When the daytime fighting on June 13 was over, there was not much smile on the face of the Central Military Commission, and the best of this was East Prussia, where the Jews held off the German Army Group North on the border line and even drove the Germans back in some areas. For example, the T-36 of the Heavy Tank Battalion of the 1st Panzer Division of East Prussia (KV-1, Voroshilov fell, naturally there was no chance to name weapons after him) beat the Germans to the ground, destroying 40 tanks No. 1 and another 35 tanks No. 2 and No. 3 in just one morning.

The worst of these was in Eastern Poland, where the Eastern Footcloth was not much better than the Western Footcloth, and these strange creatures fled in a hurry after placing a few shots in the hastily completed fortifications, leaving piles of supplies and weapons to the enemy, including T-36 tanks and ZIS-3 cannons that were only equipped in 1940.

Not only is the footcloth in eastern Poland not strong, but the Ukrainian front also has considerable problems, such as the focus of the front's troop allocation in the direction of eastern Poland, not enough attention was paid to Romania in the south, and when the war broke out, a considerable part of the troops located on the Romanian border were ordered to prepare to move north, which was to attack eastern Poland. As a result, when attacked by Romanian troops, Hungary and part of the German army, they appeared unprepared, and after hastily resisting for a while, they had to retreat to the second line. At 5 p.m. on the same day, Romanian and Hungarian troops occupied Transcarpathia, Chernivtsi and advanced in the direction of Odessa and Kiev.

In other words, the pressure on the Ukrainian Front on the southern front was quite great, and it had to face not only frontal pressure from the enemy's Army Group Center, but also the flank attacks of the Hungarian, Romanian and German armies. And even after the insertion of the German Army Group Center into Belarus. It is also possible to attack them from the Belarusian direction. One can't get it right. There is a possibility that the Ukrainian Front will be annihilated in the area east of Kyiv.

Faced with this terrible situation, a new round of quarrels broke out in the Military Commission, and the focus of the quarrels was on attacking or retreating. Tukhachevsky argues that although the situation in eastern Poland was very bad and basically did not give the Red Army any favorable position, he did not think that the situation was so bad that it was necessary to retreat and give up part of the Ukrainian territory.

"Although the enemy has occupied most of East Poland, it must be noted that after the mechanized units of our Red Army arrived on the battlefield, the enemy's rapid momentum has been initially contained. It can be said that the German army is already at the end of the crossbow. And at this time. The main forces of our Red Army have not yet been put into battle. It is conceivable that once the main forces of our Red Army enter the battlefield, they will inevitably be able to deal a head-on blow to the enemy in front of them, and it is not a dream to drive the enemy out of Eastern Poland in one fell swoop. At times like these, I think we should focus on frontal battles rather than scrutinizing the small flanks of the enemy! ”

Speaking of this, Tukhachevsky paused, as if to gather strength: "I do not think that the enemy who has broken into our territory from the direction of Hungary and Romania is not to be feared, they are weak in equipment and combat effectiveness, and most of them are German servants. It was only by relying on the initial advantage of the sneak attack that some progress was made. As long as our Ukrainian Front pays attention to regrouping, it will definitely be able to repel the enemy. ”

Objectively speaking. Tukhachevsky's analysis has some truth, the Hungarian and Romanian armies are indeed despised, especially Romania, which has been miserably treated by Germany in recent years, and has to cut a piece of meat from time to time, so to speak, reluctantly boarded the German tank. Moreover, the equipment of the 30 divisions in Romania is indeed a problem, and the tanks and assault guns are only 300 units together, which is almost inferior to a mechanized army of the Red Army. And the quality of Romanian tanks is poor, not to mention the T-34 and T-54, and they can't get anything cheap when they meet BT series tanks.

Therefore, Tukhachevsky believes that the reason why the troops of the southern front of the Ukrainian Front suffered defeat is probably not due to technical and tactical reasons, but because they have not paid enough attention. If the troops on the southern front can correct their attitude, it is very simple to stabilize the front or engage in a counterattack.

Tukhachevsky was not the only one who held this view, but a considerable number of people in the Central Military Commission believed that the problem of the southern front was not a major military issue, but only a matter of attitude, and that relying on the existing troops on the southern front would be enough to stabilize the situation.

The opposing opinion is Li Xiaofeng, who is not as optimistic as Tukhachevsky, and the troops on the southern front do have problems with attitude, but not only with attitude, and it is the 10th mechanized army, the 15th infantry, the 17th army, and the 41st army of the Red Army that are responsible for the defense of the southern front. These four corps had 8 infantry divisions, 2 tank divisions and 1 mechanized division, for a total of 11 divisions. And they had about 40 divisions of the enemy in front of them, and the disparity between the enemy and our strength was too great. Even if the combat effectiveness of the Romanian and Hungarian troops can only be reduced by five, it will be an exponential advantage.

In the face of such a huge disparity in power, relying only on 11 divisions to block the enemy, I am afraid that Tukhachevsky felt too good about himself, or that Tukhachevsky wanted to test the power of his large-depth operations. Perhaps Tukhachevsky thought that as long as the Ukrainian Front could counterattack the Germans head-on and repel the enemy with a counter-charge, it didn't matter what the flanks were, and he probably thought that the Romanian army and the Hungarian army would fall into a panic after the German army was repulsed, and they would collapse without a fight.

To be honest, Li Xiaofeng felt that it was undesirable to underestimate the enemy in this way, so he resolutely opposed this kind of risk-taking behavior. Once the Romanians and Hungarians did not collapse, but steadily attacked Kiev. At that time, even if the Ukrainian Front can repel the German army from the front, the rear roads and supply lines will be cut off, and what will the mechanized troops without supplies look like?

Li Xiaofeng believed that the first thing the Red Army should do now was not to immediately launch a counterattack regardless of it, but to first stabilize the chaotic situation and re-stabilize the front. You must not think about fighting back when your heels are not firmly on your feet, because doing so will magnify your own flaws and worsen the situation.

Moreover, Li Xiaofeng also believes that compared with history, the current situation of the Soviet Union is much better, only part of the territory has fallen, and the loss can be said to be minimal. Why be in such a hurry?

It's a pity. Li Xiaofeng's viewpoint did not receive a unanimous response from the members of the Central Military Commission this time. The generals who came out of the domestic revolutionary war advocated offense from the bones, and had a natural disdain for defense, so the vast majority of senior officers did not want to defend, but tended to attack.

And the bigwigs, including Trotsky and Sverdlov, hated the feeling that their territory was occupied by the German devils, which made them feel very passive politically, and how glorious it would be if the Red Army could drive them out at the same time as the German devils had just invaded!

So they preferred Tukhachevsky's scheme, and soon the commander of the Central Military District, Jonah . Emanuilovich. Yakir and the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Shaposhnikov, received an order for a full-scale counterattack. Soon they mobilized as many troops as they could to devote themselves to an all-out counterattack on the German Army Group Center. And the 26th Army on the Southern Front, which was responsible for defending against the German Army Group South, could only continue to struggle to hold on.

The first to counterattack was naturally the first-line troops, such as the 100th Independent Heavy Tank Battalion of the Old Hemsstra, which rushed to the forefront and acted as the pioneer of the 12th and 34th Tank Divisions.

The German 17th Panzer Division bore the brunt of the Red Army's assault power, according to Austin, a veteran of the division's anti-aircraft artillery battalion, recalled:

On June 14, 1941, on the third day of Operation Barbarossa, our company arrived on the outskirts of Lublin, where the battalion headquarters was set up in the only undestroyed farmhouse in the village, and the enemy's air force was very active, attacking as soon as dawn. The boys guarded the sky day and night, and they were all very haggard......

On the outside of our company's position, there was an extended ditch leading to a position dug by the Poles, who did not know whether it was us or the Poles - it was an ideal location. It is possible to master the entire ditch. But at the same time, there is only one drawback, and the situation here can be clearly seen from the high ground opposite. If a Russian artillery observer were placed on the opposite high ground, shells would immediately fall on our heads as soon as we made a move......

Taking advantage of the intervals in Russian shelling, we learned how to estimate the size of the holes in the bunker and whether they would provide a good defense. Since the food prepared for the soldiers in the bunker is packed in a special barrel. So the comrades-in-arms of the cooking squad had a particularly obvious goal, and just as we were busy distributing food, the warning sounded: "Shelling! Take cover! ”

We all have our own bunkers on the gun emplacements, but we have to get in as fast as we can. The whistling shells blew up everything around us, including our lunch and the bucket for it.

We shrunk into a small ball as much as we could and silently began to pray. Suddenly, there was a loud bang behind me, and something whizzed through the air, and the blast wave of the explosion threw us against the side wall of the bunker, knocking out what little food we had left in our stomachs...... I didn't come back to my senses for a while, thinking I was probably injured, but I didn't feel any pain.

Only later did I find out that the shell hit the bunker directly, and a Katyusha rocket was plunged straight into the bunker just a stone's throw away from me! Another large-caliber howitzer hit a pile of ammunition stored in a hole in the ground, and the entire hole disappeared in a violent explosion.

Just when I was stunned, the company commander shouted there with one bare foot (I lost my shoes when I was looking for cover): "The Russians' tanks are here, ready to fight!" ”

We ran to the gun position in a panic, and some people may not understand, aren't you anti-aircraft artillerymen, what does anti-tank have to do with you? To be precise, the relationship was very close, and when we arrived in Lublin, our tanks and anti-tank guns were challenged like never before, and there were hardly any tanks that could stop the Russians, and there were no anti-tank guns that could stop the Russians. Only the 88 cannon can cause some trouble for the Russians a little, and this requires us to go into battle.

I carefully observed the enemy's tanks with the artillery mirror, hoping that luck would be a little better, because the 88 gun also did not work against all the enemy's tanks, and according to our experience, it was easy to hit the T-34, and it was quite difficult to hit the T-54. Of course, at that time we did not know the number of the tanks of the Russians, and we could only temporarily distinguish between the big guy and the little guy. And this time, it's the big guy who comes up! And there are nearly 20 of them in one go!

I clearly remember the expression of the battalion commander at that moment, because we also had only 3 88 guns left in total, so to speak, there was almost no possibility of blocking the enemy. What's even more terrifying is that we can't go back yet. Because the division commander gave the order to die. Be sure to fight to the last man!

My palms were covered in sweat. The oppressive feeling of twenty tanks coming in was unimaginable to anyone who had never experienced it, with black gun muzzles, muddy tracks, the faint of heart huddled in the trenches shivering, and the brave men, like me, with weak legs.

"Don't fire! No one is allowed to fire without my orders! The battalion commander ordered through gritted teeth.

The reason is very simple, even the 88 gun can penetrate the side of the T-54 only at a very close distance, how close? Let's put it this way. It's the same distance as a bayonet. If we are exposed in advance, we will be bombarded to slag by the enemy!

The grenadiers were all good, and instead of flinching in the face of the rumbling tanks, they carefully circled to the enemy's flank, trying to fight the torrent of ironclad with the rudimentary anti-tank weapons.

It was a brutal scene, as a young man leapt out of his hiding place under the cover of a machine gun, and rushed towards the enemy tank with a Molotov cocktail, while another of his buddies pounced on the enemy from the other side with a submachine gun and an anti-tank grenade. I sweated for them in my heart. Because this is simply a game of life, I am afraid that only one out of ten people who do this will come back alive.

Soon they were discovered. The T-54 tank's side-by-side machine gun and course machine gun opened fire so hard that the ground was splashed with dirt, and soon the guy holding the submachine gun was knocked down, and before he died, he tried to throw a grenade, but unfortunately it was unsuccessful.

And his little friend was much more nimble, like a fawn, he jumped forward, dodging round after round of shots, and just as he was about to get close to the enemy, the most tragic scene happened, the bottle in his hand was hit by a bullet, the whole bottle burst, and the flying glass plunged into his body like a shotgun. Then the flames ignited, and in a second, he turned into a fireball...... The poor boy rolled and wailed on the ground until our sniper couldn't stand it and ended his suffering with a single bullet......

It was not just the death of one or two people that weighed heavily on our hearts, but the constant unleashing of similar actions by the grenadier brothers, which, in the face of the great firepower of the Russians, were tantamount to death and could hardly have been successful. But the grenadier brothers had to do this, they had to attract the attention of the Russians, direct the tanks in their direction in order to expose the weak sides and rear to us.

The sacrifice of our grenadier brothers put us artillerymen under a lot of pressure, and we were worried about failing the fighters they had bought with their lives. Just when my heart was going up and down, the battalion commander suddenly shouted: "Fire!" ”

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

Three cannon shots, two hits and one missed. However, we did not care about the results, and we completed the manual reloading operation with tension and speed, and then launched the next round of attacks as quickly as possible.

The Germans hit the fire accurately and fired close enough that the two T-54s that were hit quickly stopped, one began to smoke and soon exploded, and the other was largely incapacitated.

However, the Russian tankmen were not slow to react, and they soon began to turn around, aiming the Germans' anti-aircraft artillery positions with the thickest armor frontal point. Over the next few minutes, with the exception of one unlucky hapless man who was destroyed, the remaining tanks effortlessly crushed the German artillery positions.

However, such a result did not make the chief of staff of the 100th separate heavy tank battalion Anatoly . Ivanovich. Captain Gribkov was pleased, although he was only 22 years old this year, Gribkov was already a veteran, and he had accumulated a certain amount of battlefield command experience after participating in the Zhanggufeng conflict.

It's not that the situation is unfavorable, but he is not satisfied with the response of his subordinates, it is clear that the T-54 has an almost overwhelming advantage, but the tankmen of the Red Army cannot give full play to this advantage. Often, on some matter of detail, the tankmen of the Red Army appeared to be careless. For example, just now, almost all the tanks rushed towards the enemy's infantry, and none of the tankers thought of covering the flank, and easily let the enemy succeed. Moreover, the reconnaissance before the war was quite sloppy, and the enemy's artillery positions were not found.

Of course, the most important thing is that Major Korolev, the commander of the 100th separate heavy tank battalion, was actually satisfied with this result and felt that the boys were very good!

This made Gribkov unacceptable, T-54 tanks are very valuable, each army group can only be divided into one or two battalions, these 31 tanks can be said to be an out-and-out treasure. To squander and waste it like this is to be damned!

"Comrade battalion commander, I think it is necessary to immediately conduct a review and sum up the lessons learned. You can't waste precious heavy tanks so casually! ”

But Major Korolev did not listen, a commander like him, who had participated in the civil war, did not particularly care about the loss of Shenma, and in his opinion it was a success to occupy the enemy's position and charge forward step by step. As for losses, can there be no losses in the war?

With a wave of his hand, Major Korolev drove away Gribkov, whom he regarded as an academic, so that he didn't need a little kid to teach him how to fight, and he was more concerned about the next round of assaults, as long as he continued to attack like this, the Germans would soon collapse, right? (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you for drinking a thousand cups of people who are not drunk, pig2054, hzwangdd, Xuanyuan Extreme Holy Emperor, Kamen Angel 555 and Comrade Juventus!