The Rise of the Third Reich

"Our honor is loyalty! Comrades of the Waffen-SS, onward!"

Gustav Schwarzenegger picked up the intercom and shouted the SS slogan.

Less than 2,000 meters in front of him, the Soviet Red Army tank cluster also rumbled forward. They all belong to the 46th Tank Brigade of the 16th Mechanized Corps of the Red Army. Although the Soviet Red Army lacked self-propelled artillery and armored vehicles, it was fully equipped with tanks.

A tank brigade at full strength has two tank regiments and more than 200 tanks. Now that the World Revolutionary War has just begun, most tank brigades are of course fully equipped.

However, the quality of most Soviet tanks is not very good, and they have traveled more than 100 kilometers and almost 200 kilometers from Brest to Wovomin. Along the way, they were constantly bombarded by planes, Polish reactionaries, and SS cavalry. attack, all the 46th Tank Brigade can now operate only more than 180 tanks, including more than 120 T-34s, more than 40 KVs, 16 T-26 Spitfire tanks and 18 KV-2s. However, the T-26 and KV-2 were prepared to fight tough battles, so they did not appear on the front line.

In addition, the 46th Tank Brigade still has 70 or 80 tanks under repair, lying on both sides of the road from Brest waiting for repair.

By the way, the Soviet Red Army's ability to repair and maintain equipment is much inferior to the current German army. After all, Germany is an old industrialized country. It has now integrated many European industrial countries, and its machinery manufacturing capabilities even exceed those of the United States. Naturally, it can provide enough and excellent mechanics for 21 armored divisions and 16 panzergrenadier divisions. Looking at the Soviet Union, although the size of its armored forces is almost twice that of Germany, the scale and technical level of its machinery manufacturing industry are far less than those of Germany, let alone the entire European Community.

Therefore, it is simply impossible for the Soviet Union to allocate repair and maintenance personnel to their tank armies and tank brigades according to German standards. In addition, the quality of the equipment is inherently problematic. The T-34 and KV-1, the two main Soviet tanks, have not been tested in actual combat. It is normal for a high failure rate to occur on the battlefield.

However, more than 120 T-34 and KV-1 tanks were still a large crowd when they started moving. The number of infantrymen following them was even more than 10,000, all shouting "Ula! Ula!" slogans like a tide towards them. Press forward.

"Stop advancing! Prepare to fight!"

When the distance between the two sides approached about 1,000 meters, Gustav Schwarzenegger ordered his company to stop advancing. At this distance, the 48-caliber 75mm tank gun equipped with the No. 4 H tank is enough to penetrate the front armor of the T-34.

According to the information currently available, the T-34's frontal armor is 45-60 mm thick and has a 32-degree bevel angle.

The kwk40/L48 75mm tank gun of the No. 4 H tank can penetrate an 85mm homogeneous steel plate at an angle of 30 degrees using an ordinary Pzgr39 capped armor-piercing projectile at a distance of 1,000 meters. It's a bit difficult to deal with the KV-1, but it's enough to deal with the T-34.

And thanks to Carl Zeiss, the sights of German tank guns are more than one level better than those of Soviet tank guns. Therefore, at a distance of 1,000 meters, a well-trained German tank gunner is enough to hit a Soviet tank.

"Oger! The artillery is ready to fire!" After Captain Schwarzenegger gave the order, he retracted half of his body. While closing the hatch, he gave orders to the Norwegian gunner Oger.

"Ready, sir!" Norwegian Nazi Og replied loudly.

Captain Schwarzenegger looked for a suitable target through the tank's peripheral periscope. Before he could find a target to "shoot", he heard a muffled "Boom!" and then felt a slight movement of his tank. A flash. Captain Schwarzenegger knew that a tank was firing, but it was not his vehicle that was firing.

"Hit! Haha, a T-34 was blown up!"

Sergeant Kliman's voice came from Schwarzenegger's earphones. He was a tall and handsome Nordic German who had just joined the "Viking" division last year and was a vehicle commander trained by Schwarzenegger himself.

Seeing that his student had made great achievements, Captain Schwarzenegger also quickly selected a T-34 tank more than 900 meters away.

"Ogg, 11 o'clock! Did you see that T-34?"

"Saw it!" The Norwegian Nazi Og quickly turned the muzzle, aimed at the fast-moving T-34, and then pressed the trigger of the coaxial machine gun. A string of tracer bullets was quickly fired, creating a spark on the outer shell of the T-34. Seeing the coaxial machine gun hit, Ogg pulled the electric trigger without hesitation.

"Boom!" Schwarzenegger felt a huge vibration in his tank. He held on to the handles to steady his body, and then used the commander's periscope to observe. The T-34 tank was found to be undamaged.

"Damn it, missed! Aim and hit again!"

"Tap-tat-tat..." The coaxial machine gun fired again.

"Boom!" The Norwegian Nazi Og fired another shot. This time, the T-34 was hit. The shell tore through the 45mm armor installed at an angle of 32 degrees on its front. The tank suddenly emitted black smoke. , rushed forward a few steps under the influence of inertia and then stopped.

Captain Schwarzenegger soon discovered another target, "At 10 o'clock, Ogg, did you see it? A KV-1 tank! Use high-speed armor-piercing bullets to deal with it!"

The frontal armor of the KV-1 is much thicker than the T-34, reaching 110mm, and like the T-34, it is arranged at a large angle. It cannot be hit with a 75mm caliber fake armor-piercing bullet. It can only be shot at a closer distance with a high-speed armor-piercing bullet with a tungsten alloy core. Tungsten was extremely scarce for Germany in its original time and space. Among the ammunition for tank guns and anti-tank guns, the proportion of high-speed armor-piercing projectiles using tungsten alloy cores was very low.

However, Spain, the main tungsten mining area in Europe, has joined the German camp. Although Portugal is still a neutral country, it has signed a tungsten mine cooperation agreement. All of Portugal's tungsten mines are sold to Germany! Therefore, the German army can now openly use tungsten core high-speed armor-piercing projectiles.

More than 80 No. 4 tanks and 30 No. 3 assault guns opened fire one after another, and 75mm armor-piercing bullets rushed towards the charging Soviet tanks like a meteor shower. After a while, the battlefield was full of burning Soviet tank wreckage, but the German tanks and assault guns were intact.

"Comrade Commander, why don't our tanks fight back? Why are only the German tanks firing?"

The political commissar of the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army, Fegulov, and the army commander, Major General Sokarov, saw their tanks being hit one after another and bursting into flames. However, they only received beatings and did not fight back. Changfa asked.

"Our tanks must get closer to defeat the Germans!" Army commander Major General Sokarov remained calm. He explained, "The main guns of the T-34 and KV-1 can only reach a distance of 1,000 meters. Penetrating a 60mm vertical homogeneous steel plate may not be able to deal with the Germans’ latest No. 4 tank, so the instructions above indicate that it cannot fire until it is 500 meters away!”

Although the caliber and caliber of the 42-caliber 76.2mm main guns of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 are not low, due to the pursuit of versatility of the shells and relatively backward industrial technology, the muzzle velocity of the shells is only 688 meters/second. . It is far lower than the German 75mm tank gun/anti-tank gun that uses fake armor-piercing bullets, and the Soviets do not yet have high-speed armor-piercing bullets. Therefore, they could only charge at the risk of German artillery fire in order to close the distance and fire.

After paying the price of thirty or forty vehicles being damaged, some T-34 tanks and KV-1 tanks of the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army finally rushed within 500 meters of the German tanks.

"Come on!" Fegulov, the military political commissar, habitually shouted, "Comrades, for the victory of the communist cause, fight hard!"

But what answered him was not a cheer of "Ula! Ula!" but an "Air strike! Hurry and take cover!"

Then Fegulov was dragged into a bomb crater by an unknown person, and then the strange cry of "Jie Jie Jie" made by the Stuka bomber when it dived reached his ears.

"Boom boom boom!"

A series of explosions sounded, and Fegulov was not afraid of the danger. He straightened up in the crater and looked forward. It was discovered that the Soviet tanks fighting on the battlefield had not been bombed. They were exchanging fierce fire with the German tanks on the opposite side, and several German No. 4 tanks had been hit!

Sokarov suddenly screamed: "Damn it, the German planes are bombing our artillery positions!"

"Artillery position?" Fegulov turned his head and looked back, only to see seven or eight thick smoke pillars about 1.5 kilometers away. That was the position of an artillery regiment under the 16th Mechanized Corps!

It turned out that when the tanks of the two sides were fighting, the Soviet artillery was also firing at the German rocket launchers - of course there was no rocket launcher there, and the German rocket launchers had long been moved. Therefore, the Soviet artillery counterattack did not hit any targets, but instead attracted indiscriminate bombing by German aircraft.

"Where are our planes? Where are the air cover? People in the Air Force are neglecting their duties. This is a crime!" Sokarov couldn't help but cursed.

Today's battle was not easy to fight. First, the Germans surrendered with rocket launchers, and then they encountered the German armored forces with powerful firepower. Now, a regiment-level artillery position was bombed again. If we continue fighting like this, are we afraid that we will lose the battle?

Sokarov couldn't help but shudder when he thought of his experience in Finland when he was demoted due to a defeat and almost became a reactionary.