The decisive battle against the Third Reich

Tank paving trucks were actually invented by the Americans. They used them during the Normandy landings... The Normandy beaches were too soft to bear the weight of tanks. In order to allow tanks to land smoothly and provide firepower and cover for infantry, the United States People invented this kind of paving tank that can move forward while paving roads.

Its structure is very simple. It is to add a conveyor-like thing on the top and front of the tank. It continuously transports the paving materials strung together with steel wires from the rear to the front and then compacts them with crawlers. In the blink of an eye, the tank can be paved. Create a channel.

The only difference is...the paving tanks created by the Yankees are taller and the paving materials they use are steel plates.

Obviously, it was too difficult for the German army to find steel plates and string them together with wire. On the one hand, there was no material, and on the other hand, it was unnecessary. The defense line built by the German army was only more than 700 meters away from the Soviet army. The road was indeed muddy, but it was much better than the soft sandy beach.

In fact, it is not a problem that these roads cannot withstand the pressure of tanks, but because the mud is easily slippery, once the tank sinks into a pit, it will lose force and sink deeper and deeper. This is fundamentally different from the beach. , so it is enough to pave the road with logs.

In modern times, Sino-Soviet tanks generally carry a log at the rear for self-rescue when the tank gets stuck in the mud. (Note: This log is called "self-rescue wood")

Materials such as logs and steel cables are very easy to obtain on the Kerch Peninsula... Kerch Port is an ancient port city in Crimea. There are two large shipyards in the north and south outside the city. (Note: Ukraine is an important shipbuilding industrial base in the Soviet Union)

The reason why there are one shipyard in the north and one in the south is because the Kerch Peninsula and the Taman Peninsula lie across the sea and divide them into the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea. They are set up so that they can build ships for the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea respectively.

These shipyards are full of logs of uniform thickness and hard material, and of course there are many steel cables left behind... This is the effect of the blitzkrieg. When the Soviet Union retreated, there was no time to move anything away, and even the shipbuilding machines were intact.

Next, it was time for the engineers to perform. They first used machines to punch a small hole from both ends and the middle of the bowl-shaped logs, then used iron ropes to pass through the small holes, and then wrapped them around the logs several times. Make it stronger.

After being strung one by one, they were piled on the car with the trunk removed for later use.

Compared with these tasks, the modification of the pavement is even simpler. It is to install an external conveyor belt on the top of the tank and remove one motor directly from the three wheels on the side. The modification of the three tanks was completed in more than an hour.

However, the test results were very discouraging.

The reason is that the teleporting logs are not coordinated with the forward speed of the tank...

If the transmission speed is too slow, the tank will drive in the mud for a long time without getting log paving, which may cause the paving tank to get stuck in the mud and waste all its efforts.

If the transmission speed is too fast, it will cause the logs to pile up in front of the tank and become an obstacle.

"Try again!" Major Edmund, commander of the engineer battalion, ordered: "The tank maintains a speed of 22 kilometers per hour!"

"Yes, Major!" the soldiers responded.

This time the progress was very smooth. The logs were laid out in rows in front of the tank, and then the tracks rolled them down on the ground. There was a cheer in the shipyard.

"General!" Major Edmund reported to Manstein who was watching: "This method is obviously feasible, but there are still some difficulties, such as the coordination of tanks and log-loading cars. I suggest that they do it first. Some necessary training, and I think it is necessary to equip tank crews and vehicles with communication equipment!”

Manzu Taiyin nodded and said: "No matter what it is, just do whatever you think is necessary. All I need is that it can be used on the battlefield!"

"Yes, General!"

While the shipyard was busy, the German soldiers on the front line were not idle. They continued to fire a row of artillery shells at the Soviet defense line, and from time to time launched a probing attack on the Soviet defense line.

Of course, this attack is no longer for breaking through enemy lines, but for harassment and fire reconnaissance.

The purpose of harassment is to increase the psychological pressure of the Soviet troops and consume their physical strength... This is especially effective for recruits. The recruits are always very excited in the early stages of the battle and desperately devote all their energy to the battle, but this kind of tight body collapses Obviously, the chicken blood state cannot be maintained for long, and they will soon feel exhausted.

Most of the Soviet troops were new soldiers, so this tactic was just right at this time. From time to time, there were even a few soldiers in the Soviet camp who couldn't stand the pressure and jumped out of the trenches to charge towards the German trenches... This kind of charge It's just a psychological breakdown and I don't want to live anymore.

Fire reconnaissance is mainly to find the location of tanks from the enemy's trenches.

Soviet tanks are quite intimidating to the German army, because in addition to KV tanks, the Soviet army also has the T34 with very excellent performance.

If this were the case at other times, the German armored forces would not be afraid of the T34, because they have already found a way to deal with the T34... taking advantage of the Soviet Union's backward communication equipment and the inability to coordinate between tanks, and concentrate their efforts to defeat them one by one. Among them, priority is given to destroying the Soviet command tank. When the command tank is destroyed, the Soviet tanks will become a mess and fight on their own. (Note: Soviet command tanks have two antennas, one for sending and one for receiving. Ordinary tanks have only one receiving antenna, which means they can only passively receive commands.)

But the situation now is somewhat different.

What the German army will fight is a paving war, in which tanks pave the road while advancing. This has a disadvantage, that is, the trajectory of the advance is easily estimated by the enemy, so the enemy can block it with tanks or artillery fire.

In order to avoid the trouble caused by this as much as possible, the German army needs to find out the location of the Soviet tanks as much as possible, and then let the air force blow them up one after another.

The German army was very successful in this regard. Of the fifty Soviet tanks, only a dozen were left after a few hours under this German offensive. Among them, only one T34 tank was left that was a threat to the German army, and the rest were irrelevant. Critical light tank.

On the other hand, it was the German reconnaissance plane that detected the location of the Soviet artillery positions hidden.

Manstein did not attack the artillery position immediately because he believed that if the bombing was carried out now, the enemy would probably recover and reorganize within a few hours.

However, if you wait until the moment of attack and launch a sudden attack...