Chapter 333 The Crisis of the Eleventh Army
General Little Von Schubert, the commander of the Eleventh Army, is a gentleman with a graceful aristocratic atmosphere all over his body. If you have read this chapter, please move to: Chinese. Read the latest chapter
When the 391st Infantry Regiment of the 170th Infantry Division fought against KV-2 outside the city, General Schubert and his adjutant walked out of the basement in a daze and came outside the villa.
Seeing the tragic situation in his residence in front of him, his grace and gentleness were gone at this time, and all he had was anger and fear.
The former residence was also the headquarters of the Eleventh Group Army. A three-story villa had turned into ruins at this time.
One-third of the right half of the villa collapsed, and the used bricks and rubble piled up into a hill.
The glass of all windows on the left half of the villa has turned into debris, and the ground downstairs is full of crystal glass fragments, which are shining against the rising sun.
The bricks and stone debris are mixed with broken wooden boards from various furniture, dusty curtains, and a part of the torso of the dead.
Glance at the body buried in rubble, with the upper body exposed with waist and dusty military trousers and leather boots on his legs, General Schubert couldn't help feeling palpitations.
His bedroom was on the second floor on the right half of this villa. If the adjutant Captain Bielman hadn't reacted quickly and he would have pulled himself to the basement when he heard the explosion of a nearby bomb, he would have been buried alive.
Looking at the degree of destruction of the buildings around the streets, General Schubert judged that the here was air strikes, not artillery attacks.
It is very remote and has no valuable military targets. Why did the Russians bomb this place? Could it be that they came specifically for their own headquarters?
Regardless of whether the bombing was specifically directed at the headquarters of the Eleventh Army, the Russian Air Force still gained a lot. Half of the headquarters was destroyed, almost half of the headquarters members, communication equipment and maps were buried in the ruins, and the command of the headquarters was in a semi-paralyzed state.
Will the Russian Air Force bombard this place? Will the headquarters need to be transferred?
After a little hesitation, General Schubert decided to use the remaining half of the villa to rebuild the headquarters. The war broke out early and his troops were caught off guard. The most important thing was to restore the command of the troops as soon as possible. You can let your safety go first and then.
If the three military departments under him cannot contact the headquarters and do not have unified command, they will definitely fall into chaos.
As the backbone of the headquarters, General Schubert calmed down, and the surviving command members calmed down, and then resumed work in the wreckage of the villa.
The headquarters guard company began to dig out rubble piles in search of survivors and valuable office equipment.
The villa immediately became noisy, and the phone rings and the shouts of the staff members were heard one after another.
After more than a dozen phone calls and seven or eight telegrams, General Schubert was already well aware of the situation.
On the entire border between Romania and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army reached a comprehensive breakthrough in the Prut River and is currently fighting with the Eleventh Army, the Third Romanian Army and the Fourth Army.
If these three armies retreated, the Soviet Red Army could rush into the heart of Romania without any obstacles.
After the 11th Army and the two Romanian armies completed the assembly, most of them were deployed ten to twenty kilometers behind the border, in order to keep confidential and not expose the upcoming Barbarossa plan.
All the Romanian border troops were retained on the border, which gave the enemy an opportunity to successfully achieve a breakthrough.
General Schubert's eyes swept across the left and right wings of the Eleventh Army on the map.
With the ancient city of Yaxi as the center, the three armies of the 11th Army are lined up in one line.
The left wing of the Eleventh Army is the Third Romanian Army, and the right wing is the Fourth Romanian Army.
The Eleventh Army has been in Romania for four months. During these four months, General Schubert has dealt with the Romanians a lot and has also made an objective assessment of the combat value of the Romanians.
The Romanian army cannot help but have old weapons and equipment, and its personnel quality is also very backward.
Judging by German standards, the officers' corps of the Romanian army are of very poor quality. Compared with the lion of the German Officer, the officers of the Luo Army can fully enjoy the title of sheep.
The officers' regiment is a sheep. Ordinary soldiers of the Luo army can be called goats at most.
Not only are they not very willing to fight, but they are also not a minority of illiterate people, so it is difficult for them to understand the combat intentions of their superiors during exercises.
Schubert once saw with his own eyes that a Romanian cavalry was beaten with a horse whip by their company commander because of poor performance during the exercise. This scene was completely unimaginable in the German team.
A group of sheep leads a group of goats, and the relationship between the two flocks is very uneven. Together, there is only one conclusion.
The Romanians are unreliable, and the left and right wings of the Eleventh Army are very dangerous, so we must think of a way out in advance.
Thinking of the Soviet tanks mentioned in the intelligence manual provided by the intelligence department and the weak 25mm anti-tank guns in the Romanian army, General Schubert's concerns became increasingly serious.
If you are worried about something happening, it is more likely to happen.
On the right wing of the Eleventh Army, the position of the Fourth Romanian Army extends southeast from the city of Berrad to Breila, with a total length of about 120 kilometers.
This line of defense, close to the right bank of the Danube, is under the test of its limits.
After rushing through the bridge on the river captured by the infantry, the fourth and eighth mechanized armies of the Soviet army advanced side by side and hit the defense line of the Fourth Army of the Luo army.
There are two mechanized armies, each mechanized armies under the jurisdiction of two tank divisions and one motorized division.
As the main force, each division has two tank regiments under its jurisdiction, each regiment is equipped with a KV heavy tank battalion, two T-34 medium tank battalion and a BT-5 light tank battalion.
After the reconnaissance battalion discovered the Luo army position opposite, the vanguard of the Eighth Mechanized Army, the 12th Tank Division will soon be launched in combat formation, with KV heavy tanks as the lead, and the T-34 tanks follow up in the rear and launch an attack on the 6th Romanian Infantry Division stationed near the city of Berrad.
Its left wing, the vanguard of the Fourth Mechanized Army, and the 8th Tank Division also launched an attack on the positions of the Romanian 8th Infantry Division.
On the flat Danube alluvial plain, more than 500 tanks spewed flames and black smoke, squeaking and charging forward. At a glance, the dense tanks almost covered the earth.
Faced with a powerful tank cluster, the Fourth Army urgently sent their strongest team, the First Armored Division, to the front line.
The First Armored Division of the Luo Army is under the jurisdiction of two tank regiments. The First Regiment is equipped with 126 lt-35 tanks from the Czech Republic. This tank weighs about 10 tons. The main weapon is a 37mm tank gun.
The second regiment was equipped with the Renault R-35 tank introduced from France. This tank weighed about 10 tons and its main weapon was also a 37mm "bean gun" cannon.
This unit has unrivaled power, at least in the eyes of the Romanians.
Fortunately, Romania was deliberately launching an attack on the Soviet Union, and the preparations for the subordinate units were good. After receiving the combat order, two tank regiments of the First Armored Division set out quickly to rescue the infantry divisions at the forefront.
A long team of tanks rushed to the front line along the road. Without seeing the Soviet tanks, they first encountered a group of death gods falling from the sky.
The four aircraft had gray abdomen and green paint on the fuselage of the four aircraft flew over the highway in groups.
When they flew over the Luo Army tank column on the road, the red five-star sprayed at the tail of the aircraft was extremely eye-catching.
The four planes then dispersed and dived to the rear of the tank column.
First, eight 250 kilogram bombs patrolled the top of the convoy, and the 20mm cannon and 7.62mm machine gun on both wings spit out the fire snake, and the guns and shells sprinkled on Luo Jun's marching team.
Black smoke suddenly emerged from the power compartment of the two lt-35 tanks, and the rest of the tanks fled out of the highway in a hurry. In the chaos, two lt-35s accidentally overturned and fell to the ground.
The four aircraft had limited firepower and quantity. The firepower and quantity caused more shock to the Luo army tanks on the ground, and also took away precious time.
After the four planes left proudly, the tanks scattered in Luo's army returned to the team at the call of the officers.
The work of saving the wounded has also begun.
When the Luo army tank troops set out on their journey again, they didn't know that four four-plane formations were rushing towards them in the sky in the northeast.
These aircraft were accomplices recruited by those four aircraft, and all aircraft have a common name, Il-2.
When the Romanian First Armored Division was baptized by guns and cannons from the air, the situation of their infantry brothers was also in danger.
Most of them were new recruits who had never fought a war.
They were a group of recruits who were suddenly attacked and rushed into the position.
They are a group of "goats" recruits led by sheep.
The 25mm anti-tank shells were bombed off. The 37mm anti-tank shells assisted by the Germans were also bombed off.
The anti-aircraft artillery troops reacted quite diligently. According to the Germans' teachings, they picked up the Vix 1936 75mm anti-aircraft artillery in their hands and fired flat, and luckily caused black smoke to emerge from four or five Soviet tanks and parked in place.
They also exposed their targets and were then destroyed by the whistling shells.
When the Luo army recruits found that all the weapons in their hands could not resist the enemy tanks, the survival was overwhelming. As the enemy tanks got closer, more and more Luo army infantry turned around and fled, running towards the rear they thought they could survive like a headless fly.
The right-wing crisis was soon discovered by the fi-156 reconnaissance plane sent to investigate. The liaison officer stationed at the Romanian Fourth Army Command also sent similar information.
General Schubert knocked on the location of the Fourth Romanian Army on the map and said, "Send the situation here to the Army Command immediately. Our right wing is about to collapse and we must retreat."
The communications officer had just left, General Schubert and the officers around him raised their heads one after another, turned their heads to look at the roof.
"Enemy plane, enemy plane."
There were shouts outside, and the sound of anti-aircraft guns firing immediately.
The staff members hurriedly put away the map, and General Schubert followed the adjutant to the basement to avoid the air strike.
About twenty minutes later, General Schubert walked out of the basement again, looking at the messy streets and house wreckage and said, "We can't stay here anymore, let's move to the suburbs of the west of the city."
Shortly after the long convoy drove out of the city, in the east of the sky, facing the sun, four Il-2 planes rushed to the highway and launched an attack on General Schubert's convoy, causing a bloody storm in an instant in a convoy of mostly light vehicles.
The vw82 barrel car that General Schubert was riding was also overturned by the air wave of a 250-kilogram bomb.
After the four Il-2s left, when the surviving officer found General Schubert who was thrown out of the car and lying dying in the grass, he only heard General Schubert's last words.
Chapter completed!