But the danger is not gone. The new Soviet machine gunners continued to fire at the anti-aircraft gun positions. They started a new offensive again.

Lieutenant Lu Zhengda, who took over as commander of the 1st Battalion, asked the adjutant to run to the division headquarters to ask for reinforcements.

The Chinese infantry again began a white-knuckle battle with the Soviet army. When the Chinese army was running out of ammunition, four tanks of friendly troops rushed over the hills from the rear to reinforce them. After some shelling, the Soviets fled.

4 tanks of the 2nd company of the 67th tank battalion rescued anti-aircraft guns at a critical moment. Under their cover, the gunners pulled the guns and retreated. The tractor of the 3rd company was damaged, and the 3 90-mm cannons could not be transported, so the gunners had to remove the bolts and throw the guns there.

By the time the companies began to advance eastward from Petliura, using the Soviet road, it was already dawn. Soviet troops constantly fired rifles at the vehicles of the unit from the trenches on the left and right. On two occasions, Lieutenant Lu Zhengda ordered the 90mm guns to stop and return fire to clear the way for eastward vehicles. Then disengage at full speed. The 8-kilometer distance was quickly completed and reached the rear positions of friendly and neighboring troops.

In this battle, the anti-aircraft artillery units, which were fighting with the armored and infantry, blocked a section of the Soviet 16th Division that was trying to break through. This became the basis for the Chinese anti-aircraft artillery unit to win a legendary reputation in ground operations.

It's dawn. The Soviets had no choice but to retreat into the forest. As a result, the Chinese army completed the encirclement posture. After 9 o'clock, the Chinese army began to sweep around the Eteras with tanks. At this time, the Air Force also took part in the fighting.

In addition to the attack aircraft group, the other units under Air Force Commander Mao Yunchu also threw themselves into attacking the five or six divisions of the Soviet army that were surrounded south of the city. Aircraft flew low over the battlefield, searching for "prey" on roads, field trails and villages.

"Tanks of friendly neighbors painted in white are everywhere there to lead the way for us." The leader of the 77th Squadron of the 1st Dive Bombing Aviation Regiment of Colonel Cao Shirong reported: "There were often dense Soviet units in front of the tanks. Dropping fifty kilograms of anti-personnel shells there has the best effect. Then a low-altitude strafing fire was carried out with a machine gun. At this time, the chaos on the ground is beyond words. ”

On 11 April, Mao Yunchu used more than 150 dive bombers, fighters, and destroyers to repeatedly attack the Soviet troops surrounded in the surrounding area. The ground forces gradually narrowed the encirclement. On April 13, the last part of the Soviet troops in the forest area surrendered.

By this time, the focus of the war had shifted to the frontier of the Soviet Union, an important eastern city. Two pantry divisions of the 14th Army had broken through the enemy's last line of defense on both flanks on April 17.

On April 18, the 1st Panzer Teaching Brigade headed for the Tobol River. The 2nd Armored Training Brigade reached the road northeast of the city. At this time, the Chinese Air Force showed the power of bombing stations, railways and trains, and the Soviets were helpless against the Chinese armored vanguard.

Under the cover of attack aircraft of the 2nd Group of the 2nd Flight Training Regiment, the 4th Panzer Division forced its way into the Soviet perimeter on the afternoon of April 18. At 17 o'clock, early the next morning, the horizontal, dive-bombing aviation regiment of the 4th Air Force first attacked the Soviet military fortress.

In the Battle of Sverdlovsk, Soviet bomber aviation also played an unusually tragic role. At 15:30 on April 6, 1944, Stalin's Supreme Command gave the commanders of the 3rd and 1st armies of long-range bomber aviation the task of destroying the Chinese tanks advancing from Sverdlovsk to Kirov and Ulyanovsk, and instructed them to carry out assaults day and night, bombing from a low altitude of 400 meters with the strength of the entire regiment. This was the most effective support that the Red Army High Command could provide to the besieged troops.

During the bombing, all 43 "DB-3F" bombers of the first wave failed to return, and the operations in the following days also suffered heavy losses. A large number of Soviet aircraft fell prey to Chinese fighters and anti-aircraft guns, and Chinese fighter pilots could even see the gunners of the fallen Soviet planes waving their fists at him. On April 9 alone, 103 Soviet planes were shot down over Sverdlovsk, including the 51st of the 1,000th Combat Aviation Wing of the Chinese Air Force. A staff officer of the command of the 2nd Air Force of the Chinese Army commented on these air raids: "Since the next day, I have watched Russian heavy bombers fly in from the depths of the interior and enter the battle. What a sin it seems to me: to see these planes in tactically impossible formations, throwing themselves into the net. Almost every certain amount of time, a group of innocent planes flew to their deaths. For our fighters is simply the easiest prey. This is nothing short of childish suicide. An observer of the Army, on the other hand, wrote lightly in his diary on 9 April: "The enemy's air force has very little impact on us. ”

In the midst of these air raids, which had little effect, there was an episode that did not attract much attention at the time: in the skies over Sverdlovsk on April 7, three new Soviet "Il-2" attack aircraft appeared on the battlefield for the first time. On this aircraft weighing less than 6,000 kilograms, armor accounts for more than 700 kilograms, and since these armors are part of the aircraft's stressed skeleton, the weight of the "Il-2" is not too large, its flight speed reaches 420 kilometers, and can be installed with two 23 mm cannons and 400 to 600 kilograms of bombs. Due to the heavy armor installed, it was very difficult to shoot down even the Chinese "Swiftlet" fighters with 23-mm cannons.

However, because the Soviet military insisted on eliminating the rear seat gunner of the aircraft on the grounds that the speed, range, and protection of the aircraft were insufficient, making it a single-seat aircraft with almost no means of self-defense, and the pilot was very easy to be killed by enemy planes attacking from the rear. During the first three days of fighting in which the aircraft participated, Chinese pilots shot down 3 Il-2s in air battles, and Chinese anti-aircraft guns shot down another 8. Although the combat losses were modest, the loss of 11 Il-2s was due to the mistakes of Soviet pilots who had only been training to use such aircraft since April. On the Russian soil, when millions of troops of the land corps of the Chinese and Soviet armies fought to the death, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese seemed to be fully aware of the important role that this new aircraft would play in future battles.

Compared with the counterattack plan of the Soviet Southeastern Front, the Southeastern Front led by General Kirponos was much stronger. The eight mechanized corps under his command had 4,525 tanks, including 265 "KV" heavy tanks and 493 "T-34" medium tanks, and 1,124 tanks that could be effectively used. The Northwest Army Group of the Chinese Army in this direction has a total of 720 tanks, plus the attack artillery and the equipment of the Kazakh Army, about 1,000 tanks and attack artillery, which is comparable to the Soviet Army in the number of tanks that can be effectively used, and the new "Gray Wolf" tank and "Coyote" tank destroyers in the Chinese army are superior to the "T-34" and "KV" in terms of firepower and armor. But Liu Baicheng, who commanded China's 3rd Armored Group, still believed: "The situation of the Northwest Army Group is the most difficult. ”

Despite having the most powerful combat unit of the Red Army in their hands, the senior officers of the command of the South-Eastern Front had little confidence after receiving Order No. 3 of the General Military Committee, which ordered them to launch a counteroffensive. Although the situation of their troops was much better than that of the other fronts, they were also faced with the dilemma of unclear enemy situation and inconvenient command headquarters. Due to the fact that wired communications had been cut off in many places and radio contacts were not very stable, the front army headquarters could only send some officers to the troops on motorcycles, cars, and planes to understand the situation and convey orders.

In terms of deployment, among all eight mechanized armies of the Southeast Front, the 16th Mechanized Army was formed from the 12th Army originally on the Turkish border; The 4th, 22nd, and 15th Mechanized Armies had been hastily engaged in battle from the first day of the war; The 8th, 9th, and 19th mechanized armies had to march more than 200 kilometers to reach the predetermined battlefield from the depths; The forces are very dispersed.

In view of this situation, the Chief of Staff of the South-Eastern Front, Pulkaev, believed that there was no need to rush a counterattack, but advocated that it was necessary to delay the enemy's advance with stubborn fighting on the one hand, and organize a solid defense in the vertical zone of the front's operational zone on the other; On the one hand, the infantry corps and mechanized corps that formed the second echelon would launch a counterattack after the covering army had retreated behind the fortified area line. But his views are clearly out of line with Moscow's instructions to launch a swift counterattack. At the insistence of Vashukin, the military commissar of the South-Eastern Front, rejected Pulkaev's proposal and was determined to resolutely carry out Order No. 3 of the General Military Council. At this time, Senior General Zhukov, who came to the headquarters of the Front, and Khrushchev, who was appointed a member of the Military Council of the Front, also agreed with this decision. Zhukov later claimed in his memoirs that he had challenged Vadudin about this order. But under the circumstances, signing consent was also his only option.

According to the requirements of Order No. 3: "The South-Eastern Front shall encircle and annihilate the enemy grouping attacking in the Turkestan direction with a concentrated and powerful assault of several mechanized corps and all air forces, as well as other units of the 5th and 6th armies." By dusk on 8 April, the occupied areas would be restored. ”

In accordance with this directive, the Southeastern Front planned to carry out a flank assault on the 1st Panzer Group of the Chinese Army, which was pouring in from the gap between the 5th and 6th Soviet armies, which was up to 50 kilometers wide, and completely annihilated it. In this area, there are two main directions of the campaign: in the direction of Cherkar in the south, and in the direction of Kustannai in the north. In the eyes of the Soviets, the Cherkar direction, with its well-developed network of roads and dirt roads, as well as a railway connecting the Soviet Union and Cherkar, was obviously the first choice for the Chinese tank forces to launch an offensive. It is worth mentioning that for the same reasons mentioned above, the Soviet army also used this area as a starting point for future attacks on China before the war, and deployed its most powerful mechanized troops here.

Because of this, when formulating the counterattack plan, the Soviet army took the Cherkar direction as the key attack area, and prepared to put the 4th, 8th, and 15th mechanized armies between Orsk and Cherkar, a total of 2,483 tanks (of course, there are not so many that can be used), including 716 "T-34" and "KV" tanks, to carry out a powerful offensive. In the north, only three mechanized corps, with a total of only 1,212 tanks, were used, of which the 22nd mechanized army was ordered to continue fighting in the Kazakh steppe area, and the 9th and 19th mechanized armies were to attack Karaganda.

The judgment of the command of the Southeastern Front on the direction of the main attack of the Chinese army was very logical, but it was far from the truth. General Zhang Zhizhong, commander of the 1st Armored Group of the Chinese Army, did not attack the southern area where the main forces were deployed, as judged by the Soviets, in the direction of Cherkar. In this direction, he engaged only one of the three motorized armies to which he belonged, the 14th motorized army under the command of General Zhao Shengdong. The army has two armored divisions and the "King Kong" motorized division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with a total of 281 tanks.

In the northern part of the Soviet Union's Southeastern Front, where the Soviet Southeastern Front neglected, the Chinese 1st Panzer Group invested two motorized armies, namely the 3rd Motorized Army under the command of General Ma Wenling and the 48th Motorized Army under General Ma Wenfang. There are a total of 3 armored divisions, 2 motorized divisions, and 439 tanks in the two corps. Since the outbreak of the war, 2 motorized armies have launched a powerful offensive in the direction of the Soviet troops. On April 3, the 11th Armored Division of the 48th Motorized Army of the Chinese Army, commanded by Major General Wei Renjie and known as the "Yaksha Division", took the lead in a tank encounter with the 81st Motorized Division of the 4th Mechanized Army of the Soviet Army. With the assistance of the 74th Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment of the Chinese Air Force, experienced Chinese troops destroyed 1 Soviet tank at the cost of 46 tanks, of which 10 were destroyed by 90-mm anti-aircraft guns of the Chinese Air Force. At that time, the 11th Panzer Division occupied the Soviet positions. In addition, between the 1st mobile groups of the 2nd Panzer Group, the 6th, 44th, and 29th armies of the Chinese 59th Army were deployed, the task of which was to provide flank cover for the armored forces.

In this way, the Soviet side's judgment on the direction of the main attack of the Chinese army was exactly the opposite of the actual situation.

Of course, although the Soviets were not able to accurately judge the focus of the Chinese army's attack (given the chaotic situation of the Soviet army at that time, it was difficult for the front command to obtain enough information to make the right decision), the tank forces they planned to invest in these two directions formed a huge advantage over the squadron in front of them. Therefore, as long as these forces can be smoothly put into the engagement, the Soviets can still achieve victory. But the problem was that the huge mechanized corps of the Soviet army, which lacked motor vehicles, simply could not participate in the engagement. From 3 to 5 April, of the six mechanized corps scheduled to participate in the counterattack, only the 22nd, 15th, and 4th mechanized armies actually entered the combat area, while the other mechanized corps were still in the process of advancing in a difficult and slow manner.

Although the forces had not yet been assembled, in order to save as many troops in the border areas as possible from the fierce attack of the Chinese army, the commander of the Southeastern Front, General Kirponos, with the support of the confident military commissar Vashukin, was determined to launch a counterattack with the current strength.

The counterattack of the Southeastern Front was purely numerical, and the three Soviet mechanized corps (22nd, 15th, and 4th) that had rushed to the battlefield had 2,272 tanks at the outbreak of the war, which was twice as many as the total number of tanks of the Northwest Chinese Army Group, but in the process of mobilization, a considerable part of these tanks had already broken down, and the Soviet army, which lacked technical support, had to abandon them. The situation with the mechanized 22nd Army was even more acute. The commander of the corps, Major General Konde Lussev, was seriously wounded shortly after the outbreak of the war and died on 3 April, causing confusion in the command of the 22nd Mechanized Army. Of its three divisions, only the 19th Tank Division and the 215th Modified Division, equipped with old tanks, actually arrived on the battlefield, and the 41st Tank Division, equipped with 31 "KV" tanks, was "missing" for a time due to the inability to get in touch, and at this time it was busy repairing tanks and could not be put into battle later.

Although the situation was very bad, under the strict orders of the superiors, the mechanized 22nd Army, without a commander, still launched an attack on the left flank of the Chinese army in front of it with its existing strength on the afternoon of April 4. The army had to deal with the 3rd Motorized Army of the Chinese Army, which consisted of the Chinese 14th Armored Division (nearly 150 tanks) under the command of Major General Qiu Changqing and the 13th Armored Division of Major General Huang Zonghan (also with nearly 150 tanks), which had been attacking the positions of two regiments of the 135th Soviet Infantry Division and the 1st Anti-Tank Artillery Brigade in the direction of Kustannay. Large-scale tank battles took place between the two mechanized/motorized armies of China and the Soviet Union. Due to the lack of special ammunition, the 22nd "KV-2" tanks belonging to the 31 mechanized armies had to use 152-mm concrete-sabotage shells to fire at the Chinese army, as Zhukov suggested. The power of the 152-mm heavy shell is really good. After fierce fighting, the Chinese tanks were temporarily blocked by Soviet tanks, so the Chinese army transferred bomber groups from the 4th Air Force and the 5th Air Force to bomb the Soviet army indiscriminately. In the fight against Soviet tanks, the Chinese Air Force, which occupied air supremacy, played a huge role. By April 10, the three bomber air wings of the 5th Air Army (51st, 54th, 55th) had destroyed 201 Soviet tanks. On the Red Army side, although the Southeastern Front stipulated that the 62nd and 18th Mixed Aviation Divisions would provide air cover for this Soviet army before the battle, the mechanized 22nd Army could only allow Chinese planes to massacre them because they could not be contacted.

At the same time, the Chinese 13th Panzer Division made a detour to the rear of the Soviet 5th Army, forcing this army group to retreat. On April 15, the 13th Armored Division of the Chinese Army still occupied Kustannay, and the 11th Armored Division of the 48th Motorized Army also successfully broke through the Soviet defense line on that day.

(To be continued)