Chapter 834 The Final Battle - Grizzlies and Shrinking Tigers
May 1, early morning, International Labor Day.
The assault gun with a 150mm short-barreled cannon that Comrade Solzhenitsyn encountered yesterday is now rumbling past Major Schwarzenegger and heading towards a Soviet collective farm ahead - they are going to approach and bombard the Soviet positions.
This assault gun is called "Grizzly", and is also a derivative of the No. 4 tank. A fixed gun cabin that cannot rotate is directly installed on the chassis of the No. 4 tank, and a 150mm StuH43/1L/12 howitzer is also installed.
Moreover, the gun cabin and the front armor of this "Grizzly" assault gun are very thick. The front of the gun cabin is 100mm thick and has a 40-degree inclination. The defense capability is equivalent to a 130mm steel plate placed at a right angle. The steel plate on the front of the vehicle is 80mm thick and is divided into two parts, the upper part has an inclination of more than 70 degrees, which is the "unpenetrable" part; the lower part has an inclination of 12 degrees, and its defense capability is the weakest. However, in actual combat, additional armor that can resist armor-piercing shells is often installed, and the actual protection capability (equivalent to vertical steel plates) is also above 90mm.
In addition, although the armor on both sides of the body of the "Grizzly" assault gun is not very thick, it is equipped with skirt armor that can defend against armor-piercing shells (including anti-tank rockets/grenades such as Panzerfaust). In actual combat, as long as there is the cover of the No. 4 tank and grenadiers, it is extremely difficult to be destroyed.
The short-barreled 150mm gun equipped with this "Grizzly" assault gun is much more powerful than the 75mm gun of the No. 3 assault gun when dealing with enemy positions.
Therefore, in the German armored divisions and armored grenadier divisions that do not need to use the No. 3 assault gun to fight tanks, the "Grizzly" assault gun has completely replaced the No. 3 assault gun and has become the standard for assault gun battalions and assault gun companies (attached to armored grenadier regiments).
By the way, from last autumn to now, in the past six months, the focus of the German Wehrmacht Army's construction has been on the armored grenadier divisions, in addition to the artillery (mainly equipped with towed artillery and rocket launchers).
After six months of reinforcement, the number of German armored grenadier divisions has increased to 22, of which 15 are Wehrmacht numbers and 7 are SS numbers.
Moreover, each armored grenadier division has received sufficient mechanized equipment. Including 1 tank battalion (66 Type 4 H tanks), 1 tank destroyer battalion (45 "Rhino" tank destroyers equipped with 71-caliber 88mm guns), 1 assault gun battalion plus 3 assault gun companies (equipped with a total of 36 "Grizzly" assault guns), 2 self-propelled artillery battalions (equipped with 105mm Wasp self-propelled artillery and 150mm Wasp self-propelled artillery, each with 18 guns), 1 tracked self-propelled rocket launcher battalion, and a large unit equipped with half-track vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles.
The armored combat power of such an armored grenadier division is probably much stronger than that of a German armored division in the same period of history!
Precisely because of the strong combat power of these armored grenadier divisions, in the "Purple Plan", they completely replaced the armored divisions and became the spearhead of the breakthrough.
As for the famous German armored divisions, the current number is also 22 (only 1 more than last year), but now each armored division can usually bring a heavy armored battalion equipped with 44 (full strength) Tiger tanks to fight.
The number of heavy armored battalions has doubled in the past 6 months, reaching 36, and the total number of Tiger heavy tanks equipped (strength) has reached 1,584. However, these "Tiger" heavy tanks are not the "Tiger" E tanks equipped at the beginning, but the "Tiger" G tanks with appropriate reduction in protection.
Without additional armor such as skirts, this "Tiger" G tank has a combat weight of only 48 tons, which is almost the same as the "Panther" tank. In fact, this tank looks more like the "Panther" in history than the Tiger. It can also be seen as a "Panther" body with a Tiger turret. In this time and space, the Tiger tank absorbed many technologies and advantages of the Panther tank during the improvement process, and the two tanks gradually merged into one. The E-50 tank developed on the basis of this shrunken Tiger or water-injected Panther will become the new generation of German main battle tanks!
"Attention, the 5th SS Tank Destroyer Battalion, follow the 5th SS Assault Gun Battalion into the position."
The voice of a divisional staff who was "directing traffic" came from the radio station. Now the "Grizzlies" are in place, and it's the turn of the "Rhino" to follow up. With the help of the "Grizzlies", the "Rhino" is no longer as hard as last year. Most of the bombardment of the positions was done by the Grizzlies, and the Rhinos followed to escort them, deal with Soviet tanks that risked their lives to counterattack, or bombard the reinforced concrete fortifications that the Grizzlies' short-barreled artillery could not hit.
"Brothers, this is Major Schwarzenegger, I order all vehicles to move! Forward!"
When Major Schwarzenegger gave orders to all vehicles through the radio, it was almost noon on May 1, 1943.
The German 1st Panzer Army, which broke through the Soviet Pripyat River defense line in the Moriz-Yelski area near the root of the southern line of the Belarusian salient, made smooth progress under the leadership of the 5th SS Panzer Division. In less than 20 hours, it advanced more than 70 kilometers to the east and approached the Dnieper River.
In the northern root area of the Belarusian salient, the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division, the vanguard of the German 4th Panzer Army, also broke through the Velikaya River in Velizh, and occupied the city of Velizh abandoned by the Soviet 4th Infantry Army around 10 a.m. on May 1.
However, the subsequent progress was not as smooth as the southern line - because Smolensk was 100 kilometers southeast of Velizh City, and the Soviet resistance in this area must be tenacious.
Therefore, the German army that broke through the Velikaya River encountered the stubborn resistance of the Red Army's 3rd Army again in the Demidov area more than 70 kilometers away from Smolensk, and the battle was extremely fierce.
Major General Ilya Oktyabriski, commander of the Red Army's 3rd Army, had arrived in Demidov with the army headquarters at this time. The army headquarters was located in the "Red May 1st" collective farm north of the city, occupying a large area of very neatly built and very solid bungalows. Antennas disguised as trees were erected on the roofs, and telephone lines were quickly laid. The beeping sounds of telegraphs and telephone ringings rang out, and the staff hurriedly passed on various orders and messages. From time to time, there were bursts of thunderous muffled sounds, which were the artillery of both sides bombarding each other!
Because the front line of the Red Army's 3rd Army retreated 30-40 kilometers, the German heavy artillery cluster could not move up for the time being. Therefore, the artillery group of the Red Army's 3rd Army temporarily had room to play, and was no longer suppressed by the Germans.
However, the situation was still very unfavorable, because most of the sky now belonged to the Germans! The Soviet army's movement and combat during the day were severely restricted. Even with the cover of Yak-1 aircraft and P-51 fighters, the Red Army's artillery group had to be transferred in time, otherwise it would be bombed!
At noon on May 1, Lieutenant Hermann Graf, who had become a squadron leader and had a blue Max medal on his neck (which meant at least 25 kills), was leading his squadron (a total of 16 Fw-190A-9 fighters) to patrol the sky in the western part of Kalinin Oblast, Soviet Union.
Soaring in the blue sky above 5,000 meters, Lieutenant Hermann Graf felt that he was the king of the sky and the god who dominated everything! Any enemy plane that encountered the squadron he led was doomed to be doomed.
This feeling was not without reason. Since he shot down a Soviet fighter with the help of his wingman Erich Hartmann (who now has more than 70 victories) in June last year, Graf found the feeling of an ace pilot, and he has been unstoppable since then. He has now shot down more than 60 enemy planes and is a real air killer.
After replacing his seat with the Fw-190A-9, Lieutenant Graf felt even better. The performance of this aircraft is so good that it can not only suppress the P51 (most of these P51 are A and B models, not the most advanced) at medium and high altitudes, but also use the overwhelming advantages of speed and firepower to beat the Yak-1 fighter at low altitudes.
It can be said that with the Fw-190A-9, the Fokker Zero D can be retired - in fact, in the internal competition of the German Air Force/Navy Aviation, the Fw-190A-9 equipped with a 2400 horsepower BMW801F engine can easily defeat the Fokker Zero D with the "one-hit-and-leave" tactic even at low altitudes.
The good engine of this aircraft is indeed more important than anything else!
"Lieutenant, at 10 o'clock ahead, at an altitude of 5,500 meters, there is an unidentified enemy aircraft, which seems to be a Soviet P51."
At this time, Lieutenant Graf's headset came with the report of Lieutenant Zumbach, a Polish pilot who was leading the way.
"Great, someone else is here to die!" Lieutenant Graf smiled and immediately gave the order, "Now, four-finger formation, immediately pull up... Let's fly over those P51s."
"Okay, Lieutenant!"
"Let's go shoot them all down!"
"God protect Germany!"
A cheer came from the headset immediately. The morale of these German air force fighters was extremely high because they had an absolute advantage. If the Soviet Red Army still had the power to resist on land, they had already reached the point where they had no power to fight back in the air. Although the Soviet Air Force still had an advantage in quantity on the Eastern Front, the huge gap in quality swallowed up their small advantage in quantity, putting the Red Air Force in an extremely unfavorable disadvantage.