In the end, Weng Yu expanded the reconnaissance unit to the size of a tank battalion and an infantry battalion, and shortened the distance between the reconnaissance unit and the vanguard unit to 10 kilometers, and at the same time transferred an artillery company to the front, so that the speed of the advance was accelerated a lot, and the US army's resistance was quickly defeated by the reconnaissance unit.

Gu Xunlei didn't worry about the battle on the front line, he knew Weng Yu's ability very well, if Weng Yu was just an ordinary commander, then Gu Xunlei wouldn't have made a special trip to the hospital to invite him. Maybe Weng Yu doesn't have the ability to become the commander of the group army, but on the frontline battlefield, Weng Yu is definitely the best tactical commander. After the arrival of the large force, Gu Xunlei returned to his armored command vehicle, and at about half past one in the afternoon, that is, half an hour after the end of the blocking battle, the staff officer sent over the losses of the front-line combat troops.

When the reconnaissance unit was attacked, five armored reconnaissance vehicles were completely destroyed, more than 20 officers and men were killed, and more than 30 were wounded. Three other armoured reconnaissance vehicles were also damaged, but all were able to be repaired. In Weng Yu's tank unit, five tanks were hit by shells, and only one tank had an armor-piercing shell in its engine compartment, probably because this tank was hit by a shell when it was turning, otherwise the shell would not have hit the engine compartment. Of the other four tanks, one had a broken running gear that would take several hours to repair, and the other three had only some internal equipment damaged and could still continue fighting. Fortunately, none of the tankers of the five tanks were killed, only three were wounded, and all of them were shocked when the tanks were hit.

Half an hour later, the staff officer sent a second report, which was a report of damage to an American tank. Gu Xunlei specially arranged for a group of staff officers and engineers to inspect the situation of the destroyed US tanks, and he wanted to know what the performance of the US tanks was.

As a matter of fact. As early as when they were on the battlefield in Russia, Gu Xunlei encountered US tanks, but there were not many American-made tanks used by the Russian army at that time. And. In most cases, the Russian army uses American tanks as the vanguard for reconnaissance missions, while leaving their own tanks in the rear, and an important reason is that American tanks have better sighting equipment and can find targets at longer distances. And the Russian army's own tanks do not have such advanced sighting equipment.

The main place of this encounter was the M3 light tank, which was one of the main tanks that the United States had been producing before the outbreak of the war, and which had been supplied to Britain in large quantities in the early days of the war. France. Italy, Spain. Russia, Japan and other countries. One of the first to go into battle was probably the M3, which was used by the Japanese Army on the Korean battlefield. At the time, the M3 was certainly a relatively good tank, its speed was fast, and the armor was relatively not weak, and the 37mm gun was powerful enough to deal with most tanks in the early days of the war. Can be with the development of the war, especially in the "Panther", T a 34. As well as the Type 25 tanks of the Tang Empire, after they were put into service one after another, the performance of the M3 has seriously lagged behind. At its thickest, it was only 44 mm of armor, which was like a thin layer of tissue paper in front of guns of 80 mm caliber and above. And the 37-mm tank gun simply could not penetrate the armor of various new tanks.

In addition, 4 was successfully developed on the basis of M3, and mass production began shortly before the United States entered the war, and the first few batches were provided to France, Russia and the United Kingdom, and the number of its own equipment was not very large, mainly because the main battlefield of the US army at that time was the Pacific Theater, and in the battle for the islands, the performance of 4 was much better than that of M3 in all aspects, for example, the power of the 75 mm tank gun used by it was much greater than that of the 37 mm tank gun used by the M3. In addition, the thickness of its armor has increased considerably. But relatively speaking, in addition to being easy to mass produce, the M4 is still much worse than new tanks such as the "Panther" in terms of firepower, armor, and mobility.

On the Russian battlefield, the M4's firepower proved to be insufficient to penetrate the "Panther" and the Type 25 tank, and this battle proved this once again. The armor-piercing projectiles fired from the 75-mm barrel gun still could not penetrate the frontal armor of the Type 600 tank at a distance of less than 25 meters, and even the threat to the side armor was not very great. And in the face of the 25-mm armor-piercing shells of the Type 80 tank, the armor of the M4 turned out to be too weak. The destroyed M4s were all hit head-on, and the shells all penetrated the armor directly, without any misses. Of the Type 25 tanks that were shot head-on, three were hit by M4 75mm armor-piercing shells, but one had its armor pierced. Another Type 25 tank was shot in the side, and only the running gear was damaged, the tanker did not die, and the tank was definitely able to be repaired.

Gu Xunlei did not study technology, but as the commander of the tank unit, he still paid great attention to the performance of the tanks of the warring parties. After reading the staff officer's report, Gu Xunlei was also a lot more relieved. At least until now, the US army has not yet had tanks capable of posing a huge threat to his tanks. But Gu Xunlei is still a little uneasy, the main problem is that he has long known that the United States is developing several new tanks that are comparable to the "Black Panther" and Type 25, and have these tanks been put into mass production, and have they been deployed on the Australian battlefield?

As early as the beginning of the year, when Gu Xunlei was still in Europe, he received news that the United States was developing a new tank. And the reason that forced the United States to develop a new tank is simple, the M4 is not at all an opponent of the Tang Empire, Germany's new tanks on the battlefield.

Judging from the information obtained so far, the United States has adopted two methods in developing new tanks, one is to save the emergency, and the other is to comprehensively surpass it in technology. To put it bluntly, the first is to come up with a new tank that can compete with the enemy's tank as soon as possible, that is, it is necessary to come up with a new tank in the shortest possible time, and this new tank does not need to comprehensively overwhelm the opponent's tank, but only needs to be able to compete with the enemy's tank in several key performances. The other is to use the technical reserves to develop a completely new tank, and the new tank must outperform the opponent in terms of performance, not just equalize, and this will certainly take a lot of time.

The product of the contingency scheme is an improved version of the M4. According to post-war statistics, there are more than 50 different models of the M4, of which six are relatively large in production. And the main feature of these improvements was the increased firepower, including the use of long-barreled guns. Larger caliber artillery and so on. This was also a major problem with the original model of the M4, whose firepower was simply not enough to deal with the Type 25, "Panther". Therefore. Almost all improvements were focused on increasing firepower, and the US army even produced an M105 tank armed with a 4-mm tank gun!

There are more newly developed tank models, and the intelligence departments of the Tang Empire and Germany have not yet obtained relevant information, but they only know roughly that the United States is developing several new tanks, including medium tanks similar to the "Panther" and Type 25, as well as heavy tanks. But a serious problem is. The United States did not have many tank technical reserves, and the United States developed armored forces later than Germany and the Tang Empire. One fundamental reason is that the U.S. homeland has not been threatened. And its land forces mainly fight in overseas theaters. Therefore, little attention has been paid to the development of armored forces. And when the war broke out, the United States found that their armored tank technology had fallen behind. And to catch up with the Tang Empire and Germany, it will take a lot of effort.

Like most of the army generals of Germany and the Tang Empire, in Gu Xunlei's eyes, American tanks were like garbage. On the Russian battlefield, Gu Xunlei encountered American tanks, and in the end he came to the conclusion that the M4 was only better than the T-34 in the sighting system, mainly because Russia's basic industry was attacked by the strategic bombers of the Tang Empire, and it was difficult to create an advanced one. And expensive sighting systems. In other respects, the M4 is hardly worth mentioning. Therefore, the Russian army only uses the M4 to carry out forward reconnaissance missions, which can be regarded as the best use of things. In the Western European theater, the French army has a large number of M4s, among which there are many improved models, such as the use of long-barreled guns, and a number of large-caliber guns, but these M4s are still not the opponents of the "Black Panther" and the Type 25.

The troops continued to advance, and from time to time new news came in. By about half past three in the afternoon, the most important news came that Zhang Xiaolin's raiding forces had captured the bridge. The U.S. military really wanted to blow up the bridge, but considering that there were still a large number of U.S. troops who had not withdrawn from Port Macquarie, when Zhang Xiaolin's armored troops arrived, the U.S. troops did not have time to blow up the bridge, but only piled up the explosives next to the bridge, and the sappers did not have time to place the explosives on the bridge piers.

At four o'clock, Weng Yu's vanguard reached the south of Macquarie Harbor, and then the reconnaissance unit sent news that the American army had set up at least three lines of defense around McQuarrie Harbor, but these lines were not very strong, and it was impossible for the American army to build a solid defense line in the midst of the panic. The troops stopped at this time, and when Gu Xunlei sent someone to call Weng Yu, the bombers of the 1st Task Force bombed the American positions in Port Macquarie for the fourth time, and the artillery formation operating outside Port Macquarie also sent a message.

"The artillery formation will provide us with artillery support at night, we can use the artillery support of the fleet as much as possible, and in addition, our artillery will also be deployed here." Gu Xunlei circled the location of the artillery position on the map, "The artillery does supplementary shelling, we don't carry a lot of shells, and as we go north, it will become very difficult to replenish, so we must use ammunition sparingly and try to use the fleet's supporting firepower." ”

Weng Yu and the commander of the artillery regiment both nodded, they had already advanced dozens of kilometers to the north, and the logistics of the Marine Corps had not yet caught up.

When Gu Xunlei was about to continue, Zhang Xiaolin hurried back.

"Zhang Xiaolin, how is the situation over there?" Gu Xunlei looked at Zhang Xiaolin.

"We've taken control of the bridge, we've had the infantry set up defensive positions on both sides, and my tank battalion is deployed to the south." As he spoke, Zhang Xiaolin marked the defense line on the map and the location of the tank troops. "I interrogated American prisoners of war, and a group of American troops had moved north, about 1,000 people. In addition, the reinforcements of the American army are still moving south, and the commander is Lieutenant General Bradley. ”

"Bradley?" Gu Xunlei frowned slightly, "How far are the reinforcements of the US army from us?" ”

"It's about two hundred kilometers, and they can only come tomorrow at the earliest, and if the fleet's interdiction bombardment is a little more powerful, they will need more time."

"These fleets will deal with it, I will contact General Tan Renhao later, and ask them to step up the bombing of the US reinforcements, and after we have captured the port of Macquarie, we will fight a head-on battle with the US reinforcements." Gu Xunlei hesitated slightly, "Zhang Xiaolin, the First Cavalry Division immediately maneuvered to the north, I will give you an infantry regiment to set up a defensive line here, if you encounter the American army, you have to resist me, you know?" ”

"No problem, if you give me an artillery battalion......"

"You can concentrate the mortar platoon of the infantry regiment and use it, and the tank units are deployed behind the defensive line, or you can act as a mobile fire point, and for the time being I don't have artillery for you."

Zhang Xiaolin nodded, and he didn't ask for anything more.

Gu Xunlei looked at Weng Yu. "The 2nd Cavalry Division maneuvered to the right flank of the American line before dark, and after the infantry had completed the encirclement, you were in charge of the assault. The battle must end tonight, first by taking the port, and then by north and south! ”

Weng Yu looked at the map for a while, and then said, "No problem, arrange two infantry battalions for me, and the battle can end tonight." ”

"So, you all go and prepare!"

After everyone left, Gu Xunlei had the staff officer get in touch with the fleet, and he also received information from Task Force 1 that American reinforcements were rapidly moving south, and the purpose was Macquarie Harbor, apparently, the American Army also knew that in order to fight back in Tari and defeat the landing marines, they had to capture Macquarie Harbor first. In addition, the commanders of the American forces knew better that the first batch of Imperial ground troops to come ashore would not be reinforced within five days, so whether they could defeat the landing force depended on whether they could make a surprise attack on the landing site during these five days.

While the officers and men of the guard battalion were busy setting up the front-line headquarters, the sky gradually darkened, and Gu Xunlei looked towards the US military position in the north, it would be a fierce night!