Steel Soviet Union

Waking up every morning is the beginning of a new day, and this is true for everyone, but the details are slightly different for some people.

For example, for Comrade Lao Ma, waking up early in the morning not only means the beginning of a new day, but also means that a new battle has slowly begun and is about to officially arrive.

"Good morning, Comrade Commander."

"Morning, Comrade Commander."

"Well, morning everyone."

He picked up a random basin, poured some water on his face and rinsed his mouth. After washing up, Malashenko was walking towards the division headquarters tent with a lunch box filled with breakfast. He met many people along the way. Comrades who were also carrying breakfast or who had just finished washing greeted him and saluted him.

Out of politeness, Malashenko basically responded to every courtesy. Even if he couldn't spare the bread and oatmeal milk porridge, he at least had to give a verbal reply. In this way, he walked all the way to the division headquarters tent.

"Huh? Why is it so early today?"

As soon as he entered the door, Comrade Political Commissar asked a question in surprise, and Malashenko, who was grinning, just answered casually.

"It sounds like I sleep in every day during the war. I don't get up early on any day?"

The political commissar, who had the same expression as Malashenko and was in a good mood early in the morning, just smiled indifferently.

"No, I just got up earlier than usual today, about fifteen minutes."

Carrying the freshly made oatmeal milk porridge and bread, Malashenko kicked off the chair and sat down, and finally put the rice in his hands on the table. Malashenko was the first to speak and get to the point.

"How's it going? Is there any new news from the front army headquarters? Will we still fight according to the original plan today?"

Comrade political commissar, who was spooning out porridge with a spoon in his hand, nodded and blurted out the answer without thinking.

"Well, after you went to bed last night, I specially sent an inquiry telegram for final confirmation. The answer there was very clear. Our mission today is still to continue to advance forward. You know the other situations and arrangements. We have half a day to rest, and the scheduled attack time is 12 noon today.”

"Friendly forces will try their best to clear as many obstacles as possible for us first and ascertain the strength of the enemy's defense arrangements. However, this is more akin to a tentative attack. The real main force is still us. This has never changed."

Although yesterday's battle was far from damaging to Stalin's 1st Guards Tank Division, compared to regular battles on weekdays, it was still a loss worth mentioning.

More importantly, Malashenko's Stalin Guards 1st Tank Division only undertook the most important combat mission, which was the encirclement and annihilation operation against the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, and easily killed the already disabled tank division. The independent 505th Heavy Armored Battalion of the Wehrmacht.

The remaining three ordinary Wehrmacht armored divisions, which only had numerical designations and no special titles, were dragged down and surrounded by the leading friendly forces that quickly caught up with them in all directions. At the same time, they launched a block-style division, encirclement and annihilation operation.

Therefore, despite the fact that the armored group urgently mobilized by the German army was very powerful, it had as many as 4 armored divisions and an independent heavy armored battalion. But the enemy Malashenko actually had to face was only one Greater Deutsche Panzer Division.

Enemies in other directions in the same battle zone were held back, unable to move and unable to support, or simply themselves were trapped in a tight siege, and the Ni Bodhisattva could not save himself when crossing the river.

Such a favorable objective situation allowed Malashenko to concentrate his forces, ambush and annihilate the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division's tactical goal to finally achieve it.

But from another perspective, such a tactical arrangement that affects the whole body is also the fundamental reason why all the front-line Red Army participating units suffered heavy losses in yesterday's battle.

Many of the vanguard units of the Red Army who rushed to join the battlefield at all costs were lightly-armed mechanized and semi-mechanized infantry who had abandoned important equipment, and their numbers were small.

An ordinary Red Army infantry division can assemble half a regiment of purely mechanized light infantry, which is enough. Even if the Guards Infantry Division cobbles together various things, it can only form a regiment of mechanized light infantry at most, and that's it. Counting the mules, horses and light cavalry brought in to make up the numbers, this can only be achieved by gathering the high-speed units of the entire division together. Not all units have the purely mechanized heroics of the entire division like Stalin's 1st Guards Tank Division.

Such lightly-armed mechanized and semi-mechanized troops have marching speed, but lack of firepower has become the biggest problem.

Facing ordinary German infantry divisions may not be a big problem, but if they are facing those German armored divisions that are running around like iron bastards, even a ghost would not believe the casualties. Even if the tactical goal of the vanguard is to delay the enemy without annihilating many enemies, after the word "drag", countless soldiers are rushing forward every minute and every second to fulfill this tactical goal. Quite a few.

If Malashenko had not accomplished the planned tactical objectives in yesterday's battle and allowed the bastards of the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division to escape, then this great victory, in which even Comrade Stalin would be beaming with joy, would have been a completely different story.

The heavy casualties of the friendly troops who cooperated to assist Malashenko will be more obvious. They failed to achieve the tactical objectives and suffered such heavy losses. It is not an exaggeration to say that they lost their wives and lost their troops.

Fortunately, none of this happened.

Malashenko, who believed that the war itself was a huge gamble and game, won the bet. The total annihilation of the enemy's ace elite Grossdeutschland Division was no longer a fantasy but became a reality, whether it was the friendly brother troops or Stalin's 1st Guards Tank Division sacrifices become meaningful.

As the saying goes, we are not afraid of people dying, let alone a large number of people dying. We are afraid that people will die in the sea without achieving the goals set in advance, and that their deaths will be unclear and meaningless.

Malashenko couldn't help but sigh when he recalled the whole situation of yesterday's battle. As the core party of the whole incident, he was in an adrenaline-fuelled fighting state almost all day yesterday and had no chance to think about it in detail. These minutiae issues.

Now that the battle is over, I am still a little scared after taking such a detailed look at it. If this battle is lost, the consequences can be said to be unbearable.

Fortunately, the bunch of bastards of the Grossdeutschland Division were intercepted and stopped by Kulbalov on the way, and they fought a beautiful ambush on the spot, winning the final opportunity for the subsequent large forces to arrive and encircle and annihilate the Grossdeutschland Division. Precious half an hour.

It can be said that Kulbalov and the main group led by him did make great efforts and played a crucial decisive role. For this reason, Malashenko felt that he should do something for Kulbalov, as a senior division commander and comrade in life and death.

"I asked, should we draft a report in the name of the division headquarters and apply for the Hero of the Soviet Union award to Kulbalov?"