The German Fifth Heavy Division was equipped with forty-five 152 mm caliber howitzers, and Germany did not solve the problem of the stability of large-caliber self-propelled guns, when the howitzer was placed on the hull, firing the gun would affect the stability of the hull, so these forty-five 152 mm howitzers were all towed guns, and the Germans had to work hard to send these forty-five howitzers to the battlefield.

Forty-five artillery pieces were concentrated and fired in the direction of the Chinese army, and their targets were the road and railway between the Chinese military camp and St. Petersburg.

Although the caliber of the German artillery is large, it has not been able to cause damage to the roads and railways, because its rate of fire is not fast, not that the German training level is not high, but that Germany cannot smelt the high-temperature resistant steel used in Chinese artillery, if the rate of fire is too fast, the barrel will be deformed due to high temperature, this deformation is usually a few millimeters, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, but for a type of long-range artillery with a range of more than 30 kilometers, the deformation of a few millimeters of the barrel is enough to make the shell accurate. As a result, the German artillery shells had a rate of fire of only one fire every three minutes.

However, the German army's Su zhì is still extremely high, their shells are quite accurate, one of them hit the "Dunkenitz" town railway station, the explosion directly razed the command and dispatch room of the small station to the ground, China's logistics support system is a system, in this system, any node damage will affect the operation of the entire system, this is the inherent defect of systematic operations, no matter how high the technical level can not be overcome.

The small town of Dunkenitz is the last transit point from St. Petersburg to the front line, and the shells blowing up the command and dispatch room of the small station are equivalent to cutting the main artery from the front line to the rear!

The General Logistics Department of the First Army immediately told Yuan Zhen, the commander of the First Army, the commander of the First Army, and Yuan Zhen was annoyed at first when he heard the news, because it had been more than half an hour since the start of the war, and there was no result except for the two radars cleared by the first two J-25s, and one bomb was lost!

Yuan Zhen was shocked after being annoyed, he didn't expect the Germans to put artillery behind the battle line, you must know that such a deployment is very dangerous for the artillery troops, because the range of the artillery is only a few tens of kilometers, for the TK-96 tank, this is ten minutes away, and the artillery troops may not even have time to retreat.

Yuan Zhen slapped the table heavily, and said to the correspondent on the side: "Give me the artillery regiment!" ”

The communication line was quickly connected, and Yuan Zhen ordered the commander of the artillery regiment in a loud voice: "Use the artillery detection radar to find the German artillery position and bombard it for me!" ”

The commander of the artillery regiment did not simply agree, but said: "Report to the commander, our artillery detection radar has been turned on, and the position of the German artillery positions has also been detected, but the German artillery is very scattered, and it is difficult to hit with howitzers." ”

Yuan Zhen is well versed in the use of artillery and knows that the role of long-range artillery is more "surface suppression" than "point strike", and it is indeed unrealistic to let self-propelled howitzers strike point by point.

Yuan Zhen thought for a moment and said to the commander of the artillery regiment: "Send the German artillery positions you have detected to the St. Petersburg Air Force airfield, and let the Air Force deal with them." ”

The commander of the artillery regiment immediately ordered his subordinates to transmit location information, and Yuan Zhen picked up the phone that went directly to the St. Petersburg Air Base, and said to the 3rd Air Division: "Immediately dispatch a bomber group to bomb the German artillery, remember, carry cluster bombs!" ”

The 3rd Air Division was holding its breath at the frustration of the attack, and this time it was an opportunity to vent, and this time they dispatched 72 bombers, which were almost the entire strength of the 3rd Air Division at the St. Petersburg field airfield.

Seventy-two bombers carrying cluster bombs flew towards the German artillery positions, and the German antiaircraft artillery units were all near the transport lines, and there were very few antiaircraft artillery units near the artillery positions, so the bombers flew all the way unimpeded to the German artillery positions and dropped cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs fell over German artillery positions, and at an altitude of about 1,000 meters above the ground, the mother bomb opened, fired bullets, scattered bullets, and exploded on the ground.

The German artillery positions were in a large open space between the forests, and as soon as the forest was ignited, thick smoke and heat waves rushed to the artillerymen, and the artillerymen instantly turned into firefighters, how could they still open fire?

Some cluster bomb bullets directly hit the German artillery, although the explosive power of the bullet is not enough to directly blow up the artillery, but the explosion of some parts is enough to make the artillery incapacitated, and the fire and direct hits, the German artillery units gradually mute fire.

It was 3 a.m. on 3 April, an hour had passed since the start of the war, and the ground forces of the two sides had not yet met.

Yuan Zhen was very happy when he heard the artillery regiment's report that "there are no enemy shells coming" in the command room, and he was about to let his artillery bombard the German front-line fortifications, when the chief of staff came over and said: "Report to the army commander, an urgent message has been sent from the front." ”

As the commander-in-chief of the two divisions, Yuan Zhen received a lot of information, circulars, and instructions from his superiors, and he couldn't read them until the end of the war. The Chief of Staff was able to send a piece of information at this time, and it was obvious that this information was extremely important!

Yuan Zhen took the telegram and asked, "Where did the information come from?" ”

The chief of staff said: "It was sent by our agents behind enemy lines. ”

Yuan Zhen knew that this kind of information was the most valuable, so he immediately put the telegram in front of him, only to see that it was written that the antiaircraft artillery units located in the No. 6, No. 9, and No. 13 areas were moving to the No. 24 area.

Area No. 24 is where the artillery positions are located, and the anti-aircraft artillery units are transferred here, obviously to protect the ground artillery units, and if the anti-aircraft artillery units in the No. 6, No. 9, and No. 13 areas are transferred, then the material transfer stations and railway dispatching stations in these areas will not be exposed?

Yuan Zhen walked to the edge of the map in a few steps, looked carefully at these areas on the map, and was pleasantly surprised to find that if a bomber group was dispatched to attack this area, the German army would lose 40% of its logistics and supply capacity!

However, Yuan Zhen did not give an order immediately, because he did not dare to guarantee the accuracy of this information, and intelligence work was very difficult, after all, the agents behind enemy lines were not the commander-in-chief of the enemy army, and could not accurately understand the dynamics of the enemy army.