On November 27, 1950, during the Second Battle to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, an important battle took place on the Eastern Front battlefield - the Battle of Changjin Lake. The battle was fought by the Ninth Corps led by Song Shilun against the 1st Division of the U.S. Marine Corps. The 9th Corps successfully surrounded the enemy, but failed to completely annihilate the enemy army, and only destroyed one regiment of enemy troops. Compared with the tactics of Su Yu when he led Sanye, there was almost no difference in the tactics adopted by Song Shilun in the Battle of Changjin Lake. However, why did Song Shilun fail to achieve total annihilation when encircling the enemy army like Su Yu did?This can be attributed to the different styles of the commanders. Although both Song Shilun and Su Yu were generals of Huaye, their command styles differed. Chen Shiyu and Su Yu's conducting styles are similarly very different, and this is not an isolated case.
Nowadays, when it comes to Su Yu, the most commonly used evaluation is "good at commanding a large corps to fight" and "good at winning more with less." These two evaluations are very accurate objective facts, and the seven victories in the Soviet-Chinese campaign are the best proof of this. Observing Su Yu's combat style, you will find that other people's combat methods can trace their movements, but Su Yu's combat is always unpredictable. His operational command was almost always improvised, either by abruptly massing forces on the march to divide and encircle the enemy, or by taking the enemy by surprise by a sudden counterattack while evading the enemy's pursuit. Su Yu's operational command did not have a fixed model, so he avoided rigidity in thinking. It is almost impossible to deduce his next move, and it is difficult to elusive his exact goal even in an after-the-fact analysis.
Attacking from the east to the west, making a surprise attack, and quickly assembling local forces to annihilate the enemy's main division were all Su Yu's routine operations. However, it is impossible to infer his strategic thinking from the way he used his troops, and it seems that any place and any direction could become a place for his troops. Su Yu's strategic intentions confused the senior Kuomintang officers, and even the commanders of the columns he commanded were sometimes unable to figure out Su Yu's next move. In the hinterland of Mengyin, Su Yu broke the routine and insisted on sending the main column to Tai'an City, successfully defeated the reorganized 72nd Division, and captured the division commander. What's going on with this kind of "fairy battle"?In fact, it is a surprising and winning tactic, which makes the opponent unpredictable, and even his own people can't think of it. Su Yu's thinking of using troops is not constrained, and he can always hit the key points and achieve strategic victories, which is precisely his essence.
Although Huaye's tactics are good at the tactics of many units of our army, they are not surprisingly successful, but under the leadership of Su Yu, they shine with dazzling light. Although Song Shilun was influenced by Su Yu and also had Su Yu's shadow in tactics, he also had his own unique ideas, which were different from Su Yu's thinking. In addition, the Battle of Changjin Lake was a major victory that shocked the world, and the Volunteer Army completely annihilated a well-equipped American Army Hero Regiment when the strength of the US Army was completely unequal, and such a record is enough to go down in history. However, there were also regrets in this battle, namely the heavy attrition of non-combat personnel, and the failure to completely annihilate the opponent while besieging the American army.
Judging from the course of the Battle of Changjin Lake, there was no problem with the tactics carried out by Song Shilun's Ninth Corps, and even had the style of Su Yu's personal command, and he used tactics such as interspersing and encircling and dividing the enemy to successfully surround the enemy and basically achieve the tactical goal. Every battle is textbook-level, and Su Yu always uses surprising tactics to achieve strategic victories, which is the essence of his work. The tactics used in the Korean battlefield seem to be similar to Su Yu's, but they are all significantly different in terms of troops, timing, and other factors, and it can be said that each has its own strengths and advantages. Besieging an enemy army is the ultimate goal of any tactic, but a prolonged siege can also weaken the besieging side's power.
The U.S. military has air supremacy, and their planes can unscrupulously disrupt the supply lines of the Volunteers, and they can also constantly airdrop supplies to the besieged U.S. Army, which has adversely affected the Volunteers for a long time. Su Yu faced the same problem when commanding operations, but he was always able to deliver a fatal blow to the besieged enemy when launching an attack, give full play to the strength of the troops in his hands, and at the same time block the enemy's reinforcements, quickly weaken the strength of the besieged enemy army, and even use the besieged enemy army as a bait to expand the results of the battle by encircling the point to send reinforcements. This ability mainly comes from Su Yu's deep understanding of the enemy's situation, and after years of fighting, he has a thorough understanding of the senior generals of the Kuomintang army and their combat methods, so he is extremely targeted and able to command battles steadily, accurately, and quickly.
In contrast, when Song Shilun fought against the 1st Marine Division, an elite unit of the US army, he did not have such a foundation, and even the volunteer army was not clear about the establishment of the US army at that time. The combat effectiveness of the 1st Marine Division of the US Army is far from being comparable to that of the main division of the Kuomintang Army, and its firepower even exceeds that of an army. Compared with the Kuomintang army, the firepower of the US army is obviously stronger, coupled with the poor equipment of the volunteers, Song Shilun's Ninth Corps even lacked cotton clothes before entering Korea, resulting in an extremely difficult combat environment. Taking these factors into consideration, although Song Shilun had reached the realm of perfection in the use of tactics such as division and encirclement, and had realized the strategic intention of encircling the superior forces of the US army, because the firepower of the three armies of the Volunteer Army was not superior, it was difficult to completely annihilate the enemy even if the strength of the other side was three times that of the other side.
Therefore, when the besieged U.S. troops launched a trapped-beast fight, the volunteers could not quickly break through the enemy's position, let alone use the besieged enemy army as bait to encircle and send reinforcements. Song Shilun used tactics similar to Su Yu on the Korean battlefield and showed his might, but due to various factors, he was unable to completely annihilate the enemy. On the difficult and treacherous Korean battlefield, in the face of the army of the world's number one power, it was already an extraordinary achievement to be able to annihilate a regiment of the enemy in an orderly manner. The situation of the enemy and the enemy is different, and the battlefield environment is different, but the spirit of the soldiers of Sanye who are not afraid of hardships and dangers and fight to the death has always been the same, which is deeply admirable.