The town of Olikhovatka is located about 15 kilometres west of Rosohi and is also a town on the banks of the Kalitva River.

The Kalitva River meanders through the middle of the town, splitting the town of Olikhovatka into two parts, north and south.

In the early hours of June 18, just before three o'clock, a convoy of vehicles approached the road south of the town of Olikhovatka, in the light of the stars.

At the head of the convoy were three Ural M-72 sidecar motorcycles, followed by six SDKFZ221 "Millibeard" armored reconnaissance vehicles.

Farther behind, the road is lit up with lights, and a larger convoy is behind the vanguard.

If you stick it next to the M-72 sidecar motorcycle, you can see that the riders are wearing German camouflage uniforms, but they are wearing Soviet SSH-40 steel helmets on their heads. On the sidecar of the motorcycle, the frame is also the Deg Galev light machine gun.

However, in the dim light, from a distance, there was nothing unusual about them. The SDKFZ221 armored vehicles behind the three motorcycles, at a glance, resemble the BA series armored vehicles of the Soviet reconnaissance troops.

If you don't look closely, this convoy is clearly a Soviet motorized reconnaissance unit, but their real identity is a scout of the Luftwaffe's "Reich Marshal" armored division.

After deciding on the battle plan for the attack on Rosohi, after thinking about it, Major General Schumacher decided to adopt the method of night attack, if he waited until daytime to set off, there would definitely be no effect of a surprise attack, the enemy would find his troops in advance, and the planes on the airport would also perceive the danger and flee in advance, as in the previous battle.

A single armored division would certainly not all be crowded into one road, and the "Imperial Marshal" armored division divided into two roads and went north along the two roads to the Kalitwa River.

In order to avoid unnecessary battles on the road as much as possible, the reconnaissance battalion selected a part of the scouts who could speak German, sat on captured M-72 sidecar motorcycles, put on Soviet steel helmets, and held Soviet weapons SDKFZ221.

The small detachment was in the front, the reconnaissance battalion was in the rear, the "Imperial Marshal" armored regiment was in the rear, and the convoy formed a long snake formation and slaughtered the town of Olikhovatka.

Because it was far from the battle line, after dark, most of the villages along the way were not garrisoned by Soviet troops, especially those small ones.

In the two villages where the Soviet troops were stationed, strict lighting control was implemented in accordance with the rules of wartime, and the road did not pass through the middle of the village, but from a road about two or three hundred meters away from the entrance of the village.

In the darkness, the sentries at the entrance of the village failed to detect the abnormality of the army in time, and allowed the convoy to drive through the darkness in front of them.

Ahead was the terminus, the town of Olikhovatka on the banks of the Kalitva River, and the scout detachment responsible for opening the way for the large army did not hesitate, did not stop, did not timidly, and drove straight towards the town.

To their surprise, there were no Soviet soldiers at the intersection of the town, and the scouts' smiles of good luck had not yet disappeared from the corners of their mouths, and the outline of a three-story building appeared on the left side of the road ahead.

There is a small square in front of the building, and there are four forks in the square, and at the intersection of the forks, you can faintly see a black figure with a rifle on his back.

Obviously, the other party also sensed the approach of the scouts, and the shadow stopped moving in the direction the scouts were coming.

On a motorcycle in the front, a voice came from the back seat of the driver.

"Shine on them with the headlights, machine guns ready."

The pillar of light emitted by the headlights of the motorcycle was particularly dazzling in the dark night, and the Soviet soldiers who were illuminated by the beam of light invariably turned their faces sideways to avoid it, or squinted their eyes.

On the side of the road, an officer-like man muttered something, turned on the flashlight and pointed it at the German convoy.

The light of the fire of the Zeggarev light machine gun tore through the night at the same time as the light of the flashlight.

The Soviet officers and soldiers standing guard fell to the ground spasmodically, and the flashlights flew to the ground.

The M-72 motorcycle at the head rushed through the intersection and did not stop until it reached the side of the three-story building on the side of the road on the left side of the intersection.

Raising his hand to take off the Soviet steel helmet above his head and throw it to the ground, he changed back to the German-made M35 steel helmet, and the scouts jumped off their motorcycles one after another to seize the gate of the three-story building.

The SDKFZ221 armored vehicles drove straight to the north of the town, followed by the air force scouts who entered the town, most of them followed the armored vehicles into the depths of the town, and a few stopped on the side of the road, rushing to the first target, a three-story building on the left side of the road.

In the building, which had been in the silence of the night, the fire from the muzzle of the gun flashed from time to time, and the sound of grenade explosions followed, and the shouts, shouts, and screams came one after another.

Scouts poured into the town, moving from night raids to assaults, spreading like water to all corners of the town south of the Kalitwa River.

Six SDKFZ221 armored vehicles charged along the road and soon passed through residential areas.

Along the highway through a riverside clearing two or three hundred meters wide, a bridge appeared in front of the headlights of the armored reconnaissance vehicle.

A pillar of light came from across the bridge and collided with the beam of light from the headlights of the German armored reconnaissance vehicle, and the flare swayed into the sky to dispel the darkness on both sides of the bridge.

There is no darkness to provide cover, and there is no need for the two sides to continue to hesitate.

On the sandbags on the north bank of the bridge, Maxim's heavy machine guns fired wildly, trying to block the rushing armored reconnaissance vehicles.

In the face of flying machine-gun bullets and sparks shining all over the body, the machine gun tower on the German armored reconnaissance vehicle simultaneously spat out fire, and rushed all the way to the bridge.

The German shooters, with the steel plates of the machine gun towers as cover, quickly suppressed the exposed Soviet machine gun positions on the opposite side of the bridge, led by two armored vehicles quickly rushed across the bridge, followed by two, and the other two armored vehicles stopped on the south side of the bridge and continued to suppress the Soviet troops north of the bridge with machine gun fire.

In the rumbling shaking of the ground, the follow-up convoy of German scouts quickly followed to the side of the bridge, and the Great Lynx light tanks and SDKFZ251 armored vehicles rushed across the bridge, crushing the last courage of the Soviet troops at the bridgehead.

The troops of the reconnaissance battalion fought valiantly to capture the town of Olikhovatka, and the southern entrance to the town, which was located on three floors to the left of the four-way junction, was gradually stopped by the sound of gunfire and shouting.

The vanguard of the "Reichmarshal" Panzer Regiment, the 1st Panzer Company of the 1st Panzer Battalion, and a Panzergrenadier Company were the first to enter the town, stopping at the fork in the road in front of the three-story building, and instead of continuing north, they turned around and drove eastward, towards the town of East Kalitva, a small village called Shaposhnikovka.

The town of Olikhovatka was not the ultimate target of the battle group, but the airfield near Rosohi, fifteen kilometres to the east.

There were no Soviet defenses in the village of Shaposhnikovka, and the vanguard of the Panzer Regiment of the "Imperial Marshal" passed through the village and seized a bridge and a crossing on the Kalitva River to the east of the village.

The main force of the "Imperial Marshal" armored regiment followed, with E-40 "Panther" tanks wading across the river at the ferry, and "Wolf" infantry fighting vehicles driving over the bridge and rushing towards the airfield to the east in the dark.

Behind them, the regimental artillery battalion followed into the village, and 12 "Wasp" self-propelled howitzers set up artillery positions in the village, pointing their guns to the east.

Major General Schumacher led the division headquarters behind the artillery battalion into the town of Olikhovatka, and stationed in a bloodstained three-story building at the fork in the road.

Before being promoted to division commander, Major General Schumacher was the commander of the armored regiment of the "Reichsmarshal", and was accustomed to charging in the first line and acting with the armored regiment.

After becoming the division commander, Major General Schumacher could not break this habit, and before the battle to capture the town of Olikhotka was completely over, he led the division headquarters into the station and commanded the battle of the troops nearby.

The staff officers had just set up a table in the basement of the building and laid out the map when a communications staff officer delivered good news.

The armored regiment of the "Reich Marshal" successfully crossed the Kalitva River, the enemy's airfield was in front of them, and the troops made a successful surprise attack.

Major General Schumacher nodded

"Now that we've stormed the Russians' hen coops, what are we waiting for, catch those chickens and eat them. We've been chasing these chickens for a long time, so where are they running this time? ”

：。 ：