Iron Cross

At about 1 p.m., the 11th Heavy Tank Brigade of the Red Army Guards finally met its first opponent. A reconnaissance company equipped with half-track vehicles from the Viking Division arrived at the village of Mazarari. The high-intensity combat and continuous advancement over the past few days had made everyone exhausted. When the company commander saw the village, he decided to go inside and rest on the spot. Perhaps the empty villages in recent days had given him too many first impressions, so he only hastily used a machine gun to conduct a fire test, and broke in without a careful search according to the standard reconnaissance process.

Such fire tests are only useful for those novice troops who are easily frightened. They will instinctively fight back, but they cannot alarm the elite Guards Tank Brigade that has fought many battles. Ivan and others chose to remain silent. But when the German vehicles and personnel really entered the village, the Red Army suddenly launched an attack. In less than 10 minutes, the reconnaissance company was beaten into a sieve. 70% of the troops were knocked down immediately after the exchange of fire. The remaining people could only rely on the terrain cover and struggle to support. Of course, there was still time to send a distress signal.

The German armored forces that received the distress signal immediately rushed to the scene, but a shocking situation emerged. The armored company equipped with the No. 4 tank could not take down the enemy positions in front of it. The firepower from tanks, anti-tank guns, mortars and Stalin organ rocket launchers became continuous and completely dominated. The Viking Division hurriedly mobilized an armored battalion, an artillery battalion and an infantry battalion. At a great cost, they fought for two hours, but still could not drive the enemy out of the village, and even failed to fully rescue the reconnaissance company that was surrounded at the beginning. The dense and fierce firepower of the Red Army completely dominated.

The No. 4 tanks fought against the newly deployed Russian KV-3 tanks. As a result, this new tank with heavy KV series defensive armor and 85mm caliber gun was difficult to deal with. Because it got rid of the clumsy and slow image of the KV tank, the No. 4 tank was no match at all. At a distance of more than 1,000 meters, the 75mm caliber tank gun of the No. 4 tank could effectively penetrate the opponent, but the opponent's tank gun could easily tear the No. 4 tank's armor, which was only 80mm thick at the front, so this contest soon ended with the defeat of the German armored forces. The wreckage of more than 10 No. 4 tanks was scattered around the village, and the loss of the KV-3 tank was only 4.

"We must notify the Tiger Heavy Armored Battalion as soon as possible and let them deal with these guys." This was the first reaction that came to everyone's mind, and the other thing was to call for air support. The planes arrived at the battlefield faster than the heavy armored battalion, but the Red Army had carefully arranged and concealed the battlefield in advance, and the air strikes were ineffective. Except for two 250-kilogram bombs that directly hit the KV-3 tanks and completely destroyed them, the rest of the air strikes were very unsatisfactory.

However, the Red Army commander, Colonel Bubnov, commander of the 11th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade, was very vigilant. After seeing the German troops retreating and leaving space for the air strikes, he was considering a strategy to escape. The order he issued was very straightforward: today's battle is completely worth it, and once night falls, immediately disengage and retreat.

In the Red Army troops that were retreating everywhere, this kind of victory in the blocking battle was obviously a rare glimpse, but Colonel Bubnov was obviously not carried away. He instinctively realized the danger of staying where he was, but unfortunately, his wish was not fulfilled. At 5:15 in the evening, about half an hour before dark, the 506th Tiger Heavy Armored Battalion assigned to the Middle East Army arrived at the scene. The first to join the battle was the second company...

"Lieutenant Otto Carius?"

"Yes." Carius, the platoon leader of the first platoon of the second company of the 506th Heavy Armored Battalion, received the task in a slowly moving Tiger tank.

"You lead a few tanks to conduct fire reconnaissance to see what enemies there are and where they are... Try to determine the number of enemy troops and equipment." The company commander's instructions were transmitted to the headset through the throat transmitter, and they could be heard clearly even in the noisy tank.

"Understood."

Although Lieutenant Carius had just recently completed the reserve officer training course and became a second lieutenant, he was also a veteran with nearly 2 years of war experience. He cleverly used the cover of the terrain to start the reconnaissance of the enemy in front of him - the battle had been fought for more than 3 hours, and the German army had not figured out how many Red Army troops were in front of them, and what level of troops they were roughly. At first, when the reconnaissance company was attacked, it was judged to be a Red Army battalion. Later, when the battle became stalemate and fierce, the judgment of its strength suddenly rose to 1-2 divisions equipped with more than 50 tanks and an independent heavy artillery regiment. The jump in numbers was simply maddening.

Carius calmly observed the surrounding terrain. A huge, flat-bottomed, clay-covered depression provided good cover for the Red Army infantry, and the woods around the depression provided a good shelter for Russian tanks. Moreover, the distribution of this piece of woods was so concentrated that to pass through the village, one had to either go around the woods in a big circle or walk through the unique road at the entrance of the village. It was completely no problem for the Tiger tanks to pass, but once they really swaggered past, the side fire from all sides would quickly teach you how to behave.

The careful Karius even found traces of ablation on the ground after the Katyusha rocket launcher (Stalin Organ) was fired in a clearing in the woods. He quickly concluded that this was not an ordinary Red Army unit. This was probably the Russian heavy tank unit that his superiors had repeatedly emphasized in the past two days. Judging from the statements and exchanges of fire from other brother units, plus some other evidence, the mystery was soon revealed - this should be the 11th Guards Tank Brigade of the Red Army after being reinforced by infantry and heavy artillery.

"You mean the enemy has about 2,000 infantry, 50-60 heavy tanks, and a large number of Stalin organs?"

"Yes!" Carius analyzed calmly, "This is not a simple opponent. It is likely to be the Russian heavy tank brigade that disappeared recently. They are also covered by a large number of infantry and artillery. It is impossible to rely on direct attack unless we use an armored division to crush them."

The voice in the headset was silent for half a minute, and then spoke again: "What do you want to do?"

"First use various means to force the Russians to abandon this position. We must drive the rats out of the rat nest." Carius thought for a while, "Absolutely can't stupidly rush in to fight, that is undoubtedly a suicide act."