"Ulla! Ulla! ”

On a road not far from where Ensign Graf shot down an enemy plane for the first time (and finally shot down an enemy plane), the soldiers of the 205th Division of the Soviet Red Army, who were resting for lunch, were cheering loudly. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info They have all seen the battle of the air battle from afar, so they are cheering for the victory of the Soviet Red Air Force - of course, it was the plane of Nazi Germany that was shot down, the Soviet Red Air Force was invincible, how could it be shot down by the enemy?

"Damn, stop shouting Ula, it was our plane that was shot down!"

A middle-aged officer who looked very much like a reactionary suddenly shouted loudly, and everyone looked at him, and then at several comrades from the counterintelligence department of the group army not far away. However, the "Cheka warriors" were very calm, and did not make any moves to arrest anyone, and it seemed that they wanted to cast a long line to catch a big fish.

Everyone understood in their hearts, and they didn't say anything, but just glared at Yakov, the head of artillery of the 9th Mechanized Corps, who was passing by, with disdain. Comrade Dzhugashvili.

"Comrade Oktyabrysky!" The next words of the "enemy special elements" with the rank of captain shocked every Red Army soldier who was eating nearby, and a captain officer actually spoke to a regimental political commissar in a commanding tone, "There are our pilots who have parachuted, send someone to rescue them!" ”

This is a rebellion!

Everyone was stunned and didn't nibble on black bread, just waiting to see a good show.

"Okay, Comrade Dzhugashvili." Oktyabrisky and Yakov. Dzhugashvili was in an army group, of course, knowing that this great god and his father were Stalin! Not to mention that he is a regiment-level political commissar, that is, Ponomarenko, the military commissar of the front army, is full of smiles and pretends to be cute when he sees him.

He immediately assigned a lieutenant who was eating black bread nearby to bring half a company of soldiers to the rescue - it was necessary to bring so many men, for near the road there were partisans of Polish reactionaries and German SS cavalry.

By the way, these SS cavalry belonged to the SS Polish Volunteer Cavalry Division and the SS Israeli Cavalry Division. The former was a Polish Nazi, and the latter was made up mainly of Polish Jews. Because support for the Zionist replacement of concentration camps became central to the Third Reich's "anti-Semitic" policy, many Polish Jews were hoodwinked into treating Hitler as good people. Hence the SS Israel Division......

And the Nazis in Poland, as well as the Jews who had not yet emigrated to the State of Israel, were now the most opposed to the liberation of the Soviet Union. And the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Rundstead, did not let them hold the ring fortress, but dispersed mobile operations and delayed the offensive of the Soviet Red Army.

The rescue troops had just set off, and the battle in the air had already decided the final victory. 8 of the 6 Yak-1 fighters were shot down and 2 escaped. Of the 12 Il-2 attack aircraft, 2 were shot down by the Fokker Zero, and the remaining 10 dropped their bombs and fled the battlefield.

Yakov, who witnessed the battle with a telescope. In a depressed mood, Dzhugashvili got into his Gas-61 light off-road vehicle and staggered all the way back to the location of the headquarters of the 9th Mechanized Army along the heavily congested and high-altitude highway.

"Yakov, how's it going?" Rokossovsky saw the sullen Yakov. Dzhugashvili, smiling, asked, "Did the army command agree to our request?" ”

"Agreed, a separate mortar battalion is coming." Yakov. Dzhugashvili replied.

The purpose of his visit to the army group headquarters was to ask the army group artillery chief for an independent mortar battalion. Of course, the mortar battalion capable of working Captain Zhugashvili will not really use mortars, in fact this battalion is armed with Бm-13 rocket launchers, the so-called Katyusha rocket launchers.

Although the Wehrmacht had known for a long time that the Soviets had rocket artillery (the Germans themselves had it, and they also gave the rocket artillery units the strange name of the Smoke Launcher Regiment), the Soviet Red Army still regarded the Katyusha rocket artillery as a highly secret weapon. Units that use rocket artillery are labeled "independent mortar battalions," while rocket artillery units at the divisional, brigade, and regimental levels are currently absent. Even the number of rocket artillery battalions is not large, and only a few main army groups of the Western Front Army have a baby rocket artillery battalion, which is personally controlled by the artillery director of the group army, and can only be used at critical times. But Yakov. Dzhugashvili has a big face, and 18 rocket artillery vehicles, of course, will come as soon as he opens his mouth.

However, Zhugashvili's request is not unreasonable, because a Бm-13 rocket artillery vehicle can only fire 16 132mm rockets at a time, and a battalion usually has 18 rocket artillery vehicles, which can fire 288 132mm rockets in one salvo. However, it is more troublesome to reload, and the movement of firing rockets is very large, and it is easy to be found by the opponent and counterattacked, so it is basically a run-and-run after the fight. So the power of a rocket artillery battalion is not much greater than that of a howitzer battalion, but the rocket artillery is mounted on a truck, which is more mobile, and can replace self-propelled artillery.

And Rokossovsky asked for this "mortar battalion" to be used as self-propelled guns. Because although there are many tanks in his mechanized army, there is not a single self-propelled gun used to kill and damage soft targets.

Yakov. All the artillery in the hands of Zhugashvili, the artillery chief, was towed by trucks, and it was not a matter of a while and a half to deploy the artillery positions in the event of an emergency.

So the 9th Mechanized Corps, after crossing the Bug River, was blocked for several hours by an SS Polish cavalry battalion with 50mm anti-tank guns and 75mm mountain guns, and several tanks were damaged.

And the same situation was met with tank corps / mechanized corps advancing in several other directions. Although the German and Polish defense forces did not build a continuous defensive line, they adopted a combination of stronghold defense and mobile defense. 38 brigade-sized circular positions were deployed on a frontal battlefield nearly 400 km long and 150 km wide on the Polish-Soviet border, and 16 SS cavalry regiments and 3 Wehrmacht cavalry regiments (the Wehrmacht cavalry regiments belonged to the 1st Wehrmacht Cavalry Division).

"Comrade Commander, the 4th Infantry Corps reports that they have completed the encirclement of the ring fortress of Trespol." The Chief of Staff of the Western Front, Major General Rimowsk, brought good news to the frowning General Pavlov. "Comrade Kosobutsky (commander of the 4th Infantry Corps) reports that the troops will be ready for the offensive by early tomorrow morning."

The Trespol Ring was the most uncomfortable of all the ring fortifications for the Red Army, as it was stuck on the choke point from Brest to Warsaw. Although Poland is a large plain, people can walk anywhere. But the Soviet Red Army was a heavy force, with a large amount of heavy equipment and supplies that needed to be transported by rail and truck. The Ring Fortress of Trespol jammed one of the most important railways and one key road, and three important bridges across the Bug River were covered by the fortress's artillery.

If the fortress is not captured, although the Soviet Red Army can make a detour, because the roads in Poland are relatively poor, and there are other ring fortresses blocking the way, it is always not smooth, as if someone is stuck in the throat to go to the battlefield.

So in the "Thunderstorm Plan", the Western Front still had to pull out a few ring fortresses and make traffic to Warsaw unimpeded. Only in this way could Pavlov be sure that he would engage the Germans in a general battle under Warsaw that would determine the fate of Poland's future.

"Tell Comrade Kosopotsky," Pavlov said, "that he will be given 72 hours to take Trespol, starting tomorrow at 8 a.m." ”

It should be possible for a dignified infantry army to take a brigade-level position in 72 hours. So after Pavlov gave the order, he did not go to the Trespol fortress again, but asked about the situation of the Air Force again.

"Has the Air Force report arrived?" Pavlov asked, "How much did this morning's air strikes result?" What about the damage? ”

Although Pavlov was relatively unlucky in history, this does not mean that his military quality is low, and his bad luck is due to the fact that it is normal to meet the German Superman who has opened the hanging. And General Pavlov, who has quite good military qualities and has a very good understanding of the situation on the European battlefield, knows very well that air superiority is the key to the success of the "Great Thunderstorm Plan"!

If the Nazis could not be defeated in the sky, then the huge Soviet mechanized cluster on the ground was a living target for German aircraft, and it was simply impossible to win.

"Comrade commander, the effect of the air raid is very good." Major General Rimowsk replied with a smile that "51 of the 65 military airfields and field military airfields that have been identified in Poland have been devastated, losing the ability to take off and land aircraft." ”

As a result of the Luftwaffe's voluntary withdrawal, airfields in Poland suffered heavy losses in air raids launched by the Soviet Red Air Force on the morning of June 1! At least 1,000 model airplanes were blown up on the ground, as were runways and facilities at 51 airports of minor importance. Only 14 important airfields were guarded by anti-aircraft artillery regiments of the Luftwaffe air defense forces (now the German army, navy and air force all have their own ground anti-aircraft artillery units, and the anti-aircraft artillery units responsible for the air defense of air force airfields and rear facilities belong to the air defense forces of the air force), so the losses were not too great.

"However, the losses of the Red Air Force under the jurisdiction of the Front Army are not small," Major General Limowike's tone has calmed, "according to preliminary statistics, more than 260 aircraft dispatched this morning did not return, accounting for about 8% of the total sorties. ”

"260 ......" Pavlov nodded, not saying anything. This figure is okay, and within an acceptable range, it is not known what the losses of the armies of several other fronts are. (To be continued.) )