81_81266 "Boom!" The cannon on the turret of the tank roared again, sprayed with a very ugly-looking spring camouflage, the German Tiger tank even had some unclear numbers on the turret, but if someone leaned on the closer inspection, they could still see the number 113.

This tank used to be the number one tank ace of the German army, and the number of enemy tanks destroyed was almost enough to equip a tank reinforced battalion, and the commander of this tank was a ruthless killer, who was holding a telescope at this moment to confirm his gun commander's record.

"About 910 meters! A KV-1 heavy tank hits! Completely destroys the target!" he shouted, "Armor-piercing shells, load." Alice...... Watch out for the infantry in front! they're firing at me!"

Just as he was directing the tank to continue firing, a bullet hit the canopy of the tank behind him, splashing a spark. Soviet troops in front were firing in his direction, and some Soviet soldiers were taking aim with their guns raised.

"I'm changing the bullets! Wait!" Alice pressed the chain into the chamber of the gun, pulled the bolt with a bang, and then reaimed at the Soviet infantry in front: "Okay! Give it to me right ahead!" As she spoke, she pulled off the machine gun, and the bullets rained down, knocking the Soviet infantry more than two hundred meters away to the ground.

Then Alice began to press the machine gun and swing horizontally, and the dense G42 machine gun bullets swept into a fan, and dozens of Soviet soldiers in this fan were knocked over to the ground, and the opponent's fire was immediately suppressed.

Wren bared his head and continued to observe the movements of the Soviet troops in the distance, these outflanks of the Soviet Red Army had obviously failed, about 20 Soviet tanks in three directions were paralyzed in smoke on the edge of the woods and on the road, and not a single Soviet tank could cross the road and drive off the road. Of course, the Soviet infantry did cross the road, but they were overwhelmed by the machine guns of several tanks, and they had already lost almost 200 men.

This small asphalt road, known to the Germans as Route 9, became a graveyard for Soviet tanks, and the wreckage of these Soviet tanks smoked and burned, making it look like hell. If you add to this the corpses of the Soviet Red Army infantry lying on the ground, the Soviet army has already paid a heavy price for advancing so many kilometers.

"Marcus! Smoke open, the wings retreat first. Bowman! continued to reverse, and after getting out of the fight, he steered!115 and 114 went first. Wren commanded the battle as he estimated the time. He felt that with the experience of the last time, this time the Soviet bombardment should have come earlier, so he decisively gave the order to retreat.

Marcus was not joking this time, the smoke generator on his tank immediately spewed out thick white smoke, and it only took a dozen seconds to drown his tank in smoke, and several German tanks began their retreat again, but after two consecutive snipers, they got the record of about 45 enemy tanks belonging to their company.

"Boom!" Sure enough, not long after their tanks began to retreat, the first shells from Soviet artillery fell on the positions of the original German tanks, only a few dozen meters away from the last tank No. 111 that began to retreat. However, the Soviet artillery apparently did not carry out extended fire, and the shells fell densely near the German ambush position.

"Wren, you're feeling pretty good right now. The commander of tank No. 114 looked at the enemy shells that fell one after another at a distance of 100 meters behind him, and couldn't help but sigh: "I admire you more and more." ”

"So I didn't even do the company commander, and I came to be his subordinate. Marcus was happy, as if the other party was complimenting him.

"Bowman. Check the remaining oil. Ignoring everyone's banter and flattery, Wren suddenly spoke on the shaking tank.

"There's still half a way. Soon, the driver Bowman replied.

"All turn around, let's fight back!" Wren smiled, pressed the throat intercom and said, "See that grove, go there and rest in place for fifteen minutes, fill the tank with the spare barrel of oil, and then start counterattacking." ”

"I knew it! It's absolutely exciting to follow you!" Marcus was afraid that there would be less to do, so he laughed loudly on the side: "Fight back! Fight back! Fight that group of bitches Soviets!"

Soon, with the roar of the engines, the five German Tiger tanks returned to the vicinity of the road, where they collided with the remnants of the 1st Guards Tank Regiment of the Soviet Union, which was resting.

When the sleepy Soviet soldiers watched in horror as five German tanks rushed out of the rice fields over the fence and the low wall, and entered the Soviet tank unit where they had just stopped to rest, they finally knew how naïve they were in the eyes of the German tankers.

Without sending scouts and reconnaissance posts, the Soviet attacking troops did not expect the German tanks to go and return, most of the Soviet tankers left the tanks to go to the toilet and cook, this unit did not even arrange a tank in charge of guarding, and everyone, including the regiment commander, was defenseless.

Thus began a massacre of German tanks, and by the time Wren received a radio call ordering him to withdraw from the battlefield and hand over the front to the reinforced German grenadiers, he and his five tanks had returned to the vicinity of the road, destroying 29 Soviet tanks.

In this battle, known as the Battle of Route 9, five German Tiger tanks destroyed 74 tanks of the Soviet attacking force using the most classic tactical arrangement, and the average number of tanks destroyed by the entire 1st Company was almost 15 tanks.

In this battle, the German armored forces first set up an ambush in the wooded area, and after the successful ambush of the Soviet armored forces, they quickly retreated, and once again set up an ambush near Route 9, while the Soviet Red Army once again crashed into the German ambush position because of its lack of battlefield experience, and lost a large number of troops.

Then Wren retreated decisively, and then unexpectedly led the only 5 Tiger tanks to make a bold counterattack, so that the Soviet troops who thought that the Germans were retreating and ambushing themselves again were caught off guard, and they were repelled by the German armored forces that had been in a disadvantaged state, not to mention the heavy losses, and also gave up the road and nearby areas that had been occupied.

It can be clearly seen from this battle that the experience gap between the 502 heavy tank destroyer battalion and the 1st Soviet Guards Tank Regiment is still very huge, although the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses in the battle, they still did not rout, and they showed a very high determination to fight, but in front of the experienced German army, it was just a vain increase in casualties.

The battle was reported to the high command of the front by the elite Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army, and Khrushchev was excited to finally find the location of the elite German armored units. He ordered two nearby units, the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 3rd Tank Army, to pour into the rear of the German positions in search of the drivers of the main German forces for a decisive battle.

On the evening of April 6, after a day of fierce fighting, there was still no calm in the position, and the Soviet troops took advantage of the fact that the German air force could not be dispatched at night, and launched an offensive again*, and they poured into the broken German positions in the hundreds, hoping to expand these breakthroughs, but found that the German troops on both flanks seemed to have been prepared, and after several hours of fighting, the Soviet Red Army did not even expand the breakthrough by the slightest.

And at this moment, on the operational map of the Soviet front command, the defensive positions of the German army presented in front of Khrushchev's eyes are becoming more and more regular and more terrifying. The entire preset defensive position began to appear in a regular shape similar to the battlements of the city wall, and Khrushchev realized that the German position he had broken through in the early stage may have been deliberately ceded to him by the opponent.

"How could their defensive positions be of this shape?" Khrushchev muttered to himself, looking at the map.

"Commissar...... These forces that we enter the opposing position, if the other side begins to encircle from the two flanks. A general admonished.

"This ......" Khrushchev clenched his fists, as if he was struggling inwardly, he did not want to give up the positions he had already taken, and he did not want to admit that his attack would be in vain.

But after all, he was still afraid, he was afraid that his wrong decision would cause the main force of the Red Army to suffer fatal losses, you must know that the troops in his hands are elite troops that the Soviet Union has painstakingly accumulated for many years, and if he loses at the front, he will probably be eaten alive by Stalin when he returns to Moscow.

So, Khrushchev sent a telegram to Stalin overnight, hoping that Stalin would give him, a half-military commander, an idea, and also shirk part of the responsibility, so that when problems arise in the future, he would not let himself be too passive.

Of course, Khrushchev also gave the order that in the early hours of tomorrow morning, the troops would begin to retreat, and build fortifications on both flanks of the existing occupied areas to ensure that his troops would not be annihilated by the German encirclement. And in the second half of the night, Khrushchev decided to keep the offensive going on and see what if some progress could be made to prove that the shape of this strange defensive position was in fact just a coincidence?

So, in the dark of the night, the Soviet soldiers and front-line commanders were waiting for the early hours of the morning, because as soon as the morning came, they could make a limited retreat to make their dangerous flanks safer, and the German troops were also waiting for the dawn, because according to the pre-planned counterattack plan, the dawn of dawn was the clarion call for them to counterattack the invaders.

On the long night of April 6th, everyone was waiting for the first rays of dawn in the morning, waiting for the moment to decide their fate