Chapter 691: Large Encirclement-Great Depth
The "Rhino" was originally a "hard labor gun". Whoever owned it was destined to work hard on the battlefield day and night.
This was Major Gustav Schwarzenegger's evaluation of the "Rhino" tank destroyer after the war. In his opinion, the "Rhino" was not a tank destroyer at all, but a universal gun that could attack tanks, infantry, and fortifications. If the 10mm steel top cover was removed, it might even be able to attack airplanes.
In fact, the 88mm Stuk36L/56 main gun installed on the "Rhino" tank destroyer was improved from an anti-aircraft gun. This cannon is exactly the same as the 88mm KwK36L/56 main gun currently used by the Tiger tank, but it is installed on a tank destroyer, so it is called Stuk (assault cannon).
In fact, it is a Tiger tank main gun equipped with a certain amount of armor and the chassis of the No. 4 tank. Now it can go wherever the No. 4 tank can go, and it can probably hit targets that the No. 4 tank cannot hit. Moreover, when designing the "Rhino", special consideration was given to the commonality of parts with the No. 4 tank, so the tank repair company that could repair the No. 4 tank could also repair the "Rhino" tank destroyer, which was really a cheap and good mechanized weapon.
Therefore, the 5th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion equipped with the "Rhino" tank destroyer was quickly dismantled into pieces and distributed to various armored battle groups under the 5th SS Armored Division. These battle groups usually consist of a tank company and two armored grenadier companies as the core, and then an armored reconnaissance company, an armored engineer company and some auxiliary units, and finally a few (usually 6-8) "Rhino" coolie guns.
So Major Schwarzenegger served as the battalion commander of the 5th Tank Destroyer Battalion for more than ten days. When it was time to go to the battlefield, he did not recognize all the platoon leaders under him, because these platoon leaders were in various armored battle groups.
Major Schwarzenegger himself also received his own "Schwarzenegger Battalion Combat Group" on August 25, which was yesterday, and today he will command this combat group to fight the Soviet Red Army.
Boom boom boom...
The rumbling sound of artillery reached Major Schwarzenegger's ears. It was the artillery group of the 4th Panzer Army bombarding the targets on the Soviet defense line in front of him. When the shelling is over, Major Schwarzenegger will lead his combat group to launch an attack.
According to the combat plan, the initial stage of the attack should be very smooth. Because the Soviet Red Army adopted a deep defense in front of Lithuania, there were not many front-line troops, and it was still easy to break through.
The 5th SS Panzer Division had rich combat experience, and the grenadiers and auxiliary forces were all large. Therefore, it was assigned by General Hoth of the 4th Panzer Army as a pathfinder, and 6 battalion-level combat groups (each with 1,000-1,200 people) were divided to advance in the direction of Minsk, attacking and looking for the Soviet armored cluster. After encountering the Soviet armored group, they were ready to fight hard and wait for the follow-up German tank sea to arrive.
Because the Soviet front-line troops were weak, the shelling did not last long. It stopped abruptly after only 90 minutes.
"Comrades, please note that I am Major Schwarzenegger, and now I order the vehicles to start. SS soldiers, move forward!"
Major Schwarzenegger marched in a half-track armored command vehicle. After the shelling stopped, he immediately ordered all the vehicles of the battle group that had already formed a battle formation to start. Then he jumped out of the starting position and rumbled towards the Soviet position along the route opened up by howitzers and rocket launchers.
...
"Comrade Commander, the 29th Army reports that the German attack has begun." At the headquarters of the Belarusian Front in Minsk, Major General Liapin, Chief of Staff of the Belarusian Front of the Red Army, reported the news he had just received to Commander Vasilevsky in a very calm tone.
"Okay, it's finally started." Vasilevsky also seemed unhurried, because this attack had long been expected by the Supreme Command. Otherwise, the Reserve Front would not have been transferred to Belarus and changed to the Belarusian Front.
In order to cope with the upcoming attack by the German army, the Belarusian Front has been strengthening its forces in the past half month.
In addition to the original 7 armies, including the 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 32nd, 33rd and the 1st Assault Army, the 37th Army, the 9th Army, the 4th Army, and the 28th Army were obtained from the Western Front, bringing the total force to 11 armies.
In addition, the internal forces of Belarus and Smolensk also formed 10 internal guard divisions according to Stalin's instructions. Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Gomel (all in Eastern Belarus), Smolensk and other places also formed 12 militia divisions with military sub-districts as the backbone.
If we add the artillery, air force, reserve forces and other units directly under the front command, the total strength of the Belarusian Front has now exceeded 1.3 million! The number of troops is almost the same as that of the German Northern Army Group that is fighting with it.
Moreover, the Belarusian Front now has a strong armored strike force. The 37th Army, the 9th Army, the 4th Army and the 28th Army, the fourth army mobilized from the Western Front, have a total of 6 tank armies or mechanized armies.
In addition, the Belarusian Front also has the newly formed 1st Assault Army, which is a fast army composed of 2 tank armies and 1 cavalry army. The army is equipped with a large number of T-34/57 tanks (each tank regiment has a battalion equipped with T-34/57, and the organization of KV series tanks has been cancelled), which is the trump card in the hands of the Belarusian Front.
However, the Belarusian Front, which has a strong force, did not put all the more than one million troops on the front line. Instead, it adopted the tactic of deep defense. There were not many troops on the front line, and adopted the tactic of exchanging space for defense, and assembled the mechanized troops in Brest, Minsk and Smolensk. Among them, the trump card force Assault 1st Army was placed outside Minsk, because the Soviet Supreme Command estimated that Minsk was the most likely main target of the German Army Group North.
…
Major Schwarzenegger is now on his way to Minsk. The Soviets made a good judgment that the Germans' main target is the capital of Belarus. It is the closest place to Vilnius, the German logistics supply center, along the Warsaw-Moscow railway. Minsk has been a key border town of the Soviet Union since the 1920s. If they did not capture or surround Minsk, Guderian and Manstein would have lived in fear for the next one or two months.
"Let the rhino guns fire! Use high-explosive bombs to bomb that village!"
Schwarzenegger's battle group encountered resistance from the Soviet army at 8 a.m. on August 26. The location was in Oshmyany, Belarus, about 10 kilometers away from the Lithuanian-Belarusian border (Lithuania and Belarus). It was a stronghold converted from a collective farm settlement. This place had been heavily bombarded an hour ago, and there were craters all around. Most of the houses in the settlement seemed to have collapsed.
However, an infantry company of the 254th Division of the Red Army guarding here did not retreat, and also rejected the surrender of an old white man, and shot the poor white-bearded old man in the head with a sniper rifle - in fact, this old white man was also miserable. He persuaded the troops composed of internal security personnel in the Moscow area. They were all Cheka fighters with Moscow household registration and were loyal to the cause of GCism!
"Boom boom boom..."
At the command of Major Schwarzenegger, six "coolie guns" immediately began to roar, and the 88mm caliber shells hit the Red Army's firepower points outside the settlement very accurately. The houses in the collective farms are not as solid as the reinforced concrete buildings in the big cities. How can they withstand the bombardment of 88mm guns? It was bombed into ruins soon, and then the armored grenadiers charged and turned hundreds of Cheka soldiers who were dizzy by the artillery into revolutionary martyrs or anti-G revolutionaries.
However, the Cheka soldiers with Moscow household registration still had a different consciousness from ordinary Red Army soldiers. Before they were captured, their company commander made an impassioned speech to the battalion headquarters by phone, claiming that they were attacked by a German armored regiment with "heavy tanks". Now the battle has reached the last moment, most of the soldiers have died heroically, and the ammunition is almost exhausted. The surviving soldiers have also made up their minds to carry anti-tank grenades and die together with the German tanks!
"Comrade Commander, six armored regiments, maybe six regimental-level armored groups." Colonel Chiaralev, the chief of staff of the 29th Army, said to Major General Shvetsov, the commander of the army, after counting the reports from the front. "And all of them have Tiger heavy tanks (due to the Germans' own propaganda, the Soviets already knew that the heavy tank that caused them so much trouble on the battlefield of Warsaw was called Tiger tank)... It seems that the 254th and 256th Divisions are facing 2-3 elite German armored divisions."
"Have German armored units been found in other directions?" Major General Shvetsov asked.
His 29th Army is now playing the role of cannon fodder, and its subordinate 245th, 252nd, 254th, and 256th Divisions are deployed along the Libai border, opening up a very thin line of defense. Not to block the enemy's breakthrough, but to find out the enemy's main attack direction and delay the German attack at the same time.
"We didn't find a large number of Type 4 and Tiger tanks, only Type 3 assault guns and another light assault gun (Weasel II)."
Major General Shvetsov nodded and said, "The situation seems to be similar to what we expected. The Germans' main attack direction is indeed Minsk."