Chapter 1274 Straight Into Smolensk

The landing troops fought for half an hour, after which there was no more gunfire on the other side.

"Report to the division commander, our troops have taken control of the other side." The adjutant was quite happy when he received the news from the radio.

"Then build a bridge immediately and cross the river!" Weber said.

The bridging troops were already prepared by the side.

In the process of conquering Europe, the German army encountered all kinds of rivers. The shallow ones, the tanks could be connected to the snorkel and go directly to the bottom of the river. When they encountered deep and wide rivers, there was no other way. I can walk the bridge.

On the European battlefield, because of the chaos of the enemy, the German troops can often send forward troops to take over the bridges, protect the bridges, and allow their main forces to cross the river calmly.

But here in the Soviet Union, it will not work, especially as it goes deeper, the Soviet army no longer panics and begins to enter an orderly resistance stage. When they retreat, they often blow up bridges, and even if Germany sends a small number of troops, it will not work. Unable to protect them well, they could not fight against the main force of the Soviet Union.

Especially now, in order to prevent the German army from attacking, almost all the bridges here have collapsed, and Germany has already made preparations for this. This is the construction of bridges by engineers.

Germany has realized mechanized bridge erection for a long time. For example, now, they are all bridge erection vehicles transformed from the original Panther 2 tank chassis. On the top of the car, there is a steel bridge. As the bridge erection vehicle drives to the front, The bridge above began to flip, part of the bridge leg, part of the bridge deck, and a section of the bridge was built.

The bridging trucks behind continue to drive to the bridge that has been erected, continue to erect the bridge, and move forward section by section. In the afternoon, a bridge large enough for tanks to pass can be built.

At this time, the other infantry units have already started to ride the unmodified wheeled infantry fighting vehicles and cross the river. When they reach the other side of the river, in the swamp, they only need to let the modified infantry fighting vehicles equipped with screws. Give it a pull, and you can pull it directly to the hard shore land.

The speed of crossing the river is not slow. The following infantrymen will firmly guard the beachhead. The Dnieper River, which the Soviets think is a natural moat, is only a small ditch in front of the German army.

When it was getting dark, the tanks rumbled across the bridge, and the 17th Armored Division moved on!

In general, throughout the war, the Soviets' command was quite chaotic. The Soviets' tree-like command system, as long as one of the nodes was destroyed, would cause part of the army to fall into a state of no command.

At the same time, the way the Soviets commanded was quite backward.

They rely on the radio, but on the battlefield, the signal of the radio is always disturbed. They rely on the messenger to transmit, and the military situation is urgent. When the messenger passes the order, the situation changes, and the order has to be revised.

In this way, the confusion in the Soviet army was exacerbated.

And the troops guarding the Dnieper River were actually forgotten by their superiors. The information that their positions had been conquered was mixed in a lot of large and small information, and it was not reported in time.

In this way, up to now, the Soviet army has not noticed that there is a big hole in their defense line. Following this big hole, the elite German armored forces have broken in.

It is said that there are heavy soldiers deployed by the Soviets all around at this time. Even if an armored division gets in, it will be very dangerous, and it will even be surrounded and annihilated by the Soviet army.

However, the German armored forces are always so bold. Under the intelligence and reconnaissance of the Air Force, they made two consecutive detours, bypassing the 20th Army Defense Zone and the heavily guarded main road to Smolensk, and rushed directly to the The southern part of Smolensk.

The Dnieper River traverses the Smolensk urban area, dividing the city into two parts: the residential area and the commercial area in the south, accounting for 2/3 of the city, and the industrial area in the north, accounting for 1/3.

In the south, only Lukin's militia was on the defensive.

Lukin stayed at the city defense headquarters in the northern part of the city and urged his superiors anxiously.

At this time, it was Timoshenko who was in charge of the defense of the entire Smolensk front.

At the beginning, due to Pavlov's mistake, the Western Special Military Region failed. When Pavlov was called back from the front line and was shot, Timoshenko replaced Pavlov and went to the Western Special Military Region.

It’s a pity that the failure of the Western Special Military Region was doomed, and Timoshenge was irreversible. Under Zhukov’s suggestion, the base camp gave up Minsk and began to set up a defense line behind, and Timoshenge also retreated. , in the defense of the Smolensk generation.

Timoshenko was under a lot of pressure. At the beginning, he was kicked to the Ural Mountains by Stalin because of a failure to reflect once. If he fails again this time, it is conceivable that Pavlov is his role model.

Brother Timoshen did not dare to be negligent. Almost every day, he was strategizing and staring at his defense zone map.

In history, Timoshenko is definitely not a loser, but a successful person.

Due to his good personal friendship with Stalin, he was not involved in the Great Purge. At the same time, he won the Soviet-Finnish war, forcing Finland to make peace, and made great achievements.

Timoshenko took over the command of the Western Front in a critical situation in July 1941 and directed the retreat from Smolensk. Despite paying a huge price, Timoshenko successfully stabilized the situation on the Western Front and stabilized the front until the German army launched the Battle of Moscow at the end of September 1941.

After that, he was transferred to the Ukrainian front line, commanding the Red Army, which had just wiped out 1.5 million people in Kyiv and Uman, and successfully stabilized the front line, and successfully commanded the Rostov counterattack.

It can be said that Timoshen was a figure who turned the tide in the Soviet Union. It is a pity that the German army is now stronger than it was in history. Timoshen knew how much pressure he was under.

"Marshal, General Lu Jin is here." At this moment, the adjutant's voice made Timoshen come back to his senses: "No, tell him I don't have time, the equipment he wants is being shipped from the rear, and it will be available tomorrow. arrive."

Brother Timoshen already knew the name of Lu Jin, and he was a popular man in front of Stalin, but Brother Timoshen had no opinion on this.

However, Timoshen couldn’t bear to come here every day to ask for equipment, and he just disappeared now. Of course the equipment is being adjusted in the rear, but there is a shortage of equipment everywhere, so he can’t give all the equipment to his militia group, right? Those militia groups are now defending in the southern urban area. For the time being, the Germans will not be able to beat them.