The Soviet 9th Army used some time during the day to make some preparations.
The first thing is to communicate with Major General Tolichka. After all, this requires his cooperation. More importantly, Major Gavrilov does not want to watch Major General Tolichka wipe out all the tank troops.
In order to avoid leaking the news, Major Gavrilov took Shulka to the military headquarters.
"Are you sure this method is okay?" Major General Tolichka asked.
"We tried it at the Brest Fortress, Comrade General!" Major Gavrilov said: "We successfully crossed the Bug River!"
"But it was a small force!" Major General Tolichka said: "And it just crossed a river. Now we obviously need more troops. The distance they have to cross is several times that of yours before!"
The difficulty and danger are indeed not comparable to crossing the Bug River before. If the enemy discovers... they only need to throw grenades into the lake to make the Soviet troops lurking in the lake unable to eat and move away.
"So we chose to sneak across when it was dark, Comrade General!" Shulka said: "At the same time, we launched a feint attack on the enemy to attract their attention!"
After thinking about it for a while, Tolicka nodded and agreed to the plan.
"It won't cost us anything anyway!" said Tolichka.
Even if the enemy was discovered while sneaking across, only a few people would be killed or injured, and death is unavoidable on the battlefield, so this was not considered a "loss" to the Soviet officers.
So the 9th Army's attack stopped, and the news to the troops was that they were preparing to attack at night... This excuse was very good. If tanks could not be relied on, it would indeed be more appropriate to attack at night and fight the Romanian army in a night battle.
Next is the gas mask.
This is not a problem in Brest, as there are many gas masks in the fortress's warehouse.
However, gas masks were not standard equipment in the Soviet army. Many soldiers found them troublesome and useless and did not wear them.
However, it is not difficult to search for hundreds of gas masks from an army. The only worry is that collecting gas masks will leak secrets and attract the attention of the enemy.
For this purpose, Major Gavrilov even acted out a scene, pretending that a harmful gas leaked from a warehouse and needed a gas mask. Only then did he complete the task.
The next step is modification.
It would be too dangerous to modify it like it was done at Brest Fortress, where a float was tied to the top of the extension tube.
The target is too big, and the pile of floating objects is very obvious in the lake, and it is very likely to be discovered when a searchlight shines on it.
The new method is to add a foam float to the lower half, so that the extension tube will be suspended in the water and only a section of the extension tube will be exposed on the water surface. This obviously has much fewer goals.
But in fact, the issue about exposure is not big.
On the one hand, this is because the lake located in the defense line is not as clean as Shulka and others thought. The military and civilians living on both sides and nearby are dumping domestic garbage into it, and there are a lot of various floating objects.
On the other hand, it was difficult to find anything in the rainy night, and the searchlights could not illuminate very far. Moreover, the Romanian soldiers did not even dare to turn on the searchlights for fear of being bombed.
No one thought of a serious problem... rain.
When the extension tube is exposed to the water, rainwater will flow into the mask from the opening along the extension tube, accumulating more and more...
After the war, Gavrilov asked Shulka: "How did you solve this problem?"
Shulka replied: "Easy, drink it!"
Saying that, Shulka touched his bloated belly with lingering fear... This is actually not simple at all.
Finally, soldiers from the first battalion followed the feint attack troops carrying modified gas masks.
With the cover of darkness and heavy rain, they didn't need to start swimming from a very far distance.
The feint attack troops moved to a position two hundred meters away from the enemy's defense line to prepare for the feint attack. The first battalion launched the water one after another behind them, and then moved forward under the cover of gunfire and explosions...
Admiral Schobert on the other side did not realize that the danger was approaching him step by step. All his attention was focused on capturing the port of Odessa.
The port is the key to capturing Odessa.
One reason is that the Soviet army has been sending reinforcements to Odessa through the port... Although the Romanian and German coalition forces blockaded the port with mines, bombers and artillery fire, as the saying goes, "the troops will block the water and the soil will flood", these blockades will hardly block the port.
Supplies are completely blocked.
Especially at night when bombers are unable to fight, large and small transport ships from Crimea will transport supplies and ammunition in batches through the channels swept by minesweepers.
On the other hand, the port was the Soviet army's only retreat. Occupying the port would undoubtedly cause a heavy blow to the psychology and morale of the Soviet troops stationed in Odessa.
More importantly, the Romanian 6th Infantry Division has penetrated into Odessa from the west and occupied the museum. If the German army captures the port, it can attack the Soviet army from the east and west and cut Odessa into two parts that cannot be connected.
, Odessa was helpless at that time.
At this time, Schobert persuaded Rakvitza to assign him an artillery regiment... In fact, this was the result of Schobert's "snitching" to Rundstedt.
"Your Majesty Marshal!" Schobert reported to Rundstedt in a telegram: "The 22nd Infantry Division is an airborne force. They have no artillery. And the Romanians are unwilling to use their artillery to support us...
"
As mentioned before, Rakvitza was worried that Schobert was coming to take the credit from him.
This "little report" was very useful, and General Schobert immediately obtained an artillery regiment.
But Schobert was still furious.
"Haven't these guys learned to fire artillery?" said Schobert, "or they made the farmers become artillerymen!"
It turned out that in the artillery support just now, at least one-third of the artillery shells hit the German area, causing considerable casualties to the German army.
"Fabian!" Then Schobert ordered an adjutant with an artillery background: "You rush to the artillery position immediately to take over their command and bring a radio. Do you understand?"
"Yes, General!"
This is actually not surprising. When two armies with different training and quality levels cooperate, problems of one kind or another will always arise.
After Fabian finally settled down at the artillery position, Schobert breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention to the port again.
But at this moment, a communications soldier panicked and reported to Schobert: "Your Excellency, this is General Rakovitsa... He is asking us for help!"
"What the hell?" General Shobert looked at the signal soldier in confusion: "Asking for our help?"