Chapter 182 The Future Commander VII

"Request reinforcement? The bombardment hasn't ended yet, this is too fast..." Hitler said in a surprised tone, looking at Hersmann with a suspicious eye. He was a little suspicious of Schleicher and Hersmann's standards for hiring people.

Hitler had heard of Manstein's name. He was born into a famous Prussian family. His father and adoptive father (also his uncle) were both generals of the army. His two grandfathers were also famous Prussian generals. Even the late President Marshal Hindenburg was his relative. This Manstein, could it be that he became a general because of his good family background?

"Prime Minister, war in the mechanized era is about speed! Break through quickly, advance quickly... retreat and reinforcement must also be fast!" Hersmann was standing at the second-floor window of an old Orthodox church, looking at the tanks being assembled on a large pasture not far away.

He and Hitler were at an observation post of the exercise command less than 6 kilometers away from the "Red Army" front. Next to it was the assembly field of the 1st Armored Division, where Maximilian von Weichs was the commander of the division. After the armored group completes the formation here, it can drive directly to the battlefield.

The breakthrough site chosen by Guderian is a terrain mixed with woods and farms. Highway 6 passes through these farms, pastures and woods. Usma Lake is less than 6 kilometers northeast of the breakthrough point. There are several streams with low water flow passing through the "battlefield" and pouring into Usma Lake.

In addition, there are many buildings around the "battlefield", including churches, warehouses, and residents' houses. If they were on a real battlefield, these buildings would become strongholds for both sides to fight for. However, in this exercise, these buildings are "non-existent". Except for a small number of public buildings that were temporarily requisitioned, most private houses and warehouses are not allowed to enter.

However, many barbed wires and wooden stakes used to divide pastures and farms were pulled out by engineers. The grasslands and wheat fields that were originally divided into small pieces have now become a whole.

All the assault forces of the German Army's First Armored Division, including most of the officers and vehicles of the First and Second Armored Regiments and the First Motorized Sniper Brigade, have been assembled and formed.

Standing at Hessman's position, he saw a very shocking scene. 363 Type 2 tanks (full complement is 388 plus a varying number of reserve vehicles) have formed a huge tank formation (rectangle), with a front width of 2,000 meters. Next to each tank, the tank crew members stood upright, waiting for the order to start.

Hundreds of steel behemoths, just lying motionless in the open field, are enough to make people feel terrified. If you see them roaring, roaring, and spitting out flames, it is not difficult to understand why Major General Manstein asked for reinforcements at the first time - this is not a force that an infantry division can stop with traditional defensive positions!

Following closely behind these Type 2 tanks are the half-track vehicles of the combat engineer battalion of the 1st Armored Division. At this moment, a part of the combat engineers had arrived at the front of the Red Army with the 4th Reconnaissance Company of the 1st Armored Division, and was clearing obstacles for the armored forces to advance. According to the rules of the exercise, they had 15 minutes to "move freely" after the shelling ended (in wartime, they had to move between shellings).

Behind the half-track vehicles of the engineers, there was another larger car battle formation. This was a motorized troop formation composed of ADGZ-612M heavy wheeled armored vehicles and armored vehicles.

The ADGZ-612M heavy wheeled armored vehicle is a product of the Austrian Daimler Company, which was just finalized in 1934. In the original history, it was sold to the Austrian police force, but now it has been mass-produced by the German Daimler-Benz Company and sold to the German Army. Thanks to the strength of the German automobile industry, the various wheeled vehicles in the German Army have increased a lot compared with the same period in history, and the development of wheeled armored vehicles is also very good.

For example, this 12-ton armored personnel carrier is equipped with the same 20mm caliber machine gun as the Type 2 tank. It has good armor protection and can carry 6 fully armed soldiers through the enemy's cannon fodder blockade.

More than 100 ADGZ-612M heavy wheeled armored vehicles assigned to the 1st Motorized Sniper Battalion followed behind the square of Type 2 tanks. Behind these heavy armored vehicles are armored vehicles used by the two sniper battalions of the 1st Motorized Sniper Brigade (composed of two sniper battalions and one motorized sniper battalion).

These armored vehicles are all modified from Opel (in this time and space, Opel has stronger financial resources thanks to the Keynes Plan and was not sold to General Motors in the United States during the Great Depression) and BMW trucks. That is, a thin layer of steel plate is covered on the outside of the car body and the cab, which can resist machine gun bullets and artillery shell fragments at a certain distance.

At this time, the shelling has ended, and the entire "battlefield" suddenly became quiet. An electrician carrying a radio on his back came to Guderian, who was the commander of the Blue Army Armored Assault Group, on a motorcycle.

"Report to the commander, the general command of the exercise has instructed: we can launch an attack in 15 minutes!"

Because it was an exercise, there were no "Red Army" soldiers in the trenches during the live-fire shooting. Therefore, the exercise command will give the "Red Army" time to return to the position after the live-fire shooting.

At the same time, the referee of the exercise command also had to enter the position and determine the losses of the "Red Army" in this artillery attack based on the damage ratio of the dummies and fake guns. Of course, during these 15 minutes, all military movements of the "Red Army" must be suspended.

"Got it!" Guderian nodded, then slowly raised his right hand, "Everyone pay attention! Start the vehicle now!"

"Start the vehicle!" After receiving the order. The crew members standing next to various armored vehicles also began to move. The drivers took out the joystick and came to the engine of the car, and began to shake the joystick desperately. "Boom boom boom..." The engines of tanks and armored vehicles roared in succession, and then smoke was sprayed from the exhaust pipe. Fifteen minutes later, most of the vehicles started successfully (there were still a few that broke down).

Guderian exhaled heavily, picked up the headset on his command vehicle, and ordered loudly: "Everyone pay attention, everyone pay attention! The target is right in front! Armored troops! Assault!!"

The motors of more than 750 combat vehicles that had already started began to run slowly with wheels or tracks. The pungent exhaust gas enveloped the entire assembly site in an instant, as if it was in a cloud of fog.

The huge roar startled Adolf Hitler. He walked to the window and stood with Hessmann, witnessing the armored cluster like a torrent of steel, slowly rolling over a green land, raising dust and smoke, and rolling forward.

"They are so dense! This is too dense!" Hitler blurted out.

"Yes, very dense," Hessmann said, "Seven hundred and dozens of armored vehicles, the front of the deployment is less than 2,000 meters... How many 37mm anti-tank guns can be opposite us?"

...

"Can't hold it!"

Before Falkenhausen agreed to the order for reinforcement, Manstein knew that his division could not hold the position. He thought he was quite familiar with the operations of the armored forces, but he didn't expect that so many tanks and armored vehicles would actually form such a dense formation on the battlefield and concentrate their forces to attack a "point".

"Across from them, how many 37 guns can we use?" He asked the staff officer beside him.

"General, there are only 8 37mm guns in front of the enemy tank formation, and there are also 10 infantry guns and dozens of anti-tank guns."

"No, it's impossible. We can't hold it at all..." Manstein put down the telescope, turned around and walked towards his division headquarters, and ordered as he walked, "We must retreat!"

"Retreat? General, the higher-ups won't agree..."

"It doesn't matter. We can't hold it anyway. We might as well think of other ways to delay the enemy." Manstein said, "There are many forests and several small villages along Highway 6 northwest of Lake Usma. We can set up defenses there, so we can always resist it."

At this time, the sound of aircraft engines came from the sky again. Manstein looked up and saw a group of 20 to 30 biplane Hs-123 attack aircraft rushing towards the artillery position of the 18th Division. After the Blue Army armored group began to advance, Manstein immediately ordered his artillery group to open fire (this time it was not live ammunition, just a few signal flares) to block it, thus exposing the target.

"The artillery will suffer heavy losses," Manstein shook his head, "We must retreat, otherwise we will have to eat lunch in Guderian's prisoner-of-war camp today."

"General, Lieutenant General Falkenhausen will not agree." The staff kindly reminded.

"I will retreat even if he disagrees," Manstein said with a smile, "This is an exercise, not a real war. Can he send me to a military court? Besides, what's the point of us staying here for an hour or half an hour? We can't hold this place, no matter how brave and tenacious we are, because the exercise referee will soon sentence us all to death... It's better to save some troops. As long as we can get into the blocking position before these steel monsters, we can postpone the exercise until tomorrow."

"So, General, what should we do?" The staff took out a notebook as he walked, ready to record Manstein's orders.

"Order the 30th Regiment to hold its position until it is completely wiped out. The 51st Regiment will take over the reserve position and also hold it until it is completely wiped out. The rest of the troops will begin to retreat in 30 minutes...Except for the 37mm gun, no other heavy weapons need to be carried, and all baggage must be abandoned. Just take ammunition and two days' worth of field rations."