Chapter 637 Heavy Thunderstorm 25
"Our honor is loyalty! Comrades of the Waffen SS, forward!"
Gustav Schwarzenegger picked up the intercom and shouted the SS slogan.
Less than 2,000 meters ahead of him, the Soviet Red Army's tank cluster also rumbled forward. They all belonged to the 46th Tank Brigade of the 16th Mechanized Army of the Red Army. Although the Soviet Red Army lacked self-propelled artillery and armored vehicles, its tank establishment was sufficient.
A tank brigade has 2 tank regiments and more than 200 tanks when fully staffed. Now that the world revolutionary war has just begun, most tank brigades are of course fully equipped and fully staffed.
However, the quality of most Soviet tanks was not very good, and it had already traveled more than 100 kilometers from Brest to Wowomin, and it was constantly bombed by planes and attacked by Polish reactionaries and SS cavalry along the way. The 46th Tank Brigade now had only more than 180 tanks that could be driven, including more than 120 T-34s, more than 40 KVs, 16 T-26 flamethrower tanks and 18 KV-2s. However, the T-26 and KV-2 were prepared for offensive battles, so they did not appear on the front line.
In addition, the 46th Tank Brigade had 70 or 80 tanks under repair, thrown on both sides of the road from Brest waiting for repair.
By the way, the Soviet Red Army's ability to repair and maintain equipment was much worse than that of the current German army. After all, Germany is an old industrialized country, and now it has integrated many European industrial countries, and its mechanical manufacturing capabilities even exceed those of the United States. Naturally, it can provide enough and excellent mechanics for 21 armored divisions and 16 armored grenadier divisions. On the other hand, although the Soviet Union's armored forces were almost twice as large as Germany's, the scale and technical level of its machinery manufacturing industry were far inferior to Germany, not to mention the entire European Community.
Therefore, it was impossible for the Soviet Union to equip their tank army and tank brigade with repair and maintenance personnel according to German standards. In addition, the quality of the equipment was a bit problematic, and the two Soviet main tanks, T-34 and KV-1, had not been tested in actual combat, so it was normal for them to have a high failure rate on the battlefield.
However, more than 120 T-34 and KV-1 tanks were still a large mass when they started, and the number of infantry following them was even more than 10,000, all shouting "Ura! Ura!" The slogan pressed forward like a tide.
"Stop advancing! Prepare for battle!"
When the distance between the two sides approached about 1,000 meters, Gustav Schwarzenegger ordered his company to stop advancing. At this distance, the 48-caliber 75mm tank gun equipped with the Type 4H tank was enough to penetrate the front armor of the T-34.
According to the intelligence we have now, the frontal armor thickness of the T-34 is 45-60 mm, and it is at an angle of 32 degrees.
The kwk40/L48 75mm tank gun of the Type 4 H tank can penetrate an 85mm homogeneous steel plate at an angle of 30 degrees using ordinary Pzgr39 capped armor-piercing bullets at a distance of 1,000 meters. It is a bit difficult to deal with the KV-1, but it is enough to hit the T-34.
And thanks to Carl Zeiss, the sights of the German tank guns are more than one level better than those of the Soviet tank guns. Therefore, at a distance of 1,000 meters, the well-trained German tank gunners are enough to hit Soviet tanks.
"Ogg! The artillery is ready to fire!" After giving the order, Captain Schwarzenegger shrank back half of his body, closed the hatch, and gave orders to the Norwegian gunner Ogg.
"Ready, sir!" The Norwegian Nazi Ogg answered loudly.
Captain Schwarzenegger was looking for a suitable target through the tank's periscope. Before he found a target to "fire", he heard a muffled "boom!" and then felt his tank shake slightly. Captain Schwarzenegger knew that a tank had opened fire, but it was not his tank.
"Hit it! Haha, a T-34 was blown up!"
Schwarzenegger heard the voice of Sergeant Kliman in his headset. He was a tall and handsome Nordic German who had just joined the "Viking" Division last year and was a tank commander trained by Schwarzenegger himself.
Seeing that his student had made a contribution, Captain Schwarzenegger also quickly selected a T-34 tank more than 900 meters away.
"Og, 11 o'clock! Do you see that T-34?"
"I see it!" Norwegian Nazi Og quickly turned the muzzle, aimed at the T-34 that was moving rapidly, and then pressed the trigger of the coaxial machine gun. A string of tracer bullets was quickly fired, creating a spark on the hull of the T-34. Seeing the coaxial machine gun hit, Og pulled the electric trigger without hesitation.
"Boom!" Schwarzenegger felt his tank vibrate violently. He held the handle tightly to steady his body, and then observed through the commander's periscope. He found that the T-34 tank was intact.
"Damn it, I missed it! Aim and shoot again!"
"Tatttatt..." The coaxial machine gun fired again.
"Boom!" Norwegian Nazi Og fired another shot. This time the T-34 was hit. The shell tore through the 45mm armor installed at a 32-degree angle on its front. The tank immediately emitted black smoke and rushed forward a few steps under the action of inertia and then stopped moving.
Captain Schwarzenegger soon found another target, "10 o'clock, Og, see it, a KV-1 tank! Use high-speed armor-piercing bullets to deal with it!"
The frontal armor of the KV-1 is much thicker than the T-34, reaching 110mm, and like the T-34, it is arranged at a large angle. It cannot be shot with a 75mm caliber fake armor-piercing bullet. It can only be shot at a closer distance with a high-speed armor-piercing bullet with a tungsten alloy core. Tungsten was extremely scarce for Germany in its original time and space. Among the ammunition for tank guns and anti-tank guns, the proportion of high-speed armor-piercing projectiles using tungsten alloy cores was very low.
However, now Europe's main tungsten mining area, Spain, has joined the German camp, and although Portugal is still a neutral country, it has signed a tungsten mine cooperation agreement, and all Portugal's tungsten mines have been sold to Germany! Therefore, the German army can now openly use tungsten core high-speed armor-piercing projectiles.
More than 80 No. 4 tanks and 30 No. 3 assault guns opened fire one after another, and 75mm armor-piercing bullets rushed towards the charging Soviet tanks like a meteor shower. After a while, the battlefield was full of burning Soviet tank wreckage, but the German tanks and assault guns were intact.
"Comrade Commander, why don't our tanks fire back? Why are only the German tanks firing?"
The political commissar of the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army, Fegulov, and the army commander, Major General Sokarov, saw the tanks on their side being hit one after another and bursting into flames. However, they only received beatings and did not fight back. Changfa asked.
"Our tanks must get closer to defeat the Germans!" Army commander Major General Sokarov remained calm. He explained, "The main guns of the T-34 and KV-1 can only defeat the Germans at a distance of 1,000 meters. Penetrating a 60mm vertical homogeneous steel plate may not be able to deal with the Germans’ latest No. 4 tank, so the instructions above indicate that it cannot fire until it is 500 meters away!”
Although the caliber and caliber of the 42-caliber 76.2mm main guns of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 are not low, due to the pursuit of versatility of the shells and relatively backward industrial technology, the muzzle velocity of the shells is only 688 meters/second. . It is far lower than the German 75mm tank gun/anti-tank gun that uses fake armor-piercing bullets, and the Soviets do not yet have high-speed armor-piercing bullets. Therefore, they could only charge at the risk of German artillery fire in order to close the distance and fire.
After paying the price of thirty or forty vehicles being damaged, some T-34 tanks and KV-1 tanks of the Soviet 16th Mechanized Army finally rushed within 500 meters of the German tanks.
"Come on!" Fegulov, the military political commissar, habitually shouted, "Comrades, for the victory of the communist cause, fight hard!"
But what answered him was not a cheer of "Ula! Ula!" but an "Air strike! Hurry and take cover!"
Then Fegulov was dragged into a bomb crater by an unknown person, and then the strange cry of "Jie Jie Jie" made by the Stuka bomber when it dived reached his ears.
"Boom boom boom!"
A series of explosions sounded, and Fegulov was not afraid of the danger. He straightened up in the crater and looked forward. It was discovered that the Soviet tanks fighting on the battlefield had not been bombed. They were exchanging fierce fire with the German tanks on the opposite side, and several German No. 4 tanks had been hit!
Sokarov suddenly screamed: "Damn it, the German planes are bombing our artillery positions!"
"Artillery position?" Fegulov turned his head and looked back, only to see seven or eight thick smoke pillars about 1.5 kilometers away. That was the position of an artillery regiment under the 16th Mechanized Corps!
It turned out that when the tanks of the two sides were fighting, the Soviet artillery was also firing at the German rocket launchers - of course there was no rocket launcher there, and the German rocket launchers had long been moved. Therefore, the Soviet artillery counterattack did not hit any targets, but instead attracted indiscriminate bombing by German aircraft.
"Where are our planes? Where are the air cover? People in the Air Force are neglecting their duties. This is a crime!" Sokarov couldn't help but cursed.
Today's battle was not easy to fight. First, the Germans surrendered with rocket launchers, and then they encountered the German armored forces with powerful firepower. Now, a regiment-level artillery position was bombed again. If we continue fighting like this, are we afraid that we will lose the battle?
Sokarov couldn't help but shudder when he thought of his experience in Finland when he was demoted due to a defeat and almost became a reactionary.