Chapter 838 Attack (Asking for Monthly Votes)

6:30 in the morning.

The fighter planes of both sides fought for air supremacy over Prokhorovka... Stalin not only deployed the reserve, the 5th Guards Tank Army, but also the 2nd Air Force Army in this direction.

The Soviet Air Force has been reorganized. They are no longer attached to the ground forces as before and are restrained by the ground forces. At this time, they exist in the form of air force groups, each of which has 500 to 1,000 aircraft of various types.

Usually in key battles, the Soviet army will deploy two or three air force groups to provide air cover for the ground forces.

But this is not necessarily the case.

Because in some emergency situations, the front-line air force group can also be strengthened by the aviation army and division from the reserve of the Supreme Command, with the number of aircraft reaching 2,500 to 3,000.

For example, the 2nd Air Force Group supporting Prokhorovka was strengthened by the aviation division and had 1,500 fighter planes of various types. At the same time, the Supreme Command was also organizing subsequent reinforcements.

This enabled the Soviet army to deploy more than 500 fighter planes in the first wave to bombard the German defense line.

The German Air Force, which always had air superiority, was not to be outdone and immediately sent fighter planes to counterattack.

So, almost at that moment, the sky above Prokhorovka was full of the whistling of planes and the dense gunfire of machine guns and cannons. You didn't even need to look up to see fighter planes as dense as mosquitoes circling, chasing, and fighting at different altitudes. From time to time, several planes were hit and fell from the sky with black smoke. You could even see two fighter planes collided and then both disintegrated into fragments in the air in a fire.

Qin Chuan on the ground had no time to take care of these, because there were already pieces of artillery shells and bombs falling from the sky and hitting the surrounding positions fiercely, and the entire position was in a mess like a pot of porridge.

Then, someone shouted, "Here they come, they come!"

He stuck his head out and looked out in the explosion, and sure enough, he saw tanks slowly coming out of the jungle opposite.

At the same time, on the other side, that is, in the direction of the right wing railroad, tanks also emerged.

There is a one-kilometer-wide gap between the front and the right wing... This is a smart approach, because as the tanks continue to advance, the two offensive lines at an angle will overlap at the angle, which will cause offensive confusion and even possible accidental injuries. Leaving a gap is to avoid this situation.

However, the gap in the offensive line is one kilometer long, so you can imagine how large the scale of the Soviet offensive is.

Qin Chuan was right. Rotmistrov invested one-third of the first wave of offensive, that is, more than 200 tanks.

Because in Rotmistrov's view, when the performance of the tanks is not as good as the enemy and close combat is necessary, the more tanks should be invested, the better, especially since they have discovered the weakness of the German "tracking rockets".

On the right wing, the 4-kilometer offensive line is the 18th Tank Army of the Red Army commanded by Major General Bakharov, with 180 tanks.

The first echelon includes the 170th and 181st Tank Brigades; the second echelon is the 32nd Motorized Infantry Brigade and the 36th Guards Tank Regiment; the 110th Tank Brigade is ready to follow up at any time.

The frontal offensive line of about 7 kilometers is the 29th Tank Army of the Red Army under Lieutenant General Kirichenko, with 237 tanks.

The forces include the 31st Tank Brigade, the 53rd Motorized Infantry Brigade, the 32nd and 25th Tank Brigades, and the 1446th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment. The reinforcements include the 1529th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment; the airborne troops of the 28th Regiment of the 9th Guards Airborne Division will attack on tanks.

In addition, there are the 2nd Guards Tank Army and the 5th Guards Mechanized Army, with 190 and 105 tanks respectively as reserves for the two offensive lines.

The total number of tanks in each part was 712, most of which were Soviet T34 tanks, followed by American M3 light tanks. In the reserve, there were also some British "Valentine" or "Matilda" tanks... These tanks were too slow to attack.

At 7:11 a.m.

The Soviet army launched a pre-attack artillery attack on the German army.

The bombardment was originally planned to last 30 minutes, but because the 5th Guards Tank Army had few shells to rush to the rescue, the bombardment was changed to 15 minutes: 5 minutes of front-line fire attack, followed by 5 minutes of shallow and deep shooting, and then 5 minutes of extended fire.

When the artillery fire stopped, Rotmistrov sent an attack signal to all troops through the walkie-talkie: "Steel, steel, steel!"

The artillery sound that had just subsided was soon replaced by the rumbling roar of Soviet tanks, and Soviet tanks carrying soldiers through the smoke launched an attack on the German defense line.

This is a characteristic of Soviet warfare, or it can be said to be a characteristic of tank warfare in this era.

Tanks often need infantry to follow, but the speed of infantry cannot keep up with tanks.

The British approach is to slow down the tanks so that the infantry can keep up, while the Germans let the infantry get on the vehicles to keep up with the speed of the tanks.

The Soviets... they often let the soldiers lie directly behind the tanks, and for this reason they also welded several iron grabbers on the back of the tanks so that the infantry will not be thrown off by the bumpy tanks.

Of course, even so, infantry on tanks are still very dangerous, because tanks moving at full speed on uneven roads will cause a series of accidents, and these infantry on tanks will become very obvious targets, and they cannot fight back because they have to grab the grabbers with all their strength.

The advantage is obvious, that is, tanks will never lack infantry cover at any time. Even if the tanks are destroyed on the way forward, they can still lead the infantry to the front line and engage in battle.

"Fire!" Colonel Olbrich ordered loudly when the enemy rushed into a distance of 1,000 meters.

"Boom boom" With a burst of artillery fire, shells flew out of the barrel and hit the Soviet tanks.

One, two... More than ten tanks in the front were hit one after another, and they had no power to fight back.

But the Soviet tanks continued to charge at the German defense line with overwhelming momentum, trying to close the distance with the German tanks.

Several tanks ran over anti-tank mines and then stopped in a cloud of smoke and fire.

So Qin Chuan knew that the enemy was only 800 meters away from the defense line.

"Fire!" Qin Chuan ordered loudly into the walkie-talkie

After several actual combats, Qin Chuan learned from the operator that 800 meters was the most ideal firing distance for ME63.

Because at this distance the operator has sufficient adjustment time and a good field of view (meaning that the target and the ME63 warhead can be observed well).

So, Qin Chuan chose to attack at this distance.

However, a few seconds later, when the ME63 was still on its way to the target, a whistling sound of mortar shells came from the sky, aiming directly at the ME63 launch position.