At the headquarters of the army group, Lin Jun received a phone call from the Kremlin and reported to Stalin about the discovery of the new German heavy tanks, and Stalin also agreed with Lin Jun's decision to transport the captured new German tanks to Leningrad. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

A full-fledged test of German tanks was needed, and it was necessary to have full-fledged testing equipment.

The Kharkov tank factory is too far from Lithuania, and the two tank building bases in the eastern Urals are even further away, while several manufacturing bases in Leningrad have well-developed testing capabilities and are the closest to Lithuania.

The one that can be driven will be used for comprehensive testing, while the other Tigers will be used as targets for fire tests, and they will be waiting for them to remove all available parts and enter the artillery range in Leningrad, where various anti-tank guns and tank guns are waiting.

It was already past lunch time, and Pulkaev's orderlies brought food, but Lin Jun didn't have time to sit and eat.

So he asked Alyosha to fetch some bread and butter, "I'll go to the ferry." ”

When Lin Jun's convoy arrived at the No. 2 ferry on the north bank of the Nelis River, the Tiger tank had already arrived on the south side of the pontoon bridge, and the armored soldiers were making preparations before the bridge.

Explosions were constantly being heard in the southwest of the city, and it was clear that the Germans were attacking in that direction - there were not only the Red Army's relatively strong mixed infantry lines, but also two elite tank regiments in that direction, and it was probably not feasible for the Germans to attack the city in one go by the old methods of blitzkrieg!

"If they want to recapture Vilnius, the Germans are too anxious, and it is still possible to use the methods of trench warfare in World War I to grind it slowly." Lin Jun was saying to Gusev.

"Yes, Marshal. However, if the Germans lost the ability to quickly assault in this war, they would not be able to win by relying on trench stations, and they had lost the magic weapon of rapid assault. ”

The Red Army was accustomed to the tactics of the Germans, and the current way of thinking and arrangement of troops were prepared for the tactics of the German army, unlike the Western Allies when the German army swept through Western Europe, waiting to fight a protracted trench station with the Germans.

It can be said that the vision of the staff officers is very accurate: the embarrassment faced by the German army on the Eastern Front in 42 years of history has come more than half a year ahead of schedule.

From the telescope, the panzers were moving all the remaining shells from the tank and loading them on a medium-sized jeep next to it, which would reduce the weight by about a ton, but it would take a lot of time.

Finally, all the preparations were completed, the tank started, and for the sake of safety and safety, a driver was in the tank and roared onto the bridge.

Someone in front of him commanded, and the steel pontoon bridge was immediately pressed down one by one, and the bridge deck was very close to the river, and everyone looked nervous. The speed was not fast, and after a while the tank finally passed the pontoon bridge and reached the north bank.

Lin Jun walked to the side of the tank at this time: it was the Tiger type, the initial production type, which could be seen from several details.

Ask the driver: "How's the handling performance?" ”

"Report Marshal, as a heavy tank, if you don't take into account the fuel consumption and the carrying capacity of the suspension system, I think its mobility is still very good." The driver got out of the tank, saluted, and replied, "Judging from the fuel gauge, it needs to be refueled after running a maximum of 100 kilometers in battle, and the oil will burn a lot when it drives from the south." ”

The driver will tell the truth, the Tiger tank is designed to focus on firepower and armor at the moderate expense of mobility.

However, this sacrifice of mobility is not too slow to start: in fact, its mobility has not improved compared to other German tanks, and it still has the mobility of German medium tanks similar to the previous tanks 3 and 4!

The HL230 P45 23-litre, 700 hp in-line cylinder petrol engine on the Tiger seems to have returned to the old path of the petrol engine in the early days of the tank, but this engine is still relatively reliable. The advanced hydraulically controlled variable speed gearbox and semi-automatic transmission system give this heavy tank with extreme weight a fairly good explosive maneuverability: the Tiger tank's control system is a double-helical type with an eight-speed gearbox for relatively agile maneuvering.

If necessary, the minimum radius rotation of the Tiger can be rotated with a single braking - the Tiger control system is easy to use and very advanced!

The driver pointed to the lower half of the tank, "Marshal, there is a problem with the design of these load wheels, they are staggered with each other, and they must be troublesome to repair." Moreover, if the gap in the middle is easy to have problems in the cold and muddy season, and the track width of this Yang is estimated to be in trouble for rail transportation. ”

It was already wide, and the tracks were wide, which was too much for a typical railway flatbed car - if the tracks were too narrow, the weight would sink into the mud, and it would be useful for a fixed battery!

"Sergeant, it's up to you to find a way to solve this problem, you have to have at least two of you go to Leningrad together, and the comrades at the railway station will find a way for you."

Don't worry, the railroads always get along, and the Tiger tanks are not wide enough to hit the roadside marker poles on both sides.

"War is the best catalyst for the birth of new weapons, I don't know what it would be like for the British army in North Africa to run into these Tigers, and it is like a product of the last century compared to the Yankees' M3 and those British infantry and cruiser tanks."

Lin Jun felt a little schadenfreude in his heart - even if the early M4 tank was against the Tiger, the Americans would feel that what they had at hand was a complete waste!

Now the level of tank development of Britain and the United States has been left far behind by the Soviet Union and Germany, and it is probably only possible to win; Relying on this numerical advantage.

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At the railway station position, six "Voroshilov Warrior" tractors were already waiting on the north side of the position, and the members first went to the position to check the actual situation and determined the three Tiger that could be towed.

First, the transmission system of the tank that needs to be towed is hung in neutral, and under the unified arrangement, the tractor is driven to the position under the cover of smoke grenades.

The German observation post to the south noticed the anomaly at the railway station and immediately reported it upward: but by the time the artillerymen reacted, the entire station area had been obscured by the thick black smoke emitted by smoke bombs and smoke canisters.

As soon as the German artillery fired, the Red Army's long-range artillery was suppressed!

The thick wire ropes were tied together, and it took only ten minutes for two "Voroshilov Warriors" to deal with a Tiger, and the steel convoy in a string disappeared to the north of the station.

The traction was successful, but it made the Red Army commanders and fighters on the position suffer a little, and there was a little trouble, all of which were caused by the smoke that covered the sky and the sun!

Many of the Red Army positions were not equipped with gas masks and had to be shelled by the Germans, especially the militiamen, who had to hide in the trenches and cover their mouths and noses with towels soaked in cold water and endure the foul smoke.

It's not poisonous, but it's still a little pungent!

Moses was so smoked that his eyes burst into tears, and he finally survived the "poisonous smoke" made by his own people, sat in the bunker and poured two sips of warm water handed over by Martin, washed his eyes, and coughed for a long time before he regained his breath.

"It's a good thing, those bastards don't dare to use poison gas."

"What, gas?" Tozić happened to hear that his gas mask had long been lost, and he was also uncomfortable for a while just now, and asked the banker next to him.

"The kind that was commonly used in World War I."

"They don't dare to use it, because we have a lot of them." Tozić is not talking nonsense: before participating in the battle of Minsk, he had seen a lot of goods with unique signs in the freight yard of a railway station halfway through, and the vigilance was very strict. But the sergeant knew from the packaging that they were poison gas bombs, and they were chemical gas bombs that were more powerful than mustard gas!

"How do you know?" Kodelinkov, who was questioned, had just taken off his gas mask: what their division was equipped with, everyone had.

"My brother is in the anti-chemical warfare unit, and it's just an open secret, but there are many things he won't tell me."

Tozić was a boast – his brother had told him a lot about chemical defense when he visited his family before the war, more than the assault engineer corps had been trained in, including how to identify chemical weapons from all over the world. However, his brother did not violate the rules, at least the situation in his unit was basically not mentioned.

Unlike the First World War, it is an exaggeration to say that this will kill all the opponents of the Soviet Union and Germany several times, and no one dares to use it, not that the war has become "civilized".

"Sergeant, how many brothers do you have?"

"Two of them, one of whom was still in the ninth grade, but now works in a machine factory, and I received a letter from home last month, so I was lucky. The three of us used to go fishing together, and Alexander and I were on vacation. As he spoke, he took out his ID from his jacket pocket, with a photo in it, "Family photo." ”

Moses took it and looked at it, and the picture was apparently taken when the sergeant first joined the army, and he was still wearing the uniform of a recruit, and he did not even have a rank mark. However, the only people in the photo are the mother and three children, and apparently the father of Comrade Sergeant has died.

Not very well, the banker thought of his sick and starved son, and returned the picture to the sergeant.

Kodelnikov on the side also pulled out a photo, which was his family photo.

Everyone was shocked when they saw it, there were so many people!

"Your whole family? What a big family! ”

"It's my parents and my siblings, and their children and grandchildren." Looking at the somewhat surprised expressions of a few people, the sergeant said, "My mother gave birth to my eldest brother when she was 18 years old. ”

There are three rows in front and back, what a big family! The elderly couple in the photo who are smiling are 70 years old, and Comrade Sergeant is only 25 years old this year.

"I said sergeant, which are your brothers?"

As soon as Kodelinnikov said that his family was excited, "This is my eldest brother, this is my second brother, and this is my third sister...... This is Sasha, my eldest brother's youngest grandson. ”

The comrades were really impressed by Kotelnikov's big family - he was the eldest, with 5 brothers and 4 sisters!

A few people on the side really want to say: Your parents are amazing! But I still didn't say it, which was a bit rude.

It was not uncommon in the Soviet Union to have four or five siblings in a family, and only children were rare animals, but comrades like sergeants who had ten siblings in total and were all raised to adulthood really never saw it!

Curious, although polite, Toziqi finally held back his sentence: "Sergeant, no wonder you look like a little old man!" ”

Except for Moses, who was still sad, everyone else laughed - they all said that the old man would look like an old man, and Tozic was three years older than the sergeant, but it seemed that Kodhelnikov was ten years older than the sergeant, and his face was wrinkled!

Kodhelnikov smiled, retrieved the photo, and was not angry: this is not the first time that such a well-intentioned joke has been made on himself, it doesn't matter.

"It is said that there may be a medal for mothers with many children, and if it is true, sergeant, your mother will definitely get one." "I also have six brothers and sisters, but two of my brothers have died in the war in Ukraine. ”

"Who knows, but the battle has only been fought for more than half a year, and there are already a lot of dead people, so there should be such a medal." Anyone could have imagined that the country's gender ratio would be severely imbalanced after the war, and that there would be a shortage of labor, and that having more children would be the only way to go.

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At three o'clock in the afternoon, it was a bit strange, except for the sound of shelling that could be heard in the distance on both flanks of the Vilnius Line, and the railway station was quiet, and the Germans did not know where to run. The warriors took shelter in their bunkers and rested as much as they could, and all at once everything became quiet, except for the occasional shouting.

Not normal, obviously not normal.

At the town hall command, Batyunin believed that the current silence of the German army was brewing a greater offensive, and that in the evening Vilnius would face an even greater test.

If you attack during the day and suffer heavy casualties, if you are the commander of the German army, you will also choose to attack at night.

Time passed slowly in a slightly uncomfortable silence, and most of the people in the railway station had not eaten for a long time, except for a hot meal in the morning, and they were a little hungry but had to hold on.

When they arrived at the station, all the troops were lightly armed, and they did not bring any supplies except ammunition, and some of them had been eaten in the morning.

It doesn't feel good to be hungry, but many people don't care, "At the time of the defense of Minsk, the troops who arrived in the early stage often had to eat a meal every two or three days, and a piece of black bread was divided into ten people, as a day's ration, minus 30 degrees!" That's when it's going to be hard! Kodelnikov was babbling to the man next to him, turning to Martin and asking, "How do you feel?" ”

"I'm not hungry, I'm hungry every day in the quarantine area, just have water, I'm used to it."

He didn't care, "The food in the morning is still in the stomach, hehe." "For some time ago, he has eaten enough in the past two days.

But after all, all of a sudden, Martin pulled open the German military coat that he had picked up from the dead German corpse at noon, and pulled out two bags of compressed biscuits from his jacket pocket, "I almost forgot, I still have some with me." ”

I was so dazed that I forgot the food I had put in my pocket before setting out - this was a preparation for the fear of starvation, and many Jewish volunteer militiamen did this, but he was the only one like Martin who had forgotten!

Two packs of compressed biscuits, each of the nearby comrades divided, resisted.

The well-equipped station kitchen allowed a bomb to blow up into the sky, and there was no hope. It is supposed that the cooking teams of each company will cook a few hundred meters behind, but now everyone is on the front line, and there is no food in stock, so they originally counted on their superiors to solve it. The breakfast that was not early or finished in the morning was so rich that it was easy to feel hungry - if the morning was eaten some cold food that was difficult to swallow, the soldiers would not be too hungry.

Compressed biscuits are hard to eat, like chewing a cake made of cement, and your mouth doesn't taste anything at all.

"This biscuit factory should also change its recipe, like chewing cement! The Yankees' bourgeois military rations are much better than this, and I don't know if they can eat it at the next meal. Tozic grumbled.

"If only we were in the Americas, we would eat every day." Kodelnikov bit into the compressed biscuit, dismissing it.

There was a bit of movement in the back, the sound of cars on the street of the station.

Glancing back, a squad of infantry came over with equipment on their backs.

Reinforcements, this section of which Tozich was in charge of were supplemented with two squads of infantry, armed with a 50-mm mortar, who also brought supplies.

The supply was a large box with the words "Platoon Supplies" written on it, and the sign indicated that it was military rations from the Moscow Food Factory. The reinforcements also brought some hard bread in flax bags, the standard "big leba".

When I opened the box, it was basically large canned food, and there were some dehydrated vegetables.

Boiling water is boiling on the "shelf marching pot" dug in the corner of the trench, which is really good for preparing dinner.

It was already dark, and the humidity suddenly increased, and Tozic told Nikolai and Martin to prepare everyone's dinner, "There will be a fierce battle in the evening, so that everyone will be fed!" ”

"Sasha, let the dark sentry ahead keep an eye on me."

"Don't worry, Comrade Sergeant, aren't you worried about our minelaying technology, hehe."

How can the assault sappers have the word "sapper", and minefields have been laid at the front of the position, among which there are three powerful and terrifying directional mines, if the Germans dare to rush up at night, there will be a good show!

Nikolai poured a large jar of canned mutton into the military pot, added two large pieces of dehydrated vegetables, boiled them and distributed them to everyone, and then continued to burn. Martin judged from the smell of the troops next door that the comrades over there were enjoying the taste of beef, and this "platoon-level supplies" were all messed up, and there was really something canned stuffed with what can.

Here Toziqi also took out a large package of sealed Mahe cigarettes from the box, as if he had discovered a new continent!

Divide a little for each person and draw it on a torn roll of newspaper.

Tozich curled Moses with the roots, but the banker took two puffs and set them aside: "How is it like rotten wood!" ”

"Haha, this can't compare to the Germans' cigarettes, and Ma Heyan tastes like this."

Toziqi liked the taste of this cheap horse-tobacco, and it was good to get used to it, and he asked Moses, "Then what do you like to smoke?" ”

"South American cigars, are there any?!" Moses was a little annoyed - he was telling the truth, when he was in Poland, he had beautiful hardwood boxes of American cigars in his office and home, but he hadn't enjoyed it that way for a long time.

"I'll give you a cigar if I catch it, but the Germans don't seem to have any."

"Is it okay in Spain?"

"Yes, it's just a cigar. Comrade Sergeant, I'll wait. Moses took the German lunch box that had been given to him, drank the soup with a large spoon given to him, and nibbled on hard bread as he drank.

I didn't feel much when I arrived yesterday, and it was still very cold in the open air: in fact, the temperature was around freezing, but the humidity in the air was very heavy, and you could see the light mist slowly rising over the field at night!

Wet, it's very uncomfortable!

Surrounded by two rivers and numerous beautiful lakes, Vilnius is surrounded by a network of gentle hills and plains, and the humidity of the Siberian warriors is uncomfortable.

The soldiers didn't care about their image anymore, those with pullovers wore their hats, and many of them wore German overcoats that they had brought in, but the officers warned them that the first thing they did when the fight began was to take off the German fur first!

Bonfires are lit in bunkers everywhere to dispel the thick moisture and rest on the fire.

Benjamin would no longer be a gunner, he would have been "demoted" to a rifleman and reserve gunner: his cannon ran out of shells. Tozić placed him next to the new M40 50mm mortar as a reserve artilleryman.

For this "German veteran", who could carry out effective shelling without even sights, the Red Army mortarists had a respectful attitude, and it took Benjamin a few minutes to learn from the young man how to operate and aim this 50-mm long-range mortar.

The range of the M40 type 50 mm mortar can be said to be very far from its caliber, with a maximum range of 1814 meters, far exceeding the range of 600 to 800 meters of the average 50 mm mortar!

It's just that the explosion power of the cannonball is a little smaller, but as a company-level fire support weapon, it is being manufactured in large quantities, and it is still very effective against infantry, anyway, it is not used to deal with the opponent's fortifications.

The grenades in the trenches lined up in rows on the tooth wall, and the men in the machine-gun positions did not let up, changing their guards until dawn tomorrow, when the Germans could attack at any time.

Shuklin leaned on his cannon and just now helped Granov check the wire vest, "If the German tank comes up, get close to 800 meters and then fire." ”

"Lieutenant, just rely on that bit of muzzle flame, it's too far for me to hit."

Shuklin will also become an aim, because of the lack of gunners, his own skills can be quite good - there will not be too many tanks at night, the sight of the German tanks at night is much worse than that of the Red Army, and once it gets close, it will become a food for infantry anti-tank equipment!

Besides, Shuklin thinks that where did the Germans get so many tanks, and forty of them were reimbursed during the day, and the tanks were not piled up in the mud, and the German commander could not change them.

Night raids, that's what the infantry does, and the Germans generally don't use tanks as assault arrows for night raids, so they expose their targets. Because of this, the cannon will put the most of this not armor-piercing shells, but high-explosive grenades.

Wait, wait. Suddenly, Shuklin felt a chill on his face - it was raining, the first rain of 1942, mixed with snow particles!

(There's another one later, explode, hehe.) (To be continued.) )