Chapter 457: The Outbreak
Lying on his bunk, savoring a leisurely holiday that he knew could end at any moment, Raine was almost moved to tears by his own brilliant decision. He had not chosen to go to war-torn England, nor had he requested a transfer to North Africa where a major battle was clearly imminent. Instead, he had chosen the Eastern Front, which for the moment was the most peaceful place on earth.
And at this moment, he was already the commander of the 1st Teaching Company of the 502nd Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion, with the rank of captain on his shoulders. In some non-frontline units, this was the rank of a battalion commander.
So, as a real officer, he had his own private room and didn’t have to squeeze in with the other soldiers. Of course, because the teaching company was a special case, his private room was not his alone, but was shared by the five members of his tank crew. And unfortunately, the bunk reserved for the tank commander, the one with the curtain, had been occupied by Alice.
He was engrossed in a thick Russian dictionary. Rein’s foreign language skills had always been excellent. He had studied both French and Spanish, but his crew knew he had once said that his best language was Russian. It was just a pity that no one had ever heard him speak it.
A knock sounded on the door. The members of Rein’s crew, who were sitting together playing cards, all looked towards the entrance. There stood a very punchable face. Marcus seemed to have made up his mind to cling to Rein’ s coattails, even refusing a company command position to stay in Rein’s unit as his wingman. In Marcus’s own words, good luck followed Rein.
“Meeting at battalion HQ. I hear the unit is moving out,” Markus said. He was the kind of guy who was always in the know, wherever he went. Besides, the logistics company of the 502nd was run by that old man they had known for a long time.
Rein got up from his bunk, closed the dictionary, and carefully placed it by his pillow. He then stretched his arms, pulled a notebook from his personal locker by the wall, checked his fountain pen, and then walked out of his dormitory with his annoying friend, Marcus. The two of them walked, one after the other, towards the nearby battalion headquarters, seeing a few other familiar tank commanders on the way.
At the headquarters, the commanders all found seats. Rein and Marcus were no exception, casually finding two adjacent seats and sitting down like a group of primary school students waiting for the teacher to start the class. A moment later, the battalion commander and his deputy arrived, and the meeting officially began.
“Intelligence from the reconnaissance units shows that the German army opposite us has been moving frequently, indicating signs of an offensive,” the battalion commander said, pulling back the curtain on the blackboard to reveal the map inside. He pointed with his pointer to the Soviet-controlled area on the border. “On the front of the 102nd Division, which is where we have been ordered to reinforce, the Soviets have deployed about a regiment of tanks…”
The information was very detailed, showing the extent to which the German army had a firm grasp of the Soviet troop movements. Through the infiltration of spies and repeated confirmations by reconnaissance units, the German front-line troops knew the designation, organization, and combat strength of every enemy unit, and even the names of their division and corps commanders.
“More than 50 improved KV-1 tanks? Haven’t the Soviets learned their lesson yet?” A two-page document was passed to Rein . It contained an analysis of the number and types of Soviet tanks, complete with detailed photographs.
“This is more than one Soviet regiment,” Marcus said, taking the document and flipping through it for a few seconds before speaking to the battalion commander. “A full 70 T-26s plus over 50 improved KV-1s, that’s almost the strength of two Soviet armored regiments.”
The battalion commander nodded and smiled. “Like us, the opponent is also a mainline unit. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be sending us up against them. They are a mainline regiment of the 1st Soviet Guards Tank Division. I hear the number two man in the Soviet Union, Khrushchev, once inspected this unit.”
“So they’re an elite unit. But no matter what elite unit they are, when they meet us, they’ll have to tuck their tails between their legs! Otherwise, we’ll make sure they can’t be men anymore,” Marcus sneered, passing the document to the commander below him.
“It is expected that the front of the 102nd Division will be broken through. The first line of positions, from here to here, will be abandoned within an hour of the enemy’s attack… Behind this is a small open area. We can set up an ambush in the woods at the far end and wait for the enemy’s armored forces to appear on the other side of the open ground,” the commander said, pointing to several locations on the map.
“How long do we fight before we retreat?” a commander not far away asked, raising his hand.
“We must retreat after about half an hour. We’ll cede the second defensive line to the Soviets,” the commander said, tapping the map behind the Soviet lines. “They have an advantage in artillery. We must be careful of their gunners. The woods are not a safe position. We take what we can get and then we must retreat.”
“Battalion will set up a supply point here. All crews are to return here immediately after completing their mission and await orders. We will have other combat tasks,” the commander continued, seeing no further questions. “After returning to your dormitories, take inventory of your items, check the status of your tanks. No one is to leave the barracks. All personnel are on 24-hour standby within the camp.”
“Yes, sir!” everyone stood at attention and replied.
The 3rd SS Panzer Division was the unit responsible for the ambush on the right side of the No. 5 defensive pocket, while the 1st Wehrmacht Panzer Division was on the left of the No. 6 pocket. This way, the units of the 1st Panzer Corps could link up and become a concentrated force after encircling the Soviet troops.
“Sir! What if we fight too hard and scare the Soviet tank unit away?” Marcus shouted just as everyone was dispersing. His question made everyone in the meeting laugh.
“Behind this Soviet Guards Tank Regiment is the headquarters of a Guards Tank Division. Behind that Guards Tank Division is the headquarters of a Guards Tank Corps. If you, Marcus, can rout the entire 1st Soviet Guards Tank Corps, the 502nd Battalion will recommend you to the Führer for a medal,” the battalion commander said with a wide grin.
“Hahahaha,” everyone else laughed along. They laughed without restraint, a kind of release before a major battle. It had to be admitted that with a joker like Marcus around, the atmosphere in the entire tank battalion was much livelier.
Rein laughed a couple of times, then his face returned to its usual expressionless mask. He had suddenly thought of Clark, of his old company commander, Carter. Marcus had someone to recommend him for a medal, but what about them? Who still remembered these people who had already left the world? Who would recommend them for a medal? And who, many years from now, would place a wreath on their graves?
The rest of the matter was relatively simple. The tank commanders went to the logistics department to receive their rations of canned food and black bread, and other easily stored food items. Then they all went to the tank park to check the camouflage paint and equipment details. The crew members were then assembled to test the vehicles and check the reserves of shells and machine gun ammunition.
On the wide Eastern Front, Germany had dug a total of 29 “pockets” for the Soviets. These pockets were carefully arranged defensive positions based on the terrain. As long as the Soviet army began to attack, these defensive positions would turn into a bloody maw that would annihilate the Soviet’s effective strength, swallowing the elite units of the Soviet front line in one bite.
This defensive line was proposed by a not-so-prominent chief of staff on the Eastern Front. This chief of staff was well-known within the army for having proposed the “Scythe Cut” operation for the invasion of France, for which he had been promoted to lieutenant general. His name was Manstein.
The defensive line proposed by General Manstein was called the “Gear” within the German army, while the Führer personally preferred to call it the “Great Wall.” This gear-shaped defensive line, resembling the crenellations of a city wall, was not a permanent fortification designed for static defense, but a bloody mire designed purely for slaughter. From the day of its creation, this defensive line had only one purpose: to kill the effective strength of the Soviet Union, to kill efficiently and quickly.
The High Command estimated that about half of the 29 pocket defenses on the German-Soviet front would function as planned. But as long as more than 15 pockets successfully annihilated the attacking Soviet forces, the Red Army would lose more than 1 million of its elite soldiers.
Manstein himself was hailed as a master of defense by Brauchitsch for this defensive line, because it was he who, while proposing this line, systematically put forward the theory of defense in depth and the theory of efficiency defense, with the core idea of attriting the enemy’s effective strength. He boldly proposed that defensive operations should focus on inflicting casualties on the enemy rather than holding a single city or piece of ground, earning him the reputation of “the Wehrmacht’s number one tactical master.”
Only Manstein himself knew that the Führer standing behind him was the true inventor of these world-shaking military theories, and that he was merely a technician, responsible for using his knowledge to modify and perfect the Führer’s astonishing tactical revolutions.
Once the German-Soviet war began, the elite German forces on the Eastern Front would use a near-perfect defensive counter-attack to wipe out the entire first-line combat force of the Soviet Union. The German army would intersperse countless small-scale encirclements and annihilations within the larger encirclement and annihilation operations. These operations were detailed down to the regimental, and even battalion, level. For a battle involving millions of men, it was like embroidering small flowers with a needle on a huge scroll. Of course, if this plan could be completed, then the work would definitely be considered a masterpiece of the ages.
On the morning of March 25th, U.S. President Roosevelt announced economic sanctions against Japan to curb its expansionist behavior in the Far East. The Japanese government and public were shocked, but they did not make any drastic moves. In the early morning of April 6th, while the negotiations over the Nomonhan incident between the Soviet Union and Japan were still ongoing, the Soviet frontline high command issued an operational order for a full-scale offensive against Germany.
At 7:00 AM on April 6th, the German-Soviet War broke out in full force.
Published: 2025-08-26T05:10:41.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-11-16T07:06:00.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c457-137361623
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