Unlike other comrades-in-arms, at night, while the infantry and armored corps of the Guard Flag Division and the Ninth Panzer Division were racing against time to build positions, the reconnaissance battalion of the Ninth Panzer Division was hurrying to sleep.

At about four o'clock in the morning, when the eastern sky was white, Major Krugel led his men to hastily fetch some well water, and splashed cold water on their faces, dispelling the last bit of drowsiness of the scouts.

As he drove out of the position of the 9th Panzer Division, Major Krugel clearly saw the formation of foxholes on both sides of the road.

In the foxhole, the soldiers of other units slept in blankets, and only a few foxholes on guard duty were soldiers with guns and eyes vigilantly looking at the surrounding wilderness.

The combined positions constructed by the 9th Panzer Division and the Guards Flag Division were in a hemispherical shape.

The town of Stennis was occupied by the 9th Panzer Division, and to the northeast of the town, next to a birch forest in the town, right at the top of the hemispherical position.

The town of Stennis had by this time been handed over to the Guard Flag Division by the 9th Panzer Division, and as the reconnaissance convoy drove out of the town, Major Krugel saw that the town was full of Waffen-SS soldiers in green, brown and yellow camouflage uniforms, and he also saw a young major patrolling the positions east of the town.

Passing through the town of Stannis, Major Krugel knew that he and his men had entered the middle ground of the two fronts and continued eastward, where they could encounter the Soviets at any moment.

The battalion dispersed and advanced eastward along three roads, with occasional sights of corpses lying on the road and in the fields on both sides of the road, as well as guns and ammunition thrown in the grass.

During yesterday's battle, units of the 503rd Heavy Armored Battalion and the 9th Panzer Division swept the Soviet troops along this route when they pursued the Soviet troops.

The tragic situation of the Soviet army on the road and the unnamed, empty village ahead of it are proof, and not a single house in the village is intact. Either half of it collapsed, or only empty window frames remained.

Next to a tiled house at the entrance of the village, a 45-mm anti-tank gun fell to the ground, the wheel on the right flew somewhere, and four bloody corpses lay sideways.

Krugel had a clear picture in his mind of the Soviet anti-tank gun crew when they were killed, firing at the charging E-40 tanks with their weak 45-mm anti-tank guns. Then an 88-mm high-explosive shell was fired into the soul, and almost all the crew members and their weapons were left here.

A noise interrupted Major Krugel's thoughts, looking up at the sky, Krugel easily found the source of the noise, and two FI-156 reconnaissance planes flew over his head to the east.

"See, the pilots of the Air Force are also very diligent, and we can't lose to them if they come out to reconnoiter so early." Krugel said into the radio.

Cautiously driving more than two kilometers, the three detachments of the Krugel battalion separately noticed an anomaly.

FI-156 reconnaissance aircraft in the distant sky stopped penetrating deep into the enemy's hinterland. Turning to hovering in the sky, Major Krugel soon heard a dense burst of gunfire in front of him, and clouds of gray gunpowder smoke burst out of the sky, and the enemy was attacking reconnaissance planes in the sky.

The scouts stopped their vehicles, and Krugel quickly climbed onto the roof of the carport and pulled out his binoculars to look at the battle.

A short time later, Major Krugel jumped into the cabin, picked up the walkie-talkie in the car and shouted, "Billy." Henat, do you have any findings there? ”

Soon after. The commanders of the other two reconnaissance detachments replied one after another.

"Boss" My road is full of enemy tanks, and I have to retreat or I'll run into them head-on. Said before the interest rate.

"I'm here too, oh my God, the Russians have more tanks than they can count, are they concentrating all the tanks from all over the country here? I'm going to have to retreat, too. Heinert continued.

Krügel did not hesitate to give the order to retreat. All signs indicate that the Russians are organizing a large-scale offensive.

No sooner had he turned the car than Major Krugel heard the humming of the engine behind him.

As a reconnaissance battalion commander and as a veteran, Major Krügel had the most dealings with the Air Force. The most familiar is the FI-156 reconnaissance aircraft.

He was familiar not only with the white background and brown wavy stripes unique to the FI-156 reconnaissance plane, but also with the unique timbre of the FI-156 reconnaissance plane's engine.

Hearing the roar of the approaching force behind him, Major Krugel jerked back, and as he had expected, a group of planes appeared in the eastern sky, rapidly approaching his convoy.

Krugel glanced at the sky and roughly counted the number of enemy planes at fifty or sixty.

He immediately shouted into the radio to speed the convoy back to its starting position, and the radio communicator had already sent what they saw back to the headquarters of the 9th Panzer Division.

At the entrance of the town of Stennis Town, a reconnaissance detachment led by Billy and Heitner arrived first, without any stop or exchange, and the two reconnaissance detachments immediately passed through the town and withdrew to the hinterland of the defense line as quickly as possible.

Krugel's SDKFZ250 light armored vehicle was parked on the side of the road in the center of the town, and he waved to the Waffen-SS major standing on the side of the road.

The young Waffen-SS major fastened his steel helmet to his blonde hair and walked quickly to the armored car.

"Mr. Major, what can I do for you?"

"Who is the Supreme Commander here?" Krugel asked.

"I'm Jossim. Major Piper, I command the troops here. ”

Major Krugel said, "Major Piper, the enemy's armored forces are approaching here, the number of tanks is very large, I hope you are ready to face the attack of hundreds of tanks." ”

Young Major Piper's eyes instantly became fierce, and he waved his hand in salute Krügel.

"Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Major."

Major Krugel politely returned the salute and immediately drove back on the road, and the armored car rushed out of the town of Stennis with a gust of wind.

Major Piper ran to his makeshift headquarters in town, and had just finished updating his superiors on the situation when he heard a deafening roar.

Walking out of the headquarters, Piper saw a large group of planes rapidly approaching the town of Stennis at a rapid pace.

I hope it wasn't for us, Major Piper prayed secretly.

As if hearing his prayers, the group flashed over the town of Stamnes. The group dived, then dispersed into a dozen detachments, rushing to the pontoon bridge over the Dnieper River west of the town of Stannis and the German positions exposed in the wilderness.

The Germans had long since lost their tranquility on the German lines, and the Germans returned fire with 20-mm and 40-mm anti-aircraft guns at the enemy falling from the sky, and the dense shells were woven into a net of fire between the enemy planes and the ground.

From time to time, Soviet fighters were hit by anti-aircraft guns. Drag the black smoke off the battlefield, or stick straight to the ground and fall to pieces.

White parachutes float in the sky, and escape pilots hang below.

Smoke rose from the ground, the ground trembled as the aerial bombs fell, and the earth flew into the sky wrapped in wheat stalks, and then fell on the heads and faces of the nearby German soldiers.

On the surface of the Dnieper, white columns of water rise into the sky, and dead or stunned fish and shrimp float on the water.

Thanks to the protection of anti-aircraft artillery. In the first wave of Soviet air raids, only one of the five pontoon bridges on the Dnieper River was injured by a near-miss bomb and temporarily lost the ability to pass.

Major Piper was in the town, organizing his men to seize the last chance to reinforce their positions while watching the battle to the west until the Luftwaffe fighters arrived on the battlefield.

The Soviet Air Force fired the first shot at the counteroffensive bridgehead. The Soviet Army also did not leave much time for Major Piper to prepare.

Heavy shelling fell from the sky and fell on the German lines. At the very top of the hemispherical line, the town of Stennis where Major Piper was stationed was the focus of the Soviets.

With the sound of tearing through the air, Katyusha rockets instantly landed in the town of Stanis, and almost the entire town was enveloped in flames emitted by the explosion.

The town, once ravaged by German artillery, seemed to be an enemy in the eyes of the Soviet artillery, with 132-mm Katyusha rockets, 122-mm and 152-mm grenades falling endlessly on the town. The town's dilapidated houses could no longer withstand the deadly devastation and collapsed in the sound of explosions, leaving only foundations and a few broken walls.

Major Piper hid in the basement of a small church in the town, silently waiting for the Soviet offensive to begin, but quickly lost patience.

Twenty minutes. The shelling did not stop, thirty minutes, fifty minutes, a whole hour passed, the Soviet shelling still did not stop, all the German soldiers could only hide in foxholes, and the soldiers wounded in the explosion wailed in pain, but they were not treated. The artillery fire of the Soviet troops was so dense that the medics could not leave the trenches at all.

The second group of the Soviet Air Force flew to the battlefield and was immediately intercepted by German fighters and anti-aircraft guns, and the fighters escorting the Soviet fleet took the initiative to find the German fighters, and from the sky to the ground, there was a purgatory-like scene everywhere.

In the basement, Major Piper held his steel helmet in both hands, his back against the wall, silently feeling the vibrations coming from the wall.

After about half an hour, he snapped his eyes open, snapped the steel helmet in his hand to his head, and then stood up and picked up the assault rifle beside him.

"The Russians are coming, let's go." Major Piper said as he rushed out of the basement first.

Major Piper, who was young and had combat experience inversely proportional to his age, judged from the sound of the shells that he had crossed the town of Stannis and was extending to the rear, indicating that the Soviet offensive was about to begin.

Soon, Major Piper saw the shadow of the Soviet infantry cluster in the telescope.

At the front are more than a dozen KV-2 heavy tanks, known as "mobile public toilets", and the boxy public toilet turrets mounted on 152mm howitzers are intimidating to look at.

Behind the KV-2 tank, Soviet soldiers wrapped in grass-green uniforms charged in dense formation, infantry holding "heart and liver" rifles, machine gunners dragging Makqin water-cooled machine guns, and artillerymen pushing 76. 2 mm anti-tank guns, or 81 mm mortars on their shoulders, bent over and following farther behind.

I need an artillery bombardment, and if I can give the Russians an artillery bombardment at this time, I can definitely teach the Russians a good lesson, let them know that the infantry attack formation cannot be so densely lined.

Following the agreed steps, when the Soviets rushed to his designated area, Major Piper had his men fire two green flares.

With a loud thunderous bang on the west bank of the Dnieper, the Guard Flag Division dispatched two artillery battalions, and twenty-four 105-mm and 150-mm howitzers opened fire one after another.

Under the TOT shelling tactics obtained from Chen Daozhen's biography and carefully cultivated by the German artillery, all the shells landed almost at the same time.

The Soviet infantry cluster in Captain Piper's telescope vanished in an instant, drowning in a storm of flames that engulfed everything.

Under the fierce artillery fire, the Soviet infantry charge momentum was weakened, and only the hard-working KV-2 tank continued to move forward fearlessly.

Major Piper watched the artillerymen wield their might as a group of short, agile figures galloped through the streets of Stennis Town.

They were the No. 4 tank destroyers sponsored by the 9th Panzer Division, and two companies with a total of 17 tank destroyers each looked for an ambush site and quietly waited for the battle to begin.

Placing the KV-2 tank about 300 meters from the forward position, Major Piper heard the crisp sound of shelling from the No. 4 tank destroyer.

Two KV-2 tanks were hit, black smoke came out of the body, and the tankmen abandoned their vehicles in confusion and fled.

Soon more KV-2 tanks did not have time to figure out the situation, and the second round of shelling from the No. 4 tank destroyer followed.

The death of a comrade-in-arms woke up the tankmen of the KV-2 tank to realize that their tanks were not indestructible in front of the Germans.

The surviving KV-2 tanks stopped one after another and returned fire at the No. 4 tank destroyer that exposed the target.

Every time the 152mm howitzer fired, it was like a shocking thunder that sounded on the ground, attracting the attention of everyone on the battlefield.

The KV-2's lethal shells either flew over the head of the Tank 4 or hit the ruins of the buildings where the Tank 4 was sheltered.

The shells fired by the KV-2 tank set fire in the town of Stannis, which looked amazing but had little effect.

The advantages of the "fast fighters" of the tank destroyer No. 4 were vividly displayed, and when the KV-2 heavy tank was reloaded, the tank destroyer group No. 4 fired two or three times each.

The shells flew at high speed and hit the body of the KV-2 tank, creating dents or bullet holes in the steel plates.

In the wilderness east of the town of Stannis, more and more black plumes of smoke rose into the sky, heralding the failure of the first Soviet charge.

Looking at the Soviet infantry slowly but surely approaching the town of Stannis, Major Piper sighed in his heart whether the fearless charge of these "Ivans" on the opposite side was fearless or sluggish, or numb.

The results sent to the door can never be turned away.

When the Soviet infantry rushed to a distance of about 200 meters from their position, Major Piper waved his arms fiercely.

"Machine gun, fire." (To be continued.) )