"What?! We need to attack the grove in front of us now! The commander of the 222nd Regiment of the 13th Motorized Infantry Division of the German Army, under Ciric, said helplessly.

His troops had just captured a small village and captured more than 400 British soldiers there. And just when the regiment commander was about to let the troops repair on the spot and have a beautiful lunch, the strict order of the division headquarters came.

"Sir, the troops below are already exhausted. I don't know about the other battalions, but our battalion has been involved in three village battles in succession today, and we are already exhausted and in urgent need of repair. "It was the battalion commander of the main battalion under the 222nd regiment, Captain Kuhn, who spoke.

Kuhn's battalion is the most combat-effective battalion of the 222nd Regiment and the main battalion of this regiment. On weekdays, their training is the hardest in the whole regiment, and their physical performance is also the highest in the whole regiment. It is said that in high-intensity operations, their performance is the best in the whole regiment.

Now, even the battalion commanded by Kuhn is beginning to complain, which means that the lower troops are indeed extremely tired, and the remaining physical strength of the soldiers has reached the zero point.

"Let the troops deal with it with the compressed convenient food," the regiment commander also waved his hand involuntarily: "The order of the division headquarters is that we should expel the troops as soon as possible and go to the target woods and occupy there." And the time limit set by the division headquarters for this 'as soon as possible' is to set off in an hour. ”

Departing in an hour?!

The troops had just finished high-intensity fighting, and an hour was not enough time for the soldiers to rest. Kuhn could not understand why the division headquarters should interfere with the specific command of the forward troops, and to such an extent.

You must know that the first essential thing that every German commander learns in military academies is that commanders at all levels should give as few specific and binding orders as possible, and give more instructions with clear objectives and concise contents.

This is a unique tradition that the German army has always had, and was first built by famous German historical generals such as Scharnholst and Clausewitz. Every officer in the German army believed that this method of command could give his subordinates full freedom to mobilize their subjective initiative and creativity to better achieve the objectives of the campaign.

In later generations, this type of command had a nice name, called "task-based command". As the name suggests, it is to only issue tasks, so that lower-level troops can flexibly handle tasks according to the actual situation.

It is said that one of the reasons for the defeat of the famous Battle of Kursk in World War II was directly related to Hitler's own inappropriate over-intervention in the front commanders.

By the time the battle reached a critical juncture, the German front-line commander Manstein had a strong strategic reserve at his disposal, with the 17th Panzer Division and the Norman SS Division as the main forces, and the Soviet southern defense line had begun to falter. At the same time, although the German army on the front line had experienced fierce fighting, it still had strong combat strength, and made considerable progress in the fighting in the next few days, and surrounded several infantry positions of the Soviet army, occupying some high ground of great strategic value.

But just when Manstein thought the Germans were on the verge of victory, Hitler intervened very inappropriately with his command. Due to an error in the situation of the battle, Hitler decided to abandon Kursk, and transferred the reserves that would have decided the outcome of the battle to the Western Front in advance, and completely discarded the original idea of the Kursk battle and the results of Manstein's near-perfect tactical hard fighting.

In addition to the frequent erroneous interventions in strategic and campaign command, Hitler in history even frequently overstepped the command of tactical combat operations. According to Manstein's "The Art of Throwing the Pot....... No, according to "The Lost Victory", Hitler even had to directly intervene in the movement of army battalion-level combat units, so that the talents of many German commanders could not be displayed due to Hitler's intervention, and finally the German army could not win.

Of course, whether it was Manstein's accusation that Hitler had cheated him and interfered in the deployment of troops during the Battle of Kursk, or he accused Hitler of interfering in the command of the grassroots troops at other times, and that he could not win every battle, all these statements were suspected of giving Hitler the blame. However, it is undeniable that this specific top-to-bottom intervention is not very popular among the German officer ranks.

But now, what Ciric has issued to the 222nd Regiment is exactly this annoying and hard requirement, and even the time for the troops to attack is stipulated!

Not only the commander of the 222nd Regiment, but also other officers, including Captain Kuhn, also held an unreasonable attitude.

What is the reason why the division headquarters of the 13th Motor Infantry Division abandoned the fine traditions of the German army and ignored the forced subordinate troops to fight fatigue?!

Kuhn and the others' doubts were quickly answered. In his own name, Division Commander Ciric personally sent a telegram of supplementary explanation, explaining the situation.

In this telegram, Kuhn and others learned that the vanguard of the 19th Panzer Corps under the command of General Guderian would definitely be able to arrive here this evening. If the 13th Motorized Infantry Division could not take down all the enemy blocking forces in front of it before the armored forces arrived, the armored forces, which should have rushed to Dunkirk as soon as possible to take on heavy responsibilities, had to stop and bear the losses before the big battle in the enemy's blockade.

This is not good for the next operation of the 19th Panzer Army, and it may even affect the overall situation!

"General Shirek from the division headquarters has a telegram," Kuhn's regimental commander handed the telegram to him, "and look, there is also a lot of pressure on the division commander's side." And after today's battle, General Ciric promised to give the whole division a full day of repair. ”

"Let's not say tomorrow's trimming time. What I value more is a cutting-edge guard company that the division commander promised to send. Kuhn squeezed out a smile: "If there is an energetic streak forward, our people can continue to play after this commodity." ”

"That's what you're waiting for!" The regiment commander patted Kuhn on the shoulder and said with a smile: "The best in the whole group belongs to your battalion, and I can only shoot you on this attack." ”

This is also the reason why Kuhn was called the head of the regiment here, because the leader was going to let him do things.

"Don't cry with a sad face," the regiment commander comforted Kuhn and said: "Those who can work hard, this is the honor of your main battalion." ”

Glancing at Kuhn, who was unmoved, the regiment commander made a substantive promise: "In this way, although the guard company of the regiment headquarters is also very tired, it has participated in relatively few combat missions before, so you can take it with you." ”

One battalion, two guard companies, that's all Kuhn will use for the next mission.