Chapter 640 Heavy Thunderstorm 28

"Go forward, go forward, go forward! Members of the Bolshevik Party, members of the Youth League, and Comrade Stalin's Red Army soldiers, we are going to destroy the evil Nazis!" Colonel Qiuxin, commander of the 1st Tank Brigade of the Soviet Red Army, stood on his T-shirt with high spirits. Inside the -34 command tank, he shouted loudly at the infantry commandos advancing on foot. Hundreds of T34 tanks of the 1st Tank Brigade followed closely behind the heroic tank brigade commander, advancing rapidly against the Polish wheat fields with their tracks.

"Speed ​​up the pace, victory will belong to the Soviets!" Colonel Qiuxin raised his fist high at the infantrymen assigned to the 1st Tank Brigade.

"Ula! Ula!" the soldiers cheered enthusiastically. They are all the most loyal Soviet soldiers and belong to the glorious 1st Tank Army.

Just look at the numbers and you will know that the 1st Tank Corps and 1st Tank Brigade are definitely prestigious teams in the Soviet Red Army. Their glorious history can be traced back to the 1st Cavalry Corps, the ace force during the Soviet Russian Civil War. The foundations of the 1st Tank Corps and 1st Tank Brigade were all the automobile corps of the 1st Cavalry Corps.

In the more than 20 years after the Soviet Civil War, as Stalin's own people (the First Cavalry Army was Stalin's old subordinate), he was always loved and cared for, even during the Great Purge era. Even the indicators of reactionary elements were not exempted. It is much smaller than other units, and the officer corps has remained stable. Therefore, the morale and combat effectiveness of the unit have always been the best in the Soviet Red Army.

During the Battle of Wovomin during the day on June 10, the arrival of the 1st Tank Brigade and the subsequent flanking of the German army became the key to reversing the situation on the battlefield. To this end, the Political Commissar of the Western Front Ponomarenko also signed a commendation order calling on all front forces to learn from the glorious 1st Tank Brigade.

Therefore, the 1st Tank Brigade is at its peak now. No one realizes that they are about to face the most powerful and deadly armored force in the world!

"The morale of the Soviet people is very high!"

"So what? At the beginning of the war, the morale of the Poles, British, and French was very high, but it didn't work when they encountered our German armored forces."

The armored command vehicle of Major Rudel, commander of the 501st Heavy Armored Battalion, was parked next to a Tiger heavy tank. The top hatch of the Tiger tank was open, and Captain von Nodel, commander of the 1st Heavy Tank Company of the 501st Battalion, leaned half of his body out and was talking to Major Rudel.

Both of them are veteran tank soldiers of the German Wehrmacht. They graduated from the tank soldier school two years before the outbreak of the world war and joined the 1st Armored Division and the 3rd Armored Division. Since then, we have fought all the way from the Polish Campaign, the Western Front Campaign, and the Balkan Campaign without suffering a single defeat. Now that he has become the commander of the powerful 501st Heavy Tank Battalion, of course he will not take Soviet tanks in his eyes.

And the troops they command today are indeed powerful, with the core being 55 Tiger tanks drawn from three heavy tank companies.

The Tigers in their hands are slightly different from the Tigers in history. The difference is mainly in armor protection. It's not vertical armor, but 45-60 degree inclined armor. The protection capabilities are even better. Not only are the Soviet tanks unable to penetrate their fronts, but even the armor on their flanks cannot be dealt with by the Soviet 76.2mm tank guns. The Tiger's 88mm Kwk36L/53 tank gun, when using capped armor-piercing projectiles (Pzgr39), can penetrate (50% probability) a 100mm thick homogeneous steel plate placed at an angle of 30 degrees at a distance of 1,000 meters. If a high-speed armor-piercing bullet with a tungsten core is used, it can penetrate a 138mm thick homogeneous steel plate placed at an angle of 30 degrees at a distance of 1,000 meters. There are few known tanks/assault guns with frontal armor capable of reaching the Tiger.

It can be said that except for its less than ideal mobility and a lot of various glitches, the Tiger tank is a very ideal tank.

However, these are only data on paper. How good the Tiger tank is still needs to be tested through actual combat.

"Major Rudel, the Soviet tanks are still advancing. They seem to be bypassing our left flank." The voice of Major Bernhard Schwandt, commander of the 505th Battalion, came from the earphones. The 1st Company of the 505th Battalion is also a Tiger tank company, deployed on the left flank of the 1st Company of the 501st Battalion. If the Soviet 1st Tank Brigade bypasses the left flank of the 1st Battalion, 505th Battalion, it can attack the back of the entire Steiner Group.

"Sir, we can't let them go around. Going around is the position of three smoke launcher regiments," Captain von Nodel immediately reminded Major Rudel, "So we must attack!"

The original plan was for 55 Tiger tanks to ambush the Soviet tanks, but the Soviet tanks made a big circle. It didn't look like they were going to attack the German flank, but they looked like they were going to spank the Germans.

Major Rudel quickly made a decision, "The 1st Company of the 501st Battalion, the 1st Company of the 505th Battalion, the 1st Company of the 503rd Battalion (actually only half a company of 11 Tigers), the SS 'Finland' armored grenade The bombardment battalion followed me forward, while the other troops stayed to continue guarding the line."

The movement of the 55 Tiger tanks made a lot of noise, and Colonel Qiushin, who was commanding the Soviet 1st Tank Brigade to make a detour, quickly received the report.

"Dozens of tanks? Great, the Nazis were fooled." Colonel Qiu Xin said happily.

It turned out that Major General Sokalov, the commander of the 16th Mechanized Army, had anticipated that the German armored forces would arrange escort tank units on their sides. If the 1st Tank Brigade rushed hard, it would most likely suffer heavy losses. So Sokalov played a little trick and asked the 1st Tank Brigade to make a detour and pretend to make a large encirclement, so that the German tanks could be drawn out for battle.

"Attention, battalion commanders of tank battalions and tank company commanders," Colonel Chuxin used the radio on the T-34 command tank to order the battalion commanders and company commanders of the 1st Tank Brigade, "All companies turn left, charge formation, and fight against Nazi tanks! Comrades, for the cause of GCism, attack!"

"Ura!"

A cheer of "Ura" sounded in Colonel Chuxin's headphones. This was the comrades' answer to him. Then all the T-34 tanks completed the turn in a very short time, changing from a company-based marching column to the simplest offensive column, and then rushed to launch a fearless charge towards the German Tiger tanks.

The tank that Colonel Qiu Xin was riding in and several other tanks belonging to the brigade company were at the end of the charging T-34 tanks. Qiu Xin looked at the hazy back of the T-34 tanks in the night, and his mood was extremely excited. Although the German tanks have powerful firepower, it is now night with poor visibility. It is very difficult to hit a target 1,000 meters away. It is very good to be able to hit 300-500 meters with the help of flares.

And this distance is just a blink of an eye for the T-34. Once the T-34 and the German tanks are close to each other and start a melee, the T-34 can completely win with its advantages in quantity and mobility.

As long as these dozens of tanks are destroyed, the flanks of the German armored group will be completely exposed! Today's victory in Wowomin during the day will be repeated in Legionovo.

"Boom! Boom! Boom..."

Several flares were fired by Soviet infantrymen following the T-34 tanks with mortars. In a blink of an eye, they exploded above the German tank group, emitting a pale white light, illuminating the magnificent body of the Tiger tanks.

"Oh my God, what kind of tank is this?" Colonel Qiu Xin was shocked by the German tanks in front of him.

This is not the Type 4 tank! Not only is it much larger, but it also has tilted armor similar to the T-34, as if it is an enlarged version of the T-34 tank...

The German tanks were arranged in a standard battle formation, with two companies of Tiger tanks separated to the left and right, with a distance of dozens of meters in the middle, forming two charge groups. In the middle of the two charge groups, half a company of Tiger tanks were arranged in a horizontal formation, and the 501 Battalion's headquarters was further back, and finally there were 6 Type 3 assault guns acting as guards.

Two German tank companies advancing side by side stopped less than 500 meters away from the Soviet T-34 tanks, followed by six No. 3 assault guns firing flares to indicate the target for the 44 Tiger tanks. Then the Tiger tanks fired a beautiful salvo, 44 ​​capped armor-piercing shells screamed through the air, and exploded a fireball in the Soviet tank charge formation.

These tank soldiers operating the Tiger tanks are the elite among the elites. Although it is night now, they can still use flares to achieve a very high hit rate. Eighteen T-34 tanks were hit. The penetration of ordinary 88mm capped armor-piercing shells at this distance is not something that the T-34 can withstand. The shells easily penetrated the turret shield and front armor, and exploded inside the vehicle body, instantly turning the seemingly indestructible T-34 tank into a huge burning fireball.

But to the great surprise of the German tank soldiers, this group of brave Bolshevik tank soldiers were not frightened by the sudden appearance of the huge tanks and the power of the 88mm tank guns, and they still charged at the German tanks at full speed. They seemed to want to rush to the front of the Tiger tanks and hit the thick "tiger skin" with the 76.2mm gun at close range.

However, the rapid and accurate shooting of the Tiger tank main gun soon made the brave Soviet Bolshevik soldiers pay a heavy price. The second, third, and fourth rounds of tank gun shooting started in a blink of an eye, and the charging T-34s on the battlefield turned into burning fire cabinets.

The glorious 1st Tank Brigade of the Red Army suffered an unprecedented heavy blow tonight!