Today is the fourth update. Please give me a monthly vote and I will continue with the fifth update tomorrow! Five updates every day is not too slow. You have to kill when you need to kill. You don’t need to keep watching it every day to enjoy it!
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Of course Guderian didn't know that the 4th Tank Brigade had returned to Moscow at this time.
To be precise, the main force returned to Moscow, while other tanks such as T26 and KV1 remained in Volokolamsk to continue fighting.
What is gratifying is that during this period, Stalingrad urgently produced 5 more tanks and transported them to Moscow to be handed over to the 4th Tank Brigade. In addition, 3 faulty tanks were repaired and added to the team, so a total of
There are 39 tanks.
At this time, in the hall of Mayakovsky Metro Station in Moscow, Stalin was grandly holding a celebration meeting for the 24th anniversary of the victory of the October Revolution.
The speech of the entire meeting was broadcast on every radio in the streets: "Comrades! 24 years have passed since we won the victory of the October Revolution. Today, our country is being invaded and occupied by foreign enemies.
It invaded Ukraine, occupied Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia and other regions, shrouded Leningrad like a dark cloud, and threatened our glorious capital Moscow..."
In the midst of this speech, Major Zahakavich loudly ordered: "Forward!"
Then the tank troops rumbled along the railways and roads towards Tula.
At the front were ten mine-clearing tanks, with 39 T34s in the middle. They were divided into ten groups, with three to four tanks in each group advancing behind the mine-clearing tanks. Finally, there were ten more mine-clearing tanks... The ten following behind were
Used for substitutes and reinforcements.
The white snow is as bright as the clouds.
The snow on the ground is already one meter thick, the muddy land has turned into a piece of frozen soil, and even the lakes are covered with ice... Of course, the ice layer at this time is not enough to support the tank driving on it.
Such road conditions allowed the tanks to advance forward in an offensive formation, with roaring motors one after another, rolling towards the south like a herd of horses running on the grassland.
The 3rd Armored Division on the other side was also moving north at the same time. Major General Andreas kept using the walkie-talkie to urge the vanguard troops: "Speed up. If you don't want to freeze to death outside the city, take those soldiers right away."
Clear the damn mines and obstacles!"
"Yes, General!" Second Lieutenant Hans, commander of the engineer company who was walking at the front, replied, then turned to the soldiers who were busy pouring gasoline under the tree trunks across the road and lighting them on fire: "Speed up, speed up,
We can have hot coffee in Moscow tomorrow!”
The German engineers couldn't help laughing.
But this process is not easy. Landmines are a headache... but this does not mean that they will cause much harm to people.
In fact, the wooden shell mines used by the Russian army may have been affected by moisture and then cooled down rapidly, which made many wooden shell mines insensitive or even ineffective.
But this was not a good thing for the Germans. They could have used a stick to detonate these mines... using a long pole to shoot forward on the road, and the anti-tank mines could be detected with a metal detector.
But now, long poles often cannot detonate those frozen wooden shell mines, but when people step on them, they will explode with a "boom".
Having your legs blown off in this icy and snowy field is not a pleasant sight. This is one of the reasons why the 3rd Armored Division is not advancing very fast.
Another problem is the tree trunk lying in the middle of the road.
Before this, these tree trunks were not worth mentioning to the German army, because they only needed a push from the tank to push them away.
But now, the tree trunks are tightly frozen in the road that used to be muddy and watery, and the tank's foothold is covered with ice and snow. Using it to push the tree trunks often results in the tracks slipping in place but the tree trunks not being able to move.
Therefore, the German army could only sprinkle precious gasoline on the tree trunks to light a fire, use these fires to melt the frozen soil between the tree trunks and the ground, and then push them with tanks.
Second Lieutenant Hans waved a signal light and directed a bulldozer modified from a tank chassis to slowly move forward...
Just then he heard a "rumbling" sound coming from behind him.
Lieutenant Hans thought he heard it wrong at first, but when he stopped the bulldozer, he soon realized that this was not the case, because the "rumble" was also mixed with the sound of an explosion.
"What's going on?" Lieutenant Hans asked.
"I don't know!" the adjutant replied: "Maybe it's an enemy tank!"
"If they are tanks, how do they pass through the minefield?" Second Lieutenant Hans said: "Do they use crawlers to roll over them?"
It is not impossible to roll with crawler tracks, but the crawler tracks will be broken if the travel is long, so this is not realistic at all.
"Flare!" Lieutenant Hans ordered.
The flares rose into the air, and the scene they saw stunned Lieutenant Hans and others.
Dozens of T34 tanks were outflanking them from both sides. Hans also found out why these tanks could move freely through the minefields... Driving ahead were T26 tanks equipped with large rollers. These tanks pushed the rollers as they moved forward.
Rolling over the snow, the mines exploded one by one under the rollers.
"Enemy situation!" Second Lieutenant Hans shouted: "Notify immediately..."
The next words could not be said, because with a roar, several artillery shells exploded next to Second Lieutenant Hans, blasting a bunch of German soldiers including Second Lieutenant Hans into the air.
Then, the bulldozer was also turned into a ball of fire.
The battle ahead quickly attracted the attention of the following German troops.
Major General Andreas got the alert and sent an armored battalion up without a second thought.
Major General Andreas took it for granted that it was an enemy guerrilla group or civil defense force blocking the front line and engaging in a firefight with the engineering troops.
The commander of the armored battalion thought so too, so he led thirty tanks to advance along the road in a long snake formation under the cover of infantry... In fact, the German army had to form such a formation.
There are mines everywhere here, and if the German army wants to advance quickly, they must clear a passage through the minefield.
This passage is obviously a highway.
German tanks could only advance along the road, otherwise they might be blown up by mines.
This was originally not a problem, because if the enemy tanks came up to them, they would also have to clear a passage in the minefield and also meet the enemy in a long snake formation, so no one could take advantage.
The problem is that the Soviet army has mine-clearing tanks, and they are high-speed, efficient mine-clearing tanks... The mine-clearing tanks at this time are no longer the ones that would break into pieces when blasted by anti-tank mines, and would occasionally miss a few mines on both sides.
It's crushed.
Under the leadership of this mine-sweeping tank, the T34 tank quickly crossed forward from both sides.
By the time the German tank battalion discovered it, it was already surrounded.
"Organize defense!" the commander of the tank battalion ordered loudly, and then immediately contacted Major General Andreas: "General! The enemy has surrounded us, and there are T34s everywhere... I think this is the 'T34 unit'!"