BXBX NOVEL Chapter 300: surround
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Of course Guderian didn\'t know that the Fourth Tank Brigade had returned to Moscow at this time.
To be precise, the main force returned to Moscow, and other tanks such as T26 and KV1 remained in Volokolamsk to continue fighting.
It is gratifying that during this period Stalingrad urgently produced 5 more tanks and shipped them to Moscow for the Fourth Tank Brigade. In addition, 3 faulty tanks were repaired and joined the team, so the total 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 rebroadcast on every radio station in the streets: "Comrades! Twenty-four years have passed since our victory in the October Revolution. Now our country is being invaded by foreign enemies, and the enemy is occupying Ukraine, occupied Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, etc., hung over Leningrad like a dark cloud, and threatened our glorious capital Moscow..."
Amidst these speeches, Major Zakhakovic ordered loudly: "Forward!"
Then the tank troops "rumbled" and drove towards Tula along the railways and roads.
Ten mine-clearing tanks drove ahead, and 39 T34s in the middle. They were divided into ten groups, and each group of three to four vehicles followed the mine-clearing tanks. Finally, ten more demining tanks... the next ten are for replacements and reinforcements.
The 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 lake is covered with ice...Of course, the ice layer at this time is not enough to support the tanks driving on it.
Such road conditions enabled the tanks to move forward in an offensive formation, with roaring motor sounds 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 marching northward at the same time. Major General Andreas kept urging the vanguard with a walkie-talkie: "Quicken up, if you don\'t want to freeze to death outside the city, get those Damn mines and obstacles cleared!"
"Yes, General!" The engineer company commander, Second Lieutenant Hans, who was walking in the front, replied, and then he turned his head and shouted at the soldiers who were busy pouring gasoline under the tree trunks in the road and setting them on fire: "speed up, We\'ll have hot coffee tomorrow in Moscow!"
The German engineers couldn\'t help laughing.
But it\'s not an easy process, mines are a pain in the ass... that\'s not to say they do much damage to personnel.
In fact, the wooden shell mines used by the Russian army may be caused by damp and then rapid cooling, which makes many wooden shell mines insensitive or even useless.
But this is not a good thing for the German army. They could have detonated these mines with a paddle... with a long pole to shoot forward on the road, and the anti-tank mines can be detected with a metal detector.
But now, long poles often cannot detonate those frozen wooden shell mines, but they will explode with a "boom" when people step on them.
Being blown off a leg in this ice and snow is not a pleasant thing, which is one of the reasons why the 3rd Armored Division is not moving fast.
Another problem is the tree trunk in the middle of the road.
Before this, these tree trunks were not worth mentioning to the German army, because they could be easily pushed away by just pushing forward from the tank.
But now, the tree trunk is tightly frozen in the muddy road before, and the ground where the tank stands is ice and snow. The result of using it to push the tree trunk is often that the track slips on the spot while the tree trunk does not twist.
So, the German army could only sprinkle precious gasoline on the tree trunks and light them on fire, use these fires to melt the frozen soil between the tree trunks and the ground, and then push them with tanks.
Lieutenant Hans waved a signal light and commanded a bulldozer modified from a tank chassis to slowly move forward...
Just then he heard a "rumbling" sound behind him.
Lieutenant Hans thought he had heard it wrong at first, but when he stopped the bulldozer, he soon realized that this was not the case, because the "rumbling" sound was mixed with the sound of an explosion.
"What\'s going on?" Second Lieutenant Hans asked.
"I don\'t know!" The lieutenant replied: "Probably an enemy tank!"
"If it\'s a tank, how do they pass through the minefield?" Second Lieutenant Hans said, "Using the track to run over it?"
It is not impossible to use crawlers, but the crawlers will be blown off after a long stroke, so this is not realistic at all.
"Flare!" Ensign Hans ordered.
The flare went up into the air, and the scene they saw stunned Second Lieutenant Hans and the others.
Dozens of T34 tanks outflanked them from both wings, and Hans also found the reason why these tanks can shuttle freely in the minefield... Driving in front were T26 tanks equipped with large rollers. These tanks pushed the rollers while advancing Rolled on the snow, and then the landmines exploded under the roller one by one.
"Enemy situation!" Second Lieutenant Hans shouted: "Notify immediately..."
I can’t say what I said next, because with a howling sound, several shells exploded around Ensign Hans, blowing up a bunch of German soldiers including Ensign Hans into the air.
Then, the bulldozer was also hit into a ball of fire.
The battle ahead quickly attracted the attention of the follow-up German troops.
After receiving the alert, Major General Andreas sent an armored battalion up without even thinking about it.
Major General Andreas took it for granted that it was an enemy guerrilla or civil defense force blocking the front and exchanging fire with the engineering unit.
The commander of the armored battalion also thought so, so he led 30 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 because There are mines everywhere, and if the German army is to advance quickly, a passage must be cleared through the minefield.
This passage is obviously a road.
German tanks can only advance along the road, otherwise they may be blown up by landmines.
This is no problem at first, because if the enemy tanks come up, they will also have to clear a passage in the minefield and also meet the enemy in a long snake formation, so no one can take advantage.
The problem is that the Soviet army has mine-sweeping tanks, and they are high-speed and efficient mine-sweeping tanks... At this time, the mine-sweeping tanks are no longer the stone rollers that would be shattered by anti-tank mines and a few mines would be missed from time to time on both sides. up.
Led by this mine-sweeping tank, the T34 tank quickly penetrated forward from both sides.
When the German tank battalion found out, it was already surrounded.
"Organize the 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\'!"
(end of this chapter)