November 14, 1941 at 4 a.m., in the area of the left flank of the Zaslavl reservoir. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoEverything looked hazy in the night, and the white plains were only sparse birch forests and a few dilapidated farmhouses in the distance, and everything was silent, except for the flares that appeared in the distant sky.

It was cold, and it was the coldest time of the day - Colonel Terteny's men had to keep the engine compartment hot by roasting it: the fuel consumed by idling the high-powered diesel engine was not acceptable to the tank troops who were about to attack: the old rule, fire!

In another 2 hours, the 33rd Army's specially mixed tank regiment will attack westward, and they will be just a small pawn in the huge attacking force of the "Red Whirlwind". This will be in the direction of Belarus, almost 300 kilometers wide frontal assembly of offensive troops of 3 fronts, regimental level troops numbered to the extent that it is difficult to count!

Each link will be just a syllable in a grand movement, but it is the small syllables that determine whether the magnificent movement can be formed: much like a symphony, no one dares to take it lightly.

Half an hour ago, all the tank crews and assault infantry who participated in the assault were woken up - in fact, many of them had not slept at all, and almost no one observed the "forced sleep" that began yesterday: who really slept now? At most, just find a comfortable place to nest for a while.

The temperature is minus 25 degrees, and there is no wind before dawn, otherwise the howling cold wind can make people feel even colder!

The barracks were just a few dozen meters behind the assembly of their heavy tanks, and the huge barn of the farm, dry and spacious, was most suitable for bunking, and the only drawback was that several large oil drums could not be burned much together, it was too high. But in any case, it was good for the comrades to have a place to shelter from the wind and snow: there were still many troops who had to spend the night in semi-underground and underground fortifications that they dug themselves.

The goal of the barn is huge, but in the area under their control, the comrades do not care, at least spread a tarpaulin on a thick straw and sleep beautifully.

A lot of snow outside the barn has already compacted people and tank vehicles, and there is a "click" when you step on it.

Colonel Pol Matisovich Terteny left his semi-underground headquarters, grabbed a handful of snow from the edge of the trench, and rubbed it vigorously on his face. Just now he forced himself to be confused for a while, and the fatigue of staying up all night suddenly disappeared, but he was still a little dazed, and this snow was the best way to wipe his face.

In the dim sight, wisps of cooking smoke rose from behind the narrow bushes, and it was the comrades of logistics who prepared today's breakfast for the comrades, a hearty breakfast that had been rare for a long time.

Operational deployments have been repeated many times, and Terteney no longer needs to repeat them to his subordinates - there will already be idle crews tinkering with their own vehicles.

Terteny drove away the original commander of his tank, and his mechanic and driver, Sergeant Kirevnik, artillery commander, Sergeant Irasovsky, and loader Corporal Kokikov were already on his tank. Sergeant Kirevnik was about to bake the engine compartment with his special "waste oil baking tank" - it was parked at more than minus 20 degrees Celsius overnight, and if he wanted to start the engine quickly, he had to figure out how to start it quickly.

Many crews are doing the same thing, with flickering fires underneath them, and there is no need to worry about which daredevils will cause any fire accidents - the first thing Soviet tank crews do as soldiers is to learn how to start tanks in winter.

Can't overbake it, look almost, the oil circuit should have been unblocked, and the sound of engine test runs one after another. Run it for a few minutes and then turn it off, and then start it again within an hour without any problem.

The comrades of the cooking squad used a board cart to pull a huge insulated bucket to the side of the tank, and today's breakfast was hot barley beef porridge, bread and butter, and enough coffee.

The tankers ate with the infantrymen who were going to carry their tanks and maneuvered with them, and it only took 20 minutes to solve the problem! There was still some food in all the tanks, but the hard ones were all frozen, and they were still nourished by this steaming breakfast.

It was already five o'clock, and all the tanks and vehicles of the mixed tank regiment were launched and moved five kilometers west in several horizontal columns: it was a sparse bush, and less than a kilometer in front was their own infantry line. -- Terteney looked at the time, 5:30, half an hour to go.

The driver, Sergeant Kirevnik, had turned off the engine, and after a while, there was already some heat inside the cold tank, which was much more comfortable than when he first came in, it would be like an ice hole.

Wait, wait for the signal for the six o'clock attack this morning - Terteney has been turning on his own radio, but it will be silent in the headphones, all the stations of the same frequency have not turned on the call button, only a small amount of noise.

What is a general attack signal? No one needs to worry that they will miss the moment when the general offensive is launched - the sound of ten thousand cannons is the signal of the general attack!

There was still a moment before dawn, and although the Germans in the cold might hear the movement of the tank troops here, such movements occurred every day: the front-line troops on the Red Army's side sometimes heard the movements of the German tanks, and this cold gun and cold artillery were not less every day. Nothing special.

After so many days of stalemate, if there is a quiet and peaceful night, then the troops on both sides will not be able to sleep! If it is too quiet, it will not be called a battlefield, and the relationship between the two sides will not be a friendly military mission -- if you are idle, you will be reminded by sending artillery shells, so as not to reduce the vigilance of each side.

Hidden in fortifications on both sides, with exposed equipment and troops out of view, this cold and sporadic shelling had no precise purpose, and was purely a small trick to harass the other side's sleep. After a long time, both sides have become accustomed to this cold gun and cold artillery, you fight you, I sleep with mine, and if you are annoyed, let your own artillery also give you a few rounds, so that you will also be annoyed.

As the minutes ticked by, Terteney got out of the conning tower and looked left and right with a telescope: his Stalinist cluster was the first echelon, the T34s were parked in the back, and the BTs and trucks were at the back.

Each Stalin and T34 carried a few on-board infantrymen - in order to make the infantry brothers sit more comfortably, Terteney had some handles welded to the hulls and turrets of all tanks so as not to turn the infantry comrades upside down.

In fact, the commanders in the vicinity also poked their heads out and watched the movement of the command vehicle.

At six o'clock in the morning, it seemed that the devil from the ground poked his head out, and the earth trembled—and in an instant, half the sky was brightened and red! The general offensive has begun!

"I'm Terteny, the whole regiment is on!"

Kilevnik started the tank, hung up the clutch more than ten seconds later, and the huge Stalin type started with a bang! 20 tanks crossed the bushes and there was a line of fire ahead!

There was no direct artillery response, and the Germans had to wait two minutes for their speed - the three fronts concentrated all their large and medium-caliber artillery to suppress the German targets, and the intensive artillery bombardment almost tore apart the first line of German infantry defense in the first two minutes.

The cluster of its own tanks rumbled through the reserved wide passage, and then the German anti-tank guns deployed on the front line opened fire - the distance was too far for those 75-mm anti-tank guns to penetrate the front armor of the T34, and the German gunners had already become smart. However, the German anti-tank guns that were lucky enough to survive a round of intensive bombardment by "Katyusha" were a handful, and their firepower was sparse.

The German curved artillery group began to fire when Terteney rushed to the middle of the death zone in the middle, but most of the shells fell on the originally marked Red Army positions - it was not yet dawn, and the German artillerymen more than a dozen kilometers away did not know the situation on the front line, and they were being shelled everywhere!

Terteny's car did not fire until the road was 200 meters away from the German front-line trenches, because there was no need for it! There were craters everywhere in the distance, and it was obvious that the artillery was specially prepared for the preparation of artillery fire in order for the unit with the task of piercing the pocket mouth to break through the German line as quickly and smoothly as possible.

No amount of heavy artillery fire could kill everyone on the position, and the suppressive artillery fire had already begun to extend, and the "Stalinists" who rushed in the first line began to fire fiercely - not tank guns, but anti-aircraft machine guns and coaxial machine guns.

This is not a city, and the hitchhikers become 12.7mm large-caliber machine gun shooters - the loaders will be out of time, and the infantry will stand at the back of the hull, comfortable with the powerful machine guns, and their bodies will be covered by the huge turrets.

Dense machine-gun bullets chased down the scattered Germans - they could just see the clusters of tanks rumbling up under the red sky, and here an infantry battalion of Germans was not enough for those tanks, let alone the heaviest shelling ever!

The T34 was much faster than the "Stalin", and the formation of heavy tanks of the first class swept across the first line, and they increased their speed to strike diagonally on both flanks - the heavy tanks continued to move forward, and the T34s behind them followed after expanding the breach: Latom was not far away!

There were not many German firepower and troops on the front line, and the "highway" defense line in front of Terteney was the heavy firepower support point of the German army - as soon as the first line of defense was not a few hundred meters away, the Germans' armor-piercing shells came! (To be continued.) )