Obstacle-clearing infantry clears the way in front, and tanks advance while covering the rear. Occasionally, they will fire a few shots in the direction of the tracer bullets fired by the infantry.
At this time, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade was accustomed to such battles involving infantry and tanks, even the tank night combat capability, which was still very difficult at this time.
Landmines were cleared, roadblocks were pulled apart... These things seemed to be more convenient to implement at night, because the obstacle-clearing infantry could operate in the dark and would not become the enemy's target like they would during the day.
Then there is the barbed wire fence.
This is not difficult, you just need to cut off both ends, tie a hanging rope and then drag it away from the side.
Even experienced veterans will use these barbed wires to clear mines. They use slings to drag bundles of barbed wire past suspected mines. The weight of the barbed wire is enough to detonate anti-infantry mines.
As for anti-tank mines, they are not sensitive. You can't even detonate them if you stand on them... If they can detonate, they won't blow up the tank, so you just need to use a military spike to find it and dig it out. It's okay to keep it.
Used against enemy tanks.
Then came the anti-tank trenches.
However, this anti-tank trench is not actually an anti-tank trench.
There are actually no certain standards for anti-tank trenches. The reason is that the tanks they have to deal with are of different lengths and have different obstacle-crossing capabilities, so the requirements are also different.
If you are dealing with a tank that cannot even pass through a concrete block, the anti-tank trench only needs to be dug into a small hole. The irony is that such a tank dares to claim to be the best in Asia in modern times.
Under normal circumstances, the width of the anti-tank trench must exceed half of the body of the tank being targeted.
For example, what the German army has to deal with is the Soviet T34 tank, and the T34 tank is 6.1 meters long, so the anti-tank trench must be more than 3 meters anyway, otherwise most tanks can cross it as long as the front and rear weights are the same.
The depth is determined by the height of the tank's tracks and its obstacle-crossing performance, and is generally about three meters.
The anti-tank trenches built by the Germans were wide enough, about four meters, but only two meters deep, and part of them was covered with snow.
This is the information Katukov received from the front.
Katukov breathed a sigh of relief: "Their anti-tank trenches cannot stop us, they are not deep enough!"
After a pause, Katukov added: "Maybe because of the frozen soil, they couldn't finish it in a short time! Although they forced the people of Zhankoi to dig for them!"
It can be seen that Katukov is most worried about this anti-tank trench.
This is actually understandable, because of all these things, the anti-tank trench is the most troublesome... If they can successfully build an anti-tank trench that meets the requirements, coupled with the easily slippery ice, snow and frozen soil, it will indeed be difficult for tanks to cross
.
At that time, engineers will need to carry out construction under enemy artillery fire, and they can only advance from a few construction points, making it easy for them to be attacked by concentrated fire from the enemy.
Because of this, Katukov was secretly relieved after hearing this information.
But Shulka thinks the matter is not that simple.
Even if the Germans were unable to complete the anti-tank trench due to time issues, they still had time to withdraw to Chankoi and organize street fighting. After all, they also knew that an anti-tank trench that could not block enemy tanks was no different than nothing at all.
But the Germans did not do this. They still chose to stick to this line of defense.
This may also mean that they have other things to rely on.
Shulka raised his binoculars and looked at the front line, where flares were flashing back and forth, lighting up the area, and from time to time there would be a few fireballs exploded by artillery shells.
Soviet tanks were crossing the anti-tank trenches under the light of flares... As Katukov said, the anti-tank trenches could not stop them.
But at this moment, a T34 was suddenly hit and turned into a ball of fire.
At first, Shulka thought it was just an accident. As mentioned before, any accident can happen on the battlefield, such as a large-caliber howitzer hitting by chance, or an anti-tank gun.
But Shurka soon discovered that something was wrong, because the T34 tanks that were crossing the trench were destroyed one after another, and some of them even had their entire turrets overturned and fell more than ten meters away.
Katukov obviously noticed this, and he couldn't help but cursed: "Go to hell, 88MM anti-aircraft gun!"
"No, that may not be the 88MM anti-aircraft gun!" Shulka said: "It is dark now, and the 88MM anti-aircraft gun is huge!"
Katukov soon understood what Shulka meant.
Although the 88MM anti-aircraft gun can penetrate the T34 one kilometer away, the problem is that the gunner cannot see the target one kilometer away in the dark.
If the distance was close enough for the gunner to observe the target, then the huge barrel of the 88MM anti-aircraft gun would be invisible, and it would soon become a target for Soviet firepower.
"What could it be?" Katukov asked doubtfully.
"I don't know, Colonel!" Shulka said: "But I think this is probably the reason why the German army dared to build a defense line in the wild to confront us!"
Katukov couldn't help but be startled, and raised his telescope to look forward again, but saw nothing except a few more T34s being destroyed.
"Colonel!" At this time, the correspondent guarding the phone called this way: "Comrade Zahakavich's phone!"
Katukov immediately put away the telescope and ran forward to take the microphone.
"What? Are you sure?"
"Do you know what model it is?"
"Pull the troops back and postpone the attack!"
Katukov put down the phone and turned his attention to Shulka and said: "You are right, Shulka, that is not an 88MM anti-aircraft gun, but a tank, a German tank!"
"What, a tank?" Shulka was so surprised that his jaw almost dropped.
"Yes, tanks!" Katukov said: "We found them, they were hidden in tank bunkers, you know, the body is below the ground, only the turret is exposed, they are painted white to blend in with the snow,
And then...they destroyed our tanks!"
"How far?" Shulka asked.
"About three hundred meters!"
"Where is our tank?" Shulka asked again: "We have discovered it, why not destroy it?"
"We can't do anything about it!" Katukov said: "We can't destroy it. It's a new type of tank. We don't even know its model!"
Schur probably knows what tank that is.
The only one that can destroy T34 but T34 can do nothing about it is the "Tiger".
But as far as Shulka knew, the "Tiger" first entered the war in Leningrad a few months later, but now it appeared in Zhankoy.
Shulka thought that perhaps because of Shulka's presence, the battle to defend Moscow was fought better than it should have been, so Hitler urgently sent the immature "Tiger" to the battlefield.