Red Moscow

The German counterattack launched from the town this time met only weak resistance, and after paying less than ten casualties, they reoccupied the lost position.

The German commander who regained the position reported triumphantly to Major General Wahl through the vehicle-mounted radio on the armored vehicle: "Your Excellency, my subordinates and I have regained our lost position."

"Very good." After hearing this exciting news, Major General Val quickly reminded the other party: "Order the troops, hurry up and repair the fortifications, and prepare to smash the Russian attack."

Major General Val quickly reported to Hausser about recapturing the Zhennan position, and he finally said: "Your Excellency, in order to strengthen our defense here, I need a lot of cement to build fortifications."

"Major General Val, as you know, the damn spring in Russia has filled all our fortifications with water, and the cement in storage has been soaked into lumps. If you need cement, we have to go to the rear to transport it. "

"Your Excellency," Major General Wahl felt very uncomfortable seeing Hausser's reluctance to provide him with cement, and he specially emphasized: "The opposite of our division's defense zone is Sokov's troops. I don't know when they will, Attack us again, I only know that if there is no strong fortification, then the loss of Rockinsick is only a matter of time."

Seeing that Major General Wahl brought up the town of Rockinsick, Hausser could only choose to back down: "Well, Major General Wahl, since you said so, then I can provide you with a certain amount of cement. But you also know , We don’t have this kind of thing here, we have to transport it from the other side of the Dnieper River, so the time may be longer. Before the cement meets, I hope you can stop the Russian attack.”

Now that Hausser was willing to provide cement for his troops, Major General Wahl felt more at ease, and he quickly replied: "Don't worry, Your Excellency General. As long as my division headquarters is in the town of Rockinsick, the Russians will not be able to come forward." further."

When Major General Val said this, he never dreamed that the reason why his troops could easily regain the Zhennan position was just a trap dug for him by Sokov, just to stabilize his troops in this area , in order to execute the next step of the plan.

From the next day, Major General Val found his nightmare coming.

Originally, he had just arrived at the supply convoy in the morning, but he hadn’t seen any shadows in the afternoon. Major General Val couldn’t help feeling a little anxious. He quickly called Hausser and asked, “Your Excellency, I would like to ask, when will your supply convoy be ready?” arrive?"

"The convoy that provided you with supplies set off three and a half hours ago." Hausser couldn't help being taken aback when he heard Major General Val's question, and then asked, "Why, hasn't it been delivered yet?"

"No." Major General Val was also surprised. The convoy from Barvinkovo ​​would only take an hour and a half at most to reach Rockinsick Town. Why has there been no movement after such a long time? Woolen cloth? He tentatively asked: "Your Excellency, did any accident happen on the road?"

"Accident, what accident?" Hearing what Major General Wahl said, Hausser asked a little dissatisfied: "Do you think that the convoy that supplies you will be attacked by the Russian Air Force just like the convoy that delivered supplies to the Skeleton Division?" Bombing?"

However, as soon as Hausser finished speaking, his adjutant ran over and hurriedly reported: "Your Excellency, it's not good, something happened."

"What happened?" Hausser quickly covered the phone's receiver with his hand, and asked his adjutant dissatisfied: "Don't you know that as a German officer, keeping calm at any time is a basic quality? "

The adjutant who had been reprimanded by Hausser did not dare to refute, and could only stand in front of him with his hands down.

After reprimanding his adjutant, Hausser asked casually, "Tell me, what happened again, did you find the guerrillas nearby?"

"Your Excellency, the guerrillas have not been discovered." The adjutant replied in a panic: "The convoy transporting supplies to the Imperial Division was bombed by the Russians on the way, and the entire army has been wiped out."

"What, the convoy of materials transported to the Imperial Division was also bombed by the Russian Air Force?" Hausser exclaimed in surprise: "Damn, how is this possible, how could the Russians know when we will send to the Imperial Division?" What about the troops delivering supplies?"

"Your Excellency," the adjutant said cautiously, "As far as I know, the Russians have always had reconnaissance planes flying in the sky. He may have spotted the trace of the transport convoy, so he called the bombers to help."

Because of his excitement, Hausser didn't notice that his hand had been removed from the receiver, which meant that what he said could be heard clearly by Major General Wahl on the other end of the phone. But Hausser obviously didn't realize this, and he yelled at the adjutant, "Get in touch with Colonel Shimon of the Skeleton Division immediately and ask about the sky above their defense zone. It seems that the Russian reconnaissance plane is hovering."

After sending the adjutant away, Hausser realized that what he just said might have been heard by Major General Val, and he said into the microphone with some embarrassment: "Major General Val, don't worry, we will transport supplies for you again soon. .”

After hanging up the phone, Hausser thought more and more that something was wrong, why recently his transportation line was always bombed by Russian planes, and he lost more than a hundred trucks. Although these lost trucks can be replenished in the shortest possible time, before the arrival of new trucks, the supply work to the Skeleton Division and Imperial Division will be seriously affected.

Hausser hastily called Manstein's headquarters and reported the situation here to Manstein. After listening to Hausser's report, Manstein pondered for a long time, and finally said: "General Hausser, I think you may have fallen into the trap of the Russians. Look at the positions of the Skeleton Division and the Imperial Division. Once their supplies were cut off due to the constant bombing by the Russians, even if they wanted to retreat, they couldn’t do so.”

"Why can't we withdraw?"

"You idiot, a natural idiot." Seeing that Hausser didn't understand what he meant, Manstein couldn't help but cursed angrily: "If the Russians keep airstrikes on your transportation lines, then the two you deployed at the front Division, you will soon face annihilation of the entire army. Even if you find that something is wrong, if you want to retreat, you may not be able to get rid of the Russians in front of you. You know, what you are facing is Sokov, which gives me a headache .”

Hearing what Manstein said, Hausser was immediately shocked into a cold sweat. You must know that he was commanding the three most elite SS divisions in the German army. If he was really wiped out by the Soviet army, then what awaited him would be military court. He asked Manstein bitterly: "Your Excellency, Marshal, what should we do?"

"What should I do? What else can I do under the current circumstances?" Manstein growled, "We can only continue to transport supplies to the Skeleton Division and the Imperial Division. In order to ensure that our communication lines are smooth, I will dispatch the Air Force to conduct air Cover and destroy the Russian air force."

Sokov had long expected that he would frequently dispatch the air force to attack the German army's communication lines, and the enemy would dispatch fighter jets to deal with his air force. So he gave an order to Colonel Nemtsevich, the division commander of the 205th Fighter Aviation Division, asking him to ensure that the two fighter squadrons were on standby at any time.

On the second day after he gave the order, the bomber formation attacking the Skeleton Division's transportation line was attacked by two German fighter jets. The German pilots were skilled and experienced in combat. It took only two minutes to shoot down a Soviet bomber and damage one. Seeing that they could not get rid of the enemy for the time being, the remaining two planes did not dare to retreat towards the airport, so as not to lead the enemy to the field airport.

Fortunately, after Sokov learned of this situation, he immediately ordered the two fighter squadrons that had been at the airport to take off and rush to meet the enemy planes. After a fierce battle, the Soviet army successfully shot down two German fighter jets after losing another fighter plane and a bomber plane.

In this way, in the following days. The air battles on the transportation line were going on almost every day. Although the Soviet pilots shot down many enemies, they still paid a high price.

When Sokov just sent bombers to harass the German transportation line, Rokossovsky in the rear was very happy to hear the results of the battle every day, but he soon discovered that the situation had changed. Not only the fuel and ammunition consumption of the aircraft soared, but also the loss of pilots and aircraft was not small.

"Major General Sokov," Rokossovsky asked Sokov in a stern tone after dialing the Sixth Army Headquarters: "Please explain to me, what is going on? Why is this happening?" You lost so many planes and pilots in a while?"

"Report to Comrade Commander of the Front Army." Seeing that the situation was more serious than he had expected, Sokov couldn't help but replied with a wry smile: "The Germans may have sensed my plan and knew that I planned to attack the transportation line to let the border with us The Imperial Division and Skeleton Division fell into a place where they ran out of ammunition and food, so a large number of fighter jets were dispatched to ensure their transportation safety. In order to destroy the enemy fighter jets, our air force inevitably suffered some casualties."

"Major General Sokov," Rokossovsky knew that Sokov was right, but when he thought of the casualties of the pilots, he became furious: "You know, we train a pilot, How difficult it is. But in order to implement your plan, you lost more than 20 excellent pilots in just one week, which caused the combat effectiveness of the aviation division of your group army to decline. I want to ask you , when do you plan to stop such air strikes?"

"Comrade Commander of the Front Army," Sokov heard Rokossovsky's off-screen voice, knowing that he wanted to give up such a tactic of using the air force to block the enemy's communication lines, he hurriedly said loudly: "We have a good command of the enemy's transportation. The line attack has been going on for almost ten days, and the officers and soldiers of the Skeleton Division and the Imperial Division are now facing a situation of food shortage. As long as they persist for another two days, they will basically lose their combat effectiveness, and we will be able to launch a full-scale attack on them by then. "

"If you went on the offensive, what do you think you could achieve?" Rokossovsky asked.

"Report to Comrade Front Army Commander," Sokov said after hearing Rokossovsky's question, gritted his molars after a moment of contemplation: "If you can provide us with support, replenish the aircraft and aircraft we have lost recently. Pilot, I can assure you that the attack we launch in three days' time will be able to seriously damage or even wipe out these two SS divisions."

Originally, Rokossovsky was going to tell Sokov to give up, but when he heard that he was sure to severely injure or even wipe out the Skeleton Division and the Imperial Division, his eyes lit up, and he hurriedly asked: "What you said is true ?"

"Of course it is true?" Sokov replied bravely: "If you can add enough pilots and planes for me, then we are sure that the Germans will not get any air force before they are attacked by our army." Supplement. According to what I know, the enemy of the Imperial Division consumed a lot of ammunition when they consolidated the defense line of Rockinsick Town, and they were attacked continuously by us afterwards, and they never received any supplements. If I chose Rockinsick Town as the main line of defense for the attack, and after destroying the Imperial Division, I went back to the rear of the Skeleton Division to cut off their retreat, and then there would be no big problem in annihilating the enemy."

After listening to Sokov's plan, Rokossovsky stared at the map on the wall for a while, and then said: "Well, Major General Sokov, since you said so, then I choose to believe you. I We will discuss with the commander of the Air Force Group and ask him to dispatch several fighter squadrons to the Red Army Village."

Sokov put down the phone, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hands, and said to Vitkov and Lunev on the side: "Comrade Military Commissar, Comrade Chief of Staff, the commander of the front army agreed to send us a few more fighter squadrons. I With these fighter squadrons, the odds of destroying the enemy's air force will increase."

However, Vitkov's attention was obviously not on the air supremacy over the transportation line. He asked in surprise: "Comrade Commander, do you really plan to launch an attack on the German army in Rockinsick in three days' time?" ?"

"I not only want to attack the Imperial Division, but also the Skeleton Division." Sokov pointed to the map and said to the two: "When the two divisions of the German army are attacked by us at the same time, they will not be able to interact with each other." Provide support. Even if the troops in Balvenkovo ​​wanted to come to the rescue, they were one step too late, and could only watch their troops be annihilated by us."

"Comrade Commander," Witkov waited for Sokov to finish speaking, and quickly asked him for instructions: "Should we call the division commanders together for a meeting to let them understand the attack plan?"