The commander of the Soviet tank group, Haplevsky, was watching the battle from the roof of an armored command vehicle close to the front line. Although he stood quite tall, from the eyepiece of the telescope, there was only blue-black gunpowder smoke and constantly rising fire, and he couldn't see the situation on the battlefield clearly. Although he couldn't see clearly, he could also anticipate what was happening behind the smoke of gunfire, his tanks were inferior to his opponents in terms of quantity and quality, and the opponents also had well-trained tank crews, and the outcome of this armored battle seemed to be in no suspense. However, Hapleski knew that he still had a trump card in his hand that his opponent did not have - the battlefield repair team!

Mikhail Ivanovich Zaitsev turned out to be a mechanic who worked on the coal mines of the Donetsk Basin, repairing some mining equipment. After the start of the world revolution, he also joined the Red Army with dozens of young men in the mines, fantasizing about using his bayonets to liberate four-fifths of the oppressed working people of the world. However, the reality is always different from the ideal, the mechanic Zaitsev did not receive a rifle and a bayonet after joining the Red Army, his weapons were still hammers, pliers and screwdrivers, and his task was not to fight imperialism, but to fight against the poor performance of Soviet tanks and vehicles! This is quite a difficult task, and it is also a task that can be used to hone the skills of machine repair.

In the past two years, Zaitsev and his mechanic squad have hardly stopped battling all kinds of mechanical failures, repairing more than 400 tanks, armored vehicles and trucks, and repairing almost all the vehicles of the entire tank army! With such intensive practice, Zaitsev and his comrades finally grew into the best mechanics in the world. They could assure Trotsky that they could make a car run fast in two hours, no matter how broken or worn.

And this time they have to repair the destroyed tanks on the battlefield. This is a tactic that the tank units of the Soviet Red Army learned from the Germans, repairing while fighting! Repair not only your own destroyed tanks, but also damaged tanks and vehicles abandoned by the enemy that you picked up from the battlefield and turn them into weapons in the hands of Red Army soldiers! About an hour after the battle began, Zaitsev's mechanic squad drove into battle in an armored repair vehicle modified from a T-26 tank chassis. Along. There are dead bodies and craters everywhere and exploding tanks, although there are no tanks for them that cannot be repaired, but now that the military situation is in full swing, of course they have to choose tanks that are easier to repair for repair.

The first to be chosen was a T-28 with broken tracks, and it took Zaitsev and his comrades less than 10 minutes to replace the tank with brand new tracks and get it back on the attack. They then found a Su-76 with a large hole in its frontal armor, which had been damaged by an armor-piercing round of Soviet production. However, the Soviet shell did not explode, so the internal facilities of the tank were basically intact. Now you only need to find a steel plate to weld it, and you can make do with this tank on the battlefield again, as for the steel plate used to repair this tank, it comes from a T-28 next to it that has been opened, although the thickness is different. But I can always make do with it.

Thanks to the efforts of Zaitsev and other officers and men of the Soviet army's battlefield repair team, many Soviet tanks that had been destroyed by the Chinese army once again had a second spring, and the members of the tank crews that had been improvised together drove them into battle again. According to the statistics of the Eastern Front of the Soviet Army after the war, in the Nizhne-Udinsk counterattack, about 70% of the Soviet tanks destroyed for the first time were repaired and returned to the battlefield. There are also quite a few tanks that have been repaired three or four times! It was precisely because of the efforts of these Soviet mechanics that the Soviet tank troops, which were inferior in quantity and quality, were able to compete with their opponents for a time!

As the opponent of the Soviet Army, the armored units of the Chinese Army, which also fought fiercely on the battlefield of the World War for two years, also knew the importance of emergency repairs on the battlefield. In fact, before the start of the war, there were battlefield repair teams in the armored units of the Chinese army. However, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the Chinese army's armored forces and the rapid expansion of China's industry in the past two years, the weakness of the lack of heritage as a new industrial power has been fully revealed. The scarcity of skilled workers is a mess, definitely more than the giant pandas. Whether it is the army or the factories in the rear, they all rush to ask for them, they all treat them as treasures, how can they be willing to send them to the front line where the artillery is full of fire? If you die, it's hard to replenish!

So it came time for the Battle of Nizhny Udinsk. The really skilled mechanics in the armored units of the Chinese army no longer go to the battlefield, but use tank repair vehicles to drag damaged tanks down the battlefield and repair them in a relatively safe area outside the battlefield. Of course, there are still some soldiers who have only undergone simple training to engage in some simple battlefield maintenance on the front line, such as changing tracks or something.

Damaged tanks can be repaired and returned to the battlefield, but the killed tankmen and infantry are left to rest in the Siberian wilderness. Due to the early formulation of the battle plan of using human lives to consume the armor superiority of the Chinese army, the casualties of the Soviet army were extremely tragic in just one night. More than 30,000 Soviet officers and soldiers fell on the offensive, and countless others were wounded. However, Tukhachevsky did not stop this lifeless offensive method, perhaps because he believed that as long as he lost more than 100,000 or 200,000 Soviet lives, the Pavlov cluster that made a detour would cut off the rear route of the Chinese army's armored cluster; Or maybe he realizes that if he loses the Nizhny Udinsk counterattack now. By next year, I am afraid that the whole of Siberia and Central Asia will be lost to the Chinese! So with the casualty figures skyrocketing, he still did not hesitate to put more troops into the battlefield.

By the time the Udinsk counterattack was fought on the morning of 9 July, the total number of troops invested by both sides had exceeded 250,000, and the number of tanks and artillery pieces had reached 2,000 (including tanks that had been re-invested after repairs). Such a huge force fought the short plain more than 50 kilometers wide, and both sides made the greatest determination, attacking and counterattacking again and again, and the plain was full of the corpses of Chinese and Soviet officers and soldiers, and everywhere there were burning wreckage of armored vehicles.

At the height of the fierce battle between the two sides, General Li Zongren, the former commander-in-chief of the Chinese army, had rushed from Tulum, more than 100 kilometers away, to the front headquarters in Nizhne-Uginsk. At this time, Xu Tingyao and Wang Geng were looking at the map together. The surrounding telephones rang non-stop, all of which were from the front line. Seeing Li Zongren walking in, Xu Tingyao twisted his eyebrows and reported: "Delin, the battle in front is very fierce, and Lao Maozi is more tenacious than we imagined!" Li Zongren took off the steel helmet and handed it to the adjutant, then took the teapot handed over by Wang Geng, and took a sip. Only then did he snort coldly and said, "It's good to be tenacious!" The more tenacious they are here, the easier it will be for us to fight Krasnoyarsk in the future. Yuexiang, how many troops have we invested now? It won't scare the old hairy man away, right? ”

Xu Tingyao is Chang Ruiqing's classmate in the same department at Baoding Military Academy, and he is the most senior general, and he has been leading troops in the army for more than ten years, but he still doesn't have much military atmosphere, and he has a white and round face. The pointed nose bridge is perched with small round glasses, and the eyes behind the lenses are curved like two small crescents, looking not like a general commanding hundreds of thousands of armored troops, but like an erudite professor. Hearing Li Zongren's question, Xu Tingyao lifted his round glasses and said lightly: "Brother Delin, don't worry." There are still some brothers in this bit of proportion, and now we have less than 1,000 pursuers and C-tanks on the front line, and only 80,000 troops have gone up. ”

Li Zongren nodded, and asked again: "Who is in command on the front line?" Is it the retainers who are in command? ”

He is the commander of the Sixth Armored Army, Cai Zhonghu, and he is not in the command now, so Li Zongren asked this question.

Wang Geng replied: "The ministers just went up to see the situation, and now they are commanding Xu Yunfei and Hu Shoushan on the front line. "Xu Yunfei is Lieutenant General Xu Haoyu, commander of the First Armored Army. Hu Shoushan is Hu Zongnan, who was promoted to lieutenant general after coming down from the Korean battlefield, and is now the commander of the Sixth Armored Army. In fact, these two people are both armored commanders from professional backgrounds, and they have been in battle for a long time. Of course, he would not be worse than Cai Zhonghu, the commander of the group army who was born in the Baoding Artillery Department and had been the commander of the artillery headquarters.

As he was talking, he heard the sound of standing up and saluting outside the door, and then Cai Zhonghu pushed the door in. Li Zongren looked at him with blazing eyes and asked, "Minister, how is the front?" Is Lao Maozi ready to fight hard? Cai Zhonghu nodded. replied with a heavy face: "That's right, I took the combat staff officer to the front and walked around, and I also asked Xu Yunfei and Hu Shoushan about the situation. The Soviets were really fighting for their lives this time, and on the entire front-line battlefield, the armored clusters of both sides had been beaten together, and they were desperately pressing the opposing tanks and infantry backwards. Now that the number of the Soviet tank army has been ascertained, there are more than 7, and the infantry used is probably more than 100,000! Boy. It's really an armored battle! ”

"7 tank corps, 100,000 infantry...... The Soviets should not have done their best. Li Zongren silently calculated, and looked at the military map for a long time, and only after a long time raised his head and said, "That's right." What is the weather like? ”

"The rain can last for 24 hours at most, and it will definitely clear tomorrow morning, and the air force will be able to cooperate with our attack at that time, but ......" Wang Geng took the question, and when he said this, he frowned, as if he was worried about something.

"But the Soviets still had reservations and did not fight with all their might!" Li Zongren continued Wang Geng's words. "Needless to say, Lao Maozi must keep the back hand, and before the back hand comes out, they still have to save a certain strength!" His gaze swept over the map a few times, and he smiled coldly: "Okay, let Lao Tzu see what kind of medicine is sold in Lao Maozi's gourd!" ”

"Brother Delin, how are you going to deploy it?" Cai Zhongwat said: "The old Maozi in front is very capable of fighting, he is not afraid of death, and there are more people than us!" And their artillery is very strong, in case they really surround us......"

Li Zongren smiled and waved his hand, interrupting: "It's okay, I have already ordered 9 divisions along the Siberian Railway to shrink. Among them, 5 divisions and one armament are strengthened to you, and the remaining 4 divisions and another military headquarters are retreated to Tulum under the unified command of Li Renchao, deputy commander of the Seventh Army, as long as the air base in Tulum is in hand, the artillery of the Soviets will not be able to play an advantage at all, and they are not our opponents when they fight for armor, and no matter how much infantry is left, they are cannon fodder! ”

Wang Geng looked at the map and muttered: "In this way, Tulun has almost 2 infantry corps of defensive strength, but I am not afraid of a sneak attack by the Soviet infantry, even if there are 200,000, Tulun can't help Tulun, but what if there is a Soviet tank army around our back?" Why don't you transfer an Panzergrenadier Division to Tulum. ”

"Tank Army? Walking from the Great Siberian Forest? Is it possible? Xu Tingyao on the side shook his head again and again: "This is not Belgium, those broken tanks of the Soviets are not German tanks, the failure rate is so high that it is enough to choke on the road, and dare to drill into the woods?" Besides, Uginsk is the key here, as long as the main force of the Soviet army in front of him is defeated, Lao Maozi's sneak attack troops will not be a problem. ”

"The big forest may not be able to stop the Soviet tank army, the key is whether they have the determination or not. Even if we get in, a tank army and a tank army come out, it's enough for us to stand it! Wang Geng shook his head and said.

"Then transfer an armored regiment back, a tank corps of the Soviet Union only has about 200 tanks, and one of our armored regiments has 65 pursuers plus 18 self-propelled guns, which should be able to resist." Li Zongren felt that the words of the two of them made some sense, so he came to a compromise. In fact, in his opinion, there were not much problems with the defense of Tulum, and the anti-tank capabilities of the Wehrmacht infantry were not weak in the first place. Not only is it equipped with a large number of Iron Fist anti-tank grenade launchers, but it is also equipped with a series of anti-tank weapons such as anti-tank guns, 47mm and 75mm tank guns, and 75mm recoilless guns, and Tulum also has an air defense division of the Air Force, which has a large number of 88mm heavy anti-aircraft guns, which is much more powerful than 75mm anti-tank guns! So in the following time, he did not discuss Tulun's safety with Xu Tingyao, Wang Geng, Cai Zhongwat and others. Instead, all attention was paid to Nizhny Uginsk.

At this time, in the woods 40 kilometers northwest of Tulum, thousands of Soviet tanks and armored vehicles were parked on a road improvised with countless logs, covering the position net. There were no roads in the primeval forests northwest of Tulum, and it was all up to hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers of the two Soviet armies to cut a passage with their hands, axes, and saws. Fortunately, the Siberian forest is not as dense as the tropical rainforest, and the surface plants are not dense, but are some tall and straight trees. And the soil is not too soft, so it's easy to pave an improvised road out of felled trees. Thousands of vehicles of all kinds have been driving on this wooden road for two days and one night, running more than 100 kilometers, and most of the Su-75 self-propelled guns have not fallen behind! It seems that this Russian version of the Stalker is much more reliable than the T-28 series of tanks, which greatly surprised Li Zongren and his expectations. But after running so many roads, it's time for these armored vehicles to stop and rest.

Just when the Soviet mechanics and tank crews did not care about resting and were busy with the last vehicle maintenance before the war. In one of the Gass half-track command cars in the middle of the convoy, from time to time Pavlov's shouts were heard: "Comrade Kulik. What do you mean? Why not bring enough shells! Artillery is the iron fist of the Red Army, if there is not enough artillery, what are we going to use to pry open the Chinese defense line in Tulum? In the unlikely event that this surprise attack fails due to insufficient firepower of the Red Artillery, you are a sinner of the party and the country! ”

Several of the officers in the command car gave Kulik a sympathetic look, a general of the Stalin and Voroshilov systems, who had always played a role in the Red Army. Although the seniority was far above Pavlov's, it was never reused. Until now, it was an errand for the director of artillery of a campaign cluster. And this time it was even more unlucky, he was supposed to be a cat in the peaceful Middle East battlefield, but he was brought to Siberia by Pavlov, and it looks like Pavlov intends to use him as a scapegoat!

Kulik was a submissive look. But there was not much fear in his eyes. It's not that he wasn't really afraid of the concentration camps, but he knew that Trotsky was not a great unreasonable leader who would not offend himself because of Pavlov's one-sided words. Especially in these extraordinary times of national crisis, Trotsky needs to unite the whole party and the whole army, not the time for factional struggle! Of course, it was still very necessary to defend himself, so he sighed and said: "Comrade Pavlov, the artillery is not comparable to the tank troops, there are not a few trucks, they all rely on horse-drawn people to push the army, it is not easy to keep up with the footsteps of the tank army, and it is really impossible to carry too much ammunition." And...... We are fighting the idea of a sneak attack this time, if we can succeed two base shells is enough, in case it fails, it is useless to double the ammunition. ”

Listening to Kulik's "quibble" Pavlov raised his eyebrows, in fact, he knew in his heart that the other party was very reasonable, and the success or failure of this sneak attack on Tulum was in the word "sneak attack"! If the opponent is allowed to see through his intentions and deploy heavy troops in Tulum to stand by, what is the use of more than 10,000 or 20,000 shells?

But is there any certainty about a sneak attack? A team of 200,000 people marched all the way to cut down trees and build roads. Even if the big forest is under the control of the Soviet army, the Chinese should always notice some clues, right?

"Comrade Commander," the voice of the chief of staff of the cluster suddenly rang in Pavlov's ears, and when Pavlov looked back, he saw that the other party had a telegram in his hand, apparently just received. "The squadrons along the Trans-Siberian Railway are retreating to Tulum! I'm afraid there will be many enemies waiting for us! ”

〖