According to the German battle plan, part of the Panzer Corps of the 1st and 2nd tank groups was to be concentrated, as well as the 43rd and 53rd armies of the 4th Army and the 30th Army of the 9th Army, which were transferred from the Minsk direction. A total of about 5 corps attacked in the direction of Nezhin and Bakhmachi. Nezhin was the focus of the offensive, and two motorized corps and one infantry corps were to be committed in this area. For example, the aforementioned 51st Tank Battalion was temporarily placed under the command of the Greater German Infantry Regiment.

The tactics of the German army were to break through the Red Army's defense line in the Nezhin area, and then intersperse with the help of powerful armored forces in the direction of Priluki, cutting off the retreat of the Red Army entering the Kiev area in one fell swoop, and then cooperate with the other units of Army Group South to encircle and annihilate the Red Army, thus breaking the backbone of the Red Army in one fell swoop.

On March 10, 1941, just as the Red Army's new offensive began, the German 51st Tank Battalion loaded 15 Panthers, two Panther tank repair vehicles, and another 81 No. 4 tank F2 into military columns and drove from the Grafenville base to distant Kiev.

The 51st Tank Battalion is also equipped with a large number of auxiliary vehicles, such as 3 Sd.kfz251 half-track armored transport vehicles, 40 motorcycles of various types, 63 passenger passenger vehicles, 11 transport trucks, 11 tractors from 1 to 6 tons, and 11 large tractors from 8 to 18 tons.

Among them, the half-track vehicles are mainly used by the battalion communication platoon, and the rest of the vehicles are used by the battalion headquarters and maintenance units. It is worth mentioning that the Panther tank repair vehicles used in this battle are all prototypes modified by MAN company in a short period of time with D-shaped sites, equipped with 40-ton winches and standing hoes, which can be used for tank traction. But what's more funny is that there are no cranes and cranes installed. As a result, it was not possible to complete the refitting of the engine and artillery of the tank in a field situation. And everybody knows it. The engine reliability of the early Panther was scum.

On 12 March, after a rapid march, the battalion arrived in Chernihiv, and after a short night's rest, the avant-garde units set out for the assembly of the campaign attack. By the evening of the same day, the battalion had largely arrived at the attack position, and the Greater German Infantry Regiment, which had arrived earlier than the battalion, began to distribute operational maps and assign combat missions to the battalion.

Due to the rush of preparation for the attack, the commander of the 51st Battalion and the tank crew were unable to conduct a detailed survey of the terrain of the combat area, and aerial reconnaissance photographs did not show the carefully camouflaged firing points of the Red Army along the offensive route. At the same time, communication with friendly forces was hampered by strict radio silence prior to the launch of the offensive. Only wired telephones and manual delivery of paper messages can be used. All tank crews were not allowed to debug on-board radio communications until after the campaign had begun.

According to the log of the combat staff officer of the 47th Panzer Corps that day, it can be seen: "The new Panther tank has not yet completed the tactical coordination exercise at the battalion level, nor has it conducted radio liaison training at the vehicle platoon level and above. ”

All this made it difficult for the battalion to exercise effective command in the early stages of the campaign. The Panthers and No. 4F tanks were in disorganized formation, and communications were sometimes good and bad, and the tankers were unable to receive orders from their superiors in a timely manner, and the troops were either slow to move or went in the wrong direction when changing the direction of attack, so they suffered many undeserved losses in front of the minefields and anti-tank positions carefully laid by the Red Army.

For example, Kriegel, mentioned earlier, recalled how he felt when the Great War came: "Everyone had great hopes for the first real combat of the new tank. The results of the shooting training gave us confidence in the excellent performance of the tank's main gun, but the repeated engine failures during driving training were also cause for concern......"

"Before the attack began, we had a lot of technical problems, but luckily there were factory engineers to guide the repairs. In addition to this, there are several things that have tightened our already highly tense nerves. On the last day of training before the war. Two Panthers suddenly caught fire in their engines while driving from the dumping site to the front line. In addition, it was found that several of the company's Panthers had nuts and bolts stuffed into the main fuel tanks, and pieces of steel were found in the gearboxes. There was also a car with a cardan shaft that was wrapped with steel wire. We hardly touch these places, and if they are faulty, they cannot be missed by factory inspection, and the only possibility is that someone deliberately sabotage. Immediately, the Soviet prisoners of war in the camp who had volunteered to serve in our army were immediately gathered and shot...... The officers even suspected that they might have somehow leaked the offensive plan to remove the Soviet command. The uneasy atmosphere began to spread, and everyone felt a heavy ...... in their hearts"

The Red Army did somehow become aware of the German offensive attempts, but by no means through prisoners of war, but through the KGB. Before the outbreak of the battle, the KGB judged the German offensive intentions through various clues, and even directly pointed out the focus of the German army's attack. However, the General Staff was a little overly optimistic, believing that a large-scale German offensive could not be so hasty, and that the Germans would not be able to launch this offensive until at least April.

Therefore, according to the instructions of the General Staff of the Red Army, although the main attacking troops of the siege of Kiev began to move to the defensive, the speed was not very fast, and a considerable part of the troops did not immediately start building fortifications, but moved to rest in place.

At 14:50 on March 13, 1942, the 47th and 48th Panzer Corps of the 1st and 2nd tank groups of the German army launched a local attack on the scale of a battalion in the direction of the Red Army, preparing to occupy a favorable starting point for the attack. After hours of fierce fighting, the Germans repelled the outposts of the Red Army. Then the Germans immediately went on the defensive and waited for the next day's general attack. The 51st Tank Battalion did not take part in the day's fighting, but quietly entered the starting point of the attack at night.

The unusual movements of the German army still did not arouse the vigilance of the Red Army, and although some troops began to speed up the construction of defensive lines, many more troops still believed that the Germans were only trying. Most of the Red Army generals, including the 1st Guards Mechanized Army, did not realize that danger was coming!

The next day, while the Red Army was still building defensive positions, the German general offensive began, and after twenty minutes of artillery cover, the 47th and 48th Panzer Corps launched parallel attack formations along the railway line, with 90 tanks of the 16th Panzer Division on the left, 86 tanks of the 11th Panzer Division on the right, and the Greater German Panzer Infantry Regiment in the center. During the offensive that day, the regiment threw a total of 180 tanks. Among them were 15 Panthers of the 51st Tank Battalion.

With the "cooperation" of the sappers and the Red Army. The Greater German Panzer Infantry Regiment made good progress, successfully passing through several layers of minefields laid by the Red Army. However, because the military maps drawn before the war were too rough and very different from the actual local topography, the regiment had to rest in place as a last resort, and had to send scouts to find roads through which the brigade of tanks and armored vehicles could pass.

At nine o'clock in the morning, after a refueling of the Großdeutsche regiment, the vehicles advanced in two directions in succession, after the regrouping of troops. For the first time, the Panther tank opened fire on the approaching Red Army tanks, destroying two T-34s. After that, the Germans finally came into contact with heavy artillery fire and dense minefields on the main defensive positions of the Red Army. The raid turned into a full-fledged assault!

The No. 4 tanks and Panthers of the 51st Tank Battalion formed an offensive position, trying to break a way out of the dense defensive positions of the Red Army, but after advancing three kilometers, the German tanks fell into the minefield of the Red Army and could not move, and the Red Army immediately took the opportunity to concentrate all kinds of artillery and opened heavy fire on the German troops.

Kriegel recalled: "...... To be honest, I had barely slept all night before the attack, and in the middle of the night I was awakened by the rumbling of cannon and the trembling of the wire bed. Several of his comrades were already wandering restlessly outside the house, while the recruits were smoking cigarettes in the leeward quarter, occasionally looking up at the distant sky, which was reddened by the heavy Russian fire. From time to time, the pitch-black clouds were torn apart by dazzling flashes of light. It's a moment we really want to be together. Even if you don't speak, as long as you can see the eyes of your partner. It seems to be able to calm down a little. It is rumored that the assault force has occupied the forward position in advance, and with their protection, at least it is safe to smoke in the garrison for the moment. Compared to our nervousness, the veterans were mostly sleeping soundly and still snoring! The company commanders and platoon commanders were still gathered in the wooden hut to study the combat map with flashlights, and they were indeed tired enough -- they had not had a good rest since they unloaded the truck. ”

"I envy the gunner Kurtz . Webb, he and I entered the Grafenville base at about the same time. However, he had previously worked in an armored reconnaissance battalion, and became a gunner because he had shot machine guns on armored vehicles. He was still a few months younger than me, and while he was practicing aiming and shooting, the loader and I were getting dirty because of a minor engine problem. That night, because I couldn't sleep, the loader and I wiped the shells of the whole car one by one. However, Webber was not idle, and reapplied the lubricating oil in the gun chamber, even though the gun locking mechanism was running smoothly, he still nervously adjusted non-stop. More than half of the crew's lives were in the hands of the gunner, and it was hoped that tomorrow he would be able to hit every shot. I can also help him a little bit in this regard, because the driving course also includes the subject of quickly adjusting the direction of the body, which can help the gunner to quickly catch the target. ”

"Early the next morning, we began to advance towards the positions of the Russians. Driving in the tank cluster, I began to get nervous. The hands were shaking, the throat was dry, at first there was no fight at all, the big guys were like a parade. Crane, the mechanic sitting to my right, had been debugging the radio since the start of the train, and the headphones kept coming out of the headphones with information that was clearly stringed. He received a few boxes of machine-gun ammunition yesterday, spent the afternoon loading the side-by-side machine gun chains, and then got into the tank with a pack full of MP-40 magazines. He was always muttering that if he could replace his MP-40 submachine gun with an MG-34 machine gun, maybe even a Yak plane in the sky would be able to take down a Yak plane in the sky. ”

"After two hours of dreary marching, at about eleven o'clock, Webb finally fired the first shot at the enemy's point of fire, and hit! However, what we did not expect was that the firepower of the Russians' defensive positions was so strong, and the battle was extremely difficult. The first attack of our company allowed the minefield to be blocked. The tank could only move forward meter by meter with the demining sappers, the engine had to stop as soon as it started, and it had to start immediately when it stopped, and the frequent stepping on the clutch and shifting gears made my feet hurt, and I didn't know how long the engine could last. ”

"There were mines everywhere, almost no road could be taken, and you had to endure endless enemy shelling, and everything around was shaking violently. I had a nosebleed in the face during my previous training sessions through undulating terrain, so I tried to keep my face at a certain distance from the periscope, as long as I could see through the narrow pane of glass......

"The Russians simply don't take the shells seriously, the heavy shelling will not stop for a moment, and the minefield markers that the sappers have just marked will soon be overturned. I couldn't see which way to go. This continued until noon. Finally, the company commander couldn't wait. The order for us to pass directly through the minefield, that is to say, to press a passage with the tracks of the tank! ”

"After driving for a while, I and the tank next to me were pressed into the mines. The chassis bounced off its feet, and the tank, which had lost grip on one side, slammed to the left, and the crew crashed to the side with the inertia of the hull. Presumably the left track was blown off. The other tanks in the company hurriedly fired suppressively, while the communicator and I jumped out of the tank and carefully checked the damage to the tank. Fortunately, it was not an anti-tank mine that was pressed, otherwise we would have died! ”

"All afternoon. The two wounded tanks were left there idle, and there was no way to repair them until the Russians stopped shelling. And our repair car did not keep up, I have to say, this is very regrettable. I could only watch in stare as my comrades rushed and froze, finally breaking through the Russians' positions. That's when we were able to reconnect the tracks, but unfortunately the first day of the battle was over! ”

Although the battle was over, it did not mean that the tank crews could rest, in fact it was still a sleepless night, Kriegel recalled: "After dinner I went to the maintenance company for a walk. I'm going to get the tank back. However, when they arrived at the maintenance company, they found that they were already busy. The 18-ton FAMOA large half-track and the 'Repair Leopard' were busy towing the damaged tank from the battlefield. The repair site is littered with broken parts removed from the tank. The new parts had not yet been shipped, so everyone had to remove the parts from the badly damaged tanks and piece together a few that could be used. The brother of the maintenance company said that the damaged tanks were estimated to not necessarily be able to be towed back until midnight. The main thing is that the Panther is too heavy, and it takes three tractors to tow it, and besides, it has to wait for the sappers to clear the mines from the battlefield. ”

"All 15 Panthers were damaged to varying degrees, mainly due to old engine and mechanical problems that could not be solved. In particular, those of us drivers are frustrated by the dry gearbox with the gear shifting action and the engine that overheats frequently. The maintenance company complained that due to the installation of the submarine device, the space in the engine compartment of the Panther was extremely narrow, and even the arms could not be stretched in, which caused great trouble to the maintenance. And then there's the parts that work too well – the rubber strips that are embedded around the hatch covers. They cover the tank so tightly that if they can't fire a few shots, the people in the tank will be smoked to death! ”

I have to say that the Black Panther who has just entered the battlefield is really a pile of problems, and compared with the No. 4 tank with reliable performance, the Black Panther is a rare and delicate big toy. During the first day's fighting, the Panthers destroyed 10 Red Army fire points, destroyed three T-34s and four T-26s. As for their own losses, in addition to the two Panthers that were forced to withdraw from the battle due to landmines, the remaining 13 Panthers also suffered mechanical failures of varying degrees, anyway, as of 7 o'clock in the evening, there were only 3 Panthers left that could drive.

I have to say that this data is too embarrassing, and it can be said that the vast majority of Black Panthers have stopped eating because of mechanical failures without being tested too harshly on the battlefield. Perhaps the best way for the Red Army to destroy the German tanks was to take a big step back, let the German tanks run, and then, and then the new German tanks would disappear by themselves.

Of course, this is just a joke. Because the Red Army was not without a killer weapon that could destroy the Panthers. The early T-34 and T-35 may not be a match for the Panthers, but the T-54 can still teach the Panthers how to behave.

It can only be said that the Germans were too lucky, the positions of the Red Army attacked by the Greater German Panzer Infantry Regiment, and there was no presence of the T-54. However, in the turn of the day, when the Red Army discovered that the German army was not making a small fight, but a large-scale fierce attack, it immediately began to adjust its deployment and deploy a powerful blocking force on the spearhead of the German army's attack.

T-888 T-54 was in action again, and old Hemstra could finally end his idle wait and finally wrestle with the elite German troops again. That night, a company of T-54 was transferred to the front of the Greater German Panzer Infantry Regiment. The old Hermstra was tasked with helping the infantry brothers to resist the German advance.

Leaving aside the upcoming tank battle that will go down in history, let's return to the perspective of the entire battlefield and see the clash between the top generals of the German and Red Army.

As mentioned earlier, the German army's campaign concept was to insert powerful armored mechanized units into the ribs of the Red Army and encircle and destroy the Red Army in the Kiev area in one fell swoop. In terms of campaign planning, this is a good move. Taking them by surprise at the end of the Red Army's canopy, it is entirely possible to regain the initiative on the battlefield.

However, in the implementation of specific campaigns, such a fight is problematic, for example, Guderian admitted: "Preliminary estimates show that the Red Army has at least four army groups in the region, plus the Red Army in the encirclement, the Red Army has at least six or seven army groups in this area." And how many troops does our army use for combat? Including the Hungarians and Romanians, there were only 8 army groups that survived. These forces are too few to encircle and destroy the enemy! ”

Guderian not only thought that the troops were too small, but also that the preparations for the campaign were too hasty, and all the preparations were inadequate. It's good to say that if you can catch the Red Army by surprise, but once the Red Army survives, it means that it will re-enter the stalemate, and at that time it will be quite unfavorable to the German army...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to the parasite Schistosomiasis, Ma Shen Bobo and Comrade Juventus!