Although the Russians have always been procrastinating when doing things, it took less than an hour for Berkin to convene an emergency meeting held by political workers from the issuance of notice to the end of the meeting. It seems that this scene made Sokov not secretly sigh. It seems that fighting is better, and it can actually improve their efficiency.
In the evening, the German army bombarded the third battalion's position again. After receiving the news, Sokov said to Belkin: "Comrade Political Commissar, I'll go to the third battalion's position to take a look, and I'll leave it to you for your responsibility."
"Okay," Belkin knew that Sokov liked to run to the front, so he did not dissuade him, but reminded him with concern: "You should pay more attention to safety."
"I will." Sokov suddenly stopped when he left the command post and said to Belkin: "Alitai's tank company has been deployed on the left wing of the Third Battalion. Just wait for the enemy's tanks to launch an attack, and then they can order them to launch an attack from the enemy's flanks and strive to eliminate the enemy's tank troops in one fell swoop."
"I understand," Belkin nodded after hearing this, and said, "As soon as I receive a call from the Third Battalion, I will immediately order the tank company to attack from the enemy's flank."
When Sokov left the command post, a thought suddenly popped up in his mind: "Now the troops are already in the brigade, it seems that it is necessary to add a chief of staff."
Sokov took a guard platoon and took three jeeps and three trucks to the base of the Third Battalion. Unexpectedly, as soon as he entered the east area of ​​the city, the speed of the vehicles in front slowed down. Sokov thought that the vehicle was going to pass through the barricades at the intersection, so he had to slow down his driving speed, so he didn't go to heart.
Unexpectedly, after a while, the car in front actually stopped. Seeing that the car stopped, Sokov said to the platoon leader of the guard who was sitting in the passenger seat: "Comrade Platoon Commander, go out and see what happened outside, why did the convoy stop?"
The platoon leader got out of the car and went to check in front, and returned to report to Sokov: "Comrade Brigade Commander, there are comrades from the Third Battalion in front of him who are organizing residents to transfer, blocking the road. I think we need to wait for a while."
"Organize the transfer of residents?" After hearing the platoon leader's report, Sokov also opened the car door and got out of the car, standing next to the car and looked in front. He saw a group of residents with panic expressions, carrying various luggage, and following the soldiers' guidance, Sokov couldn't help but frown: "Comrade Platoon Leader, do you know what's going on?"
"I don't know, comrade brigade commander." Hearing Sokov's tone so stern, the platoon leader said in a panic: "I'll go and inquire now." After that, he ran quickly forward.
Not long after, the platoon leader came over with a second lieutenant: "Comrade Brigade Commander, this is the platoon leader of the Third Battalion. What you want to know, he can give you a satisfactory answer."
"Comrade lieutenant," Sokov asked with a stern face, looking at the guard platoon leader of the Third Battalion, "Where are you planning to move the residents?"
"That's right, comrade comrade commander." The second lieutenant obviously knew Sokov's identity, so he replied truthfully: "According to the order of the battalion, all the residents living here will be transferred to a safe place. Perhaps in no time, this place will become a battlefield."
"Where are you going to place them?" Sokov asked briefly after finishing his speech.
"Place them in a cinema, station or hotel in the city center." After answering this question, the second lieutenant said first without waiting for Sokov to ask again: "This is a task assigned by the Political Commissar of Belkin." Heard that it was arranged by Belkin, Sokov didn't say anything else, but waved at the second lieutenant and signaled that he could leave.
After the residents were almost gone, the convoy continued to move forward. Sokov, who was sitting in the car, thought to himself: It seemed that Belkin also felt that the Third Battalion might not be able to hold onto the position in the east of the city, so he prepared for the future and moved the residents of this area to a safe area. But this would be good. If there was a street fighting, there was no need to worry about throwing the rat.
The convoy left the city and drove forward for a few minutes, and arrived at the position where the Third Battalion was stationed. The front of the national defense fortification was five kilometers wide and two kilometers deep. It was being bombarded by the German army at this moment. In order to prevent the convoy from breaking into the enemy's artillery covered area and killing his life in vain, Sokov ordered the convoy to stop. After some observation, Sokov ordered the soldiers to abandon the car and hike to the battalion command post of the Third Battalion.
Fortunately, the enemy's artillery fire was concentrated in the first line of defense of the Third Battalion, and there were not many shells falling near the battalion headquarters. Therefore, Sokov and his guard platoon successfully arrived at Andre's command center.
When Andrei saw Sokov appearing at his command center, he was shocked: "Comrade Brigade Commander, why did you come here?"
"I'll see what's going on here." Sokov asked bluntly: "How about it, can you block the enemy's attack?"
"It should be able to block the enemy's attack," Andre said bitterly: "It's just that the casualties are a little bit too big. So far, the number of casualties in the entire battalion has exceeded 500."
"What, the number of casualties exceeds five hundred?" When he learned of this number, Sokov was startled. After only a few hours of fighting with the German army, the number of casualties in the third battalion reached one-third. He looked at the place where the most violent shelling was caused by the bombardment and asked, "Which company is the first convenient force that is now?"
"It's the Second Company, comrade commander." Hearing Sokov's question, Andrey hurriedly replied: "The First Company suffered heavy casualties in the battles of the previous group, so I changed the Second Company."
"Who is the second company commander?" Since it was just expanded to a brigade, Sokov was not familiar with the commanders at all levels below. "Is he capable of defending the position?"
"It's Lieutenant Yegor, a soldier with rich combat experience. He has been following you since Shimki." Andre said confidently: "I believe he will definitely defend his position."
Sokov knew very well that the special platoon who followed him from Shimki town had suffered heavy casualties in a series of battles, but the rest of them are now serving as commanders at all levels in the army. Although he is not familiar with Yegor, he believes that he will not disappoint him in the subsequent battle.
In the first line of defense that was bombarded, although the soldiers were hiding in solid reinforced concrete fortifications, under the intensive German artillery fire, some fortifications were still blown up and buried all the soldiers hiding inside.
When Sokov saw the first line of defense covered by gunpowder, he gritted his teeth and said, "Damn German, he actually bombarded our army's positions with heavy artillery. Sooner or later, I will let you taste the power of our artillery."
After the German shelling was over, the assembled infantry was completed again, and under the cover of tanks, they charged towards the position of the Third Battalion. Sokov picked up the phone on the table and shouted loudly at the microphone: "Comrade Political Commissar, immediately give orders to Alitai's tank company to let them attack from the German flanks and destroy the enemy's tanks."
When Alitai's tank company detoured from the north of Kursk to the east, two tanks broke down on the road due to failure. Now only eighteen tanks can be put into battle. After receiving the attack order from Belkin, he immediately rushed towards the German troops attacking the third battalion's position like a rush and electric shock.
The German tanks were preparing to use their same tricks again, and stopped at a distance of 500 meters from the position, using tank artillery fire to suppress the third battalion without long-range anti-tank weapons. But this time they miscalculated. Just as they were adjusting their formation, the Soviet tank company had already rushed over from the side and launched an attack on them at a distance of 300 to 400 meters.
The tank soldiers stayed in the tank with a very narrow field of vision. They did not notice the Soviet tanks rushing from the flank. When half of the tanks were destroyed by the high-explosive armor-piercing bombs fired by the Soviet tanks, the remaining tanks were still slowly adjusting their formation and preparing to bombard the Soviet positions.
The German infantry following behind him saw a Soviet tank unit suddenly rushing out of the flank, and he couldn't help but lose his position. Some continued to rush forward, some turned around and ran back, while some soldiers directly charged towards the Soviet tanks. However, before they could get close to the tank, they were wiped out by the car-mounted machine guns of the Soviet tanks.
Sokov saw everything that was happening in the distance from the telescope, and quickly picked up the phone again, answered the brigade command, and said to Berkin, who was answering the phone: "Comrade Political Commissar, immediately give the artillery company an order to let them shell the enemy's artillery positions and cover the upcoming assault our army will launch."
As soon as Sokov put down the phone, he immediately said to Andre: "Captain 3rd Battalion, our artillery will be about to launch artillery attacks on the enemy's artillery positions. Now is the best time for you to counterattack. Order the troops to attack immediately."
If he hadn't seen Alitai's tank company destroying enemy tanks one by one on the battlefield like a target, Andre might have hesitated for a long time even if he wanted to execute Sokov's order. But at this moment, he saw that the German tanks were constantly being destroyed and the infantry had fallen into chaos. The artillery positions that might threaten him were about to be suppressed by artillery fire from the side, Andre hurriedly walked to the phone and picked up the microphone to issue orders to his subordinates: "Second Company, Third Company, listen to my orders, immediately attack the entire line, and follow our tanks to eliminate the enemy in chaos."
Although the tank company continued to destroy German tanks, without the cooperation of infantry, he wanted to counterattack the enemy with more than a dozen tanks of the tank company alone. Lieutenant Alitai felt that this was a move to die. It was not until he saw the Soviet infantry jump out of the trenches and charge towards the German army that was in chaos that he ordered his communications soldiers to use signal flags to notify other tanks and cover the infantry to continue attacking the enemy.
Sokov frowned when he saw that the connection between the Aliti tank company was actually completed through signal flags. It is barely reasonable to use signal flags to connect with small-scale battles like this. If hundreds of tanks fight in the future, then use signal flags to connect with them, it is obviously unrealistic. Not only will the smoke on the battlefield block the sight of the tank soldiers, but when the battle is fierce, who can still care about the signals sent by the command tanks? It seems that after this battle is over, you must consider installing communication equipment for each tank.
Nearly a thousand soldiers attacking from the position followed a dozen tanks and chased the German army that fled in a hurry. Seeing that the Soviet tanks rushed out of the flank, destroyed their tanks, and covered the infantry to charge at their location, Weber quickly gave orders to the artillery, asking them to use artillery fire to intercept the Soviet offensive forces.
However, he did not expect that the artillery was suppressed by heavy artillery in Kursk as soon as it fired two guns, and soon became mute. Seeing that his artillery fire was suppressed by the Soviet army, the German army seemed increasingly chaotic. Seeing this, the German Chief of Staff quickly suggested to Weber: "Mr. Colonel, the Russian tanks are coming. I think the 14th Company is still transferred to let them deal with the Russian tanks. As long as the Russian tanks are killed, the attack launched by the Russians will end in failure."
Weber never dreamed that the Soviet army would launch a counterattack on him, and was caught off guard. After hearing the Chief of Staff’s proposal, he immediately gave the 14th Company orders to use anti-tank guns to destroy the Soviet tanks.
After receiving the order, the officers and soldiers of the 14th Company immediately unloaded the anti-tank gun from the back of the truck, turned the gun port, and opened fire at the Soviet tanks rushing towards them. Because the shelling was in a hurry, all the shells that occurred in the first round fell into vacancies. When the anti-tank gunners saw that the first shell was empty, they immediately reloaded and launched the second round of shooting.
Although most of the shells fell into vacancies during this shooting, two shells hit the target. However, they did not penetrate the armor on the front of the T-34, but bounced away, leaving only a few white marks on the armor.
Seeing that the anti-tank gun could not penetrate the armor of Soviet tanks, the muscles on Webber's face couldn't help but twitch violently. Just as he was about to order the anti-tank gun company to continue shooting, the chief of staff came to him and said anxiously: "Mr. Colonel, I think we should retreat immediately. If we stay, we will become prisoners of the Russians."
Seeing his subordinates fleeing in a hurry and the anti-tank artillery company that could not penetrate the Soviet tank armor and were still shooting in vain, Weber hesitated for a moment, and then issued an order in a panic expression: "Retreat, retreat immediately!" After saying that, he ordered his driver to turn around and escape first.
Chapter completed!