The landing force fought for half an hour, after which there was no more gunfire on the opposite bank.

"Report to the division commander, our troops have taken control of the opposite bank." The adjutant was very happy to receive the news on the radio.

"Then build a bridge and cross the river at once!" Webb said.

The bridge-building troops have long been prepared on the sidelines.

In the process of conquering Europe, the German army encountered all kinds of rivers, relatively shallow, tanks could be connected to the snorkel, go directly to the bottom of the river, and encounter deep, wide, there is no other way, only to take the bridge.

On the European battlefield, because of the enemy's confusion, the German troops could often send forward troops to seize the bridge, protect the bridge, and allow their main forces to cross the river calmly.

And here in the Soviet Union, it will not work, especially as it goes deeper, the Soviet army no longer panics, and begins to enter the stage of orderly resistance, when they retreat, they often blow up bridges, and Germany can not protect even a few troops, they cannot confront the main forces of the Soviet Union.

Especially now, in order to stop the attack of the German army, the Soviets have almost blown up the bridges here, and Germany has long been prepared for this, which is the sapper bridge.

Germany has realized mechanized bridge erection very early, for example, now, it is a bridge erection vehicle transformed from the original Panther 2 tank chassis, the top of the car, there is a steel bridge, as the bridge erection car moves to the front, the bridge above begins to flip, part of the bridge legs, part of the bridge deck, a section of the bridge is built.

The bridge-erecting vehicles in the back continued to drive onto the bridges that had already been erected, and continued to build bridges, moving forward section by section, and by the afternoon, they would be able to build a bridge large enough for the tanks to pass.

At this time, other infantry units had already begun to cross the river in unmodified wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, and when they reached the other side of the river, in the swamp, as long as they let those modified infantry fighting vehicles equipped with screws pull them, they could directly pull them to the hard shore land.

The speed of crossing the river is not slow, and the infantry that will pass will firmly hold the beachhead, and the Dnieper, which the Soviets thought was a trench, was just a small ditch in front of the German army.

When it was almost dark, one by one the tanks rumbled across the bridge, and the 17th Panzer Division continued to move forward!

In general, throughout the war, the command of the Soviets was quite chaotic, and the tree-like command system of the Soviets, as long as one of the nodes was destroyed, would lead to a part of the army falling into a state of no command.

At the same time, the Soviets were quite backward in their command style.

They relied on the radio, but on the battlefield, the radio signal was always jammed, and they relied on the heralds to pass the orders, and the military situation was urgent, and when the heralds passed on the orders, the situation changed, and the orders had to be modified.

In this way, the confusion of the Soviet army was exacerbated.

And this unit guarding the side of the Dnieper River was actually forgotten by the superiors, and the information that their positions had been conquered, mixed with a large number of large and small intelligence, was not reported in time.

In this way, until now, the Soviet troops did not notice that there was a big hole in their defensive line, and along this big hole, the elite German armored forces had already broken through.

It is said that at this time, there are heavy troops deployed by the Soviets all around, and even if an armored division gets in, it will be very dangerous, and it will even be surrounded and annihilated by the Soviet army.

However, the German armored forces were always so bold, and under the intelligence reconnaissance of the air force, they made two detours in succession, bypassing the 20th Army defense area and the heavily guarded main road to Smolensk, and rushed directly to the southern city of Smolensk.

The Dnieper River runs through the city of Smolensk and divides the city into two parts: residential and commercial areas in the south and industrial areas in the north, which account for 1/3.

In the south, only Lukin's militia was on the defensive.

Lukin remained at the city defense headquarters in the northern part of the city, anxiously urging his superiors.

At this time, it was still Timoshenko who was responsible for the defense of the entire Smolensk front.

When Pavlov was called back from the front and shot, Timoshenko replaced Pavlov and went to the Western Special Military District.

It's a pity that the defeat of the Western Special Military District was already doomed, and Timoshenko could not recover the situation, and at the suggestion of Zhukov, the base camp abandoned Minsk and began to arrange a defensive line in the back, and Timoshenko also retreated and defended in Smolensk.

Timoshenko was under a lot of pressure, he had already been kicked by Stalin to the Urals for reflection because of a failure, and if he failed again this time, it is conceivable that Pavlov would be his role model.

Timoshengo didn't dare to be negligent in the slightest, and almost every day, he was strategizing and staring at his defense area map in a daze.

In history, Timoshenko was definitely not a loser, he was a successful person.

Due to his personal relationship with Stalin, he was not implicated in the Great Purge, and at the same time, he won the Soviet-Finnish war and forced Finland to sue for peace.

In July 1941, Timoshenko took over the command of the Western Front in a critical situation, commanding the retreat in Smolensk. Despite the huge costs, Timoshenko managed to stabilize the situation on the Western Front, stabilizing the front until the end of September 1941, when the Germans launched the Battle of Moscow.

After that, he was transferred to the Ukrainian front, where he commanded the Red Army, which had just been annihilated by 1.5 million men in Kiev and Uman, to successfully stabilize the front, and successfully commanded the Rostov counterattack.

It can be said that Timoshenko can be regarded as a figure who turned the tide in the Soviets, but unfortunately, the strength of the German army is far greater than in history, and Timoshenko knows how much pressure he has.

"Marshal, General Lukin is here." At this moment, the adjutant's voice brought Timoshenko back to his senses: "No, tell him that I don't have time, the equipment he wants is being transported from the rear, and it will arrive tomorrow." ”

Lukin's name, Timoshenko already knows, he is simply a celebrity in Stalin's eyes, but Timoshenko has no opinion on this, such a tiger general is useful under his own hands.

However, he came every day to ask for equipment, and Timoshenge couldn't stand it, and now he simply disappeared, and of course the rear was adjusting equipment, but his subordinates lacked equipment everywhere, and he couldn't give all the equipment to his militia group, right? Those militia groups are now defending in the southern city, and the Germans can't beat them for the time being, so they have to stick to the front line first.