Chapter 661 Heavy Thunderstorm End

In fact, General Model, commander of the German 6th Army, misjudged the intention of the Soviet Northern Group. After experiencing the power of Tiger tanks, Panther tanks and Type 4H tanks in the Battle of Legionovo-Wolomin, how could the Soviet Red Army run into the muzzles of the German heavy tank group like a fool?

Now the Warsaw offensive and defensive battle is so fierce, and no "Tiger" tanks and "Panther" tanks are seen. You can tell with your heels that these big tanks are now waiting for Soviet tanks and infantry in Legionovo!

So, the imagined attack that is about to happen does not exist. According to the plan of the Soviet Western Front, the Soviet 3rd Army (composed of the 7th Tank Army, the 11th Mechanized Army, and the 18th Infantry Army) will start a large-scale detour operation from 7 o'clock in the evening of July 19, cross the Renav River, and then feint to the side and rear of the German army to attract the German armored group deployed in Legionovo to follow up the decisive battle.

When the decisive battle on the north bank of the Ranav River begins, the other two armies of the northern group of the Soviet Warsaw Battle Group (the 10th Army and the 11th Army) will launch a fierce attack on Legionovo under the unified command of Lieutenant General Kuznetsov, and the main force of the central group will also launch an attack from the south of Legionovo under the command of Chuikov.

In this way, regardless of whether the tank decisive battle on the north bank of the Ranav River is won or lost, Legionovo has a high probability of being occupied by the Soviet army. Even if the German heavy armored group wins on the north bank of the Ranav River, it will have to retreat westward because of the unstable rear road.

In the view of Major General Vasily Stepanovich Popov, commander of the 10th Army of the Soviet Red Army, who was deployed on the Radzimin line facing Legionovo, such a plan is still quite reliable.

The troops of the 3rd Red Army passed through Radzymin between 7pm on July 19 and 3am on July 20. This was a large army of more than 80,000 people, with more than 800 tanks/self-propelled artillery, nearly 1,000 towed artillery, and nearly 2,000 motor vehicles. It was passing through an area close to the front line at night, so any mistakes would be enough.

Therefore, the 10th Army was also very busy, with alerts, air defense, and traffic arrangements. They also had to cooperate with the newly established Radzymin Special Committee of the Polish Bolshevik Party to catch Polish traitors and spies.

As the commander of the army, Major General Popov was busy until 5am on July 20. When it was light, he returned to his headquarters in a church in Radzymin and began to look through the reports submitted by various troops.

Most of these reports were submitted by the 328th and 330th Divisions, which were confronting the German army on the front line. There were also reports from the 57th and 75th Cavalry Divisions, which were active on the north bank of the Renav River.

All the reports were very brief, with only a few words, which were actually just to report that everything was fine - in the past 12 hours, the front line was peaceful and surprisingly quiet. The Germans facing the Soviet army seemed to have fallen asleep, without launching harassing artillery bombardments or conducting fire reconnaissance... This was quite abnormal! This had never happened during the days when the two armies were facing each other!

Major General Popov, who had participated in the First World War, the Soviet-Russian Civil War, the Polish Campaign, and the Soviet-Finnish War, had a wealth of battlefield experience. After quickly reading these reports, he knew that there was not much. Just as he picked up the telephone receiver on his desk and wanted to call the 84th Infantry Army headquarters on the front line to ask them to be alert, he suddenly heard a faint whooshing sound. He suddenly slapped his desk and stood up, startling everyone in the operations room.

"The Nazis are firing rockets! They are going to launch a surprise attack!" Popov yelled.

Just when the 10th Army's Political Commissar Chirkov and Chief of Staff Grechko were both at a loss with their mouths open. Explosions rang out almost simultaneously across the entire front line! Popov did not hear wrongly, the sound just now was indeed 162 rocket launchers from three German smoke launcher regiments firing in unison!

In addition to these 162 rocket launchers, Model also concentrated 13 artillery battalions equipped with 150mm howitzers, and fired at the same time!

The powerful German artillery group repeatedly plowed the defense line that the Soviet 10th Army had worked hard to build, and groups of orange-yellow flames exploded one after another on the positions, blowing up anti-tank traps, barbed wire, minefields, and various anti-tank artillery and heavy machine guns placed on the positions. The 130mm rockets and 150mm high-explosive shells were extremely powerful. Every roar blew a gap in the Soviet front line, throwing out everything within the power range.

Unlike the usual hit-and-run situation, today's German artillery group repeatedly hit the front line of the Soviet 10th Army, pouring shells and rockets to their heart's content, and seemed to not care about the opponent's artillery counterattack at all.

The various sound detection posts arranged behind the Soviet front-line positions quickly reported the results of the judgment to the 10th Army Artillery Command, and immediately a mathematical expert calculated the approximate position of the German artillery group.

"Commander, the position of the German artillery group has been determined!" The artillery director of the 10th Army reported excitedly.

Now the Soviet aircraft and tanks dare not say that they can suppress the opponent, and even the infantry may not have an advantage when encountering the Nazi infantry, but the Soviet artillery still has an overwhelming advantage!

Whether it is howitzers, cannons or anti-tank guns, they can crush the Germans in terms of quantity!

The 10th Army alone has 2 infantry armies, 1 tank army, 1 cavalry army, and 17 artillery regiments directly under the army! It has 544 various suppression artillery pieces... This number does not include the brigade-level and regiment-level artillery pieces, various mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and rocket launchers below.

"Fire the artillery group!" Popov ordered loudly, "Hit the Nazi artillery group hard, let them know what the Bolsheviks' anger is like!"

At the command of Major General Popov, the 17 artillery regiments under the 10th Army immediately began to counterattack. The flashes fired by more than 500 artillery pieces turned the entire sky red. Looking down from an altitude of three or four thousand meters, the bomber pilots of the German Air Force could immediately find the location of the Soviet artillery group that opened fire!

It turns out that it was not just the German 6th Army that participated in today's short assault. The powerful German Air Force 6th Air Force also sent more than 1,000 fighters, which had already arrived in the air near the war zone before the 3 smoke launcher regiments and 13 artillery battalions of the 6th Army opened fire.

Now the artillery group of the Soviet 10th Army opened fire and exposed the target, and was immediately bombed the most violently! Although the anti-aircraft guns responsible for protecting the Soviet artillery group all fired desperately into the air, the Yak-1 and LaG-3 that were urgently launched were desperate to stop the German aircraft group.

But how could the German aircraft that suddenly dispatched on a large scale be stopped by the limited number of anti-aircraft guns and fighters such as Yak-1 and LaG-3? Thousands and tens of thousands of bombs soon fell on the heads of the Soviet artillery, and the artillery group that had just opened fire suddenly became dumb!

"Okay, the Soviet artillery has been suppressed!"

Major General Hube, the commander of the "Hube Heavy Armored Division" sitting in an armored command vehicle, saw that there were no more orange or dark red lights flying from east to west in the sky, and knew that the Soviet artillery group had been suppressed by the German Air Force.

"It's our turn now!" Major General Hube stood up and looked straight ahead, only to see countless armored vehicles arranged in neat attack formations on a wide and flat plain!

In the front were three heavy armored battalions equipped with Tiger tanks, and 132 Tiger heavy tanks were arranged in a wedge-shaped assault formation. Hundreds of various types of wheeled or half-tracked armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft vehicles, tank repair vehicles and Zlini 2 105mm assault guns also formed a formation, following behind the Tiger heavy tanks, forming a mighty division-level armored cluster assault formation!

"Start the vehicles!" Major General Hube gave the order loudly.

The staff on the side immediately passed his order to every combat vehicle in front through the vehicle-mounted radio station. In less than 15 minutes, the roar of the engine resounded through the sky, almost overwhelming the sound of artillery and bomb explosions.

The sound of the internal combustion engine was soon transmitted to the position of the 328th Infantry Division of the Soviet Red Army, which had just been bombarded by German artillery and rocket launchers.

The Red Army commanders and soldiers guarding there soon realized that something was wrong. How could they not hear the sound of the tank engine? And the noise was so loud that it was not just a small group of ten or eight tanks.

"Comrades! Pick up your weapons and go to the position quickly!"

"Comrades! Fighters of the world revolution, prepare to fight and hit the Nazis hard!"

"Bolshevik members, youth league members, fighters of the world revolution, the time to test us has come..."

The shouts of commanders and political workers echoed in various places in the position, and the Red Army soldiers in large groups were quickly organized. The Red Army soldiers, armed with rifles, anti-tank grenades and Molotov cocktail bottles, dragged machine guns, and ran quickly from their hidden positions along the winding communication trenches to the front line that was bombarded by German artillery. 1 Anti-tank guns and PTRD-41 14.5mm anti-tank guns were also dragged or carried to the firing positions.

The German Empire's counterattack has begun!