Red Moscow

Sokov's troops took Donetsk and the Red Army village by surprise, posing a threat to the German rear. As a result, the enemy's attack on the Kharkov-Belgorod line weakened, and the Soviet army, which was being beaten into a panic, gained a valuable respite.

Although Golikov's Voronezh Front had a large number of troops, it was too scattered, so when the Kharkov-Belgorod line was attacked, he could not mobilize reserves for reinforcements. As the enemy's offensive weakened, he was able to move troops from areas where the fighting was not intense to support areas where the situation was critical.

On Stalin's order, Antonov called Golikov: "General Golikov, Comrade Stalin asked me to ask you, with your current strength, can you hold the existing defensive position?"

"Comrade Antonov," Golikov and Antonov were good friends before the war, so they don't have to have any scruples when talking: "If it is two days, if you ask this question, I will definitely tell you, We can't hold it. But now that Sokov's troops have established a firm foothold on the Donetsk-Red Army Village line, seriously threatening the rear of the German army, so our chances of holding the existing lot are much greater .”

"Is it possible to launch a counterattack?" Antonov asked tentatively: "If your troops can join forces with Sokov's troops, then the situation on the entire battlefield will become favorable to us again, and the enemy will be driven to the enemy again. On the other side of the Dnieper River, it is entirely possible."

"Comrade Antonov, you should understand that the reason why our situation has become so bad is entirely because our troops have moved away from the logistics supply base." Golikov explained to Antonov: "If there is no If there is enough fuel and ammunition, then our tanks and artillery will become a pile of scrap metal. When the enemy rushes over, all we can do is to blow up these technical equipment and prevent them from falling into the hands of the Germans. "

"General Golikov, you should know that now that the German army has occupied Kursk, if we want to supply you from Moscow, we need to go around a big circle." Antonov said with a wry smile: "The distance of this circle is not good. It’s close, and the roads and bridges have been damaged to varying degrees. The supplies shipped from Moscow will take three days at the fastest to arrive. If you can take Kursk and open up this line of communication, our transportation time , it can be shortened from the original three days to 28 hours."

"If Sokov's troops are said to be stationed near Kursk, I believe he is capable of capturing Kursk in a short period of time. After all, he commanded troops to capture Kursk last year." Golikov He said helplessly on the phone: "It's a pity that his troops are currently in Donetsk—the Red Army Village, which is too far away from us. With our current strength, it is impossible to liberate Kursk."

"That's such a pity." Antonov said to Golikov before hanging up the phone: "General Golikov, I think it is necessary to remind you that Major General Sokov's troops do not have our troops. As powerful as imagined, they may be able to hold the Germans for a week or two, but to completely crush the enemy, it is still up to you."

"Wait a minute, Comrade Antonov." Golikov noticed that Antonov was about to hang up the phone, and hurriedly asked, "I want to ask, what happened to General Vatutin's Southwest Front Army?"

"What else can it do?" Antonov said with a wry smile, "His troops were defeated by the Germans. Although they retreated to a safe area and re-accommodated the troops, it will not be possible to restore their combat effectiveness in a short time."

"So, they won't be able to fight for at least a few months?" Golikov asked tentatively.

"Yes, General Golikov." After Antonov replied in an affirmative tone, he said politely: "Good luck!" Before Golikov could say anything, he hung up the phone .

"Chief of Staff," as soon as Golikov put down the phone, he called the Chief of Staff, Major General Korzenevich, and asked, "How many reserves do we have now?"

"Very little, Comrade Commander." Korzenevich replied, "there are only two divisions in the reserve that can be used today, and they are greatly weakened after fierce fighting. This force is used in individual areas. It is barely enough for defense. But if you want to use it for offense, it is far from enough."

Seeing that the chief of staff had guessed his thoughts, Golikov couldn't help but smiled wryly and said, "The current situation is really a headache. If we carry out simple defense, we can certainly block the enemy's attack. But if the enemy destroys Sokov's After the troops are released, we will re-focus our forces on our defensive areas, and the situation will not be optimistic about whether we can stop them at that time."

"A few days ago, when we were in danger, Sokov's troops supported us in time, forcing the attacking imperial division to withdraw from the battle." Khrushchev interjected: "Now we are launching in the direction of Donetsk. The attacking enemy not only has the Imperial Division, but also the Banner Guard Division and the Skeleton Division have also transferred their main force. I am worried that Sokov's troops will not be able to stop the crazy attack of these three SS divisions."

"But, what can we do, Comrade Khrushchev." Hearing what Khrushchev said, Golikov could only explain with a wry smile: "You just heard from the chief of staff that now we have There are only two greatly weakened infantry divisions, which may be barely enough for defense; but they are far from enough for offense."

"Could it be that we just watched Sokov's troops being wiped out by the enemy." Khrushchev said displeasedly, "Will they attack us again after they are free?"

Seeing that Khrushchev was angry, Golikov quickly explained: "Comrade Military Commissar, I think we should send a telegram to Sokov, and then decide whether to send reinforcements after we understand the real situation in his place."

"Okay," Khrushchev nodded at Golikov's proposal, "send a telegram to Sokov immediately and ask him how the situation is going there."

...

The city was being bombed by the Germans when Sokov received the telegram from Golikov. Sokov was in the basement, dictating a message to the radio operator: "...the Red Army village is being brutally bombed by the Luftwaffe. I hope the Front Army Command can send planes to support us..."

When the radio operator sent the telegram, Chief of Staff Vitkov handed him Golikov's telegram: "Comrade Commander, this is a telegram from General Golikov, Commander of the Voronezh Front."

After Sokov read the telegram, a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. He said to Vitkov: "Comrade Chief of Staff, the reason why General Golikov sent this telegram is that the current situation makes him a little uncertain. Hold on, once the enemy has wiped out us, we will turn around and deal with them. Send troops over to reinforce them, their supplies are seriously insufficient, I am afraid that the reinforcements will be severely injured or wiped out by the enemy if they run out of ammunition and food before they can go halfway."

"Then how should we reply to this telegram?" Witkov asked Sokov for instructions: "We can't let them stand still?"

"Chief of staff, you call General Golikov back." Sokov waited for Witkov to finish speaking, and immediately expressed his opinion: "Let them take advantage of the favorable opportunity when the German army's offensive weakened, hurry up to repair the fortifications, and improve the defense. system to counter a possible new attack by the German army."

"Then what about our place?" Witkov said in surprise, "Don't we really need the help of friendly troops?"

"We need an attack from our friendly forces, but it doesn't mean we need them to rush over." Sokov explained to Witkov: "As long as they can hold their existing positions and launch a counterattack or two from time to time, they are the most harmful to us. support."

With the arrival of the fighter group sent by Rokossovsky, the German bombers who were bombing the city saw that the situation was not good, and quickly turned around and retreated westward. Wherever the Soviet fighter planes were willing to let them go, they also followed closely behind.

As soon as the bombing was over, Sokov came from the basement to the smoky city streets. There was chaos on the street. Among the crowd running back and forth, there were both Sokov's subordinates and residents of the city. At this moment, they were running around like chickens without their heads. Where there were many people, they would instinctively run.

Sokov hurried to the headquarters of the 41st Guards Division and asked Sidolin who had just finished the phone call: "How is the situation at the front?"

"The 125th Regiment has just repelled an attack by the Germans and is hurrying to clean up the battlefield."

"What about the casualties of the troops?"

"There is no statistics yet." Sidolin replied, "But the number of casualties is about one-third."

Knowing that the casualties of the 125th Regiment had actually reached one-third, Sokov couldn't help but feel a little bit in his heart. Unexpectedly, in just a few hours, the 125th Regiment lost one-third of its troops. With this style of play, within two days, this army will be wiped out. He thought to himself: fighting outside the city, without decent fortifications, this battle is really impossible to fight.

"Comrade Commander," Sidolin asked Sokov for instructions, "do you want to order Colonel Bely's tank brigade to attack?"

"I think it's okay." The strategy that Sokov and Bely specified at the beginning was that when the large German troops attacked the position of the 125th Regiment, Bely's tank brigade rushed out from the side unexpectedly and wiped out the enemy's tanks and armored vehicles. and infantry. But after the battle started, because there were always German planes hovering in the sky, Sokov worried that sending troops as surprise troops to attack at this moment might kill the German pilots. So always kept silent. Now that the enemy's planes have been driven away, even if the entire tank brigade attacks, they probably don't have to worry about being attacked by air. "When the enemy attacks again, order Colonel Bely to attack from the flank and teach these bandits a lesson."

The German army, which had suffered from the bazooka, appeared very cautious when it launched an attack again. Behind each tank, there were two armored vehicles passing by. The machine gunner on the armored vehicle kept adjusting the direction of the muzzle, preparing to shoot and kill the target without hesitation once he found the target.

This kind of tactics of the German army can restrain the anti-tank fighters of the Soviet army. After all, when those soldiers want to fire rockets, they must stand up from their hiding places and shoot in an upright or half-squatting manner. Usually they are the preferred target of enemy machine gunners in the process of shooting

After losing several anti-tank teams, Ershakov realized the insidiousness of the German tactics. In order to avoid unnecessary sacrifices by more soldiers, he adjusted his tactics. The head-on machine gunner. If the machine gunner on the armored vehicle is killed, the German tanks will lose their cover, which is beneficial for the soldiers to use the rocket launcher to destroy the enemy's target within the range.

Seeing that their offensive tactics had failed, the Germans immediately stopped their offensive, withdrew their troops, and readjusted. Two hours later, they launched a new attack again. This time, the troops put into battle consisted of twelve tanks and thirty armored vehicles. They lined up in four rows at a time, and rushed towards the Soviet positions.

When the enemy was less than 500 meters away from the trench, a green flare rose into the sky. The tank brigade, which had been ready to go for a long time, immediately launched its tanks and roared towards the side of the German attacking troops.

The field of vision in the tank is very narrow. The reason why they dare to attack the Soviet positions is entirely because there are armored vehicles full of soldiers behind them. The machine guns on the armored vehicles and the soldiers in the vehicles can easily destroy the Russian anti-tank hand.

But what the Germans didn't expect was that dozens of Soviet tanks piled up with snow rushed towards the German attacking troops from the side. Although there was a Tiger tank among them, its side armor could not withstand the attack of the Soviet 85mm tank gun, and it was hit and caught fire one after another, and it stopped on the wasteland and burned blazingly.

When the soldiers on the armored vehicles saw the Soviet tanks rushing from the side, they either fired with machine guns, or picked out the vehicles, found a bullet crater to hide, and shot at the Soviet tanks rushing over.

Although the bullets fired by different weapons jingled on the armor plate, it did not slow down the advancing speed of the Soviet tanks at all. Some tank soldiers stopped one or two hundred meters away from the German armored vehicles and bombarded them with tank guns. At such close range, the German armored vehicles were a ready target for the tank crew.

Some armored vehicles were directly blasted into a ball of fire, and the soldiers who did not have time to jump out of the vehicle were either killed on the spot or burned to death. Some armored vehicles saw that the situation was not good, and when they were about to turn around and flee, they were knocked over by the tanks driving over, and the soldiers in the vehicles were either killed or injured.

The tanks following behind saw that their comrades had actually adopted a collision method to deal with the armored vehicles of the German army. They immediately followed suit and drove the tanks directly to overturn the armored vehicles, and shot the jumping soldiers with machine guns. Clears enemies within sight.