On May 7, 1944, in the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow, there was already a scene of extreme tension. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Every staff officer looked panicked, as if the sky was about to fall in Moscow. However, they did not give up, and they were still on the phone and carrying out revolutionary work around the map. A large number of troops were to be reinforced from Moscow and the city of Kalinin in the direction of the Volokolamsk-Mara-Solnechnogorsk triangle. In this triangle, especially on the west bank of the Mara River, fierce offensive and defensive operations are still being carried out.

In the evening of yesterday, the attack of the "tank armored group of the Northern Front" belonging to the Kalinin Front of the Soviet army on the Rod Snowo-Osheichino was stubbornly blocked by the Marx cluster with the German 1st Panzer Division as the core, and suffered heavy losses. Although the Soviets invested a large number of JS-2 tanks and T-34/85 tanks, as well as infantry, they launched repeated and decisive attacks. But all of them were repulsed by German E-50A, Tiger H and Cheetah tank destroyers.

And after dawn, on the Rodsnowo-Osheichino battlefield, the offensive and defensive postures of the two sides changed abruptly. In the early morning of 7 May, the "Marx Cluster" (the name of the revolution) was supported by four armored battalions from Volokolamsk, which were four of the six armored battalions with No. 4H tanks that had been left behind in Volokolamsk to save fuel.

Don't look at them just with the sign of "battalion", in fact these German armored battalions have much more combat power than Soviet tank brigades! Each battalion had 88 Type 4H tanks at full strength (66 tanks with E-50s and Tigers), and although the four battalions from Volokolamsk were not at full strength, each battalion had more than 70 tanks on average. A total of 282 No. 4H tanks were dispatched by the 4 battalions, which is more than a tank corps in the USSR!

With the reinforcement of 282 No. 4 tanks, the number of tanks/assault guns that could be operated in the hands of Major General Marx was increased to 612. Among them, there are 80 E-50A tanks, 78 Cheetah tank destroyers, 110 Tiger H tanks, 40 Rhino tank destroyers, 12 Stalker tank destroyers (attached to the 1st Panzergrenadier Regiment), and 10 "Little Leopards" (the legendary "Loli Leopard").

In addition, during the daylight on 7 May, a group of Franco-German attack planes appeared over the Rhodes Snow-Osche Ikino battlefield. Br.720 and Hs-129 with artillery mounted on the fuselage, 6-8 "Doll" rocket launchers Fw-190F/G appeared in groups, and under the guidance of dozens of German defensive strongholds intersected with the Soviet front, they repeatedly attacked Soviet targets on the ground, and at the same time the Germans launched fierce artillery bombardment.

Supported by attack aircraft, fighter-bombers and artillery, hundreds of tanks of the German Marx cluster launched an offensive against the Soviets in front of them with unprecedented ferocity. The west bank of the Mara River was originally the place where the Soviet army launched its main offensive, although it suffered heavy losses in the previous night battle, it was still possible to gather a huge tank and armored corps, and as a result, more than a thousand tanks on both sides launched a decisive battle on the plain west of the Mara River!

And once the Soviet army is defeated by the Germans on the plain west of the Mara River, then at the moment this counterattack, which can be said to be the "last stand", will be over, Moscow and the city of Kalinin will be surrounded, and the Soviet red flag does not know how many more days it will be fought? Therefore, at this moment when the survival of the Soviet Union is at stake, Zhukov and Pavlov's choice seems to be the only way to smash the last capital at hand into it! But in this way, it is tantamount to moving the defense of Moscow outside the strong city defenses.

Once the Soviet army is defeated in the "triangle", the defense of Moscow will probably be greatly weakened. So at this critical moment, everyone is waiting for Zhukov and Pavlov to make a final decision.

At this time, Zhukov was in an office full of maps, thinking hard about a map full of markers. Marshal Pavlov, First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, quietly walked in. Zhukov heard a knock at the door. When he turned his head, his face was already full of exhaustion, and his eyes were blue because of the overuse of his brain power and the extreme lack of sleep. This fateful decisive battle was too heavy a burden even for a genius military strategist like Zhukov.

"Georgi. Konstantinovich, hasn't a decision been made yet? Comrade Stalin has just called again to urge him. It is necessary to devote all our forces to it, to defeat the imperialist invading army at all costs, and to defend the cause of Comrade Lenin. ”

Zhukov smiled bitterly: "Actually, I would like to propose that Comrade Lenin be sent to Chelyabinsk immediately......"

The immortal remains of Comrade Lenin are still under Lenin's Tomb on Red Square - there is also a bunker underneath Lenin's Tomb, which was used to protect his body from imperialist bombers in wartime.

However, Stalin had already instructed that Lenin's body must be moved as soon as Moscow was besieged!

Now that Zhukov is bringing this up, Pavlov naturally will not fail to understand what it means.

However, Pavlov shook his head, "No, now is not the time, although the situation is unfavorable, but we should still do our best." If you give up now, it will be nothing more than a long siege of Moscow...... Moscow should not turn into another Leningrad or Warsaw. It should be Paris, with a bang! ”

Pavlov's "Paris" certainly meant the Paris Commune. In his opinion, failure is not terrible, but the loss of faith. The fighters of Moscow should be martyred for the belief in GCISM, so that future generations of GCIST successors can be inspired.

If, in the end, they were defeated by hunger because of a long siege and surrendered to the Russian empress, it would be a truly terrible defeat!

When Zhukov heard Pavlov's words, he suddenly had a feeling of enlightenment. He had been thinking about how to save the fate of Moscow and the Soviet Union, and had never thought of fighting a vigorous campaign to inspire generations of GCIST successors.

Thinking of this, his hand slapped heavily on the Ruzha River, a roughly north-south river west of Moscow and a tributary of the Moskva River, south of Volokolamsk. Now a part of the Western Front cluster in Moscow was holding there (not the entire Ruzha River, but only the middle and lower reaches) and confronting the Germans on the opposite bank. The Soviet assault cluster on the southern front is now on a front of about 100 kilometers south of the Ruzha River and Solnechnogorsk (the city of Solnechnogorsk is currently under German control), facing off against a German panzer corps (in fact, 2 panzergrenadier divisions and 2 paratrooper divisions, as well as some tank destroyer battalions and heavy armored battalions).

According to the original plan, the Soviet army on the southern front was supposed to attack together with the northern front cluster last night, and the direction of the main attack was to attack Volokolamsk along the Ruzha River north.

However, due to the German artillery raid launched in advance and the subsequent night air raid, which was delayed for several hours, the attack of the southern front cluster last night was weakened. So there was no fierce tank battle along the Ruza River.

However, the Soviets still found out the deployment of German forces along the Ruzha River south of Volokolamsk through a limited night battle.

The German defenses there did not seem to be as strong as at Rod Snowo-Osheichino, and the attacking Soviet troops, although also repulsed, did not suffer much damage. It seems that with a little more effort, it is still possible to succeed.

And during the day on 7 May, the Germans did not launch a counterattack along the upper reaches of the Ruza River.

Zhukov said: "It is possible to withdraw Katuzov's cluster of the northern front along the north of the Mara River and attract the German armored cluster that is fighting with them to the north as far north as possible." Create favorable conditions for the assault of the Southern Front cluster tonight on the upper banks of the Ruza River!

Tonight, we're going to do our best to fight...... For the USSR! For the cause of GCISM! ”

……

Whistling rockets swept across the west bank of the Mara River, and the front of the battle line was once again a fiery dragon. Looking from the barren land where the tanks were assembled to the Soviet front a few kilometers away, it was already flooded with smoke and fire, as if the gates of hell had suddenly opened.

Captain Ribbentrop, who had been fighting hard since last night, was still in good spirits, and his company now had 18 operating E-50A tanks. From last night to the end of the fierce battle, only 1 tank of his company was completely destroyed (1 JS-2 tank was hit in the side with a 122mm gun), another tank was badly damaged (the 122mm gun of the JS-2 tank pierced the lower front of the hull), and 2 tanks had mechanical problems and were being repaired.

However, because two vehicles under repair had been repaired and rebuilt, Ribbentrop's company now had 18 E-50A tanks in service - it was clear that the E-50A was a very reliable vehicle, and it was an excellent tank that was created by absorbing the achievements of the "Tiger" and "Panther", as well as the many achievements of Britain and France in tank and internal combustion engine technology.

Not only powerful, but also very reliable, so it can be used for maximum efficiency on the battlefield.

"All forward, long live victory!" In the headphones of Ribbentrop Jr., at this time, the order of the commander of the cluster, Major General Marx, came out.

The climax of the tank battle is coming!