The Soviet 9th Army made some preparations with a little time during the day.

The first is to communicate with Major General Tolichka, after all, this requires his coordination, and more importantly, Major Gavrilov does not want to watch Major General Tolichka wipe out the tank force like this.

In order to avoid leaking the news, Major Gavrilov took Shulka on a trip to the military headquarters.

"Are you sure this is possible?" Major General Tolichka asked.

"We tried it in the Brest Fortress, Comrade General!" Major Gavrilov said: "We have successfully crossed the Bug River! ”

"But that's a small force!" Major General Tolichka said: "And just to cross a river, now we obviously need more troops, they have to dive several times the distance before you!" ”

It is true that this difficulty and danger cannot be compared with the previous crossing of the Bug River, in case it is discovered by the enemy...... They only needed to throw grenades into the lake so that the Soviet troops lurking in the lake could not eat and walked away.

"That's why we chose to sneak when it gets dark, Comrade General!" Shulka said: "Grab the attention of the enemy by feints at the same time!" ”

After thinking about it for a while, Toliczka nodded and agreed.

"It doesn't have much to lose to us anyway!" Toliczka said.

Even if the sneak was discovered by the enemy, it would only kill and wound a few people, and the battlefield could not avoid death, so this was not a "loss" for the Soviet officers.

So the offensive of the 9th Army stopped, and the news came out of the troops that they were preparing to attack at night...... This excuse was sufficient, and if tanks could not be relied upon, it was indeed more appropriate to attack at night and fight a night battle with the Romanian army.

The second is the gas mask.

This was not difficult in Brest, where many gas masks were stored in the warehouses of the fortress.

However, gas masks were not standard in the Soviet army, and many soldiers did not bring them because they were troublesome and useless.

However, it is not difficult to search for hundreds of gas masks from a single army, and the only fear is that collecting gas masks will leak secrets and attract the attention of the enemy.

To this end, Major Gavrilov also played a scene, pretending that a warehouse had leaked some kind of harmful gas, and temporarily needed a gas mask, which was the only way to complete this task.

Again, it's retrofit.

It was too dangerous to modify it as it had done in the Brest Fortress, when a float was tied to the top of the extension tube.

The target is so big that a pile of floating debris is very visible in the lake, and it is very likely to be spotted by a searchlight.

The new method is to add a foam float to the bottom half, so that the extension tube will be suspended in the water and only one section of the extension tube will be exposed on the surface of the water, which is obviously much less targeted.

But in fact, the problem of exposure is not that big.

On the one hand, this is because the lake located in the defense line is not as clean as Shulka and others think, and the military and civilian household garbage living on both sides and nearby are dumped into it, and there are a lot of floating objects of all kinds.

On the other hand, it is difficult to find anything in the rainy night, the searchlights do not shine far, not to mention that the Romanian soldiers did not even dare to turn on the searchlights for fear of being bombed.

No one thought of a serious problem...... Rainwater.

When the extension tube is exposed to the water, rainwater will flow down the extension pipe from the opening into the mask, accumulating more and more......

After the war, Gavrilov asked Shulka: "How did you solve this problem?" ”

Shulka replied: "Simple, drink it!" ”

As he spoke, Shulka touched his swollen belly with palpitations...... It's not that simple at all.

Finally, the fighters of the first battalion, carrying modified gas masks, followed the feint troops.

Under the cover of heavy rain at night, they did not need to start swimming from a great distance at all.

The feint troops reached a position two hundred meters from the enemy's line of defense and prepared for a feint, while the first battalion was launched one after another behind it, and then moved forward under the cover of gunfire and explosions......

Admiral Chaubert on the other side was not at all aware that the danger was approaching him, and all his attention was focused on the capture of the port of Odessa.

The port was the key to the capture of Odessa.

One reason is that the Soviet army has been sending reinforcements to Odessa through the port...... Although the Romanian and German allied forces blockaded the port with mines, bombers, and artillery fire, it was difficult for these blockades to completely block the supply of the port.

Especially at night when bombers are unable to fight, transports of all sizes from Crimea bring supplies and ammunition in batches through the passages cleared by minesweepers.

On the other hand, the port was the only retreat for the Soviet army, and the capture of the port would undoubtedly deal a heavy psychological and morale blow to the Soviet troops stationed in Odessa.

More importantly, the Romanian 6th Infantry Division had penetrated deep into Odessa from the west and occupied the museum. If the Germans could occupy the port and be able to flank the Soviet army to the east and west, and then cut Odessa into two parts that could not be contacted, then Odessa would be powerless.

At this time, Chaubert persuaded Rakovitza to assign him an artillery regiment...... In fact, this was the result of Schubert's "small report" to Rundstedt.

"Your Excellency, Marshal!" In a telegram, Chaubert reported to Rundstedt: "The 22nd Infantry Division is airborne, they have no artillery. And the Romanians refused to support us with their artillery......"

As mentioned earlier, Rakovitza feared that Chaubert had come to take credit for him.

This "little report" was useful, and Admiral Chaubert immediately got an artillery regiment.

But Chaubert was still furious.

"Haven't these guys learned to shoot guns?" "They still make the farmers who farm the fields artillery," said Shawbert! ”

It turned out that in the artillery support just now, at least a third of the shells smashed into the territory of the Germans, causing a lot of casualties to the German troops.

"Fabian!" Then Chaubert ordered an artilleryman-turned-adjutant: "You immediately rush to the artillery position to take over their command, and bring a radio, understand?" ”

"Yes, General!"

In fact, there is nothing strange about this, because when two armies with different levels of training and quality work together, there will always be problems of one kind or another.

When the dust finally settled on Fabian's artillery position, Chaubert breathed a sigh of relief and turned his gaze to the harbor again.

But at this moment, a signal soldier reported to Chaubert in a panic: "Your Excellency, General, it is General Rakovitza...... He asked us for help! ”

"What the hell?" Admiral Chaubert looked at the communications corps suspiciously: "Ask us for help?" ”