Polish tank ...... And cavalry!?

"Fire! …… Fire! Before Panzer Meyer could react, he heard a voice shouting, sounding like Schwartz, the commander of car No. 3, who was walking alongside car No. 2.

"! We are an armored reconnaissance company, and if we don't find out the situation, we won't be afraid to expose the target......" Meyer pushed open the hatch overhead, then stood up from his seat, leaned out half of his body, and hurriedly raised his binoculars to see what was going on.

But as soon as I showed up, there was a loud "boom" in my ears! It was the sound of a cannonball exploding, and it wasn't far from him, and if it weren't for Meier's headphones, he might have burst his eardrums.

The Poles are firing guns! Panzer Meyer thought to himself that a heavy mortar attached to a Polish infantry regiment might be firing.

"Boom, boom, boom......" There were several loud noises, and several fireballs were raised not far away.

"Hell!" Armored Meyer scolded, quickly retracted into the turret, closed the hatch, and then picked up the communicator and shouted: "Car No. 2, car No. 3, report your location, have you left the forest?" ”

"No, no!"

"Not yet."

"Then put the smoke, retreat, all the cars, reverse 30 yards back, and then turn around! Don't get bombed here......" Meyer ordered, "and we'll hold on...... Just guard the forest exit is enough! ”

He mentally estimated that at least one regiment of reinforced tank companies and one cavalry company was blocking the exit from this forest—a Polish infantry division had a reconnaissance force consisting of a company of small TKS tanks and two or three squadrons of light cavalry, and it seemed that this reconnaissance force was now reinforced by the infantry regiment that stood in the way......

And a Polish infantry regiment with nearly 2,000 men, as well as 9 37mm anti-tank guns, plus a company of small tanks and an unknown number of cavalry, is not something that his heavy armored vehicle company can deal with.

When he thought of this, Panzer Meyer felt a huge vibration of his armored car, and at the same time, there was a muffled thunderous roar, and he was shaken because he didn't grasp the handle while thinking about things, and his head was touched a few times on the steel plate, and he was in pain to death.

"!" He covered his head, thinking to himself that a shell must have exploded very close to the armored vehicle, so he shouted to the driver, "Withdraw, hurry back, don't rub it off!"

The car drove for a while, and I don't know where it went, but there didn't seem to be the sound of shells exploding outside.

"Attention crews," Panzer Meyer picked up the intercom again, "stop moving forward now, and report the damage." ”

……

"Hooray! Long live Poland! ”

Cheers rang out in Polish, and the commander of the Polish 15th Division, Zcsław. Major General Pzhyakovsky held up the binoculars and looked at the smoke in front of him at a German "tank" that somehow overturned in the mud next to the road, and his mood suddenly became relaxed.

The three hours since the start of the war are probably the most depressed three hours since Major General Pzhyakovsky joined the army. First of all, their own division headquarters and division headquarters, divisional artillery positions and a concentration of logistics vehicles and materials were blown up by the German air force! Then I heard the news of the German tanks breaking through the Tuhora Forest, and the strongholds I deployed in the Tuhora Forest also lost contact one after another, and it was obvious that they had suffered!

Knowing that something was wrong, Major General Pzhyakovsky reacted in time and immediately mobilized all the "mobile forces", including cavalry and tanks, along an important road (that is, the road where the armored Meyer was marching) to reinforce his 47th Infantry Regiment. On the road, several German planes strafed several times with machine guns and machine guns, damaged five small TKS tanks, and killed and wounded dozens of people. I also saw with my own eyes that a PZL.11 fighter that flew from somewhere was shot down by a German plane!

But fortunately, the troops arrived in time and repelled the first wave of the German tank forces.

"Send a telegram to the army group command, we repelled the tank units of the Germans in the Tuhora forest!" Major General Pzhyakovsky said with some smugness, "Now it is certain that a decisive battle will take place in the area of the Tuhora Forest!" I propose that the command of the army group use reserves in the Tuhora Forest battlefield. ”

Major General Pzhyakovsky was correct in his judgment, and his proposal was also endorsed by the commander of the army group, Major General Pzhetemirsky. But this brave Polish major general could not have imagined that this decisive battle of the Tuhora Forest would be decided in a very short time!

……

"The situation is indeed a bit grim, and the enemy is coming prepared (is Poland unprepared?). ), and well-armed with a strong air force ......"

At 8:30 a.m. on 1 September 1939, Field Marshal Reiz-Himiwig, who was meeting in the Belvedel Palace, still seemed very calm - in fact, he had no idea how bad the situation had been. Because in this war, the situation has deteriorated faster than anyone realizes.

It's only been less than 4 hours of fighting, how can the war be won or lost? Poland just can't beat Germany, and it won't be defeated so quickly, right?

"But the war has only just begun," Marshal Reiz-Himiwig nodded gracefully to the British and French ambassadors who had come to the meeting, "and the Germans have already made a fatal mistake!" ”

"A fatal mistake?" The French ambassador was a skeptical officer, a veteran who had fought in the First World War, and knew that German soldiers were not very easy to deal with.

"Yes, they revealed their intentions prematurely," said Field Marshal Rez-Himiwig, "and on the basis of the present situation on the battlefield, we can already determine that the main direction of attack of the Germans is in the north and south. Or rather, the area defended by the Primorsky Army and the Krakow Army. ”

"What? Determined so quickly? "The French ambassador was very surprised. He knew what it meant to determine the direction of the enemy's main attack on the first day of the war - which meant that the Poles could calmly mobilize reserves for reinforcements and build fortifications in front of the route on which the Germans would advance.

"That's right," Marshal Rez-Shimivig laughed, "because they have begun to launch an offensive that can be regarded as a general offensive, and they have sent out a large number of armored troops. ”

In fact, the Polish soldiers on the front line now saw only a small fraction of the Germans' tanks and armored vehicles - the Germans had dispatched more than 3,000 tanks and self-propelled guns in the Polish campaign of this time and space. If you count the various wheeled armored vehicles, the number is as high as more than 5,000 - but they were correct in their judgment of the direction of the main attack of the German army.

"What?" The French were stunned again, and now the fight has begun! Why is it a general attack? Could it be that the Germans have forgotten how to fight a war after 20 years of peace?

Rez-Himiwig shrugged his shoulders and said in an extremely confident tone: "It is clear that the German high command is making mistakes, which determines that they are going to lose another world war!" I have decided to send reinforcements from 2 armies to the Primorsky and Krakow areas, where we will meet the invading Germans and defeat them! ”

He paused, then looked at the British and French ambassadors, and said, "In order that we may win the war as soon as possible, I hope that Britain and France will immediately fulfill their obligation to fight Germany, and at the same time provide us with some more squadrons of fighters with new aircraft...... Because the German air force was stronger than ours, this is really a big problem! ”

……

As if to prove Rez-Shimivig's prophecy right, on the front line of the Tuhora Forest, the division commander of the Poles, Major General Pzhyakovsky, ordered his troops to attack!

This was an act that was difficult for the soldiers of other countries to understand - the Polish 15th Division was the weaker side in every way. They should not even think about defending on the spot now, but should first withdraw across the Brashi River and then defend along the river. If it were replaced by a French general who believed in the omnipotence of defense, he would almost certainly do so.

But the thinking of the Polish servicemen is not like this, they love to attack! It has been that way for 20 years. Attacking is their first reaction, even when facing superior enemies!

Of course, when Guderian's more than 700 tanks really rushed out of the Tuhora forest, the Poles would not have been stupid enough to storm with cavalry. But now in front of Major General Pzhyakovsky, after all, there are only a small number of German armored vehicles.

"Get ready to fight! Be sure to avenge your dead comrades! Panzer Meyer saw through the binoculars that the Polish TKS tanks were covering the infantry along the road, and hurriedly picked up the intercom and shouted.

In the encounter just now, Meier's company lost 1 8-wheeled heavy armored vehicle, which was the No. 2 vehicle. None of the four people in the car appeared, and it seems that they were either sacrificed or arrested. Another mortar shell exploded next to a company of half-tracks, killing two and wounding two.

In just a few hours, his company had lost 6 men, which made him a little annoyed. However, he did not rush back to find the Poles desperately, and continued to retreat about 1 kilometer, reaching a village that he had previously occupied, and then began to set up defenses.

Seventeen wheeled armored vehicles were driven into the village, defending against the dilapidated structures that had been shelled by artillery several rounds. The soldiers who were advancing in half-tracks were disembarked, and a mortar position and several sniper positions were set up.

They were to hold on until the armoured training battalion and a motorized infantry battalion attached to the 3rd Panzer Division arrived.

(To be continued.) )