Chapter 401: How to Use the 40th Army Tank

It is naturally impossible for Wang Zhong to know about this little episode of Melania's First Division. He is already the commander of the group army. This kind of thing is usually just a line of fine print in the daily report and the ten-day report.

On the evening of the 18th, in the headquarters of the First Mobile Group, the "Big Three" were discussing how to use the 40th Tank Corps that had just been issued to the group army.

Wang Zhong threw down the specific organization list for the 40 episodes he had just received and sighed: "To be honest, I have no confidence in this large tank unit with 100 KVs and a total number of tanks of more than 300."

In the first half of 915 that had just passed, although Wang Zhong had been preparing a model unit, when his model unit failed to achieve results, the Military Command established a group of units based on the experience of the previous year.

The 40th Tank Corps is one of them. Its designation was wiped out in the great rout from June to July last year. Now this corps is a reorganized force.

Although it accepted some of Wang Zhong's army building ideas, this tank corps established a certain number of accompanying infantry and other auxiliary units, but that was all.

In this year's situation, it was impossible to prepare many support troops, so the military command office filled up a relatively large number of infantry and relatively sufficient artillery. This can be regarded as implementing Wang Zhong's idea that "armored troops cannot fight alone."

However, the most important maintenance force of the 40th Army is very weak. The overall maintenance force is only equivalent to 1.5 times that of the Guards One Machine Infantry, and is less than the maintenance strength of the Guards One Machine Infantry plus the 225th Division.

But they were equipped with more tanks than the entire First Mobile Army.

On Earth, Maozi generally only organizes heavy breakthrough tank regiments, with 21 heavy tanks in each regiment, because this organization is the largest organization that Maozi can support. Sandezi has better support capabilities than Maozi. Generally, Tiger Camp has 45 tanks, and Leopard Camp has more. 98 vehicles at the time.

But this is the upper limit. Only a few armored regiments are assigned a Tiger Battalion and a Leopard Battalion. This super elite large-scale heavy-armed unit is basically the only one in the entire Santoku Army.

Without him, there is really no guarantee.

Wang Zhong, who was well aware of this, saw the formation of the 40th Tank Corps, one head and two big. He could tell almost at a glance that these 100 KVs would be damaged and thrown aside not long after they started attacking.

Moreover, it is almost impossible for these abandoned KVs to be repaired, and they are usually left on the roadside until the end of the war.

This is how the wars of the earth are fought, and the victory depends entirely on the numbers and the heroic fighting skills of the veterans starting from the mid-term.

Wang Zhong couldn't see how much change there would be in this time and space - at least not from the organization of the 40th Tank Army.

Pavlov: "40 tanks have been obtained. Although there are problems with the organization, they must be used as they should."

Wang Zhong pursed his lips and fell into deep thought.

Popov: "You're the best at mixing up all kinds of messy troops, aren't you? Look at how the First Mobile Army has been mixed up, and Pavlov has lost a few hairs - I mean, the ones that could have grown out A few are missing.”

Pavlov said rudely: "You don't have a few more than me, do you? But it is true that when highly mixed troops are mobilized, the workload of the Army Headquarters is much greater. Now there are three divisions of this kind of troops. We can barely cope with it. To expand more of this highly integrated force, I think the headquarters’ establishment will have to be doubled.”

Wang Zhong looked at Pavlov: "Why didn't you report that the pressure on the headquarters had increased so much before?"

"Because the troops were not active before. It's just that if they were stationed at the station, it wouldn't be such a big problem. At most, it would just be filling out more reports. So we didn't expect there would be such a big pressure. Fortunately, I expanded the headquarters in advance. "Pavlov said.

Wang Zhong: "In other words, this highly integrated combat force organization exceeds the capabilities of the command headquarters."

Think about it, when the world has reached a time when all countries are building combined camps, the combat command and communication capabilities of the troops are no longer the same thing as in World War II. With the help of computers, commanders can grasp the situation more intuitively and adjust deployment.

However, under the technical conditions of World War II, command capabilities became an obstacle to synthesis.

During World War II, even if Mao Zi combined various arms, they often fought separately. This is probably the reason. Later, they established a large-service system, in which each branch was organized into large units, thus simplifying the command system.

Wang Zhong thought for a while and said: "Then I will give the army staff another hard time. I will break up the 100 KVs into four groups and add an independent tank detachment. Each group will have 21 tanks. The tank detachment will have 16 KVs. Below the Army Headquarters."

Pavlov's eyes widened: "Then you want to lead this detachment to charge, right? It just so happens that KV has a commander!"

Wang Zhong patted Pavlov on the shoulder: "Don't be nervous, I didn't say I was going to do this. After all the KVs were mobilized, the remaining T34s were organized into an assault group. The enemy's pincer offensive troops were retracted. ?"

"According to the current intelligence, except for the 14th suit, the others are still in place." Pavlov replied.

Wang Zhong thought for a while and said: "According to the report of the cavalry unit, the enemy armored forces still have quite strong combat effectiveness. I feel that our hundreds of taels of T34 assaulting the enemy's armored forces are not worth the gain."

The previous requirement for 40 tank corps was to wait until the enemy's supplies were exhausted and the men and horses were exhausted - specifically, the enemy would be trapped on the grassland for about a week before launching an attack.

But in this situation, the enemy is about to shrink, and the original battle plan will no longer work.

On the battlefield, plans need to be modified according to the situation. Almost no combat plan is implemented unchanged to the end.

Wang Zhong: "I think it is more appropriate to use the T34 of the 40th Tank Army to strengthen a KV group and attack the enemy's infantry units. While the 40th Army arrives, we can let the artillery advance first."

Popov: "Use tanks to attack the enemy's infantry division? No more annihilation?"

Wang Zhong: "We don't have enough time. After the enemy shrinks back, we have to face one and a half - no, one and three-quarters of the enemy's armored divisions, and two armored grenadier divisions. I'm worried that we will suffer heavy losses." "

Vasily couldn't help but interrupt at this time: "Our total strength is no less than that of the enemy."

Wang Zhong: "But the quality of the soldiers is not good. Think about how much time was lost during the battle against Yeisk. The 401st Division only joined the battle for such a short period of time. Just accept it when it is good, so as not to steal the chicken but lose the rice."

Pavlov: "So the battle plan is to use artillery and the 40th Tank Corps to launch a powerful attack on the enemy's infantry, and run away before the enemy shrinks and take advantage? Where to run? Hold on to Yeisk?"

Wang Zhong: "Yes, we need to hold on in Yeisk until Duke Myshkin's front retreats."

As soon as he finished speaking, the communications staff officer ran over from the telegraph group in the distance and said loudly: "Report! Today's battlefield situation report is here."

Pavlov immediately took the telegram, read it, handed it to his staff officer who was responsible for updating the map, and then said to Wang Zhong: "Mei Shijin has begun to retreat faster than we expected. His staff is very efficient. "

Wang Zhong clapped his hands: "Okay! This way we can retreat earlier and get out of contact before suffering heavy losses."

At this time, the phone rang. Because Pavlov had just received the telegram and was a little far away from the phone, Wang Zhong picked up: "This is Rokosov."

The voice of General Gorky came from the receiver: "Alexei, Myshkin has begun to retreat. We should launch some offensives here to support them. The 40th Tank Army is already on the way. Will you make good use of it?"

Wang Zhong: "No problem, leave it to me."