Chapter 1631: Chapter 1548: Battle for Ben, Again
In fact, the situation of the Tang Army was not as good as they imagined: after controlling Ben, the more than 150,000 civilians here, nearly 10,000 prisoners of war, and at least two thousand routed soldiers remaining in the city would not disappear into thin air.
The Tang Army, which attacked with great speed, controlled most of the city, but they still could not resolve all the troubles immediately.
To handle the Dwarf prisoners, the Tang Army had to allocate a portion of the troops to supervise and guard these soldiers who had surrendered their weapons. Of course, this group also had the task of eradicating the Dwarf deserters hiding and fleeing within the city.
In addition, the Tang Army had to transport subsequent supplies to Ben for nearby Tang Army troops to use and consume--since the weapons and ammunition of both sides were completely different, the Tang Army did not care for the Dwarf’s leftover junk in the warehouses.
The food prepared for the soldiers by the Dwarves was of very poor quality. Tang Army soldiers would not eat those rotten potatoes and moldy bread unless absolutely necessary.
As for other things, it’s unlikely any Tang Nation soldiers would want to try on Dwarven pants--the crotch position is different...
So almost all supplies had to be snatched from the beach and transported into Ben City, which greatly tested the Tang Army’s logistics capabilities. The good news was that the Tang Army’s logistics forces were the best in the world. The bad news was that even at full effort, they could only manage to get about a tenth of the supplies into Ben City.
Meanwhile, the Tang Army used the brief rest to rotate troops, moving the more combat-effective 2nd Paratrooper Division into Ben City, and replacing the previously engaged 1st Paratrooper Division’s 1st and 2nd Battalions to the relatively calmer east of the city.
However, this rotation placed the fatigued troops of the 1st Paratrooper Division in the direction where the Dwarves were preparing a counterattack. Moreover, they were facing a more elite and fierce enemy.
After more than 40 hours of continuous combat, Xiang Ziyu arrived at their position, which was much better than expected, with underground shelters fit for sleeping, and bunkers suitable for vigilance and combat.
The Dwarves had built their defense lines too completely, so when the Tang Army occupied these defensive works, they could immediately utilize them.
Rubbing his tired eyes, Xiang Ziyu sat on his own bed, with a heavy tactical backpack at his feet and weapons within easy reach.
They were paratroopers, a type of troop born to fight among enemies, always preparing for battle, which was their exclusive honor.
"The armored reconnaissance company of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Armored Division has been sent out, and our own sentinels are also in place," the deputy battalion commander said, then started snoring before he could even lie down.
Xiang Ziyu also drifted off to sleep without knowing when he closed his eyes. A wave of drowsiness hit, and then he collapsed onto his bed.
The distant rumble of anti-aircraft guns and the explosion of bombs hitting the ground did not disturb anyone; the overly fatigued Great Tang Paratroopers simply ignored the noise and slept soundly in their positions.
On the other side of the battlefield, the 2nd Paratrooper Division, pushed up to continue fighting, was still busy, establishing a defensive line along the edges of the city and resisting enemy attacks.
If the Dwarf troops were allowed back into the city, the enemy might exploit the familiar terrain and the routed soldiers in the city to some advantage, causing significant trouble for the Tang Army.
These elite Tang Army soldiers used ruins and buildings to construct their defensive positions, with well-equipped machine gun placements and clear arrangements for various firepower points.
They were veterans of countless battles, with potentially more parachute jumps than their opponents had live-fire training sessions.
After command after command echoed, around eight in the evening, the western Tang Army forces were ready for combat, while the Dwarf Troops preparing to attack them were unaware that their actions had long been exposed.
Communication was intercepted, actions discovered, and the convoy composed of two divisions and one regiment of the Dwarf 2nd Corps’ reserves advancing almost openly had not fully assembled.
These troops realistically could not fully assemble to launch an attack: the Tang Army possessed air supremacy, and bringing such a large scale of forces together could not be entirely deployed.
So, from the map, these Dwarf Troops seemed almost like a line. An armored column led the way, with infantry following on the flanks and behind, presenting a frontage width of less than one kilometer.
At about nine o’clock, intense combat erupted in the ruins on the west side of Ben City, where the Dwarves finally clashed with their real opponents who had intercepted them.
In the previous hour, they had been lucky enough, with General Harev even considering the Tang Army hadn’t fully controlled Ben City, believing his troops could easily penetrate the urban area.
However, reality proved him overly optimistic. After encountering the Tang Army’s defense line, his forces immediately reported heavy losses: in the first wave, they lost at least 10 tanks, the battlefield was filled with burning fires, and the two attacking infantry battalions had nearly entirely lost their fighting ability.
The firepower of the Tang Army Paratroopers was shocking to the Dwarves; tanks were destroyed by rockets, and the following infantry were suppressed by grenades and mortars, resulting in a one-sided slaughter.
Harev realized his recklessness, understanding the suitability of General Moss’s proposed turtle tactics for the Dwarves only after hitting an iron wall.
Unfortunately, it was too late: around ten in the evening, the Dwarf counterattack troops on the west side of Ben City suffered a violent airstrike from the Tang Nation Air Force and Navy Air Force.
The forces initially deployed were not lost on the attacking battlefield but were destroyed on the highway while waiting in line at the rear.
The cluster bombs deployed by the Tang Army were exceptionally effective when attacking gathering targets, and after several air raids, the Dwarf’s attacking forces were nearly paralyzed along the roadsides.
This was no joke: the intact heavy equipment blocked the road with the wreckage of destroyed equipment, and the troops leaving the road had to face the Tang Army’s subsequent air assaults at a slow marching pace.
Because it was nighttime, the Dwarves’ anti-aircraft guns were merely decorations, and so-called anti-aircraft camouflage measures were utterly ineffective. From the perspective of the Tang Nation Air Force pilots, the Dwarve units’ dark red long lines stood out vividly in the night, clearer than the targets they used during training.