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Text: Zhang Runchen
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introduction
The Sino-Vietnamese War was the last battle of the Republic to date. In this battle, our army achieved tremendous results, not only successfully resisting Vietnam's thirst for the southwestern territory of the mainland, but also crushing the Soviet Union's ambition to try to encircle the mainland. After the war, the mainland succeeded in fighting a period of general peace under reform and opening up for 40 years.
However, the Sino-Vietnamese war was not all smooth sailing. In particular, the self-defense and counterattack war against Vietnam, which was the beginning of the Sino-Vietnamese War, was actually fought quite the mainland. In Vietnam, the time and place are not in our side, and it can be said that our army did not "take any tricks" in this war, but won Vietnam by virtue of hard power.
As for the Vietnamese army, in the battle of Dong Dang, when our army had just entered Vietnam, the Vietnamese army had a "glorious record" of one battalion repelling one regiment of our army.
(Vietnamese Army)
1. Before the war
Lang Son is located south of Guangxi on the mainland, about 18 kilometers away from our border. Surrounded by mountains, there are three natural natural barriers, namely Khu Khao Mountain, Khu Ma Mountain, and Khu Phai Mountain, which is a natural fortress in northern Vietnam and also the northern gate to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.
It is also a railway hub in northern Vietnam, with Hanoi in the south, Cao Bang in the north, Thai Nguyen in the west, and Loc Binh in the east.
Dong Deng, the throat and gateway of Lang Mountain, is only less than 4 kilometers away from the mainland friendship pass, guarding the Sino-Vietnamese border artery. It can be said that if our army wants to enter northern Vietnam, then it must first take Dong Dang, and if it can't take Dong Deng, even if the PLA has a million people, don't want to send a single person into Vietnam.
(Vietnamese Army)
The garrison in Dong Dang area is the 3rd Division of the Vietnamese Army, which has a total of four infantry regiments, two artillery regiments, two independent battalions and four public security villages. This so-called public security village is actually the stronghold of the Vietnamese border guards. The public security in the public security village is, in fact, the main border defense force in Vietnam. Most of these people are veterans and are quite familiar with the terrain of the Sino-Vietnamese border.
Due to the Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia, the vast majority of the main forces of the Vietnamese army were active in the central and southern regions of Vietnam. In particular, the 3rd Division, the "ace unit" of the Vietnamese army, is always nailed to the front line. However, the Sino-Vietnamese border is Vietnam's "rear", and the Third Division does not understand the local situation, so without these border public security, the Third Division really can't play well.
In addition to the 3rd Division, some units of the other two divisions of the Vietnamese Army were also assisting in the defense of the Dong Dang area, and their unity was under the command of the 3rd Division. The number of Vietnamese troops here is more than 22,000 people. Garrisoned in the Ban Trang area is the 5th Battalion of the 12th Regiment of the 3rd Division, which, together with the Vietnamese border public security, has created a close military-civilian joint defense system, which can be described as "impregnable".
(Vietnamese Army)
Most of the officers of the third battalion had participated in the Vietnam War, and they were seasoned veterans. But most of the ordinary soldiers in the third battalion were recruits who enlisted in 1978. But because of the protracted nature of the Vietnam War, these soldiers, in fact, were also "the generation that grew up in the war", and just joining the army did not mean that they had no actual combat experience.
On the contrary, these Vietnamese soldiers have been nurtured by the Vietnam War for a long time, and their actual combat capability may be even stronger than that of many "veterans" in our army. After all, the mainland at the end of the 70s was actually "peaceful for a long time".
(Vietnamese Army)
Second, the war began
After the start of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the first to meet our army was the Vietnamese garrison in Cao Binh. After all, Cao Bang is an area directly bordering the mainland in Vietnam, and it is also the first entrance for our army.
However, if our army only blindly attacks the Vietnamese army in Cao Binh, then it will inevitably not be able to completely annihilate the enemy, because the terrain of Vietnam is complicated, and the Vietnamese army has the ability to retreat calmly.
However, it is precisely because of the complexity of the terrain in northern Vietnam that it means that if our army can cut off the rear route of the Cao Ping Vietnamese army, then the Gao Ping Vietnamese army will inevitably be completely annihilated by our army. Therefore, in order to achieve this strategic concept, and at the same time to block the enemy's possible northern reinforcement, our army decided to send several divisions as interspersed troops to break through the enemy's layers of defense and cut off the enemy's rear route.
(Soldier)
At the beginning of the operation, the plan of our army was quite smooth. On February 17, the day of the operation, our army first launched 15 minutes of fire preparation for the enemy's target, and within 15 minutes, a full 6,000 shells were fired.
After opening up the situation, our army began to encircle the Tongdeng area in two ways, trying to completely open up the road and complete the encirclement of Gaoping. On the day of the operation, our army took the road from Tongdeng to Taiyuan, and basically achieved the goal of repelling the enemy from Tongdeng. However, when our army tried to further expand the gains of the battle, it was blocked by the enemy on three sides.
(Vietnamese Army)
Our troops, not yet fully prepared, sent tank armored units into battle, but they were stopped by enemy anti-tank weapons. Four tanks of our army were hit and could not move, and the offensive line of our army was blocked, and in this case, our army no longer had the conditions to continue the offensive on that day and was forced to begin to shrink the defensive line.
But when our troops began to shrink tactically, the enemy was also unable to counterattack our troops through the road. Therefore, the night after the operation ended was a rare and peaceful night for both China and Vietnam. That night, our troops went into operation again and began to try to attack in the direction of Ban Trang.
However, the 361st Regiment, which was responsible for attacking the direction of Banzhuang, was forced to stop marching and organize defense on the spot because the deputy division commander who followed the operation heard that "the plan had changed". It was precisely because of this order of the deputy division commander that the operation of the 361 regiment was forced to be delayed by 4 hours. At four o'clock in the morning of the 18th, the division headquarters learned that the 361st Regiment had stopped, and only then did it order the regiment to continue advancing.
(Vietnamese Army)
It was because of the four hours that this fell, causing the original night attack to become a daytime attack. It was precisely because of the four-hour delay that most of the equipment of our troops was not in place at the beginning of the offensive. The 361st Regiment was in fact forced to launch an attack on Banzhuang in a very passive situation.
3. The reverse side of the coin
On the other hand, looking at the Vietnamese army on the opposite side at this time, the other party's preparations were quite sufficient. After more than half a year of preparations, the local fortifications can be said to be quite perfect. There are not only general fortifications, but also a variety of communication trenches, bunkers, shelters and even minefields, although the field fortifications of the Vietnamese army are not very strong, but they are better than the number of various fortifications, and there are many positions that can be used to hide.
Moreover, in addition to the standing ammunition base, the Vietnamese army also prepared additional ammunition and food in Ban Trang, which was enough for the Vietnamese army to use for an additional week. Moreover, the Vietnamese army also has the cooperation of the militia and the police, who are very familiar with the surrounding terrain and have local interpersonal and intelligence networks.
(Vietnamese Army)
The local Vietnamese people are, in fact, the "eyes" of the Vietnamese army, and the public security itself will also undertake patrol tasks, and the information provided by the public security is often very reliable. This also made the Vietnamese troops stationed in Ban Trang only need to do a good job of fortification defense with peace of mind, and do not need to "worry about patrolling and intelligence work".
The five battalions of the Vietnamese army stationed in Ban Trang are equipped with three infantry companies and one firepower company, and relatively speaking, at least in terms of firepower, the division is not weaker than our army's. Moreover, this battalion also has specially strengthened recoilless guns. This also means that when our army attacks Banzhuang, it will inevitably face a more difficult situation.
And as we mentioned earlier, due to the delay of four hours, many units of our army, especially fire support units, have not yet arrived. Therefore, in the battle of Ban Traung, the firepower of our army was actually weaker than that of the Vietnamese army. In the morning of the same day, our troops launched an attack on the Vietnamese army.
(Vietnamese Army)
The first to be destroyed was the barbed wire fence carefully set up by the Vietnamese army, and generally speaking, when the infantry attacked, it was enough to open a gap in the barbed wire. However, after breaking through the barbed wire, the PLA is still using explosives to bombard the barbed wire and try to destroy the barbed wire in a large area. Faced with this situation, the commander of the Vietnamese army immediately realized a problem, that is, the PLA is likely to have tanks or armored vehicles in the future.
The Vietnamese army is not afraid of the infantry of the People's Liberation Army, not to mention that the Vietnamese army also has recoilless artillery. But the Vietnamese army did not dare to directly deal with the tanks of the PLA, after all, flesh and blood could not deal with steel. Therefore, the commander of the Vietnamese front decisively ordered a retreat, and the whole army retreated behind the anti-tank trenches.
This decision proved to be an incomparably wise decision after the fact. Because the Vietnamese army concentrated its superior forces, although the PLA advanced relatively smoothly in the early stage, after penetrating deep into the enemy's position, it was attacked by the enemy's brutal firepower. At this time, the recoilless artillery of the Vietnamese army played a great role, and the battle was intensive. The fighters of our army were unable to fight back for a while.
(Self-defense counterattack against Vietnam)
The tanks of the PLA tried to break through the positions of the enemy troops, but were stopped by anti-tank trenches and were forced to stall their advance. At this moment, the Vietnamese army seized the opportunity and damaged our tanks with recoilless artillery.
Our tanks were forced to begin to retreat, and the infantry, having lost fire cover, could not afford to continue the attack alone. It was only possible to retreat, and in this battle, the losses of our troops even amounted to three times that of the Vietnamese army!
The Battle of Ban Trang was undoubtedly a great victory for the Vietnamese army, after all, during the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, the Vietnamese army rarely won victories. However, the battle of Banzhuang did not come to an end, and from the 18th to the 19th, our army never took Banzhuang. Because of the unknown enemy situation, complex terrain, insufficient firepower, and insufficient covering forces and many other reasons.
(Self-defense counterattack against Vietnam)
Banzhuang is the core of Tongdeng area, which is located in the northwest of Tongdeng area and the southwest of Gaoping area, belonging to Tongdeng, 6 kilometers away from the mainland. This is the traffic artery connecting Gaoping to Tongdeng, but the terrain is relatively complex, and it is a typical terrain that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. This also means that if our army can take Ban Trang, it will actually be able to lock up the Vietnamese army in the Gaoping area.
Until the night of the 19th, the strength of our army in the Banzhuang area had even reached the strength of a division at one time. At this time, our army finally began to launch an encirclement and suppression offensive against the enemy in Ban Trang, but within two days, the Vietnamese army was not completely unprepared. The plan of the Vietnamese army was very simple, there was only one word, and that was to run.
According to the Vietnamese prisoners of war captured by our troops, the Vietnamese commander of Ban Trang realized that the defense was hopeless, so he led the remnants of the Vietnamese army to flee to Cao Bang to continue the resistance. Therefore, although our army occupied Banzhuang, it was as if it had hit the cotton with a punch. Moreover, the situation faced by our army at that time was more complicated, because the logistics were not in place at that time, and our army in the Banzhuang area even ran out of food.
(War)
But after the occupation of Banzhuang, this urgent need was alleviated to a certain extent. As we mentioned earlier, the Vietnamese army prepared a large amount of food in Ban Trang. Although our army did not completely annihilate the enemy army in Banzhuang, it captured the grain stored by the enemy army in Banzhuang. Although the food of one battalion is certainly not enough for one division, it can barely last two days.
In the past two days, the logistical supplies of our army have been put in place, and the problem of food shortages has been solved. But the battle of Banzhuang was still a losing battle. Summing up the experience of our army after the war, it mainly raised nine questions:
(War)
1. Before the war, the research and investigation of the enemy and the terrain was insufficient, and there was a lack of multi-hand preparation.
2. The battlefield reconnaissance work is not in place, and there are countless enemies in their hearts.
3. When encountering problems, reporting to the superior is not timely and comprehensive enough, which affects the overall judgment of the superior.
4. After penetrating into the designated position, the entire superior firepower was not concentrated in the most needed position, which delayed the fighter.
5. The style of ordering and prohibiting in peacetime is insufficient, and military commanders have situations where they make their own claims.
6. Tactical training in peacetime is not comprehensive enough, and the ability to adapt to complex combat situations is lacking.
7. Insufficient understanding of large-depth and interspersed operations, and insufficient logistical work.
8. The commander's ability to be on the spot was too poor, which caused large losses.
9. The low political concept has led to the emergence of problems of principle and discipline.
(War)
It seems that there are many problems, but in the subsequent battles, all these problems have been solved by our army. This is precisely the fine tradition and consistent style of our army, which is not afraid of problems, but is afraid that problems will not be solved. It is precisely under the guidance of this kind of thinking that our army can become stronger and stronger.
Resources
The 55th Army of the Army attacked and fought in the Dong Dang and Lang Son areas. [OL].2009.02.16.
The 41st Army's 121st Division was interspersed with battles in the Banzhuang and Kutun areas. [OL].
Anonymous.Cannon Regiment Eighth Company Battle Diary[J]., 2020, 000(011):P.27-27.