The Red Army was not going well, the reasons have already been said before, bad weather, chaotic logistics organization. Especially the weather, in the Russian-Ukrainian border area, it was snowing heavily, but in Nosovka it was a completely different look.

Before launching the attack, the meteorologists of the Red Army, based on data from previous years, estimated that in late February and early March, the area around Kiev should be frozen, and the muddy roads would be frozen tightly, and such a climate would be conducive to the movement of armored forces.

But unexpectedly, in late February, when the rest of the region is freezing in the north, it is quite unusual around Kiev: the temperature at night is still minus 15 degrees, but during the day, the temperature rises sharply under the sun, reaching minus two to three degrees.

This created a rather bad situation, the ground that was supposed to be frozen ground was "unusually" soft compared to previous years, and when the tank armored vehicles ran over the sides, it turned into a big quagmire!

Not only in the field, but also on the roads, the situation was very bad, especially in the attack section of the 1st Guards Mechanized Army. Petrovsky later recalled: "...... For reasons of secrecy, the command of the Front ordered that the troops were forbidden to conduct any pre-war reconnaissance...... It was impossible for the armored forces to pass through that quagmire road, and during the entire campaign, a total of 132 vehicles of our army were stuck in the mud, and 5 T-54s were stuck in the mud with only the turrets exposed. The Hero of the Soviet Union laughed at himself with annoyance: "This place is for driving submarines, not tanks!" ”

Ironically, Triandafilov had previously reminded Tukhachevsky: "This place is simply not suitable for large-scale panzer group operations." It's just that Tukhachevsky took these advice as deaf ears.

And there's a pretty ridiculous point. It was Tukhachevsky who wanted to achieve absolute secrecy. The ground forces are not even allowed to conduct any reconnaissance! They can be said to be ignorant of the deployment of the enemy in front of them. Despite the complaints of the staff officers of the command of the Belarusian Front and the Ukrainian Front. Tukhachevsky made repeated requests, but Tukhachevsky still stubbornly insisted on his opinion, and in the end he could only make mistakes.

At that time, when the main forces of the participating troops were slowly concentrating on the assembly area in the gloomy weather, in order not to be detected by the enemy, the rest of the infantry, except for the armored troops, were not allowed to ride on vehicles and had to advance on foot.

Bad luckily. At this time, snow began to fall again, which undoubtedly added fuel to the already terrible road conditions, and the heavily armed Red Army infantry had to advance in the mud that reached the calf, and the already weak physical strength was wasted in the final march.

Malinovsky wrote worriedly in his diary: "Through the windows of the military headquarters ten kilometers from the front, I could see that the soldiers were slowly trudging through the mud in groups, they could not catch up with the battle, and the troops were not ready to attack immediately, because not a single regiment could reach the front with full mention...... I begged the army command to postpone the date of the attack, but was told. The date of the offensive could never be changed, the General Staff had already given a death order! ”

Although all this portends a bad omen for the Red Army. But the arrows were ready, the knives were unsheathed, and the armored units that were ready to attack still made a deep impression on the occasional soldiers and even the senior commanders. There is still one last glimmer of hope for Tukhachevsky's relief – and maybe it will succeed?

For example, Baglamiyan wrote in his diary: "Am I really wrong about all this? Although the plans of the General Staff were a little hasty, the morale of the lads was still high. Maybe the General Staff was right, at this moment, I was indeed so dizzy and overwhelmed. Division after division surrounded me, cars roared and rumbled forward, each battalion marched forward in a sonorous manner, tank regiment after regiment, all ready to pursue the enemy, and once our tanks made a breakthrough, all this would be overwhelming, to crush, to crush any enemy who stood in our way......"

At this time, the German army, which had been attacked by Zhukov, finally came to their senses, and they suddenly discovered that the Red Army was not a sick cat, but a tiger that could eat people. Once Kyiv is revitalized, the situation in Ukraine will change dramatically, and this change will be quite unfavorable to the German army.

In the face of this grim situation, the mustache summoned an emergency meeting of the senior generals on the front line.

"A great danger is looming towards us," the Führer explained to the crowd in a serious tone: "The enemy is clearly not dead, and their goal is obvious, to free the millions of untouchables and troops in the city of Kyiv." At the end of last year they had already tried the first counter-attack, and this will be the second. There is no doubt that this time they will commit even larger troops. And I think that this will be a good opportunity for us to fight another war of annihilation in the area around Kyiv! ”

You read that right, the mustache is really ready to fight a war of annihilation in Kiev, which in the mustache's opinion is a pocket, and the relief troops of the Red Army are moths to the fire. The 1st and 2nd tank groups that stayed in Gomel could be inserted from the flanks, and then cut off the rear of the main forces of the Red Army, and finally cooperate with Army Group South to eat the Red Army that rushed in one bite.

It was a bold plan, but the mustache felt that the probability of success was quite high, and he believed that the Red Army was only a rabble, and that in August 1941 he could defeat the Red Army, let alone encircle and annihilate the Red Army, which was even weaker than it was then.

The mustache even thought that the Red Army had thrown itself into the net, and if these Red Army could be annihilated, then the victory in this war would definitely belong to Germany. However, compared to the confidence of the mustache, his generals and marshals were not so sure.

Rundstead believes: "The Red Army is coming fiercely, and after suffering the setback at Bryansk, our army is still recovering. Especially Army Group South, a large number of troops are pinned down by Kyiv, and even if the first and second tank clusters are invested, they are not capable of eating so many enemies in one bite. What's more, the weather is bad, and the supply is still not optimistic, in this state. It is too difficult to completely destroy the enemy. Our army should be more realistic in selecting operational targets......"

Rundstead was right. The German army is indeed limited in strength, and there are many constraints, and an unrealistic plan to eat the Red Army is tantamount to swallowing an elephant, and in the end it can only choke itself to death.

Of course, the German army's plan for annihilation was only a rudimentary form, after all, the situation on the battlefield was now unfavorable to them, if the Red Army could not be kept out of Kyiv. Then don't say anything about encirclement.

Therefore, the correct response of the German army was to first block the offensive of the Red Army, and then to talk about other issues. Soon, under the deployment of Rundstead, Army Group South immediately took active action, carefully studied defensive strategies, mobilized more reserves in the area of the Red Army's assault, and built more fortifications.

German soldiers were digging fortifications in a race against time during the Red Army bombardment, and within 24 hours of Rundsteide's order, they were rushing to build a new line of defense on the Nosovka line. According to the requirements of Rundstead: "The main task of the armies is: to drag down and exhaust the enemy's offensive with dense and strong anti-tank defensive positions." As soon as the situation stabilizes, immediately resolutely put into the reserves to counterattack with the cooperation of reinforcements! ”

Other words. The Germans were preparing to fight an active defensive operation, and the Germans would consume the Red Army's offensive energy with a defensive system of great depth. When the offensive of the Red Army is exhausted, crush the opponent in one fell swoop.

In order to resist the offensive of the Red Army, Rundstead can be said to have put all the anti-tank forces in front of the Red Army, and the sappers planted 700 to 800 anti-tank mines and 600 to 700 anti-infantry mines per square kilometer of the front, and in some key areas, the density of mines even reached 2,700 anti-tank mines and 2,500 anti-infantry mines per square kilometer.

On the basis of the high-density laying of mines, the German army also strengthened the use of the terrain to re-lay mines in a short period of time during the course of the battle, so as to form a training force that can organize the advance of the enemy army to the greatest extent. Combat engineer companies, submachine gun platoons and anti-tank gunners carrying out mobile field mine-laying tasks under mutual cover were also formed.

Due to the relatively small number of armored units of Army Group South, the first tank group was transferred to the north. Therefore, Rundstead decided that the armored forces would no longer be dismantled and assigned to the infantry divisions of the first line, but would be used in a centralized manner.

However, there was too little time left for the Germans to prepare, and the Germans did not have much time to perfect and consolidate their defensive lines, after all, the full-scale offensive of the Red Army had already begun. Among them, the 11th Army was under the greatest pressure on the German army.

This army group was precisely responsible for the defense of the Nosovka line, and the combat effectiveness of the army group was in question. Because the army group was not a purely German army, but a large platter of German and Romanian troops.

The group army has three armies, namely:

The 11th Army, consisting of the 22nd, 76th, and 239th Infantry Divisions, the Romanian 6th Infantry Division, and the Romanian 5th and 8th Cavalry Brigades;

The 30th Army, consisting of the 198th Infantry Division, the Romanian 8th and 14th Infantry Divisions, and the Romanian 6th Cavalry Brigade;

the 54th Army, with the 50th and 170th Infantry Divisions;

Finally, the group also has a military mission in Romania, consisting of the 72nd Infantry Division. In addition, the commander of the army group was famous in later generations, and he was Manstein!

As can be seen from the formation of the army, half of the troops in the army group are Romanian, and the combat effectiveness of the Romanian soldiers, hehe, that really does not dare to compliment. And a very important reason why Tukhachevsky chose Nosovka as a breakthrough is that the Romanians are here.

However, objectively speaking, this time the Romanians were quite powerful, and it was the Romanian units of the 30th Army that were attacked by the 1st Guards Mechanized Army, and the German 198th Infantry Division of the army was not deployed in the first line, but as a corps reserve. It was the Romanians who hardcapped Petrovsky at the beginning.

To be honest, after the war, Petrovsky was inconceivable about this, and he had no idea that he would be stopped by a group of greased Romanians.

While the 30th and 54th armies were stubbornly resisting wave after wave of violent attacks of the Red Army, Manstein personally commanded the 11th Army to rush to repair the defensive line, and in a very short time rushed to repair a new defensive line, according to every 4-6 anti-tank guns. A mobile anti-tank group of 4-6 artillery pieces, mortars, as well as an infantry platoon responsible for cover, was distributed in an area about 16-20 km wide on the front.

Among them, the defensive zone of the 22nd and 76th divisions was flat. It was expected to be the main point of the breakthrough of the Red Army. As a result, a fairly high defensive density was achieved, with an average of 8 to 9 anti-tank guns per kilometer of the front, 35 to 40 other types of support artillery, and about two infantry regiments.

Five days later, when the Romanians, who were resisting Petrovsky head-on, finally collapsed, a direct confrontation between the Germans and the Red Army began.

At 4:30, according to the original battle plan, the Red Army field artillery began to shell the defensive positions of the German 22nd and 76th divisions. Shells tore through the dawn mist like dazzling meteors, and slanted on the German positions. At the same time, the air force fighters in charge of support also roared over the heads of the Germans, diving back and forth to drop bombs or strafe. In an instant, a violent roar drowned out all sounds, and the entire front line seemed to be built as if a curtain wall of smoke and flames had been erected.

After 30 minutes of preparation for a short artillery fire and air strike, the 1st Guards Mechanized Army launched an offensive at 5 a.m. The red flare rose in the faintly shimmering starry blue sky, and the unwavering command came from the headphones of the platoon commanders of each tank platoon: "All tanks march in battle formation!" Let's go! ”

The drivers stepped on the accelerator one after another, and the exhaust pipes slowly drove out of the position, and the tanks marching in an offensive formation cut through the cold and mist on the outskirts of the wilderness in the early morning, and the deafening roar of the engine shook the entire battlefield.

The 1st and 3rd Tank Divisions of the 1st Guards Mechanized Army went hand in hand. He has the ambition to crush the enemy in one fell swoop. So will the actual battle go as smoothly as they think? Shortly after advancing from the point of departure of the offensive, the 1st and 3rd Tank Divisions found themselves in a failed position. Countless orange halos flashed from the muzzles of the guns on the opposite side of the opposite position. Anti-tank shells rained down on them from all directions.

The T-34, T-35, and T-54 screeched into the front armor and turrets with a screeching sound and sparks, then turned into dazzling meteors and bounced around. The light snow that had fallen the night before had caused the morning temperature to plummet below 3 degrees Celsius, and the snow-soaked roads were once again in a muddy puddle, and many of the tanks struggling to move forward quickly fell into the mud.

The immobile steel behemoths desperately shook the mud-covered tracks, but the injured weak knees could no longer support the heavy body, and could only slowly spread out in a mud, only the B2 engine still intermittently let out a dying roar, trying to stagger forward under the curses and drives of the tank crew.

Petrovsky recorded the terrible situation at that time: "The area of our attack was so soft by the thaw that it could not bear the weight of tanks and armored vehicles. Coupled with the extended minefields of the enemy, the tanks that we threw in the first wave of attacks were almost completely lost. To put it bluntly, our attack had no strength at all, and it was caught off guard by the terrible terrain, and the progress was very slow. ”

The Red Army's assault sappers and slightly delayed infantry who followed the tanks also found themselves in despair in a dense rain of bullets woven by machine guns, mortars and rocket shells, pressed against the cold and muddy ground and unable to raise their heads, all they could do was wipe the muddy water from their faces, barely raise their weapons and return fire in vain.

However, their opponent was not the scum who was frightened to drop their guns and run around at the roar of tanks, but the elite Germans. In the face of the stubborn resistance of the Red Army, they will only cover the past with more violent firepower. The Red Army fighters in the charge constantly wailed, cut into the mud by the sickle of death.

The poor terrain severely affected the ammunition supply and the combat effectiveness of the tanks, and only an extremely limited number of tanks were able to stay on the battlefield to support the infantry advance, and the rest were trapped in the quagmire and could not move. The skillfully placed fortifications of the Germans caused great trouble for the Red Army.

Soon, the advance of the Red Army's front-line troops became slower and slower, and as they penetrated deeper into the German defensive lines, the resistance of the German anti-aircraft artillery units became more stubborn. The mechanized 163rd Division began to make a little progress, but half an hour after launching the attack, it fell into the mud and was directly exposed to the well-fortified German 239th Infantry Division, with heavy casualties, and Petrovsky had to order the division to suspend the attack and wait for the tanks to follow up with support.

In order to suppress the fire of the Germans and cover the infantry to continue the breakthrough, Petrovsky had to request a large amount of artillery support from his superiors. In the afternoon of the same day, the Red Army threw 9 artillery regiments on the battlefield in one go. The 1st and 3rd Tank Divisions, supported by artillery fire, after several rounds of fierce attacks, finally succeeded in opening a small breakthrough, and the Red Army infantry could finally get up from the mud and seize their positions.

However, this did not mean that the Red Army opened up the situation, the German army did not collapse, and under the command of Manstein, the German army skillfully contracted and threw part of the reserves to build a new line of defense behind the breakthrough!

That night, neither Petrovsky, who was tossed to death by the mud, nor Tukhachevsky, who rushed to the battlefield to supervise the battle, were not satisfied with the progress, but what made them feel tricky was that they couldn't think of too many effective ways to face the quagmire in front of them, not to mention that their opponent was still an old fox...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you Comrade Reader, Glorious Charter, hzwangdd and Comrade Juventus!