LITMIR.BIZ

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      Tank brigades assigned by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command for this operation rushed into the gap that had formed. T-34s and KVs, which the Germans had great difficulty with, accounted for about half of these brigades.

      Nevertheless, the initial success threatened to quickly wane. Information about strike directions had already reached German headquarters, and right now the fine-tuned mechanism for countering Soviet counterstrikes, which had already been worked out by the Wehrmacht to the finest detail during the first months of the war was beginning to work.

      The enemy could not use aviation because it was dark, but it was not the first time the Germans had fought in weather conditions that prevented their fighters and bombers from flying, and they had many other effective means to repel the attack, chief among which were 88mm antiaircraft guns, which could be launched on direct fire, and motorized formations, which could be moved quickly to the breakout points to deliver flanking blows to the Soviet forces that had broken through.

      It was this scenario that I intended to prevent.

      “"Shark One", this is "Hornet". Are you ready to receive target coordinates?”

      “"Hornet", this is "Shark One",” the heavy bomber group commander responded without delay, “I can hear you all right. Ready to receive coordinates.”

      The commander of the Third Armored Division of the Wehrmacht, General von Schweppenburg, listened to the chief of staff's report and moved quickly into the room, where the maps of the battle area were laid out on the table. Several large wooden houses, from which the inhabitants had been evicted beforehand, were occupied by division headquarters, providing at least minimal comfort in the barbaric conditions with which von Schweppenburg had so often had to put up in this wild country.

      True, the warning came not from Colonel General Guderian, but from some Berlin fop from the Abwehr, so von Schweppenburg didn't take it too seriously. As it turned out, the Abwehrman was right.

      The locations of Soviet strikes had already been mapped. The Reds' plan was not original. Using the night attack to break through the front in two places 30 kilometers apart, then introduce tank brigades into the breakthrough, link up behind the back of the infantry division, block it, reach the inner perimeter of the pocket and break through a corridor to their surrounded armies, attacking from the rear against the infantry units holding it.

      “Put me through to the headquarters of the Fifth Tank Regiment!” demanded Schweppenburg.

      “The telephone connection is broken, Herr General!” the communications officer on duty reported a minute later. “Troubleshooting is already underway, but it will take time.”

      “Then get on the radio! Do I have to teach you your job, Stabsfeldwebel?”

      “There is interference on the air, Herr General. We have been calling the Fifth Regiment Headquarters continuously, but there has been no answer so far.”

      “Then send a liaison agent with orders to Colonel Brown to raise the regiment on alert immediately. At 2:30 I want to see his tanks right here!” Schweppenburg turned to the chief of staff, showing the point on the map from which the arrow of the Russian tank strike began, “This road must be cut as quickly as possible and the 44th Infantry Division must be unblocked. The Austrians aren't bad soldiers, but I wouldn't want to test their resilience in an encirclement for long…”

      The General's speech was interrupted by a growing whistle, clearly audible even through the closed windows. None of the four 500-kilogram bombs dropped from a height of two kilometers hit the headquarters buildings directly, but that was not required. The shock wave flattened the wooden buildings, knocking even the stone stoves off their foundations and burying the division commander and his staff officers under a pile of rubble.

      It must have seemed to the commanders of the brigades and divisions going into attack, as well as to the common Red Army soldiers and tankers who tried to break the German defense in a night battle and get through to their encircled comrades, that the operation was going according to plan, the enemy was retreating and, in some places, fleeing. We need to push harder, and the enemy's resistance will be finally broken.

      When viewed from orbit, a completely different picture emerged. The balance of forces was not at all in favor of the Soviets, especially in tanks and mobile units. Having received a painful blow which was actually not a fatal one, the Wehrmacht began to turn toward the offender to inflict a crushing defeat on him.

      “"Shark 3", this is "Hornet". Seven and a half degrees to your left. You're almost over the target. Strike with two FAB-500s. Stand by.”

      “"Shark 3" understands the order. Standing by.”

      “"Shark 3", ten seconds… Bombs away!”

      I just did not have time to correct the strikes of ten bombers at the same time. Sometimes they had to be taken out on the second or even third approach. The accuracy of the bombs dropping also did not always make it possible to hit the target the first time. Sometimes my commands were executed with slight delays or not quite accurately, and then again I had to attack the target again, which meant that the Germans below already knew about the danger, which reduced the effectiveness of the strikes.

      Nevertheless, the complex army organism of the German Army Group near Kiev now resembled a mighty giant, that had received a non-lethal, but very high dose of nerve gas. Some commands managed to reach the units and subdivisions, others were cut off halfway, when the enemy's headquarters and communications centers were in ruins. Tank and motorized units moved in different directions, often only having orders to march, but receiving no further instructions. On top of all this chaos was the night time and the impossibility of aerial reconnaissance. However, the Wehrmacht was strong not only for its generals. The Germans also had enough proactive and qualified mid-level officers, and despite the partial loss of command of the troops, opposition to the Soviet offensive armies was gradually building up.

      The biggest problem for the enemy were the two strike groups consisting of KV and T-34 tanks. The standard German tactic of artillery ambushes using anti-aircraft guns capable of penetrating their armor was now failing. Convoys of tractors with 88-millimeter guns, which were moving toward the site of the breakthrough, were hit by occasional, but unexpectedly accurate bomb strikes, bumped into destroyed bridges, or simply did not receive orders to move in time.

      Things were worse for the encircled troops, who struck against the Germans in the direction of the 40th and 21st Armies. Their small number of tanks, assembled in a single breakthrough group, were able to do very little, they only broke through the first line of the enemy's defense. This strike was not unexpected for the Germans, and they had time to prepare to repel it. Nevertheless, after receiving radio reports of the successful advance of the tank brigades, the Soviets increased the pressure from inside the ring. Even the weaker part of the encircled troops, blocked by the Germans north of Lokhvitsa, attempted a breakthrough, not in the eastern direction, as the enemy expected, but in the northern direction, hoping to connect with the main forces of the encircled.

      “"Hornet", I can't hear you! There's a lot of interference!”

      There was a crackling and howling coming out of my receiver, too. I distracted myself from controlling the bombers, which were already very far apart, and concentrated on finding the source of the interference. It looked like the enemy decided to make it difficult for me to coordinate the air group. Nine interference generators started working simultaneously below, jamming the frequency bands known to the Germans, on which radio communications between Soviet pilots were conducted. This problem arose at a very bad time, and although the way to solve it was on the surface, I needed time to switch to the predetermined backup frequencies and rearrange the command transmission scheme to retransmit via satellites. As it turned out, I didn't have that time.

      “"Hornet",”… is "Shark 8",… attacked by ene……ter. Engi… dama… Losing alti…”.

      I swore to myself in three languages, cursing my own stupidity and improvidence. How could I have missed those planes? Five Dorniers, converted to night fighters, came into range of my TB-7s and Yer-2s. The communication finally got back on track, but

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