Empire Conquest
Chapter 404 - 400 Misjudging the Enemy Situation

Chapter 404: Chapter 400 Misjudging the Enemy Situation

In the afternoon, the defense finally launched a reprisal, and it was the Newland Army.

After hours of fierce combat, the landing forces managed to stabilize the beachhead with the support of the fire support fleet and began to advance inland.

To be precise, they had established a defensive line around the perimeter of the landing zone.

In fact, there were already signs at that time that there were definitely more than 100 Newland military personnel on Sai Island because by that afternoon, hundreds of enemies had appeared.

Unfortunately, no one became vigilant.

In the evening, Major General Tu Zhangang, the overall commander of the Marine Corps, asked Lieutenant Colonel Tong Mingbo, the frontline commander of the Marine Corps, whether it was necessary to send more troops ashore at night and to keep the fire support fleet in place, postponing the resupply of ammunition to the following morning.

This meant that the 41st Special Mixed Fleet would have to stay for an extra day, which was the morning of the 28th, to provide support for the landing forces while the fire support fleet withdrew to replenish ammunition, ensuring that the landing forces could advance into the heart of the island during the ten-plus daylight hours.

These plans were actually written into the operational plan and were not ad hoc adjustments.

Lieutenant Colonel Tong Mingbo saw no need for this and decided to proceed as originally planned.

Shortly after nightfall, the 41st Special Mixed Fleet turned northward.

It wasn’t a retreat, but rather to rendezvous with the fleet’s oil tankers to the north and also to replenish some ammunition suitable for ground targets.

Since both carriers had to be replenished and all the battleships needed to refuel, the 41st Special Mixed Fleet would not be able to return until the night of the 28th. If they were still to deploy ship-borne air force for support missions, they would not be able to re-enter the battle until the morning of the 29th.

According to the plan, the fire support fleet was to undertake the support mission on the 28th.

That’s why the fire support fleet also left the landing zone that evening to meet with the supply ship fleet, aiming to complete the ammunition resupply overnight.

Mainly, the main gun ammunition of several cruisers was nearly depleted.

Although there were still plenty of high-altitude gun rounds, previous battles had proven that 130mm shells were simply not sufficient against solid permanent fortifications. At times, even the 150mm main guns of light cruisers and the 200mm main guns of heavy cruisers were inadequate.

The only firepower that was sufficient came from the main guns of the battleships.

This was the main reason why the Imperial Navy converted all their old battleships to fire support ships in the latter stages of the war.

The fire support fleet left the landing zone at 9:30 p.m.

In other words, from this time until dawn on the 28th, the Marine Corps that had landed on Sai Island should not expect support from the fleet.

That was almost a 10-hour span.

It was during these 10 hours that the landing forces faced their most serious challenge.

Seemingly aware that the fire support fleet had retreated, the enemy counterattack began shortly after 10 p.m., with the Newland Army still as the main force.

At that moment, Tong Mingbo still had the opportunity to correct the mistake he had made.

He could have called the 41st Special Mixed Fleet before 10 p.m. to send back the heavy cruisers, or even the "Yuejiang" Fast Battleship.

Even the return of just one heavy cruiser with its fierce artillery could have repelled the enemy’s counterattack.

Unfortunately, Tong Mingbo did not call the 41st Special Mixed Fleet.

According to the Marine Corps’ battle reports, because it was a hundred or so Saiyi soldiers who initiated the counterattack, Tong Mingbo made the wrong judgment.

That is to say, Tong Mingbo believed it was a desperate counterattack from the Saiyi defenders.

By the early morning, the defensive line at the perimeter of the landing zone had been breached by the enemy.

By then, Tong Mingbo had realized the severity of the situation, but the 41st Special Mixed Fleet had sailed north for a few hours, and given their previous distance of over 200 kilometers from Sai Island, even if the heavy cruisers and Fast Battleship were ordered south immediately, they could not arrive before dawn.

As for the fire support fleet, those cruisers had already rendezvoused with the supply ships.

Because the ammunition resupply operation had already begun and was expected to last for several hours, all of the cruisers had lowered their boiler pressure to save fuel.

Even if the resupply operation were to be stopped immediately, there was no way to return to the landing site at once.

After intense fighting until 3 a.m., the outer defensive perimeter of the landing site had almost completely collapsed, and over a thousand Marines had retreated to the beachhead positions.

The enemy numbered not merely a few hundred, but thousands!

Crucially, they had mortars and other heavy weapons, with an ample supply of ammunition, bombarding the beachhead held by the Marine Corps throughout the night.

This was clearly not the Saiyi Army.

At this critical juncture, Major General Tu Zhangang dispatched over ten landing crafts, ferrying the second wave of Marine Corps and several dozen machine guns to the beach.

In addition, he ordered a landing ship equipped with cannon to storm the beach to provide fire support for the landing forces.

The key lay in the dozens of heavy machine guns brought by the landing craft.

Without these machine guns, the Marines who had landed might not have been able to hold out until dawn.

If the enemy had reached the beach before daylight, the thousand Marines defending the beachhead would have certainly been killed in action or wounded and captured.

Moreover, once the enemy had stormed the beach, it would no longer be possible to provide fire support.

By the break of dawn, the Marines on the beach were either dead or injured, squeezed against the shore, and desperately holding out behind a defensive line formed by a dozen machine guns.

Fortunately, the shipborne aircraft from the 41st Special Mixed Fleet arrived in the nick of time.

However, these were not bombers, but over a dozen fighters carrying small bombs.

Only "Xiaotian" could fly more than 600 kilometers from their carriers, and, after dropping their bombs, return to the fleet.

Although these fighters did not linger long over Sai Island, simply releasing their bombs before heading back, with at most a strafing run after bombing, their presence greatly boosted the morale of the Marines and had a significantly deterrent effect on the enemy.

With that, the enemy’s reprisal actions also came to an abrupt end.

By then, Tong Mingbo had learned that the adversary was the Newland Army.

There was no doubt about it; around the Marine Corps’ defensive line lay the corpses of Newland soldiers, specifically those from the elite 1st Marine Division.

Crucially, the enemy losses that night exceeded a thousand, almost twice the initial estimates.

There must have been more than a thousand Newland servicemen on Sai Island.

Furthermore, given the intensity of the enemy’s reprisal and the heavy firepower involved in their counterattacks, it was clear that the 1st Newland Marine Division had been well-prepared.

There was every reason to believe that the enemy had not been defeated and still retained considerable combat power.

That was precisely why Tu Zhangang made urgent tactical adjustments to the amphibious assault.

First and foremost, the 41st Special Mixed Fleet was to delay its withdrawal and leave the "Yuejiang" along with several heavy cruisers to form a second fire support fleet.

To complete the resupply, the Bai Zhizhan also sent two supply ships to accompany the second fire support fleet south.

This way, once the first fire support fleet returned, the five battleships of the second fire support fleet would be able to refuel.

If there was to be a hard battle on Sai Island, it was essential first to ensure that the battleships had enough fuel.

The result was that what was originally thought to be an easy amphibious assault had morphed into a tough fight, compounded with many complications.

Luckily, with the presence of the second fire support fleet, especially after the "Yuejiang" made its presence known with its 350mm colossal shells, the enemy backed down.

However, this was merely the beginning of the fierce struggle for Sai Island.