For the Russian troops carrying out defensive operations in Sarova, the situation on the battlefield at the moment is very unoptimistic. Pen~Fun~Ge www.biquge.info The distance from the Sato River on the front line to the city of Sarova is only less than five kilometers, and such a distance is simply not enough for the Russian army to build a good defense in depth to resist the attack of the Ming army. When the armored forces of the two sides encountered, the battlefield was also very narrow.

The Ming army's tank clusters gathered together like steel hedgehogs, penetrating one Russian tank after another with precise and ferocious artillery strikes. The armored units of the 13th Tank Army of the Russian army are limited by the defensive strength and attack power of their own tanks, and can only endure it at a distance. It's not that you don't want to fight back, but if it's too far, unless it's luck, you won't be able to penetrate it at all!

After Lieutenant General Mosolenko, the commander of the 13th Tank Army of the Russian Army, sent light tanks to attack the Ming pontoon bridge, he used the time when the Ming tanks attacked the light tanks to divide the T34 in his hand into two parts, and outflanked and contained the Ming army from the left and right sides. The middle core of the Russian armored forces is nearly 80 KV tanks, including more than 20 KV2s with extremely thick armor.

Because of the technical limitations of the country's industrial science and technology, the tank armor equipped by the Russian army has always had the problem of insufficient quality, and because of the low level of metallurgy, the quality of their armor is not high.

In this case, Russian military-industrial scientists chose a local solution to the problem of armor, that is, to constantly increase the thickness. This philosophy is the same as when the Japanese built the Yamato in modern time and space.

As a representative work of this concept, the thickness of the armor of the KV2 heavy tank, especially in the turret section, reached an astonishing level. It could even be said that its turret is a giant iron lump. Even the Tiger's 88mm gun was extremely difficult to penetrate the frontal armor of the KV2's turret.

At the same time, in order to be able to fight the Tiger tanks of the Ming army, the KV2 heavy tank was also equipped with a howitzer of 152 mm caliber. This is definitely the largest caliber main gun among the main tanks of various countries. However, this huge caliber gun has many problems with the KV2 tank itself, and its power is far less than that of the gun. But there is no way, this is the only weapon in the hands of the Russians that can barely confront the Ming army.

More than 70 KV2 tanks broke down on the way to the battlefield, and then were hit one after another because they were too slow when advancing towards the Ming army. Although even the long-barreled 88mm gun equipped on the Tiger is difficult to penetrate the frontal turret of the KV2, but the armored soldiers of the Ming army are not fools, can't I hit you elsewhere if I can't penetrate the turret? You can't be the same everywhere on your body, can you? Then it's not a tank, it's a reinforced concrete fortification!

The tracks and front armor of many KV2 tanks were damaged and pierced by the heavy guns of the Tiger. If it weren't for the fact that the battlefield is narrow at the moment, and there are important pontoon bridges and rivers behind you. Mingjiao's Tiger style reversed all the way and fired all the way, using the speed advantage to fly a kite and grind them to death. The Tiger style, which has always been known for its slow speed, was able to use its speed to win one day, which was not easy.

However, the heavy artillery of the KV2 tank did some work. The armor-piercing shells they fired were not very powerful, and the actual armor-piercing ability was far inferior to the 88-mm guns of the Ming army. However, if such a high-explosive shell fired by such a large-caliber artillery exploded near the Ming tank, it brought a lot of losses to the Ming army.

In this case, the T34, which has good offensive and defensive mobility capabilities, has become the main force of the Russian army. Although it could not fight the Haw Par, the T34 tank was at least in performance similar to the No. 4, which was heavily equipped by the Ming army. The numerous T34s advanced at high speed like a huge pair of pincers, surrounding the Ming army from both sides.

In the face of the huge encirclement offensive of the Russian division. Major General Niu Ben calmly responded and readjusted his deployment. He used the Tiger to entangle the Russian KV2 tank, and let the No. 4 and Leopard tanks attack the Russian T34. Both sides are fighting positional warfare and a war of attrition.

At this time, the pontoon bridge over the Sato River was still passing rapidly, and it would not be long before a completely new armored force would be assembled at the bridgehead. Niu Ben only needs to entangle the Russian army, and the Ming armored troops that have come up in an hour at most will be put into the battlefield. And the Russians don't want to get reinforcements in a short time. Zhukov could not throw all his armor forces into one battle at once.

From 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., hundreds of tanks fought desperately in a small area. Tanks were constantly being destroyed, and the battlefield was littered with the wreckage of tanks and the corpses of armored soldiers in thick black smoke.

Many of the armored soldiers escaped from their destroyed tanks with flames on their bodies, and the casualties burned by the fuel were almost impossible to salvage. Many of the armoured soldiers were burned to black coal.

In just over an hour of fighting, the total number of tanks damaged between the two sides has exceeded 200. These combat weapons, which had consumed countless resources, were now all used in scrapyards.

When both sides were exhausted, the more than 100 Ming tanks that quickly crossed the river to reinforce became the last straw that broke the camel's back. This new force fought out from the rear and swept across the battlefield like a torrent of steel. However, the Russian 13th Tank Army was already powerless and could only be forced to retreat completely. During the retreat, the commander of the 13th Tank Army of the Russian Army, the command vehicle of Lieutenant General Mosolenko, was hit, and Lieutenant General Mosolenko was killed on the spot. He also became the highest-ranking commander of the Russian army to be killed in this battle for the time being.

In the evening, when the battle was fierce, both sides gathered their troops and entrenched themselves in their existing positions, waiting for dinner. No one can be in a high-tension state of combat all the time, and they all need to rest. Zhang Cheng did not distribute poison to his officers and soldiers. The idea of using it to increase mental euphoria.

The Ming army succeeded in establishing a bridgehead position on the west bank of the Sato River and sent a large number of troops across the river. It is foreseeable that after dawn tomorrow, this place will inevitably be used as a starting point for a large-scale attack.

And the Russian army suffered great losses in a day of fighting. The loss of hundreds of artillery pieces and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles is absolutely traumatic for the Russian army. Although the Russians produced a large amount of various munitions, they were able to receive support from the Allies. But a loss of this magnitude would be painful for the Ming Dynasty.

That night, the anxious Zhukov, having received reinforcements from several infantry regiments and artillery regiments, immediately launched a ferocious night counterattack. Zhukov was not prepared to rely on these infantry to recapture the bridgehead of the Ming army, but was determined to use these troops to cause problems for the Ming army, and to hold the Ming army back so that at least tomorrow's attack would not be so smooth.

At the same time, Zhukov again gave the order to massively destroy the railway line and road from Sarova to Ryazan, so that the Ming army would not have a chance to use it. On the map, the stretch from Sarova to Ryazan is flanked by dense forests and massive marshes. The only thing that could pass through the massive armored forces of the Ming army was a zigzag plain, which was not very spacious. Of all the time, only Sarova and Sasovo had better conditions to block the attack. Both cities are larger, with sturdy reinforced concrete buildings and are surrounded by rivers outside the city.

The officers and men of the Russian army are still relatively heroic. That night, thousands of Russian officers and soldiers held explosives bags and ****, and after each drank a whole bottle of vodka, they started the Ula charge under the reflection of the flares that the Ming army shot up in the sky.

Most of these soldiers have only received short-term basic military training in the boot camp, and the soldiers who can barely stand in formation and operate firearms will not play much role in this bloody and cruel battlefield. This era is already the era of mechanized warfare. Faced with mechanized troops and a dense supply of automatic weapons, the infantry, whose main advantage was numbers, was no longer as brilliant as it once was.

As for the night attack, if it was a hundred years ago, it would be better to say. However, in the modern age of technology, whether it is searchlights or flares, or dense minefields and barbed wire, the effect of night attacks has long been reduced to a minimum.

The night attack of the Russian army ended in failure as everyone expected, and under the intensive fire attack, the night attack of the Russian army was almost completely annihilated. The artillery of both sides, which lasted all night, exchanged fire and suppressed, and finally declared victory with the numerical and qualitative superiority of the Ming army. In this case, Zhukov could only pin his hopes of delaying time in the street battles in the city.

On July 7, 1942, He Wenzhao, the commander of the Ninth Armored Army of the Ming Army, changed the previous practice of armored troops that were not suitable for street fighting, and entered the city of Sarova with armored vehicles and infantry, and engaged in a fierce battle with the defenders in the city. It took the Ming army an entire day to capture half of the city of Sarova. Although Zhukov continued to launch counterattacks, he still could not stop the forced dismantling of the Ming army.

The attacking troops of the Ming army did not follow the road at all, they just pushed all the way. Any building it encounters is destroyed or exploded. The Russian troops, hiding in buildings and even in the rubble, were all buried. The positions set up by the Russian army everywhere almost did not play a role.

At the same time, the superior artillery units of the Ming army continued to carry out heavy artillery bombardment on the areas controlled by the Russian army to block the battlefield. The flames of war in the sky showed no sign of abating. Both sides are now fighting hard. The Ming army lost hundreds of tanks, artillery and aircraft in just a few days. And the Russian army is fighting for people, and their equipment losses are much more than those of the Ming army, and after losing their equipment, they can only choose to fill it with people. There is no fairness or unfairness on the battlefield. (To be continued.) )