On the Southern Front, the largest enemy faced by the German Army Group South was also the Southwestern Front, which was commanded by Kirponos and had the most abundant strength in the Soviet army.

Although the defection of 7 Ukrainian divisions greatly reduced the strength of the Southwestern Front. However, the main force in the hands of Kirponos still exists, and it has always been replenished by a steady stream of troops to restore its combat strength.

Therefore, Field Marshal Rundstead of the German Army Group South judged that in order to ensure the annihilation of the main southern force of the Soviet army at the beginning of the counterattack campaign, it was necessary to penetrate the back of the Southwestern Front at high speed and prevent the main force of the Soviet army from shrinking to the east bank of the first branch to organize defense.

To this end, the 1st Panzer Group under the command of Marshal Rundstedt, at the beginning of the counterattack, made a high-speed assault in the direction of Kiev and the lower reaches of the Dnieper, and prevented the Soviet troops from retreating across the Dnieper through a roundabout encirclement.

At the same time, Hart's 3rd Panzer Corps Motorized Infantry Brigade of the German Southern Cluster also struggled to cover the flanks of high-speed assaults. Soon after the counterattack began, they marched into the Dubno area and searched for the cities of Lutsk and Rivne.

It so happened that this dungeon was precisely the main force of the Soviet army's tank cluster on the southern front!

Now, Bock's Army Group Center has also officially launched a full-scale counterattack, which is precisely the best opportunity for Army Group South to exert its strength for the second time and achieve perfect coordination with Army Group Center.

......

Southern plains of Ukraine.

A phalanx of more than 40 Leopard tanks advanced on the plains, followed by more motorized infantry.

Since the 602nd Tank Battalion launched a counterattack, it has not encountered strong resistance. They only helped the infantry to eliminate some Soviet firing points and pillboxes, but not a single Soviet tank was encountered, and there was no combat damage, only one tank was out of the sequence due to mechanical problems and was towed back to the rear for repairs.

In the command vehicle No. 101, the commander of the armored battalion, Captain Conrad, was constantly giving various orders to the entire marching phalanx.

In his heart, there is no sense of urgency at the beginning of the counterattack.

Although there was no room for relaxation in the war, after the counterattack began, the performance of the Soviet army once again emphasized to the world that their defensive level was ten times worse than the offensive level.

The battle was not only smooth, but also smooth, Conrad calculated a little, his tank battalion eliminated at least more than 30 Soviet bunkers and firing points, and destroyed no less than 20 Soviet artillery.

It seems that the Soviets' defensive preparations were bad enough, and it is estimated that they did not expect to take the initiative to attack, but in the end they would be counterattacked by the Germans into their own territory.

But Conrad also knew that the deeper the Soviet Depths, the greater the danger to his armored battalion. Out of an abundance of caution, he brought in some infantry transports to march on both flanks of the tank phalanx, so that the tanks with poor visibility would not be ambushed by the Soviets.

But the half-covered armored transport vehicle was much inferior to his Leopard tank in cross-country ability, so it was often left behind. At this moment, for example, they don't know where they have been thrown to.

Conrad, who had once again lost contact with the armoured convoy, was pondering whether to send a tank back to look for the infantry, or to continue to push deeper with all his might. Suddenly, an avant-garde tank came from a shout that interrupted his thoughts: "Enemy tank, 2 o'clock direction, 3000 meters!" ”

Finally met your opponent!

Conrad asked aloud, "Quantity!" ”

"The number is unknown!" The commanders of several Leopard tanks in the avant-garde could only answer so truthfully for a while.

In fact, the Soviet tanks were lying in wait in the woods in front of them, and when they saw Conrad's German tank phalanx approaching, they found the right time and pounced out of their positions in one go.

Conrad did not have an infantry armoured carrier to compensate for the lack of field of vision, resulting in an ambush of Soviet tanks successfully evading the German reconnaissance.

"Bang! Boom! Boom! "During Conrad's conversation time through the communication channel, several shells had already landed on the right side of the avant-garde tank position.

"The first company charged head-on with avant-garde tanks, and the second and third companies outflanked from the left and right flanks respectively!" In a hurry, Conrad did not care about analyzing the enemy's strength, and chose the most conventional and reliable three-pronged assault formation, which carried out a simple and direct three-way assault on the Soviet tank troops.

......

"The 1st Squadron turned to meet the enemy, and the 2nd Squadron broke through to the east and outflanked the enemy!" At the same time, the Soviet commander was also quickly giving the order for an ambush.

It's just that the on-board communication equipment of Soviet tanks is not as widespread as that of German tanks, so their commanders can only set up combat tactics at the beginning, and cannot flexibly contact all their tanks halfway through to make flexible arrangements.

In fact, the number of tanks in ambush on the Soviet side was about the same as the German tanks encountered, a total of 54.

Of these, 16 are BT tanks, and the remaining 38 are BA-10 armored vehicles.

As for the BT tank, this is nothing more than a two-turret fast tank made by the Soviets 10 years ago in imitation of the American T3 "Christie" wheeled tank.

This imitation, and it is also a backward product of the imitation of the American tank of 10 years ago, not only is the armor weak, the design is backward, and even the firepower is completely unable to compete with the Leopard tank.

In addition, the BA-10 armored car of the Soviet army, which was developed by itself five years ago, has a 45mm gun and additional tires on the sides of the body to help smooth the ride on undulating ground.

But the BA-10 armored car has armor that is only 10 mm thick at most, and the firepower is better than nothing, and it is impossible to take it out of the table at all.

Therefore, although the Soviet tanks continued to have the advantage of ambushing, they fired several shots in a row. However, even excluding most of the shelling that missed, even a few hits did not cause any damage to the German Leopard tanks.

On the other hand, although the German armored battalion, which had lost its first hand, was ambushed, Conrad quickly stabilized morale thanks to the communication equipment that spread to every tank, and immediately ordered the first salvo of German tanks to be arranged.

In the same way, the German tankmen were not gods after all, and in such a temporary and rapid emergency artillery attack, they did not hit the Soviet tanks with a single shot.

However, their large-caliber artillery, which far surpassed the level of Soviet tanks, managed to kick up smoke and a thick layer of dust around their opponents.

It was this dust that seriously obstructed the view of the tanks of the Soviet army, so that they could not even find that there were more than a dozen tanks in the other direction outflanking them.

The Soviets did send a force on one flank, but what they didn't expect was that the Germans outflanked both their left and right flanks at the same time.

It was also a tank battle, but in Poland, the German armored forces, which had been trained in France, were obviously a big step ahead of the Soviet army in terms of tactics!