On October 20, 1924, the southern Persian province of Hochestan was already covered in darkness.

Compared to the fierce fighting in the southern foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the northwest, the battlefield in the central province of Hochistan can only be described as unusually calm. The clever Italians, having discovered that the troops of the Soviet Volunteers had appeared to the north, wisely chose to retreat and build their positions. And the Soviets did not show the strength to press forward step by step, but dug trenches 10 kilometers away from the forward positions of the Italian Expeditionary Force.

Such a distance is too far for the army's firepower in the twenties of the twentieth century, even if the 150mm howitzer is deployed to the forward position, it can only barely reach the front line of the opponent, and if there is no reliable calibration shooting, it is impossible to hit any target at such a "far" distance! Since even a long-range firearm such as a 150mm howitzer cannot reach the opponent, what reason do the two armies, who are far apart, have to pant and run 10,000 meters to attack the opponent's forward position? Everyone knows that without the cover of artillery, it is simply impossible for infantry to overcome well-fortified enemy positions. Therefore, in these days of confrontation between the two sides, it is not difficult to understand the calm of the battlefield in Hochistan. But this rare calm ended tonight.

Just when the night was at its darkest. The long-range artillery group of the Soviet Volunteer Army suddenly roared in silence! Hundreds of cannons of various calibers, as well as mortars that came up in motion at an unknown time, were fired together. Countless streams of fire poured down on the forward positions of the Italian army.

Lieutenant Huang Wei, who served as an observer in the Italian Expeditionary Force, described the scene in his report as follows: "...... There was a panicked confusion among the Italian lads who had been disturbed from their dreams, and the forward positions were littered with soldiers scurrying around the trenches like headless flies. There were also people shouting for help in Italian, and everyone was running to the rear. Some of the 'experienced non-commissioned officers' who had been badly repaired by Austria-Hungary and the Germans in the First World War played a key role at this time, beating and scolding the infantry who had shrunk in the deepest part of the trenches to the front-line positions. In a hurry, he put his weapons on the shelves and waited for the attack of the Soviet infantry.

Compared with these soldiers who had not experienced war, the reaction of the middle and lower rank officers of the Italian army was relatively normal, and these 'love saints', who usually only knew how to discuss women, wore brand new military uniforms and shiny leather shoes, and they all lay on the trenches and held binoculars and stared into the darkness. But apart from the flash of artillery fire, there was no shadow of Soviet infantry. In fact, even the Soviet artillery shelling accuracy was extremely poor, and not a few shells landed in the Italian trenches. So there was no loss. At that time, all the front-line officers did not know what was the purpose of the sudden shelling of the Soviet army? ”

The confused Italian officer quickly reported the situation on the front line to General Badoglio's headquarters in the city of Ahvaz through the guò communication network. When His Excellency was woken up from his sleep. The staff officers of the command of the Italian Expeditionary Force have already made judgments, perhaps the Soviet Volunteers are testing the reality of the Italian army! From this, they all thought that the intention of the Italian army to prepare for an attack might have been understood by the Soviet army. Therefore, the planned offensive must be postponed and the whole line turned to the defensive!

For such a building yì. There was something strange about General Badoglio. Is there any inevitable connection between the Italian army's offensive intentions and the indiscriminate artillery shooting in the middle of the night? Could it be that the Soviet commanders thought that a few random shots would scare the brave Italians? Such an analysis is complete nonsense! However, General Badoglio decided to postpone the offensive, which would begin in two days, and ordered all the front-line troops and reserve troops to enter their positions and prepare for a possible attack by the Soviet army! The artillery moved forward, ready for a counterattack!

On the Soviet forward positions, at this time, it was the scene before an offensive was about to be launched. Cover with the rumbling sound of cannons. T18 light tanks are waddling through the darkness. In the open area at the front of the front-line positions of the Soviet army, white lines have been sprinkled with white ash, and every ten meters, a triangular sign has been marked with white ash. The hatches of all T18 tanks were open. Both the driver's and the commander's heads poked out, pointing the way with the help of the faint lights of the tank's headlights. Moving slowly forward, stopping in front of one triangle after another, a huge phalanx of nearly 300 T18 tanks was formed. As soon as the tanks were in formation, more than 300 wheeled armored vehicles converted from light trucks rumbled out again, and another phalanx was formed behind the tank phalanx. However, these so-called armored vehicles are not actually armored, except that the front part of the truck is wrapped in a thin layer of iron sheet, and a machine gun is mounted on the roof. The rear compartment of the armored car was filled with infantry with submachine guns and rifles. Behind the armored vehicles were a large group of red cavalrymen riding Don war horses and holding swords of snow.

One cannon after another, under the cover of night, also shifted positions, these cannons were dragged by mules and horses on the wasteland, in some difficult to pass areas, dozens of people and hundreds of people helped push and pull the cannons. There are also thousands of infantry marching forward, and their mission is not to follow the tank, but to clear all obstacles in the way of the tank!

The political cadres also marched with these infantrymen, and while marching, they also carried out the pre-war mobilization with their voices at the top of their voices: "Comrade Lenin, the revolutionary mentor, and Comrade Trotsky, the revolutionary prophet, are waiting in Moscow for news of our victory, and now the homeland of the 130 million Soviet people is under imperialist threat. Comrade Trotsky taught us that the working class in the Soviet Union can only finally emancipate itself by liberating all mankind, so we must strike hard at these evil invaders in Persia and free the 25 million Persian people from the butcher's knife of imperialism......"

The 1st Tank Army of the Red Army, the 1st Cavalry Army of the Red Army, and the 16th Army of the Red Army have been deployed on all fronts of the starting positions about 8 kilometers north of the front of the Italian Expeditionary Force in Susan Gerde! The hundreds of Soviet artillery pieces that are now firing indiscriminately are covering their movements. The first real armored assault in the history of mankind is about to begin!

Yakir, along with his staff from the General Headquarters of the Soviet Volunteer Army, as well as military observers from Poland, East Germany, and Japan, drove up to a high slope in a command car made in the Soviet Union. Look at the armored assault clusters of the Red Army rolling forward under your feet. Yakir suppressed his excitement and loudly introduced to his staff and friendly officers: "What you have in front of you is the powerful armored cluster of the Red Army, which is the core force for carrying out large-depth offensive operations!" In the early hours of tomorrow morning, the infantry of four divisions will attack the line of the Italian expeditionary force of Susan Gerde under the cover of thousands of cannons, and tear a huge breach in the enemy's defense line with absolute superior force firepower.

A group of armored cavalry, consisting of three hundred T18 tanks and three hundred wheeled armored vehicles and four cavalry divisions, would quickly break through the open breach of the infantry and sweep through the rear of the Italians at maximum speed. Completely disrupt their entire front! At the same time, the 100,000 officers and men of the 17th Army of the Red Army and the 1st Army of Persia will launch a full-front assault on the front of the Italian front! If nothing else. In less than 72 hours, the 100,000 Italian invading army will all collapse under the powerful offensive of the Soviet-Polish forces! ”

……

The night passed quickly. Thousands of Italian officers and soldiers had been waiting in the trenches for half the night, and the sentries in charge of the guard were constantly observing the movements of the Soviet-Polish forces on the opposite side. By this time, the shelling, which had lasted for the middle of the night, had stopped. There was silence above the wasteland. Time slowly came to 5 a.m. on October 21, 1924. When the Italians, who had been waiting for half the night, began to sigh in their hearts. When I felt that I could escape this catastrophe. Suddenly, they felt the ground tremble beneath their feet. A flash of light swept across the end of the ground opposite, and the shelling of the entire line of the Soviet Volunteer Army suddenly started again!

This time the shelling turned out to be almost ten times stronger than last night! After last night's mobilization, thousands of artillery pieces of various calibers of the Soviet Volunteer Army have arrived at the front line of the Italian army, and most of them are concentrated on the Susan Gerd line on the westernmost side of the Italian front! The Soviet artillery fire was so fierce that the shells rained down on the rudimentary Italian fortifications, and immediately flesh and blood flew everywhere. The Italians immediately discovered that this time the Soviet artillery preparations were concentrated on the westernmost side of their front. It is likely that this is the point of the breakthrough of the Soviet troops!

General Badoglio also reacted in a timely manner, and two of the three Italian Blackshirt Divisions in reserve received orders to reinforce Susan Gaelde almost immediately. But it did not wait for these elite units of Italian fascists to complete their assembly. Countless Red officers and soldiers have already stepped on the landing points of artillery shells. Shouting "Ulla! Ulla! The slogan launched the first wave of the offensive!

In the direction of the Red Army's main attack, the Italian positions, which had been hastily constructed, had been repeatedly plowed several times by intensive artillery fire, and almost all the barbed wire, deer barricades, minefields, and so on were swept away by heavy artillery fire, and even most of the trenches were filled. The Italian officers and soldiers on the front line were also killed and wounded in the shelling, and their reserves, driven by the officers, tried to break through the blockade of the Soviet artillery and reinforce the front line, but after several groups of reinforcements were destroyed in the sea of fire, the Italian soldiers behind refused to go any further.

In a reserve position of the Italian army, Lieutenant Huang Wei, who was serving as a military observer, was lying in the trench, watching in a daze as several angry Italian officers tried their best to drive thousands of Italian soldiers lying on the ground motionless into the sea of fire in front. At this time, the Soviet artillery fire gradually stopped! All the officers on the scene were stunned for a moment, and almost at the same time raised their binoculars to look ahead. Suddenly inside the telescope's eyepiece was a black-holed, small-caliber gun, all mounted on a steel turret painted in earthy yellow. Then the steel hull under the turret appeared in everyone's telescope! These steel monsters relied on two rotating tracks to move forward, raising large clouds of sand, stopping from time to time to aim at an unknown target with that small-caliber gun!

"Tanks! It's tanks, hundreds, thousands of tanks! ”

I don't know who screamed in Italian first. The Italian Army is not a dirt bun that has never seen tanks, in fact, the three black-shirt divisions of the Italian Expeditionary Force are also equipped with Type A tanks, and their performance is more advanced than the Red Army T18 tank in front of them! However, the Italian tanks were scattered, and each division was thirty or forty tanks. It was used to cover infantry attacks on enemy positions. No one has ever seen a posture of putting hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles together! To be honest, whoever sees this scene for the first time will definitely be shocked!

"Fire! Hurry up! For God's sake. Stop them! ”

Following the orders of the officers and non-commissioned officers, the terrified Italian infantry picked up their weapons and desperately fired ammunition at the slightly sluggish steel monsters. Bullets from machine guns and rifles rained down on the tank's armor plates. But that didn't stop them in the slightest! A few 75-mm mountain guns played a role, hitting a few T18 tanks, but then a burst of 37-mm tank gun shells swept over, and immediately knocked several mountain guns into parts!

The tank group stopped in front of a trench that was not too wide. Turning the battery, it swept the entire front with machine guns and 37mm guns. Such a close-range shot made the Italian infantry bloody and fleshy! Shells accurately hit one machine gun firing point after another, and instantly threw fragments of human stump weapons mixed together into the air. Wheeled armored vehicles followed. The infantry above jumped down one after another, shooting wildly with rifles and submachine guns in their hands, while shouting for Ulla to charge. The cavalry of the Red Army also jumped over the trench and rushed into the reserve positions of the Italian army, brandishing sabers and slashing in all directions!

The resistance of the Italian army did not last long before the entire line collapsed. First, the soldiers dropped their rifles. Ignoring the roar of the officers, they ran away, and then the officers who saw the wrong signs fled at a faster pace. The Italians, who love football, seem to be in good shape, and they are fleeing the battlefield at incredible speed. But the Soviets' tanks, armored vehicles, and cavalry ran faster, and machine-gun bullets chased the Italians in the ass, knocking them to the ground one by one, and then running them over with tank tracks. Some clever Italians realized that escape was not the way to go, so they fell to their knees. Hands raised and surrender shouted in Italian. The GCIST fighters did stop killing. Several political cadres and security personnel in charge of capturing the prisoners made them walk towards the starting position of the Red Army with their hands raised in stiff Italian and gesturing. Seeing that surrender could save their lives, more Italians breathed a sigh of relief, happily raised their hands, and under the guns of the Red Army, consciously formed a column and marched towards the north, until they reached an unknown concentration camp in Siberia, where most of them would spend the rest of their lives in selfless labor reform.

However, Lieutenant Huang Wei, a military observer sent by the Chinese National Defense Forces, was not killed by the Red Army's righteous bullets and was not captured alive. Huang Wei of this time and space graduated from the fourth phase of the cavalry department of the Central Military Academy, and his equestrian skills are very good, and he also received an Arab horse in Kuwait. As soon as he saw that something was wrong, he rode this horse and fled south, running all the way across the Shatt al-Arab, and wrote a report on what he saw and heard, which became an important reference material for the development direction of China's armored forces in the future.

The 1st Italian Infantry Division was the first to collapse at Susangelde that day, and then the Red Army Panzers ran over the flank and rear of the 1st Libyan Division, swept all the way to the rear of the Italian lines, destroying the Italians who dared to stand in their way. The two blackshirt divisions hastily assembled by Badogglio attempted to counterattack and fill the gap in the defensive line. But all were repulsed by the fire of the Red Army tanks. At the end of the day, the Italian army was full of corpses, a large number of technical weapons were captured, and several field artillery regiments located behind the defense line were caught up by tank units on the way to retreat and transfer, and all the men and equipment were captured by the Red Army. The two tank battalions of the Blackshirts also engaged in tank battles with the Red Army tanks, but they were completely annihilated by the Red Army tank units, which had an absolute advantage in numbers, and more than half of the Italian tanks joined the ranks of the Red Army tank units after simple repairs.

The attack launched by the 17th Army of the Red Army and the 1st Persian Army against the Italian army in front of them was also successful on the night of the 21st, and the 1st Italian Mountain Division, the 25th Bologna Division, and the 27th Brescia Infantry Division were defeated before they could even hold on to the Red Army tanks to copy their rear route, and they lost all their artillery and most of their infantry weapons and equipment and fled to the city of Ahvaz, which was also the headquarters of the Italian Expeditionary Force, which was also defended by the 1st Blackshirt Division.

On the night of the 21st, the 1st Tank Army of the Red Army successfully joined forces with the 17th Army of the Red Army and the 1st Army of Persia under the city of Ahvaz! After only one day of fierce fighting, the 100,000-strong Italian expeditionary force was left with only a blackshirt division and the remnants of the 1st, 25th, and 27th divisions, which relied on the ancient fortifications of the ancient Ahvaz city walls to put up desperate resistance, with a total strength of less than 30,000 men! The remaining 70,000 or so people either walked to Siberia with their hands held high or slept in the wilderness of southern Persia, and only a few lucky ones escaped the pursuit of the Red Army's tanks and cavalry, escaped the Shatt al-Arab, and spread the myth of the invincibility of the Red Army.

After this day of hard fighting, the whole world, including the leaders of GCISM in the Kremlin, was shocked that the armored forces of the Red Army turned out to be such a powerful force! (To be continued.) )