On the southern battlefield, the most powerful enemy faced by the German Army Group South was also the Southwest Front Army, commanded by Kirponos and the most powerful among the Soviet army.
Although the defection of seven Ukrainian divisions greatly reduced the strength of the Southwest Front, Kirponos still has the main force in his hands, and has been able to receive a steady stream of troops to replenish his force and restore his combat strength.
Therefore, Marshal Lundstedt of the German Army Group South judged that in order to ensure the annihilation of the main southern force of the Soviet army in the early stage of the counterattack, it was necessary to penetrate behind the Southwest Front at high speed and prevent the main force of the Soviet army from shrinking to the east of Tibet.
Shore organization defense.
For this reason, the 1st Armored Group under Marshal Rundstedt made an all-out high-speed assault in the direction of Kiev and the lower reaches of the Dnieper River at the beginning of the counterattack, and through roundabout encirclement, prevented the Soviet army from retreating across the Dnieper River.
At the same time, Hart's motorized infantry brigade of the 3rd Armored Corps of the German Southern Group also worked hard to cover the flanks of the high-speed assault. Shortly after the counterattack began, they moved into the Dubno area, heading towards Lutsk, Roz.
Search forward in Fno Dungeon.
Coincidentally, this dungeon is where the main Soviet tank cluster on the southern front is deployed!
Now, Bock's Army Group Center has officially launched a comprehensive counterattack. This is precisely the best opportunity for Army Group South to make a second effort and achieve perfect coordination with Army Group Center.
...
Plains of southern Ukraine.
A phalanx of more than 40 Panther tanks advanced on the plain, followed by more motorized infantry.
The 602nd Tank Battalion has not encountered strong resistance since it launched a counterattack. They only helped the infantry to eliminate some Soviet firepower points and bunkers, but they have not encountered a single Soviet tank, and there was no battle damage. Only one tank was damaged due to
Mechanical failure caused the vehicle to exit the sequence and was towed back to the rear for repairs.
In command vehicle No. 101, Captain Conrad, the commander of the armored battalion, was giving various orders to the entire marching phalanx.
In his heart, the sense of urgency that he had at the beginning of the counterattack was completely gone.
Although there was no room for relaxation in the war, after the counterattack began, the performance of the Soviet army once again emphasized to the world that their defensive level was ten times worse than their offensive level.
This battle was not only smooth but also smooth. Conrad did some calculations and found that his tank battalion destroyed at least more than 30 Soviet bunkers and fire points, and destroyed no less than 20 Soviet artillery pieces.
It seems that the defensive preparations of the Soviets were bad enough. They probably did not expect that if they took the initiative to attack, they would eventually be counterattacked by the German army into their own territory.
But Conrad also knew that the deeper into the Soviet Union, the greater the danger his armored battalion faced. To be cautious, he mobilized some infantry carriers to travel on both sides of the tank formation to prevent tanks with poor visibility from being attacked.
Soviet ambush.
However, the off-road capabilities of the semi-covered armored personnel carriers were far inferior to those of his Panther tanks, so they were often left behind. For example, at this moment, they were left without knowing where they were.
Conrad, who once again lost contact with the armored transport convoy, was thinking about whether to send a tank to turn around and go back to look for the infantry, or to continue to rush in with all his strength. Suddenly, a call from the vanguard tank interrupted his thoughts: "Enemy tank.
, 2 o’clock direction, 3000 meters!”
Finally met my opponent!
Conrad shouted: "Quantity!"
"The number is unknown!" The commanders of several Panther tanks in the vanguard could only answer truthfully for the time being.
In fact, the Soviet tanks were lurking in the woods where the forward force was weak. When they saw Conrad's German tank phalanx approaching, they found the right opportunity and rushed out of the position in one breath.
Since Conrad did not have an infantry armored carrier to make up for the lack of field of vision, the ambush of Soviet tanks successfully evaded the German detection field of view.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" During the time Conrad was talking through the communication channel, several artillery shells had already landed on the right side of the vanguard tank's position.
"The first company charged forward with the avant-garde tanks, and the second company and third company outflanked it from the left and right wings respectively!" In desperation, Conrad did not bother to analyze the enemy's strength and chose the most conventional and reliable three-pronged assault formation to attack the Soviet tanks.
The troops carried out a simple and direct three-way attack.
...
"1st Squadron turned to meet the enemy, and 2nd Squadron rushed eastward to outflank the enemy's flanks!" At the same time, the Soviet commander also quickly issued ambush orders.
However, the on-board communication equipment of Soviet tanks is not as popular as that of German tanks, so their commanders can only set combat tactics from the beginning, and cannot flexibly contact all their own tanks midway to make flexible arrangements.
In fact, the number of tanks ambushed by the Soviet army was similar to that of the German tanks they encountered, 54 in total.
Among them, 16 are BT tanks, and the remaining 38 are BA-10 armored vehicles.
As for the BT tank, it is just a double-turret fast tank that the Soviets imitated the American T3 "Christie" wheeled tank 10 years ago.
This imitation is a backward product of an American tank from 10 years ago. Not only does it have weak armor and backward design, it also cannot compete with the Panther tank in terms of firepower.
In addition, the Soviet BA-10 armored vehicle is a six-wheeled heavy armored vehicle developed by them five years ago. It has a 45mm gun and additional tires on the side of the body to help it drive smoothly on undulating ground.
However, the armor of the BA-10 armored vehicle is only 10 mm thick at best, and its firepower is far better than nothing. It cannot stand out at all.
Therefore, although the Soviet tanks took advantage of the ambush and fired several shots in succession. However, even excluding most of the shots that failed to hit, even the few shots that hit did not cause any damage to the German Panther tanks.
On the other hand, the German armored battalion that lost the lead was ambushed, but thanks to the communication equipment that was spread to every tank, Conrad quickly stabilized the morale and made improvised arrangements.
Ordered the first salvo of German tanks.
Similarly, the German tank crews were not gods after all. In such a temporary and rapid emergency artillery attack, they did not hit the Soviet tank even once.
However, their large-caliber artillery, which far exceeded the level of Soviet tanks, successfully caused smoke and thick dust around their opponents.
It was this dust that seriously obstructed the line of sight of the Dingsu Army's tanks, making it impossible for them to discover that there were more than a dozen tanks in the other direction outflanking them.
The Soviets did send a force to one flank, but what they didn't expect was that the German army launched an outflank on both their left and right flanks at the same time.
It was also a tank battle, but in Poland, the German armored forces that had been trained in France were obviously far ahead of the Soviet army in tactics!
