Biquge.inforeadx; The air force's transport and cover operations during the day on 17 August were undoubtedly extremely successful, and in one day's time, the air force airlifted a total of 12 tons of supplies from Nanjing to Caijiagang, including bullets, shells, and some medicines that were extremely needed by the Fifth Mixed BrigadeMany bombers were damaged, and the fuel consumed accounted for more than one-fifth of the fuel reserves in the Nanjing Air Base, but the Air Force successfully transported the supplies that the Fifth Mixed Brigade desperately needed to Caijiagang

After the Fifth Mixed Brigade got this part of the extremely valuable supplies, it greatly alleviated the dilemma of ammunition shortage, at least the main defensive weapons such as mortars and machine guns could be re-fired, and vigorously suppressed the enemy's attack The Fifth Mixed Brigade occupied Caijiagang from the 13th, and then exchanged fire with Wu Peifu's reinforcement detachment, and then encountered a part of the troops sent by Wang Chengbin in the south, and the supply channel was cut off under the attack from both sides, so that the Fifth Mixed Brigade has not been able to get a large number of logistical supplies, From the beginning of the war to the 17th, it has always relied on the logistics materials carried by the Fifth Mixed Brigade itself

In the fierce four-day battle, there was no problem with the food supply for the time being, and the food brought by the Fifth Mixed Brigade itself and the small amount of food collected on the spot after arriving at Caijiagang were enough to support the troops' five-day combat needs, and after being surrounded and cut off the supply channel, Guo Chengdong ordered to limit the supply of various materials, reduce the amount of food supply, and strive to extend the five-day supply period to eight days or even longer. But in the face of the onslaught of the Beiyang Army, it was impossible for the Fifth Mixed Brigade to save ammunition as Guo Chengdong imagined

The use of light weapons in the national army has always relied on firepower to win, especially on machine guns, all infantry tactics are carried out by relying on machine guns, it can be said that the heavy machine guns and light machine guns equipped by the national army are the tactical core of the infantry offensive and defense of the national army, all tactical actions are carried out around these two weapons, even if it is a mortar, it is also used as a defense with the fifth mixed brigade is also based on machine guns as the center, especially a few heavy machine guns are deployed to the core area of defense, After several days of fierce fighting, the ammunition consumption of heavy machine guns is not ordinarily large, if it were not for the national army air force, even if the ammunition supply was delivered, the heavy machine guns of the Fifth Mixed Brigade would face the embarrassing situation of having no bullets available within one day, and because the Fifth Mixed Brigade was equipped with Hanyang-made rifles, the rifle bullets and heavy machine gun bullets used were not universal, even if they wanted to use rifle bullets for emergency purposes

After the air force's daytime sky operation, the 5th Mixed Brigade ushered in a large-scale attack launched by the Beiyang Army that night!

However, this time, the Fifth Mixed Brigade did not carry out the same contraction defense as in the previous two days, but also launched active defensive tactics, and launched a small-scale counterattack against Wang Chengbin's troops in the south with a small elite force, and once advanced more than 500 meters to the south and received air supplies, the Fifth Mixed Brigade completely lost the decline of two days ago

In fact, the Beiyang Army attacking the Fifth Mixed Brigade did not occupy much advantage in terms of strength, Wu Peifu's reinforcement detachment was about 6,000 people, and the casualties in the offensive battle in the past few days were nearly as high as six or seven hundred, and the Beiyang Army sent by Wang Chengbin in the southern direction was not much, only about 1,000 people, and these 1,000 people were also the advance battalion sent to Chaohu by Wu Peifu before, in general, the attack on the Fifth Mixed Brigade was the reinforcement detachment that Wu Peifu assembled from Hefei to the south, including a regiment under the Fifth Brigade of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army, A brigade of the First Division of the Anhui Provincial Army is attached to a mountain artillery battalion, with a total strength of more than 7,000 people, and the number of troops is only 2,000 more than that of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, and in terms of the quality of soldiers, Wu Peifu's Fifth Brigade has nearly 3,000 people directly under the troops, which is stronger than that of the National Army, and the remaining brigade of the First Division of the Anhui Provincial Army is worse, and may be slightly inferior to the soldiers of the Fifth Mixed Brigade. Although it has been selected, the quality of the soldiers is not comparable to that of the other main forces of the National Army

Generally speaking, after the quality of the two soldiers and the comparison of troops, they are generally comparable, the Beiyang Army has a slight advantage but it is not big, and the quality of the officers on both sides is not much different, a group of Wu Peifu are all officers from the Third Division of the Beiyang Army, as for the group of officers of the First Division of the Anhui Provincial Army, they have long been kicked aside by Wu Peifu, and the quality of officers of the Third Division of the Beiyang Army is honestly much stronger than most units of the National Army, all of them are professional officers trained for many years, In addition to those senior officers in the national army who studied abroad and were born in the early domestic military academy, most of the middle-level and grass-roots officers were born in the Fuzhou Military Academy, and received a rapid military education, only three months before and after, but they were young and energetic, and these graduates of the Fuzhou Military Academy with a cultural foundation grew up very quickly in the war, and the officers in the Fifth Mixed Brigade were all drawn from confidants of other troops, and were not directly supplemented from the Fuzhou Military Academy. The difference between the integration and the quality of the officers of the Beiyang Army is not too big

However, in terms of weapons, rifles are the same for everyone, the Fifth Mixed Brigade uses the main equipment of the original Huangxing Soviet Army, Hanyang-made, the Third Beiyang Division uses imported 1888-style committee rifles, and the Anhui Provincial Army uses Hanyang-made, and no one is much better than anyone else in a radius of eight taels, and basically cannot affect the situation of the battle, and the pistol, which can only be used to commit suicide, is even more insignificant in terms of artillery, and the Beiyang Army has an advantage, and a mountain artillery battalion brought by Wu Peifu is a mountain artillery battalion of the Third Artillery Regiment of the Third Division, The 75-mm Grusen mountain cannon is much stronger than the 57-mm domestic Hanyang-made mountain cannon of the 5th Mixed Brigade, and the mountain artillery battalion of the 5th Mixed Brigade is only 12 guns, even if there are two mortar companies with each infantry regiment, a total of 12 mortars cannot offset this artillery disadvantage, as for the 60-mm mortar, this kind of is already in the ranks of light weapons, and it is good to deal with the enemy's machine guns, but it cannot be suppressed by artillery

In terms of machine guns, everyone is also a radius of eight taels, the fifth mixed brigade is under the jurisdiction of two fully staffed infantry regiments, each has a heavy machine gun company, each battalion also has a machine gun company, adding up to twelve heavy machine guns, eighteen light machine guns, twenty-four 60 mm mortars and Wu Peifu has more heavy machine guns, and got six heavy machine guns deployed by the heavy machine gun battalion of the third division, and then this brigade of the Anhui Provincial Army also has six, but after Wu Peifu took over the fifth brigade, he also saved two heavy machine guns, and this time he brought them over, Although the model is a little complicated, but it is definitely a light machine gun that can be used, there are actually a lot of light machine guns in the Beiyang Army, and they are the same as those used by the National Army, all of which are Madsen light machine guns, this year Yuan Shikai spent a lot of money to import a large number of Madsen light machine guns, as air defense and ground support tasks Wu Peifu also brought a light machine gun company this time, with a total of twelve light machine guns, but these machine guns Wu Peifu did not invest in the ground offensive, but used to undertake air defense tasks, Wu Peifu was bombed many times by the air forces of the Kuomintang before and after, and he still attached great importance to air defense; he not only regarded light machine guns as the main force of air defense, but also used local methods to lift up several heavy machine guns for air firing

If the Fifth Mixed Brigade has an advantage in that part, then it is the 60-millimeter mortars that the National Army is equipped with in large quantities Among the mortars of the three calibers that the National Army is currently equipped with in large quantities, the output of 120-millimeter mortars has not been high, and the more than 30 mortars that were rushed to production during the war in southern Jiangsu later found many problems, and as many as three were blown up in a row, and the mortar factory under the Fuzhou Arsenal had to be improved, but it has not been completely solved, and the problem can only be avoided by manual low-speed production. The monthly output is not even less than ten, and at present there are only less than 100 guns produced, which are divided into eight heavy mortar battalions, twelve of each mortar battalion and then flexibly deployed to the various armies, but in fact, nearly half of them were transferred to the Fourth Army in Jiangxi and Hunan, used to make up for the lack of artillery firepower of the units under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Army, and the remaining three heavy mortar battalions were divided between the Second Army and the First Army, the Second Army had two, the First Army had one, but the two heavy mortar battalions of the Second Army were assigned to the Sixth Division, The Eighth Division and the Fifth Division were not able to be reinforced with 120 mm heavy mortars, mainly because the Sixth Division was alone on the western front and needed to strengthen its firepower, while the Ninth Division, as the only unit in the whole army that had carried out firepower expansion, was also the fist unit of the Second Army, and it was a matter of course that the absolute main force attacking Chaohu was used to strengthen the Ninth Division

The output of 80-millimeter mortars is much larger, and the Fuzhou Arsenal has been able to produce more than 50 mortars per month, and after such a long period of continuous production, it has completed the installation of the main forces of the Nationalist Army, and the main role of the 80-millimeter in the Nationalist Army is to provide fire support at the battalion and regimental level

As for the 60-mm mortars equipped with a large number of units of the Nationalist Army, in addition to providing fire support to the first level of the company, they are also the main weapon for the targeted elimination of the enemy's machine-gun fire points; the skilled 60-mm mortar gunners of the Nationalist Army, with the assistance of the scope, three rapid shots are enough to knock out the enemy's bare heavy machine-gun fire points; in the battle between the Nationalist Army and the Beiyang Army, a large number of 60-mm mortars equipped by the Nationalist Army have killed and injured many heavy machine-gun fire points of the Beiyang Army

And this is also one of the few firepower advantages that the Fifth Mixed Brigade has over Wu Peifu

It's a pity that this advantage didn't help the Fifth Mixed Brigade play a big role in the early defensive operations, because looking at the poor mobility of the heavy machine guns in the era, the front-line infantry will not attack with heavy machine guns when attacking, and the heavy machine guns can only suppress the fire in the back, but the role of the front-line charging infantry is not great, the reason why the heavy machine guns are sharp in this era is completely because of his perverted defensive ability, as long as there is a strong heavy machine gun fortress, If the enemy does not use artillery to knock out this heavy machine gun fire point, when the enemy infantry launches a charge, it is the time when the heavy machine gun harvests a large area of life, which is worse than the attack, which is also the fundamental reason why countries are vigorously developing lighter machine guns, not that the heavy machine gun is not powerful enough, but that it is too heavy and not conducive to maneuvering

However, in a small counteroffensive launched by the Fifth Mixed Brigade last night, the 60-millimeter mortars of the Nationalist Army once again made a meritorious contribution, and before the counteroffensive started, a 60-millimeter mortar group of the Nationalist Army successfully knocked out a heavy machine-gun fire point of the Beiyang Army, and then the Fifth Mixed Brigade was able to quickly advance when launching a counteroffensive

The Fifth Mixed Brigade and Wu Peifu's reinforcement detachment are comparable as a whole, the Fifth Mixed Brigade was pressed and beaten only because of the lack of supply and ammunition, but now the Fifth Mixed Brigade has been supplied by air, although this part of the supply is not enough for the 5,000 to more than 5,000 troops, but it is enough for the Fifth Mixed Brigade to continue to support

After the night passed, the night attack plan ordered by Wu Peifu not only failed to quickly break through to smash the resistance of the Fifth Mixed Brigade, but also allowed the Fifth Mixed Brigade to fight a small counterattack on the southern front, although at dawn Wu Peifu strengthened the troops in the south to counterattack, and successfully recaptured the position lost last night, but the news that the night's strong attack was fruitless still made Wu Peifu's heart rise

"I'm afraid Chaohu is really going to be lost now!" Wu Peifu looked at the early sun slowly rising in the eastern sky, muttered on his lips, and said softly, but the faces of several Beiyang Army officers around him were gloomy (