readx;

Chapter 1573 Preserve Strength

As of 10 May, the war in Central Asia was progressing smoothly. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

On the western front, Tang Wen led four divisions, and the main army was divided into two routes, one way to Krasnovsk, the most important port city of the Soviet army on the east coast of the Caspian Sea, and one to the south directly south through Kyzylkaya, and approached Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.

On the right flank of the Central Route Army, after receiving a notice that the Far Eastern Army might withdraw north at any time, the Theater Command airlifted a division by airship to the city of Saulan in the middle of the Karatau Mountains. On the left flank of the Central Route Army, Ye Cheng and Li Jinlong led the main battle cluster and advanced rapidly along the railway line, and the forward troops had already advanced to the outskirts of Char Zhou, and launched an attack as soon as the main force arrived. After taking the city of Charzhou, the whole army will go east along the railway line to capture Bukhara, Samarkand, Inzak and Bekabad and other cities along the Caspian Railway, and force it to Tashkent, where the headquarters of the Central Asian Military District of the Soviet Army is located. When this step is completed, the strategic layout of the entire middle road can be regarded as truly achieved.

On the eastern front, at the southern foot of the Chuyili Mountains, the Eastern Front of the Far Eastern Army and Xiao Wu's corps are preparing to launch a final offensive to annihilate the living forces of the Soviet army, and then they will retreat north, when Xiao Wujiang will lead the mechanized corps and face the threat of the main Soviet army from Xinjiang to Almaty on a high speed.

The half-full moon hung high in the sky, and the earth was as silent as death.

The heavy artillery cluster of the Far Eastern Army has already been loaded into vehicles and transported to the north after receiving the order, and tonight's artillery suppression will be completed by the artillery unit of Xiao Wu's corps alone.

Twenty-two kilometers south of the city of Hantao, on the main artillery position behind the front-line positions of the coalition forces, the 150mm and 120mm caliber heavy guns of the artillery brigade directly under the mechanized cluster of the Mongolian Military Region raised their muzzles, and the 36 I-type 24-tube 150mm rocket launchers of the three self-propelled rocket artillery battalions were adjusting their firing angles.

The artillery position was silent, and the commander of the artillery brigade, Colonel Dai Zhicheng, stood behind the artillery position, raising his wrist from time to time to look at his watch. There were less than three minutes left before the artillery attack, and the artillery brigade was fully prepared from top to bottom.

Dai Zhicheng was full of confidence in the results of this artillery strike.

The power of rocket artillery has been fully proven,

Thirty-six rocket artillery vehicles here can rain up to more than 800 high-powered rockets into the depth of the enemy's position in a dense formation in a few seconds with a single salvo. This is an absolute carpet bombardment, and the enemy, who is within the point of the rocket strike, will have nowhere to hide in the shelling.

If you add six heavy artillery battalions with a total of 108 150mm and 120mm caliber heavy howitzers, the Soviet troops on the opposite side will have a hard time.

The second hand of the watch beats slowly in a grid, and the passage of every minute and second touches Dai Zhicheng's heart, and he slowly puts the whistle in his hand into his mouth, and at the same time puffs out his cheeks, ready to blow the battle horn at any time.

"Didi-"

When the minute hand on the pocket watch pointed to six and the second hand pointed to twelve, Dai Zhicheng blew the whistle in his mouth for the first time, and with this whistle, the artillery position of Nuoda suddenly boiled.

"Whoosh-"

Unlike the deafening roar of the ordinary artillery guns ahead, the position of the Type I rocket launcher was filled with a sharp and piercing sound of breaking through the air.

And in this dense whistling sound, the points of light are like meteor showers rising from the ground, tearing apart the dark night sky in an instant.

A moment later, on the opposite side of the Allied station line, that is, on the Soviet positions on the northern front of Burlik, a dense red cloud suddenly arrived with rolling thunder.

The sudden burst of fire, like a spark from hell, with a hideous smirk, mercilessly devoured the lives of Soviet officers and soldiers on the entire front.

The commander of the 2nd Division of the Kyrgyz Army, Colonel Milia, realized the danger of his position the moment the artillery fire covered it.

Judging from the intensity of the artillery fire, he could also guess that the coalition forces on the opposite side must have used the vicious artillery that seemed to come from the abyss of hell.

As early as the end of last year, in response to the call of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian Military District organized three armies to fight northward, and he participated in the Battle of Siberia as a regiment commander at that time. In the great battle that decided the belonging of Siberia, he was subjected to this damn artillery blow, and the brutal scene is still fresh in his memory.

At that time, he was thinking, why did the Far East have such a powerful weapon? And the great Soviets, which concentrated the essence of industry and agriculture throughout the country, were not only inferior to their opponents in the number of aircraft, tanks and armored vehicles, but also lagging behind in artillery.

To this day, Milia has assumed the post of division commander, but the equipment of the troops has not improved. This time, the other party obviously used more of the kind of terrifying killing machines from hell, and the intensity of its artillery fire was terrifying.

The position of the Second Division was built at a dangerous mountain pass, which was five kilometers wide and 500 meters deep, and all of them were densely fortified.

Clusters of firelight, like ploughs on the back of oxen, ploughed inch by inch on the Soviet positions, and the entire front line was from front to back, but wherever the firelight passed, the figures of Soviet soldiers were either broken to pieces, or were thrown out of the deep trenches, and fell into the soft scorched earth dust with mutilated limbs.

The steel plough of fire smashed the bunker fortifications it trod, flew the machine-gun ramparts it touched, and destroyed the tanks, armor, trucks, motorcycles, and horses that ran and neighed in its touch.

After nearly thirty minutes of non-stop artillery fire, Colonel Miglia estimated that the coalition forces had poured nearly 10,000 shells and rockets on their own entrenched positions.

Under this near-saturated artillery plough, almost the entire position was turned over.

The extent of the casualties and the extent of the damage to the positions were all Miria wondered, but he also knew in his heart that now was not the time to count them. Artillery strikes can never be the final result of a battle, it can only be a prelude to the opening of a battle. After the artillery attack ended, it was inevitably followed by a more ferocious and fierce cluster charge of the coalition forces.

"Bang Bang-"

In a series of sharp sounds, red or green flares pierced the night sky, rising straight into the sky from the coalition positions in the distance, illuminating the originally dark earth almost instantly.

Milia's heart tightened, he knew that this was the signal for the Far Eastern Army to launch a general offensive, and the next hand-to-hand battle was about to begin.

The situation was the same as Milia had guessed, the Far Eastern Army threw two armies in one go on a five-kilometer-wide front, and in order to ensure the smooth breakthrough of the offensive, both armies put their mechanized divisions at the forefront.

With the brilliance brought by the flares, the Second Division of the Soviet Army's Kyrgyz Army Group on the front line, from the division commander to the ordinary soldiers below, could clearly see that on the military buffer territory in front of their troops, T26, T28 and BT7 tanks shook their huge bodies and slowly pressed towards their forward positions.

And behind these slow-advancing tanks, closely followed by the red banner of the sickle and axe of the Far Eastern Army, fluttering in the night wind filled with the smell of gunpowder.

Seeing this scene, the hearts of all Soviet officers and soldiers were tight.

"What to do? We need artillery support, and who can tell me how we can stop these damn tanks? ”

At this time, the losses of the artillery regiment, which Milia was most concerned about, had been reported, and all 24 107mm field guns equipped with the artillery regiment had been scrapped, and the twelve M1932 45mm anti-tank guns arranged in the bunkers of the front-line positions had been turned into scrap metal in the artillery fire. Milia's questioning made several officers around him feel helpless, but they could not stop the advance of the tanks of the Far Eastern Army, and at the same time, they could not stop the charge of the infantry of the Far Eastern Army behind the tanks.

Now what the 2nd Division needs most is artillery fire and the support of armored units, but the reality is that the entire army has nothing, and the 2nd Division is full of despair.

Relying solely on the infantry, which had suffered heavy losses after artillery fire, to resist the advance of the Far Eastern Army with tank cooperation, the chances of victory in this battle were too slim. Milia now feels like the only thing she can do is to hold on for as long as she can.

"Don't take a step back"

"Hold on at all costs!"

This is a death order issued by the Supreme Commander of the entire Central Asian Theater, the commander of the first level of the Kulik Army, to all the troops on the Northern Front, and the division commander Milia must unconditionally abide by it, otherwise he and his family will be greeted by terrible camp life.

"Prepare the cluster grenades!"

"Bundle up the explosives pack, and when the enemy tank comes up, blow it up!"

One by one, orders that seemed to be full of tragic colors were conveyed to the commanders at the grassroots level, and the entire position was dead silent except for the deafening roar of tanks coming from the opposite side.

......

The battle, which began at 11 a.m., with the support of artillery fire and armored units, and after five hours of fierce fighting, the troops who broke through from the front of the mountain pass succeeded in tearing apart the defensive positions of the Soviet troops, like a full moon scimitar, turning all the enemies who dared to resist into corpses.

On the contrary, from the moment it broke through the Soviet front, a large number of follow-up troops of the Far Eastern Army poured in from the mountain pass, and outflanked the city of Burlik, ten kilometers to the south, from the east and west.

Burlik is the intersection of the Far Eastern Railway and the Caspian Railway, the geographical position is very critical, and the operational intention of the coalition forces is already very clear, that is, to outflank the Soviet troops assembled in Burlik with four divisions, and then gather all the forces and eat them in one go.

As long as this part of the enemy is eliminated, the Soviet army's defense on the Chuyili Mountain line will be declared truly collapsed, and the Far Eastern Army can retreat with confidence, because as the strength of the troops decreases, even with the strength of the Anjia Army itself, it will be enough to deal with the future battle.

......

Tashkent, which means "stone town" in Uzbek, is named after the huge pebbles in the area of alluvial fans in the foothills. This is an ancient city with a long history, as early as the second century B.C., built a city, in the sixth century A.D. famous for commerce, handicrafts, became a must on the ancient Silk Road. After the annexation of several khanates in Central Asia, the Russian Governorate of Turkestan was established in Tashkent, which governed the four Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, while the other steppe governorate governed the Kazakh steppe.

After the October Revolution, Tashkent became the capital of the Soviet Republic, the Soviet Republic, in 1930. After hundreds of years of construction, Tashkent has become an impregnable fighting fortress.

Tashkent is where the Central Asian Military District Command is located, and since the outbreak of the Central Asian War, Tashkent has naturally become the headquarters of the Theater Command.

Kulik, commander of the Red Army's 1st Cavalry Army Group (rank of general), participated in the European War, joined Voroshilov's Fifth Army of the Ukrainian Red Army in 1918, established meritorious service in the battle to defend Tsaritsyn, began to command the artillery of the 1st Cavalry Army of Budyonny in July 1920, was wounded five times, was seriously injured twice, served as the head of the General Directorate of Artillery of the Red Army at the beginning of last year, and later went to Spain as a military adviser, and after returning home at the beginning of this year, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Central Asian theater.

As a result of the Great Purge, the Bolshevik Party organizations throughout Central Asia were dealt a devastating blow, with Ikramov, secretary of the Central Asia Bureau of the CPB, arrested and shot, and the chairman of the Uzbek Soviet, the People's Commissar, and other high-ranking party and government officials all purged.

With the power of one person to control four million square kilometers of land and the army above, it stands to reason that Kulik should be in all directions, but now he is not happy at all, but has a feeling of exhaustion.

In the Central Asian operation, even the battle was defeated, and the defense lines of the Chuili Mountains in Kazakhstan and the Kurandag Mountains in Turkmenistan, which were originally thought to be impregnable, were dealt a devastating blow, and the Uzbek Corps, which concentrated on Nukus as a strategic mobile force, also suffered a catastrophe, and the entire war situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

The lack of troops has become the top problem facing Kulik.

"What should I do?"

After receiving the news of the attack on the defense line of the mountain pass north of Burlik, Kulik oozed cold sweat from his forehead.

The reason why all the troops were not placed in the mountain pass position was that Kulik, who was born as an artilleryman, knew very well that the Far Eastern Army had an absolute superiority in artillery fire, and the denser the troops were, the more tragic the damage would be. The attack of the coalition forces was actually expected by Kulik, but now the question is, under the swift and thunderous attack of the opponent, will Burlik defend or not?

Defended, the four divisions are very likely to fall into the encirclement of the other side and the whole army will be annihilated.

Once abandoned, the Caspian Railway and the Far Eastern Railway will be controlled by the other side, and the entire army will be divided into several sections by the enemy, and the enemy's army on the middle and west routes will only need to be slowly pressed westward step by step, and the entire Central Asian war will face collapse.

Just when Kulik was decided, an urgent telegram from Moscow made him quickly make up his mind and immediately make several moves:

1. The troops stationed in Burlik left one of the most elite divisions, using the fortifications of the city to put up the most resolute resistance, waiting for the main forces to assemble and buy enough time for the counteroffensive, and the rest of the troops all retreated across the Chu River; 2. Order a garrison division stationed in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, together with the garrison troops along the railway, to quickly advance westward, withdraw by rail to Frunze, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, and if the city of Charzhou is occupied by the enemy, go by road, and be sure to avoid the enemy's main force and preserve its strength; 3. Order Chuikov to speed up the march, rush to Almaty as soon as possible, and wait for the next combat order; Fourth, the two armies stationed in Tashkent should immediately relocate the population, remove the factory equipment, and move to Frunze, so as to avoid a decisive battle with the Far Eastern Army from the Western Front.

It turned out that a secret telegram from Moscow informed that the top leadership of the Far Eastern Republic had issued an order to transfer all the troops fighting in Central Asia to the north, and that the Far Eastern Army in the entire Central Asian region would be withdrawn in the near future.

Up to now, Kulik did not know that the left flank of the Central Route Army was the Anjia Army acting alone, nor did he know that the loss of the defense line of Chuyili Mountain and Tukulandag Mountain was directly related to the Anjia Army, thinking that everything was done by the army under the command of the two marshals Blyucher and Yegorov, and his heart was full of awe for the Far Eastern Army, but he looked down on the Anjia Army, in Kulik's mind, where did the squadron have any combat effectiveness at all, if he left the Far Eastern Army, even if he was outnumbered, he was confident that he could achieve a complete victory.

In Kulik's view, if the Far Eastern Army wants to retreat, it is most convenient and fast to take the Central Asian Railway, and instead of leaving troops along the Caspian Railway and letting the Far Eastern Army destroy them one by one if they crush the ants, it is better to shrink all the troops, preserve their strength, and wait until the Far Eastern Army withdraws, and then concentrate the superior forces, looking for the bad luck of the Chinese who think they have taken advantage of the big advantage.

Guided by this strategic thinking, Kulik was ready to surrender even Tashkent, which had a strong city defense, which was blocked on the return railway line of the Far Eastern Army on the Western Front.

As long as you can send away the plague god of the Far Eastern Army, any giving up is worth it!

......

The eastern sky grew brighter, the morning sun shrouded the land, and as the sky grew brighter, the Far Eastern Army, which had approached Burlik, began to launch a general attack.

The flying rockets and artillery shells announced the beginning of the offensive.

Although trucks carrying infantry and half-track armored personnel carriers appeared around the city of Burlik at the same time, a large number of light and medium tanks rumbled forward with earth-shattering momentum, and it seemed that the main force could cross the Chu River at any time, take Chu City, and then threaten the Kyrgyz capital Frunze.

However, the Far Eastern Army drove to the west bank of the Chu River, saw that the Soviet troops on the other side of the river were already waiting for them, so they retreated and immediately launched a general attack on the city of Burlik.

Half an hour later, the streets north of the city were filled with Far Eastern soldiers, but the casualties of the Far Eastern Army were mounting, because until now they were unable to deal with the Soviet snipers and cleverly camouflaged anti-tank positions hidden in Islamic-style houses. The Far Eastern Army invested a lot of troops in order to achieve a quick victory, starting from the northern edge of the city and extending to the center of the city, the fiercest of which was the six-story municipal building in the center of the city.

As the commanding height of the entire city, the building was of great strategic value, and the Soviets were able to use the reinforced concrete building as an artillery observation post and the first sniper point. If the Far Eastern Army captured the building, it could put artillery mounts on it and threaten the rest of the city.

So. The significance of the gains and losses of this building is extraordinary.

The fierce competition has caused the municipal building, which has long been unrecognizable, to change hands almost every ten minutes.

The soldiers of the Far Eastern Army who rushed into the building, almost before they could gain a firm foothold, were often blown to the ground by grenades thrown from a high position, and the Soviet troops who had accumulated strength on the upper floor immediately took advantage of the situation to launch a counterattack, but their results were also quite limited, because, once out of this building, the outside was the world of the Far Eastern Army.

The battle on the outer line was also very fierce, as a railway transportation hub, the Bourlik railway station was built very wide, covering an area of about 20 acres, including a large passenger and freight station and a huge freight yard, but in the first round of bombardment, countless shells bombarded it into a ruin.

As soon as the ground forces began, the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army, who were in charge of attacking the railway station, felt that something was wrong, because they found that the opponent in front of them was very fierce, and according to common sense, after the artillery bombardment, the opponent should adopt defensive tactics and wait for a firm foothold before launching a counterattack.

But no one expected that as soon as their artillery stopped their artillery attacks, and the infantry offensive formation had just been deployed, countless Soviet officers and soldiers appeared in front.

Under the exemplary effect of the Soviet army's political work cadres taking the lead, under the continuous urging of the internal affairs commissars, and under the guns of the supervising combat team, the Soviet soldiers rushed forward in piles, even if there was only one person left, they could only rush, with artillery fire cover, and without artillery fire cover.

The three divisions of the Soviet army that evacuated the city of Burlik left all their submachine guns and light machine guns to their comrades, so the Soviet troops of this division who were holding the city were equipped with extremely powerful firepower.

The fighting was extremely fierce, and the soldiers of the Far Eastern Army, who had just prepared to charge, had just occupied Soviet positions under the cover of artillery fire and began to use machine guns, submachine guns and rifles to build a strong network of fire. At this time, countless Soviet soldiers rushed up with shouts, and then fell to the ground like wooden stakes.

Faced with a desperate situation, the Soviet army showed its combat effectiveness to the fullest, and two units with the same belief engaged in a house-to-house battle, first with guns, then grenades, then with flamethrowers, and finally into white-knuckle warfare - fighting bayonets and sapper shovels. The Soviet army not only had good shooting skills, but also dared to fight hard, and many grassroots platoons and companies of the Far Eastern Army were exhausted in a very short time, and many of them were shot in the head by the enemy's sharpshooters.

......

When the sun rose in the middle of the city, the Far Eastern Army finally captured the commanding heights of the city, and a large number of mortars and anti-aircraft machine guns were lifted to the roof of the building, suppressing the Soviet firepower points inside and outside the city, and the balance of victory and defeat gradually tilted in favor of the Far Eastern Army.

On a hill two kilometers north of Bourlik, Xiao Wu watched the progress of the entire battle through his telescope, his face was extremely calm, and he couldn't see what he was thinking.

Chief of Staff Yang Si frowned more and more tightly the more he looked at it: "The urban combat capability of the Far Eastern Army still needs to be strengthened, if we let us fight, we should have taken it down by this time!" ”

Xiao Wu held the telescope in his right hand, raised his left hand and shook it: "Not necessarily!" If we were in command of the old troops, there would be no problem, but the two mechanized corps we have taken over now have not long been formed, and although they have fought several tough battles since entering Kazakhstan, they still have very little experience in urban operations, and it is difficult for the officers and men to comprehend the essentials of urban operations summed up by the military academy for a while only through the explanations of noncommissioned officers at the grassroots level. In general, the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army is still very tenacious, and it is surprising that this unit in front of us has so many sharpshooters! ”

Yang Si nodded, and said with some regret: "Yes, it is estimated to be an elite, but it is a pity that it was used as an outcast......"

"That's not right!"

Wang Chenglong, the chief of operations, observed for a long time, and suddenly said: "The Soviet army in the encirclement, there are absolutely no four divisions, at most one division is terrible, and now the defense line is being squeezed step by step, there is still no reinforcements, there can only be one explanation, the enemy has no reinforcements to send at all!" ”

Xiao Wu put down the binoculars, turned his head and said with a smile, "Found it?" In fact, I knew when the battle began, although the Soviet army fought fiercely, but the strength of the counterattack was obviously insufficient, which formed a tug-of-war, otherwise with the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army today, as long as the follow-up reinforcements are guaranteed, the Far Eastern Army will be driven out of the city.

"Obviously, the enemy's main force has retreated to the west bank of the Chu River, and our opponent may know that the Far Eastern Army is going to withdraw and begin to pay attention to preserving its strength, but they are afraid that we will see through it, so they use one of the most elite divisions as a containment, so that we think that the main force is here...... Hmph, this is also the reason why I did not take the initiative to ask for cooperation in the offensive operation, the troops stationed in Xinjiang have been pressed from the west, and we must also preserve our strength......"