. Army are extremely reinforcing factors.
Otherwise, can you imagine what it would be like for the U.S. military to break through with thousands of seriously wounded? What would it be like if the Watergate Bridge did not have an airdrop M2 rutted bridge component?
Therefore, the basic understanding of the Chosin Lake Campaign is that the light infantry of the Volunteer Army is fighting against the three-dimensional combat forces of the US army, navy and air, and this background cannot be ignored.
Due to the existence of the above-mentioned comprehensive reasons, the problem of supply of the volunteer army has never been solved, which has seriously limited the firepower and actual combat effectiveness of the volunteer army.
The direct attrition of personnel due to freezing and starvation and the decline in physical strength caused by freezing hunger are restrictions on the combat effectiveness of volunteer soldiers, and the main aspects of restricting the firepower of volunteers are:
First: It is difficult for the volunteer field howitzer unit to move and participate in the battle, even the mountain artillery and large-caliber mortars are difficult to participate in the battle, and the artillery fire that the volunteer army can rely on in actual combat is mainly 82 mortars and 60 mortars. Due to the influence of extremely cold temperatures, 70% of the mortars did not sound in actual combat, which further limited the firepower of the volunteer army.
When the US military studied the volunteers' operations against the 1st Marine Division, it was found that the volunteers had light artillery support in 6 attacks, and the number of guns used each time did not exceed 2 to 3, and the number of guns fired was also a few rounds, which was a direct manifestation of the weak firepower of the volunteers on the eastern front.
Secondly, due to the limited participation of the volunteer artillery, the main use of infantry small arms in actual combat is fought, but due to the difficulty of supply, even the supply of ammunition for infantry light weapons is not sufficient.
For example, the 60th Division of the 20th Army of the Volunteer Army received less than 40,000 rounds of 79 bullets and 500 rounds of 30 bullets during the campaign, mainly relying on the ammunition it carried to fight. Due to the large consumption of ammunition for combat with the US army, it is obviously not enough to rely on the ammunition carried by the headquarters.
Therefore, the US army not only failed to appreciate the ferocity of the volunteer artillery fire, but in fact, it was infantry fire, and the volunteer army on the eastern front could only maintain short-term firepower.
Returning to the problem of blasting the Pratunam Bridge, it is not technically difficult to blow up the bridge completely, the key is the problem of insufficient explosives. In the context of the aforementioned supply difficulties, the supply of grain bullets for winter loading is not sufficient, so how can there be enough explosives?
Taking the 60th Division of the 20th Army of the Volunteer Army as an example, the supply of explosives obtained during the campaign was 2370 kilograms, and together with the explosives carried by the headquarters, a total of 4948 kilograms of explosives were consumed in the battle.
This amount may seem like a lot at first glance, but this is the amount of explosives consumed by a whole division in the entire campaign, combined with the tasks undertaken by the 60th Division at that time, it is known that this explosive is not enough.
The operational task of the 60th Division at that time was to cut off the connection between the American forces in Shimogaru-ri and Kotouri, and at the same time to deploy near the road line from Kotouri to Baohouzhuang, and it was responsible for tens of kilometers of road breaking and combat tasks.
Please note that the volunteers' broken roads were not limited to one part of the Pratunam Bridge, but to the entire route, and the bridge alone was not only the Pratunam Bridge, but at least 4 bridges.
Take the 180th Regiment, which specifically undertook to break the road at Shuimen Bridge, as an example, the regiment initially broke the road around Gutuli, and before carrying out the task of breaking the road to Huangcaoling, the whole regiment had only 15 pounds of explosives left.
The 180th Regiment marched southward, carrying explosives when it carried a road-breaking mission that included the destruction of the Pratunam Bridge. However, considering that the main force of the 60th Division was deployed north of Guturi, and that the Drysdale task force had been hit in the middle of the way, consuming a large amount of explosives, the available explosives in the hands of the 180 regiment must be scarce, and the regiment was still at the southernmost end of the supply line, making it more difficult to obtain new supplies.
In the case of not many explosives, the use of explosives to blast can only be in such a key area as the Watergate Bridge, and it is impossible to exhaust all the explosives in a desperate way, and blow up all the bridges when they come up.
Because in the experience of the volunteer army at that time, it was already possible to destroy the bridge to that extent, and none of our previous opponents showed a strong ability to repair.
However, the U.S. military is a highly specialized and modern army, its engineers are very powerful, and there are a lot of mechanized equipment.
In the case of the battle of the Drexdale Task Force on November 29, the main force of the 60th Division also broke the road and bridge between Hagaru-ri and Guturi, but the American tanks covered each other in dense formations, and when they arrived at a broken bridge, they covered the sappers to repair it, repaired it and then passed, basically unhindered.
From November 30 to the early morning of December 1, the 2nd Battalion of the US 31st Regiment arrived in Gutuli via Huangcao Ridge, and we also broke the road outside Gutuli, but still failed to stop the advance of the US mechanized convoy.
After the volunteers blew up the Pratunam Bridge for the first time, the American sappers came and quickly repaired the bridge deck, which put a lot of pressure on the Volunteers' road-breaking mission.
Due to the cold weather at that time, the volunteers had limited tools in their hands, and the efficiency of manpower to break the road was not high; and the use of explosives was limited by too little explosives.
So the strategy of the volunteers was to use barricades to block the passage and blow up the most critical areas with a small amount of explosives. But U.S. bulldozers can easily clear roadblocks, and its sappers have the ability to build bridges quickly.
The U.S. military's post-war research report thinks so:
The Volunteers used a large number of barricades and a small number of explosive means on the main supply line of the 1st Marine Division, and in some of the most sensitive locations, explosives were effectively used to cut off traffic. The best example is blowing up a working bridge south of Guturi, not far from the foot of Highland 1081, across the power station's water pipes.
The bridge is located on top of a canyon with a drop of 1500 meters, and no vehicle can retreat southward if it cannot be repaired.
Although the U.S. military had anticipated the problem and solved it by airdropping prefabricated bridges, even so, the Volunteers created the biggest obstacle with a small amount of explosives.
If the volunteers had enough explosives, opportunities like this abounded along the entire route, and the entire main supply line was like a narrow boardwalk carved into the mountain wall, which would be completely destroyed and impassable if only a few major landslides were caused. But the volunteers here, though occupied for a week, did not take similar action. Here, and on the road between Ryutan-ri and Hagaru-ri, the volunteers' explosives seemed to be only enough for a few small bridges that could be easily blasted with a small amount of explosives.
The speculation of the US military is not wrong, the key to the volunteer army is that there are too few explosives, and only the key explosion can be guaranteed. If the volunteers had enough explosives in their hands, the Watergate Bridge would have been able to blow up completely, and even, as the U.S. military itself said, would have blown up several major landslides, which would have seriously hindered its retreat.
In fact, many people who have studied the Battle of Chosin Lake have had such an idea, and even we would like to think that what would happen if we concentrated our efforts on fighting Hagaru-ri in the first place? What if the Volunteers had some Katyusha rockets? What if the volunteers were fully clothed for winter?
But these ideas were only a reflection after all, and in that context, the conditions in the hands of the volunteers were so limited. But even in such difficult conditions, we still resolutely fought.
Is this battle fair? Unfair, if you let the current netizens to command, this battle can not be fought! But why were the volunteers so determined to fight?
When we looked at the post-war summary of the volunteer army, we did not find out how surprised the volunteer army was by the ability of the US army, but on the contrary, we were extremely serious in summing up the advantages and disadvantages of the enemy army, the advantages and disadvantages of our army, and repeatedly studying what other links could be done better and how to fight under what circumstances.
We are not at all afraid of how difficult it will be for the US military to fight, and all our energy lies in relying on the existing conditions on how to better attack the US military, and this attitude and spirit are also a huge wealth left to our descendants.