Lugozh.

This is a little-known town in western Romania, with a permanent population of about 50,000, which is the level of a small town according to Li Xiaofeng. In March 1944, however, the town was unusually important.

The main road from Hunedoa (equivalent to the province) to Timmy County passes through here, while Lugoge also has a railway to the city of Timisoara, the capital of Timmy County. The 38th Army of the Fourth Ukrainian Front set out from Hunedoadva and took Lugozh before attacking Timisoara. The capture of Timisoara meant that half of the door was closed for the retreat of the main German forces attacking Arad in the north. The Romanian 1st and 2nd Fronts were to attack the German forces in the encirclement from the north and west, while the 2nd Central Front and the 4th Ukrainian Front were to be responsible for the east and south. At that time, the German army in the encirclement will be a turtle in an urn, and it will be difficult to escape.

In order to realize this strategic concept, the CMC not only transferred the 2nd Central Front Army of the Strategic Reserve to Romania, but also strengthened the 1st Guards Mechanized Army, a mechanized unit that the CMC had focused on building, to Vasilevsky's 38th Group Army.

Our old friend the old man Hemsstra and the legendary gunner Nikolai. Zherelov is on the scene again. The tank they were driving was still No. 888, but the content was different, and the No. 888 was returned to the factory in the second half of 1943 to upgrade, replacing all the engines and gearboxes that had reached the end of their mechanical life. Turrets, artillery and fire control equipment were also replaced. The original 1A10 100 mm smoothbore gun was replaced by the new 1A20 smoothbore gun, and the one-way stabilizer of the gun was replaced by a two-way stabilizer, and a rangefinder machine gun was installed. All in all, it is a comprehensive move towards the T-55. It's a rebirth.

At this time, the company of the 1st Guards Mechanized Army was changed. All T-34 and T-35 were uniformly replaced by the T-54/T-55 series, and the troops would no longer have separate heavy tank regiments, since all tanks became "heavy tanks". Not only the tanks have been replaced, but the armored vehicles used by the mechanized infantry have also been uniformly replaced with various deformed vehicles based on the design of the second-generation universal chassis. Let's put it this way, the 1st Guards Mechanized Army became the first and only fully mechanized unit in the Soviet Union. Not long after they have completed their redress, they will show the power of the mechanized corps in Romania.

It is indeed extraordinary, half a month ago, the 1st Guards Mechanized Army was still changing equipment near Smolensk. In just one week, the ministry was able to maneuver to Cluj-Napoca in central Romania. It is then transferred by train from Cluj-Napoca to Deva. From Deva it was a pure tracked march, quickly cutting through the flanks of the German army to Lugozh.

Note that this was not just a rush road, as the army continued to encounter the Germans along the way, but each time it was quickly annihilated, showing great combat effectiveness. Of course, it can also be said that anti-aircraft guns fight mosquitoes, after all, the strength of the German army in this area is not strong, and it cannot fully show the majesty of the army.

And after arriving in Lugozh. The situation is completely different, it was a rush or a sneak attack before. The German troops stationed in Lugozh were relatively strong, and advancing from here to Timișoara would inevitably alarm the Germans, who would struggle to survive the Germans.

The elder Hemstra recalled: "The weather and terrain in Romania were terrible, it was like a dung pit, turning the tanks that the old men had worked so hard to clean up into a ball of mud." To make matters worse, the Germans were still very bad and simply vulnerable. Often as soon as we fire a gun, we even see the shadow of the T-54 and run away without a trace, not like a man! ”

It is clear that the old man is dissatisfied with the weakness of his opponent, this war maniac loves challenging tasks, and one-sided abuse can no longer meet his needs. However, this is good news for other tankers, and normal people wish that the more useless the opponent is, the better, and that the enemy should flee from the wind, and it is better to capture Berlin tomorrow.

Anyway, before arriving in Lugozh, the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps looked relaxed, and Zherelov recalled: "Before arriving in Lugozh, we consumed the most grenades, and the enemy had almost no armored targets, not even cars. A considerable part of the enemy's artillery was drawn by mules and horses, and the degree of mechanization was much lower than before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. My main job was to bombard the enemy's pillboxes or firing points according to the instructions of my infantry comrades. The 1A20 smoothbore gun is much stronger than the previous 1A10 smoothbore gun in this regard, using the same grenade, the 1A10 can only be guaranteed to hit targets within 1000 meters, even if it is stationary, the grenade is easy to miss the target beyond this distance. The 1A20 can hit targets at 1500 meters with the same grenade more accurately, of course, beyond this distance, the accuracy will be greatly reduced, but it is still much stronger than the 1A10. ”

Zherelov continued: "Not only the accuracy of the grenade has been greatly improved, but the accuracy of the armor-piercing and armor-piercing shells is also quite good, and in the stationary state, within 1,500 meters, the use of armor-piercing shells to attack targets of two meters × two meters and five meters can generally achieve a 50% hit rate." Armor-piercing rounds with higher muzzle velocity will also have a higher hit rate. ”

As Zherelov said, the Red Army used grenades more before arriving in Lugozh, because the Germans' armored units were basically in the Arad area, and the rear of this area was almost entirely infantry, and occasionally some Romanian puppet cavalry could be seen.

After the capture of Lugozh, the situation was very different, and Dietrich noticed that his backyard was on fire, and a powerful army group with nearly 2,000 tanks suddenly appeared on his weak flank, which effortlessly penetrated his rear, cutting off the lines of communication for supplies from Yugoslavia, which meant that the Russians were trying to surround his troops and fight a war of annihilation.

As we can see from the map, there are all Red Army troops in the vicinity of Arad, and the closest friendly forces to Dietrich are in the Nadrak and Lovlin areas, and there are still Red Army activities in these two areas, and the communication lines are not very smooth. That is, once Timisoara is lost, the passage for Dietrich's retreat will be closed. Either he sits and waits. Either they could only retreat westward, open the lines of communication, and then retreat to Szeged in Hungary.

The situation is obvious anyway. At this time, Dietrich also came to his senses, he finally knew why the Russians would launch a counterattack at the wrong time, this is actually a guest!

As soon as Dietrich immediately sent a telegram to the wolf's den, strongly demanding that the spring awakening plan be terminated immediately, and the troops immediately retreated to the west and quickly jumped out of the encirclement!

Of course, we all know that Hitler would never have agreed. At the end of the war, the Führer had such a strong belief in every whimsical counterattack that his plans were as successful as they had been in 1941, 1940 and 1939, and that victory would always belong to Germany if they were carried out according to his whims.

The later Ardennes campaign was this number, and this time the Spring Awakening Battle is still this number. At the first time, Hitler rejected Dietrich's request and ordered this confidant to unswervingly carry out the established policy, and as for the counterattack of the Red Army, in the Führer's opinion, it was just a small fight, not worth mentioning at all!

If Dietrich, like Paulus, "believes" in the Führer. 100% carry out the Führer's orders, then the German army is really going to be trapped. Fortunately, this benevolent brother is much smarter than Paulus. He knew that the Führer's orders and so-called self-confidence were nonsense, and if he wanted to survive, he had to find a way to quickly jump out of the encirclement.

However, the consequences of disobeying the Führer's orders are too unimaginable, and Manstein's experience is there, and he does not want to be a Manstein-like hero. At this critical juncture, he thought of his old friend Guderian, who could fool the Führer so much back then and finally be able to use it for the second time, so he might as well listen to his opinion!

When Guderian heard the latest news on the battlefield, he was not surprised at all, he had foreseen the situation before the Spring Awakening Plan was implemented. If he were a Russian, he would choose the same counterattack line, how cool it would be to close the door and fight the dog!

As Chief of the General Staff and a good friend of Dietrich, he naturally couldn't watch Dietrich jump into the fire pit. Of course, he also knew that it would be impossible to convince the Führer to change his mind. So he came up with a ghost idea for Dietrich.

"You told the Führer that because the railway line in Timisoara was cut off, logistical supply problems were serious, which greatly affected the continuation of the Spring Star Plan, and if there were no supply troops, they would lose the ability to continue the offensive. And if you want to continue the attack, you must open the lines of communication! ”

"Open up the lines of transportation? To recapture Timisoara? Is that possible? ”

Guderian angrily lectured: "Who told you to recapture Timisoara, if my estimate is correct, there is an armored cluster of the Red Army over there, and you will be a dead end if you crash into it!" I mean to the west, to retreat from Nadrak and Great St. Nicholas to Szeged! ”

Dietrich immediately understood what Guderian meant, it was still a trick to sell dog meat on the head of a sheep, nominally to send small forces to open up communication routes, but in fact to draw the main force to break through to the west. It was Guderian who came up with such a foolish idea to fool the Führer.

Dietrich knew that time was pressing, and that if he hesitated, his troops would be destroyed, so after receiving Guderian's suggestion, he formed a new battle plan on the same day, and immediately transferred the armored troops back from the front line, leaving only a small force to block along the Munesh River and cover the main force to break through to the west.

It should be said that Guderian's method is still good, and if it can be realized, it can indeed pull Dietrich out of the fire pit. On the one hand, he used the Romanian First Front and the Romanian Second Front to exert strong pressure on Dietrich from the front, so that Dietrich could not withdraw, and on the other hand, he also carried out a surprise attack of his mechanized 47th Army from the western side of the German army (in the direction of Nadrak), preparing to cut off the escape route of the German army and secure the encirclement.

At the same time, the Red Air Force also bombarded the German troops on the north bank of the Munech River, focusing on pontoon bridges and ships. For a time, the ground forces of both sides gave way to the air force, and a fierce aerial strangulation battle began.

Beschanich was a pilot of the Il-2, and his main task was to attack the enemy's pontoons and ferries, and he remembered the situation many years later: "At the height of the fighting, we flew at least six or seven sorties a day, and the main goal was to destroy the enemy's pontoons and knock them out. The enemy's tanks and armored vehicles were left to die on the north bank of the Muneche River. ”

"I was the same day as usual. Fly at an altitude of two thousand meters. The weather wasn't too good and visibility was limited. Several times the new comrades in the regiment flew over the Muneche River. But for a veteran like me who has been fighting for more than a year, that's not a problem. Even if I close my eyes, I can smell the rancid smell of the German devils! ”

"But this flight was very unusual, the second group took off first, I could hear their calls on the radio, it seemed that there were a large number of enemy planes, anyway, the headphones were full of the thudding of the rear seat machine gunners firing frantically. With a hint of uneasiness, I flew towards my destination, behind a cloud of darkness. The sky above the river suddenly opened up. My goodness, the sky was densely packed with planes, fighters, bombers, attack planes, reconnaissance planes, and the humming sound of engines almost drowned out the sound of gunfire on the ground below. ”

"Not only are there many planes, but there are flashes and smoke everywhere on the ground, it is anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft machine guns at work, heaven and earth conscience, I have never seen such fierce anti-aircraft fire, the Germans simply took out all their weapons and rained bullets wildly."

But this did not intimidate the real Bolsheviks, as party members. As a soldier, I have to complete the task even if I encounter great difficulties. Without any hesitation, I was the first to dive towards the target...... It was an improvised pontoon bridge. The German sappers were really hands-on, they were able to build pontoon bridges with rudimentary equipment that could withstand the passage of heavy tanks, and they were able to quickly build them again after each time we destroyed them, even as enemies, which is commendable......"

"Soon after I started diving, I realized the strength of the enemy's anti-aircraft fire, and a dozen bullets began to roll towards my plane, and from time to time I could hear the popping of bullets on the fuselage and wings. Thanks to the Il-2 bathtub, it is so sturdy that as long as it is not a direct hit by large and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns, we can generally fly back unharmed, but the engineer comrades of the ground crew will have a headache, and repairing the battered fighter is quite tedious work. ”

"Soon after I started diving, my landline was hit with bullets, but fortunately, most of them were fragments or machine gun rounds, which could hardly cause fatal damage. Behind me the machine gunner Rokovich opened fire suddenly and violently, it was clear that the enemy was targeting us, and it was extremely dangerous in the dive. If Rokovich can't get rid of that bastard, I'm afraid we'll have to go headlong into the river before we can drop the bomb. But I believe in Rokovich, he was a good comrade, his shooting skills were quite good, and most importantly, he was resolute, and once he was hit twice and continued to fight, and almost died of blood loss. ”

"I'm all in the picture, and Rokovic is in charge of protecting both of us, which is both a division of labor and a silent trust. However, the gunfire today was particularly violent and lasted for a long time, which made me feel a little uneasy when I was engrossed. I later learned that we were being targeted by a group of BF-109s, and the Germans were madly chasing us, shooting at us, and they would do anything to protect the pontoon. ”

"Thanks to the fighter pilots, they arrived at the battlefield in time, through the headphones I can hear the sound of them fighting with the enemy, the guns are ringing out, every minute the fighter plane is shot down, in order to protect us they run out of ammunition and refuse to withdraw from the battlefield, but frantically chase the enemy plane, crashing into them!"

"The closer you get to the pontoon, the more intense the enemy's fire becomes, but I always have only the pontoon bridge in my eyes. Of course, I also tried to give the bastards a little bit of color as much as I could, and I kept shooting, using machine guns and cannons to hit back at the German bastards. I hit a number of targets, and the most impressive was the one that put an anti-aircraft machine gun and its shooter in one pot with a 23mm cannon, and one of the shells broke a German devil in two......"

"When it was finally time to drop the bomb, when the bomb was thrown out, not only was the plane lighter, but my people were also relaxed, and I could feel that this time the bomb was dropped, and it was also true, four FAB-100 bombs landed exactly around the pontoon, and the four water columns rose up, and even in the engine room I could hear the click of the pontoon bridge breaking. That sound is even more beautiful than Senraku! ”

"I was not in a hurry to return home, because I still had a lot of ammunition, and it would be a pity to bring it back, and it would be right to take every opportunity to pour it on the Germans. I began to circle and strafe repeatedly, and the bullets splashed mud and water on the ground, while the Germans panicked and staggered, and it was a pleasure to see them in disarray. ”

"But I rejoiced a little too soon, and just as I was on the safari, the German fighters came again, and even though Rokovich desperately resisted, the enemy shot us down. The altitude was very low, less than a hundred meters, and I didn't even have time to remind Rokovich to get ready, so I made a forced landing on the ground. With a violent shock, the plane stopped, and then Rokovich and I quickly unbuckled our seat belts and pushed open the hatch and jumped out desperately, and a minute later, the plane exploded! ”

"When Rokovich and I found a crater to take shelter temporarily, we realized that we had made a forced landing in a different place, just at the intersection of fire from both sides of the enemy. The Germans fired in this direction, and our artillery returned fire, followed by machine-gun fire, accompanied by an exchange of tank fire. For the whole afternoon, Rokovich and I didn't dare to lift our heads because the fire was so fierce. It wasn't until after dark that we staggered back to our position, ending the thrilling day. (To be continued.) )

PS: Bow and thank you to SC-VX, 1st Guards Tank Brigade, Camon Dogs and Juventus Comrades!