主题：【溜子撞墙记】草原战火——诺门罕事件（上） -- 冰冷雨天

The Kwantung Army decided that a division size attack was needed to oust the Soviets and their allies. This opera tion began on 1 July when the 23d Division's 71st and 72d Infantry Regiments seized the high ground overlooking the Halha about eighteen kilometers north of its confluence with the Holsten River. On 2 July this force crossed the Halha and drove Soviet units from Baintsagan Heights. Simultaneously, an armored task force consisting of the 3d and 4th Tank Regiments (seventy-three tanks total), the 64th Infantry Regiment, and the 2d Battalion, 28th Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, attacked Soviet positions on the Halha's east bank. (See Map 4.)

Although initially successful, the Japanese drive on the Halha's west bank stalled by dusk of 3 July. General Zhukov, realizing the Japanese threat to his artillery on the west bank, committed his 11th Tank Brigade (minus one battalion), 7th Motorized Armored Brigade, and the 24th Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 36th Motorized Rifle Division, including approximately 186 tanks and 266 armored cars, against the Japanese forces on the west bank. Zhukov accepted the risk of sending armor unsupported by infantry against the Japanese soldiers because his own infantry formations still had not appeapred at the front, and he believed that to await their arrival would squander an opportunity to destroy the Japanese.

The unsupported Soviet tanks and armored cars rolled forward and did blunt the Japanese offensive. The cost, however, to both sides was high. Japanese troops destroyed at least 120 Soviet tanks or armored cars with Molotov cocktails, 37-mm antitank guns, and antitank mines. The Japanese, in turn, lost several hundred troops killed or wounded. Moreover, the Japanese forces depended for resupply on one pontoon bridge across the Halha. the rest of the Japanese bridging equipment having been diverted to the China front. This single bridge proved unable to handle the amount of ammunition and equipment required if the Japanese were to continue the battle. Over the next two days, consequently, the Japanese withdrew to the east bank of the Halha.

apanese infantry with heavy machine gun operating on two Soviet armored cars. Halha probably on 3 July. Note two Soviet armored cars.