"Comrade General Secretary, I would like to report to you the great news that thanks to the joint efforts of the Kalinin Front and the Leningrad Front, the Leningrad encirclement has been successfully broken, and now the troops of the two Fronts have achieved a victorious meeting in the city of Kirovsk-on-Neva."
"What" Stalin was slightly stunned when he heard Pavlov's jubilant report, "Is it Kirovsk, isn't it Tosno or Kopino" Tosno and Kopino were along the Red October Railway from Moscow to Leningrad and were also the main direction of attack of the left flank cluster of the Kalinin Front.
And Kirovsk is near Lake Ladoga and is not in the direction of the main offensive of the Kalinin Front.
Pavlov and Shaposhnikov looked at each other, and Shaposhnikov said: "The fierce fighting along the Red October Railway continued, and the resistance of the Germans was very tenacious, and they had many powerful anti-tank guns, some of which were self-propelled and armored.
So the 4 assault armies of the Kalinin Front suffered considerable losses and had to make a detour to attack the flanks of the German troops. ” Stalin nodded, without delving into it, "It's good to be able to break through, the Kalinin Front should be commended, and Comrade Vlasov and Comrade Fedyuninsky should be promoted or honored as Hero of the Soviet Union." ” He paused, furrowed his eyebrows, and asked, "And how is the situation in the Battle of the Junction?"
"Comrade General Secretary, the battle of the joint department is not going very well."
Marshal Pavlov shook his head, "The 5th Tank Army was besieged for several days with heavy losses.
The 1st and 2nd tank armies were again blocked on the line of the Gomelsozh River.
In addition, the rear of the Bryansk Front was not very stable, and 2 German armored groups were outflanking the city of Bryansk.
We should probably " Pavlov was tempted to suggest abandoning the Battle of the Junction, but before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Stalin without hesitation.
"One cannot consider abandoning the battle," Stalin snapped, "because this is the most critical moment, and Comrade Molotov will soon go to Switzerland."
At this time, we must not back down on the battlefield, otherwise the conditions of peace will be too much for us to bear."
"Tiger Tank" Admiral Lukin, who was patrolling the outskirts of PF No. 13, suddenly heard a shout in his ear, followed by the roar of motors from far and near.
Another German offensive began, and from the evening of May 9, Lukin found himself on the verge of being overwhelmed by the German "Tiger Sea".
The "Tiger Tank", which was very rare in the 1942 war, now seems to have become a bad street.
Every attack launched by the Germans was led by the Tiger and another big guy about the No. 4 assault gun, the Grizzly Bear, followed by a group of No. 4 responsible for covering, and a little farther away, there was a rhinoceros tank destroyer specializing in black artillery to suppress the formation, this tank destroyer was even more hateful than the Tiger, and the T34 tank was 2000 meters away or even 2500 meters away, this guy could actually get it with one shot This kind of power is simply frenzied, and the Soviets' own 85 guns are really a piece of garbage compared to the 88 guns of the Rhino tank destroyers Of course, relying on Collective Farm No. 13 and the 1 June Forest, the 5th Tank Army under Lukin's command was currently able to withstand the siege of at least 2 German Panzer armies, but actually 3 Panzer Corps.
However, it was unrealistic for the 5th Tank Army to stand out and fight, and under the threat of Tiger tanks and Rhino tank destroyers, Lukin's T3457, Su85 and Su122 could only shrink behind the fortifications and resist, and did not dare to rise at all.
However, what Admiral Lukin is really worried about now is not his own tank 5th Army, which has clearly shown that it wants to dedicate itself to the cause of GCISM, which is nothing more than to delay the annihilation of the whole army, just like those Ukrainian traitors who stuck to the building of the farm headquarters of Collective Farm No. 13, fighting to the last man.
The battle for the building of the farm headquarters of Collective Farm No. 13 was not over, even if the Red Army buried the bottom of the building with "tank bulldozers" and fired at close range with S122 assault guns, almost destroying half of the house, and the reactionaries inside were still stubbornly resisting, although these people were reactionary, they were an example for the 5th Tank Army to learn And what worries Admiral Lukin is actually the 1st Tank Army and the 2nd Tank Army on the Gomel battlefield.
So far, how did Admiral Lukin not know that the powerful Tiger tanks and Rhino tank destroyers of the German armored forces were so sharp in the attack, and if they were used on defense, they would only be even more powerful.
Moreover, the siege of PF No. 13 had been on the ground for almost four days since May 9, and it was the early morning of May 14, and the Germans were still attacking wildly, and there was no intention of sending troops south to rescue Gomel.
This shows that their defenses in Gomel are solid and reliable As he walked towards his former enemy headquarters bunker, Admiral Lukin pondered the prospect of the Battle of the Junction, and the more he thought about it, the more frightened he became.
When he returned to the command, the chief of staff of the army group, Major General Dubkov, told him that the commandos of the 110th motorized rifle brigade of the Red Army had once again stormed the building of the headquarters of the collective farm No. 13.
"Very good" Admiral Lukin nodded, "This time you must find out all the Ukrainian traitors inside, I really want to see what kind of people they are" The commander of the Bryansk Front of the Red Army, Golikov, and the political commissar Mekhlis, had already gone to the Gomel front to supervise the battle.
Both of them were now extremely embarrassed, because their two tank armies had repeatedly attacked the Germans on the front line of the Gomelisozh River since May 10, but they had never been able to achieve a breakthrough Two tank armies, more than 1,500 tanks and artillery and hundreds of thousands of heroic Red officers and soldiers were firmly blocked by the Germans in the city of Gomel and east of the Dnieper tributary of the Sozh River.
In less than 5 days of firefighting, the 1st and 2nd Tank Armies lost more than 500 tanks and assault artillery.
Most of them were destroyed by various anti-tank guns and tank destroyers of the Germans, and a small part were destroyed by air strikes.
By the night of May 13, Stalin's patience had finally run out, and Molotov had already made a detour to Switzerland on a Rome Air Italia plane.
Peace negotiations with the highest levels of Germany were about to begin soon, and at this time, Stalin was anxious to give his troops some leverage.
If the Bryansk Front could advance the front to the banks of the Dnieper, or even cross the Dnieper, then a very decent peace for Stalin would probably come soon.
So in the middle of the night of the 13th, Stalin, in the name of the Supreme High Command, gave an order to the command of the Bryansk Front, asking them to advance the front to the Dnieper as soon as possible, at all costs After receiving the order, Golikov and Mekhlis immediately adjusted their deployment, abandoning the intention of breaking through the German defense line on the Gomelsozh River from the front, and instead made a detour from the south, bypassing the Sozh River and crossing the Dnieper River directly from Loyev, where it joins the Dnieper.
Loyev was downstream of Lechtsa, and according to reconnaissance, there was no heavy German defense, so it should not be difficult to break through.
And as soon as the Soviet tank units crossed the Dnieper at Loyev, then the logistics line of the armored cluster of the German army on the southern route, with Lechtsa as the logistics hub, would be threatened.
Although not to fall into encirclement, a retreat from east of the Dnieper should be quite possible.
In order to achieve this goal, Golikov mobilized his troops overnight, gathered the elite soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Tank Armies, and cobbled together a group of 500 tank assault guns and gave it to the commander of the 1st Tank Army, General Vatutin, who commanded him to make a detour to attack Loyev.
On the evening of May 14, Golikov and Mekhlis watched the Vatutin cluster leave the Dobrus Forest and rush towards Loyev, more than 60 kilometers away.
However, the two of them would never have imagined at this time that the 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions belonging to the 3rd Panzer Corps of the German Army, as well as part of the 6th and 10th Panzer Divisions transferred back from the battlefield of Collective Farm No. 13, had also assembled on the plain east of the Sozh River and were about to launch a large-scale counterattack.
However, they did not expect that the Soviet army would not be able to break through the defense line composed of three divisions, including the 1st Tan Annihilation Battalion reinforced by the 1st Panzergrenadier Division of the Wehrmacht, the 2nd Tan Annihilation Battalion reinforced by the 5th SS "Viking" Division, and the 128th Infantry Division belonging to the 52nd Motorized Rifle Corps.
Instead, they were beaten by more than 150 rhinos from 4 Tan Annihilation battalions and 72 AK43 88 anti-tank guns from 4 heavy anti-tank gun battalions.
So General Mackensen simply decided to launch a big counterattack in the early morning of May 15 and hit the Sozh River.
At the same time, an even greater catastrophe for the Soviet Union occurred in the junction of the Smolensk, Kaluga and Bryansk regions.
The Heinrich group of the German army, consisting of the 2nd Panzer Army and the 60th Panzer Army, had just freed itself from the entanglement of a Soviet army-level group, sent by the Central Front, and was now attacking the city of Bryansk, which was defended by only one army group overnight The German 14th Panzer Army, which was moving north from Gorninov in the south, was also near Trubchevsk and the two armies of the Soviet Army, the 38th Army and the 40th Army, were attracted by the 14th Panzer Army, and the defenses near the city of Bryansk were also emptied and engaged in fierce battles. t1706231537: