If it were not for the defeat of Tamworth by the evening of the 29th and the arrival of Narabrai in the early morning of the first day of the following month, Gu Xunlei would not have thrown four divisions and more than 50,000 officers and soldiers into attacking Tamworth, which was defended by less than 20,000 American and Australian troops.

Unlike most veteran army generals, Gu Xunlei has never advocated the "crowd tactics", and in his opinion, if he needs to use the advantage of troops to defeat the enemy, this is definitely the greatest humiliation for the general. A good general is able to defeat a strong opponent with inferior forces. And in actual combat operations, Gu Xunlei is definitely an artist in tactical command. On the Russian battlefield, almost all the battles commanded by Gu Xunlei were fought with less. In particular, in the battle of Volgograd, he used 20 divisions to contain an enemy several times his size, and finally turned the tide of the battle. On the battlefield of Western Europe, Gu Xunlei has created several victories with less fighting. Even the German Army was known for its defense, and Admiral Moder, who was known for using inferior forces to block the enemy's powerful attack, had to admire Gu Xunlei's rational use of force in commanding the attack. It can be said that in offensive operations, the biggest characteristic of Gu Xunlei is that he put reasonable troops into a reasonable battlefield at a reasonable time, and in this way, he formed a breakthrough and finally completed the campaign operation. Of course, on the prerequisite, the troops in his hands must have strong enough combat effectiveness.

In fact, in the past few days of fighting, although Gu Xunlei commanded a "reserve" legion, his command talent was also revealed. The "Armidale Blockade" is an extreme manifestation of his command ability. While blocking tens of thousands of American troops with three battalions, he concentrated his forces to encircle the American troops, who were no less numerical than himself. Thus the foundation for the victory of the first phase of the landing operation was laid. If he had sent a few more battalions over at that time, I am afraid that it would have been very difficult to encircle Bradley's U.S. mobile unit.

This is also a major characteristic of army generals. If it is said that the most necessary ability of the commander of the naval fleet is to grasp the warplane. Then army generals not only need to grasp the fighter plane, but also make rational use of the forces in their hands to turn opportunities into fruits of victory. This is also the similarity between Gu Xunlei and Tan Renhao, although the two command the local troops are different, and the combat tasks they perform are different, but on the battlefield, both of them can accurately grasp the battle situation, and reasonably apply favorable conditions, and finally take advantage of the small opportunity to win. Of course. On the Australian battlefield, it is limited by many factors, such as the quality of soldiers and the strength of troops. and the lack of support forces, etc. Gu Xunlei has not yet been able to fully display his personal command skills, but he is already doing his best. Give full play to the combat effectiveness of the troops, and complete the campaign plan as much as possible, achieve the purpose of the campaign, and win the battle!

Compared with the previous combat operations to annihilate the US mobile forces, the operation to attack Tamworth was actually not too difficult. With four divisions, plus three divisions of reserves, it was not difficult to defeat Tamworth, which was defended by only one and a half divisions, but the most difficult thing was that Gu Xunlei had to control the losses of his troops. Especially the loss of armored forces, if not. After taking Tamworth, he was no longer capable of continuing his push towards Naraburai.

By the early morning of the 28th, all the attacking forces were in place, tanks and armored vehicles were refilled with fuel and ammunition at the temporary assembly points, and the artillery was subsequently deployed to the pre-set artillery positions. Before daybreak, the 1st Cavalry Division set out first, while the officers and men of the 4th Infantry Division advanced north of Tamworth immediately after the 1st Cavalry Division. Then, the 2nd Cavalry Division also left the assembly area, and the officers and men of the 5th Infantry Division followed behind the 2nd Cavalry Division in transport vehicles. Gu Xunlei placed the front command behind the assembly point, and put the 3rd Infantry Division in charge of guarding the place where ammunition and fuel were stockpiled. At this time, the 6th and 7th Infantry Divisions were approaching at full speed.

The first to encounter the American army was the vanguard of the 1st Cavalry Division. As always, Zhang Xiaolin, after receiving the news of the battle at the front, immediately led his guard company to rush out. The U.S. resistance was not very stubborn, and the mixed regiment acting as the vanguard force quickly broke through the U.S. line and continued to advance on the road north of Tamworth. Zhang Xiaolin immediately let the cavalry regiment deploy, expanding the front of the attack, and let the motorized infantry regiment advance closely with the cavalry regiment, placing two motorized infantry battalions on the flank of the cavalry regiment to prevent the infantry of the US army from attacking from the flank of the cavalry regiment.

Zhang Xiaolin is not worried about being threatened by US tanks, at least from the intelligence obtained from aerial reconnaissance, there are few tanks in the US-Australian coalition at Tamworth, all of them are infantry units, but in close combat, if the infantry has enough anti-tank weapons, it can still pose a huge threat to the cavalry.

Comparatively speaking, the battle on the side of the 1st Cavalry Division was relatively easy, especially after the 4th Infantry Division caught up, and in the face of the joint attack of the infantry tank, the resistance of the American troops was even weaker. Although most of the officers and men of these two divisions were new recruits, they were advancing strictly in accordance with the coordinated attack of the infantry and tanks during training. This is precisely the essence of the offensive of the armored forces; at a time when joint operations have become the main tactic on the battlefield of the army, and when all kinds of new weapons have appeared on the battlefield, it is impossible for any single branch of the armed forces to win victory on the battlefield, and only when all branches of the armed forces cooperate with each other can victory be achieved.

By about 8 a.m., the fleet's bombers had reached the skies over the battlefield, and the Americans were no longer able to stop the attack of the 1st Cavalry Division and the 4th Infantry Division. At this time, the 2nd Cavalry Division had just broken through the first line of defense of the American army, and the 5th Infantry Division, which was immediately behind, was sweeping the remnants of the American troops on the position.

The 2nd Cavalry Division did not go well at the beginning of the offensive, attacking from the frontal of the American positions, which was the strongest part of the American defensive line. The artillery provided the 2nd Cavalry Division with at least fifteen minutes of artillery preparation, but the problem was that the fleet bombers, who had planned to arrive at 6:50, did not arrive. Weng Yu did not wait for the bomber to arrive. Immediately after the end of the shelling, he sent the cavalry regiment into formation, and three cavalry battalions launched an attack on the American positions together, and at this time. Gu Xunlei also ordered the artillery to carry out a blocking artillery attack on the positions of the United States and Australia to cover the attack of the Second Cavalry Division. If there was no artillery fire to continue to cover, then the attack of the 2nd Cavalry Division would definitely have been in even greater trouble.

In the first three rounds of attacks, the 2nd Cavalry Division lost at least 17 tanks, and the willingness of the United States and Australia (in fact, the Australian Legion) to resist surprised Weng Yu. In the fourth round of the attack, he had the infantry of the 5th Infantry Division follow behind the cavalry regiment, while he personally led the guard company to the front. It was only with this attack that the defense line of the US-Australian coalition was broken. Immediately after the breakthrough of the cavalry units, the infantry went into battle. The breakthrough was widened, and then the infantry of the motorized infantry regiment also followed, launching a lateral attack.

The battle lasted until 7:50, and the first carrier-based bombers arrived on the battlefield. This was a full hour later than scheduled. But it's better late than never. The bombers of the first two squadrons to arrive all concentrated on bombing the American positions west of the 2nd Cavalry Division. The fighter squadron on the bombing mission had been hovering over the battlefield, strafing the U.S. lines with 20-millimeter machine guns. Open the way for the 2nd Cavalry Division.

At half past eight, the 2nd Cavalry Division assaulted in front of the second line of defense of the American army, and by this time the artillery had already carried out a fierce artillery bombardment of the American positions for 40 minutes. Although most of the American and Australian officers and soldiers returned to their positions at this time, they did not have enough time to organize their defenses. Before the tanks of the Second Cavalry Division rushed over, most of the officers and men of the United States and Australia had not yet been organized, let alone formed an effective resistance. By the time the U.S. and Australian officers and soldiers reacted, the cavalry units had already penetrated their defensive lines, and the infantry quickly entered the battle behind the tanks. That is, this line of defense has actually collapsed. Outcome. The will of the American officers and men to resist first collapsed, and without receiving an order, they retreated in the third direction. On the contrary, the officers and men of the Australian Legion have been resisting. As a result, most of the officers and soldiers of the Australian Legion were not able to escape, and all of them died on this defensive line.

The tenacious will shown by Australian soldiers on the battlefield was taught by Gu Xunlei as early as the battlefield in Western Europe. At that time, when he was attacking Dunkirk, there was an Australian expeditionary regiment within the British army's territorial strength. Moreover, it was this legion that was responsible for the break. It was also this legion that blocked Gu Xunlei's time for a day. If it weren't for the efforts of the Australian Expeditionary Corps, I am afraid that the tens of thousands of British expeditionary forces would not have escaped back to the island of Great Britain. At that time, Gu Xunlei was very emotional, most of the Australian officers and soldiers killed on the battlefield were sacrificed with weapons, almost no one took the initiative to escape, and no one took the initiative to surrender. Its will to fight is comparable to that of the Tang Imperial Army, no worse than the Russian Army, even better than the French Army, and far more than the British Army. Now, the tenacious will to fight of the Australian soldiers has once again been proven, and when the American troops fled, the Australian soldiers stayed behind and shed the last drop of blood for the honor of the soldiers.

On the battlefield, willpower alone is not enough to achieve victory, although will is the most important quality of a soldier, but when the situation is inferior to the opponent in all aspects, the tenacious will to resist means a great sacrifice. In fact, by the time it was past ten o'clock, almost all of the more than 3,000 Australian soldiers on the second line of defense had been killed, and less than a hundred wounded had become prisoners, and all of them were seriously wounded!

Perhaps, when he was on the battlefield in Europe, Gu Xunlei couldn't understand why the Australian soldiers were so tenacious, but here, he was completely able to understand where the combat effectiveness of the Australian soldiers came from. Here, the Australian soldiers are defending their homeland, while the American soldiers are just fighting in a strange land. These are two completely different situations, and Gu Xunlei also knows very well that if the Imperial soldiers need to defend their motherland one day, then the fighting spirit of the Imperial soldiers on the battlefield will definitely shock everyone's heart!

The fighting did not stop because of this. Before noon, the 1st Cavalry Division led by Zhang Xiaolin captured the junction of the road north of Tamworth. After leaving the 4th Infantry Division with a battalion to hold this line, the 1st Cavalry Division immediately advanced to the American airfield west of Tamworth as planned. The 4th Infantry Division advanced south of the 1st Cavalry Division, covering the flanks of the 1st Cavalry Division on the one hand, and advancing towards the city, the core area of the American defense.

The 2nd Cavalry Division broke through the third and final line of defense of the US-Australian coalition just before 1 p.m. At half past two, the vanguard of the Fifth Infantry Division, which had rushed in front of the Second Cavalry Division, joined up with the vanguard of the Fourth Infantry Division on the northeast side of the city.

At this point, two cavalry divisions made rapid assaults on both sides of the offensive front, while two infantry divisions advanced steadily in the middle of the cavalry division. Gu Xunlei also got the first battle damage report at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and in the first nine hours of fighting, the four attacking forces only lost less than 30 tanks, more than 50 vehicles, more than 700 officers and soldiers were killed, and more than 1,200 officers and soldiers were wounded. This cost was far less than Gu Xunlei's initial estimate, and the speed of the troops' advance was not much different from what he expected. Subsequently, he gave a new order to the four division commanders that the US airfield must be encircled before dark, and the artillery will cover the infantry attack at night. If the airfield cannot be reached at night, then the cavalry units will attack after dawn!

Before evening, the 4th Infantry Division from the east and the 5th Infantry Division from the west surrounded the American airfield. The artillery moved to the front-line positions before eight o'clock, and immediately began shelling the American troops in the airfield. At this time, the American troops on the other defensive lines had been swept away by the First Cavalry Division and the Second Cavalry Division, and the remaining American troops also fled the battlefield before dark, but it was not known where these American troops could flee.

The battle for the airfield was over before dawn, and this progress far exceeded Gu Xunlei's estimate. Two infantry divisions, supported by artillery and approaching tank fire, stormed the airfield in the first half of the night, and the battle to sweep the airfield lasted for half a night, and as a result, when the two cavalry divisions were ready to attack, the commander of the American army raised the white flag and surrendered to the attacking Imperial Army!