Chapter 1700: The Sword Points to the Final Encirclement

"It's going better than ours! Kurbalov has only encountered sporadic resistance and has been advancing since this morning.

"We encountered a German light armored unit on Lavri's side. A group of half-track vehicles mixed with Type 4, Type 3, and even our captured T34. It took some effort to deal with them. Lavri reported that they will be able to continue on the road soon. They are cleaning up the battlefield and collecting prisoners of war."

The progress of the two good brothers is smoother than his side, which is the best result that Malashenko can think of.

Malashenko would rather meet the tough bone himself, after all, the central offensive direction led by him personally has the strongest force. If they meet a tough bone, who knows what trouble will happen. If they can't chew it and the offensive is blocked, it will be fun.

"How far are we from the final encirclement point now? Can we get there within today? "

Although there were also maps in the small bag hanging on his hip, Malashenko still preferred to look at the map of Comrade Political Commissar.

The reason was that even though he only had one arm left, Comrade Political Commissar's ability to draw maps was still unusually strong. The maps he made were both beautiful and practical. The overall situation and local battle conditions of the entire battlefield could be easily understood at a glance.

On the contrary, the map made by Malashenko, a major general and division commander, was like a dog's crawl. Compared with the map made by Comrade Political Commissar, it was simply a slap in the face.

Hearing what Malashenko said, Comrade Political Commissar did not hesitate to reach out from his bag and take out the map, unfolded it on the ground, pointed to a position indicated by a red circle and said.

"Here, this is where we are now, or more precisely, the position of the central assault force led by you."

"Here, a little to the north, this is the forward position of Kurbarov. The coordinates reported half an hour ago are estimated to be further ahead than this coordinate point. There is no German who can resist them along the way. It is estimated that the distance is about ten kilometers away from us. "

"If we use the situation on Kurbalov's side to infer, we are less than fifteen kilometers away from the final encirclement point. Due to the detour and terrain restrictions, the actual mileage is no more than 25 kilometers, and it will not exceed this number. "

"As long as we don't encounter too strong German resistance, this distance can be completed within today. If the situation goes well, Kurbalov can even wait for us to have lunch at the encirclement point. The rest of the matter is to wait for the friendly encirclement forces to meet up. A large group of short-legged German infantry divisions have been put into our pockets. This is roughly the situation. "

Kurbalov's progress was smoother than Malashenko had expected, which was unexpected.

Malashenko made up his mind without much thought, and immediately spoke to Political Commissar Petrov, knowing that time was running out.

"Send a telegram to Kurbalov, and prioritize reaching the final encirclement point as soon as possible, and rush forward as fast as possible! Kill all the Germans you meet along the way, don't show mercy, and don't be tripped by those Germans lying on the roadside waiting to die! Remember not to get too entangled with the enemy!"

"He knows what to do, let him make his own judgment based on the actual situation, Lavri and I will soon catch up with him and join him! "

Malachenko had been mentally prepared for the arrival of the German armored forces. This group of clumsy, heavy, stupid-as-pigs hunting tigers could only be regarded as an appetizer before the storm, and compared with the following battle, they were not even enough to fill the gaps between teeth.

Although it was unlikely that the German armored forces coming back to support him would get ahead of him and arrive at the final encirclement point first, from a probabilistic point of view, the Germans had almost no chance of winning.

But in line with the principle of "not being afraid of ten thousand, but being afraid of one", Malachenko still did not want to bet on the enemy's speed not being able to keep up. Malachenko has always believed that the most suitable and best bet on the battlefield is to bet on himself. Malachenko would never try to bet on the enemy's lameness unless it was absolutely necessary.

The next half day will be a war race.

Knowing that the German armored forces will definitely come for this "thorn", Malachenko must use all his strength to grab the encirclement point at all costs and occupy that place first.

Even if the next battle inevitably involves a fight with the German armored forces, Malashenko hopes to have the initiative in his own hands. What he wants is to wait for the Germans to tire themselves out, take a short break, and then fight the exhausted Germans who have come from a long distance. It would be best to give the Germans who are helping them on their way a head-on blow at the beginning of the battle.

After making the battle deployment and issuing the order, Malashenko did not delay too much. After a little preparation, he immediately ordered the troops to continue to advance and continue to rush towards the final encirclement point. Front.

Large groups of Wehrmacht prisoners who raised their hands and surrendered were handed over to the friendly infantry divisions that had just caught up.

The commanders of the infantry divisions assigned to Malashenko to coordinate the attack were also full of complaints, but it was not so convenient to say it.

The reason was nothing, just because there was almost no fighting with the Germans since the beginning of the war.

I just heard that the fighting started in the front. The Germans set up a relatively decent defensive position to block the offensive of their own tanks. The battle was extremely fierce and the sound of gunfire was continuous.

The commanders of the infantry divisions thought that it was finally our turn to go up, but who knew that they had just rushed halfway when the latest news from the front was that the brave and invincible tank hero General Malashenko had killed so many Germans and captured so many prisoners. After breaking through the German positions, he continued to charge forward and marched away.

What was left for the friendly infantry divisions behind were only smoking positions, German corpses all over the ground, and large numbers of German prisoners who were captured like pigs tied up for slaughter.

These infantry division commanders who were almost writing "I'm very unhappy" on their faces were so angry in their hearts: Good guy! Are you here to clean up for you, or are you here to fight the Germans? At least take us with you in the war, don't play like this.

But no matter how angry they were, there was actually nothing they could do.

The Soviet infantry divisions of the day were also slow-moving troops that were a mixture of mules and horses and a few vehicles, and mainly relied on infantry to march on foot. Only the wealthy Americans could have mechanized infantry divisions, as they had plenty of trucks and jeeps to use.

Oh, the Red Army did have a purely mechanized unit. It was said that even the cooking squad used trucks to load cooking tools and deliver meals to the front line, which really made the general troops who didn't have enough mules and horses envious! This unit was the Stalin Guards First Tank Division that was killing people in front.

Ordinary infantry divisions could hardly catch up with the attack speed of Malashenko's troops, and this was not the first time. Fortunately, Malashenko had a powerful infantry unit armed with the latest weapons and equipment to fight infantry-tank coordination, so he didn't have to worry too much about the problem of friendly infantry being out of touch.