The decisive battle against the Third Reich

After reoccupying the west bank of Hom, Matevich was not happy at all, because after counting the losses, the Soviet army suffered more than 3,000 casualties in this battle, 37 artillery pieces, and hundreds of tons of ammunition and supplies... …Some of this ammunition is stored in transit in Holm.

With anxiety, Matevich answered General Pukaev's call.

"Comrade Pukaev!" Matevich reported: "I am sorry to report to you that we suffered heavy losses in a sneak attack last night!"

"I heard about it!" Pukayev replied.

"I beg you to punish me, Comrade Pukaev!" Matevich said: "I did not complete the task you gave me!"

What Matevitch thought about was the scene when Major General Valdani committed suicide.

Matevich also thought about escaping, but he knew that he had nowhere to escape. There was only one way in front of him, and that was to face it head on.

But the situation turned out to be much better than Matevich had imagined.

"Comrade Matevich!" General Pukayev's voice came from the other end of the phone: "No one can guarantee that he will always win on the battlefield. You have done a good job. Don't take last night's failure to heart. The organization believes that you can finally defeat the Germans and regain Holm, keep working hard!”

When Matevitch heard this, he could not help but half-open his mouth and was speechless. Then he breathed a sigh of relief and put down a big stone in his heart. He knew that he had escaped.

The reason why Pukaev did this was because he was also following the war in Holm... The small town of Holm has become more and more conspicuous among the Soviet and German armies, and the army group headquarters of both sides have Set your sights on this small town with only a few square kilometers.

Therefore, Pukaev knew the difficulties of the Battle of Holm, and also knew that Matevich performed very well in this battle, and even came to the edge of victory several times, but the Germans' performance was even more unexpected. Everyone was surprised.

"But, Comrade Matevitch!" Pukayev then changed the topic and said, "I hope you understand that Comrade Stalin never asks about the process, so you know what to do!"

"Yes!" Matevitch stood up and replied: "I promise that I will not let Comrade Stalin and you down!"

After hanging up the phone, Matevitch turned his attention to Petrolev, and then the two couldn't help but hugged in celebration.

This may be a kind of sadness for the Soviet generals in this era... They most often die not at the hands of the enemy, but at the hands of their own people, so what they worry more about is not how to deal with the enemy, but how to face themselves people.

The German army burst into cheers. I don’t know who started shouting. The soldiers shouted in unison one after another:

"Frick!"

"Frick!"

…

"Captain!" Colonel Slaine held Qin Chuan's hand and hugged him warmly, saying, "You have won again! Although I know I should get used to this, I can't do it because of you. You know, every victory you have is almost a narrow escape for us! So, please, Captain, if you can, think of a way earlier next time, preferably defeat the enemy as soon as they come up, so that we will all be relaxed! point!"

The surrounding officers and soldiers were all amused by Colonel Slaine's words.

"An impressive battle, Captain!" Major General Hartmann came up and shook Qin Chuan's hand and said, "Like I said, gold will shine wherever it goes!"

Of course Qin Chuan knew what Hartmann meant, but he pretended to be confused and simply replied: "Thank you, General!"

After retaking the Lovaj River defense line, it will have a great advantage in the defense of the German army, because this will keep the Soviet army in a large unobstructed low-lying area and be suppressed by the German army. More importantly, the Soviet army's trench filling plan will also be suppressed by the German army. It cannot be implemented... After the tunnels at the drop line are opened, the east coast defense line will have more tunnel openings. These tunnel openings are like bunker perforations facing the Soviet army. If the Soviet army still uses bridge erecting vehicles as before and bulldozer construction, and there is no doubt that the tunnel entrance will be paralyzed with rounds of rockets as they approach.

Therefore, the only thing the Soviet army could do seemed to start with supplies as before: on the one hand, they increased the blockade of Holm, and on the other hand, they used attacks again and again to consume Holm's ammunition.

Although this is important, to be honest it doesn't matter much to infantrymen like Qinchuan, because this is a problem belonging to the air force.

Qin Chuan only got some relevant information from Colonel Slaine during his phone call:

First, the Soviets increased the distance and density of air defense. What the Germans knew was that the Soviets had invested at least three anti-aircraft artillery regiments. These three anti-aircraft artillery regiments were respectively deployed in the near, middle and outer sections of Holm. far section.

The near section is the last line of defense for the Soviet air defense, while the middle section and the far section are distributed within a dozen kilometers from Holm. This is exactly the distance at which the glider and the transport aircraft are decoupled.

The Soviet approach was to assume that the Germans had gliders supporting Holm in that direction once they heard the roar of air transport aircraft in that direction, and immediately ordered the far and middle anti-aircraft firepower to maneuver to the nearest route to intercept. Duan is also ready.

This method is indeed very effective because it actually acts as an early warning.

But this effect can only have a limited effect, because listening to the sound is really unreliable, and it is easy to be deceived... The German Air Force only needs to send a few transport planes to feint in a certain direction and use the sound to deceive the Soviet Union. The army's air defense troops rushed in a certain direction, and the other side sent real support troops to Holm in the opposite direction.

The Soviet air defense forces, because they were mobile on the ground, were very slow, especially on the snow at night, so they could never keep up with the transport aircraft.

Secondly, the German Army Group North has almost retreated, freeing up some fighter planes for the German Air Force, so it can increase supply and firepower assistance to Holm.

This is of course good news for Holm. A significant change is that airborne supplies have been carried out again... Each airborne airdrop uses fighters and bombers to bombard the Soviet air defense positions indiscriminately, and then uses Heinkel HE111 bombers conduct airdrops.

The efficiency of airdropping by bombers is obviously much higher than that of airdrops by transport aircraft. After all, transport aircraft pilots are in principle non-combat troops. Their mission is generally transportation rather than airdrop, while the mission of bombers is to drop bombs and must do so. Correct.