The commander of the German assault brigade, Major General Walter, was somehow and always a little restless today.

Now, Walter had gathered his troops in a dimly lit forest somewhere west of the city of Leningrad, waiting for orders for the next step; He was confident that the combat mission assigned to him would be successfully accomplished. He knew, of course, that his forces were not at all what they had been when they swept through Poland and France. Because he was not an SS, he could abandon the principle of racial uniformity. Sadly, his troops now include both Dutch and Hungarians, as well as Poles and Croats. Although these foreigners were tried and tested adherents of the new order, they belonged to an alien race after all and had no concern for the interests of the Third Reich. In addition, in terms of physique, he must also abandon the principle of strict selection. The soldiers in the army were no longer the elite who had been selected from all of Germany. Now all he encounters are poor worms, and they are annoying to look at.

While inspecting several motorized regiments, the major general was horrified to find that the short and thin soldiers made up more than half of the regiment. Yes, this is no longer Hitler's mercenary who rushed through the Netherlands and France with fire and sword to the shores of the sea, and could kill people and goods at will.

Walter triumphantly recalls the majesty of those days, which now seems to be a very distant thing. He liked the Caucasus the most, he had been there before the war, and the southern part of the country was much more magnificent than Switzerland. For a time, Walter even dreamed of taking a comfortable position to rule over this fertile mountainous region, and tried to find out about it through his own backstage in the Führer's think tank. Unfortunately, due to the well-known situation, he had to quickly lose his dream.

Strange to say, on this spring day, from early in the morning, he felt uneasy, first of all, at the appearance of enemy planes. It didn't bomb, but it did reconnoitre. The Russian planes had patrolled the forests, flown back and forth along the railway line many times, and circled over the unloading station for a long time, and although his troops were well camouflaged, the very fact that the Russians had intensified their reconnaissance of these places caused him unease.

His uneasiness became even more evident when he learned that Sergeant Markman had been taken away while walking at night. Born in Hamburg, Sergeant Markmann was a veteran and one of the bravest soldiers of the Motorized Regiment. After a long and laborious search, his body was found in a small lake 18 kilometers from the headquarters station. He was stabbed in the heart a few times, and his head was smashed by something bulky.

Immediately after this discovery, Soviet bombers came to attack the village where the command was located. It is not surprising that Walter linked the raid to the killing of Markman. He hurriedly moved his headquarters into the forest and ordered three barbed wire fences to be encircled.

In the evening, just as the military doctor, Captain Rookes, reported to him the results of the autopsy of the sergeant's body, the motorized regiment reported that not far from the place where the murder of Sergeant Markman occurred, the soldiers had found a corpse in a dense hazel bush under a pile of branches while searching the forest. It turned out to be Private Hall of the 152nd Infantry Division. Walter's body (he had the same surname as the brigade commander, which again upset the major general).

Later in the evening, the commander of the motorized regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Milian, called to report that his soldiers had engaged a group of Russian scouts and that two soldiers had been wounded, one of whom was in danger of his life. The Major General ordered a careful investigation of these incidents and a resolute search for the Soviet scouts, for which a company was to be transferred from each battalion and the entire reconnaissance detachment of the brigade was to be used.

That night, at the station where a tank regiment had disembarked, Major Ulf was killed ("Ulf" was a homonym for Major General Walter's own surname, which disgusted him again) at the station where a tank regiment had disembarked, and Captain Blom, one of the heads of the quartermaster's office, was taken away. Poor Major Ulf was stabbed to death with a knife, and the force of the stab was so great that the Major's body was pierced. This happened almost in full view of a large number of officers and soldiers at the station.

The Major General ordered the sentry chief and the sentry to be confined for half a month, and then called Captain Marliner and scolded him for not working hard enough to scout the enemy.

The Major General was worried about the possible consequences, so he ordered a report to the division headquarters and the army group headquarters that the Russians had secretly sent a unit engaged in reconnaissance and sabotage to the rear of the German army, and because the 152nd Infantry Division was negligent in its duties, the Russians were able to infiltrate the center of his unit's station, and probably found out the purpose and task of this redeployment.

After some consideration, Mr. Major General wrote another letter. The letter was addressed to the backstage in Berlin. In case of losing the war, you can guarantee that someone will support you.

The next evening, when the major general was lying down to rest after dinner, he was awakened by the violent ringing of the telephone.

The call came from a front-line command post saying that the Russians had suddenly launched an attack here, and that a Russian heavy tank had broken through the line and called for reinforcements.

Walter was taken aback, he looked at the map, and immediately ordered the car to be prepared, accompanied by the "4" tank as an escort, to live in the battle site. At the same time, he also ordered the anti-tank gun company to be transferred there, and instructed them to bring 88-mm anti-aircraft guns.

He has seen many times the tactics of the Russians using heavy tanks to break through the German positions, due to the lack of ammunition, these Russian heavy tanks rarely fire, they all rely on the thick skin and flesh to run over the German army, because the German 37 mm and 50 mm anti-tank guns are almost ineffective against the Russian heavy tanks, the Germans can only use 88 mm anti-aircraft guns to deal with them, but the 88 mm anti-aircraft guns are inconvenient to move and difficult to erect. The Germans had no choice but to adopt the method of presetting ambush positions, but the tactics of introducing Russian heavy tanks into the ambush circle did not have much effect, and many times the 88mm artillery team was shot away by grenades fired by Russian heavy tanks. However, the German 88-mm anti-aircraft guns had little chance to shoot at Russian tanks in other situations, especially against the "KV-2" with 152-mm howitzers. Many of the German tanks hit by the "KV-2" were badly damaged and almost irreparable, a situation that always made the German commanders, who lacked heavy mobile anti-tank firepower, furious. Fortunately, the Russian heavy tanks were not mobile and often broke down, so they often collapsed on the ground and could not move at the end of the battle, giving German sappers the opportunity to blast them. But even then, the German sappers had to pay a considerable price for destroying them.