Chapter 636 Heavy Thunderstorm 24

The sky was bright and the morning breeze was blowing. The humidity of the night on the Polish plain had slowly risen at dawn, as if it was a thin layer of fog. The occasional crowing of a rooster made this morning seem even more peaceful.

About 6 kilometers northwest of the Polish town of Wołomin, where the Soviet Red Army gathered, on a large wheat field belonging to another small town of Nadaburg, 162 BMW and Opel 2-ton trucks were neatly arranged at this time, each truck carrying a row of 130mm thick tubes connected together. If you count carefully, you can find that there are 12 thick tubes connected together and installed on a truck.

These are German rocket launchers, officially known as SWR40 self-propelled smoke launchers. The 12-tube 130mm launch tubes can launch 12 130mm rockets at a time, with an effective range of 6.7 kilometers.

However, because it is troublesome to reload, after completing a salvo, these self-propelled smoke launchers installed on trucks will be immediately transferred to a new launch position and reloaded. Therefore, the 162 self-propelled smoke launchers of the three regiments fired 1,944 rockets at a time, and they would retreat after firing, giving no chance for the enemy artillery to counterattack.

On both sides of the positions where the 162 SWR40 self-propelled smoke launchers were located, countless tanks, assault guns, self-propelled artillery, half-track armored vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles had already arranged their attack formations!

The commanders of the German smoke launcher regiments all looked at their watches nervously. When the hour and minute hands were close together at 6 o'clock, they all waved their hands heavily: "Fire!"

The messenger holding the red flag also waved the flag to send a flag signal. The rocket launcher sitting in the truck cab had already opened the launch safety and placed his finger on the red button. When he saw the red flag waving, he pressed it heavily, and flames spewed out of each rocket launch tube!

The position of the German rocket launcher was less than 6 kilometers away from the town of Wowomin where the Soviet army was assembled. Although the accuracy of the rocket launcher was not high, the 1,944 rockets fired at this distance could still blow the opponent to pieces. Moreover, the rocket launcher has another feature. It is very powerful when it is used, which will cause great psychological pressure on the enemy soldiers. It is very suitable for attacking the enemy's troop assembly area, especially suitable for use as assault firepower.

All 1,944 rockets were fired in less than 10 seconds, dragging long flames and roaring "咻咻咻", as if they were demons descending from the sky, and in a very short time they fell on the heads of the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army, which was arranging defenses.

All around the town of Wowomin, groups of smoke columns suddenly rose up, and they rushed straight into the sky in different postures. Because the smoke columns were too dense, they were no longer rising in rows, but in clusters without any points, rising at the same time. In just a few seconds, the positions where tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of vehicles gathered were all covered in a blue-black smoke.

If the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army has now completed its deployment, dug trenches and bunkers, and all kinds of non-armored vehicles have been evacuated to safe areas. Then nearly 2,000 rockets will not cause much damage. This is nothing more than 2,000 130mm high-explosive shells. What is it for the army defending the position?

Moreover, this kind of high-explosive bomb has limited lethality to armored targets. Unless it is directly hit, tanks of the level of T-34, KV-1 and KV-2 are not afraid of rocket coverage and attack.

But for the current Soviet 16th Mechanized Army, the sudden nearly 2,000 rockets are quite deadly. On the one hand, because the 16th Mechanized Army has not had time to deploy, a large number of vehicles are concentrated around Wowomin.

On the other hand, while the Soviet mechanized forces attached great importance to tanks, they neglected the equipment of armored vehicles such as self-propelled artillery, armored personnel carriers, and half-track armored vehicles (this was also determined by the Soviet national strength. The current Soviet Union could not mechanize most of the army). Therefore, the Soviet mechanized forces were actually a combination of tanks and trucks, and there were a large number of soft targets that could be killed by rocket launchers.

"Rocket launchers! Damn, the Germans have concentrated a lot of rocket launchers!"

When the strange sound of "咻咻咻咻" appeared, Major General Sokalov, who was still on the road south of the town of Wowomin, knew that something bad was going to happen. Rocket launchers and the like, of course, a senior Red Army officer at his level had seen them. There was a rocket launcher battalion in the 4th Army's direct team, but the scene of the town of Wowomin being flooded by rockets was not something that a rocket launcher battalion could create.

"At least a rocket launcher brigade!" Major General Sokalov was more convinced of his judgment, "The enemy cannot have only one brigade, they are at least an army-level armored group!"

What? Army-level armored group? That's at least 2 armored divisions! Lieutenant Colonel Kurbsky, the chief of staff of the 16th Mechanized Army, was also a little confused.

"Comrade Commander, what should we do?" The political commissar of the 16th Mechanized Army, Brigade Commissar Fegulov, also came over anxiously. When the German rockets came over, he had just left the town of Wovomin (he was doing political mobilization). If he had been half a step later, he would have become a martyr of the world revolution.

But saving his life temporarily is not necessarily a good thing. If the 16th Mechanized Army is defeated in Wowomin, he, the political commissar, may become a reactionary and be reformed through labor.

"Comrade Political Commissar, the enemy will attack soon!" Major General Sokalov made an accurate judgment this time. "Now I order all troops to prepare for battle. We are going to have a decisive battle with the imperialist German army!

Order the 46th Tank Brigade and the 18th Motorized Infantry Brigade to immediately deploy on the wheat field 1 km south of the town of Wowomin and prepare to fight against German tanks!

Order the 255th Artillery Regiment and the 256th Artillery Regiment to launch a counterattack. We must not let the German rocket launchers launch a second salvo!"

The two motorized infantry brigades belonging to the 16th Mechanized Brigade were bombed in the town of Wowomin. According to the plan, they will get off the bus in the town of Wowomin, and then deploy two anti-tank defense positions equipped with ZIS-3 76.2mm cannon (a very good anti-tank gun), ZIS-2 57mm cannon and 1 anti-tank gun in the north of the town.

However, the Soviet anti-tank guns have not yet been motorized and armored. The Soviet army has a large number of tanks, but few self-propelled guns, and almost no self-propelled anti-tank guns (only a few research and development projects have been carried out, but none of them have been put into production). Therefore, the anti-tank guns assigned to the motorized infantry brigade are also towed, which takes a long time to deploy. As a result, these anti-tank guns were not deployed for many times, and the trucks pulling guns and people concentrated around the town of Wowomin were covered by rocket launchers.

"5th SS Tank Battalion, forward! Forward!"

The order of the battalion commander of the 5th Tank Battalion came from the headset on Gustav Schwarzenegger's head. At this time, less than 1 minute had passed since the rocket launcher salvo, and the town of Wowomin was still shrouded in thick smoke and fire.

However, the 22 No. 4H tanks commanded by Gustav Schwarzenegger had already started to prepare for the attack. As soon as they received the order, they immediately started to rumble and rushed towards the Soviet positions five or six kilometers away. Behind these tanks, there were a large number of grenadiers (actually infantry) following in half-track armored vehicles and wheeled armored vehicles, and some infantry simply sat on the body of the No. 4 tank with automatic carbines (assault rifles) and MG42 machine guns.

The tall and strong Gustav Schwarzenegger opened the top hatch of his command vehicle, leaned out half of his body, held the turret with one hand, and looked forward with a telescope in the other hand.

This area is the most typical large plain terrain, with endless farmland and only small forests near the highway. There are also some villages and farms nearby, all of which are inhabited-although the urban area of ​​Warsaw has been evacuated, people in other parts of Poland have not been treated so well. Moreover, the population of Western European countries is very dense, and it is impossible to accept too many Polish refugees. However, there are enemies in the empty North Africa and the Middle East that can accommodate these European refugees. Perhaps Syria is a good place to go...

Gustav Schwarzenegger retracted his gaze from a Polish village and turned to the town of Wolomin in front. It was also a small town with people living there. The rocket launcher salvo just now must have killed many Poles. Now the town is full of flames and smoke, as if it is a hell on earth.

Captain Schwarzenegger didn't care about the lives of the Poles at all. He just wanted to find the traces of Soviet tanks as soon as possible. He only saw many infantrymen holding rifles and machine guns rushing out of the town covered by flames and smoke, and deployed their defenses in a hurry.

Boom! Boom! Boom...

Then Captain Schwarzenegger heard the roar of artillery. The sound of artillery came from behind him. The "Wasp" self-propelled howitzer and the No. 3 assault gun were firing. They were all artillery formations. They could not only directly fire against enemy armored vehicles, but also kill enemy infantry with grenades under the command of artillery observers.

Seeing the Soviet Red Army being covered by high-explosive shells fired by self-propelled artillery and assault guns, Captain Schwarzenegger quickly ordered his tanks to slow down and let the infantry on them get off and follow the tanks on foot.

Because he knew that since the Soviet infantry could not hold on, their tanks would rush up. The rocket attack just now should have a very limited effect on big guys like T-34 and KV-1.

To deal with them, we have to rely on the 48-caliber 75mm tank gun of the No. 4 tank!