At this time, most of the German army adhered to the combat principle of "offense is the best defense", that is, they were better at offense than defense, and even showed some disdain for absolute defense.
To be precise, what they advocate more is "dynamic defense", that is, deploying mechanized troops on the second line, and launching attacks in whichever direction the enemy breaks through to plug this loophole.
Admiral Kleist also made similar preparations.
In order to prevent the Soviet army from breaking out, General Kleist left an armored regiment outside Kiev.
This armored regiment is the 11th Armored Regiment belonging to the 3rd Motorized Corps. It has two tank battalions with a total of 93 tanks. The two tank battalions are deployed to the west and south of Kiev respectively.
This makes sense, because north of Kiev is the German 17th Army, and the bridge over the Dnieper River has been blown up by the Soviet army. Further north is the German Central Army, which means it is basically impossible to break out from this direction.
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The west side is also unlikely because that is the hinterland of the German troops.
The reason why German commander Eberhard divided the army into two and deployed one to the west was that once the Soviet army broke through, the tank battalion in the west could carry out a pincer attack with the tank battalion deployed in the south.
To Colonel Eberhard's surprise, the Soviet army's breakout direction happened to be to the west.
"West? Why is it southwest?" Colonel Eberhard couldn't help but was stunned when he received the information, but he immediately ordered: "Order the first battalion to prepare for battle, and the second battalion will immediately reinforce the first battalion!"
"Yes, Colonel!"
But before the signal troops could convey the order, the battle had already begun.
General Kilponos had information about the German armored forces, so the Soviet encirclement began with the annihilation of the 11th Armored Regiment.
This made General Kilponos a little nervous, because the Soviet and German tank units had faced each other in previous battles, and there was a huge gap in the number of tanks between the two sides... Budyonni led a mechanized army hoping to break through a German armored force.
regiment's defense.
If we look purely at the number of tanks, a Soviet mechanized army has nearly a thousand tanks, while a German armored regiment only has about a hundred tanks. Everyone thought that the German defense line would be broken through or even annihilated without any suspense.
But this is not the case.
Because the German tank regiments are not just tank regiments, they also have aircraft, artillery, and infantry, and they work well with each other.
The attack of the Soviet mechanized troops was to shout and then rush in and fight in a swarm.
The German army did not choose to defend the Soviet army head-on... This was what the Soviet army wanted.
The German troops retreated under the cover of air force, artillery and infantry.
There are only two words to say "retreat", but it is not that simple on the battlefield: artillery shells poured into the Soviet tanks in sheets, and Stuka bombers roared one after another from overhead.
As they dived down, the huge Soviet tank group was defeated and unable to fight back, and there were signs of chaos.
Budyonny ordered the troops to speed up.
This order may be correct, because as long as it is entangled with the enemy's tanks, the opponent's advantages in artillery fire and air power cannot be reflected.
But...waiting for the Soviet tanks in front were patches of mines.
In other words, the Soviet mechanized army had already suffered heavy losses before seeing the German tanks.
After the Soviet tanks were bombed, ran through minefields, and suffered helpless mechanical failures, they finally saw the German tanks.
It's just that the German tanks are not on the front but on the wings.
In order to avoid being surrounded by the German army, the Soviet army could only separate two units to fight separately. However, the German army continued to fight guerrillas with the Soviet tanks with the high mobility of their tanks.
The German tanks communicated well with each other and could flexibly divide their forces and concentrate them at other times. While using Stuka bombing to bomb the pursuing Soviet tanks, they also formed a local strength advantage to encircle and annihilate the scattered Soviet tanks.
On the contrary, the Soviet tanks were all wandering around like headless flies due to lack of communication and unified command.
As a result, more than a thousand tanks faced more than a hundred German tanks. Not only did they fail to win, but they lost nearly half of the tanks and came back defeated.
Now, against the same armored regiment of the Germans, the Soviet army only had an under-organized mechanized corps, with only more than 500 tanks in the entire army.
General Kilponos had to start with tank battles again.
The reason is simple. If the German armored regiment left near Kiev is not annihilated, they are likely to use its high mobility to become a nightmare for the Soviet 9th Army.
If we go by previous experience, although these 500 tanks still have a numerical advantage, they are not enough to fill the gap between the Germans.
Therefore, from the moment the battle started, Admiral Kilponos stayed in front of the radio with fear.
The sound of guns and artillery on the front line was already heard, and then mixed with the sound of tanks' tracks, flames and gunpowder smoke... A tank battle between the Soviet Union and Germany began again.
Shulka and others had jumped out of the car and followed the tank.
On the one hand, this is because tanks require infantry cover and coordination; on the other hand, there are artillery shells everywhere on the battlefield. At this time, if you take a car to advance, you will undoubtedly become a target for the enemy.
"Forward!" the battalion commander, Captain Venyakov, waved his pistol and shouted at the soldiers: "Follow the tank and be careful to use the tank to hide yourself!"
This is the result of the training of the 9th Army during this period... The Soviet battles were not fought like this before. Infantry was infantry and tanks were tanks. Perhaps the only effective coordination between infantry and tanks was to use tracer bullets to indicate the attack of the tanks.
Goals and directions.
Now it's completely different:
The commander waved the signal flag from behind, and then all the tanks knew what to do... The information was of course passed into the tank through the phone by the soldiers lying on the rear armor of the tank.
The Soviet soldiers also nicknamed these followers "followers."
This nickname is true, because their mission is to lie close to or follow the tank and not let go for a moment.
There is no way... Most of the Soviet soldiers are uneducated roughnecks, so the nicknames they give are usually ugly, just like Shulka's nickname is "Escape Hero".
Followers make coordination between tanks and infantry much easier, because they can tell the tank crew some information very intuitively from the outside:
"You are driving too fast, wait for them (infantry)!"
"Oh my god, you are about to collide with the tank next to you, go right, go right!"
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But of course, there are followers who can give blind orders. After the war, Shulka heard a tank crewman complain, and one of the followers shouted on the phone: "Hey! There is a plane on the left front, why don't you shoot it down?!"