The sky was bright, and the morning breeze was blowing. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoThe overnight humidity on the Great Polish Plains had slowly risen at dawn, as if it were a thin layer of mist. Occasionally, a rooster crows or two, but it makes this morning seem more quiet.

About 6 kilometers northwest of the Polish town of Vovomin, where the Soviet Red Army gathered, in a large wheat field belonging to another small town of Nadaburg, 162 BMW and Opel 2-ton trucks were lined up at this time, each carrying a row of thick pipes with a diameter of 130 mm. If you count carefully, you can see that these thick pipes are all 12 connected to a truck.

These are German rocket artillery, officially known as the SWR40 self-propelled smoke launcher, with 12 130mm launch tubes that can drop 12 130mm rockets at a time, with an effective range of 6.7 km.

However, because reloading is cumbersome, these truck-mounted self-propelled smoke launchers are immediately transferred to a new launch position and reloaded after a salvo is completed. Therefore, a total of 162 self-propelled smoke launchers in 3 regiments fired 1944 rockets in one salvo, and they withdrew after the battle, which would not give the opponent's artillery a chance to counterattack.

And on both sides of the positions where these 162 SWR40 self-propelled smoke launchers are located, countless tanks, assault guns, self-propelled guns, half-track armored vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles have been lined up in attack formation!

The commanders of the German Smoke Launcher Regiment looked nervously at their watches, and when the hour and minute hands were close at 6 o'clock, they all waved their hands heavily: "Go!" ”

The herald with the red flag in his hand also waved the flag and issued a flag, and the rocket launcher sitting in the cab of the truck had already turned on the launch insurance, put his finger on the red button, and when he saw the red flag dancing, he pressed it hard, and every rocket launch tube mouth spewed out tongues of fire!

The position set up by the German rocket artillery is less than 6 kilometers away from the small town of Vovomin, where the Soviet troops are assembled, although the accuracy of the rocket artillery is not high, but the salvo of 1,944 rockets at this distance can still blow up the opponent on his back. Moreover, rocket artillery has another characteristic, which is that when it fights, it will cause great psychological pressure on enemy soldiers. It is very suitable for striking enemy troop concentrations, and is especially suitable for use as assault firepower.

All 1,944 rockets were launched in less than 10 seconds, dragging long flames and making a "whoosh" roar, as if a demon had fallen from the sky, and in a very short time it descended on the head of the 16th Mechanized Corps of the Soviet Army, which was arranging defenses.

Around the town of Wowomin, plumes of smoke suddenly rose, and each posture shot straight into the sky. Because the smoke column was so dense, it was no longer rising in rows, but rising at the same time without distinguishing between dots and clusters. In just a few seconds, the positions where tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of vehicles of all kinds had gathered were covered in a blue-black smoke.

If the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army had completed its deployment by now, dug trenches and bunkers, all kinds of unarmored vehicles would have been evacuated to safe areas. Then almost 2000 rockets will not cause much damage. This is nothing more than 2,000 130mm high-explosive shells, what is it for the army holding the position?

Moreover, the lethality of this high-explosive shell to armored targets is also limited, unless it is directly hit, tanks of the T-34 and KV-1 and KV-2 are not afraid of rocket coverage strikes at all.

But for the current Soviet 16th Mechanized Army, the sudden arrival of nearly 2,000 rockets was quite deadly. On the one hand, because the 16th Mechanized Corps had not yet had time to deploy, a large number of vehicles were concentrated around Vovomin.

On the other hand, the mechanized forces of the Soviet Union, while attaching great importance to tanks, neglected the equipment of armored vehicles such as self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers, and half-track armored vehicles (this is also determined by the national strength of the Soviet Union, and the current Soviet Union simply cannot mechanize most of the army). So the mechanized forces of the USSR were actually a combination of tanks + trucks, and there were a large number of soft targets that could be killed by rocket artillery.

"Rocket artillery! Damn, the Germans concentrated a lot of rocket artillery! ”

When the strange cry of "Boom" appeared, Major General Sokalov, who was still on the road south of the town of Vovomin, knew that something bad was wrong. Rocket artillery or something, of course a high-ranking officer of the Red Army at his level has seen it. There is one rocket artillery battalion in the team directly under the 4th Army, but the scene of the town of Vovomin being flooded by rockets in front of him is not something that a rocket artillery battalion can play.

"At least a rocket artillery brigade!" Major General Sokalov was even more convinced of his judgment now, "The enemy can't have only 1 brigade, they are at least a corps-level armored group!" ”

What the? Army-grade armored clusters? That's at least 2 armored divisions! Lieutenant Colonel Kurbsky, chief of staff of the 16th Mechanized Corps, was also a little confused.

"Comrade Commander, what should we do?" The political commissar of the 16th Mechanized Army, the political commissar of the Fedulov brigade, also came with an anxious face at this time. He had just left the town of Vovomin (he was on a political mobilization) when the Germans fired the rockets just now, and if he had been half a step late, he would have become a martyr of the world revolution.

But it is not necessarily a good thing to save his life for the time being, and if the 16th Mechanized Army is defeated at Vovomin, he, the political commissar, may become a reactionary and go to labor reform.

"Comrade commissar, the enemy will soon attack!" Major General Sokalov judged correctly this time, "Now I order all troops to be ready for battle, we are going to have a decisive battle with the army of imperialist Germany!"

The 46th Tank Brigade and the 18th Motorized Rifle Brigade were ordered to immediately deploy on a wheat field 1 km south of the town of Vovomin and prepare to meet the German tanks!

The 255th Artillery Regiment and the 256th Artillery Regiment were ordered to carry out an artillery counterattack, and the German rocket artillery must not be allowed to launch a second salvo! ”

Just bombed in the small town of Vovomin were the 2 motorized rifle brigades belonging to the 16th Mechanized Brigade. According to the plan, they will get off the bus in the small town of Vovomin and then spread out two anti-tank defensive positions with a 76.2mm cannon of the ZIS-3 (a very good anti-tank gun), a 57mm cannon of the ZIS-2 and a 45mm anti-tank gun of the 1937 model to the north of the town.

But at present, the Soviet anti-tank guns have not been motorized and armored, the Soviet army has a large number of tanks, but there are few self-propelled guns, and self-propelled anti-tank guns are almost non-existent (only a few research and development projects have been carried out, but none of them have been put into production). As a result, the anti-tank guns assigned to motorized rifle brigades are also towed, and it takes a long time to complete deployment. As a result, several of these anti-tank guns were not deployed, and the trucks that were concentrated around the town of Vovomin were covered by rocket artillery.

"5th SS Tank Battalion, forward! Advance! ”

Gustav. Schwarzenegger's headset sounded the order of the commander of the 5th Tank Battalion, and at this time, less than a minute before the rocket artillery salvo, the town of Vovomin was still enveloped in smoke and fire.

But Gustav. The 22 No. 4H tanks commanded by Schwarzenegger had already been launched and prepared for the attack. As soon as he received the order, he immediately rumbled and rushed to the Soviet positions five or six kilometers away. Behind these tanks, there were a large number of grenadiers (actually infantry) who followed in half-track armored vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles, and some infantry simply sat on the body of tank No. 4 with automatic carbines (assault rifles) and MG42 machine guns.

Tall and strong Gustav. Schwarzenegger opened the top hatch of his command vehicle, leaned out halfway, and looked forward with one hand on the turret and the other with a telescope.

This area is the most typical of the Great Plains, with no farmland in sight and only small patches of woods near the road. There are also a number of villages and farms nearby, all inhabited - although the city of Warsaw has been evacuated, the people of other parts of Poland have not been treated so well. Moreover, the countries of Western Europe were already very densely populated, and it was impossible to accept too many Polish refugees. However, there are enemies in the empty North Africa and the Middle East that can accommodate these European refugees, and perhaps Syria is a good place to go......

Gustav. Schwarzenegger withdrew his gaze from a Polish village and turned to the town of Wowomin ahead. It was also an inhabited town, and the rocket salvo must have killed a lot of Poles. Now the town is on fire and the smoke is rising, as if it were a living hell.

Captain Schwarzenegger didn't care about the lives of the Poles at all, he just wanted to find the Soviet tanks as soon as possible, only to see many infantry with rifles and machine guns rushing out of the town shrouded in fire and smoke, hurriedly arming the defenses.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble......

Then Captain Schwarzenegger heard the roar of artillery, which came from behind him, firing at the "Wasp" self-propelled howitzer and the assault gun No. 3, both of which were artillery formations, which could not only fire directly at enemy armored vehicles, but also kill and wound enemy infantry with grenades under the command of artillery observers.

Seeing that the Soviet Red Army was covered by high-explosive shells fired by self-propelled guns and assault guns, Captain Schwarzenegger hurriedly ordered his tanks to slow down and let the infantry riding on them get out of the car and follow the tanks on foot.

Because he knew that since the infantry of the Soviets could not carry it, then their tanks would rush up. The rocket strike just now should have a rather limited effect on such big guys as the T-34 and KV-1.

To deal with them, you have to rely on the 48 times caliber 75mm tank gun of Tank No. 4! (To be continued.) )