At 4:35 a.m. on May 25, 1943, at the headquarters in Smolensk, Hoffmann gave the symbolic order for the official launch of the Battle of the "Castle", which had already been passed on to the commanders of every unit on a mission. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

It was a fine sunny day, the front-line airfields ushered in the most crowded and busy moment, in the earth-shattering roar, the bombers took off first, and then waited for the escort fighters to depart together, in order to increase the intensity of the strike, the BF-219 and FW-190A, which have become the backbone fighters of the Eastern Front, were hung with bombs.

At 5:17 a.m., by the light of dawn, the first aviation units dropped bombs around the target, and the well-arranged anti-tank positions, permanent or semi-permanent fortifications, antennas, which seemed to be the place of the headquarters, the artillery positions, especially the anti-aircraft gun positions, were covered by the blows, and the most important thing was all the field airfields of the enemy within a radius of 200 kilometers from Tambov.

In order to achieve a good offensive effect, the air raid mainly used two types of bombers, Ju-188 and He-218, the former mainly threw incendiary bombs, and the latter mainly dropped 250 kg bombs.

With the Middle East oil guarantee, the Germans can finally play the luxury of incendiary bomb tactics, they have a better effect on the destruction of soft targets, and at the same time use their arson characteristics to form secondary damage, and more importantly, the burning fire and smoke can also indicate the direction of subsequent shelling, which can be said to be counted in one fell swoop.

Although the Red Army's ground anti-aircraft fire did its best to return fire, it was still to no avail, except for a very small number of unlucky planes that were shot down by ground anti-aircraft fire, most of the positions that were prepared to be destroyed according to the recent aerial photography were all hit, and the poor 15th Army of the Red Army Air Force did not have enough planes, and under the fierce air raids of the German army, nearly 200 planes were destroyed in the airfields and warehouses.

At 5:30, the Germans began shelling, and the large-caliber artillery fell on the enemy positions with overwhelming momentum, and the dust and smoke that stirred up obscured the entire sky, so that it was clear that the sky was getting brighter, but it seemed to be getting darker and darker, and only the continuous, sky-piercing flashes and rumbling roars made people understand that they were on the battlefield. The ferocious fire of the simultaneous explosion in the air and on the ground almost melted the Red Army positions into a storm of steel.

In order to ensure the suddenness of the offensive, Moder made a number of adjustments and feints: first, he insisted that the headquarters be located in Smolensk - the telegraph signal in the headquarters could not be disguised and would have been very dense, but the location west of Moscow rather than near Voronezh had a noticeable deceptive effect; The second was to get Weix's Army Group East to attack, and the order given to them was May 27, and all the troops of Army Group East except for a very few people thought it was a real order - there was a plan, there were supplies, there was a schedule, there was an allocation of combat areas, but they did not know that later on May 26 they would be given a supplementary order to "postpone the plan", and Moder believed that the spies lurking here would definitely try to send the "information" out; The third is to keep the Voronezh direction immobile and not to carry out any action that might cause misunderstanding or alarm - including demining and pre-war surveys.

In order to block the attack of the German armored group, the Red Army planted a large number of anti-tank mines in the front-line positions, the density is dense and sparse, once the Germans strayed into the minefield and are trapped, they can carry out precise strikes with anti-tank positions, so in previous battles, engineers are usually sent to clear mines in advance, in order to pull out a passage for the attacking troops as much as possible, and at the same time reduce tank losses. It was difficult to achieve complete concealment in this kind of demining operation, and the Red Army on the opposite side would constantly check the mine planting and determine where the German offensive was going.

But this time, Moder decided to break through with his equipment and not to carry out demining before the war, and his confidence was the hundreds of demining vehicles. The German military industry has been thinking about using machines to clear mines to improve efficiency, and at first they created the Goliath, a small miniature tank with a ******** box that would detonate the explosives if it hit, detonating all mines within 50 meters of the perimeter.

Goliath originally used a drive-by-wire and an electric motor, but due to the difficulty of controlling the technology, it was later changed to a gasoline engine. Although the whole thing looks quite fun and inexpensive, only about 1000 marks a car, and can still make the soldiers have some fun in their spare time, Hoffman thinks that Goliath's efficiency is too low and slow, and asks for something better, and then the military industry department has perfected the SDKFZ301BIVA/B heavy remote-controlled blast vehicle, the Graben wolf, although the demining efficiency of this thing has increased exponentially compared to Goliath, but it is still very troublesome - because it still relies on dropping explosives to detonate mines.

Eventually, Hoffman gave a clear order that, in view of the ineffectiveness of the demolition trucks, the front line sent combat engineers to demine vehicles converted from service tanks - vehicles converted from the captured and inferior T-34s. Inspired by the talent of "universal transformation", the turret-removed T-34 was transformed into a rumbling demining vehicle. There are usually 2-3 minesweepers in front of the hull to move slowly, and steel clappers similar to crane booms will be erected in the middle of the turret, and the ground on both sides of the tank will be continuously slapped under the control of sappers to detonate various mines. A demining vehicle can usually cover a path of 8-10 meters in circumference, and the speed of mine-clearance is twice that of the Goliath, at least 12 kilometers per hour.

When the mills in front are almost destroyed, the tanks will use the hull to run the mines until the two tracks are completely blown up and cannot move, and then the sappers can abandon the vehicles and prepare to retreat. If the T-34 demining vehicle is not enough, the captured Shermans, who have been converted into service tanks, will continue to rush forward and use their bodies to continue the mine.

In addition to the T-34 can enjoy this honor, those captured tanks, such as the M3 tank famous for the coffin of the 7 brothers, the Stuart tank captured from the Soviet army, the BT\T-26 and other light tanks have been tried to modify, and finally found that the T-34 is the best - this guy has a strong carrying capacity, good mobility, and a level of failure within an acceptable range, and the defense is not bad, even if it encounters anti-tank mines, it will not pose danger to the crew, at most it cannot move. Sherman's performance is also not bad, but where can their seizures match the large number of T-34s?

In order to quickly open the offensive channel, Moder arranged a full 200 demining tanks on the front line, and told the combat engineers below not to worry about these things, they will not blow up after hitting a mine, as long as they can control the battlefield, they can go back to clean the battlefield and recover and repair it can be used again.

Such a spectacular method of demining is simply unheard of, looking at the minesweepers lined up and rumbling forward, Colonel Fritz Beck, commander of the 6th Tank Regiment of the 3rd Armored Division, who was observing from a distance, couldn't help but sigh: "I didn't expect us to be so arrogant now, and actually use tanks to clear mines......"

"Yes, what's even more unimaginable is that you can't build tanks or anti-tank destroyers, but you actually build infantry fighting vehicles, hey, it's really not a dream, right?" Major Otto Zolrenkov, commander of the 1st Battalion beside him, was also very emotional.

After the successful development and mass production of the Raider tank destroyer equipped with 88mm guns, the production of the Hunter tank destroyer rebuilt with a 38t chassis was gradually stopped, and the military industry began to build the Rhino infantry fighting vehicle with the direct intervention of the Führer, in addition to continuing to use this chassis to transform it into a cricket self-propelled artillery.

This is a draft drawn by Hoffman from the BMP infantry fighting vehicle, and when it finally became a reality, it was modified to fit the 38T chassis, the modified infantry fighting vehicle is 4.9 meters long, 2.2 meters wide, weighs about 11 tons, and when combined with the improved 140 hp engine, the maximum speed can reach 45 km / h, a standard infantry fighting vehicle can accommodate 10 people (2+8), and there are 8 fully armed soldiers in the crew compartment, 4 people on each side, back-to-back rides, and there are 4 hatches on top of the crew compartment, There are 4 perforations on each side of the vehicle, and personnel can enter and exit through the double door at the back of the vehicle, and can be quickly deployed when encountering an enemy situation.

According to the idea of application, this tank will be assigned to the Panzergrenadier Regiment in the Panzer Division, exactly one per squad. Although the number of personnel is 2 fewer than the standard 12 people, it is much more powerful than the half-track infantry transport vehicles such as the SDK251 or 250, not only the full track design, the off-road performance is better, and the firepower is much improved, in addition to a 7.92mm MG42 general-purpose machine gun, it is also equipped with a 20mm machine gun, and on some of the vehicles that are clearly fire support squads (1 per row), this 20mm machine gun is replaced by a 75mm recoilless gun - fixed to the hull when traveling, Once in position, it can be easily taken down.

The newly modified 10-man squad is a combination of 4 STG43s and 6 G43s, which is no less powerful than the previous K98 rifles. However, due to lack of time and production capacity, the production of new infantry fighting vehicles is still very small, only more than 600 units have been completed, and only the first batch of ace units such as the 3rd Armored Division to complete the reorganization have this honor, even then only 2 grenadier regiments are equipped with an infantry fighting vehicle battalion, and the other battalions are still equipped with a 12-man squad of SDK251.

For the sake of distinction, the Panzergrenadier Assault Battalion was intrigued in the Panzergrenadier sequence - they would be the first infantry to join the Panzer Battalion in battle.

"Sir, the minefield has been cleared!"

Colonel Baker nodded, pointed at the intercom and gave the order: "The whole regiment is assaulted!" (To be continued.) )