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Mr. Ren
Editor|Mr. Ren
On October 20, 1962, the self-defense counterattack against India officially began, and the elite troops of China and India launched a fierce battle on the Sino-Indian border.
However, in the course of the fierce battle, the front-line infantry commanders of our army had great opinions about the artillery that came to support, and at one time wanted to enforce battlefield discipline against them.
The elite 7th Brigade, the Indian army that participated in World War II, can't help fighting
On the first day of the war, the three regiments of the 419 troops, the main force of our army, rushed to the Kejielang River Valley on the Eastern Front, and according to intelligence, the enemy on the opposite side was the Seventh Brigade of the Indian Army, which had fought with the British Army during World War II, and was the ace unit of the Indian Army that participated in the North African battlefield and the Allied landing in Normandy, and had rich combat experience.
Out of prudence, the PLA decided to proceed cautiously and was prepared to treat the Seventh Brigade as the most difficult bone to fight in its pre-war preparations.
In order to strengthen firepower, the logistics units of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) transported the most advanced artillery pieces in China to the front line, but at that time, when the PLA entered Tibet, there were no railways or roads, and it was not easy to cross the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of several thousand meters.
Cannons and howitzers were transported by mules and horses to a short distance from the front line of the position, and then the fighters carried various weapons to the position on their shoulders. The place where the Sino-Indian conflict occurred was in the Kejielang Mountains, at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, and the soldiers of the transport company were too busy to carry enough shells to the front line.
In order to supplement the firepower, the 419th Regiment of the 155th Unit also used the flying thunder canister during the Liberation War, which is the famous "conscienceless cannon".
At that time, the political commissar of Unit 419 also encouraged everyone to learn from the spirit of the Volunteers in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
At 7:30 a.m. on October 20, the battle began, two signal flares soared into the sky, the People's Liberation Army artillery fire was fully opened, half of the sky was reddened by firelight, and the front line resounded. The infantry then charged and began a fierce assault on the Indian army's position.
When the soldiers approached the Indian position, they found that the Indian army was not fully prepared for combat, all their ammunition and supplies were waiting to be sent by helicopters, and India's military industry was not developed, they thought that the PLA was the same, and would not attack suddenly, and only when the artillery shells of the PLA on the opposite side came, did they think of a counterattack, and they were really frightened by the sudden PLA.
The battlefield disobeyed, and the commander of the artillery regiment made great contributions
The Indian army retreated in formation, and the elite 7th Brigade, which participated in World War II, was no exception, and the front-line troops quickly captured strategic points such as Gun, Karong, and Shaze.
However, the problem is that the front-line troops attacked too quickly, and the rear troops could not be contacted for a while, and the southern Tibet region was rainy, humid, often foggy, and the visibility was very low. The PLA was fighting in the dense forest, and for a time the distant command post could not distinguish between friendly and enemy forces.
At this time, the commander of our division saw the enemy retreating in the headquarters and ordered the commander of the artillery regiment to hurry up and open fire and not let the enemy go, but the commander of the artillery regiment of Unit 419 insisted in the observation room of the front line that he could not open artillery, saying that it was possible that the pursuing officers and men of our army had been entangled with the enemy.
However, the division commander ordered the artillery to be fired twice in a row, but the commander of the artillery regiment refused, preferring to disobey the order rather than take the risk of shooting, and this behavior directly made the division commander so angry that he stomped his feet and wanted to pull out the commander and deputy commander of the artillery regiment and shoot them to enforce battlefield discipline.
The reason given by the commander of the artillery regiment was that they saw in the telescope that there were countless white dots running on the front line, and it was expected that the PLA had already pursued them, and the reason was that the PLA had come to the front line from the north of Tibet.
In order to keep out the cold on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, they wore cotton military uniforms, and in the primeval forest, the cotton military uniforms were scraped open by sharp branches, revealing the cotton wool inside, and the Indian army was brought from the heat on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and they wore Indian linen military uniforms, and there was no such cotton military uniform.
However, thanks to the fact that the commander of the artillery regiment discovered this detail, he took the risk of disobeying on the battlefield and refused to fire the cannon before figuring out whether it was friend or foe.
And the commander of our army in the command headquarters really didn't expect the Indian Army's ace 7th Brigade to be so unresistant, beyond the scope of his imagination, so he ordered artillery fire to reinforce the front line according to the original plan, and the front line at this time was already occupied by our army, if the shells hit over, 1 battalion of our army would be gone.
In this way, the meticulous and persistent efforts of the commander of the artillery regiment saved the front-line soldiers, and the PLA completed the original 72-hour combat mission in only three hours, winning the first victory in the self-defense counterattack against India.
Indian prisoners: The Chinese army was able to cope with such difficulties
After the elite 7th Brigade of the Indian Army was dispersed, Brigade Darvi ran into the mountains, but within a few days he escaped from the rainforest. He was caught by the soldiers of the artillery company of the 154th Regiment of our army while patrolling, and the reason was that he was really hungry.
A few days later, Singh, the commander of the 62nd Brigade of the Indian Army, was also killed by our soldiers. On the other side of the battlefield, although the Indian army was prepared, the Indian army's combat plan was really backward.
Their army follows the British discipline of the First World War, which has not been updated since the British left, and India has been independent for more than ten years, and their army's interspersed fighting style and cutting and encirclement tactics have never been seen before, so naturally they can't beat it. Until November 21, when the self-defense counterattack against India ended, all the strongholds of the Indian army in the western part of the mainland were cleared, and more than 8,700 Indian troops were killed and captured.
In China's prisoner of war camps, when the Red Cross Society of the Indian Army came to receive prisoners of war, they also asked our soldiers how much they were paid a month to fight so hard and endure hardships, and the answer of the person in charge of our army was even more stunned by the Indian army, our People's Liberation Army does not need money to mobilize to fight a war, we are all compulsory soldiers, and it is natural to defend our homes and defend the country.
The Indians do not believe these words, they have always believed in the concept of Western refinement and self-interest, regard the honor of soldiers as a child's play, and retreat or surrender once the war situation is unfavorable, and regard surrender as a matter of course. They can't bear the hardships at all, and they need the government to provide high military salaries before they are willing to go to the front, otherwise they will strike.
These Indian prisoners also watched the art troupe come to the condolence performance in the military region, and admired the female soldiers who came to the front line.
It can be seen that the defeat of the Indian army was all-round, and they were completely defeated by our army in terms of military will, weaponry, and tactics.