Chapter 362: Battle of Minsk
Rudolph naturally knew that the Cossacks were weak, but he also knew that the Cossacks were the first to shoot the first bird, and once he launched an attack first, he would definitely attract the Cossack reserves on the entire defensive line. In order to better play his own advantages, he released the fake news.
This news immediately confused the Cossacks and asked them to gather their heavy forces in the northernmost Harlem region in case they attacked the Paladinburg, and allowed the Habufusburgs to attack first, attracting the Cossack reserves to the south.
This kind of guy who even calculates allies can be described as vicious, but what's wrong with this, only the interests of their own country are above all else, as for allies, it is just a collection of interests, as long as there are enough interests, maybe tomorrow the allies will turn against each other.
Having succeeded in attracting the attention of the Cossack defenders, Rudolv took advantage of the dry autumn weather and the easy passage of cars to personally command two army groups under his command, cutting through the central Brest region, where the Cossack corps was the weakest.
Along the border road, troops armed with tanks and trucks quickly advanced into the heart of the Cossack Empire, while the air force acted together, and the bomber group attacked the Cossack Empire's hinterland in advance, destroying all the nearby Cossack Air Force field airfields and the air force planes stationed there.
At the beginning of the attack, Rudolph's attack was relatively smooth, and by surprise, Brest City was easily taken, but when the Yaman army attacked in depth, they encountered the same problems as Churkin.
The Jazz vehicles used the tracks of the early Chinese Empire, which were not made of good material and did not have a series of measures to reduce friction such as rubber cushions, so these tracks broke one after another after 80 kilometers.
Faced with this dilemma, Rudolph adopted the same strategy as Culkin, the chariots were not on the tracks first, they were dragged to the battlefield, and then the tracks were installed when they entered the war. Fortunately, Emperor William II of the Yaman was not as picky as Alexander III, and had a large number of trucks and heavy tractors in the Yaman army.
Rudolph, after coordination, left some of the heavy artillery in Brest and handed it over to the defenders, and then used the surplus vehicles to tow the chariots forward. The horsepower of the heavy tractor is strong, and the Jazz tank weighs only seven tons, and only one tractor can pull two tanks at a time, and even those trucks that carry supplies can tow one vehicle with only two trucks.
Rudolph took on the task of transporting the tanks with a surplus of heavy tractors, plus some trucks that had been temporarily diverted from the logistics department, and it was only after this deployment that the army was able to move forward smoothly with all the equipment.
The rapid advance of Rudolv's troops frightened the Cossack army leadership, and the commander of the Cossack Imperial Army, Field Marshal Kolchak, immediately ordered the nearby Cossack corps to defend to the death, and at the same time transferred rear reserves to support.
In order to delay the advance of the Yaman army, the Cossack cavalry units constantly harassed the new Yaman army. The machine guns mounted on the trucks inflicted heavy casualties on the cavalry, but the Cossack cavalry endured rising casualties and harassed them in order to slow down the attack.
Finally, after the losses of the Cossack cavalry amounted to 60,000 people, the 200,000 Cossack reserve rushed to the city of Minsk. As an important city in the middle of the Eastern Front, and relatively close to the border, Minsk had complete fortifications, and after arriving here, the Cossack army immediately began to prepare for a big battle.
The oncoming Yaman army also had only 200,000 men, and the main reason why the Cossack army did not dare to face it head-on was that due to the lack of heavy tractors and trucks, the Cossack army could not carry heavy equipment during the rapid march, and the Cossack army stationed at this time was the mortar except for a small number of fortress guns that had been placed in the fortifications.
Unlike the Cossack army, when the Yaman army arrived in Minsk and found that the other side was ready, the two armies quickly stopped their advance advance, and the artillery units immediately removed the artillery towed behind the tractor and installed it.
The two hundred and three-mm guns imported from the Chinese Empire were quickly installed, and the Cossack commander, who saw them through his telescope, gasped in shock. The only ten super-heavy guns of the Yaman army were quickly loaded with shells, and with a loud bang, huge shells fell on the positions of the Cossack army, blowing a large gap in the two concrete pillboxes, while the shells that did not fall on the pillboxes blew the nearby Cossack soldiers into pieces.
Shells fell one after another on the positions of the Cossack corps, and after the 203-mm guns were fired, other artillery of various calibers began to speak one after another. Dense shells fell into the line of the Cossack corps, stirring up large clouds of smoke and dust, and some unlucky Cossack soldiers were killed by artillery fire even if they were hiding in the fortifications, after all, all the Cossack fortresses could not withstand the direct hit of the 203-mm guns.
After enduring dozens of minutes of heavy artillery bombardment, the Yaman artillery began to fire extendedly, and the well-trained Yaman infantry, armed with bayonets and under the cover of the chariots, followed closely behind the barrage of artillery fire.
The Cossack soldiers, who had been enduring the bombardment in the artillery holes, immediately understood that the enemy was about to charge when they noticed that the artillery fire was beginning to advance. During the years of the war, the soldiers of the main participating countries had very rich battlefield experience, and after the sound of artillery was over, the Cossack soldiers immediately grabbed their rifles, rushed out of the anti-artillery holes, and quickly entered the position.
Hundreds of machine guns began to roar, and a storm of metal swept through the rushing Yaman troops, bullets clanging against the hard armor of the vehicles. Seeing the dense rain of bullets from the Cossacks, the Yaman infantry, who was following behind the chariot, shrank back behind the chariot, trying not to expose themselves.
Soon a sharp screech was heard, and the only artillery units of the Cossacks began to return fire. As soon as the Cossack artillery fired, the heavy artillery of the Yaman Army immediately turned and suppressed the few Cossack artillery, but the artillery of the Cossack Army was hiding in the strong fortifications, except for the heavy guns of 203 mm, the other artillery could not penetrate the fortresses even if it hit.
There are not many heavy artillery in the Yaman army, these two hundred and three mm heavy guns are treated as treasures by the Yaman army, even a country like the Yaman Empire, which is famous for its precision manufacturing, cannot manufacture such heavy artillery, mainly because the Chinese Empire is unique in the world in material science, and other countries are far from each other, and they can't even analyze what materials are used by people.