The battle was opened by artillery, and the artillery units of seven divisions were concentrated and carried out an overwhelming artillery bombardment of American positions. When the shells rained down on the position, blowing up clouds of fireballs and smoke, and the earth shook with it, it was a shocking sight. Ever since the Imperial Army first used artillery intensively hundreds of years ago, artillery has become the "king of war".

Comparatively speaking, the Imperial Army did not attach as much importance to artillery as some other countries, such as Russia, and Germany. And it was the emerging aviation that affected the status of artillery.

During the First Global War, artillery was the most powerful and almost the only supporting firepower. At that time, there were no strategic bombers capable of flying hundreds or even thousands of kilometers behind the enemy's lines, and those bombers used during the first global war had an extremely limited bomb load and therefore could not shake the position of artillery. At that time, in order to be able to bombard important targets behind the enemy's defensive lines, many countries, including the Tang Empire, created "super artillery", among which the "Paris Cannon" of the German Army was the most representative. This artillery can hit shells more than 100 kilometers away, need to be transported by train, and each shell fired takes dozens of minutes of preparation time. In terms of technology at the time, this was definitely a "heavyweight" superweapon.

Artillery can also be regarded as the iconic weapon of the first global war. In trench warfare, dominated by barbed wire, machine guns, trenches, the enormous lethality of artillery is beyond doubt. Moreover, the chemical shells that appeared during the war were even more powerful, causing huge casualties on both sides. Judging from the incomplete statistics after the war, in the entire first global war, more than sixty percent of the officers and soldiers killed on both sides were killed by artillery, and this proportion far exceeded the casualties caused by machine guns! And artillery shells are also the most important war materials. In the battle for Orenburg (the name of the Tang Empire was Cisse), the Tang Imperial Army used more than twenty artillery divisions. 100,000 shells were knocked out in a single day. On the Western Front, the artillery consumption of the German-British and French armies was also quite staggering.

In fact, the battle for the pinnacle of artillery is not the first global war, but the second global war, especially on the continental battlefield, where artillery is the most important support and suppressive firepower in the hands of the warring parties. But at the same time, it was precisely in the second global war that the position of artillery was affected, and aviation was, to a large extent, in fact, artillery with wings. Bombers became a more effective support force.

It was the rapid rise of aviation that made the attention of the Tang Imperial Army to artillery drop a lot. Not to mention anything else, several main battle artillery pieces of the Tang Imperial Army at that time were actually not developed by the army itself. The core technology of the 155-mm gun came from the Navy, while the core technology of the 100-mm gun was actually supplied by the Germans. In addition, most of the technology used to equip the army with mortars was also imported from Germany. Before the outbreak of the war, there were even voices within the Imperial Army about the abolition of artillery and the complete replacement of artillery with aviation. Of course. This argument is certainly wrong, even after a few decades, the position of artillery is still not something that can be replaced by aviation, and on the battlefield, artillery still has a decisive position.

Thanks to the Empire's strong industrial productivity, the Imperial Army immediately realized the importance of artillery after the outbreak of war. And great efforts were made to restore and expand the artillery. At that time, the army directly borrowed the technology of 155 mm guns from Navy destroyers, and after making the necessary modifications, in 22 years, that is, the second year after the outbreak of the war, two self-propelled and towed 155 mm caliber heavy guns were introduced. In addition, the army also imported the technology of 88 mm guns directly from Germany, and borrowed some advantages from German artillery design, so to speak, the 80 mm used in the tanks of the Imperial Army. 90 mm tank gun, 80 mm anti-aircraft gun for both the army and navy. and the 100-mm medium gun, the German 88-mm anti-aircraft gun can be seen, and German technology is used in many design aspects. It was also at this time that the Army established 155 mm and 100 mm as the standard caliber of artillery. Throughout the war, the Army's previously equipped artillery was gradually decommissioned, and the production of these two different caliber guns was concentrated, which greatly simplified the logistical troubles.

In fact, the most heavily armed "artillery" of the army should have been mortars, and the infantry units of the Imperial Army were equipped with the largest number of mortars. Then. An infantry platoon of the Imperial Army was equipped with a separate mortar group, and the standard armament was a 60 mm mortar. Later, it was increased to two. And an infantry company has a separate mortar squad, armed with 3 60-mm mortars. An infantry battalion has a separate platoon of medium mortars, armed with 3 80-mm mortars. An infantry regiment had a separate heavy mortar battery, armed with 6 120-mm mortars. In addition, in the separate artillery battalion of the division, there is a self-propelled heavy mortar battery with 6 120-mm heavy mortar vehicles. By the end of the war, the Imperial Army even began to provide infantry platoons with 60-mm light mortars that did not occupy the entire rank, and two grenade launchers were provided for each infantry squad.

It can be said that at that time, the Imperial Army paid more attention to the supporting firepower of infantry, and the actual combat also proved the effectiveness of artillery in ground battles. Compared to aviation support, the shelling effect of 155-mm heavy guns is not much worse than the power of bombs dropped by bombers. More critically, air support is not always available, especially when there are not enough airfields on the front line, and air support is often out of reach. Artillery, on the other hand, is able to accompany the infantry, and artillery support often arrives in a matter of seconds, at most, a few tens of seconds, and most of the time, aviation support takes several minutes at the earliest. It is clear that artillery is a more rapid and effective support force, and in terms of the timeliness of fire, aviation will never be inferior to artillery.

In terms of tactics, the Russian Army attaches the most importance to the use of artillery, which has its inherent factors, such as the Russian Air Force, which has not been very good. When Shi Naixing put forward the basic tactics of the armored corps, he put the artillery in a position parallel to the armored corps and the aviation corps, which is one of the three pillars of the entire rapid assault tactics. The question is. Shi Naixing's tactical thinking was not taken seriously at first, and if it were not for the empire's strong industrial base and far-reaching land territory, I am afraid that this mistake would have been enough to bury the empire.

As Shi Naixing's protégé, Gu Xunlei also attaches great importance to the use of artillery, and he also summed up a lot of artillery tactics in battle. For example, in the event of a quick assault, the support of artillery is not too much, but accurate enough to be able to destroy obstacles in front of the armored forces. In addition, it was necessary to keep up with the pace of advance of the armored forces, so the emphasis was on self-propelled guns, and towed guns were not suitable for accompanying armored forces. Before the assault of the armored forces, the preparation of artillery fire requires the maximum density to destroy the solid fire points on the enemy's defense line as soon as possible, suppress the enemy's artillery, and allow the armored forces to successfully assault. Therefore, the ground range of the artillery must be longer than that of the enemy's artillery, and the rate of fire must be fast enough.

In actual combat, Gu Xunlei did use artillery in accordance with these basic tactics, and this time, he let the artillery concentrate on shelling the US position, opening the way for the armored troops, and when the artillery was shelling. His armored forces had already begun to advance towards the American positions. However, what Gu Xunlei did not expect was that the counterattack of the US artillery came quickly, and before the artillery fire could extend to the rear of the US position, the shells from the US artillery fell into the tank cluster.

"Find the US artillery positions as soon as possible, contact the aviation, and let them focus on bombing the US artillery positions!" Gu Xunlei commanded the battle on the tank, "Damn, speed up the speed." Pull the queue out a bit! ”

The American armored forces also began to assault, and the first to encounter the American armored forces was the 1st Cavalry Division on the left flank. Zhang Xiaolin reported the intelligence to Gu Xunlei at the first time, and then, the vanguard of the Second Cavalry Division also encountered the armored forces of the American army.

A tank battle was inevitable, and the commanders on both sides thought of throwing in their armored forces first to tear through the enemy's defenses, and as a result, the armored forces of both sides encountered first. And the only difference was that Bradley did not have motorized infantry units, as a result of which his armored units left the infantry behind. And Gu Xunlei's armored troops also have a large number of motorized infantry to accompany the battle.

"Let the infantry catch up as soon as possible!" Gu Xunlei knew very well how to defeat the enemy, "Also. The troops distance, try not to get close, hit the heavy tanks of the US army first, don't be stingy with high-speed armor-piercing shells! ”

The roar of the tank gun replaced the roar of the heavy artillery, the short stop and rapid fire was the most common tank tactic, and the mobility of the Type 25 tank was fully exerted, but to Gu Xunlei's annoyance, his car seemed to be always a little slower than other tanks.

"Speed up, rush to the front, high-speed armor-piercing bullets ready!"

The loader loaded a high-velocity armor-piercing round into the chamber, but the driver did not let the tank accelerate.

", speed up!" Gu Xunlei shouted, "Hurry up, the distance is too far, bring the distance closer." See? That M26, rush on! ”

The driver still did not accelerate, and he knew in his heart that it was much more valuable to protect the commander than to take out an enemy tank.

Gu Xunlei was almost about to jump, 1500 meters ahead, the M26 that he had "fancied" was hit by another Type 25 tank at 1100 meters. The other tanks rushed forward, but only Gu Xunlei and more than a dozen tanks from the guard battalion remained behind.

Even if Gu Xunlei is the supreme commander on the battlefield, at this time, he has no way to make his tank drive faster, unless he is willing to be a driver. However, judging from the situation in front of him, even if he rushed to the front, it would not make much difference. The armored units of the US army simply could not withstand the fierce attack of Type 25. Comparatively speaking, the officers and men of the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions already had a lot of actual combat experience, and most of the tankmen who were still fighting were no longer novices. In less than half an hour of fighting, the quality of the officers and men on both sides was revealed. In addition, the difference in the performance of the tanks of the two sides is also very obvious, especially in the field, the performance advantage of the Type 25 tank is quite obvious.

Against opponents like the M4, the Type 25 has a huge performance advantage in all aspects. Although the M26 has more firepower and thicker armor, its maneuverability is significantly worse than that of the Type 25, and in a war of movement, the combat effectiveness of heavy tanks will certainly not be fully exerted. This was also demonstrated by real combat on the European theater, where heavy tanks were better suited for defense than for quick assault. In addition, the number of M26s in the US military is quite limited, and the numerical superiority of the Type 25 is enough to defeat the opponent.

In the end, it was the bombers sent by the fleet that came to deal with the American armored forces. These bombers had no fighter cover, and most of the fighters were bombing the American troops farther away and suppressing the American artillery. And these bombers hurriedly dropped their bombs, and then quickly left the battlefield, they were almost always fighting in the extreme bombing radius, and there was no extra fuel for these bombers to stay over the battlefield.

As the American armoured forces were routed, the tide of the battle immediately turned in favor of the Imperial Army. Gu Xunlei did not let the troops stop, he did not even let the motorized infantry accompanying the tank attack to clean up the battlefield, but left the task of cleaning the battlefield to the 4th Infantry Division and the 5th Infantry Division further behind.

The assault continued until noon, when most of the tanks were running out of fuel. Three American divisions have already been routed, and other American units are preparing to retreat. Gu Xunlei did not give up the attack, he let the troops replenish the fuel as quickly as possible, and at the same time let the infantry rush to the front. Now that the enemy's will to fight has been broken, it is necessary to beat the water dogs instead of letting the enemy retreat safely!

The assault continued until the evening, when the cavalry units stopped for a second time to replenish their fuel, and the tankmen seized the opportunity to fill their stomachs. Gu Xunlei only made adjustments at this time. He sent the motorized infantry of two cavalry divisions north at full speed to try to intercept the retreating Americans, while the infantry continued to advance north while the cavalry stopped. Defeating the enemy is a foregone conclusion, and now, what he needs is an even greater victory!

At night, both sides were "marching" to the north. At this time, Gu Xunlei was probably a little surprised, he didn't expect that the U.S. army would be defeated so easily, and this was not his main consideration. Now, what he needs is not just a war of annihilation, but a major victory that can lay the foundation for the battlefield of the entire Australian continent!

……