Chapter 1787 New Soviet Hero

Waking up early every morning is the beginning of a new day, which is true for everyone, but for some people the details are slightly different.

For example, for our comrade Ma, waking up early in the morning not only means the beginning of a new day, but also means that a new battle has slowly begun and is about to officially arrive.

"Good morning, comrade division commander."

"Morning, comrade division commander."

"Well, good morning, everyone."

He picked up a basin and splashed some water on his face and rinsed his mouth. He was walking towards the division tent with a lunch box full of breakfast. Along the way, he met many comrades who were also holding breakfast or had just washed and greeted him.

Out of politeness, Malashenko basically responded to every courtesy. Even if he couldn't spare a hand with bread in one hand and oatmeal milk porridge in the other, he had to at least give a verbal reply. He walked all the way and stepped into the division tent.

"Huh? Why are you so early today?"

As soon as he entered the door, the political commissar asked with a little surprise, and Malashenko, grinning, just answered casually.

"You said that, as if I sleep in every day during the war, and I didn't get up early one day?"

The political commissar, who was in a good mood in the morning, just smiled indifferently, just like Malashenko.

"No, it's just that I got up earlier than usual today, about fifteen minutes."

Carrying the freshly brewed oatmeal milk porridge and bread, kicked the chair away and sat down. Malashenko, who finally put the food in his hand on the table, spoke first and got to the point.

"How is it? Is there any new news from the front headquarters? Will we still fight according to the original plan today?"

The political commissar, who was holding a soup spoon and drinking porridge, nodded after hearing this, and blurted out the answer without thinking.

"Well, after you went to bed last night, I sent a telegram to confirm. The reply was very clear. Our mission today is to continue to charge forward. You know all the other situations and arrangements. We have half a day to rest. The scheduled time for the attack is 12 noon today."

"Friendly forces will try their best to clear obstacles for us and find out the strength of the enemy's defense arrangements. However, this is more like a tentative attack. The real main force is still us. This has never changed."

Yesterday's battle was far from a serious injury to the Stalin Guards 1st Tank Division, but compared with the conventional battles on weekdays, it was still a loss worth mentioning.

More importantly, Malashenko's Stalin Guards 1st Tank Division only undertook the most important combat mission, which was to encircle and annihilate the Wehrmacht's Grossdeutschland Armored Division, and killed the Wehrmacht's Independent 505th Heavy Armored Battalion, which had already been destroyed by the bomb.

The remaining three ordinary Wehrmacht armored divisions, which only had numerical numbers and no special titles, were dragged and surrounded by the friendly vanguards who rushed up and followed them in various directions of engagement, and at the same time launched block-type segmentation, encirclement and annihilation operations.

So don’t look at the heavy strength of the armored cluster urgently dispatched by the German army, which has as many as 4 armored divisions and an independent heavy armored battalion. But the enemy that Malashenko actually had to face was only one Great German Armored Division.

Enemies in other directions of the same theater were dragged and unable to move or support, or they were simply trapped in the siege and could not save themselves.

Such favorable objective conditions enabled Malashenko to finally achieve the tactical goal of concentrating troops and ambushing and annihilating the Great German Armored Division.

But from another perspective, such a tactical arrangement that affected the whole body was also the fundamental reason why all the front-line Red Army participating troops suffered heavy losses in yesterday’s battle.

Many Red Army vanguards who rushed to join the battlefield at all costs were lightly mechanized and semi-mechanized infantry who had abandoned important equipment, and they were not many in number.

An ordinary Red Army infantry division could gather half a regiment of pure mechanized light infantry, which was good enough. Even if the Guards Infantry Division was patched together, it could only have one regiment of mechanized light infantry at most, and this had to include the mules and light cavalry that were pulled in to make up the number. It was only possible to concentrate the high-speed troops of the entire division together. Not all troops had the boldness of Stalin's First Guards Tank Division, which was a pure mechanized division.

Such lightly mechanized and semi-mechanized troops had a marching speed, but insufficient firepower became the biggest problem.

Facing ordinary German infantry divisions might not be a big problem, but if they faced those German armored divisions with iron turtles running all over the place, I'm afraid no one would believe that the casualties were not large. Even if the tactical goal of the vanguard was just to delay the enemy and not to annihilate as many enemies as possible, behind the word "delay", countless soldiers continued to sacrifice their lives every minute and every second to achieve this tactical goal, no less.

If Malashenko had not achieved the predetermined tactical goal in yesterday's battle and let the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division run away, then this victory that even Comrade Stalin was happy about would have been a completely different scene.

The casualties of the friendly troops who cooperated in the battle to assist Malashenko would have been more obvious. Not only did they fail to achieve the tactical goal but they also suffered such a great loss. It is not an exaggeration to say that they lost both the lady and the soldiers.

Fortunately, none of this happened.

Malachenko, who believed that war itself was a gamble and game, won the gamble. The complete annihilation of the enemy's elite Great German Division was no longer a fantasy but a reality. The sacrifices of friendly brother troops and Stalin's First Guards Tank Division became meaningful.

As the saying goes, we are not afraid of death, let alone a lot of people dying. What we are afraid of is that a lot of people die before achieving the pre-set goals, and die in an unclear and meaningless way.

Recalling the entire battle yesterday, Malachenko couldn't help but sigh. As the core party of the whole incident, he was in an excited fighting state with adrenaline rushing almost the whole day yesterday, and had no chance to think about these minor issues.

Now that the battle is over, I am still a little scared after thinking about it carefully. If I lose this battle, the consequences can really be said to be unbearable.

Fortunately, the bastards of the Great German Division were intercepted by Kurbalov halfway, and a beautiful ambush was fought on the spot, which bought the most precious half an hour for the follow-up large forces to arrive and encircle and annihilate the Great German Division.

To be honest, Kurbalov and the main force regiment he led did make great efforts and played a crucial role in the final decision. For this reason, Malashenko felt that he should do something for Kurbalov, as a superior division commander and a life-and-death comrade.

"I say, should we draft a report in the name of the division headquarters to apply for the Soviet Hero Award for Kurbalov?"