The strange stalemate on the battlefield was soon known to General Herlein, the commander of the Grossdeutschland Division.
He suddenly became furious and furious at Colonel Lorenz, who was commanding the battle: "Colonel, why did your attack stop?"
"Your Excellency General," Colonel Lorenz said with a bitter look on his face: "The Russians have ambushed an anti-tank unit in the crater in the open ground, making it impossible for our tanks to pass."
"If tanks can't pass, then use infantry to attack." General Herlein said angrily: "Although the Russian anti-tank crews can pose a threat to our tanks, in front of our infantry, they are a group of people waiting to be slaughtered.
Lamb.”
"Our infantry launched an attack on that group of Russians not long ago." Colonel Lorenz explained to Herlein: "Unexpectedly, before approaching these Russians, they fired a lot of missiles from their positions.
Rockets caused hundreds of casualties to us."
When Herlein heard this, he immediately understood that the troops commanded by Colonel Lorenz were attacked by the Soviet army's new rockets. The destruction of the Imperial Division and the Skeleton Division, as well as the heavy casualties of the Flag Guard Division, were all due to thanks.
Given by this weapon.
"Your Excellency, General," Lorenz heard that there was no sound on the phone and thought Herlein was about to hang up, so he quickly raised his voice and said, "What method should we use to eliminate the Russian anti-tank force?"
"Where is this anti-tank force deployed?" Herlein asked, looking at the map in front of him.
"Deployed four to five hundred meters in front of the Russian trenches."
"Colonel Lorenz, tell me in detail what happened in the battle just now."
Colonel Lorenz did not dare to neglect, and immediately reported in detail to General Herlein the battle that had occurred not long ago.
"Um?"
"Um!"
After hearing this, General Herlein hummed two sounds with completely different emphasis from his nostrils: "Colonel Lorenz, I understand what's going on. I think we need to destroy this Russian anti-tank force.
,The best way is to drive them out of their hiding place.”
"Drive them out?" Colonel Lorenz asked in confusion, "How?"
"Colonel Lorenz, according to what you just said, seven or eight tanks of our army blocked the retreat of these Russians, so they had to stay in the crater and resist." Now that we have figured out the reason for the stalemate on the battlefield,
General Herlein quickly came up with a countermeasure.
"You let those tanks bypass the position of the Russian anti-tank fighters and retreat to join the main force of our army." General Herlein was afraid that Lorenz would not understand his intentions, so he specifically explained to him: "Once the Russians
When people discover that the tanks that cut off their retreat have been withdrawn, they will no longer hold on and will return to their positions in the shortest possible time."
"What if the Russian anti-tank fighters still refuse to leave after our tanks are withdrawn?"
"Then use mortars to bombard their hiding places." Herlein said on the phone: "The tank guns may not be able to hit the Russians who are hiding in the craters like rats, but mortars are direct fire.
Perfect for dealing with Russians in bomb craters."
After Lorenz put down the phone, carefully considered Herlein's order, he suddenly made a fist with his right hand and smashed it into the palm of his left hand. With a snap, the chief of staff next to him, who was engrossed in reading the telegram, was startled.
.
Seeing the chief of staff cast a doubtful look at him, Lorenz began to give orders: "Chief of Staff, immediately order the tanks that cut off the retreat of the Russian anti-tank crews to find a way to take a detour and return to join the main force. Wait for the tanks to withdraw.
After that, mortars were used to carry out fierce shelling on the Russian hiding position."
As the elite of the German Wehrmacht, the Grossdeutschland Division is undoubtedly the most complete in weapons and equipment. Shortly after Lorenz's order was issued, more than a dozen 50 mm caliber mortars were fired towards the location where Yegor and others were hiding.
shelled.
In addition to artillery shells, the mortars also fired smoke bombs. With little effort, clouds of smoke rose up in the middle area between the Soviet and German sides, blocking the view of the officers and soldiers on both sides.
As soon as the smoke rose, the German infantry, which had been defeated by the new rockets not long ago, bent down and used the cover of the smoke to quietly approach the place where Yegor and others were hiding.
Seeing the smoke bombs that suddenly rose and the mortar shells that exploded nearby, Yegor realized that it was impossible to hold on here. He quickly shouted to the left and right: "Retreat, before the enemy can touch them, immediately
retreat."
Yegor's order was quickly passed on to every soldier through word of mouth. When a soldier just jumped out of the crater and was about to run towards the rear position, a shell fell next to him and exploded.
.The soldiers rolled down into the crater along with the mud thrown up by the explosion.
Immediately, other soldiers came forward to check his injuries, only to find that he was covered in blood and had died.
"What are you still doing?" Seeing that his men were frightened by a few shells, Yegor immediately shouted at them: "Why don't you retreat quickly? Do you want to stay here and become prisoners of the Germans?"
Yegor's words awakened the other soldiers, who scrambled out of their hiding places and jumped from one bomb crater to another in short leaps to reduce the possibility of being hit by shrapnel.
Fortunately, after running a few dozen meters, the German shelling stopped. It must have been that the German infantry entered the smoke area. The mortar crews were worried about accidental damage, so they stopped the shelling. But this also created a situation for Yegor and others.
A good opportunity to escape.
"Comrades!" Yegor noticed that the enemy's shelling had stopped, so he stood up from the crater and shouted to the surrounding soldiers: "The enemy's shelling has stopped, run quickly! If you don't run, we will wait for the enemy's infantry
It’s up, and I can’t run away even if I want to.”
The German infantry came faster than Yegor expected. In less than a minute, dozens of German soldiers armed to the teeth passed through the smoke and appeared at the location where Yegor and the others had been hiding not long ago. The German soldiers found the crater.
There was no one, but there were more than twenty figures in the distance, fleeing towards the trenches in the distance.
The German soldiers quickly raised their weapons and fired desperately at the backs of Yegor and others. It must be said that the technical and tactical level of the officers and soldiers of the Grossdeutschland Division was not generally high. After a burst of intensive gunfire, the soldiers were running
The figure suddenly fell down...
As early as when the German army launched its offensive, Major General Malankin, who was staying on the second line of defense, had been staying in the observation post with a good view, raising his telescope to observe the battle ahead.
When he saw the German tanks being destroyed one after another under the attack of Yegor's company, he couldn't help but cheer. When the German infantry launched an attack on Yegor and the others, his heart couldn't help but rise to his throat, and he felt very sad.
Understand that it is simply impossible to block the attack of hundreds of German infantry with the twenty or so guns of the anti-tank force. Fortunately, Guchakov ordered the soldiers to launch new rockets in time, and the charging troops were defeated.
The German infantry was blown to pieces, which made him secretly relieved.
When he saw a strange stalemate on the battlefield, Malanjin even smiled and said to the division political commissar who was watching the excitement: "Comrade political commissar, the Germans seem to be frightened by the comrades of the 188th Division and do not dare to continue the attack.
."
The political commissar also said with a smile: "It is undoubtedly the most beneficial for our army to continue the stalemate between the two sides. The longer the delay, the more reinforcements we will have, and we may be able to counterattack the Germans."
The chief of staff brought a cup of tea to each of them and said with a smile: "I really didn't expect that the troops trained by General Sokov were so good at fighting. The enemy's attack started almost an hour ago, and even the edges of the position were blocked.
Didn’t touch it.”
"This is just an under-organized battalion that can block the enemy and prevent them from advancing." Malanjin shook his head and said: "What would it look like if a regiment, a division, or even a group army were deployed here?
I can’t even imagine the situation.”
"Comrade Division Commander." The Chief of Staff waited for Malankin to finish speaking before he said: "When we blocked the German 19th and 6th Armored Divisions some time ago, the 188th Division showed amazing bravery and tenacity. At that time, they not only wanted the other side
Parts of the 6th Armored Division and the 19th Armored Division, and even the Skeleton Division that rushed towards Prokhorovka, exchanged fire. If it were other units, they would have been defeated long ago, but they were already maintaining their organizational integrity.
Under such circumstances, we repelled the enemy's attacks again and again."
While the three of them were standing by the lookout and chatting, they vaguely heard the explosion of artillery shells in the distance. The chief of staff instinctively turned his head and saw that the place where Yegor and the others were hiding was being shelled by the Germans. At the same time, they
A cloud of smoke rose in the open space between him and the enemy.
Seeing this, the chief of staff couldn't help but exclaimed: "Damn it, the enemy is attacking the anti-tank team again."
Hearing what the chief of staff said, Malanjin said with some disapproval: "It's not like the enemy has never launched an attack before. I think they will definitely get a bloody blow this time." As he said that, he handed over the tea cup in his hand.
Political Commissar, raised his telescope and looked towards the distant fighting area.
After watching for a moment, the smile on Major General Malanjin's face froze.
In order to cover the infantry attack, the German army actually fired smoke grenades, making it impossible for the anti-tank squad to see the enemy in the smoke.
Malanjin's heartbeat accelerated, his breathing became rapid, and his palms were covered with sweat.
"Comrade Commander," the Chief of Staff raised his telescope, and soon saw Yegor and others running back from their hiding place. He just grinned, and before he could speak, he suddenly saw those people rushing out of the smoke.
The German soldiers were shooting at the backs of the soldiers. Half of the soldiers were immediately shot and fell to the ground. They couldn't help but exclaimed: "The comrades of the anti-tank squad are in danger."
Hearing what the chief of staff said, the political commissar quickly grabbed a telescope and raised it to carefully observe the battlefield in the distance. He saw the remaining ten or so soldiers continuing to run towards the position, with bullets hitting them from time to time.
The soil was splashed high. But the trenches were quiet, and no one fired to cover them.
Seeing this scene, the political commissar became anxious. He put down his telescope and said to Malanjin: "Comrade division commander, those comrades are too dangerous. Should we do something to help them?"
"That's right, Comrade Division Commander." The Chief of Staff agreed: "We can order the artillery regiment to fire at the enemy and cover them to retreat safely to their positions."
"Political commissar, chief of staff, you are all commanders. The more times like this, the more you must stay calm." Although Malanjin was anxious at the moment, he understood that ordering the artillery to fire was because distant water could not save close fire, so he could only force it.
He said calmly: "Since Captain Guchakov at the front has not asked us for help, it proves that they have ways to deal with these enemies."
As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of shelling came from outside again, as if to be a footnote to what he just said.
After looking in the direction of the sound of artillery for a while, the chief of staff said in surprise: "Comrade division commander, you are absolutely right. It is the tanks deployed behind the front-line positions that are firing. They are bombarding the edges of the smoke and shooting at the soldiers.
soldiers."
The German soldiers who were shooting at the backs of Yegor and the others never imagined that the Soviet tanks deployed behind the position would fire at them without warning.
Although most of the soldiers jumped into the crater to escape before the shells hit the ground and exploded, there were still a dozen soldiers who were blown away by the blast of air or knocked down by flying shrapnel.
Under the cover of tank fire, Yegor and others finally returned to the trenches. However, only 11 of the original 35 people, including Yegor, were left, and half of them were wounded.
"Captain Yegor," Guchakov came up to Yegor as soon as he jumped into the trench, held his hand and said, "Well done, you successfully destroyed 28 German tanks. This is a great achievement."
Battle results. I will report your battle results to the regiment and take credit for you."
Hearing Guchakov's praise, Yegor couldn't help but grin. But when he thought of those comrades who would never come back, his expression became serious.
"Let's go down and rest first." Yegor's second company was basically exhausted, and it was of little use staying on the position, so Guchakov arranged for them to rest in the back: "The rest is up to us.
do it."
Yegor did not speak, but nodded to Guchakov, and then led the remaining soldiers towards the back along the communication trench.
After Yegor left with the soldiers, Guchakov called the company commander Narva to him and said to him: "Comrade Captain, there are no anti-tank groups threatening the German tanks in front, and the enemy will launch an attack soon."
Is your company ready for the new attack?"
Although his company has been preparing for war, after hearing Guchakov's question, Narva still answered loudly: "Comrade Captain, please rest assured that all the commanders and fighters of the first company are ready for battle and are ready to fight back at any time.
Enemy attack."
This chapter has been completed!