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 that as long as the Red Army continued to pursue, they would have escaped 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 Vadutin's idea, and the lower-ranking Red Army officers expressed all their optimism on the radio, and the Germans recorded these optimisms through radio interception, which served as the basis for Limer's decision-making

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

In order to strengthen his troops, Limer 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

According to the statistics of July 1941, Hitler's division had 678 officers, 20,166 soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and the strength of the skeleton division and the Imperial division was 17,417 and 14,097 respectively A total of 97 tanks In addition, the German 6th Panzer Division 717 will also put in a considerable number of Tank IV and a small number of Leopard tanks. ＊＊

On July 19, 1941, the German Leopard heavy tank began to turn its heavy armored turret, and its fast-moving tracks ran over deep ruts in the vast white snow of the Russian land, and where the powerful 88mm tank gun was pointed, a fierce battle was imminent

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

In the tank battles between the two sides, the initial model of the Red Army's T-34 tank, which had just appeared on the Soviet-German battlefield, suffered heavy losses, and the 76-mm tank guns equipped with this tank of the Red Army were not only unable to penetrate the 102-mm thick frontal armor of the Leopard tank, but even the frontal armor of the No. 4 tank, which had strengthened the protection of the German army, was almost helpless at a distance of 400 meters, while the German Leopard The 76-diameter 88-mm gun and the long-barreled 75-mm gun of the IV tank could easily punch holes in the frontal armor of the T-34 tank at a distance of 1,000 meters and 700 meters, respectively

As for the standard 47-mm anti-tank guns of the Red Army, there was no way to take the German tanks, and with the dull sound of German tank guns, one T-34 tank was destroyed on the battlefield, and some of the turrets were thrown into the sky by the detonated ammunition, and then smashed heavily on the ground

The sheer superiority of the tanks, combined with the right tactics, gave the Germans a one-sided victory, and their powerful armored wedges soon opened a large gap of more than 30 kilometers in the positions of the Red Army's 6th Army, and along this gap, they routed the German SS of the 4th Red Guards Army, and the Reich Division advanced more than 100 kilometers south at an astonishing high speed, and the German army soon joined up with the SS Panzer Corps in the Pavlograd area, and cut off the lines of communication of the Red Army's 6th Army, followed by 3 armor The German 40th Panzer Corps of the Panzer Infantry Division delivered another fatal blow to the Red Army ** Fleet which was already running out of fuel

After a fierce battle, the Germans claimed that in the counterattack against the Red Army's Southwestern Front, the Germans had defeated the Front's 6th Army, the 1st Guards Army, and the 1st Guards Army, and the 1st Guards Army, and 7 Special Brigades, and that 23,000 Soviet Red Army troops were said to have been killed So only about 9000 Red Army soldiers were captured

After suffering such a heavy defeat, the Red Army's Southwestern Front, under the strong pressure of the German troops rushing 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 threat of the flank of the German armored forces

Neither the Red Army High Command in Moscow nor the Voronezh Front, operating on the flank of the Southwestern Front, initially attracted enough attention, and they still stubbornly believed that the German counterattack was only to cover their retreat from the Dnieper, so that 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, and at this time, the German 4th Panzer Army, which had just defeated the Southwestern Front, was heading north to attack its own troops together with the German Kempf battle cluster, so that the 3 armies on the left flank of the Voronezh Front, the 3rd Tank Army, and the 40th and 69th armies would be attacked by 14 elite German divisions, including 4 Panzer Divisions, 3 SS Panzer Infantry Divisions, and 1 Motorized Infantry Division 3 infantry divisions attacked while the Red Army was able to use only about 70 tanks in this direction, and the Germans had no less than 370

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

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

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