Chapter 200: The Battle of Annihilation in Siberia

This time the counterattack was fought by the stubborn Soviet aircraft, and the target of the Soviet aircraft in the battle was not a dogfight, but a Chinese tank on the ground. The Chinese fighter planes in charge of the cruise, despite their diligent pursuit, were ultimately unable to stop some of their opponents from crashing into tanks on the ground even when the planes were smoking.

In this battle, the 10th Mechanized Army lost more than half of its tanks, and Zhukov's last bit of air force was also lost. But such a sacrifice was worth it in the eyes of the Soviet army, and the 10th Mechanized Corps of the Chinese Defense Forces had to stop and wait for subsequent reinforcements and replenishment.

As the commander of the 10th Mechanized Army, Bai Chongxi did not shirk his responsibility, but emphasized in the report that he was not prepared for air strikes and that the troops had suffered excessive losses, and asked for punishment.

What impressed the Chinese officers and men the most in this battle were those pilots who were not afraid of death. One plane after another in the sky, risking being chased and killed by Mustang fighters, constantly dived and attacked, and constantly slammed into the ground with black smoke, which even caused a considerable psychological shadow on some officers and men.

After three days of fierce fighting, Bai Chongxi did not continue to march not because he was afraid, but because Liu Mingzhao called and asked him to suspend his advance and wait for the infantry reinforcements behind him to come up.

Thin snowflakes fell from the sky and slowly turned into heavy snow, and the harsh winter that the Soviet army was looking forward to finally came. When the ice on the Ob River was enough for dozens of tons of tanks to drive over, Gao Sheng's long-awaited fighter arrived.

In Novosibirsk, the Soviet army stubbornly held out for 25 days, which was the result that Chuikov expected. But he didn't know. This is the result of Gao Sheng's deliberate indulgence, especially in the last week, when the Wehrmacht's offensive has tended to be less resolute.

The heavy snow was very face-saving and only fell for a day and a night. The permafrost beneath the snow more than a foot deep is unusually hard. At his headquarters in Omsk, Chuikov received a telegram from Moscow, demanding that he launch a powerful counterattack in half a month to destroy the Chinese imperialist bandits besieging Novosibirsk.

Chuikov is still very confident in this counterattack, because in the vast land of Siberia, the long logistical line of the Chinese imperialist bandit army has become extremely fragile. Especially when winter comes, the logistical pressure is even greater. In addition, more than 100,000 local troops operating in the enemy's rear frequently attacked and harassed the logistics line. Chuikov judged that the forces of the Chinese imperialists under the city of Novosibirsk would not exceed 500,000. At this time, Chuikov had more than a million troops at his disposal, including two mechanized corps hidden in Kuibyshev.

Chinese imperialism has been slow to cross the Ob River and to conquer Novosibirsk. Chuikov's judgment was that the forces were insufficient. It should be connected with the large-scale battles that are taking place in Central Asia.

After receiving the report from Moscow, Chuikov convened a military meeting to discuss the relevant arrangements for the counterattack. The meeting lasted for a day and a night, and it was already early in the morning at the end of the meeting, and when he walked out of the smoky conference room and looked at the first light of dawn on the horizon, Chuikov was in a good mood. Just as he was about to go to a good night's sleep, there were some uncomfortable sounds faintly coming from Tianming.

Chuikov stopped and looked. His face changed as his voice grew clearer. Reaching out and taking the telescope from the staff officer's hand, he ran to a building regardless of the danger. What appeared in the telescope was a dense group of bombers, as well as a large number of escort fighter groups. "Quick, contact Kuibyshev and find out what's going on there."

Five minutes later, Chuikov, who did not wait for news, waited until the bomb landed. Omsk, which had not been subjected to a large-scale air raid, ushered in the first large-scale air raid since the start of the war, and 100 B-17s bombed all significant targets in Omsk under the cover of 100 Mustang-B fighters.

In contrast, Kuibyshev was hit on a much larger scale, with five hundred B-17s, in the words of the Air Force, wiping the small city off the map. The secret camps of the two Soviet mechanized corps deployed in the woods outside Kuibyshev, as well as the headquarters inside the city, were heavily bombed. In particular, the camp in the woods outside the city, which thought it was well hidden, was under the intensive care of three hundred B-17 napalm. On this day, there were many targets that were attacked by air strikes, and almost all the assembly areas of the counterattack troops were hit by the Chinese Air Force. This is something that Chuikov never expected, as if the Chinese knew about his military deployment.

That's right, Gao Sheng did know about Cui Kev's military deployment, and he didn't dare to say that he knew everything, at least eighty percent. Killing Chuikov did not expect that the latest password of the Soviet army was already in the hands of the enemy.

On the Central Asian side, Liu Mingzhao did not use the cracked code to use troops in a targeted manner, not because he did not want to destroy the enemy, but because of President Fang Da's strategic request, he must drive Zhukov into West Asia.

At the same time as the air raid began, the million-strong Wehrmacht, led by 3,500 tanks, crossed the Ob River and attacked Kuibyshev as fast as possible. Gao Sheng's goal is very clear, that is, to encircle and annihilate the counterattack force that Chuikov thought he had deployed unknowingly. The cold winter, of course, was the great enemy of the Wehrmacht, but it also long ago laid the foundation for the rapid march of mechanized troops. As for the logistical supply of mechanized troops, there is no need to worry at all, the bombers of the Air Force are constantly dropping parachutes, fuel, food, and wine to keep out the cold.

After crossing the Ob River, a mechanized army of 60,000 marched at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour, and the well-prepared wheeled suits marched up the frozen interior with the help of snow chains. Tens of thousands of infantry, using sleds as marching tools, followed the mechanized army steadfastly. The 400,000-strong army advanced 150 kilometers in just one day. After dark, two rows of burning fires appeared on both sides of the marching road, one at fifty-metre intervals, and the stench of burning diesel fuel permeated the sides of the long marching procession.

It was not until the early hours of the morning that the assault armored cluster was met with organized resistance. The reason for this situation is that, firstly, the mechanized troops advanced too quickly, and secondly, the entire daytime sky attack was not heard, and all worthy targets from Omsk to Novosibirsk were not spared. Churem and Calgat, the staging areas along the Siberian Railway, were washed by the Air Force more than three or four times. At dawn, a small town appeared in the sight of the telescope of Liu Xuyue, who personally led the assault of the army, Barabinsk, a small town less than ten kilometers from Kuibyshev, along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

At this time, Liu was sure that he was about to cut off the rear route of the twenty infantry divisions deployed by the Soviet army in Kargat and Churem, provided that he could eliminate the heavy Soviet army cluster in Kuibyshev as much as possible.

Liu Anyue did not rush to attack, but asked the troops to stop advancing, rest for a while, spread out the formation, and call the air force. Because of the road problem, Liu Zhenyue did not have a single cannon in his hand, except for tank guns, there were only various types of mortars and rocket launchers. To Liu Zhenyue's surprise, he did not wait for reinforcements from the air force, but first waited for the Soviet artillery shells. Fortunately, the troops had already been launched, and the sparse shelling of the Soviet troops did not have much effect.

But then the tank that rushed out scared Liu Zhenyue. The vast number of Soviet tanks, on the snowy ground, rolled up snowflakes and rushed forward. Now he has only one tank brigade and one infantry brigade in his hands, and the nearest other tank units are ten kilometers away.

There is no way, and the machine infantry brigade has to seize the time to build a position, and the frozen soil is not expected to be dug up, so it can only be used to pile up the bunker with snow, and the sappers shovel hard to shoot it tightly. The tank troops rushed forward first, and more than 400 tanks of the two regiments, no less than stubbornly, launched an active attack against the boundless Soviet army.

Liu Anyue simply stood on the side of the command car and roared loudly in a clear code: "My vanguard unit has been actively attacked by the Soviet army of no less than one mechanized corps, please quickly reinforce, please reinforce quickly." At this time, Liu Zhenyue knew very well in his heart that he could not take a step back, even if he took a step back, it would affect the course of the entire assault battle, once the Soviet army formed an effective defense system, it was likely that before the main force could keep up, he would be attacked by the Soviet army in front and back in this place.

"Quick! Fly at full speed! Liu Xuan, commander of the 10th Air Force Air Wing, shouted loudly into the radio.

"Speed, what we need now is speed, full speed ahead." Sima Li, commander of the Sixth Mechanized Army, was roaring. Half an hour later, the 17th Tank Brigade arrived on the battlefield and, without waiting for orders, waited for heavy artillery fire, and plunged head-on into the battlefield where more than 1,000 tanks were mixed together. The largest all-tank battle ever fought in the wilderness less than 30 kilometers from Kuibyshev.

Ten minutes later, the 18th Tank Brigade, which was ordered to make a detour behind Kuibyshev's flank, encountered an active attack by a Soviet tank regiment and an anti-tank artillery regiment less than ten kilometers away.

The assault troops rushed to the battlefield intermittently, and they were all thrown into battle as soon as Liu Anyue was killed, and they didn't even have a short rest. One hundred fighters of the Air Force arrived late an hour and a half after the start of the battle, and looking at the tank battle on the ground, they could only look for the artillery positions of the Soviet army and the follow-up troops to vent their anger.

Historically known as the "third phase of the siege and annihilation battle" of the Siberian Campaign, from the early morning of December 2 to 4:30 p.m. on December 5, the assault group routed the main Soviet forces deployed in the area of Kuibyshev. Previously, in order to counterattack the deployed troops, the rear road was cut off, and the Soviet army, including Novosibirsk, a total of about 500,000 people, fell into the encirclement of the squadron. The 6th Mechanized Corps, which had created a miracle, successfully completed a classic roundabout interspersed battle with the cooperation of the Air Force and the assistance of the sleigh march of ten infantry divisions. At the same time, the main force of the Wehrmacht, which launched the front offensive, successfully broke through the Soviet defense line, and with the cooperation of the 50 infantry divisions of the two mechanized corps, the Soviet army continued to divide and encircle. (To be continued......)