To make matters worse, the Red Army was unaware of the danger they were in, and the Red Army generals, including the commander of the Southwestern Front, General Vadudin, were unanimously optimistic that the Germans had been defeated after the great counteroffensive, and as long as the Red Army continued to pursue, they would have fled all the way across the Dnieper, and a counter-assault was simply impossible

Stalin, the supreme commander of the Red Army, who was also optimistic, also approved of Vadudin's idea, and the lower-ranking Red Army officers expressed all their optimism on the radio, while the Germans recorded these optimisms through radio interception as the basis for Li Mo's decision-making

Limer's battle plan was formed: first, the German 4th Panzer Army would attack the right flank of the Red Army of the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front from Krasnograd with the strength of the SS Panzer Corps, and then attack Pavlograd with the two Panzer Corps to cut off the retreat of the Red Army, and at the same time, the German 1st Panzer Army attacked the Popov cluster of the Rapid Corps of the Southwestern Front with the strength of the 40th Panzer Army and the 333rd Infantry Division of the SS Viking Division

After the attack was successful, the German 4th Panzer Army would turn north, gather heavy forces together with the Kempf Battle Cluster, eat the left flank of the Voronezh Front in the southwest area of Kharkov, and recapture Kharkov

In order to increase the number of troops, Li Mo not only tried his best to replenish ammunition and supplies, but also transferred two infantry divisions from the Western Front as reserves, of which the 167th Division was deployed in Poltava, and the 17th Division was deployed in Dnepropetrovsk, and according to the order, the two divisions had to arrive at the designated drop-off point from February 20 to 22, as the Panzer Army composed of Hitler's favorite three SS divisions, Hausser, this unit can be described as well-equipped and well-trained, and its composition is mostly stubborn Nazis, and its behavior is known for its combat courage and tenacity

The strength of the SS is also relatively full, according to the statistics of July 1941, the Hitler division has 678 officers, 20,166 soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and the strength of the skeleton division and the Reich division is 17,417 and 14,097 respectively, although these three divisions are nominally armored infantry divisions, but they are the same as the armored divisions, there are tank regiments, and they are the whole regiment of Leopard tanks that ordinary armored divisions dare not hope for, in the Kharkov counterattack, another unit with a lot of Leopard I heavy tanks is the German Wehrmacht's Great Germanic Motorized Rifle Division, a total of 97 tanks, and the German Panzer 671117 Division will also put in a considerable number of tank No. 4 and a small number of Leopard tanks。

On July 19, 1941, the Germans' Leopard heavy tanks began to turn, their heavy armored turrets, their fast-moving tracks running over the vast snow of the Russian land, deep ruts, and fierce battles imminent where the powerful 88mm tank guns were pointed

For the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army, on this day, the German SS Panzer Corps, the Reich Panzer Infantry Division and the Skull Panzer Infantry Division launched a surprise and fierce blow to the weak flank of the army, the Luftwaffe 4th Air Force dive bomber group rained bombs on the positions of the Red Army lacking air cover, while the German Panzer Group, guided by the Leopard tanks, launched a ferocious assault

In the tank battle between the two sides, the initial model of the Red Army T-34 tank, which had just appeared on the Soviet-German battlefield, suffered heavy losses, and the 76 mm tank gun equipped by the Red Army's tank was not only unable to penetrate the 102 mm thick frontal armor of the Leopard tank, but even the frontal armor of the No. IV tank, which had strengthened the protection of the German army, was almost helpless at a distance of 400 meters, while the 76 times diameter 88 mm gun of the German Leopard tank and the long-barreled 75 mm gun of the No. IV tank could easily punch a hole in the frontal armor of the T-34 tank at a distance of 1000 meters and 700 meters respectively

As for the Red Army's standard 47 mm anti-tank guns, there was no way to take the German tanks, with the dull sound of German tank guns, one T-34 tank was destroyed on the battlefield, some of the turrets were also blown into the sky by the detonated ammunition, and then smashed heavily on the ground, the T-34 tank did not dominate the battlefield alone, it suffered a major setback, and it will be replaced by the era of the German Leopard main battle tank

The absolute superiority of the quality of the tanks, coupled with the right tactics, gave the German army a one-sided victory, and their powerful armored wedge soon opened a large gap of more than 30 kilometers in the positions of the 6th Army of the Red Army, and along this gap routed the German SS Reich Division of the 4th Army of the Red Army, and advanced more than 100 kilometers south at an astonishing high speed, and the German army soon joined the SS Panzer Army in the Pavlograd area and cut off the line of communication of the 6th Army of the Red Army, and then the German 40th Panzer Corps, which had 3 armored infantry divisions, delivered a fatal blow to the Popov cluster of the Red Army, which had run out of fuel

After a fierce battle, the Germans claimed that in the counterattack against the Red Army's Southwestern Front, the Germans had routed the Front's 6th Army, 1st Guards Army and Popov's Army, which were composed of 8 corps, 10 infantry divisions and 7 special brigades, and it was said that 23,000 Soviet Red Army troops were killed, but on the other hand, because the attacking German forces did not have an absolute superiority, they were not able to form a tight encirclement, and the weather was freezing cold, and the German movement was mostly limited to various villages, so only about 9,000 Red Army soldiers were captured

After such heavy losses, the Red Army's Southwestern Front, under the strong pressure of the German troops coming from three directions, had to quickly retreat back from July 21, but as a result, the Red Army's Voronezh Front, which was fighting in the Kharkov area, was under the flank threat of the German armored forces

Initially, neither the High Command of the Red Army, which was far away in Moscow, nor the Voronezh Front, operating on the flank of the South-Western Front, paid enough attention to the sudden attack of the Germans, who still stubbornly believed that the German counterattack was only to cover their retreat from the Dnieper, so during this period the Voronezh Front was still desperately advancing westward

It was not until the Southwestern Front was driven across the Severodonets River by the Germans that the commander of the Voronezh Front, General Golikov, found himself in a very dangerous situation, at this time the German 4th Panzer Army, which had just defeated the Southwestern Front, was heading north, preparing to strike at his own troops together with the German Kempf battle cluster, so that the 3 armies, the 3rd tank army, and the 4069th Army of the left flank of the Voronezh Front would be attacked by 14 elite German divisions, including 4 panzer divisions, 3 SS panzer infantry divisions, 1 motorized infantry division, and 3 infantry divisions, while the Red Army could only use about 70 tanks in this direction, and the Germans would have no less than 370 tanks

Faced with such a terrible situation, the Red Army general also urgently asked his superiors to replenish his troops with serious material consumption, but since the nearest supply base was also 200 kilometers away, reinforcements were completely impossible

The 4th Panzer Army, which had Leopard tanks, pounced on the Voronezh Front's tank 3rd Army, which now had only 70 tanks, which had more than 300 tanks, but the offensive did not go very well, and the Soviet Red Army, which lacked tanks and ammunition under the command of the commander of the 3rd Tank Army, Major General Rybalko, used 14.7 mm anti-tank guns to resist the heavily armored German tanks, and the Czechoslovak army organized on the territory of the USSR also took part in the battle

…… (To be continued.) If you like this work. You are welcome to come to the starting point (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, your support is my biggest motivation ......)