While the German attack troops were advancing, the Ming army was not idle. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info anti-tank guns of various calibers on the position all fired desperately, sending one anti-tank shell after another into the belly of the German tank.

To the surprise of the Ming army, a very peculiar tank appeared among the German attacking troops this time. Its size and armor thickness were so impressive that even the standard 75-mm anti-tank guns of the Ming army could not destroy such a tank at a distance of 500 meters. The only thing that could play a role was the 88-mm high-level dual-purpose gun, which was called an artifact by the officers and soldiers.

However, the 88-mm high-level dual-purpose gun is not much because of the complicated production process, difficult maintenance, and most importantly, its weight is several tons, and its mobility is very poor.

Because the Ming army itself has the best armored force in the world, their main anti-armor means is actually their own armored forces. Although they have this kind of artifact in their hands, there are not many of them actually deployed among the ground forces. Because the 75-mm anti-tank, which is the core of the anti-tank in the infantry units, is enough to deal with all the Allied tanks. Most of the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns were used in the air defense forces.

When more than a dozen German tanks were knocked out by 88-mm anti-aircraft guns, the German tanks immediately concentrated their fire on the anti-tank positions everywhere, bringing considerable losses to the Ming army.

Don't think that the 75 mm or 88 mm guns on the tank are weak. Although the caliber did not reach the triple digits, in fact, the power of these guns was not small at all.

People don't think it's a big deal when they only look at the literal data, but when they actually see the real thing, it's completely different. The reason why I feel that the caliber is small is only because I don't understand. In fact, these guns were very large, like the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns mentioned many times, which weighed several tons on the base alone, and had a long self-tightening alloy barrel. Such artillery requires at least one crew of artillery squads to operate. This is only for the operators and not for other auxiliary officers. If you add guards, communications, observation, and transportation troops, an artillery gun needs to consume at least dozens of officers and soldiers to serve.

On a tank that combines protection, firepower, and mobility, it is equipped with a gun powerful enough to tear down a strong fortification with a single shot. Plus armor that can ignore most attacks and maneuver far beyond infantry. It is absolutely not for nothing that tanks, known as mobile fortresses, can replace artillery and cavalry as a new generation of land hegemons.

The defensive positions of the Ming army were soon under great pressure, especially when their main anti-tank weapon, the 75-mm anti-tank gun, was very difficult to deal with the new German heavy tanks. The Ming army's front-line guard positions were quickly lost. The sentries stationed here were so embarrassed that they threw away their weapons and fled to the rear along the communication trenches.

The Germans who rushed to the Ming army's warning position shot at the fleeing Ming sentries as if venting, knocking many Ming soldiers to the ground. And the tanks of the Germans, having paid a huge price, had already approached the main line of defense of the Ming army. At this moment, most of the anti-tank guns of the Ming army have been destroyed by the German tanks. The infantry alone could not resist so many tanks. The Ming army would not let the soldiers carry explosive bags to destroy the enemy tanks.

The front-line commander of the German 16th Panzer Division was bleeding at the moment. Although it had successfully broken through the frontline defense of the Ming army and killed its main position. However, in such a short distance and the losses suffered during yesterday's shelling, the 16th Panzer Division, which was fully formed, had already lost more than 100 tanks of various types, which was already half of its tanks.

What made the German officers feel even more distressed was that the Mark V and Mark VI equipped with them were almost lost because of their large size and fierce firepower, although they performed extremely well, they were taken care of by the Ming army on the battlefield.

The Germans did not have many of these new tanks. For the time being, only a group of elite troops stationed in the country have been given the opportunity to change their equipment. Seeing the black smoke and fire of these tanks, with their long barrels pointed diagonally towards the ground, the German commander's bad mood can be imagined.

Then, when the Germans thought they were about to capture the Ming positions, smoke suddenly rose from the Ming positions.

The dust and snowflakes on the Ming army's position were lifted into the sky by the huge impact force. A series of dense orange-red flames of light appeared from the position, which was the launch of anti-tank rocket launchers that the Ming army's infantry units had officially begun to equip on a large scale.

Even advanced individual anti-tank weapons in modern time and space, such as AT4 and so on, have a combat range of only a few hundred meters. In this era when the level of science and technology is simply a primitive society compared to modern time and space, the Ming army began to equip the troops with this kind of anti-tank rocket launcher on a large scale, and the range that can really guarantee the hit rate is only 50 meters. Not that this weapon can only shoot fifty meters, but that the effective hit range that this weapon can guarantee is only so much.

Fifty meters is enough distance for a good soldier to throw a grenade on the battlefield. To put it simply, it is directly exposed under the nose and under the guns of the enemy. But there was no way, in this kind of wilderness of field warfare, there was simply no place for the officers and soldiers to hide. This is not an urban street fight.

Most of the anti-tank guns had been destroyed by German tanks, and only the Ming infantry in white-gray snow suits were able to surprise the Germans by hiding in the trenches. More than twenty German tanks were destroyed by rockets as they entered within about fifty meters of the main Ming position.

Although the anti-tank rocket launcher is a weapon with ultra-close shooting, low reliability, great damage to operators, high production costs and even disposable products. But there's absolutely nothing to say about its power. More than two dozen tanks were shot through armor and turned into flaming flares. Because of inertia, many tanks even rushed into the positions of the Ming army while burning.

The German commander was dumbfounded, and the German officers and soldiers at the front were all dumbfounded. This never-before-seen weapon gave the Germans a great shock. Many German officers and soldiers were even at a loss for a short time.

If it had been replaced by a poorly trained and disciplined army, it was very likely that this threatening attack would have been nullified, but the German army was worthy of being elite, and they only lost their minds for a short time, and then rushed again to the Ming positions under the command of officers at all levels.

The German grenadiers also followed the tanks and rushed into the Ming trenches, and fierce melee combat broke out with the Ming defenders. The German grenadiers were also armed with submachine guns and semi-automatic weapons, and the infantry on both sides fired fiercely in the narrow trenches, and basically whoever could run out of bullets in the magazine first would win.

Blood splattered and corpses strewn across the trenches. The officers and men on both sides all fell to the ground layer by layer. Warm blood gushed out of his body and soaked into the hard ground, and was soon frozen into a clump of clotted blood by the cold weather.

The 59th Mechanized Infantry Division of the Ming Army has done its best. However, they alone could not resist the attack of the German armored forces. In the absence of a technological gap ahead of its time, infantry cannot confront armored forces head-on. Especially in this uninhabited wilderness.

However, the Ming army was not only infantry. The armored forces of the Ming army, which had long been prepared, soon attacked from the rear and delivered a frontal blow to the armored forces of the Germans. In the face of a powerful counterattack by the Ming armored forces, the German 16th Paner, which had been exhausted from the previous attack, was quickly defeated, and the German attack ended in failure.

The elite German 16th Panzer Division lost more than 200 tanks of all types in two days. The casualties among officers and men were close to 5,000. Such losses almost mean that this armored division has lost its combat effectiveness.

When the news reached Manstein, the German commander was shocked. An entire fully equipped elite armored division was crippled in less than two days, and the rate of loss made Manstein's scalp tingle. This was only a preliminary contact between the two sides, and it was still far from Rostov-on-Don, the target point of the campaign.

By this time, the Allied forces in the southern encirclement had abandoned most of their burdens and began to advance frantically towards Rostov-on-Don, and Manstein, as the receiving force, had no choice. He had to open a link between the two sides before the Allies to the south approached, which meant that he had to capture Rostov-on-Don. Only by taking this place can we successfully meet the southern troops and escape.

Manstein quickly adjusted his deployment slightly, withdrawing the 16th Panzer Division, which had lost most of its armored strength, to Ukraine to recuperate. Subsequently, Manstein ordered the Russian 47th Infantry Corps and the German 26th and 31st Panzer Divisions to take over the task and continue to attack the main defense line of the Ming army.

At the same time, Manstein mobilized the German Panzer Divisions of the Reich, the Panzer Divisions of the Greater Germany, and the Seventh Panzer Division, which had recently arrived at the front, to form a large armoured attack group. by the commander of the Imperial Division, Paul. General Hausser commanded the outflanking of the Ming army from the right flank of the Ming position, bypassing the Ming position.

This attack began on 7 February, and the Germans, with their strong forces, managed to break through the Ming army's right flank. Hundreds of tanks went directly to the rear positions of the Ming army. On the frontal battlefield, thousands of Russian infantry continued to attack the frontal positions of the Ming army under the cover of the German armored forces, which brought great pressure to the 59th Infantry Division of the Ming army.

The 12th Panzer Corps of the Ming Army came under great pressure. Not to mention the frontal battlefield, Hausser's flank attacks were too threatening, and they immediately gathered their own armored forces to deal with the armored forces of the German Hausser. A massive tank battle broke out on the field southwest of Novocherkassk, northeast of Rostov-on-Don, near the village of Rathwaite. (To be continued.) )