Arc of Gunfire

Brigadier General Rokossov paid tribute to the fallen soldiers at the same time.

Twenty-five kilometers east of Bogdanovka, in the town of Glezno, the largest manor in the town, Mr. Boyer, has been occupied by the Plosans and turned into the headquarters of the First Armored Group.

At seven o'clock in the afternoon, General Evard von Steiermark, surrounded by a large group of entourage and staff officers, entered the hall of the main building of the manor.

Steiermark raised his head, glanced at the gorgeous chandelier on the top of the hall, and said: "This thing will fall down and hurt people when it is bombarded. Remove it."

The service staff of the headquarters immediately took action and found a ladder to remove the chandelier.

Styria's adjutant made an inviting gesture at the side: "General, the map room is set up over here."

"Let's go check out the house where we sleep at night. Anyway, you must not have updated the map information." The general waved his hand.

The adjutant immediately changed the direction of the guide: "This way, please, go up the stairs."

A few minutes later, the general entered the bedroom and frowned when he saw the gorgeous velvet bed: "What is this! Haidlin, you should know that I don't like this kind of thing! Throw this out, burn it, take it Here comes my camp bed!”

Adjutant Haidlin hurriedly gave instructions to the orderlies, and within a few minutes the velvet bed was dismantled and thrown out of the window.

General Styria's camp bed was placed in its original position.

The general supervised the completion of all this before nodding with satisfaction: "Hadlin, as a soldier, you must always be alert. Velvet is not suitable for soldiers."

At this time, the communications staff officer appeared with a message: "General, an urgent message from the 15th Armored Division."

"read."

The staff officer immediately read: "To the Armored Group Headquarters, our unit's attack in Loktov was blocked. The enemy has invested in the new tanks Special 34 mentioned by the headquarters, which has a huge armor advantage over our army.

"Our division now only has 53 Panzer III tanks and 4 Panzer IV tanks left in combat readiness. And because the battlefield is controlled by the enemy, abandoned tanks cannot be recovered and repaired.

"The enemy used mobility to surprise our headquarters. General Randolph died for his country! 15th Armored Division Headquarters, 1730 hours on July 7."

The general turned to look at the communications staff officer, his brows furrowed. He took two steps forward, took the telegram, read it carefully several times, and then said in shock: "Major General Randolph is dead?"

Chief of Staff: "This may be the highest-ranking general killed in action since our army began its offensive."

"I know." The general put the hand holding the telegram behind his back and began to pace in the room, "New tanks! The headquarters said there are only a hundred such tanks at most! Did the 15th Armored Division report how many new tanks it encountered? ?”

"No. The report they sent back is the one you have." The communications officer replied.

Chief of Staff: “I remember yesterday, on the 6th, the 15th Armored Division reported that after the failure of their exploratory attack, there were still 91 No. 3 vehicles and 27 No. 4 vehicles in combat readiness.

"With such huge losses all at once, the enemy may not have dispatched more than 50 new tanks."

General Styria paced while complaining: "The information given to us by the intelligence department of Army Group South said that Loktov only had two infantry brigades. As a result, the legion's heavy artillery appeared there, and a new type of full-format Tank troops, are these enemies growing from the ground?"

As soon as he finished speaking, another communications soldier entered the room with a message and handed it to the communications staff: "The decoding has just been completed."

Steiermark went directly up to grab the message and read it himself: "Message from Army Group South Headquarters: According to aerial reconnaissance, troops of an enemy infantry group are moving towards Loktov and are expected to arrive tomorrow night.

"The 1st Panzer Group should attempt to capture Loktov before the Army Group arrives."

After Styria finished reading, he handed the message to the chief of staff: "An infantry group did not mention tanks at all."

Chief of Staff: "Perhaps we can let the 15th Infantry Division try again tomorrow?"

"No, no," General Steiermark waved his hand, "these ten days of offensive operations have proved one thing, that is, our armored division has too few infantry. If the enemy has heavy artillery and fifty new tanks, Then they may have seven to eight infantry battalions. Our armored division only has four armored grenadier battalions, and one of them is a motorized reconnaissance battalion!”

After that, he walked around again and emphasized again: "The number of armored grenadiers should be increased! Ordinary infantry can't keep up with the armored troops at all, and they are always out of touch during the attack.

"The Ants are in chaos, so our armored forces can be overwhelming, but recently the Ants have become tenacious! We need infantry to conquer those well-defended towns!"

The chief model officer asked tentatively: "Then...we won't attack?"

"Go on the attack! When the enemy's infantry group arrives, it will be more difficult to capture Loktov. Let the 24th Panzer Grenadier Division join the attack. Since Major General Randolph died gloriously for his country, the offensive command will be handed over to the 24th Panzer Grenadier Division. Major General Franz of the Division.”

The chief of staff nodded: "It is very reasonable to let infantry officers command the battle to capture the city."

Steiermark nodded and added: "Also! Let the Air Force bomb the enemy's positions fiercely! Especially blow up those tanks! Since the enemy's new tanks are so difficult to deal with, let the Air Force deal with them!

"It's hard to hide 50 tanks!"

Steiermark waved his hand after speaking.

The communications staff officer who received the order was about to leave when the general asked again: "Who commanded Loktov's enemy forces?"

"Supposedly Brigadier General Alexey Konstantinovich Rokossov."

General Styria frowned: "The names of these Anters are really long, so who is this?"

"General White Horse," said the chief of staff.

General Steiermark frowned: "General White Horse? The man the emperor's trusted young officer used to shirk responsibility?"

Chief of Staff: "If I remember the name correctly, that's the one."

Steiermark frowned: "Randolph was beaten to death by this guy? Communications staff, call 15th to find out the details of Major General Randolph's death!"

————

Kalinovka, July 7, 1940 hours

"I saw it with my own eyes!"

Veteran Hans said to the others around the fire: "That new tank was painted white! He rushed across the battlefield and destroyed seven of our tanks before he rushed to the front of the headquarters!

“The headquarters guard tank platoon immediately stepped forward, and bang bang bang, the pure white new tanks blew them all up!

"That white figure looks like the devil has descended! That's the white devil summoned by Ant's army!"

Immediately, someone around the fire objected: "You're talking nonsense! I clearly heard that it was painted red! Just like the Red Baron!"

"That's right!" Veteran Hans was unhappy, "He's called General White Horse! How can it be red? I saw it with my own eyes. It's white!"

"Don't worry about red and white! Rush to the front and then what?" Some people only care about the results.

"What else can we do? The tank fired one shot! The major general is dead! Several staff officers also died!"

While the veteran was describing vividly, someone next to him called out to him: "Hans! The coffee you brew tastes terrible! What the hell is this!"

"Just be content!" Hans shouted back without hesitation.

At this moment, someone said mysteriously: "There is a rumor about General White Horse. It was said by my fellow engineer who is an engineer! In this village, General White Horse laid 20 booby traps, but only four engineers came out." , and one exploded.

"The remaining fifteen booby traps have not been found anywhere!"

These words made everyone around the fire tense.

The person who released the news was very proud: "So be careful and try to stay away from suspicious things, otherwise your life will be at risk!"

The Prosen soldiers looked at each other.

General White Horse can drive a tank and single-handedly kill 12 tanks and then kill the division commander General Randolph, then he can definitely lay 15 booby traps.

There is no logical relationship between the two, but the big-headed soldiers don't care about this. Anyway, they just think General White Horse can do this.

Everyone secretly swore that they would sleep outside the house later and would not dare to sleep on a bed or anything else.

————

At ten fifty at night, Wang Zhong rode a white horse out of the city and found the auto repair shop workers who were busy rescuing tanks to learn about the situation.

"Your Excellency General," he was still the old worker who saved the cannon, "you asked us to repair the tank, but we are repairing cars and are not familiar with tanks. So we called in the maintenance workers from the tractor station. They can at least connect the tracks. return."

As he spoke, the old worker introduced the worker next to Wang Zhong: "This is the foreman of the tractor station. Let him introduce the situation."

Wang Zhong nodded: "Please tell me."

"Your Excellency General! We have inspected several abandoned tanks. Three of them can move after being connected to the tracks, and the turrets are also normal.

"Among the remaining five vehicles, one has a damaged front guide wheel and needs to replace parts. The remaining four vehicles all had their turrets jammed by enemy armor-piercing projectiles.

"We are going to use pliers to pull out the armor-piercing projectile inserted between the turret and the hull.

"As for other malfunctions, we are not familiar with artillery, so we cannot check the condition of the artillery. We have only seen a few machine guns in reserve during training, and we cannot guarantee that they will be repaired."

Wang Zhong: "How many vehicles do you think you can salvage?"

"If you give us time, everything can be fixed. But will you give us time?"

Wang Zhong: "The time is tonight. I hope to restore these tanks to combat effectiveness before six or seven tomorrow."

"That will be more difficult," said the engineer at the tractor station. "We do not have special emergency repair equipment, nor are we professional logistics mechanics. I think we can only repair five vehicles by the time you specified."

Wang Zhong was speechless. It seemed that he couldn't force this anymore, so he changed the question: "Where are those Proson tanks?"

Dagong shook his head: "The structures of those tanks are hugely different from ours, and the width of the tracks is also different. There are no special tools for connecting the tracks.

"And it can be seen that the manufacturing process is very high and extremely precise. It is difficult to repair such a thing.

"but……"

Wang Zhong: "But?"

“However, we found that some enemy tanks actually had no problems, but after being penetrated, the number of tank members was severely reduced, so they were abandoned.

"We checked the tanks and at least three were still operational and could even fire artillery shells."

Wang Zhong: "There are only three cars..."

5+3, among other things, actually restored the combat effectiveness of 8 tanks - regardless of whether it was a T34 or not.

However, such a small number of tanks is simply not enough!

I don’t know how many enemy tanks we will face tomorrow!

The leader’s numbers will be updated one after another. See you in the evening.